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Scotireland – How to Avoid Celtic Confusion

Scotland and Ireland. Two places you probably know nothing much about. But in this week of St Paddy – try not to get them mixed up. Especially if you want to befriend a native on March 17th.

Don’t look to Hollywood. They are the source of Scotireland. They cannot tell the difference particularly with accent. It is just one of many things Hollywood gets things wrong all the time. Hence Scotland’s Gerard Butler (apparently of Irish stock like many from Glasgow) apologised for doing a shitty ‘Irish’ accent in PS I Love You. Quite rightly. I don’t know if Liam Neeson did the same did the same for Rob Roy – but he should. However, next to Jessica Lange in that movie – he was Meryl Streep. Piss-poor accents bring natives out in hives (e.g. Braveheart).

However – I think we in the Old World should be more generous. Internal cultural nuances are tricky for everyone. People in North America never get to hear actual authentic accents – apart from Craig Ferguson. And many still think he is Irish. Perhaps it is time to admit – to the untrained ear, Scots and Irish do sound a bit similar.

And here is why – both countries have considerable overlap. It is easy to mix-up at times. Some parts of Ireland are heavily influenced by Scotland and vice versa. But if you wander in from outside – how are you to know? A bit of history might help illustrate why.

The Irish in Scotland

Scotland can be divided basically into various crude units. Western Scotland and the Islands being one. Another is other is Lowland Scotland. Third is Eastern and the far North Scotland. Each component is different in some way such as geography or political allegiances and historical language. However, you can say that Lowlanders stem from the ancient Kingdoms of the Britons (various tribes who spoke a language similar to Welsh before and during the Roman Occupation – 39 to 410 AD) and that Eastern & North Scotland come from the 7 Kingdoms of the Picts.

To be honest – we don’t know that much about the Picts other than even the Romans considered them insular and warlike. The Pictish language and culture is mostly very mysterious – but was probably a native language of ancient Britain called Brythonic as seen in the place names. Modern Welsh and Breton are Brythonic languages and are rather similar. The Picts left behind some enigmatic stone carvings and one book full of Kingly names and not much else. Some fanciful theories about their origins are unproven and IMO rubbish. Anyone who has been to Aberdeen knows same folks are still there.

What we do know is that some 1500 years ago – Pictland and the Lowland Kingdoms regularly made war (and marriage!) with each other and their neighbours in the West. The West and the Islands were colonised during this era by incomers from Ireland. The Scoti and then the Gaels (rhymes with dales). The Gaels formed a kingdom called Dál Riata (Dol Re’ada). This is where the Irish influence comes from in Western Scotland. The language of the Gaels is still spoken today and is called Scots Gaelic (pronounced Gah-lack – Gay-lick is Ireland). They are sort of Irish-Scots. And their word for Scotland is Alba.

What many see as Scottish folk costume is actually called ‘Highland dress’ – meaning kilts, small harps (called clarsachs), names starting in Mc/Mac and bagpipes are more the legacy of the Gaels. They have them in Ireland too – just in a different form. People still play Shinty, which is similar to Irish Hurling. Teuchter (chyuchter) is a popular word for basically a hillbilly but original meant Gaelic-speaker. Although tartan (not called plaid BTW – a plaid rhymes with maid is the shoulder shawl in Highland dress) is a very old tradition found across the ancient Celtic world. The ancient Gauls of France wore tartan in the Iron Age but were famous for wearing trousers. In Scotland they are called breeks.

People in the Lowlands have never worn kilts or spoke Gaelic. Their language Scots is a form of English with a very strong Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian influence from over the North Sea. Some dialect words are basically the same in Nordic languages and German today – like heme (home), coo (cow) and ken (to know – like ‘Kennen Sie?/Do you know?’ in Deutsch). The Lowlanders were once part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria – which stretched halfway to London and was before ‘England’ even existed. .

Don’t expect to remember all this – it is a lot to digest.

The Scots in Ireland

Fast forward to the 16th century AD. With the arrival of Protestantism during the Reformation – many people from mainland Britain move over to Ireland to start plantations. The King of Scotland James VI lead the way when he gave land confiscated from local chieftains to incomers. Settlers from England are Anglican and bring with them the Episcopal faith – which eventually becomes the Church of Ireland. The Scots settlers bring their more extreme Calvinist faith – called Presbyterianism and even changed the linguistic map. These are the people called Scots-Irish and eventually go to America. They are successful in the New World because of community fortitude and ability to survive in harsh plantation conditions learned in Ulster. They have many descendants including 18 Presidents.

Calvinism and Roman Catholicism are very much at odds – culturally and theologically. So Catholicism is essentially banned in Britain and Ireland from the 16th to 19th century. Heavy restrictions are imposed such as denial of land and voting rights. BTW English Calvinists from elsewhere are called Puritans. In the early 17th century, the people of England ( to some extent Scotland) decided to kill their king (Charles I) and impose an ultra-religious Puritan state called The Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell was the dictator and his treatment of the native Irish Catholics is utterly horrific. People still shudder at his name today.

The King (Charles II) comes back eventually but when his Catholic brother James II inherits – there is a ‘Glorious Rebellion’. Supporters of the King are called Jacobites – including Catholic Ireland. The Scots-Irish support his rival and brother-in-law – Prince William of Orange from the Netherlands. They win at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and this is why Ulster Protestants – or Loyalists – use Orange as a motif for their various social religious societies. In honour of King Billy – see picture.

Ireland is controlled by the minority in what is called ‘The Protestant Ascendancy’ till independence in the early 20th century. Northern Ireland is still split on the religious grounds to this day – the basis for ‘The Troubles’ (which cannot be covered in this article). Half the 6 counties are ‘Orange’ (and identify as ethnically British) and the other half are ‘Green’ (Republican – mostly Catholic but not always as some Church of Ireland individuals are very much neutral). This is why Ireland is a bit Scottish.

So there you have it. It’s all a bit mixed up and full of old wounds and hatreds. No wonder you are confused. I hope I have cleared things up a bit.

Questions?

Koch Sucker: How Greed is Eroding Democracy

The Koch brothers are some extremely wealthy brothers whom inherited all their money from their father, Freddy Koch. They control Koch Industries, America’s second biggest company (it also sounds like the company a super-villain would own). The Kochs’ are some of the most callous, indifferent kinds of capitalists that you can find on the planet earth. They founded a political advocacy group in 2004 to lobby their political causes, American’s for Prosperity. Since its formation AFP was a major supporter of Republican candidates in the 2010 election cycle and is heavily involved in political activities aimed at reducing regulation of the oil and gas industry. During the summer of 2008, AFP funded a radio ad critical of a North Carolina U.S. Senatorial challenger, Democrat Kay Hagan, for her position on taxes and offshore oil drilling. During the 2010 election cycle, Americans for Prosperity claims to have spent $40 million dollars on rallies, phone banks, and canvassing, mostly for Republican candidates.

The Koch family has also donated vast sums of money to various other political think-tanks and institutions including the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The Kochs’ are, of course, extremely “pro-business” and significant supporters of “free-markets.” In June 2010 they held a large seminar entitled “Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity”. The invitation stated that “[our] prosperity is under attack by the current Administration and many of our elected officials” and “we cannot rely on politicians to [defend our free society], so it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes”.

It becomes clear in the picture painted of the Koch family that they are simply industrial-capitalists with little or no concern for the welfare of, not even the most vulnerable and impoverished people, but all people who aren’t obscenely wealthy. Nothing is more indicative of this than the Kochs’ involvement with Scott Walker and his crusade to disenfranchise labour. Walker’s capitulation to Koch Industries was thrown into embarrassing relief when the satirical website, Buffalo Beast, successively had a prank caller call Walker and convince him that he was David Koch. The phone rings. The line is transferred to Walker’s office.

“Scott! David Koch. How are you?”

“Hey, David! I’m good. And yourself?”

Walker is super excited to hear from David Koch and proceeds to give him a detailed run-down of what’s going on, including some petty scheming to lock Democrats pay checks in their desk drawers. Walker mentions that Democrat Tim Cullens had often voted with him on pieces of legislation and “Koch” replies that he was going to give Cullens a call. However, Walker isn’t too sure this is a good idea because Cullens isn’t “one of us.”

What are we to take from that little turn of phrase, “one of us?” It’s a question of who Scott Walker thinks he is and who he is in office to represent. Enlightenment philosophy will tell us that the State raises humanity out of that horrible state of nature, of perpetual war. That the people of the state invest their personal sovereignty into a representative body and through their representative the people are present at the seat of government. But is it not more accurate to say that States only formalize this so-called “natural” warfare? Is it not more truthful to say that the war of person upon person isn’t natural at all but only comes into being through the Enlightenment ideology of Liberty, an ideology that pits everyone against everyone else in an eternal pursuit of liberty? The only difference is that his state of natural war can now be quantified, measured in precise dollar amounts, in the precise amount of the “have” and the “have-not.” To have is a right but to have is also to war because resources are finite.

This kind of attitude obviously doesn’t Jive with the free-market, corporate outlook on life which advocates the right to unrestrained acquisition of wealth. What is becoming increasingly obvious now is that politicians, by and large, only have their own self-interests at heart as well. When Walker quips that Cullens isn’t “one of us” he really means that Cullens doesn’t subscribe to the notion of perpetual warfare being waged on the have-nots by the haves and this is class warfare, let us make no mistake about it. Why else would it be necessary for corporate interests to spend so much money on politicking? It can only be because the logic of their politics is transparently “anti-person” in its “pro-business” stance.

Koch: You’re the first domino.

Walker: Yep. This is our moment.

What is most disturbing about the recorded conversation between Scott Walker and the fake David Koch is the way in which they know it is war. This is a coordinated effort to erode the ability of a majority to feed themselves, clothe themselves and house themselves and their families. It is a coordinated effort to disenfranchise labor, to steal the voice of people who actually work for a living. The end goal can only be to render the have-nots immobile, to trap them in a power relationship which exploits their needs for the very necessities of life. It is no longer about the working poor, or the lower classes; it is no longer about the “middle class” or the “upper-middle class,” it is about a desire to drive as many people into “have-not” status in order to become the fullest “haves” they can be. Fools like Walker think that he too can become part of the “have” club but the very logic of having implies that wealth will always be directed toward an increasingly smaller and smaller amount of hands at the exclusion of everyone else. Soon even the governorship will only pay minimum wage. The pro-business, neo-liberal agenda is hard at work all over the world so this is a concern to people of all nations, religions or whatever other affiliation you choose. Ultimately, democracy can only be rejuvenated if we demand that our politicians end their rampant collusion with corporate interests.

Buffalo Beast – Buffalo News – Koch Family – Body Politic Image – Hobbes Image

How to Survive the Coming Obamacolypse

America is doomed. The signs are everywhere. The economy is collapsing, America is declining in international influence, and the president is, um, ethnic. These are desperate times for Decent Americans© and desperate times call for desperate measures. Fortunately for you, I have scoured the internet to find out the tips that will help you survive the Hobbesian hellscape that will soon be America. Please print this article and post in it your bunker, rumpus room, or wherever it is you plan on riding out socialist/nazi/progressive Armageddon.

We don’t know exactly how America will go down, but let’s look at some of the more likely scenarios.

Chinese Take Over. Obama will sell out America to the Reds and we will all be forced to read The Little Red Book. Note: this will be more than most of us have read in a decade. We will be all forced into slave labor and uncomfortable uniforms. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen after this, but it involves foreigners, so it can’t be good.
New World Order. Obama will sell out America to rich, shadowy elites. The economy will be gutted and true patriots will be forced into concentration camps. We all get forced vaccinations and tracking chips. However, it looks like they will keep reality TV and beer flowing to hypnotize the masses, so it might not be that bad. Bonus, the government might finally get rid of your irritating cousins in Missouri.
Economic Peak Oil Anarchistic Collapse Thingy. Obama will sell out America to foreign economic interests. This is the fun one. Part Mad Max, part Wall Street Journal; this is the one that separates the men from the boys. Expect highwaymen, biker gangs, and (god willing) cannibals. This is a very ammo intensive scenario, and you will be able to barter your daughter’s virtue for 10 gallons of gas.
The Tribulation. Jesus is back and he’s totally pissed at Obama and all you commies who voted for him. Rivers of blood with patches of locusts are likely, unless you are raptured up at the beginning (you won’t be, whore). Guns aren’t particularly useful, but you might want to brush up on you Leviticus, because it’s probably going to be more of an Old Testament kind of deal.

What does one bring to the End Times? While it depends a little on the specific dystopian conditions you are facing, but there are always some key supplies useful for any fighter in the Army of the Righteous.

Guns, guns, and more guns. Buy ammo now because Hillary Clinton is conspiring to take you guns away. You can never have enough guns, and keep them unlocked and loaded so you can get to them right away when the thugs from the teacher’s union come to take you to patriot detention.
At least two years worth of overpriced, crappy dehydrated food. Put this in your basement in an area where it will inevitably get moldy and attract ants. This will piss of your spouse but they will thank you when martial law comes, if you are still married at that point. You can also grow a survival garden, but you will have to protect it from the hordes of marauding drug addicts that have fled the major cities.
That Glenn Beck book about the revolution. I guess the sex scenes are pretty lame, but a good way to pass the time until Rand Paul and Michelle Bachman can establish a new territorial government in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Gold, gold, and more gold. Sure, gold is just another arbitrary symbol of value and has no intrinsic worth, but the lady on the shortwave told me I need some. However, you do get some kind of Twilight Zone hubris points if you starve to death in you basement surrounded by 50 pounds of the stuff.

Now you know what’s coming and you have your supplies. Let me give you a few tips

Stay away from FEMA! Even though they have the food, medicine, and shelter, somehow they are the bad guys in this and they will make you into Harry Dean Stanton in Red Dawn.
Your neighbors are the enemy, and must be dealt with accordingly. A crisis is no time for community cooperation (fucking progressives). This is every patriot for themselves even if it would be more beneficial for everyone to work together. Someone has to be the asshole on the block that suggests executing the Jenkins kid, be that asshole.
Shoot first; let the grand jury sort it out later. Look, maybe you got a little carried away, but the power had been out for 4 hours and there was no air conditioning. A jury of your peers will totally understand that you had to shoot Bob and take his cooler to survive.
Plan for the worst so you don’t have to put in the effort to make the best. We could probably avoid a social meltdown if we would all work together in a spirit of compromise and shared values, but who has time for that? Genuine efforts to make America a better place are so boring and non-violent. It’s a lot more entertaining complain about being the victim and troll your neighbors at a city zoning hearing by wearing a side arm.

So now you’re ready. If anyone tries to force you to gay marry or serve on a death panel you can resist just like Patrick Henry, if Patrick Henry had been a crazy, self-centered bastard. Be strong America. President Palin is only a couple of years away. Courage.

Vanguard: A Brave New World

Al Gore will save us all. No, seriously. Not only has he hired shouting-mouthpiece Keith Olbermann to try to enlighten the world one withering tirade at a time, he is also responsible for one of the more altruistic news programs on television, and perhaps one you’re not familiar with.

I discovered Current TV’s Vanguard series last summer. Sometime when I was wondering why Terminator: Salvation was on for the seventy millionth time, I came across this show that was so engrossing in such a real way that it left me absolutely stunned. I’ve never encountered documentary journalism like this. I became totally invested, and the subject matter — the plight of Mail Order Brides, drew me in for over an hour. The gritty, documentary style reporting, the raw and unfiltered coverage — it was everything CNN wishes it could do and more. This show is really what investigative journalism is at its core.

With minimal film crews, and lacking in canned monologues, exorbitant speeches, faux-fury, or shock just for shock sake, mostly it focuses on ripping away the trappings of the spoiled Western mindset to offer a glimpse into someone else’s world, willing the observer to absorb their life, their history, their pains, their indignation, and their joys — oftentimes halfway around the world. Inexplicably though, it can feel like it’s too much, like you’re infringing too much, like you’re seeing too much. The empathy and at times embarrassment, depending on the subject matter, is that palpable. And yes, the reporters are not the staunch, grizzled, “newsman” types of yore. Or the perfectly coiffed silver-haired “anchors on assignment” we see now in their muscled shirts and jeans.

The team of Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel, Mariana van Zeller, and Kaj Larsen, representatives of the X and Y generations, who you imagine are never far from their smart phones, laptops, or Facebook pages, but as we watch, they’re walking into shanty towns and discussing topics like open defecation, the lost boys of the soccer trade, and homegrown terrorism, forgetting for once about the prevalence of “me” that permeates young people in the States, and telling stories happening out there, beyond our borders that just need to be told.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuIoKhMEcw

Which may be what you’d expect from a cable channel run by Al Gore, inventor of the internet, hunter of the manbearpig and exasperated politician. Yes, Mr. Gore has revamped and rekindled this channel and this news-art documentary storytelling in a burgeoning channel that implores you understand the challenges facing our fellow human brethren.

In most instances you just can not look away, because if you do, you feel that you are betraying the teller of the story. The person who has sacrificed much to share with you the most human feelings one can share with another. Truly it is journalism for the new millennium, and as such is worthy of acknowledgment from the “good old boys” in the business. Not that it needs the accolades or acceptance from mainstream media. But it’s earned it, last year as winner of the 69th annual Peabody Award and the 2010 Television Academy Honor Award, the show is truly making its mark. It is one of the only multi-award winning long-form investigative documentary series on cable television, and if you watch, you’ll quickly learn why — it tackles issues others ignore, it goes to places others wouldn’t fathom, and it bravely discusses topics others can’t or won’t cover.

In short, it’s really not your grandmother’s 60 Minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq_8PyRIo_E

Here is a list of other topics covered by the Vanguard team:

Your Thoughts Wanted: Sen. Evan Bayh, Glenn Beck and FOX News

Yesterday it was announced that former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) was joining Fox News as a “political commentator and analyst.” My initial reaction to this news was to frown and shake my head. I am, to say the least, not a fan of Fox News. For the record, I am also not a fan of MSNBC. But, I’ll get to that in a moment. I don’t watch Fox News, so this isn’t a criticism of their news coverage or political commentary. My objection to Fox can really be summed up in two words: Glenn Beck. My problems with this hatemonger are manifold, but I’ll just mention one. As a Jew, and, ahem, specifically a Reform Jew, I strongly object to Mr. Beck being given a national, mainstream platform to spew his barely cloaked Elders of Zion Jewish world control conspiracy theories.

Because “ratings matters,” I would prefer that my fellow Americans choose to express their disapproval of Mr. Beck by not watching Fox News so long as he is on the network. By joining Fox, Sen. Bayh, a centrist well-spoken and intelligent man, is not helping in this cause. This is particularly disappointing to me given the Senator’s involvement in No Labels, an organization founded by a bipartisan group of current and former elected officials, including Independent Mayor Bloomberg, former Republican Congressman Scarborough and former Sen. Bayh, who are “frustrated and concerned about the tone of politics” and believe “hyper-partisanship is destroying our politics and paralyzing our ability to govern.” Hmmm.

In thinking about this yesterday, I tried to understand how sharing a network with Mr. Beck furthers the goals of No Labels. When the Bayh news broke, my Facebook page exploded with comments- many echoing this sentiment. However, there were opposing views. Here is a comment from a friend and political activist: “But even No Labels has to have a conduit for promoting its message. Mass media is media for the masses, and influencing those masses is how we change the system.”

Ok. This is a valid point and it got me thinking. Now, let me move at this point, to why I dislike MSNBC, because it’s relevant here. First, I find MSNBC and Fox much too partisan and slanted in their reporting to be a news source for my tastes. I hate surprises. I’d prefer to have all the facts, mitigating and otherwise, on an issue before I start forwarding around while jumping on my high horse about it. But, the bigger issue I have with MSNBC is their role in mainstreaming and rehabilitating the noxious racist, Pat Buchanan.

For those used to seeing Pat joshing around with our favorite liberal lesbian, Rachel Maddow, here’s just a sampling of Mr. Buchanan’s less adorable beliefs in his own words:

After Sen. Carol Moseley Braun blocked a federal patent for a Confederate flag insignia, Buchanan wrote that she was “putting on an act” by associating the Confederacy with slavery: “The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination, about the right of a people to break free of a government to which they could no longer give allegiance.”

On race relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s: “There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The ‘negroes’ of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours.

But, as I thought about my friend’s comment, it occurred to me that Mr. Buchanan does not say these things on MSNBC and doesn’t seem to say them much anymore at all. Hmmm again. So, now I’m asking myself: should Mr. Buchanan be shunned for his past horrid behavior or is it better that because of his appearances on MSNBC he seems to actually have moderated his statements, if not his beliefs? Is it better that, even if he secretly still believes them, he doesn’t say them anymore?

All of which brings me back to Senator Bayh, Glenn Beck and Fox News. So, now I’m conflicted and not sure where I stand. Is it possible that, simply by having individuals of Mr. Bayh’s caliber, Fox News may move away from commentators like Glenn Beck? Is it possible that Sen. Bayh’s participation may temper Mr. Beck’s more unacceptable statements, at least on his Fox News show? Is it better to take a principled stand against Beck and Fox News or to engage to try to change them?

Hmmm for a third time. What do you think?

Read More:

Evan Bayh joining Fox News

Glenn Beck’s “monstrous” Soros accusations rile Holocaust survivors, Jewish groups

Southern Poverty Law Center Report, The Second Wave: Return of the Militias, documenting Fox News and Glenn Beck’s race-based conspiracy theories

No Labels

Pat Buchanan in his own words

Senator Bayh on the issues

Michigan’s Budget Emergency Measures Create Hardship

Last Wednesday, Michigan’s Senate passed a bill that would allow the state treasurer to appoint emergency financial managers to municipalities and school districts that are in danger of failing. The bill was passed with a 26-12 vote and would permit them to fire local officials, dissolve union contracts, seize and sell assets, and eliminate services such as police and fire departments. The bill is now being handed over to a conference committee which will reconcile differences with the one passed by the House in February and then is expected to be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder.

While the debate for this bill has been linked in the media to Wisconsin’s fight to keep union collective bargaining rights, the real issue here is the fact that Michigan can appoint these managers who, while able to undermine the role of unions, are not elected and can wield powers normally given to elected officials, effectively nullifying their role.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

The emergency manager must have at least five years experience. They also must have experience in business, finance, and local or state issues. State Democrats tried to add amendments requiring that managers must have at least some background in education and whose salary must be capped at the rate of the governor, about $159,000. The Republicans struck it down.

The emergency manager’s contract, salary, and financial plan must be publicly posted as well as expenditures of $5000 or more. They would have the power to take over public services such as utilities like water and electricity. Furthermore, they would also be able to dissolve entire municipal governments as they see fit, dismiss public officials as well as destroy union contracts. By appointing these officials, they are effectively handing “taxpayer money, services and powers to private companies”.

An illustration of the role emergency managers can play is the Detroit’s public school district, which has an emergency manager, Robert Bobb, already in place. The district is projecting a $327 million budget deficit and several proposals have been made including closing half of the district’s 147 schools which would push classroom sizes up to possibly 60 kids per class. It would replace individual school principals with regional ones and would cut all general bus service. Personally, I would wager that it would NOT push class sizes up to 60 kids because given the economic situation in Detroit, I doubt most school kids are going to be walking the vast under-populated blocks to get to a school by themselves, if they don’t get picked up first.

“It takes every decision in a city or school district and puts it in the hands of the manager, from when the streets get plowed to who plows them and how much they are paid,” said Michigan State AFL-CIO president Mark Gaffney. “In schools, the manager would decide academics or if you have athletics.”

The takeover of local services has already begun. Recently the emergency financial manager of Pontiac, one of three other cities with appointed managers, has fired the local police chief and liquidated its union contract. It is now being served by the larger Oakland County Sheriff Department which will begin May 1. Previously, due to layoffs, the city had been underserved with less than 40 officers.

So, not only is this bad for unions it’s bad for our entire electoral system. Our governments are handing our voice over to a few people that we did not elect which is what one can define as a “government takeover”. It is electing a governor to elect people for us. It also gives elected officials a huge disincentive to do the job they are paid to do. Where does it stop? Who determines if these emergency managers will ever go away? If a municipality became financially solvent, it is hardly unreasonable to expect that these people will be asked to stay on to “insure” that things keep running well, increasing more people on the tax payrolls.

Rick Snyder, a Republican, was elected last year succeeding the outgoing governor, Jennifer Granholm and has been billed as a “nerd”. He has taken a page out of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s playbook, by being a multimillionaire and then foregoing the standard gubernatorial salary for $1 a year. He has declined to participate in debates with opponents opting to go directly to the people with his message. He is a former executive at Coopers and Lybrand and was CEO of Gateway computers, which went from 21,000 workers in 2000 to 7,400 workers in 2003, some of which were shipped overseas. After Gateway, he subsequently moved on to found two investment firms, Avalon Investments and then Ardesta.

There has been some controversy over the upcoming budget proposals for the state in that he has divided the entire $45.9 billion budget into two bills: one designated for education and one for “everything else”.

The fact that there are few specifics of how the budget will be allotted has been worrying since it doesn’t aid in the transparency of government finances. If the state is not held to task for defining where its money is going, it can be assumed that it is a forewarning of what we can expect from these emergency financial managers.

The governor said he isn’t trying to make the state’s spending plans murkier or take away lawmakers’ budget oversight. But he wants to be held accountable on whether his administration is able to improve Michigan residents’ health, education, safety and quality of life as measured by the Michigan Dashboard he has set up rather than whether he has spent money on programs lawmakers favor. “You’re still held accountable,” Snyder told The Associated Press.

It seems that to Snyder, this is more of a global approach. In reality, it just signals that anyone can do anything they want with taxpayer money.

5 Onion Articles That Predicted The Future

If you’re between the ages of 15 and 35, you’ve read The Onion. Who doesn’t love that satirical newspaper with its fake stories that sound like they could be true. Well, most of them aren’t true. Some of them come true later, mostly in eerily specific ways. Here are 5 Onion articles that make you wonder about their psychic abilities.

5. The RIAA Goes Rabid

The Onion story: RIAA Sues Radio Stations For Giving Away Free Music

The real story: RIAA Demands Radio Stations Pay For Song Use

It’s a little too easy to make fun of the RIAA. They’re like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even though they’re basically just quadriplegic stumps on the ground, they still expect you to surrender. Here The Onion joked that the RIAA turns on its bigger provider of free advertising: AM/FM radio. 5 years later, the RIAA is calling radio a “form of piracy” and they must be paid per play.

How they predicted it: The RIAA has become so comically desperate that any joke will eventually come true.

How reality tops The Onion: The RIAA is lobbying to make it mandatory to put FM radios in all portable electronics. So not only do they love the radio now, they want it in all cell phones and iPods. Tis but a flesh wound indeed.

4. Gillette Makes An Absurd Razor

The Onion story: Gillette Makes A Razor With 5 Blades

The real story: Gillette Makes A Razor With 5 Blades

This one was done in The Onion’s Op-Ed style, where a manic and overly macho CEO talks about adding yet another razor to their already ridiculous 4-blade model. 4 blades were already kind of a joke; unless you have a beard made of twine, 3 did the job quite well. Now it just seems like they have something to prove.

How they predicted it: In a corporate culture that demands constant innovation, what the hell is a company going to do when it makes a product that has existed since ancient Egypt? The answer is more blades. One day they’ll make one with 6 blades.

How reality tops The Onion: They’re making one with 6 blades.

3. Joe The Plumber

The Onion Story: Uneducated Forklift Driver To Address The Nation On Rush Limbaugh Show

The real story: Republicans Turn To Unqualified Schmuck For Insight

Oh what a funny joke, Rush Limbaugh gives a platform for a regular ol’ blue collar guy to spout off about the intricacies of foreign policy and economics. Funny, funny, funny. Until 2008 rolls around and John McCain decides to give 15 minutes of fame to a guy named Joe The Plumber, who is neither named Joe nor is a licensed plumber. This one gets major points for being the most ahead of its time: predicted 15 years before it happened. Also, both the real and fictional men are from Ohio.

How they predicted it: The Republican party has had a love affair with the lowest common denominator for a few decades. If I had a nickel for every time they bashed Obama for going to Harvard, I’d qualify for their tax breaks (bazing!) The Onion just followed this to it’s logical conclusion: asking the most clueless guy you can find about the most complicated things.

How reality tops The Onion: McCain also got a shill named Tito The Builder, who was supposed to appeal to Hispanics. He was also blue collar, but he was an immigrant, and inexplicably loved Sarah Palin.

2. The Media Loves Charlie Sheen

The Onion story: Charming Hollywood Bad Boy Slays Seven

The real story: Popular Hollywood Bad Boy Beats Women (I’m not even linking it.)

In The Onion article, an actor known for his off-screen problems brutally kills 7 people for no reason. The article reports it like any Hollywood shenanigans, with lots of references to the characters he’s played, and a brief history of his numerous other crimes spanning multiple decades. The actor shows absolutely no remorse and promises to do it again, calling himself “an unstoppable murder machine.” Charlie Sheen shot his fiance in the arm in 1994 and since has never met a woman who didn’t take out a restraining order. He has often referred to himself as a warlock with a 10,000-year-old brain. Here he is being called a paragon of masculinity without a trace of irony.

How they predicted it: Hollywood is famous for not really caring what money-making actors do, so long as they show up for work. As long as someone keeps on smiling, the entertainment press will chuckle knowingly at even the most heinous crimes.

How reality tops The Onion: It hasn’t yet, but it will.

1. Everything Bush Did

The Onion story: Bush Announces “Our Long Nation Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over

The real story: Identical.

I’ll just let quotes from the article, written in January of 2001, do they talking.

“Bush swore to do “everything in [his] power” to undo the damage wrought by Clinton’s two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.”

“Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.”

“On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.”

“‘We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two,’ Bush said. ‘Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there’s much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation’s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it.'”

How they predicted it: Bush promised to do all these things many, many times before being elected.

How reality tops The Onion: He also let New Orleans drown.

Exclusive: Congressman André Carson Responds to the King Hearings

Crasstalk recently covered Congressman Peter King’s double standard on extremism and the betrayal of his Muslim constituents. Today, I am pleased to offer you a counter-point from House Representative André Carson (D-IN), Representative King’s peer in the Legislative branch, a former law enforcement officer, and an American Muslim.

Congressman Carson represents Indiana’s 7th Congressional District; he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in early 2008 as part of a special election, voted in to his first full term in Congress in November of 2008, and was reelected again in 2010. Before his career as an elected official, Carson devoted himself to law enforcement and protecting Hoosiers across the state. He first served as a Local Board Investigative Officer for the Indiana State Excise Police for nine years covering 22 counties before being detailed to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s Intelligence Fusion Center in 2006 where he worked in an anti-terrorism unit to protect Indiana and the United States from terrorist threats at home and abroad.

Congressman André Carson graciously shared the following perspectives with us:

Representative King claims that American Muslims and Muslims in general do not speak out against Islamic extremism. Do you agree with this statement?

Since 9/11, seven out of the last ten Al-Qaeda plots threatening the U.S. were prevented by Muslim cooperation. L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca testified he was overwhelmed by the number of Muslims who were ready to assist him in response to his outreach. That is just one of many examples, and the call into question whether Representative King is ill-informed.

Until Representative King has reviewed the statements of thousands of American Muslim organizations nationwide who have denounced every act of violence perpetrated by a person who claims to be Muslim, any generalization he makes regarding whether Muslims do enough to “speak out” against extremism is selectively anecdotal, outcome-driven, and patently unfair.

He also stated that the hearings are aimed at protecting Muslims from being pressured to commit terrorist acts. Do you have concerns about these hearings and do you think that they will accomplish what Rep. King claims?

I fear these hearings will exacerbate suspicion of Muslims in our country. Simply by making Muslims the sole focal point and phrasing the inquiry in terms of whether Muslims “cooperate enough,” Chairman King invites non-Muslims to put all of their American Muslim neighbors under a microscope.

There are extremists who pervert Islam to serve violent ends, and they must be deterred, but violence caused by ideological extremism is a threat in all its forms, regardless of the religion or ideology in which it is rooted. Unfortunately, for too many Americans, terrorism has a Muslim face, and I believe it is causing many, including Chairman King, to ignore other homegrown threats. We should never ignore or downplay ANY form of violent extremism. But we also should not be focusing our attention on a single form of extremism while so many others continue to put the American people at risk.

How do you think that the Muslim American community should respond to these hearings?

The Muslim community is broad and diverse with no single organization speaking for all Muslims. But we need to make our voices heard and show we are proud and an important part of America. Muslims Americans are doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and police officers. Muslims want their families to be safe, just like every other American.

What kind of impact does rhetoric like King’s have on the Muslim community as a whole? Is it ignored or directly addressed in community outreach initiatives?

It is dispiriting. To peace-loving, patriotic American Muslims, it serves as a reminder that no matter how many millions fully embrace our country, and no matter how deep their civic commitment, the acts of a misguided handful who pervert the faith creates a tragic guilt-by-association mentality at the highest levels of government. Cooperation of the Muslim community around the world will play a critical role in our effort to prevent future attacks. But this cooperation will never be possible if we further alienate and disparage the Muslim community in our own country.

As a country with constitutionally protected religious freedom, we risk extremism in every religion. Is this liberty worth the risk?

Absolutely. The very first words of our very first amendment give all Americans the right to practice our faith without government persecution. By targeting American Muslims, these hearings run contrary to centuries of upholding religious freedom in the U.S. and further contradicts the proud American history many Muslim families can trace back for generations. This hearing would be just as wrong if they were focusing on any other religious group. It hearkens back to the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy, when similar witch hunts pitted neighbor against neighbor while failing to improve our national security and distracting Americans from more pressing issues confronting the nation.

As a former law enforcement officer, how important is it to factor racial or religious components into an investigation? Does profiling based on these factors make us more or less safe from terrorism?

During my time in law enforcement, I worked with informants and cooperating witnesses from all backgrounds on a wide variety of cases, and one reality held true: those who trusted law enforcement, the judicial system, and the government provided more useful information in a timely manner than those who felt singled out or targeted. Security is based on trust. When leadership does not have the trust of a community, regardless of religion or race, it’s extremely difficult to maintain security.

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H/T: Grand Inquisitor, ihatediamonds, Kenneth Gibson, and a special thanks to Lady_E for putting me in touch with Congressman Carson.

Header Photograph: Flickr.

What really happened to Starr Faithfull?

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70 summers ago, a beautiful young woman’s lifeless body washed up on the sugary sands of the Long Island beach town that I currently call home. Her name was Starr Faithfull, and she was 25 years old. What follows is what we know, and what we don’t know.

Long Beach, NY, is a small jewel of a city on a barrier island off Long Island’s South Shore. It has wonderful restaurants, a state-of-the-art library, and a proudly diverse population. Its cleanliness and proximity to New York City draw droves of tourists in the summer months, and even in the winter it bustles with activity. There are flowers and trees everywhere you look. It’s the kind of place people dream about living in. And people really come here for the miles of white sand and glittering waves.

70 years ago, things were slightly different. Everything was new. 1920s Long Beach was just getting started as a fashionable beach community, with hundreds of Spanish Revival white stucco mansions and bungalows with red tile roofing, as required by the zoning code. Grand hotels lined the boardwalk, and every type of amusement from golf, to tennis, to horseback riding was available. Prohibition was largely a joke here, and it was a flapper’s paradise. Starr must have enjoyed it – as much as she was able to.

But to really understand Starr, we have to go back still further – almost 100 years – to 1917, when she was just 11. Unfortunately, by all accounts, Starr’s parents frequently left her in the care of her middle-aged cousin Andrew Peters, then mayor of Boston. He later became a congressman and was quite famous, even serving as Woodrow Wilson’s Assistant Secretary Of The Treasury. He would have been infamous if anyone suspected what he was doing to his 11 year old cousin. He was giving her ether to break down her resistance to his molestation of her.

Like many children in this situation, Starr became withdrawn and reclusive. She even tried dressing like a boy to divert his interest. This failed and the molestation continued for years.

Upon being caught in 1924, Peters paid Starr’s family hush money to protect his career, and they took it. That was it for Starr. She began going to speakeasies and taking cruises to Europe – sometimes not really planning them, but just showing up on board to bon voyage party and simply staying when the ship left. She continued to abuse inhalants and barbiturates.

On May 29, 1931, a drunken Starr was forcibly removed from the Franconia, screaming “Kill me!” and “Throw me overboard!” . On June 5, 1931, her family saw her for the last time, and had reason to suspect that she had sneaked aboard the Mauretania, which was bound for the Bahamas.

On June 8, 1931, her body washed ashore on Long Beach. She was wearing a black and white summer dress from Lord & Taylor with nothing underneath, and her body was badly bruised.

There were several suicidal notes written by Starr, and one was to a doctor on whom she had a crush. There was also a diary detailing Starr’s wild life, including assignations with 19 men and a veiled reference to her cousin. The primitive toxicology reports showed her liver to be full of Veronal, a powerful barbiturate. Although initially suspicious, Nassau County detectives were inclined to leave the case there.

But Starr’s stepfather accused the Nassau County DA of dragging his heels for political capital. Back then, this was more than plausible. He produced – too late – the $20,000 check from Andrew Peters and the 1927 agreement to hold Peters harmless for molesting Starr when she was 11. He accused various political figures of having Starr murdered.

Peters had a nervous breakdown at his office in Boston. The New York Daily News uncovered that Mr. Faithfull was nearly broke and had gone to Boston to get more money from Peters a few days before Starr disappeared. And the Nassau County Police Department held an inquest, which lasted 15 minutes and drew no conclusions.

We’ll never know what happened to this tragic young woman in her final moments. But I hope she found peace. When I’m out on the Atlantic at night and I see the lights of Long Beach come into view, I wonder which ship she was really on, who she was with, what her final thoughts were. It’s easy to feel lonely at sea, even with so many people so close by.

Newspaper clippings here and here.

Among the non-fiction books dealing were her death are: “The Aspirin Age” by Morris Markey (1944); “The Girl on the Lonely Beach” by Fred Cook (1954); and “The Passing of Starr Faithfull” by Jonathan Goodman (1996). Her life has been the subject of fiction in a number of novels including: “Some Unknown Person” by Sandra Scoppettone (1977) and “The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull” by Gloria Vanderbilt (1994). On Broadway her life was dramatized in the play, “Courting Mae West” by Linda-Ann Loschiavo (2005).

In 1935, the famous American author John O’Hara wrote a novel on Starr but changed her name to Gloria to avoid being sued by the Faithfull family. In 1960, the novel was made into one of Hollywood’s most famous films, “Butterfield 8.” In this movie the Academy Award was given to Elizabeth Taylor for her portrayal of Starr Faithfull. – Derry Times

Top photo Wikipedia.

Revisionist History: The Civil War, Slavery and States’ Rights

Words are powerful things. Simply changing one word in a sentence can completely change its meaning and how listeners understand what is being discussed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recounting of history. As collective memory fades and ultimately disappears with the passage of time, it becomes all the more important to challenge (and correct) modern day retellings of historic events that have been shaded and reframed over time to the point that today’s narrative could, and should, be labeled a lie of omission, if not commission. What am I talking about? This. “The Civil War was about State’s rights, not about slavery.”

Of course the Civil War was about states’ rights. That statement, in and of itself, is true. Or rather, true, but incomplete and, in its incompleteness, substantively false in its modern presentation. The incompleteness rests in the obvious question this statement raises: the seceding states’ right to do what?

To answer this question, I am not going to give my view or that of historians and commentators, but rather, am going to present the actual statements and justifications of the seceding states and the subsequently formed Confederate States of America. This information seems particularly timely given that yesterday, March 11^th, was the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the Confederate Constitution by the Confederate Congress. The Confederate Constitution was very similar to the original US Constitution. However, as explained by Professor of History, Stephanie McCurry: “there were, however, a few significant changes. They purged the text of all of the ambivalences, compromises and hedges about slavery, representation and the power of the federal government that had plagued the republic since the founding.”

If the actual Confederate Constitution does not settle the question of how important maintaining the institution of slavery was to the seceding states, let’s look at a couple of the Declarations of the Causes of Seceding States that preceded the drafting of the Confederate Constitution.

Mississippi (Adopted January 9, 1861): In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Georgia (Adopted January 29, 1861): The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property …

The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquility.

Texas (Adopted Feb. 2, 1861): We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.…

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons– We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof…

In presenting these statements, I do not want to suggest that northern Yankees should assert any claim to moral superiority. Indeed, the current mistruths about the North and Slavery are just as problematic and dishonest. But, let’s all be clear about one thing. The next time you hear someone claim that the Civil War was about states’ rights and not about slavery, please correct those to two little words: It was about the states’ rights to continue slavery.

The Confederate Constitution (with highlighted changes and explanations by Prof. McCurry)