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October 7, 2013
from truthdig:
The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
Posted on Oct 6, 2013
By Chris Hedges
There is a desire felt by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment, radically diminish the role of government to create a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and force a recalcitrant world to bend to the will of an imperial and “Christian” America. Its public face is on display in the House of Representatives. This ideology, which is the driving force behind the shutdown of the government, calls for the eradication of social “deviants,” beginning with gay men and lesbians, whose sexual orientation, those in the movement say, is a curse and an illness, contaminating the American family and the country. Once these “deviants” are removed, other “deviants,” including Muslims, liberals, feminists, intellectuals, left-wing activists, undocumented workers, poor African-Americans and those dismissed as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible—will also be ruthlessly repressed. The “deviant” government bureaucrats, the “deviant” media, the “deviant” schools and the “deviant” churches, all agents of Satan, will be crushed or radically reformed. The rights of these “deviants” will be annulled. “Christian values” and “family values” will, in the new state, be propagated by all institutions. Education and social welfare will be handed over to the church. Facts and self-criticism will be replaced with relentless indoctrination.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz—whose father is Rafael Cruz, a rabid right-wing Christian preacher and the director of the Purifying Fire International ministry—and legions of the senator’s wealthy supporters, some of whom orchestrated the shutdown, are rooted in a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it—its leaders champion small government and a large military, as if the military is not part of government—and its laughable pseudoscience are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.
The cult of masculinity, as in all fascist movements, pervades the ideology of the Christian right. The movement uses religion to sanctify military and heroic “virtues,” glorify blind obedience and order over reason and conscience, and pander to the euphoria of collective emotions. Feminism and homosexuality, believers are told, have rendered the American male physically and spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling the Antichrist, attacking hypocrites and ultimately slaying nonbelievers. This cult of masculinity, with its glorification of violence, is appealing to the powerless. It stokes the anger of many Americans, mostly white and economically disadvantaged, and encourages them to lash back at those who, they are told, seek to destroy them. The paranoia about the outside world is fostered by bizarre conspiracy theories, many of which are prominent in the rhetoric of those leading the government shutdown. Believers, especially now, are called to a perpetual state of war with the “secular humanist” state. The march, they believe, is irreversible. Global war, even nuclear war, is the joyful harbinger of the Second Coming. And leading the avenging armies is an angry, violent Messiah who dooms billions of apostates to death.
“What we have here is our core values as Americans and Christians slipping away into this facade where we should take care of our poor, sick, and disabled,” Ted Cruz said in the Senate last month during a 21-hour speech that he gave in an attempt to block the funding of Obamacare. “It is disheartening to know that the nation our forefathers built is no longer of importance to our president and his Democratic counterparts. Not only that, we are falling away from core Christian values. I don’t know about you, but I believe in the Jesus who died to save himself, not enable lazy followers to be dependent on him. He didn’t walk around all willy-nilly just passing out free health care to those who were sick, or food to those who were hungry, or clothes to those in need. No, he said get up, brush yourself off, go into town and get a job, and as he hung on the cross he said, ‘I died so that I may live in eternity with my Father. If you want to join us you can die for yourself and your own sins. What do I look like, your savior or something?’ That’s the Jesus I want to see brought back into our core values as a nation. That’s why we need to repeal Obamacare.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_radical_christian_right_and_the_war_on_government_20131006
Chris Hedges: The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
from truthdig:
The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
Posted on Oct 6, 2013
By Chris Hedges
There is a desire felt by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment, radically diminish the role of government to create a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and force a recalcitrant world to bend to the will of an imperial and “Christian” America. Its public face is on display in the House of Representatives. This ideology, which is the driving force behind the shutdown of the government, calls for the eradication of social “deviants,” beginning with gay men and lesbians, whose sexual orientation, those in the movement say, is a curse and an illness, contaminating the American family and the country. Once these “deviants” are removed, other “deviants,” including Muslims, liberals, feminists, intellectuals, left-wing activists, undocumented workers, poor African-Americans and those dismissed as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible—will also be ruthlessly repressed. The “deviant” government bureaucrats, the “deviant” media, the “deviant” schools and the “deviant” churches, all agents of Satan, will be crushed or radically reformed. The rights of these “deviants” will be annulled. “Christian values” and “family values” will, in the new state, be propagated by all institutions. Education and social welfare will be handed over to the church. Facts and self-criticism will be replaced with relentless indoctrination.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz—whose father is Rafael Cruz, a rabid right-wing Christian preacher and the director of the Purifying Fire International ministry—and legions of the senator’s wealthy supporters, some of whom orchestrated the shutdown, are rooted in a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it—its leaders champion small government and a large military, as if the military is not part of government—and its laughable pseudoscience are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.
The cult of masculinity, as in all fascist movements, pervades the ideology of the Christian right. The movement uses religion to sanctify military and heroic “virtues,” glorify blind obedience and order over reason and conscience, and pander to the euphoria of collective emotions. Feminism and homosexuality, believers are told, have rendered the American male physically and spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling the Antichrist, attacking hypocrites and ultimately slaying nonbelievers. This cult of masculinity, with its glorification of violence, is appealing to the powerless. It stokes the anger of many Americans, mostly white and economically disadvantaged, and encourages them to lash back at those who, they are told, seek to destroy them. The paranoia about the outside world is fostered by bizarre conspiracy theories, many of which are prominent in the rhetoric of those leading the government shutdown. Believers, especially now, are called to a perpetual state of war with the “secular humanist” state. The march, they believe, is irreversible. Global war, even nuclear war, is the joyful harbinger of the Second Coming. And leading the avenging armies is an angry, violent Messiah who dooms billions of apostates to death.
“What we have here is our core values as Americans and Christians slipping away into this facade where we should take care of our poor, sick, and disabled,” Ted Cruz said in the Senate last month during a 21-hour speech that he gave in an attempt to block the funding of Obamacare. “It is disheartening to know that the nation our forefathers built is no longer of importance to our president and his Democratic counterparts. Not only that, we are falling away from core Christian values. I don’t know about you, but I believe in the Jesus who died to save himself, not enable lazy followers to be dependent on him. He didn’t walk around all willy-nilly just passing out free health care to those who were sick, or food to those who were hungry, or clothes to those in need. No, he said get up, brush yourself off, go into town and get a job, and as he hung on the cross he said, ‘I died so that I may live in eternity with my Father. If you want to join us you can die for yourself and your own sins. What do I look like, your savior or something?’ That’s the Jesus I want to see brought back into our core values as a nation. That’s why we need to repeal Obamacare.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_radical_christian_right_and_the_war_on_government_20131006
October 7, 2013
from truthdig:
The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
Posted on Oct 6, 2013
By Chris Hedges
There is a desire felt by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment, radically diminish the role of government to create a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and force a recalcitrant world to bend to the will of an imperial and “Christian” America. Its public face is on display in the House of Representatives. This ideology, which is the driving force behind the shutdown of the government, calls for the eradication of social “deviants,” beginning with gay men and lesbians, whose sexual orientation, those in the movement say, is a curse and an illness, contaminating the American family and the country. Once these “deviants” are removed, other “deviants,” including Muslims, liberals, feminists, intellectuals, left-wing activists, undocumented workers, poor African-Americans and those dismissed as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible—will also be ruthlessly repressed. The “deviant” government bureaucrats, the “deviant” media, the “deviant” schools and the “deviant” churches, all agents of Satan, will be crushed or radically reformed. The rights of these “deviants” will be annulled. “Christian values” and “family values” will, in the new state, be propagated by all institutions. Education and social welfare will be handed over to the church. Facts and self-criticism will be replaced with relentless indoctrination.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz—whose father is Rafael Cruz, a rabid right-wing Christian preacher and the director of the Purifying Fire International ministry—and legions of the senator’s wealthy supporters, some of whom orchestrated the shutdown, are rooted in a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it—its leaders champion small government and a large military, as if the military is not part of government—and its laughable pseudoscience are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.
The cult of masculinity, as in all fascist movements, pervades the ideology of the Christian right. The movement uses religion to sanctify military and heroic “virtues,” glorify blind obedience and order over reason and conscience, and pander to the euphoria of collective emotions. Feminism and homosexuality, believers are told, have rendered the American male physically and spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling the Antichrist, attacking hypocrites and ultimately slaying nonbelievers. This cult of masculinity, with its glorification of violence, is appealing to the powerless. It stokes the anger of many Americans, mostly white and economically disadvantaged, and encourages them to lash back at those who, they are told, seek to destroy them. The paranoia about the outside world is fostered by bizarre conspiracy theories, many of which are prominent in the rhetoric of those leading the government shutdown. Believers, especially now, are called to a perpetual state of war with the “secular humanist” state. The march, they believe, is irreversible. Global war, even nuclear war, is the joyful harbinger of the Second Coming. And leading the avenging armies is an angry, violent Messiah who dooms billions of apostates to death.
“What we have here is our core values as Americans and Christians slipping away into this facade where we should take care of our poor, sick, and disabled,” Ted Cruz said in the Senate last month during a 21-hour speech that he gave in an attempt to block the funding of Obamacare. “It is disheartening to know that the nation our forefathers built is no longer of importance to our president and his Democratic counterparts. Not only that, we are falling away from core Christian values. I don’t know about you, but I believe in the Jesus who died to save himself, not enable lazy followers to be dependent on him. He didn’t walk around all willy-nilly just passing out free health care to those who were sick, or food to those who were hungry, or clothes to those in need. No, he said get up, brush yourself off, go into town and get a job, and as he hung on the cross he said, ‘I died so that I may live in eternity with my Father. If you want to join us you can die for yourself and your own sins. What do I look like, your savior or something?’ That’s the Jesus I want to see brought back into our core values as a nation. That’s why we need to repeal Obamacare.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_radical_christian_right_and_the_war_on_government_20131006
Chris Hedges: The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
from truthdig:
The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government
Posted on Oct 6, 2013
By Chris Hedges
There is a desire felt by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment, radically diminish the role of government to create a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and force a recalcitrant world to bend to the will of an imperial and “Christian” America. Its public face is on display in the House of Representatives. This ideology, which is the driving force behind the shutdown of the government, calls for the eradication of social “deviants,” beginning with gay men and lesbians, whose sexual orientation, those in the movement say, is a curse and an illness, contaminating the American family and the country. Once these “deviants” are removed, other “deviants,” including Muslims, liberals, feminists, intellectuals, left-wing activists, undocumented workers, poor African-Americans and those dismissed as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible—will also be ruthlessly repressed. The “deviant” government bureaucrats, the “deviant” media, the “deviant” schools and the “deviant” churches, all agents of Satan, will be crushed or radically reformed. The rights of these “deviants” will be annulled. “Christian values” and “family values” will, in the new state, be propagated by all institutions. Education and social welfare will be handed over to the church. Facts and self-criticism will be replaced with relentless indoctrination.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz—whose father is Rafael Cruz, a rabid right-wing Christian preacher and the director of the Purifying Fire International ministry—and legions of the senator’s wealthy supporters, some of whom orchestrated the shutdown, are rooted in a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it—its leaders champion small government and a large military, as if the military is not part of government—and its laughable pseudoscience are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.
The cult of masculinity, as in all fascist movements, pervades the ideology of the Christian right. The movement uses religion to sanctify military and heroic “virtues,” glorify blind obedience and order over reason and conscience, and pander to the euphoria of collective emotions. Feminism and homosexuality, believers are told, have rendered the American male physically and spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling the Antichrist, attacking hypocrites and ultimately slaying nonbelievers. This cult of masculinity, with its glorification of violence, is appealing to the powerless. It stokes the anger of many Americans, mostly white and economically disadvantaged, and encourages them to lash back at those who, they are told, seek to destroy them. The paranoia about the outside world is fostered by bizarre conspiracy theories, many of which are prominent in the rhetoric of those leading the government shutdown. Believers, especially now, are called to a perpetual state of war with the “secular humanist” state. The march, they believe, is irreversible. Global war, even nuclear war, is the joyful harbinger of the Second Coming. And leading the avenging armies is an angry, violent Messiah who dooms billions of apostates to death.
“What we have here is our core values as Americans and Christians slipping away into this facade where we should take care of our poor, sick, and disabled,” Ted Cruz said in the Senate last month during a 21-hour speech that he gave in an attempt to block the funding of Obamacare. “It is disheartening to know that the nation our forefathers built is no longer of importance to our president and his Democratic counterparts. Not only that, we are falling away from core Christian values. I don’t know about you, but I believe in the Jesus who died to save himself, not enable lazy followers to be dependent on him. He didn’t walk around all willy-nilly just passing out free health care to those who were sick, or food to those who were hungry, or clothes to those in need. No, he said get up, brush yourself off, go into town and get a job, and as he hung on the cross he said, ‘I died so that I may live in eternity with my Father. If you want to join us you can die for yourself and your own sins. What do I look like, your savior or something?’ That’s the Jesus I want to see brought back into our core values as a nation. That’s why we need to repeal Obamacare.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_radical_christian_right_and_the_war_on_government_20131006
October 6, 2013
Playing Chicken With Food Safety
Saturday, 05 October 2013 10:18
By Michael Winship, Moyers & Co. | Op-Ed
The other day there was this guy in a chicken suit on Pennsylvania Avenue protesting outside the White House. Silly, but the reason the chicken and other demonstrators had crossed the avenue was to deliver a petition of more than half a million names, speaking out against new rules the US Department of Agriculture wants to put into effect – bad rules that would transfer much of the work inspecting pork and chicken and turkey meat from trained government inspectors to the processing companies themselves. Talk about putting the fox in the henhouse!
The revised regulations also call for a substantial speeding up of the disassembly line along which workers use sharp knives and often painful, repetitive hand motions to cut up and clean carcasses of dirt, blood and other contaminants that can cause infection and sickness. Not only will this increase in speed – by 25 percent or more — raise the chance of injury, it makes it easier to miss anything wrong – even deadly — with the meat. To compensate for that, the rules also call for an increase in the use of antimicrobial chemicals sprayed on the meat — but those sprays may actually damage the health of the workers. Inspectors and meat packing employees report instances of asthma, burns, skin rashes, sinus trouble and other respiratory ailments, some of them severe. What’s more, when complaints were made about health or hygiene, the response from employers often came in the form of threats and reprimands.
According to the Agriculture Department, their plan will increase food safety, but early last month, the Government Accountability Office – the GAO — reported on a years-old pilot program for some of these new rules and determined that the data on which they were based was, in the words of The Washington Post, “incomplete and antiquated.” One study used data that was more than 20 years old.
The Agriculture Department says the new rules will save the Federal budget $30 million annually, but compared to the more than $256 million it will save the poultry industry every year, that’s chickenfeed. In reality, as Tom Philpott, the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jonesmagazine, succinctly put it: “…The Obama administration has been pushing a deregulatory sop to a powerful industry based on a shoddy analysis.” ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19243-playing-chicken-with-food-safety
Playing Chicken With Food Safety
Playing Chicken With Food Safety
Saturday, 05 October 2013 10:18
By Michael Winship, Moyers & Co. | Op-Ed
The other day there was this guy in a chicken suit on Pennsylvania Avenue protesting outside the White House. Silly, but the reason the chicken and other demonstrators had crossed the avenue was to deliver a petition of more than half a million names, speaking out against new rules the US Department of Agriculture wants to put into effect – bad rules that would transfer much of the work inspecting pork and chicken and turkey meat from trained government inspectors to the processing companies themselves. Talk about putting the fox in the henhouse!
The revised regulations also call for a substantial speeding up of the disassembly line along which workers use sharp knives and often painful, repetitive hand motions to cut up and clean carcasses of dirt, blood and other contaminants that can cause infection and sickness. Not only will this increase in speed – by 25 percent or more — raise the chance of injury, it makes it easier to miss anything wrong – even deadly — with the meat. To compensate for that, the rules also call for an increase in the use of antimicrobial chemicals sprayed on the meat — but those sprays may actually damage the health of the workers. Inspectors and meat packing employees report instances of asthma, burns, skin rashes, sinus trouble and other respiratory ailments, some of them severe. What’s more, when complaints were made about health or hygiene, the response from employers often came in the form of threats and reprimands.
According to the Agriculture Department, their plan will increase food safety, but early last month, the Government Accountability Office – the GAO — reported on a years-old pilot program for some of these new rules and determined that the data on which they were based was, in the words of The Washington Post, “incomplete and antiquated.” One study used data that was more than 20 years old.
The Agriculture Department says the new rules will save the Federal budget $30 million annually, but compared to the more than $256 million it will save the poultry industry every year, that’s chickenfeed. In reality, as Tom Philpott, the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jonesmagazine, succinctly put it: “…The Obama administration has been pushing a deregulatory sop to a powerful industry based on a shoddy analysis.” ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19243-playing-chicken-with-food-safety
October 6, 2013
Anatomy of Banning a Worldview
Saturday, 05 October 2013 10:14
By Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout | Opinion
I have heard authors openly complain of never having had their books banned by Arizona's Grand Inquisitors. I suppose it's a form of street cred, yet the truth is that censorship and banishment are not a badge of honor - but evidence of something very sick.
The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) book ban was part of the district's shutting down of a curriculum and a department. Even more importantly, in collusion with the state and its anti-ethnic-studies law, HB 2281, it banned a worldview, or at least attempted to do so.
That effort included the banning of books, yet it is important to understand two things. First, when the state began its assault on Tucson's highly successful Raza Studies Department, there was nothing wrong with the department, except its size: It was too small. Second, that assault was undeniably predicated on the idea, compliments of then-state Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne, that Raza studies resides outside of Western civilization.
In 1997, when the department was founded, I was co-writing a nationally syndicated weekly column with Patrisia Gonzales. Throughout the life of the department, we were in regular contact with the director and its teachers, who used our weekly columns or books as part of the curriculum. We often spoke in classrooms or conferences. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19184-anatomy-of-banning-a-worldview
Anatomy of Banning a Worldview
Anatomy of Banning a Worldview
Saturday, 05 October 2013 10:14
By Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout | Opinion
I have heard authors openly complain of never having had their books banned by Arizona's Grand Inquisitors. I suppose it's a form of street cred, yet the truth is that censorship and banishment are not a badge of honor - but evidence of something very sick.
The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) book ban was part of the district's shutting down of a curriculum and a department. Even more importantly, in collusion with the state and its anti-ethnic-studies law, HB 2281, it banned a worldview, or at least attempted to do so.
That effort included the banning of books, yet it is important to understand two things. First, when the state began its assault on Tucson's highly successful Raza Studies Department, there was nothing wrong with the department, except its size: It was too small. Second, that assault was undeniably predicated on the idea, compliments of then-state Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne, that Raza studies resides outside of Western civilization.
In 1997, when the department was founded, I was co-writing a nationally syndicated weekly column with Patrisia Gonzales. Throughout the life of the department, we were in regular contact with the director and its teachers, who used our weekly columns or books as part of the curriculum. We often spoke in classrooms or conferences. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19184-anatomy-of-banning-a-worldview
October 6, 2013
A tiger tore the arm off a woman working at an exotic animal park in Oklahoma on Saturday morning, local officials said.
Witnesses said the woman was trying to either place or remove a lock on a smaller cage that was holding the tiger at the Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, Okla., Garvin County Undersheriff Jim Mullett said in a statement.
The woman was airlifted to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City, where she is undergoing surgery, Mullett said. The incident happened at 10 a.m. Central Time, the zoo said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Park owner Joe Schreibvogel posted a statement on Facebook saying the worker "placed her hand inside an adult male tiger cage. She was wearing a large goose down jacket which got bunched up inside the cage wire not allowing her to get her hand back outside the cage wire fast enough and the tiger grabbed her hand pulling her left arm through a 4-inch square hole." ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20131006/NEWS07/310060139/Tiger-rips-off-woman-s-arm-zoo
Tiger rips off woman's arm at Oklahoma animal park
A tiger tore the arm off a woman working at an exotic animal park in Oklahoma on Saturday morning, local officials said.
Witnesses said the woman was trying to either place or remove a lock on a smaller cage that was holding the tiger at the Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, Okla., Garvin County Undersheriff Jim Mullett said in a statement.
The woman was airlifted to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City, where she is undergoing surgery, Mullett said. The incident happened at 10 a.m. Central Time, the zoo said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Park owner Joe Schreibvogel posted a statement on Facebook saying the worker "placed her hand inside an adult male tiger cage. She was wearing a large goose down jacket which got bunched up inside the cage wire not allowing her to get her hand back outside the cage wire fast enough and the tiger grabbed her hand pulling her left arm through a 4-inch square hole." ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20131006/NEWS07/310060139/Tiger-rips-off-woman-s-arm-zoo
October 5, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/man-crushed-to-death-by-g_n_4044135.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news
MADRID (AP) — Emergency services say a man has died after being crushed by grapes during the annual harvest in the central Spanish wine producing region of Castilla-La Mancha.
A local rescue service center said Friday the man was pulled out of a winery grape reception bay that he fell into the day before, just as a truck unloaded 5.5 tons (5 metric tons) of grapes ready for crushing into juice for winemaking.
Ambulance operators and firefighters tried to resuscitate the man — identified only by his initials, A.O. — but he was declared dead just before midnight Thursday.
With around 465,350 hectares (1,790 square miles) of vineyards, Castilla-La Mancha is considered to have more land dedicated to grape cultivation than any other region in the world.
Spain Man Crushed To Death By 5 Tons Of Grapes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/man-crushed-to-death-by-g_n_4044135.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news
MADRID (AP) — Emergency services say a man has died after being crushed by grapes during the annual harvest in the central Spanish wine producing region of Castilla-La Mancha.
A local rescue service center said Friday the man was pulled out of a winery grape reception bay that he fell into the day before, just as a truck unloaded 5.5 tons (5 metric tons) of grapes ready for crushing into juice for winemaking.
Ambulance operators and firefighters tried to resuscitate the man — identified only by his initials, A.O. — but he was declared dead just before midnight Thursday.
With around 465,350 hectares (1,790 square miles) of vineyards, Castilla-La Mancha is considered to have more land dedicated to grape cultivation than any other region in the world.
October 5, 2013
Hillary Clinton: It’s Not Her Turn
It’s hard to imagine a Democrat of national stature more ill-equipped to speak to the populist mood than HRC.
Richard Kim October 2, 2013 |
Because there are only 824 days to go before the 2016 Iowa caucus, it’s time to start thinking about who should win the Democratic Party’s nomination—Hillary or Not Hillary? Before you roll your eyes and turn the page, allow me to note that all the talk about the next, next national election isn’t just the idle chatter of bored, twitchy journalists. The world may still be waiting for that white plume of smoke to rise above Chappaqua, but Clinton’s supporters are not. They’ve already started a Ready for Hillary PAC, which has raised over a million dollars in its first six months and secured the services of two key former Obama campaigners, Jeremy Bird and Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart. EMILY’s List has launched the Madam President project, which coyly pretends to agitate for a woman president, but which recently hosted town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire that became de facto Clinton rallies. “Go to the Ready for Hillary website!” urged former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm in Manchester. And a slew of prominent women—from minority leader Nancy Pelosi to Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill to Vogue editor Anna Wintour—have pre-emptively pledged their allegiance to HRC. All of which produces the impression that Clinton’s nomination is more than just a likely outcome; it’s an inexorable ascension. As Donna Brazile put it, “If Hillary Clinton gets in the race, there will be a coronation of her.”
Can we please hold the crown for at least another day? Or 824 of them? I’m totally behind the idea of electing a woman president in 2016, and I also understand the wellspring of buyer’s remorse that attaches to Obama’s oft-dispiriting presidency. But anointing Clinton now isn’t just anti-democratic; it paints a big sign on the party’s door: No New Ideas Here.
Here’s how I see it: America has a lot of problems, the most acute of which is the yawning gap between the rich and everyone else. According to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of all income gains in the so-called recovery, while the bottom 99 percent barely gained at all. And the chances of anyone breaking into that uppermost echelon are dwindling. As a slew of recent studies have shown, America has less class mobility than it used to and less than Canada or Western Europe; an American child born in the lowest quintile has just a 6 percent chance of rising to the top quintile—42 percent will stay at the bottom.
These grim data are more than just an abstraction; they are, as Peter Beinart argues in a Daily Beast article on “The Rise of the New New Left,” the defining condition of the millennial generation, who face scarcer job prospects, lower wages, fewer benefits and a weaker social safety net than those before them. All that anger and discontent that boiled up at Occupy Wall Street two years ago wasn’t swept away with the encampments. It’s simmering, waiting, and even if elections aren’t always the conduit for youth insurrections, it’s hard to see a whole cohort sitting the next big one out as the American dream crumbles around them. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/176473/hillary-clinton-its-not-her-turn#sthash.nnYfGmCz.dpuf
The Nation: Hillary Clinton: It’s Not Her Turn
Hillary Clinton: It’s Not Her Turn
It’s hard to imagine a Democrat of national stature more ill-equipped to speak to the populist mood than HRC.
Richard Kim October 2, 2013 |
Because there are only 824 days to go before the 2016 Iowa caucus, it’s time to start thinking about who should win the Democratic Party’s nomination—Hillary or Not Hillary? Before you roll your eyes and turn the page, allow me to note that all the talk about the next, next national election isn’t just the idle chatter of bored, twitchy journalists. The world may still be waiting for that white plume of smoke to rise above Chappaqua, but Clinton’s supporters are not. They’ve already started a Ready for Hillary PAC, which has raised over a million dollars in its first six months and secured the services of two key former Obama campaigners, Jeremy Bird and Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart. EMILY’s List has launched the Madam President project, which coyly pretends to agitate for a woman president, but which recently hosted town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire that became de facto Clinton rallies. “Go to the Ready for Hillary website!” urged former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm in Manchester. And a slew of prominent women—from minority leader Nancy Pelosi to Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill to Vogue editor Anna Wintour—have pre-emptively pledged their allegiance to HRC. All of which produces the impression that Clinton’s nomination is more than just a likely outcome; it’s an inexorable ascension. As Donna Brazile put it, “If Hillary Clinton gets in the race, there will be a coronation of her.”
Can we please hold the crown for at least another day? Or 824 of them? I’m totally behind the idea of electing a woman president in 2016, and I also understand the wellspring of buyer’s remorse that attaches to Obama’s oft-dispiriting presidency. But anointing Clinton now isn’t just anti-democratic; it paints a big sign on the party’s door: No New Ideas Here.
Here’s how I see it: America has a lot of problems, the most acute of which is the yawning gap between the rich and everyone else. According to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of all income gains in the so-called recovery, while the bottom 99 percent barely gained at all. And the chances of anyone breaking into that uppermost echelon are dwindling. As a slew of recent studies have shown, America has less class mobility than it used to and less than Canada or Western Europe; an American child born in the lowest quintile has just a 6 percent chance of rising to the top quintile—42 percent will stay at the bottom.
These grim data are more than just an abstraction; they are, as Peter Beinart argues in a Daily Beast article on “The Rise of the New New Left,” the defining condition of the millennial generation, who face scarcer job prospects, lower wages, fewer benefits and a weaker social safety net than those before them. All that anger and discontent that boiled up at Occupy Wall Street two years ago wasn’t swept away with the encampments. It’s simmering, waiting, and even if elections aren’t always the conduit for youth insurrections, it’s hard to see a whole cohort sitting the next big one out as the American dream crumbles around them. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/176473/hillary-clinton-its-not-her-turn#sthash.nnYfGmCz.dpuf
October 5, 2013
New York City Opera, known for 70 years as the “people’s opera” for its affordable tickets, revealed as much as $10 million in assets and debt in a bankruptcy petition it filed Thursday after years of declining income and a failed fundraiser.
The opera targeted a fundraising goal of $7 million to keep its performers on stage and its seats open. The bankruptcy will protect the organization from creditors and provide a forum for negotiating debts and possibly selling assets.
Cultural institutions and individuals who supported the opera suffered in the 2007 crisis. As the economy recovered, their donations went elsewhere, Ted Gavin, a partner at a turnaround/restructuring company based in Delaware, is referenced as saying in a Bloomberg News article. .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/new_york_city_opera_files_for_bankruptcy_20131004
New York City Opera Files for Bankruptcy
New York City Opera, known for 70 years as the “people’s opera” for its affordable tickets, revealed as much as $10 million in assets and debt in a bankruptcy petition it filed Thursday after years of declining income and a failed fundraiser.
The opera targeted a fundraising goal of $7 million to keep its performers on stage and its seats open. The bankruptcy will protect the organization from creditors and provide a forum for negotiating debts and possibly selling assets.
Cultural institutions and individuals who supported the opera suffered in the 2007 crisis. As the economy recovered, their donations went elsewhere, Ted Gavin, a partner at a turnaround/restructuring company based in Delaware, is referenced as saying in a Bloomberg News article. .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/new_york_city_opera_files_for_bankruptcy_20131004
October 5, 2013
Mad Max !!!
from the Detroit Free Press:
Detroit 3, Oakland 2: Max Scherzer dominant as Tigers take Game 1
OAKLAND, Calif. – The Tigers pounded out three runs in the first inning and the pitching did the rest.
The Tigers took a 3-0 lead in the first and hung on to beat the Athletics, 3-2, to win Game 1 of the American League Division Series on Friday night.
Max Scherzer struck out 11 over seven innings and the bullpen came up big over the final two innings. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20131005/SPORTS02/131005001/Detroit-3-Oakland-2-Max-Scherzer-dominant-Tigers-take-Game-1
October 4, 2013
David Dayen: Mortgage Settlement Monitor Lets Servicers Steal From Customers for Two Years Before Stepping In With Toothless Metrics
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen
Joseph Smith, the National Mortgage Settlement Oversight Monitor, created four additional servicing metrics on Wednesday, in what has to be seen as an admission of what we’ve known for a good while – that the servicers are violating the spirit, if not the specific terms, of the settlement.
In particular, servicers have been denying a prompt decision on a loan modification for borrowers, as well as the ban on dual tracking, by never completing any loan modification applications. Here’s the statement from Smith:
First of all, in one paragraph, Smith names just about every important consumer protection put into the settlement as among the “persistent issues.” Being on the payroll and all, Smith isn’t going to come out and say it, but he’s acknowledging failure. If servicers aren’t offering a single point of contact (I know Yves questioned whether they ever can), aren’t ending dual tracking, aren’t posting accurate billing statements (!) and aren’t giving loan modifications in a timely and efficient manner, then they basically haven’t skipped a beat since the misconduct that was part of the impetus for the settlement in the first place. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/david-dayen-mortgage-settlement-monitor-lets-servicers-steal-from-customers-for-two-years-before-stepping-in-with-toothless-metrics.html#YGY60ojsvX1c0VQI.99
Mortgage Settlement Monitor Lets Servicers Steal From Customers for Two Years Before Stepping In ...
David Dayen: Mortgage Settlement Monitor Lets Servicers Steal From Customers for Two Years Before Stepping In With Toothless Metrics
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen
Joseph Smith, the National Mortgage Settlement Oversight Monitor, created four additional servicing metrics on Wednesday, in what has to be seen as an admission of what we’ve known for a good while – that the servicers are violating the spirit, if not the specific terms, of the settlement.
In particular, servicers have been denying a prompt decision on a loan modification for borrowers, as well as the ban on dual tracking, by never completing any loan modification applications. Here’s the statement from Smith:
These four new metrics address a number of persistent issues involving the loan modification process, single points of contact and billing statement accuracy. They will better hold the banks accountable to the commitments they made in the Settlement to improve their operations in these areas. In particular, I have been extremely concerned about ongoing dual tracking issues. One of the metrics will address the issue of when a loan modification application is considered ‘complete,’ which has led to some of these problems.
First of all, in one paragraph, Smith names just about every important consumer protection put into the settlement as among the “persistent issues.” Being on the payroll and all, Smith isn’t going to come out and say it, but he’s acknowledging failure. If servicers aren’t offering a single point of contact (I know Yves questioned whether they ever can), aren’t ending dual tracking, aren’t posting accurate billing statements (!) and aren’t giving loan modifications in a timely and efficient manner, then they basically haven’t skipped a beat since the misconduct that was part of the impetus for the settlement in the first place. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/david-dayen-mortgage-settlement-monitor-lets-servicers-steal-from-customers-for-two-years-before-stepping-in-with-toothless-metrics.html#YGY60ojsvX1c0VQI.99
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