Holy shit, blimps!
Is there any single brand in the world more fucked by one incident than blimps are by the Hindenberg crash? Planes survive hijackings and explosions, cruise ships survived the Titanic, but this morning I read this bit in the Times about how blimps (”airships”) are making a comeback because of rising fuel costs and concerns about global warming (the carbon footprint of a blimp is minimal compared to a plane, apparently) and the first thing I thought was, Hindenberg. Would you fly on a blimp?
Also, we may be a little slow this weekend. I’m in Western Mass (though I’m about to go to an “Indigenous Items” flea market though which I imagine will give me an item or two) and it’s the holiday but we’ll be back in force on Monday. Also, it’s time for a new “gay marry/abort” hot/not list. Any nominations?
Happy 4th of July Kids…
Have fun with the fireworks. Try not to blow any fingers off.
-Pinkomag.com
This hippo lives in this house.
Amazing.
Political prisoner is rescued, has hot son.
My dear friend Margot has written a beautiful radio play in progress about Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian politician who was kidnapped in 2002. Accordingly, I’ve followed the case and yesterday the unthinkable happened: Betancourt was rescued, alive. This is incredible news and very unexpected: These situations usually don’t end well but Betancourt is alive and well and poised to bring about real political change in South America.
Also? Her son is HELLA FINE. More photos after the jump.
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The best defense is a good offense. And by offense, we mean self-inflicted wound.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court struck down the DC handgun ban as unconstitutional. The basis for this ruling is the interpretation that handgun ownership is justifiable for the purpose of “self-defense.” On the heels of this ruling, a CNN report cited statistics that 55% of the 31,000 gun deaths that occurred in 2005 (the most recent data) were suicides. This statistic also accounts for 52.1% of total suicides, according to the American Association of Suicidology.
The long and short of it is that for every dozen or so people who utilize the lethal capabilities of a firearm to successfully defend themselves, about 17,000 people turn the guns on themselves. And another 789 die doing the fake-suicide spoof, or dropping their pants, or cleaning guns while drunk, or hunting without orange hats, etc., etc. Way to defend yourselves, America!
In other news, I’ve recently purchase an auto insurance policy that only covers me if I am lying in the middle of the interstate.
Not even close…
I just wanted to drop a quick note and tell you that Paul Hogarth has a great piece up on Huffington Post right now. The piece is about the media continuing to project the myth that the presidential race is close.
Women and Latinos who supported Hillary Clinton are flocking to Obama, despite the narrative that Democrats are “divided.” State-by-state polls consistently show Obama on his way to surpassing 270 electoral votes — with hints that November could become a rout.
Definitely worth checking out.
Paul is a habitual commenter here, and a general friend to Pinko, so it’s nice to see him makin’ it big on the internets.
This is the greatest thing ever.
I don’t know how much time you spend thinking about Hummus, but I spend lots. Most of those wistful, longing daydreams are for Sabra brand hummus, which is so inexplicably good that there must be something in it. MSG? I don’t know. I didn’t eat it for awhile because a friend told me it was bad or something — like, the company was oppressing someone somewhere (Palestine maybe?) but I looked into it and as far as I can tell, my friend was mistaken.
I don’t know how much time you send thinking about Barack Obama, but I spend lots. Clearly (up until this week at least) I love him almost as much as Sabra brand hummus. If you had told me “Ben: Would you like it if someone made a sculpture of Barack Obama’s head made out of Sabra hummus?” I never would have dreamed it was possible. But yesterday my remarkable friend Rupa was at a food expo in New York and put me on to this:
Jesus Christ what TERRIBLE people.
Holy shit. So these two cousins in Louisiana, Hue and Cindy Vo, were co-valedictorians in their graduating class and they got to make a speech. They talked about their memories of high school, their friends, etc. Then because her parents don’t speak very good English, Cindy added a line in their native Vietnamese as a thank you/tribute to her parents. The line, roughly translated: “Vietnam will rise up and kill Louisianans” “always be your own person.”
The reaction to this shocking act of hate speech: Louisiana officials are considering a rule mandating English-only commencement speeches in all public schools. English only. Because the valedictorian said one fucking line in Vietnamese to honor her parents. How fucked up is that?
Pulling Rank
This weekend Wesley Clark caused a bit of an uproar when he questioned whether John McCain’s time spent as a prisoner of war really counted as foreign policy experience. McCain’s camp responded angrily. How dare Wesley Clark question the judgment of a war hero?
It’s true that John McCain was once subjected to unthinkable torture advanced interrogation techniques. However, since this is now the kind of thing that McCain approves of using on our “enemies”, I am far less inclined to be sympathetic towards him.
Also, on issues of defense, I am much more willing to listen to Wesley Clark, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander who spent 34 years in the Army, and has a fucking Masters in military science from the Command and General Staff College, over the words of a former Navy Captain who’s greatest military accomplishment appears to be a chronic inability to keep his plane in the air. (Before ever going to Vietnam McCain crashed his plane twice and once even collided with power lines.)
The point here is not to question John McCain’s military service. The point is that as an argument for his judgment and preparedness to lead our nation, his being a “war hero” is an unreliable, even misleading metric. John McCain may have served our nation to the best of his ability (and suffered horrific consequence as a result) but this should not give him carte blanche to spend four more years inflicting horrific wounds on the men, women and children suffering daily from George W. Bush’s failed foreign policy.
Update: McCain’s campaign is now playing defense and has set up a “McCain Truth Squad” to combat stories like, well… like this one I guess.
Late Update: That was fast… Like a fucking idiot, Obama has distanced himself from Clark, therby giving McCain yet another free pass. We’re still trying to win this thing, right?
“As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton says in a statement.
Late Late Update: TPM points out that McCain’s point man on the “Clark Flap” is non-other than Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s own Bud Day! Maybe Obama’s people should have taken a second to do some fucking research before throwing Clark under the bus?
Super late update that should seriously just be a new post or something: In a statement tonight Wesley Clark issued an apology. Just kidding.
“…John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn’t include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn’t have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn’t have sound judgment when it comes to our nation’s most critical issues.”
Apology? Come on! This is Wesley Fucking Clark we are talking about! This guy wears a turtleneck under a blazer in the middle of the summer and he could STILL kick the crap out of your dad!
Re-writing history, the right way.
In the Summer of 1877, the economy had gone south. Brakesmen and B & O Railroad workers pulling 72-hour weeks saw their wages cut 10-20%, while the railroad barons took home massive bonuses. (Sound familiar?) That summer the tension came to a head in Pittsburgh, where a serious strike went down:
When the outrage took hold in Pittsburgh, it ignited a popular uprising of workingmen, families and neighbors alike. Common citizens stopped train services, burned railroad property and looted freight cars. It was an anti-corporate gesture of unimaginable proportions. The events of 1877 marked the first time that the National Guard was called upon to defend privately owned property against an unsympathetic populace.
It was a remarkable uprising for the workers movement in America, and it made an impact. But in the history of Pittsburgh, the strike is not memorialized objectively. The historical markers commemorating the event all note the “violence,” the damage to property, and the mayhem, while most of the City’s official history characterizes the protests the same way: as a pain the ass. One of the most insidious things about history is the characterization of activism as trouble; protest as a problem; activists/workers/strikers as troublemakers. I remember the bizarre media coverage of the A-20/April2000 protests (the followup to the WTO in Seattle) where the local DC media focused entirely on the impact the protesters would have on the afternoon commute. It was strange, but the message was clear: protest and dissent are a nuisance.
In that spirit, I was thrilled when my roommate Matthew came home from the Allied Media Conference and told me about a worskshop he’d seen, featuring the “Howling Mob Society” in Pittsburgh. In a nutshell, the current project of the Howling Mob Society is to expose the other side of the 1877 protests, creating historical markers, street signs and a map that detail the events of 1877 from the perspective of the workers — who took to the streets, wages and benefits slashed, to demand a better deal. From their website, “the Howling Mob Society (HMS) is a collaboration of artists, activists and historians committed to unearthing stories neglected by mainstream history. HMS brings increased visibility to the radical history of Pittsburgh, PA through grassroots artistic practice.”
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