Voir film de tihya vol 2 en direct sur netfilm tihya par fatima taba3Mrant en video hd free
regarder film tihia v2 ou Thya gratuit sur se site ici :
jeudi 31 mars 2011
Film tihya vol 2 en direct sur net en tachelhit tamazight
Voir film de tihya vol 2 en direct sur netfilm tihya par fatima taba3Mrant en video hd free
regarder film tihia v2 ou Thya gratuit sur se site ici :
film tihya vol 1 en tachelhit tamazight langue
How much do they have to accumulate before it's enough?
While subbing on yesterday's Randi Rhodes show, Nicole Sandler asked, "What does this country look like when they get everything they want?" It's a valid question. Once they've eliminated unions, the various programs that consitute the social safety net, Social Security, Medicare, abortion, birth control, worker protections and environmental regulations, child labor laws and public education and college for all but the rich; when they get rid of ALL corporate taxes, what does this oligarch's paradise look like? She didn't offer an answer, because the reality is that when (and it's WHEN, not IF, because there is no one who has the clout or the willingness to stop it) the Republicans get everything they want, what it looks like is something we don't even want to contemplate.
I keep thinking it looks something like Jamaica during that country's worst economic times, where you have dire poverty living alongside massive fortress-like mansions, guarded with big burly guys and rottweilers imported from the states. If that sounds like paradise for the have-mores, they might consider the fate of reggae star Peter Tosh, who was murdered by a gang led by a man he'd befriended and attempted to find a job for after the man had spent time in prison. Peter Tosh sang of equal rights and justice:
...and was murdered anyway.
There are still people in this country singing the "rich people create jobs" mantra, even though corporate profits are at an all-time high and job "growth" is miniscule at best. There are still people in this country who think that if they Just Work Hard Enough they'll get into the club of people who have houses in the Hamptons and in Cap d'Antibes -- as if amassing that kind of wealth is about work and not about connections. There are still people who think that the remaining Americans who haven't yet gotten utterly screwed are at fault for the plight of those who have.
So the question that comes before what this country will look like when the right wing gets its way is how much money do we have to stuff into the pockets of the wealthiest before they have enough? You'd think we were there already:
What you see above is from a new paper issued by the Economic Policy Institute, which shows that the top 5% in this country now control 65% of its wealth...and the bottom 80% -- that's eight out of ten -- only hold 12.8%.
Les Leopold points out the hard facts of what is going on in this country:
I'm not sure anything can stop this relentless march -- or this buy-in of still far too many Americans into their own doom. We know what the Republicans want, but the Democrats are feeding from the same Wall Street trough. What do you think? Is there any way out of this, or is the best we can hope for a painless death before it all falla apart?
I keep thinking it looks something like Jamaica during that country's worst economic times, where you have dire poverty living alongside massive fortress-like mansions, guarded with big burly guys and rottweilers imported from the states. If that sounds like paradise for the have-mores, they might consider the fate of reggae star Peter Tosh, who was murdered by a gang led by a man he'd befriended and attempted to find a job for after the man had spent time in prison. Peter Tosh sang of equal rights and justice:
Everyone is crying out for peace yes
None is crying out for justice
(2x)
(CHORUS)
I don't want no peace
I need equal rights and justice (3x)
Got to get it
Equal rights and justice
Everybody want to go to heaven
But nobody want to die
Everybody want to go to up to heaven
But none o them (2x) want to die
CHORUS
(Just give me my share)
What is due to Caesar
You better give it on to Caesar
And what belong to I and I
You better (2x) give it up to I
CHORUS
(I'm fighting for it)
Everyone heading for the top
But tell me how far is it from the bottom
Nobody knows but
Everybody fighting to reach the top
How far is it from the bottom
CHORUS
Everyone is talking about crime
Tell me who are the criminals
I said everybody's talking about crime, crime
Tell me who, who are the criminals
I really don't see them
CHORUS
There be no crime
Equal rights and justice (Precedes each line below)
There be no criminals
Everyone is fighting for
Palestine is fighting for
Down in Angola
Down in Botswana
Down in Zimbabwe
Down in Rhodesia
Right here in Jamaica
...and was murdered anyway.
There are still people in this country singing the "rich people create jobs" mantra, even though corporate profits are at an all-time high and job "growth" is miniscule at best. There are still people in this country who think that if they Just Work Hard Enough they'll get into the club of people who have houses in the Hamptons and in Cap d'Antibes -- as if amassing that kind of wealth is about work and not about connections. There are still people who think that the remaining Americans who haven't yet gotten utterly screwed are at fault for the plight of those who have.
So the question that comes before what this country will look like when the right wing gets its way is how much money do we have to stuff into the pockets of the wealthiest before they have enough? You'd think we were there already:
What you see above is from a new paper issued by the Economic Policy Institute, which shows that the top 5% in this country now control 65% of its wealth...and the bottom 80% -- that's eight out of ten -- only hold 12.8%.
Les Leopold points out the hard facts of what is going on in this country:
The average real wage of the non-supervisory production workers (which comprise 82.4 percent of total private non-farm employees) actually declined by 9 percent between 1975 and 2010.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw their share of national income rise from 8 percent in 1975 to 23.5 percent in 2005
More amazing still, the wage gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker jumped from $45 to $1 in 1970 to an unbelievable $1,723 to $1 in 2006
Today after the crash, financial incomes are so enormous that in 2010, John Paulson, the top hedge fund manager, earned $2.4 million an HOUR (not a misprint), and his tax rate is less than yours
I'm not sure anything can stop this relentless march -- or this buy-in of still far too many Americans into their own doom. We know what the Republicans want, but the Democrats are feeding from the same Wall Street trough. What do you think? Is there any way out of this, or is the best we can hope for a painless death before it all falla apart?
mercredi 30 mars 2011
mosalsal paco hal9a 7 2m modablaj en darija
Spice Temple, Sydney
Riesling, says Peter Barry, introduced thousands of Australian teenagers to wine. The sweetness of riesling makes them very drinkable for youth, and Peter appears to puff his chest proudly when he theorises that for many of us, rieslings are the first wine we will ever drink, sneaking a sip from our parents' glass.
Today I'm at Spice Temple, attending the national media lunch hosted by Jim
Hamid Amnay tachlhit 2011 en ligne Mp3
Brahim Ayssar musique tachelhit 2011
Ecouter Hicham A3zri en direct Mp3 en ligne
Raiss Lhaj Bel3id musique tachelhit tamazight mp3
Mohamed Amrrakchi 2011 Musique mp3
Salh lbacha 2011 en mp3 tachlhite 2011
Raiss Lhoussin lbaz en ligne en mp3
Ecouter Mohamed Damou en musique mp3
Amouri Mbark en musique tachelhit tamazight mp3
Said Achinwi 2011 en musique tachelhit 2011 free
Time for the New York Times to dispatch McKinley again
I for one would love to see James C. McKinley spin this rape to "the bitch asked for it":
Wait. Maybe he wrote this Reuters story too. After all, the REAL victims of rape are the perpetrators, right?
Two Memphis boys, aged 7 and 9, alleged to have raped a 2-year-old girl last August were placed in protective custody on Monday.
Shelby County Juvenile Court Magistrate Dan Michael turned the boys over to the state's Department of Children's Services after the prosecution asked that they be put in custody for treatment rather than punishment.
The boys' attorneys, James Sanders and Samuel Jones, had both asked that the boys be allowed to receive rehabilitative services from the state while in their own homes.
Sanders, who represents the 9-year-old, said there were "clearly no winners" in the situation.
"You've got a victim who certainly is going to probably bear the scars of this incident for years to come," he said.
"And you've got two young, alleged perpetrators who are going to have to carry the burden of this offense with them for years to come.
Wait. Maybe he wrote this Reuters story too. After all, the REAL victims of rape are the perpetrators, right?
Making Taxpayers for Christ
In the World According to Man-On-Dog, if it weren't for all them dirty sluts not doing their part of the American tax structure, there'd be no problems with Social Security revenues today:
Perhaps someone should ask Santorum where the jobs are at which all those aborted babies would work to pay into the system, when there are fourteen million unemployed Americans today as it is.
WASHINGTON – Long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Tuesday that America's "abortion culture" is harming Social Security, reviving an ages-old argument largely confined to the fringe.
"The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period," Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told the New Hampshire station WEZS Radio. "But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends."
The problem, Santorum explained, is that "we don't have enough workers to support the retirees," because "a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 22 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.
"We have seven children, so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system," Santourm said.
In the long-run, of course, the boon to Social Security from more young people at any given time will be offset by the benefits they collect upon retirement, so the logic that that abortion is a drag on the program is contentious at best.
Yet the notion isn't new -- it's been around for many years, floated mostly by dogged social conservatives gifted at developing theories to blame abortion for just about every one of the nation's woes.
Perhaps someone should ask Santorum where the jobs are at which all those aborted babies would work to pay into the system, when there are fourteen million unemployed Americans today as it is.
How to assure you win an election in a small town
You can now buy your very own Diebold Accu-Vote voting machine on eBay.
They have ten of 'em. That ought to do it.
via Brad Friedman, who followed up with the seller to get to the source of these beauties:
They have ten of 'em. That ought to do it.
via Brad Friedman, who followed up with the seller to get to the source of these beauties:
The seller tells The BRAD BLOG the systems, more than 100 of them, come from Van Wert County, Ohio! And from a state like Ohio, you know the machines work just as they are supposed to! Get yours now and become the life of the party!
mardi 29 mars 2011
Ninja Akhtar Al Mojrimine sur 2M Tv vidéo
Bousama Akhtar Al Mojrimine sur 2M Tv vidéo
Après avoir tué treize personnes, dont une femme, Abdelali Amer, alias Boussemma a été, enfin, appréhendé à Rabat.Saisis d'effroi devant l'ampleur du drame, les habitués de Souika de Rabat et de Bab Rahba n'en revenaient toujours pas.
«Au début, les cadavres trouvés portaient des marques de coups assénés du côté du sol. Nous ne savions pas si c'était un meurtre ou une mort normale. Le rapport de l'autopsie était également ambigu, expliquant que la mort est survenue suite à un traumatisme crânien consécutif à une chute accidentelle», affirme M. Imansar, le chef de la police judiciaire de Rabat.
Toutes les victimes avaient un seul profil : des «mikhalis». Un terme qui désigne dans le jargon policier un SDF. Il les tuait avec beaucoup de sang froid en les surprenant par un coup sur la tête à l'aide d'une pierre enfouie dans une chaussette. Concernant la femme assassinée, elle a d'abord été violée. C'était elle aussi une SDF.
Ken Kratz's Advice For Violent Crime Victims
Now that he's resigned as Calumet County District Attorney for sending dirty text messages and, thanks to fellow Wisconsin Republican scumbag AG J.B. Van Hollen, will not go to jail for it, Ken Kratz has plenty of free time to pursue his new career as a legal advice columnist.
"Dear Mr. Kratz: My boyfriend recently beat me and tried to kill me. What can I do to ensure that he never does this to me or other women ever again?"
"Dear tall, young, hot nymph: Are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA ... the riskier the better?"
"Dear Mr. Kratz: I was raped repeatedly by my husband recently and I don't know if I should take him to court for fear of reprisal. What do I do?"
"Dear tall, young, hot nymph: I'm the atty. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career. You may be the tall, young, hot nymph but I am the prize!"
"Dear Mr. Kratz: My boyfriend tried to strangle, rape and kill me but I'm afraid when I get on the witness stand, I'll freeze and not be able to speak out against my attacker. What advice can you give me?"
"Hey … Miss Communication, what’s the sticking point? Your low self-esteem and you fear you can’t play in my big sandbox? Or???"
"Dear Mr. District Attorney Kratz: I was beaten so badly by my attacker that I fear I've lost all my self-esteem and that I may not speak out against any man who assaults me in the future. What do I do?"
"Dear tall, young, hot nymph: I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you’d be THE woman! R U that good?"
Ken Kratz is the former sexually harassing District Attorney of Calumet County, Wisconsin. His legal advice column is syndicated in over 850 newspapers.
film Tanirt vol 3 en langue tachelhit gratuit
Jadid video clip Fatima Tachtokt 2011 Vol 3
film Tanirt vol 2 en langue tachelhit gratuit
film Tanirt vol 1 en langue tachelhit tamazighte
Sorry, Mr. McKinley, no redemption for you.
Earlier this month, James C. McKinley, Jr., a "journalist" at the New York Times, wrote this article about a horrific rape of an 11-year-old in Texas. The article rightly drew criticism because if it's apparent embrace of the She Asked For It excuse.
In today's paper, the Times has obviously decided to give McKinley a chance to redeem himself by writing an update about the case, and he has failed miserably. For this article does little to reverse the tone of his first article. Excerpts below, with commentary by Yours Truly:
Maybe you should have sought that "deeper portrait of the victim" before writing the other article, instead of buying hook, line, and sinker that she was a slut who asked for it -- remember, this is an 11-year-old we're talking about -- from the kind of people who would defend nineteen boys who raped her.
And you reported that rumor and speculation on the 8th of March. That's lazy journalism, Mr. McKinley. Perhaps you should seek employment with News Corp. And if there's a news blackout, why are you in Cleveland, Texas AGAIN, other than for selfish reasons pertaining to your own feeble attempt at journalistic redemption?
Oh, well...if she's a Mexican, that excuses everything, right, Mr. McKinley? Why is her nationality relevant?
This is where the kind of people who would defend the rape of an 11-year-old start talking about "consent." First of all, if threatening to leave you someplace, or having other kids beat you up, isn't coercion WHEN YOU ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD, I don't know what is. Second of all, I question whether "engaging in sexual intercourse" is exactly what the girl said, or if this is how police in a Texas community when dealing with the rape of a Latino child are wording a deposition in order to put doubt in the heads of possibly racist jurors.
I repeat: This is sexual abuse of an 11-year-old. I'm sorry, but in most cases, even an adult woman with full control of her faculties does not consent to being gang-raped over a period of time, no matter how many porn movies one watches that show this as being something women like. But note how McKinley continues to leave the door open for the "She wanted it" defense.
"Stopped working." It isn't until two paragraphs later that we find out that the father isn't working because he has health problems, and even when we do, there's a tone of Immigrant Gaming the System:
And here's the topper: The girl has been put into foster care:
If this family were white, and had a rebellious child who was gang-raped, do you think for one minute that the child would be removed from the parents? Hardly.
This article contains little new about this case. It seems written solely for the purpose of trying to rehabilitate the journalistic career of a man whose obviously prurient interest in the case and clear understanding of why a bunch of boys would think a rebellious girl from an economically disadvantaged family is fair game for them, makes him seem a bit of a perv. Is there any reason why, if the Times felt an update barely three weeks later was warranted, they couldn't find someone, perhaps even a female journalist, to cover the update? Why is Mr. McKinley allowed to try to restore his career literally on the back of an already-exploited child?
In today's paper, the Times has obviously decided to give McKinley a chance to redeem himself by writing an update about the case, and he has failed miserably. For this article does little to reverse the tone of his first article. Excerpts below, with commentary by Yours Truly:
Court documents and dozens of interviews over several weeks with the girl’s family, her friends and neighbors, as well as those who know the defendants, provide a more complete picture of what occurred as well as a deeper portrait of the victim. What begins to emerge is the nightmarish ordeal of a young girl over two and a half months involving an eclectic group of young men, some with criminal records, who shared a powerful neighborhood bond.
Maybe you should have sought that "deeper portrait of the victim" before writing the other article, instead of buying hook, line, and sinker that she was a slut who asked for it -- remember, this is an 11-year-old we're talking about -- from the kind of people who would defend nineteen boys who raped her.
The Cleveland police and the local district attorney have released little information about the alleged rapes and the evidence, and their silence has allowed rumor and speculation to flourish. Judge Mark Morefield of State District Court issued a broad order two weeks ago prohibiting law enforcement officials, defense lawyers, potential witnesses and relatives of the girl and defendants from speaking about the case to reporters.
And you reported that rumor and speculation on the 8th of March. That's lazy journalism, Mr. McKinley. Perhaps you should seek employment with News Corp. And if there's a news blackout, why are you in Cleveland, Texas AGAIN, other than for selfish reasons pertaining to your own feeble attempt at journalistic redemption?
The girl, a sixth grader whose parents are immigrants from Mexico,
Oh, well...if she's a Mexican, that excuses everything, right, Mr. McKinley? Why is her nationality relevant?
It is unclear from the affidavits if the younger Mr. Ellis was there the night of Nov. 28. But the girl said that a cousin, Timothy D. Ellis, 19, was there, and ordered her to strip, telling her that he would “have some girls beat her up” and would not drive her home if she refused, the affidavits said.
The affidavits said the girl told investigators that she then “engaged in sexual intercourse and oral sex” with several of the men present, among them Jared G. McPherson, 18, a high school basketball player, and Jared L. Cruse, also 18, who has since been charged with robbing a grocery store in the next county.
During the sexual assault, the girl said, she heard Mr. McGowen call someone on the phone and invite him to the house to have sex with her, the affidavits said. Four more men whom she did not know arrived.
This is where the kind of people who would defend the rape of an 11-year-old start talking about "consent." First of all, if threatening to leave you someplace, or having other kids beat you up, isn't coercion WHEN YOU ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD, I don't know what is. Second of all, I question whether "engaging in sexual intercourse" is exactly what the girl said, or if this is how police in a Texas community when dealing with the rape of a Latino child are wording a deposition in order to put doubt in the heads of possibly racist jurors.
Four of the defendants are charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child. The rest are charged with a single count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14. Both felonies carry a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. In Texas, a child under 17 cannot give legal consent and, as in most states, ignorance of a child’s age is not a legal defense.
I repeat: This is sexual abuse of an 11-year-old. I'm sorry, but in most cases, even an adult woman with full control of her faculties does not consent to being gang-raped over a period of time, no matter how many porn movies one watches that show this as being something women like. But note how McKinley continues to leave the door open for the "She wanted it" defense.
The small house where the girl lived is on a dusty road on the outskirts of town, about 10 miles from Precinct 20. There were chickens in the yard and a trampoline out front, where her father sometimes slept during the afternoons. She lived there with her parents, two older sisters who were in high school and a younger brother.
A 36-year-old cousin of the girl, who lived next door, said her family was in dire economic straits since Juan stopped working. The water and electricity had been cut off at times in recent months.
"Stopped working." It isn't until two paragraphs later that we find out that the father isn't working because he has health problems, and even when we do, there's a tone of Immigrant Gaming the System:
Juan injured his back in November 2009 and has not held a steady job since. A diabetic, he receives disability checks of $700 a month. His wife, 42, was told last year that she had a mass in her brain, and a doctor had said it should be removed, friends said. She suffers frequent headaches and fainting spells. His wife, 42, was told last year that she had a mass in her brain, and a doctor had said it should be removed, friends said. She suffers frequent headaches and fainting spells.
And here's the topper: The girl has been put into foster care:
Two months ago, when the arrests started, the state Child Protective Services placed the girl, who had also received threats, in a foster home. “They told her it was best that they take her away from this town,” Ms. Lopez said.
A case worker has informed Juan that he and his wife must attend family therapy sessions to regain custody. Juan said he was despondent at the prospect of losing his daughter permanently. He said that she was doing well but that she was still fearful. “You can see she’s not happy,” he said. Then he added, “She will never recover from this.”
If this family were white, and had a rebellious child who was gang-raped, do you think for one minute that the child would be removed from the parents? Hardly.
This article contains little new about this case. It seems written solely for the purpose of trying to rehabilitate the journalistic career of a man whose obviously prurient interest in the case and clear understanding of why a bunch of boys would think a rebellious girl from an economically disadvantaged family is fair game for them, makes him seem a bit of a perv. Is there any reason why, if the Times felt an update barely three weeks later was warranted, they couldn't find someone, perhaps even a female journalist, to cover the update? Why is Mr. McKinley allowed to try to restore his career literally on the back of an already-exploited child?
film sber n donit ou sbere ndounite tachelhite
lundi 28 mars 2011
And Still More Blogrolling In Our Time
I probably should have waited until April 11 of next year to add The Titanic Sails At Dawn, but say a prescient hello anyway.
dimanche 27 mars 2011
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)
Failure and tragedy, like water, seek the path of least resistance. And it’s perhaps no coincidence that the words “trailer” and “failure” are almost perfect rhymes. In the American mind, the two are perfectly synonymous. That’s because we tend not to look beyond end results and aftermaths. We see trailer parks, tent cities, people living under bridges and think not “refugees” or “victims” but “failure.” Assumptions are dangerous but those of us who are more fortunate can live with that kind of danger. - Opening paragraph of my memoir, American Zen
To cite just one example, the relationship between Barack Obama and GE Chairman, CEO and Artful Tax Dodger Jeffrey Immelt is so close, it's a miracle Michelle Obama hasn't filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Indeed, when Obama turns over in bed at night, one can imagine his elbow hitting Immelt in the face.
Indeed, naming Immelt to head the president's commission on job creation seems like a sarcastic jibe or slap in the face: Immelt's GE has done more to ship US jobs overseas than almost any other corporation. This is necessary to a tax-dodging corporation that has to set up dummy and shell companies and incorporating overseas (such as Halliburton moving to Dubai), taking US jobs with it. Yet no one has ever dared suggest to Immelt that the first thing he should do as Job Czar is to bring GE jobs back to American shores.
And don't even think about criticizing either Immelt or GE for that paradox or you'll get publicly bitchslapped by Obama's circus Carney.
This is but one example of how thoroughly Corporate America has infiltrated the highest echelons of our government. If you need another to see this trend, look at Obama's new Chief of Staff, former JP Morgan Chase goon William Daley, a guy who made almost $9 million last year working for a mega bank that has done more than its fair share of throwing people out of their homes.
And if you need more examples of just how deeply Goldman Sachs, to name just one other mega bank, has both infiltrated and exfiltrated our government in some darkly comical musical jobs game, check out this CBS investigation that aired almost a year ago.
Our economy, to quickly and neatly unpack it and lay it on the bed, is based on fraud and corruption. There is hardly even the appearance of corporate accountability let alone any real accountability. Corporations with its greasy, grasping paws found in the cookie jar have but to pay up to 9 figure "fines" to the federal government and that money doesn't even come out of their pockets. It's often paid for by the shareholders and taxpayers they remorselessly ream on an hourly basis. Daley's old company, JP Morgan, also used that sleazy trick when they got hit with a $700,000,000 fine when Daley was working for them.
A survey released just last September found the gap between rich and poor in the US is the greatest than at any time in American history. And things aren't any better in China, where 130 billionaires live in what you would think is the last Communist stronghold on earth.
To paraphrase Lord Acton, Wealth corrupts and absolute wealth corrupts absolutely, regardless of nationality, political or economic ideology, whether you're a capitalist or Communist, human nature is easily corrupted by money and the impunity and insularity it all but guarantees.
But anyone raising the specter of class warfare is automatically letting themselves in for a right wing shouting-down of fomenting rumors of class warfare. Which isn't so much a rumor as a fallacy: In order to have a war, there has to be some parity. Otherwise you're not talking about a war but a brutal invasion and occupation.
Who knows where, how and when it started but between the time I was a young man and now, our national economy became one based on good and services to one based on debt. Lobbyists were always a problem in government until they ceased becoming a problem and became an accepted part of the legislative process. Suddenly, President Kennedy standing up to Big Steel seems like a fairy tale out of Camelot because one cannot imagine a chief executive today standing up to any corporation, especially one that had contributed heavily to his campaign.
Now, it's accepted that corporations such as GE not only should be allowed to essentially write self-dealing policies but that they pay not a single penny in taxes (in fact, Uncle Sam owes GE some $3.2 billion in tax breaks and deferments).
Now, it's accepted that internet providers get to essentially write policy and to cripple a compliant FCC and have its own self-dealing policies upheld by federal courts.
Now, it's accepted that bills such as the "Consumer Protection and Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Act of 2005" are written not by Congress but by other self-dealing corporations such as credit card companies, banks and other lenders.
Now. it's accepted that some banks and corporations are too big to fail and ought to be bailed out to the tune of trillions with neither oversight, enforceable conditions nor accountability after almost literally tearing down not only America's but the world's financial market.
And it's accepted that public union workers, the elderly and the indigent will have to continue giving and giving in the community spirit of shared sacrifice while billionaires and multibillion dollar corporations continue to not pay a penny in taxes, that Social Security, Medicare and collective bargaining will have to be the first things to go.
Meanwhile, to show how much they care about us, the wealthy will continue snuggling up to the poor literally side by side almost as if to rub their grimy faces in it for not being rapacious, greedy or sociopathic enough to share in their good fortunes.
It's an infinitely complicated mess but the fallout isn't nearly as hard to see. The rich are simply getting richer while the poor are simply getting poorer. While John McCain, who married a $100,000,000 beer fortune with 110 pounds of flesh attached to it, can't remember how many houses he owns (10), low income and middle class families are getting kicked out by Sheriff's Departments for foreclosing on their one mortgage on the one house they own in which their children have grown up because usurious banks made them pie-in-the-sky no-money-down, low interest loans that then turned into crushing debts within months of ownership.
And it's accepted that these people with the least amount of money and power are the ones who are to be blamed for bringing down the global financial market and for selling these toxic mortgage-backed securities to megabanks. And it's also accepted that we victimized taxpayers and homeowners not only should reward and encourage bad behavior by bailing out these white collar terrorists against our will but to allow the government to do it all over again.
To quote Dickens, it's the best of times and the worst of times, depending on which side of the wall and guarded gate you live on. It's also the most incredulous of times when one considers what we're willing to believe. And if Lewis Carroll were alive today, he'd realize that our political and corporate structure has made his nonsense fiction look amateurish by comparison.
Baroque Bistro, The Rocks, Sydney
I'll admit it. We ended up at Baroque Bistro lured mostly by the promise of dessert. We'd taken the selection of venues quite seriously - I'd even knocked up an online survey with a shortlist of options - and when the votes came in, the sweet tooths won with an overwhelming majority in favour of combining a bistro lunch with a patisserie finish.
Fresh baguettes
The last time I'd been here,
samedi 26 mars 2011
Saturday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said
Today's honoree: Ramona, who writes about Women and Children and the Choices we Make.
Money quote:
Money quote:
The feminist movement and Roe v. Wade, if they hadn't ever done anything else, can be credited with changing the prevailing perception that there were no choices for a person in a woman's body. The fact that the works for conceiving were built into them no longer meant that women would be forced to conceive.
That is the underlying wisdom of freedom of choice and it's what the Supreme Court saw as a constitutional right.
If, since Roe v. Wade, every child born in this country was afforded the kinds of protections necessary to ensure health and happiness, safety and well-being, the argument that a fetus must be saved at all costs might hold water.
When They Were Democrats
Via Driftglass, Mario Cuomo's 1984 Democratic National Convention keynote speech:
It's hard to add to that, but Drifty did it masterfully:
It's hard to add to that, but Drifty did it masterfully:
For all the good it will do, this is a reminder that some of us know damn -- and will never stop Saying Out Loud -- the ugly truth that you dare not ever admit in public: that the Movement you spent so many years helping to build was born corrupt and raised by monsters.
That you were warned at every step along the way that teetering on the edge of a fascist abyss with giggling, Bible-thumping sociopaths trying to shove us over the edge is exactly where your grotesque cult of Thatcher and Reagan would land us.
And now that we are all squatting in the ruins of the culture your Movement destroyed, how will you atone?
And Thomas Friedman thinks globalization is a good thing.
It's tempting to think that a disaster like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire couldn't happen today. And perhaps it couldn't, though with Teabag legislators in states like Missouri attempting to repeal child labor laws and trying to erase the history of organized labor in this country, the time may be coming when once again, workers grateful to have any kind of job at all find themselves locked in burning buildings.
When legislators cite outsourcing as being caused by labor unions demanding even basic worker protections, the working world they want to see is one that looks astonishingly like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In fact, in the nations to which American corporations are outsourcing their manufacturing, it looks EXACTLY like the events of March 25, 1911:
When legislators cite outsourcing as being caused by labor unions demanding even basic worker protections, the working world they want to see is one that looks astonishingly like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In fact, in the nations to which American corporations are outsourcing their manufacturing, it looks EXACTLY like the events of March 25, 1911:
vendredi 25 mars 2011
They had names.
If you want to know why unions, however flawed they may be, are important...if you still believe that corporations and the wealthy will, left to their own devices, act in the public good, I give you the names of one hundred and forty-six people who died one hundred years ago today at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co.:
Julia Aberstein, age 30
Lizzie Adler, age 24
Anna Altman, age 16
Anna Ardito, age 25
Becky Astrowsky, age 20
Rosie Bassino, age 31
Vincenza Belatta, age 16
Ignazia Bellotta, age unknown
Vincenza Benanti, age 22
Essie Bernstein, age 19
Jacob Bernstein, age 28
Morris Bernstein, age 19
Moses Bernstein, age unknown
Gussie Bierman, age 22
Abraham Binevitz, age 20
Rosie Brenman, age unknown
Surkah (Sarah) Brenman, age unknown
Ida Brodsky, age 16
Sarah Brodsky, age 21
Ida Brooks, age 18
Laura Brunette, age 17
Caputta, age 17
Josep Carlisi, age 31
Albina Caruso, age 20
Frances Carutto, age 17
Josie Castello, age 21
Rosie Ciritto, age unknown
Anna Cohen, age 25
Antonia Colletti, age 30
Della Costello, age unknown
Rose Crepo, age 19
Grances (Frances?) Denent, age 20
Yetta Fichtenhultz, age 18
Clara Dochman, age 19
K. Dorman, age unknown
Kalman Downic, age 24
Celia Eisenberg, age 17
Rose Feibush, age unknown
Rebecca Feibish, age 17
[?] Feltzer, age 40
Dosie Lopez Fitze, age 24
May Forrester, age 25
Jennie Franco, age 16
Tina Frank, age 17
Mary Gallo, age 23
Bertha Geib, age 25
Molly Gernstein, age 17
Celina Gittlin, age 17
Esther Goldfield, age unknown
Esther Goldstein, age unknown
Lena Goldstein, age 22
Mary Goldstein, age 11
Yetta Goldstein, age 20
Esther Gorfield, age 22
Irene Grameattassio, age 20
Esther Harris, age 21
Mary Herman, age 40
Ida Jakobowski, age unknown
[?] Kaplan, age 20
Ida Kenowitch, age 18
[?] Keober, age 30
Becky Kessler, age unknown
Jacob Klein, age 23
Sara Kupla, age unknown
Fannie Launswold, age 24
Nettie Lefkowitz, age 28
Max Lehrer, age 19
Sam Lehrer, age unknown
Kate Leone, age 14<
Rosie D. Lermack, age 19
Mary Leventhal, age 22
Jennie Levin, age 19
Abe Levine, age unknown
Max Levine, age unknown
Pauline Levine, age 19
Catherine Maltese, age unknown
Lucia Maltese, age 20
Rosalie Maltese, age 14
Maria Manara, age 27
Rose Manofsky, age 22
Michela Marciano, age 25
Minnie Mayer, age unknown
Yetta Meyers, age 19
Bettina Miale, age 21
Gaetana Midolo, age 16
Becky Nebrerer, age 19
Annie Nicholas, age 18
Michelina Nicolose, age unknown
Annie Novobritsky, age 20
Sadie Nussbaum, age 18
Julia Oberstein, age 19
Rose Oringer, age unknown
Carrie Ozzo, age 22
Annie Pack, age 18
Providenza Panno, age 48
Antonietta Pasqualicca, age 16
Ida Pearl, age 20
Jennie Pildescu, age 18
Vincenza Pinello, age 30
Jennie Poliny, age 20
Millie Prato, age 21
Becky Reivers, age unknown
Emma Rootstein, age unknown
Abraham Robinowitz, age unknown
Israel Rosen, age 17
Julia Rosen, age 35
Mrs. Leob Rosen, age 38
Yetta Rosenbaum, age 22
Jennie Rosenberg, age 21
Gussie Rosenfeld, age 22
Nettie Rosenthal, age 21
R. Rother, age 25
Theodore Rother, age 22
Sarah Sabasowitz, age 17
Sophie Salemi, age 24
Sara Saracino, age unknown
Serafina Saracino, age 25
Tessie Saracino, age 20
Gussie Schiffman, age 16
Theresa Schmidt, age 32
Ethel Schneider, age unknown
Violet Schochep, age 21
Margaret Schwartz, age unknown
Jacob Selzer, age 33
Annie Semmilio, age 30
Rosie Shapiro, age 17
Catherine Shena, age 30
Bennie Sklawer, age 25
Rosie Sorkin, age 18
[?] Spear, age unknown
[?] Sprunt, age unknown
Gussie Spunt, age 19
Annie Starr, age 30
Jennie Stein, age 18
Jennie Stellino, age 16
Jennie Stiglitz, age 33
Samuel Tabick, age 18
Clotilde Terranova, age 22
Isabella Tortorella, age 17
Mary Ullo, age 20
Meyer Utal, age 23
Freida Velakowsky, age 20
Bessie Vivlania, age 15
Annie Vovobritsky, age 20
Sally Weinduff, age 17
Rose Weiner, age 23
Sally Weintraub, age 17
Celia Weintraub, age unknown
Dora Welfowitz, age 21
Joseph Wilson, age 21
Tessie Wisner, age 27
Sonia Wisotsky, age 17
Bertha Wondross, age unknown
[?] Zeltner, age 30
What Have We Learned in a Century?
(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)
That sometimes even history's most hideous lessons are worth forgetting.
Today is the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the worst industrial accident in New York history and one that claimed the lives of 146 men, women and children.
In lieu of private unions, this is what the workers at Triangle Shirtwaist had to endure:
And a job at Triangle Shirtwaist was considered a plum job a century ago, which ought to give you an idea of how much more brutal the other sweatshops in New York City were.
By 1911, shirtwaists, or women's blouses, were beginning to go out of vogue. Adding to Triangle's problems, literally thousands of other smaller sweatshops in the garment district were making the same product for retailers. The only way for Triangle to remain competitive was to produce in massive volumes. That required draconian policies in the workplace and to put greater pressure on the workers, many of them as young as 13, to produce and meet quotas. It was a precursor of the sweatshops we saw until a few years ago on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Triangle was located at the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building in what is now Greenwich Village not too far from the Stonewall Inn. Toward the end of the working day, a fire started in a clothing bin on the 8th floor. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, Triangle's owners, had blocked all but one door to the exits and stairwells. In an eerie prescience of September 11th and the World Trade Center, this forced dozens of the panicking workers to jump for their lives from the 8th, 9th and 10th floors to avoid the fire and smoke.
The funerals for the workers were, to say the least, heavily attended, drawing tens of thousands of mourners and pro-labor activists. The disaster forever changed building codes, building inspections, workplace safety and was the major impetus behind the forming of private unions such as the International Lady Garment Workers Union.
Or were they changed forever? To prove what a career criminal he was, two years later Max Blanck was again found locking his doors during business hours and was fined a mere $20.
The owners got off scot free and even made a pile of money off the dead workers. During the criminal trial, their ambulance chasing lawyer used chicanery to discredit one of the prosecution's key witnesses and had her testimony dismissed on the grounds the city's DA had coached her. They were acquitted and even though they were found to be responsible during the civil trial in 1913 in which they were forced to pay a paltry $75 for each fatality, the insurance company paid out $60,000 over the size of the settlement, meaning they made $400 for every dead worker.
This could almost be construed as a precursor to the "Dead Peasants" insurance enjoyed for years by many leading corporations today.
A century later, Blanck's and Harris's legacy lives on in the sweatshop owners all over the world, in the lobbyists who continually bribe lawmakers and officials regarding the relaxation of workplace safety and in the Koch brothers and the Republicans they bribe and employ to remove from the latter day workplace landscape the last vestige of unions both public and private.
Such people would lay the blame for the fire squarely on the anonymous worker who'd carelessly tossed a match or lit cigarette into the bin rather than the owners who'd caused the deaths of nearly 150 innocent human beings by locking the doors because they suspected all their underpaid wage slaves to be thieves. The owners, they'd tell you, were the real victims in spite of making a profit of $325 per corpse.
Newly christened Republican Governors Scott Walker (WI), Rick Scott (F), John Kasich (OH), Rick Snyder (MI), Chris Christie (NJ) and others would tell you that it isn't the grasping, rapacious corporations that are at fault but public unions, relegating public union workers who often put their very lives on the line on our behalf to the status of welfare queens for wanting and getting affordable health care and an actual pension.
Many of these freshman Republican Governors were backed by a criminally clueless Tea Party that plainly didn't know what it was backing. Scott Walker, for instance, never, ever campaigned on a platform for stripping collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin public workers (save for the police and firefighters who'd supported him). Considering several of these candidates were bankrolled in part by the Koch brothers and that some of them (such as Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Indiana's two-term Governor Mitch Daniels) come from a corporate background, it's hard to see where else their administrations would've gone if not against the public unions.
This suspiciously coordinated attack on unions has a manifold purpose: To strip power from public workers, to outsource to private and costly corporations the duties and functions no longer budgeted for and to strip labor of its money and political power (In short: Defeat the black guy in 2012.).
It doesn't matter that stripping such rights away from public unions already willing to negotiate in some misplaced good faith with Republican policy-makers would not impact on any state budget such as Wisconsin's. This is now a national movement that has gained much more traction than that for recall elections for Republicans who are bound and determined to catapult us back in the days of the robber barons who never gave a thought to their workers' safety and even profited handsomely from their gruesome deaths.
Across Greenwich Village near Christopher Street sits the Stonewall Inn, another place of invaluable historical importance. 42 years ago this July, a riot erupted between gay patrons and straight activists and the NYPD, providing the gay rights movement with its first crucial pillar that led to the legalization of gay marriage in what is now five states.
But as with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire a century ago today, there are factions that are hell-bent to take away those hardwon rights that are just as zealously determined to take America back to the 19th century when gay men and women could be murdered, beaten and persecuted with impunity.
Religious and ideological conservatism and corporate greed and callousness are sicknesses of the human spirit and no lesson, no matter how hideously instructive, retains its force against such cancers of the human soul.
This Is Why We Fight
On the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, even the rabidly pro-business Wall Street Journal is circumspect.New Yorkers are marking the 100th anniversary of the worst industrial accident in city history — the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist fire — with a ceremony at the site where 146 garment workers died.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer will be among the speakers at Friday's ceremony honoring the workers who died March 25, 1911.
Family members of victims and survivors will also participate in the commemoration in Greenwich Village.
The victims of the Triangle fire were mainly young immigrant women. Many of them jumped to their deaths to escape the flames.
The fire galvanized the labor movement and prompted many improvements in fire safety, such as laws mandating fire drills.
Dozens of events commemorating the fire are taking place around the U.S.
...but not very. That's just about as little as one could say without ignoring the tragedy altogether. No matter: memorials are planned for this morning and evening.
If you have any doubts about the labor protests occurring every day in the US now, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is what happens when business goes unregulated and workers go unprotected. If you think it couldn't happen again, you are dead wrong. The Triangle fire is no isolated event. As recently as December 2010, history repeated in a GAP clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh: locked doors, unsafe conditions, no fire escapes, people leaping from windows to avoid flames and 27 people died. As the article states, a sweater factory fire the previous February killed 21 and history will repeat wherever business prevents workers from organizing for safety and decent wages and hours. Collective bargaining is our right and the only path to a better future for working class people.
jeudi 24 mars 2011
Au Lac Vegetarian Restaurant, Dickson, Canberra
It looks like roast duck, doesn't it? We lean in closer and admire the golden crackle of thin crisp skin, marvelling at its beauty, because guess what, this dish is completely vegetarian.
I'd been drawn to Au Lac not just for its entirely vegetarian Vietnamese menu, but for its reputation at creating mock meat dishes. The idea of vegetarians eating mock meat may sound a little ironic but
Want to support a REAL Democrat?
It's never fun going into a room full of people you don't know, especially when you still carry baggage from high school 30+ years later, when you just assumed that everyone would think you're a fat, weird, geek. But when I attended my first Meetup to support Howard Dean in 2004, I was helped to feel welcome by Jeff Gardner, a young progressive activist from northern New Jersey. After nearly a decade of issue and electoral activism -- and wresting control of his home town's council from control of the corrupt hacks who ran it, Jeff is now running for state Senate in New Jersey's 35th district.
If change must be made from the ground up, Jeff's efforts are a roadmap for taking the entire Democratic Party back from the money-laden handshakes that dominate politics from local up to national; from those who would do the bidding of those who write six-figure checks instead of those writing twenty-five dollar checks.
I know Jeff as an activist -- and the real deal. But since I'm pressed for time this morning, I'll let Howie Klein make the case:
There's a money bomb for Jeff today. It's not my district, alas, but I'm donating anyway. Can you?
If change must be made from the ground up, Jeff's efforts are a roadmap for taking the entire Democratic Party back from the money-laden handshakes that dominate politics from local up to national; from those who would do the bidding of those who write six-figure checks instead of those writing twenty-five dollar checks.
I know Jeff as an activist -- and the real deal. But since I'm pressed for time this morning, I'll let Howie Klein make the case:
Blue America rarely reaches out to help candidates raise money in local legislative races. We do make exceptions for exceptional candidates and we have one for you today: Jeff Gardner of New Jersey, who's in a primary race against a corrupt incumbent drowning in a sewer scandal, John Girgenti, the Majority Whip, best known as the New Jersey legislator who killed marriage equality. With vicious homophobes like Girgenti leading the Democrats... who needs Republicans!
Jeff Gardner made a name for himself as an advocate for marriage equality, and he's much more than that. As a fourteen-year veteran attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, he's been fighting to protect workers, making sure union members are guaranteed their rights in the workplace. As an early organizer for Democracy for America, he pushed Democratic candidates up and down the ballot to champion progressive policies and push for common sense solutions. He's a real Democrat who is itching to fight for the issues important to all of us.Whether it's protecting women's access to family planning services or fighting for marriage equality, Jeff will never back down from a fight. He's going to stand up for what he believes in, which means standing behind progressive policies that too many Democrats run away from.
We need to support the very best Democrats at every level of government, not just in Washington. The battles in Wisconsin and Ohio highlight the need for strong progressive leaders in traditionally Democratic-leaning state governments. We can't afford to put collective bargaining rights at risk. We can't let the radical right take away a woman's right to choose. Most importantly, we need Democrats who are going to fight for us. I hope you can join us in making sure Jeff has all the resources necessary to take down this entrenched incumbent in the Democratic primary in June. He's our newest addition to the Blue America PAC and he'll be joining us for a live session 11a PDT/2p EDT at Crooks and Liars on Thursday.
There's a money bomb for Jeff today. It's not my district, alas, but I'm donating anyway. Can you?
Dispatch from the American Theocracy
The relentless march of the Christian Taliban continues:
Out in South Dakota, you can't legally kill abortion providers yet, but if you want an abortion, you have to listen to proseletyzing and conversion attempts before you can get one:
And in Texas, they want to ban discrimination against people who believe that a giant man in the sky created the earth and everything in it in six days and then on the seventh day sat on the couch with the remote getting corn chip crumbs all over the carpet (just kidding about the second part):
America: continuing it's relentless march into the 15th century.
Out in South Dakota, you can't legally kill abortion providers yet, but if you want an abortion, you have to listen to proseletyzing and conversion attempts before you can get one:
In our new era of relentless, abusive laws aimed at curtailing women’s reproductive rights, it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd, but South Dakota managed to do just that on Tuesday, when Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed into law a bill requiring a three-day waiting period -- the longest waiting period in the nation -- for any woman seeking abortion.But even that is not what makes this law stand out. That honor goes to the requirement that women seeking abortion must go to a crisis pregnancy center, to submit to a lecture on the supposed evils of abortion; a lecture that will almost surely include misinformation on the dangers of abortion. In passing this law, South Dakota hit a triple, attacking reproductive rights, privacy rights and religious freedom with one law aimed at the single abortion clinic left in the entire state of South Dakota.
That the anti-choice movement is mostly a Christianist movement bent on imposing its religious beliefs on the public at large is one of the most under-discussed aspects of the abortion debate. This law should highlight the theocratic underpinnings of the anti-choice movement. Most and probably all crisis pregnancy centers are religious organizations that object to abortion because it conflicts with their religious dogma about female sexuality, women’s roles, and their belief about when the soul enters the body. Requiring women to sit through a lecture on Christian ethics about sexuality before getting an abortion should be a clear-cut case of a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, even if the crisis pregnancy centers are careful to avoid saying the word “Jesus” too much.
And in Texas, they want to ban discrimination against people who believe that a giant man in the sky created the earth and everything in it in six days and then on the seventh day sat on the couch with the remote getting corn chip crumbs all over the carpet (just kidding about the second part):
Unlike many other states, Texas does not ban workplace discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status. But don't be alarmed; the Lone Star State is working on that whole civil liberties thing. Last week, Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler introduced HB 2454, a bill that would establish new workplace protections for proponents of intelligent design. Here's the key part:
An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.
America: continuing it's relentless march into the 15th century.
mercredi 23 mars 2011
film tachlhite botbo9alte ou boutboukalte vol 2
Histoire de Harry Houdini le Roi de l'évasion
Il commence sa carrière comme magicien dans les foires,
accompagné de son frère Théodore, dont le nom d'artiste est Théo Hardeen
En 1893, il rencontre sa femme Wilhelmina Béatrice Rahner Bess Raymond , qu'il surnomme Bessie. Elle rejoint le duo Houdini et ils se marient la même année.
Avant de devenir célèbre il est le compagnon de tournée des Trois Keaton dans un « Medecine show ». Le troisième Keaton est Joseph Frank « Buster » Keaton et ce dernier tient son nom de Houdini lui-même. Après une chute du jeune garçon, Houdini s'écria « What a Buster » et le nom resta.
Ses meilleurs tours consistent à s'évader d'une malle remplie d'eau, fermée et enchaînée, ou d'un bidon en métal.
Au moment où naît le spiritisme, il cherche à démasquer les médiums en parcourant le pays, en exposant publiquement les trucs d'illusionnistes qu'ils utilisent. Il présente les résultats de ses enquêtes dans des ouvrages tel que Miracle Mongers and their Methods ou encore A Magician Among the Spirits. Il sera impliqué dans le débat scientifique avec les tenants de la métapsychique concernant la question de savoir si certains médiums auraient d'authentiques dons paranormaux ou si tout peut au contraire s'expliquer par ce qui est aujourd'hui qualifié de mentalisme. Harry Houdini est encore aujourd'hui un modèle pour d'autres magiciens impliqués dans le scepticisme scientifique, tel que par exemple James Randi ou encore Gérard Majax.
Cette activité lui coûte l'amitié de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, le créateur de Sherlock Holmes. Après la mort de sa femme et de certains de ses proches, Conan Doyle s'était mis à croire au spiritisme, ainsi que dans l'existence des fées. Il croyait ainsi que Houdini possédait de véritables pouvoirs paranormaux, qu'il utilisait pour bloquer ceux des médiums qu'il confondait. Bien qu'Houdini insistât sur le fait que les médiums spiritualistes utilisaient des supercheries et en révéla continuellement les tricheries , Conan Doyle se convainquit qu'Houdini possédait lui-même des pouvoirs supranaturels il exprime ce point de vue dans son livre Les Frontières de l'inconnu .
Cette activité de démystification des médiums lui permet d'accroître sa notoriété. Il garde secrètes ses meilleures astuces mais prend le soin de montrer qu'il y a toujours un truc dans ses tours, accessibles au commun des mortels, tout en recommandant au public non entraîné de ne pas les tenter vu le danger qu'ils représentent.
la video :
En 1908, il publie le livre The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin Robert-Houdin démasqué où il s’attaque violemment à la réputation de Robert-Houdin, minimisant la révolution de la prestidigitation que celui-ci aurait apportée. La justification de cette attaque est toujours discutée entre les magiciens eux-mêmes : Houdini voulait avoir la réputation du plus grand magicien de tous les temps, et cela l’amena à des imprudences. Il affirmait par exemple pouvoir comprendre n’importe quel tour de prestidigitation s’il le voyait faire trois fois. Dai Vernon, qui fut consacré plus tard comme étant une des plus grandes figures de la prestidigitation, lui présenta un tour sept ou huit fois, et Houdini dut s’avouer vaincu : Vernon en profita pour ajouter dans ses publicités : « The Man Who Fooled Houdini », l’homme qui a trompé Houdini.
Cela donne une idée de la réputation immense qu’Houdini avait à cette époque.
En 1920, le grand Harry Houdini a joué dans The Master Mystery, de Harry Grossman et Burton L. King : une série de 15 épisodes qui introduit l'un des premiers robots à l'écran. En fait, il s'avère en fin de compte que c'est un homme qui se fait appeler « l'automate » et court dans un costume de robot.
Il est aussi le héros et coscénariste de L'Homme de l'au-delà, film de Burton L. King, en 1922.
The final indignity
Those who are regular readers of this blog are well aware that I am a big, blubbery sucker for Teh Cute and Fuzzy, and like many people worldwide, was captivated by Knut, the little polar bear cub in the Berlin Zoo who was being hand-reared after being rejected by his mother.
I'm not sure why, in the aftermath of Knut's untimely death at the young age of four, this story haunts me the way it does. Maybe I'm just exhausted (which I am), but in an age when so many things seem so futile, Knut's story is starting to seem like just another adventure in futility.
It was bad enough when Knut's handler, zookeeper Thomas Doerflein had to break away from his young charge because beyond a certain point, a polar bear, even one who which one is as closely bonded as these two were, can cause some serious damage. But when Doerflein died suddenly shortly thereafter from a heart attack, it was the first sign that Knut's story was a star-crossed one as much as a star turn.
In the two years since then, there have been intermittent reports that Knut simply could not adjust to being a polar bear. Just like a human child star, he seemed to become addicted to fame, needing an audience 24 x 7. If we anthropomorphized this bear, it's because he seemed almost human at times. We ascribed a feeling of abandonment to him just as we would feel if abandoned by the only person who ever meant anything to us. Whether he actually felt this sense of abandonment we can only guess. His would-be beary romance with a female polar bear borrowed from the Munich zoo came to nothing, and when recently the zoo put him together with his mother and two other female bears, reports said he was being "bullied" by them. Too big and dangerous to be with humans, unable to fit in with his own kind, with his "Papi" inexplicably gone, it's easy to understand how Knut Agonistes resonates with all of us who have ever in our lives felt lonely or abandoned or simply that we did not fit in.
There seems something so cruel now about the videos of the adorable fluffball and his human companion that remain on YouTube in perpetuity, now that we know that Knut was a product of a certain amount of inbreeding, with another bear in his lineage dying in a very similar way. There was always the possibility that Knut and the other cub delivered by former circus bear Tosca were rejected because there was something wrong with them. Animals have a sense for this.
Back in the early 1980's, not long after Mr. Brilliant and I moved in together, a stray cat took up residence under the porch and a while later delivered a litter of kittens. We knew about the litter because we found one of them by the trash cans. After consulting with the local animal shelter, we laid in a supply of KMR formula, tiny nursing bottles, and cotton balls, and proceeded to care for this kitten whose eyes were open but couldn't have been more than a week old. We were told that as long as her eyes were open already, she would have gotten some immunity from her mother and that it was worth trying to save her. Mr. Brilliant trotted off to work with a cat carrier so he could feed the little thing every two hours. This did not endear him to his employers, so after a few weeks we had to enlist the help of the shelter to find the little kitten a new foster home.
The kitten, named China at the shelter, died at the age of four months from Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Apparently she didn't have that immunity after all. There was obviously a reason the momcat ejected her from the nest under the porch.
Preliminary reports from the autopsy of Knut shows what's being called "brain damage." Whether it's a birth defect, a result of the seizure he appears to have had before falling in the water and perhaps drowning, or something else, it's becoming clear that perhaps Tosca knew what she was doing. All of which begs the question: Was it really all worth it? Is the reason so many of us find ourselves getting blubbery at the thought of the short, largely unhappy life of Knut because what seemed like a lovely, sweet story of life triumphant and the bond between man and animal has had such an ugly, sad, and futile-seeming end? Did Thomas Doerflein essentially give his life for what turned out to be something so pointless other than to provide the Berlin zoo with a revenue stream?
It's hard to fault the zoo for wanting to save two cubs from an endangered species. It's hard to fault the zoo for realizing that this adorable, charismatic little bear and his handler meant needed revenue for maintenance and improvement of the zoo. We can second guess endlessly, but Monday morning quarterbacking is easy -- and pointless.
But this just seems wrong:
What captivated people about Knut wasn't just the fur or the black button eyes. It was the expression in those eyes, the light in them, the trademark "wave". It seems that even in death, Knut cannot escape exploitation.
It's enough to make one hope that the Rainbow Bridge story that's meant to comfort us when we lose a pet is really true.
I'm not sure why, in the aftermath of Knut's untimely death at the young age of four, this story haunts me the way it does. Maybe I'm just exhausted (which I am), but in an age when so many things seem so futile, Knut's story is starting to seem like just another adventure in futility.
It was bad enough when Knut's handler, zookeeper Thomas Doerflein had to break away from his young charge because beyond a certain point, a polar bear, even one who which one is as closely bonded as these two were, can cause some serious damage. But when Doerflein died suddenly shortly thereafter from a heart attack, it was the first sign that Knut's story was a star-crossed one as much as a star turn.
In the two years since then, there have been intermittent reports that Knut simply could not adjust to being a polar bear. Just like a human child star, he seemed to become addicted to fame, needing an audience 24 x 7. If we anthropomorphized this bear, it's because he seemed almost human at times. We ascribed a feeling of abandonment to him just as we would feel if abandoned by the only person who ever meant anything to us. Whether he actually felt this sense of abandonment we can only guess. His would-be beary romance with a female polar bear borrowed from the Munich zoo came to nothing, and when recently the zoo put him together with his mother and two other female bears, reports said he was being "bullied" by them. Too big and dangerous to be with humans, unable to fit in with his own kind, with his "Papi" inexplicably gone, it's easy to understand how Knut Agonistes resonates with all of us who have ever in our lives felt lonely or abandoned or simply that we did not fit in.
There seems something so cruel now about the videos of the adorable fluffball and his human companion that remain on YouTube in perpetuity, now that we know that Knut was a product of a certain amount of inbreeding, with another bear in his lineage dying in a very similar way. There was always the possibility that Knut and the other cub delivered by former circus bear Tosca were rejected because there was something wrong with them. Animals have a sense for this.
Back in the early 1980's, not long after Mr. Brilliant and I moved in together, a stray cat took up residence under the porch and a while later delivered a litter of kittens. We knew about the litter because we found one of them by the trash cans. After consulting with the local animal shelter, we laid in a supply of KMR formula, tiny nursing bottles, and cotton balls, and proceeded to care for this kitten whose eyes were open but couldn't have been more than a week old. We were told that as long as her eyes were open already, she would have gotten some immunity from her mother and that it was worth trying to save her. Mr. Brilliant trotted off to work with a cat carrier so he could feed the little thing every two hours. This did not endear him to his employers, so after a few weeks we had to enlist the help of the shelter to find the little kitten a new foster home.
The kitten, named China at the shelter, died at the age of four months from Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Apparently she didn't have that immunity after all. There was obviously a reason the momcat ejected her from the nest under the porch.
Preliminary reports from the autopsy of Knut shows what's being called "brain damage." Whether it's a birth defect, a result of the seizure he appears to have had before falling in the water and perhaps drowning, or something else, it's becoming clear that perhaps Tosca knew what she was doing. All of which begs the question: Was it really all worth it? Is the reason so many of us find ourselves getting blubbery at the thought of the short, largely unhappy life of Knut because what seemed like a lovely, sweet story of life triumphant and the bond between man and animal has had such an ugly, sad, and futile-seeming end? Did Thomas Doerflein essentially give his life for what turned out to be something so pointless other than to provide the Berlin zoo with a revenue stream?
It's hard to fault the zoo for wanting to save two cubs from an endangered species. It's hard to fault the zoo for realizing that this adorable, charismatic little bear and his handler meant needed revenue for maintenance and improvement of the zoo. We can second guess endlessly, but Monday morning quarterbacking is easy -- and pointless.
But this just seems wrong:
Knut, the Berlin polar bear who rose to fame after his mother abandoned him to be hand-reared by zookeepers, may be stuffed and exhibited in the city’s Natural History Museum after his premature death, the museum said.
Knut collapsed and died in his enclosure on March 19 at the age of four. Zoologischer Garten Berlin (ZOO) AG said yesterday in a statement on its website that an initial examination of his corpse showed brain abnormalities that may be the reason for his sudden demise. Many fans would welcome the chance to visit a stuffed Knut at the museum, bearkeeper Heiner Kloes told Radio Berlin Brandenburg today.
What captivated people about Knut wasn't just the fur or the black button eyes. It was the expression in those eyes, the light in them, the trademark "wave". It seems that even in death, Knut cannot escape exploitation.
It's enough to make one hope that the Rainbow Bridge story that's meant to comfort us when we lose a pet is really true.
To the Shores of Baghdad Tripoli
On the 6th of this month, I warned that the president was fucking up big time and not being proactive enough against the world's dictators. But it seems as if he's swung to the other extreme and had never once considered diplomacy in the Protean transition from impartial onlooker to primary military aggressor.
I know, I know. Gadhaffi's nuttier than a squirrel turd but you have to at least make the diplomatic effort so you can legitimately reach further toward the center of the table and use military might.
Still, one doesn't have to squint to see the disturbing similarities between Iraq and Libya: A clearly insane strongman of an oil-rich nation who'd been in power for decades who nonetheless was no longer a threat to us and being bombed by a "coalition" that just happens to be led by US fighter jets, the bombing starting on March 19, of all days, with the British playing a hyped cameo role but a cameo role nonetheless.
The only thing that's missing is support from the president's opposing party and outrage from the so-called leftists who are bound and determined to support Obama no matter what he does just as surely as Republicans will condemn him no matter what.
So far, we haven't lost anyone, although a fighter jet recently went down with little fanfare.
I'll leave the infinitely complex geopolitical ramifications to the wonks like Juan Cole and Nick Kristoff. My "job" is to give a citizen's worm's eye view of what's going on around us and this stinks to high heaven, plain and simple. As Jon Stewart pointed out, we already have two wars on our plates and this isn't like paying attention to the baby war because the older ones can take care of themselves.
One could make a case, as Michael Moore recently had, that revolutions are supposed to be won by the indigenous people, without outside interference. Yet as noble a narrative as that is, Moore seems to forget that that's not exactly how we'd achieved our own independence from the British.
The one question no one seems to be asking is, "Why Libya?"
Libya was a relative newcomer to the unrest in the Arab world, suffering serious fallout from the violent regime change in Tunisia and Egypt. In fact, not one regime in the Middle East has been toppled while every Arab country in northern Africa with an unpopular leader has been unceremoniously thrown through the palace gates.
Save for Gadhaffi. Ah, Daffy, the Michael Jackson of dictators, a guy whom we'd all but forgotten if not forgiven for his past acts of terrorism against Americans. Now suddenly, removing Gadhaffi is the most important thing on our agenda. Not balancing the budget, not creating jobs, not getting us the fuck out of Afghanistan and Iraq, not helping the Japanese with their even graver crisis, not pressuring the terrorist Israelis for their criminally under-reported bombing of the Gaza Strip...
It's removing an old potato-faced madman well past his prime and dresses in clothes that look as if they were ransacked from the Three Stooges' wardrobe.
Here's another question no one is asking: Did anyone ask the Libyans what they thought of our interference, especially the ones that killed our troops in Iraq before scuttling back to Libya?
And, as always, no matter who's sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, you can always count on some frustrated poet at the Pentagon to dream up stupid titles such as "Operation Odyssey Dawn."
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)