Ummm. How about Josiah?
Thanks to Julia Minton for noticing the omission. I’m sure others did as well.
Apparently this is a campaign.
We’ll find out over the next few months, but from what this Politico article says, Blinken and other civilians in the Biden Administration heard the Pentagon concerns and chose to override the military. It’s a very good read.
As Krsytal and Saager mention, there is a freakout in the neocon camp.
Honestly, I’m not absolutely certain it’s the right decision. I’ve said here that I would actually support an international presence to protect women in Afghanistan if it would lead to stability and the actual advancement of women. I am concerned about what will happen to educated girls and women once we’ve left.
But it’s been 20 years, about as long as our involvement in Vietnam. The question isn’t whether women need protection in Afghanistan. The question is whether it is our role to provide it. Ten years ago I supported staying in the country until things were settled. But there are hundreds of years of history to “settle,” and yes the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are reactionary, feudal-fascist, and nuts by the reasonable standards of any time or place. But if the Afghan government can’t keep it together and keep it in check, we’re just forestalling the inevitable, and quite frankly I would rather spend money to help the women who want to leave the country find new homes. We’re talking five months.
We’ve been through four Presidencies of war and occupation of Afghanistan. I hope it doesn’t go all Polpot Year Zero when we leave, and I hope Biden is making the right decision – assuming that it holds. There is going to be massive pushback from the military industrial complex.
And I hope people don’t fall for the “there hasn’t been a terror attack in 20 years because we’re in Afghanistan” crap. The neocons are already pushing that line. I don’t think there’s any link. My concern is simply for girls and women in the country. I hope we are doing right by them.
I don’t always agree with this pair, but they are pretty on point in this video.
Adding to my list of missed opportunities in the history of American satire – it’s not like it was untimely. The OJ-running-through-the-airport ads extended into the early 90s. They came to my mind when I was watching that surreal freeway chase live. How did we never see this on SNL or anywhere else?!
Thinking about my fifth grade classroom. On Mr. Wilbanks’ wall was a poster of OJ with the caption, “OJ all the way!”
I’m compiling a list of the biggest missed opportunities for American satire. Now, certainly, this would have been insensitive to air on Saturday Night Live on the weekend following the Jonestown massacre – where most of the cult residents were convinced or forced to drink poison-laden Kool-Aid. For those too young to remember, it’s what inspired the term “He’s drinking the Kool-Aid” to describe someone buying into lies (kind of ironic that the substance actually used was a Kool-Aid knockoff, but they get the stigma anyway).
So imagine the faux commercial opens up with Jim Jones talking to his advisors and one of them tastes the poison and says, “It tastes awful. How are we going to get anybody to swallow this?”
Jim Jones: “This is a job for Kool-Aid. Hey Kool-Aid!!” and the smiling pitcher comes breaking through the trees in the woods to the song in the below commercial – chasing people all over the compound.
I thought of it at the time and figured that if I came up with it SNL’s writers must have thought of it. I watched each weekend in the week’s following the incident, but no.
Okay, I can see how it might have been upsetting to some, but come on! Wasted moment in satire history!
It’s been over four decades. I am officially declaring the statute of limitations run on the insensitivity.
The “My Turn” state program at the Arcata Community Center.
I set the appointment for today on Monday. I was a little disappointed when I arrived as the line went all the way out to the playground from the front entrance of the building. I think there were about 40 or 50 people ahead of me outside. But you could almost see the line move! The wait was about 10 minutes, maybe a minute or two more.
Very well organized and very efficient!
I finish up on April 28.
2014 and 1924 are the only two drier years.
We did pretty well on the north coast, but the rest of the state is in trouble.
Tall order. Let’s see what happens.
What we really need to emphasize in the debate is that keeping a sizable percentage of working people at the poverty level is an integral part of our economic system. Senator Graham was blatantly open about it when he opposed the initial coronavirus bill last year arguing that if you enhance the unemployment benefits there are some people who would make more money staying on unemployment than if they worked a slave wage job. He was right. Much of the business sector relies on people desperate to feed their kids and pay rent at the same time to occupy those jobs. Graham only backed down from his threat to essentially veto the bill when Bernie threatened to veto any watered down bill. The Club for Growth Chamber types obviously calculated that the benefits business would receive from the bill would outweigh the temporary loss control over the poorer portion of the work force. This article explores the structural reasons for the intense opposition to the $15.00 minimum wage.
“When former enslaved person and abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his first paying job, he declared, “Now I am my own master.” But by 1883, he observed, “Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.”
On March 5, the Senate had another opportunity to lift millions out of poverty, this time by raising the minimum wage to $15. But 50 Republicans, seven Democrats and an Independent voted against the bill sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.). In doing so, they denied a raise to the 32 million workers — about 21% of the workforce — including 31% of Black workers, 26% percent of Hispanic workers and 20% of white workers. That number includes the 1.1 million Americans who earn $7.25 or less, and the approximately 20.6 million who earn a “near-minimum” wage of up to $10.10, according to the Pew Research Center.”
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