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?

-Pinkomag.com

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. 

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.

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.

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:

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?

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!

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.”

There are a range of “reality tours” and “activist” histories out there, but those are self-selecting. You have to be a certain kind of person to take the Global Exchange Reality tour to Cuba, or go on Kensington Welfare Rights Union’s “truth” tour of impoverished slums and police brutality hotspots in Philly. But the Howling Mob Society puts their message out there where anyone could come across it; where school kids, still forming their ideas of what dissent and activism mean, might actually learn that the labor rights movement in the 1870’s wasn’t a pain in the ass — it was necessary, or at least reasonable. Better yet, they do it with fun and some anachronistic flair.

The last time I was in Pittsburgh I was there on a train layover; my friend Sienna and I went to the usual attractions near an Amtrak station: two strip clubs, a gay bar, a naughty bookstore, a bad art installation, and a diner. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. But it’s exciting to know what HMS is doing; I’m sure there are similar efforts elsewhere.

The official marker may tell us that property was lost — thankfully there is a feisty band there to remind us that jobs and lives were lost too, and that something important was at stake in the protests.