The Tragically Hip are a bit of an institution in Canuckistan. They are also an interesting example of a band who while they tour in the US and Europe seemed to have made a conscious decision to remain firmly based in their Canadian roots. The prevailing wisdom for many Canadian artists used to be that in order to make it big on had to bust in on the gigantic American market. The hip are an example of a band that has sold well enough in Canada that making it big in the US has never been a requirement. They have even performed for Queen Elizabeth II, and while Canadians are no longer royalists, they have great affection for it and the fact that they did perform for her is a mark of essential Canadianess. Many of their song lyric reference specific Canadian events, history, and geography. In Canada they play in huge arena in the US they tend to play small clubs. Most Canadians of a certain age ( mine) know most of the lyrics to their songs.
Wheat Kings is about a man named David Milgaard who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder. The whole affair shone a very unpleasant light on the Canadian justice system. It was a light that sorely needed shining and many people bring it up when discussing whether the death penalty has a place in Canada.
I have no idea who the guys are in this video montage but I spent many a summer camping in Algonquin Park and the song Three Pistols references
a brilliant Canadian painter named Tom Thompson. He was a part of the Group of Seven influential painters in the 1900’s to the 1920’s who are now considered icons.
He scored the winning goal who scored the winning goal in the 1951 Stanley Cup and then disappeared on a fishing trip that year. His body was found the next year the Leafs won the cup in 1962.
Although this video is several years old it gives you an idea of how big they are in Canada, and Gordon Downie, the lead singer is a bit of an eccentric.
A few more….
Hope you enjoyed meeting the Tragically Hip. Please don’t rec pony party, hang out, chit chat, and then go read some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.
I turned in my grades at 3:45pm on Wednesday afternoon. I had 45 minutes to spare. Some years I have less than that.
The truth is I generally run out of motivation to grade prior to actually having to do the grading. In some respects, the lack of interest some of my students display drains me of the motivation I think I should have. As much as we would like to have students who think that they should give maximum effort in each of their classes, that’s very often not the case.
I gave three incompletes this past semester. That’s three more than I usually do. I will do just about anything to avoid giving an incomplete. I think I’ve mentioned before my hatred of paperwork.
One of my students was taking my Multimedia class as an independent study. Given the disastrous nature of the past semester (five bomb scares, network crash, hackers, contentious labor negotiations, and jury duty for me), I didn’t hold up my end of trying to keep in contact. Truth is, I feel that in that situation, it is the student’s responsibility for that, but I’m cutting her some slack. She’ll have until February to complete a final project. I’m hoping it is up to the standard set by the other students in the class. They did excellent, professional looking work, for the most part…even the student who is graduating and only wanted to do “enough.”
Two students in my computer literacy class were taken ill. The mother of one of them showed up in my class in early December telling me her child was in the hospital, having had a severe reaction to an allergy treatment. The other one came with a note signed by a doctor which said she should not be allowed to return to class until next semester. Not that she ever came much this semester.
A third student in comp lit (which to me has always rather meant “comparative literature”) was given the opportunity to turn in the stuff he showed up with after the deadline by linking to it from his website…since there was no reason for me to grade it if he didn’t have a website for his final project. He was angry about that and he showed me! No website.
Two students in Visual Basic and three in Java didn’t make it. Nothing I could tell them about getting so far behind sank in. It just is not possible to catch up an entire semester of a programming class in the last week or two. And no excuse is going to substitute for actually learning how to program.
They sometimes don’t like it that I take it to be my duty make sure that they have learned how to and can program. They. Not their relatives or their friends or fellow classmates or even the guy in the tutoring lab, but they.
No excuse is going to bridge that gap. As empathetic as I can be to actual human suffering, they still have to learn the material. I have a responsibility to teachers they will have in the future.
On of my colleagues had one student who had three grandmothers die this past semester. As we all know, the major cause of death of the relatives of our students dying is examinations. Once upon a time, one of my colleagues, upon hearing that a student would not be at the final because his mother had died, called up the student’s home to offer her deeply felt condolences…only to have Mom answer the phone.
Out of such occurrences grows a strong sense of cynicism.
I hate being lied to. I don’t cause the deaths of your relatives, the computer is not part of a conspiracy to destroy your work (it did not, for example, cause you to click Yes when it asked you if you really wanted to delete all you files), and I am serious when I tell you how your final project will be graded (your project should be created accordingly).
And now is funk time…the few days of collapse before trying to get “up” for the holidays. I should probably go get a wreath today in order to feign my interest.
It is a bright and beautiful day. The sun shines down and its life giving light feeds the grasses and plants and makes them grow. It rained a bit recently and the ground is still moist. The bougainvillea is flowering ad the mango and avocado trees are taking a winter holiday before pushing forth new life, new seeds, new fruit. Light miraculously transforms into green life every second of every day and the animals and fish and humans eat that life, that light and are sustained.
There are children playing and laughing, there is bright musica playing across the street, the bass line held by a thumping good tuba.
There is food in the cupboard and the roof barely leaks.
Around the world on this bright and beautiful day, kittens are being born, and puppies and baby giraffes and lemurs and tigers and ponies. Right now…at this very second, two young people have just found their first love together and are looking into each others eyes and can see nothing else.
The sun is shining as it moves through its paces dictated by the the course of the universe, our pretty little planet rotates around it, and our beautiful moon rotates around us. And we rotate through our little but vastly important lives. Going about our daily business and smiling at each other when we can, and as Louis says…
“I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do, they’re really saying…I love you.”
The vast majority of humans are good and decent (if not too bright, lol) people who merely wish to be left alone to try to be as happy as possible. They wouldn’t consciously hurt anyone else if left to their own devices and we have invented a society where they can mostly do that. Where they can grow up and fall in love and work hard and build a life that is safe and satisfying and make some children and grow old. They can have triumphs and see and even create beauty and celebrate milestones and achievements, and watch their children grow and share in their triumphs and achievements. It’s a wonderful world.
We can smell a Spring day and taste marvelous food and hear glorious music and see astounding landscape and moonrises and sunsets…and feel the people we care about touch us with loving kindness.
And this is true for all of us here on this planet, even those who are cursed. Cursed by either the circumstances we were born into or circumstances that happen in our lives. Whether we were born into crushing poverty or have lost a loved one or had all of our material goods taken away or stolen or been injured or are ill. Even in those lives there are moments of beauty and grace and peace….if moments only. And since humans are mostly good, sometimes, if we ask for help, it comes. What is more beautiful than that, when you are as down as you can be and someone comes along to help. Or when you are doing ok and you have the opportunity to truly help someone, to change their lives in a good or meaningful way. We may not be able to solve their problem, but we can almost always help….even if it is just with a smile.
What a wonderful world….where you can help someone even if just for a moment by simply contorting your face in a pleasing way.
There is another curse in this world as well, though not on the magnitude of the curses above…and with some very good side effects….sometimes.
The curse we all share here…the curse of compassion, the curse of wanting to help, the curse of trying to make the world a better place, the curse of being compelled to reach out and to…..try.
Robert Anton Wilson said that to be TRULY happy in this world there are vast parts of your self that you must kill off. He was talking in part about compassion. We could all ….individually….be much happier people if we didn’t feel that curse, that need to try, that need to help. Ignoring the many and varied and neverending woes of the world and the plights of our fellow humans and finding and creating and living out our little lives in the bliss that we see all around us, the bliss that ignorance brings.
But we are not built like that, we are cursed, cursed to care, and care deeply, and to turn that caring into action, to try to help.
As curses go, on this world, it is not a bad one to have. We may not ‘win’ very often….there may be times like the one we are in now, where everything pretty much sucks and it looks like all of our caring and trying and helping…doesn’t help. Like there is just nothing we can do to make things better.
But look back, with your non-blissful, non-ignorant little tiny human brains. Look back into the history of the humans on this planet. See where we have come from see what we have achieved, even with these tiny brains and all the nasty impulses and instincts that go along with them and go along with having our (wannabe) noble spirits encased in big sacks of meat that we have no choice (due the above mentioned instincts) but to try to keep alive. To keep alive, and after that, to reproduce and to try out of our good instincts to create havens and civilizations where we all work together (when we are not killing each other) where we and others can do the same.
Just as the scientifically accidental existence of life itself is a miraculous thing, given the odds… and the fact that 99.9999999% of the universe is made up of killing cold and lifeless vacuum, the fact that we mentally thick and and at times emotional brutal animals have even gotten this far is a bloody miracle.
It is a miracle produced by one thing above all others, compassion. If we were only our instincts, if we only listened to the animal side of ourselves, this world would be quite different. So though it may suck sometimes to be one of the humans cursed with compassion, cursed to care and to try…against all the odds…to move humanity forward, we can take heart that there has been any progress at all. And we can take credit as well!
For without the caring and trying and helping people of the world, there would be no hope, no chance, no future for the smiling laughing playing children and for the artist trying to hew beauty out of brutality and…for things like justice and truth and fairness and caring and compassion.
WE did this, we cursed little humans have created a world that is FAR from perfect, but that really does get better every day. Moves forward everyday. As we learn to talk to each other, and learn that we are all the same, and learn that we all want the same basic things, the People of the world create …in spite of all the obstacles thrown up by those who would drag us all down into the mud as long as they are on top of the pile…a new world. A world that slowly and painfully progresses. As the People of the world slowly and painfully come together and realize that despite what we have been told by those “in power,” that we are separate, that we must fear each other, that all men and women are not brothers and sisters, but are instead enemies…As we grow and learn and talk to each other…the People reject the the vision of those in power. And we learn that cooperation and compassion ARE the keys, ARE the way to live. We learn, slowly and painfully that we can live together and create a NEW world, a new society.
And this occurs for one reason. As some people hide and huddle in fear…there are the others, the ones like us, who reach out to them, against all the odds and instincts and fear…and hold out our hands to them and say, my brother… there is another way. We that have this curse have always been here, we have always tried….and though our victories are not as flashy (WE never get to stand on aircraft carriers in cool flight suits with banners behind us announcing victory!) we DO constantly win the battle, we progressives ARE making progress.
And we will not stop, and we will not give up and we will not stop caring. We will continue our little individual fights for a better more loving and compassionate world.
A wonderful world.
So, no matter how bad it looks, no matter how hard it is, it is because WE…the cursed, lol….never give up, always keep fighting…REFUSE TO LAY DOWN that we have gotten this far….
Todays’ Huffington Post has a timely report by Marc Cooper on the push-back by AFSCME members against their union’s sleazy attempt to smear both Barack Obama and John Edwards on Hillary Clinton’s behalf.
Unionists Slam “Hypocritical” Leaders for Anti-Obama Mailer
Union members in Illinois and Iowa are denouncing their national leaders as hypocrites for sending out a deceptive campaign mailer aimed this week at Barack Obama. They are livid that the political arm of their 1.4 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) financed a mailer to Iowa voters slamming Obama for opposing individual health care mandates – the same sort of mandates long opposed by the union.
“This is definitely hypocritical, absolutely,” said Carter Woodruff, an activist with Iowa AFSCME and a former official of the union state council. “It’s a desperate attempt to attack [Obama] for unfounded reasons. It’s a shame they stooped so low.”
The union’s direct mail flyer was written in a disguised manner that suggested it came from the John Edwards campaign and not from AFSCME and it slapped Obama for taking what it called “the timid way out, offering yet another band-aid solution.”
AFSCME’s national leadership endorsed Hillary Clinton last October and is expected to spend millions on her behalf if she wins the nomination.
—snip—
Hillary Clinton has recently targeted Obama’s rejection of universal health care mandates claiming that it would leave 15 million Americans un-insured. Mandates, of the sort supported by Clinton, would require every American family to purchase a health care plan with subsidies offered to those with lower incomes. Obama, by contrast, has argued that the problem with health insurance is precisely that it is unaffordable and that mandates would only aggravate the problem.
The Edwards campaign, which shares the Clinton position on health care mandates, nevertheless denounced the AFSCME mailer as unprecedented in its deception. “There have been a lot of misleading tactics and tricks in the last few weeks, but we’ve just never seen anything like this before,” said Edwards’ Iowa state director Jennifer O’Malley Dillon in a statement. “Either they are trying to trick people, or they’ve realized that on health care, John Edwards is the candidate who speaks honestly about what it really costs and what will be required to have truly universal coverage.”
McEntee’s office did not reply to requests to respond to today’s denunciation by the Illinois and Iowa members.
(Probably will post this at Planet Orange, too…masochist that I am.)
I don’t like to infect the DD karma with this sort of political pollution, but this one is worth reading.
Personally, I’m backing Edwards and Obama (in that order), since Al Gore has let me (many of us) down by not running.
If Edwards should win the Democratic nomination (a longshot), Obama as his VP would be a no-brainer.
If Obama should win the Dem nomination (increasingly likely)–and assuming Edwards wouldn’t want to run again for VP–I hope Obama asks Sen. Jim Webb to be his running mate. That would shut up the one-mantra (“Experience”) nay-sayers, cuz Webb has been made the Dems’ key spokesman on all things military on the basis of his experience.
I love eggs. Fried, scrambled, boiled, mushed up with mayo and onion for an egg sand which, omelets, frittatas, quiche, huevos rancheros. I never met an egg I did not like. They are good for any meal. I admit I have never had green eggs and ham nor have I tried to fry one on the pavement on a hot day.
I am pretty neutral on Gordon Ramsey. But men who cook are awesome… I was always intrigued by a fella who was willing to cook a meal for me. But if you cook me eggs…. well… I will leave it to the imagination.
Remember…. don’t rec pony party… we’re here to play….
BILL MOYERS: One of my closest friends always watched your nightly sportscast. And he remembers to this day, just got a word from him this morning, he remembers your saying about hockey is the most boring sport he’s ever seen. And you went on to say, “Nevertheless, here without further comment are the game results for whatever they’re worth.” But you don’t do that with politics. You don’t– you don’t just give the scores. You have some strong things to say about politics.
KEITH OLBERMANN: It became necessary.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
KEITH OLBERMANN: I was sitting on a plane in Los Angeles reading in August of 2006 about Don Rumsfeld talking to the veterans and talking about how every– everyone who was in opposition to the Iraq War policy, the so-called war on terror, even to some degree the Bush administration, was the equivalent in his mind to the Nazi appeasers of the 1930s. And he went on at length about how, you know, here’s the– we’re doing the Churchillian role. And I thought, you know, sir, I took history classes. Your group is not Churchill. Your group is Neville Chamberlain because Neville Chamberlain minimized and marginalized anybody who disagreed with him. Reading this ridiculous remark and waiting to see somebody respond to it. And no one did. I’m thinking, well, you know, somebody with a platform ought to be talking about this. Somebody with a– with an avenue to respond should be– oh, yeah, I have a platform.
Snip
Get rid of the Barbies and Kens, plastic faces and bodies with empty heads, get Back to Real Journalists, like the Two above, and Real Investigative Journalism!
WASHINGTON – A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.
The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the C.I.A. destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaeda operatives.
FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics
$1 Billion Project to Include Images of Irises and Faces
CLARKSBURG, W. Va. — The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.
Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.
Romney backpedals on statements – again
Explains Martin Luther King, Jr. comment, NRA endorsement statement
BOSTON – Mitt Romney, who earlier this year had to backpedal on his hunting exploits, is explaining himself again after claiming an endorsement he did not receive and saying he witnessed his father in civil rights marches he could not have seen.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Romney said Thursday after media inquiries into the Republican presidential contender’s statement during his recent religion speech that he watched his father, the late Gov. George Romney of Michigan, march with Martin Luther King Jr.
Romney, who was in high school at the time, later said he only heard of his father marching, and some historians have questioned whether his father, in fact, did march with King. The Romney campaign provided books and news articles it said supported his statement.
Middle East
Ruthless, shadowy – and a U.S. ally
A former warrior for Saddam Hussein’s army and the insurgency now helps lead the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
BAGHDAD — “Abu Abed, you’re a hero,” the retired Shiite teacher shouted from the home she had fled last winter, when the bodies of Shiites were being dumped daily in the streets of her Amiriya neighborhood.
The fighter, wearing green camouflage and dark wraparound sunglasses, kept walking, his hand swinging a black MP-5 submachine gun.
No more than 5 feet 6, with a roll of baby fat, this Sunni Muslim gunman is an unlikely savior of Amiriya: a former intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, a suspected onetime insurgent, a man who has photos of his brothers’ mutilated corpses loaded in his cellphone.
To many Iraqis, Abu Abed is a Sunni warlord whose followers have spilled the blood of Shiite Muslim civilians and U.S. troops. But to the people in Amiriya, he is the man who has, with ruthless efficiency, restored order to a neighborhood where the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq held sway.
U.S. convoys struggle to adjust to policy change
CAMP TAJI, Iraq – In the first month that they were in Iraq, someone threatened, shot at or tried to blow up the soldiers of the Kentucky National Guard’s B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery 12 times. Last month, there were only three such incidents.
But confirmation that the roads have become safer came a few weeks ago when a flier went up in the 2-138’s office at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad.
“Effective immediately,” it read, “assume all civilian vehicles are friendly.”
The order admonished soldiers throughout Iraq to yield to civilian drivers, allow vehicles to pass and avoid firing their weapons as they escorted convoys of concrete barriers, generators, water and food to U.S. military outposts.
Europe
Belgium frees 14 terror plot suspects
BRUSSELS, Belgium – Belgian authorities on Saturday released 14 suspects detained over an alleged plot to free an al-Qaida prisoner because of lack of evidence, the Federal Prosecutor’s office said.
A court decided there was insufficient evidence to hold the suspects for more than 24 hours, said Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the office. She said tightened police anti-terrorism measures triggered by the arrests Friday would remain in place over the holidays.
“We think there is still a threat,” Pellens said in a telephone interview.
However, she acknowledged that searches of the suspects’ homes had found no explosives, weapons or other evidence to persuade the court to keep them in jail. Earlier reports had indicated police had seized arms and explosives in a series of overnight raids that led to the detentions of the 14.
Secretive oil firm denies Putin has any stake in its ownership
· Company rejects claims it benefits from Kremlin ties
· Group admits co-founder and president are friends
Luke Harding in Tashkent
Saturday December 22, 2007
The Guardian
The secretive oil company Gunvor yesterday broke its silence over its alleged links with Vladimir Putin, denying that the Russian president was the company’s “beneficiary” owner but admitting that he was a friend of its founder.
In a statement, Gunvor’s chief executive officer, Torbjorn Tornqvist, said it was “plain wrong” to suggest the company had benefited from its alleged close connections with the Kremlin.
The company said Putin “was not a beneficiary” of its activities. “None of the shares of this organisation are held by President Putin or anyone allied by him,” Tornqvist wrote in a letter published in today’s Guardian.
Latin America
Chavez: Receiving hostages ‘delicate’
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he has plans in place to receive hostages released by Colombian rebels, but predicted that groups within and close to Colombia’s government will try to interfere.
Chavez, a fiery critic of the White House who was in Cuba attending a regional oil summit, suggested Friday that security was of the utmost importance in receiving the three hostages the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has pledged to free.
“As soon as I arrive back in Caracas, I have some plans worked out to receive them,” Chavez told reporters. “It will be a delicate operation.”
He also said some groups in Colombia – both close to and within Colombia’s U.S.-allied government – “are going to try to keep the liberation from being successful, but we will achieve it.”
Venezuelan in cash seizure seen at Argentine palace
BUENOS AIRES — A Venezuelan businessman caught with a cash-stuffed suitcase reportedly was seen two days later in Argentina’s presidential palace, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Argentine and Venezuelan officials have denounced U.S. court allegations that Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson was bringing Venezuelan contributions to presidential candidate Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who won Argentina’s Oct. 28 election.
Officials in both countries say the U.S. is using its courts to undermine them by falsely claiming that they are linked to the $800,000 seized Aug. 4 from Antonini upon his arrival in Argentina on a charter with state energy company officials from both countries.
But speaking on independent Radio Del Plata, Argentine prosecutor Luz Rivas Diez said a witness named Victoria Beresiuk testified that she saw Antonini in the palace Aug. 6 during a ceremony celebrating an energy agreement with Venezuela. Argentina’s president at the time was Fernandez’s husband, Nestor Kirchner.
Africa
Egypt policeman dies in shootout with people traffickers
RAFAH, Egypt (AFP) – An Egyptian policeman was killed overnight in a shootout with Bedouin tribesmen smuggling African immigrants into Israel, security services said on Saturday.
Mohammed Abdel Mohsen al-Guindi, 21, was killed when gunfire broke out after he ordered the group not to cross the border. The illegal immigrants fled across the border, while the Bedouins escaped.
Charity workers’ trial for kidnap overshadowed by ‘secret deal’
Six French aid workers went on trial in Chad yesterday charged with attempting to kidnap 103 African children on a humanitarian mission which ended in fiasco.
The members of the French charity Zoe’s Ark who appeared in court in N’Djamena along with their alleged accomplices, three Chadians and a Sudanese man, face a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail if found guilty.
They were arrested in October as they prepared to fly out of eastern Chad with children whom they depicted as orphans from Darfur, the war-torn region of neighbouring Sudan. Investigators say that the children are, in fact, Chadian and most have at least one parent.
Asia
French president makes 1st trip to Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan – Making the first-ever trip to Afghanistan by a French president, Nicolas Sarkozy met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday to discuss political and military progress in the war-torn country.
Sarkozy also planned to meet with some of the 1,300 French troops who are mostly stationed in the Kabul region as part of NATO’s military force here. The French president’s office said the surprise visit would last a day. Other French officials, including the defense minister, also came.
Sarkozy told Karzai that France has a long-term political and military interest in Afghanistan, Karzai’s office said in a statement – an apparent signal that French troops would not pull out of the country anytime soon.
Japan abandons plans to kill humpback whales
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Saturday December 22, 2007
The Guardian
Japan agreed yesterday to avoid slaughtering humpback whales for up to two years, amid calls from Australia to spare the endangered species during its current research hunt in the Antarctic.
Nobutaka Machimura, Japan’s chief government spokesman, said the fleet, on its way to the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, would avoid killing the protected species. “Japan has decided not to catch humpback whales for one year or two, but there will be no change in our stance on research whaling,” he said. “Japan’s relations with Australia could improve, but it depends on how it will see our decision.”
Well, despite your gallant efforts, Don’t give him my regards . . . Give him my respect did not quite break through the dueling Edwards, Obama, Impeachment, “We’re all doomed by giant rocks” diaries for a recommendation. However, “Ranger” NYC in exile was kind enough to rescue it on tonight’s “Open Thread and Diary Rescue.”
Apologies for the short essay, and thank you again for your kind welcome to this site.
In a densely populated city like Tokyo, there are precious few places where one can engage in sex in a public place without attracting smirks or disapproving stares. Or inviting arrest.
You thought Japanese trains were only for riding and groping salary men with phone cameras.
Winners in the lottery were told they would not have to pay the initial sign-up fee of 31,500 yen. They were also told they were eligible for a discount in monthly fees, from 6,300 yen to 5,775 yen.
But most subscribers to “Sound Planet” already pay 5,775 yen in monthly fees.
And the sign-up fees for the service are usually never charged. However, the so-called lottery winners would have to pay 31,500 yen in penalties if they cancel their contracts with Usen within a two-year period.
Ministry officials said the 31,500-yen cancellation fee was 10 times higher than the general cancellation fee written in Usen’s contract conditions.
WHAT WAS ON THE TUBE (DEC. 10-14)
The following are the lengths of time six “wide shows” on four channels in the Tokyo area devoted to certain topics. The programs cover everything from politics to celebrity gossip.
The listing is provided by Reservia Corp.
1. Health minister Yoichi Masuzoe admits it will be impossible to identify the owners of 50 million mystery pension accounts by the government’s promised deadline. The “revelation” is apparently so unsurprising that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda says he forgot about that pledge made by his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, during the Upper House election in July. 5 hr, 2 min, 35 sec
2. After repeated denials, lawyer and TV personality Toru Hashimoto announces his candidacy for the Osaka gubernatorial election in January. Hashimoto’s decision perplexes many on TV and radio shows because his frequent appearances on those programs have given him a lot of money. And as a TV personality, he wouldn’t have to falsify his office expenses. 2 hr, 22 min, 25 sec
3. A special panel tasked with protecting novice sumo wrestlers against violent hazing begins inspecting sumo stables. Members start with the Tokitsukaze stable, where young wrestler Tokitaizan died in June after an apparent beating. At the Takasago stable, yokozuna Asashoryu impresses panel members by behaving like a model wrestler. 2 hr, 8 min, 36 sec
4. Plaintiffs infected with hepatitis C through tainted blood products reject the outline of a court-mediated settlement for their group lawsuit. In the proposal, the Osaka High Court limits the legal responsibilities of the central government and drug makers based on a Tokyo District Court ruling in March. And not all plaintiffs would receive compensation. 1 hr, 11 min, 54 sec
5. Senba Kitcho, operator of renowned Kitcho restaurants, sort of comes clean and acknowledges in a report to the farm ministry that management had been aware of mislabeling concerning the origin of beef used in its products. Kikuo Yuki, a director, also tells reporters that he had ignored employees who had questioned the company’s mislabeling practices. 1 hr, 10 min, 52 sec
6. Masanori Kawasaki, a suspect in connection with the deaths of Keiko Miura and her two grandchildren in Kagawa Prefecture, tells police he came to harbor ill feelings toward her because of problems stemming from her debts. Kawasaki, 61, says that his wife, Miura’s sister, said that Miura used her name to borrow money. Kawasaki’s wife died of cancer in April. 1 hr, 8 min, 15 sec
7. The dog days of winter? A canine that remained beside a 73-year-old woman throughout the night in a park in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, draws a great praise. The woman, who has senile dementia, had been missing for about 30 hours. Police believe the dog, Ushi, somehow helped the woman survive the freezing temperatures by sitting next to her. 37 min, 6 sec
8. Meiji Dairies Corp. and Morinaga Milk Industry Co. say they will raise retail milk prices in spring in the first hike in about 30 years. The increase is a byproduct of surging oil prices. A wide show features the plight of residents in Hokkaido, who cannot afford soaring kerosene prices for their heaters. One couple sleeps with seven layers of futon at night to keep warm. 31 min, 3 sec
9. A Buddhist monk at Kiyomizudera temple in Kyoto writes the kanji for ”falsification” to describe 2007. The news this year shows that the letter is apt. 30 min, 6 sec
10. Crown Princess Masako turns 44 on Dec. 9. She has been recuperating from adjustment disorders since December 2003 by curtailing outside engagements, and she releases a statement saying she regrets being unable to fulfill her official duties. But she visited Nagano Prefecture in June and Tokushima Prefecture in October as part of her official duties. 20 min, 5 sec
At midnight on Christmas Eve, bells will ring across America to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But for Americans of compassion who try to stand up for justice as he did, there’s not much to celebrate. For us, those bells will not be ringing in celebration, they’ll be tolling in grief for a land broken by deceit and hypocrisy, lost in the darkness of Christianist hate, and shamed by the mendacity, corruption, and betrayal of warmongering politicians.
During his life of activism and compassion, Jesus of Nazareth lived among the poor and the powerless. Because the ancient world was so much more primitive and unenlightened than our highly civilized modern world, he lived in a land that was seething with political and religious turmoil, mired in chronic poverty, plagued by political corruption, occupied by foreign soldiers, and ruled by an arrogant, lying, incompetent puppet king with a 25 percent job approval rating.
For advocating justice and speaking truth to power, Jesus of Nazareth was slandered, arrested, tortured, and executed. Since his death 2,000 years ago, other activists have known they would suffer the same fate if they dared speak truth to power. But they spoke truth to power anyway. In every era of humanity’s long and bloody history, in every land where oppression crushed the human spirit and fear silenced entire societies, a few brave souls managed to overcome their fear and summoned the courage to take a stand, alone if necessary, for human dignity and freedom.
Human dignity and freedom are worth taking a stand for. Every time.
Has the midnight broken tolling ended? Not yet. The tolling goes on and the walls are still tightening. But that hypnotic splattered mist the corporate media calls journalism can no longer conceal the fascism pervading our “government”. Our ordeal began seven broken Christmases ago, when an Angel of the Lord allegedly appeared unto Antonin Scalia as he tended his investments by night, and said, “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy! For unto you is reborn this day in the city of Crawford, a Savior who shall smite the Babylonians and confront the evildoers. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling cash and lying in a stupor. Work out the details.”
Since then, we’ve had to endure a long midnight of despair, haunted by the sound of funeral bells that never stop tolling. Despite our efforts, those bells are still tolling in grief for the victims of injustice. They’re still tolling for the rebels in Chechnya . . . for the raked victims of globalization . . . for the luckless, abandoned, forsaken of New Orleans. They’re still tolling for the searching whistleblowers on their speechless, seeking trail . . . for lonesome gay and lesbian lovers with too personal a tale . . . for each unharmful gentle soul locked in a Burmese jail. They’re still tolling for tasered peace advocates whose strength is not to fight . . . for all the Iraqi refugees on their unarmed road of flight . . . for each and every underdog soldier in the East Timor night.
They’re still tolling for Darfur outcasts, burning constantly at stake . . . for aching PTSD victims, whose wounds cannot be nursed . . . for the countless, confused, accused, misused strung out ones and worse . . . for every sobbing victim in the whole wide universe.
Not much has changed in thousands of years. Oppression is still oppression. Tyranny is still tyranny. Wars of conquest are still wars of conquest. The victims just have different names.
Hi, poor and powerless of the MMCXXXIXth generation since cash and war were invented!
Meet the new boss:
Same as the old boss:
And the one before that:
Yes, Virginia. Power corrupts, and don’t fucking forget it.
I don’t know if Jesus of Nazareth was/is the Son of God or not. But he was the greatest advocate for peace who ever lived. I’m not a prophet, I’m just a little drummer boy on a blog, but I know what fate awaits the world if we don’t eradicate militarism before it eradicates us. I’m just trying to do my part to help win this global struggle for peace and justice.
So . . . if it’s OK with the Kos Kops, I’d like to play my drum for the Prince of Peace and his friends, the poor and the powerless.
I’ll drum my heart out for them.
On our progressive blogs, on op-ed pages, from the first page to the last page of my novel about all this broken midnight tolling we’ve had to listen to, and in Minneapolis, when that Repug Cult of Praetorian Guards gathers to nominate their next Caligula.
I’ll play my drum for the Prince of Peace on the White House lawn if necessary.
Memo to the NSA: I’m an American. That White House lawn is OUR lawn and I’ll play my drum there if I damn well feel like it. If you’re reading this, feast your beady fascist eyes on something else, you’re not welcome here. If you and your fellow degenerates at the National Judas Agency actually wanted to detect threats to America, YOU’D BE SPYING ON THE WHITE HOUSE.
Americans have finally seen enough.
Vengeace is mine, saith the American people.
The inhabitants of Incumbency D.C. will be fortunate if that Gomorrah of obscenity they call a government isn’t turned into a Pillar of Salt on Election Day 2008.
(is there such a thing as “bad santa?” holy moly! – promoted by pfiore8)
Today Public Citizen released a new report “Santa’s Sweatshop ‘Made in DC’ by Bad Trade Deals”. According to the report toy safety problems have skyrocketed as major U.S. toy corporations relocated their production overseas to exploit sweatshop wages in countries where they cannot ensure the safety of the products. Thankfully the good folks at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has put together a easy to use petition to the presidental candidates that simply says this:
Our current imported toy safety crisis is a symptom of race-to-the-bottom globalization. We need new trade policies that protect our kids and support strong consumer safety protections – not trade deals like NAFTA and WTO that promote the relocation of toy production overseas to venues where safety cannot be ensured.
The U.S. President has the power to ensure U.S. trade policy doesn’t undermine the safety of children at play. Urge the candidates to oppose provisions in trade deals that provide special benefits and protections for manufacturers to produce goods in other countries and limit U.S. border inspection and imported product safety standards. Also urge the candidates to provide greater funding for domestic agencies responsible for product safety.
That sound sensible to you? Join me below the fold to learn more about the issue and how to take action.
First let me give some details about the report to get you worked up.
– U.S. toy production has been almost entirely sent offshore: in the 1970s 86 percent of toys were made domestically employing 60,000 workers. U.S. toy production jobs have declined 70 percent since NAFTA and the WTO were enacted, and over 500 percent from their 1970s levels. Imports now constitute nearly 90 percent of domestic toy purchases.
– Company profits have soared. In the 1970s, toy and retail companies made an average of $50 million in today’s dollars. By 2006, that had soared over 1,750 percent to $930 million.
– Toy and retail industry CEOs have been major beneficiaries of corporate offshoring. Three decades ago, CEOs made roughly 50 times what U.S. toy production workers made; in 2006, they made over 500 times what remaining U.S. toy production workers make, and over 21,000 times what Chinese production workers make.
– Recalls have skyrocketed. From 2003 to 2007, the period examined in a new database created for this report, the frequency of dangerous toys sold in the United States skyrocketed, with 120 recalls in 2007 alone.
If you want to read Public Citizen’s full press release head here. If you want to view a full PDF of the great report head here. Read it up and then come back.
Done yet? By now you should be mad enough about our insane trade policy to do something about it. Thankfully Public Citizen has set up a great petition site to the candidates. They will deliver the potions to all of the candidates and hopefully our voices will be heard.
It is disgusting that we let corporate greed get in the way of safety for our children (or in my case, me, although I have thankfully never eaten a led toy) and we not only need to get active on this we need to fundamentally change the system. Full public financing of elections, media reform, lobbying reform. You name it. Hopefully we can win on this but if we don’t fundamentally change the way the system works we will keep on getting screwed with things like this.
