http://hoitycoity.com/

$104.25 to be told to be afraid of everything. What a steal!...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:04:34 -0500

$104.25 to be told to be afraid of everything. What a steal! Really, something is being stolen here.

"The richest 1% took $7 of every $100 of America’s income in 1980. They have increased that to $20 of..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:04:00 -0500

“The richest 1% took $7 of every $100 of America’s income in 1980. They have increased that to $20 of every $100 today. In just one generation they’ve TRIPLED their cut of the pie. Most of the gains by the rich were not ‘earned’ in the sense of production, innovation, inventiveness. They didn’t work 3 times harder than everyone else as they tripled their share. They benefited from tax cuts and deregulation.”

- Top 10 Reasons for Higher Taxes on the Top 1% | CommonDreams.org (via robot-heart-politics) You’d think this would be a Dem-Rep issue but more and more Dems are supporting extending Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. You know, because trickle down has to work one of these days. Meanwhile, we’re still hacking at social programs. Amazing.

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:15:39 -0500

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live:

“I always had this perverted sense of pride because I was managing to scrape by here,” said Brooklyn resident Andrew McQuade, who, after watching two subway rats gnawing on a third bloody rat carcass, finally determined that New York City was a giant sprawling cancer. “Well, fuck that. I don’t need to pay $2,000 a month to share a doghouse-sized apartment with some random Craigslist dipshit to prove my worth. I want to live like a goddamn human being.”

(via bnf) There is actually very little info out there I can...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:02:45 -0500

(via bnf)

There is actually very little info out there I can find about this right now.

GQ: The Abortionist

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:21:19 -0500

GQ: The Abortionist:

Writer Tom Junod wrote an amazing piece about abortion and one doctor that traveled extensively to perform them, John Baynard Britton. He took the place of Dr. David Gunn who was killed in 1993. What’s really startling about this article is that Dr. Britton was killed the following year, aged 69, months after the article was published. In it, Junod writes about the escort that would be killed with him as well, James Herman Barrett a 74 year old veteran:

I didn’t go to Korea and serve my country for twenty-five years in the service so that these peckerheads can shoot doctors. It won’t happen as long as I’m around.

And he profiles one of the protesters, Paul Hill, as a man who would likely encourage the next killer:

He would not kill anyone, he says; that’s not his calling. He is simply an advocate, someone who “advocates the advocacy of force.” Why wouldn’t Hill kill, if he thinks killing is just? “You don’t put Robert E. Lee on the front lines,” he told his former pastor. Killing doctors, he says, is “an individual thing. If an individual feels called to do something like that, it is entirely up to the individual. We’re just saying that force is just. It’s up to each individual to make his own contribution.”

It turned out that Hill himself decided to be the one to use force not long after this, killing both Britton and Barrett as they pulled up to the clinic.

LIFE has a series of photographs taken in post-war France when...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:35:42 -0500

LIFE has a series of photographs taken in post-war France when liberators were hunting soldiers of the Vichy government for execution. They also have new pictures of Paris on August 25, when German military in the city surrendered.

A Nazi Collaborator Is Bound To A Post:

In this photograph, the first of six members of the ruthless Milice — who served as the police force for the Nazi collaborationist Vichy government — is tied to a post by guards moments before being shot to death by a firing squad. Carl Mydans’ lens is one of the last things he will see. As John Osborne, LIFE’s on-the-scene writer, described the moment: “The place chosen for these first legal executions in Southern France was an open lot beside a brick factory in Grenoble’s extreme outskirt. In the same lot, the Germans had shot 23 [French] patriots in July and it was deliberately selected for the Milice’s executions. But, said the morning paper, Les Allobroges, they were to be shot in a different part of the lot. It would not be fitting for the blood of traitors to sully the ground hallowed by partriots’ blood.”

Disney would have the people who voiced the characters act out...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:59:16 -0500

Maleficent live action model

Maleficent animated

Disney would have the people who voiced the characters act out their roles in full costume on stage for the animators. Maleficent was their first semi-sultry evil lady, and probably the source of my attraction to bitchy, intimidating women. Source Wikipedia

comingandcrying: Your copy of Coming & Crying will be...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:37:27 -0500

comingandcrying:

Your copy of Coming & Crying will be hardcover, 168 pages, containing 24 stories by 24 people, sent directly from a box in Melissa’s apartment and carried in a series of bins by Meaghan and Melissa to the general post office in Manhattan, where a woman named Estelle Lee will release it — that’s the word — to you. It will come in a white envelope.

$28 ($24 + $4 shipping/handling/Estelle, which will ship in 2-3 weeks)

I’m excited.

"Fräulein, the diminutive of Frau and grammatically neuter, has caused protest not only among..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:01:49 -0500

“Fräulein, the diminutive of Frau and grammatically neuter, has caused protest not only among feminists (there is no Herrlein for bachelors!) Unlike ‘Mademoiselle’ in France and ‘Miss’ in Anglo-Saxon countries, this term is now officially outcast. Thus, all girls will be called Frau (+ name) as soon as they are no longer addressed by their first name - probably from around the age of 18, though it depends on the work environment.”

- Langenscheidt pocket German Grammar. Brushing up on German grammar, its use of the neuter that seemed assigned randomly at best always annoyed me. But I think the use of complicated word gender assignment has made it easier for Germans to discuss and then get rid of sexist language practices. Pretty convenient. Too bad we’re having a hard go at it.

gifparty:

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:35:37 -0500

gifparty:

Liberation Theology

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:12:41 -0500

Liberation Theology:

via robot-heart-politics: azspot:

“It’s not hard to see what Beck has against “liberation theology.” It’s the same reason people are often against “social justice.” Both ideas ask us to consider the plight of the poor. And that’s disturbing. Some liberation theologians even consider the poor to be privileged carriers of God’s grace. In his book The True Church and the Poor, Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit theologian wrote, “The poor are accepted as constituting the primary recipients of the Good News and, therefore, as having an inherent capacity of understanding it better than anyone else.” That’s pretty threatening for any comfortable Christian. For not only do we have to help the poor, not only do we have to advocate on their behalf, we also have to see them as perhaps understanding God better than we do. But that’s not a new idea: It goes back to Jesus. The poor, the sick and the outcast “got” him better than the wealthy did. Perhaps because there was less standing between the poor and God. Less stuff. Maybe that’s why Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “If you wish to be perfect, sell all you have, and you will have treasure in heaven, and follow me.” Like I said, pretty disturbing, then and now. It’s hardly “the opposite of the Gospel,” as Beck said. The opposite of the Gospel would be to acquire wealth and fail to work on behalf of the poor.”—Glenn Beck vs. Christ the Liberator

I remember reading this type of Christian belief in something about Mother Theresa, she held the thought that helping the poor was the way to heaven, that through them you got closer to Jesus. This left her open to criticism because her methods seemed to focus on comforting the poor rather than trying to decrease actual poverty. In the article, Rev. James Martin also points out it’s problematic to box the poor as poor.

Anyway, it’s not as simple as love thy neighbor and the complexities vary based on who you talk to. If you talk to Glenn Beck however, a little dash of insanity makes it into the conversation. Besides the fact that it’s highly suspicious this new Beck tactic follows on the heels of increasingly loud anti-Muslim rhetoric, he assumes enough people are going to believe he’s got a line into Obama’s personal religious beliefs because Obama certainly isn’t talking about it or going all out to help close economic gaps. I can’t even imagine the mess he made on his chalkboard coming up with this one.

Pass This On {The Knife} What would I do without the Swedish?

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:58:23 -0500

Pass This On {The Knife}

What would I do without the Swedish?

Daley Budget Suggestion: Cut Remedial Classes From Community Colleges

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:44:59 -0500

Daley Budget Suggestion: Cut Remedial Classes From Community Colleges:

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley this week called for an end to the “open
door” admissions policy at Chicago City Colleges, citing concerns about
the cost of remedial courses and a desire to build a quality program.
Every year, the system spends about $30 million for remedial
classes—about 6 percent of its $457.5 million budget. Daley suggested
that a better approach might be to offer programs through alternative
high schools to get students up to speed before they enter college.
Is this a sign of things to come?

Let’s pretty much give away our parking meter revenue but change one of the best aspects of community colleges for 6% of the budget. No reason why we should help limit the steps that enable secondary education so that more people have access to higher paying careers that go back into powering our economy, let’s just send them back to the places that failed them.

Random thing about tonight’s True Blood, the outside shot of the...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:56:00 -0500

Random thing about tonight’s True Blood, the outside shot of the museum Eric finds Russell in is the Overture Center in Madison, right across the street from upper ERC where we studied/read. They didn’t even change the street names. I haven’t been on this corner in a long time and I went in this place maybe twice but a 2 second shot of it made me feel warm and funny. Brain stuff.

"I’m surprised that people still fight the idea we’re descended from apes. Have you ever..."

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:26:42 -0500

“I’m surprised that people still fight the idea we’re descended from apes. Have you ever seen chimpazees? They’re a bunch of ASSHOLES.”

- aimeemann HA By the way, she is performing at Old Town. It’s pricey but it’s a small venue.

'How I Got Over'

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:03:35 -0500

'How I Got Over':

Mahalia Jackson In DC singing right after MLK delivered ‘I Have A Dream’. Nothing and no one can change what this moment in history meant to this country.

"Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama"

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:29:47 -0500

"Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama":

bollywoodsuperstar:

Jane Mayer’s excellent new article in The New Yorker, on the infamous Koch brothers and their funding of libertarian politics. Must-read.

What I don’t get about these people is how they can claim a pride in their country when they want to do away with the very things that help present a national unit; social programs and everything else that ensures massive amounts of people don’t fall through the cracks. Who’s gonna be left to build your industry for very little money? Scratch that, I know why they claim it, I just don’t understand how people buy it so easily.

Picnicing/playing here tomorrow.

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:49:48 -0500

Picnicing/playing here tomorrow.

Olbermann’s point about Mehlman and the Southern Strategy...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:19:06 -0500

Olbermann’s point about Mehlman and the Southern Strategy is important. The man accepted and talked about the racism the Republican party stoked for decades (still ongoing FYI, just substitute brown immigrants as the primary target) in the south to get votes while he was doing the same thing with homophobia. The Republican party is still chasing the homophobic vote. Mehlman indeed has a long way to go in his path to emotional maturity, his insistence that gays turn their gay survival need into Republican support via xenophobia is almost psychotic. Savage’s suggestion that he do ‘more than one fundraiser’ is pretty pathetic; the guy just needs to stay way the hell away from us, he is not an ally.

John Mayer to Huffington Post: 'Go F—k Yourself'

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:09:35 -0500

John Mayer to Huffington Post: 'Go F—k Yourself':

HuffPo must be black then, right?

You’re a stripper wearing reading glasses. Or maybe you’re an insolvent law student willing to dance for a few extra dollars. Either way, it’s uncomfortable to watch you try to wrap yourself around a pole when you have that C-Span scar.

So, his tendency to belittle women hasn’t changed. Apparently it only takes a few months for him to think we’ve forgotten what a douche he is.