Makeshift Memorials and Memory
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
by guest blogger Cara Finnegan
The U. S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is closed today in the wake of the shooting yesterday that killed security guard Stephen T. Johns, who leaves behind a wife and young son. This photo captures well how layered collective memory can be: a poignant, makeshift memorial left at a place formally (and fiercely) dedicated to remembering the very worst effects of human hatred. The presence of security guards in the background only heightens the sense of tragedy and vulnerability.
After the shooting, Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement that said in part, "It is deeply disturbing that one of America's most powerful symbols of the memory of the Holocaust was selected as the site of the attack just days after President Obama accompanied Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to the Buchenwald death camp." Indeed, it is hard not to wonder if the incredibly human, moving, and yes, empathic images of Obama and Wiesel were what set this guy off.
(image: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Makeshift Memorials and Memory
[Source: Good Times Society]
Makeshift Memorials and Memory
[Source: Murder News]
Makeshift Memorials and Memory
posted by 77767 @ 11:55 PM, ,
Quote For The Day
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"If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me. ... It's madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It's madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing." - John Cardinal O'Connor.
Quote For The Day
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Quote For The Day
[Source: Wb News]
Quote For The Day
[Source: News Headlines]
Quote For The Day
[Source: La News]
Quote For The Day
[Source: Sun News]
Quote For The Day
posted by 77767 @ 11:09 PM, ,
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
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My full post out of the first day of the America's Future Now! conference in DC is below. But I wanted to highlight Howard Dean's strong push for a public option, which I wrapped into the story:
During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."
He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.
"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.
Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."
(JENNIFER SKALKA)
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Weather News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Wb News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Daily News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Cbs News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: World News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
[Source: Boston News]
Dean: Bypass Bipartisanship On Health Care
posted by 77767 @ 11:04 PM, ,
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
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Say you're a Harvard professor and you decide to dabble a bit in politics. You decide to move back to Canada in hopes of becoming prime minister. Shouldn't be that hard. Before you go, you tell the school paper that if things don't work out, you'll probably return to Boston and pick up where you left off.
That would appear to have been Michael Ignatieff's plan, but things might not work out the way he was hoping. Harvard is going through some tough times. According to Boston magazine, its endowment, onces a porcine $37 billion, is down about $11 billion due to some unfortunate investment setbacks. And since it's not making any money, Harvard has to withdraw about $1.4 billion from capital to cover its operating costs, which would normally have been paid for out of profits. Which leaves a relatively paltry $24 billion left in the fund.
Not bad by most standards, but Harvard is used to big-time spending, without worrying much about where the money comes from. (Hey, that reminds me of a federal political party here in Canada. No wonder Ignatieff felt at home with the Liberals!) It has big expenses, and $24 bil isn't going to cover them. In fact, says the magazine:
While Harvard officials are doing their public-face best to downplay the problem, the numbers don't lie, and this economic crunch will leave the school a profoundly changed place. Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
"We are in trouble," says one Crimson professor. In the aftermath of deep and damaging cuts, "there is a real chance that Harvard will no longer be considered the best there is."
Uh-oh. If things take a wrong turn in Ottawa, the Liberal leader might have to reconsider Plan B. It's just possible the old school won't be waiting with open arms, or without an open chequebook anyway. Maybe he'll have to stick around Ottawa longer. Maybe he'll have to teach at a Canadian university. Oh, the shame. Hey, maybe that's why he's so eager to make it easier to collect EI.
Kelly McParland
National Post
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Boston News]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Cbs News]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
[Source: Abc 7 News]
Could Harvard woes leave Ignatieff looking at EI?
posted by 77767 @ 9:57 PM, ,
DeMaurice Smith's Pitch - Wall Street Journal
DeMaurice Smith's Pitch
Wall Street Journal
A look at new NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith's trip to introduce himself to the Seattle Seahawks. (Photos provided by the NFLPA. ...
Mr. Smith Gets Down to Business
DeMaurice Smith's Pitch - Wall Street Journal
DeMaurice Smith's Pitch - Wall Street Journal
posted by 77767 @ 7:15 PM, ,
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
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by Mark Silva
Brian Williams already has gotten a lot of public mileage out of his private time with President Barack Obama, in preparation for a day-in-the-life of the president series that NBC News will air this week, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
The anchorman got the president to walk his Supreme Court nominee back from the remark she made about the relative wisdom of Latino women, as compared with white men. He got the president to say that he's not interested in the government owning GM. -- just a 60 percent stake, for now.
"Our viewers will see a view of the White House never televised before,'' Williims says of his program, Inside the Obama White House. "Senior staff, the president himself, the first lady and yes... Bo will make an appearance with us on television.''
Williams tells of a president who is not confined to the Oval Office, who walks from study to study dropping in on sessions, popping m&m's for snacks along the way.
"We had something like 20 camera crews....we have something like 150 hours of video tape,'' he says, and that's after a day in the White House last week, which Williams will follow up with another interview of Obama on Tuesday. "e're going through all of this to distill it down to two hours.
Williams also got a cheeseburger out of the deal - joining the president in his outing for a take-out pickup of burgers at a Five Guys in Washington.
Williams also asked Obama about the early part of his day that he hadn't seen: "I got my workout in,'' Obama said, "saw the girls off to school... always eat a hearty breakfast.''
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
[Source: News Weekly]
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
[Source: The Daily News]
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
[Source: The Daily News]
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
[Source: State News]
Obama's m&m's: West Wing snackfood
posted by 77767 @ 6:26 PM, ,
Bin Laden in hiding, Obama in public
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by Mark Silva
On the eve of President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world from Cairo, where he will deliver an appeal for mutual understanding, the Arab world has heard from another voice: A recorded audio-tape attributed to Osama bin Laden, fugitive leader of al Qaeda, accusing Obama of fomenting "hatred'' with military action in Pakistan.
The purported broadcast of bin Laden's words, aired by the Arab-language Al Jazeera satellite television station as Obama was arriving in Saudi Arabia today, stood as a stark reminder of the hurdles that the United States still faces throughout the region.
While the president is intent on "resetting''' U.S. relations with the Muslim world in his planned televised address from the campus of Cairo University in Egypt, some of the long-elusive sponsors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults against the United States remain at large and refocused on overturning the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"I don't think it's surprising that al Qaeda would want to shift attention away from the president's historic efforts ... to reach out and have an open dialogue with the Muslim world,'' Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, said as the president was holding private meetings with the king of Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden, son of a Saudi family that gained enormous wealth in construction and built the royal palaces of the late King Saud, became involved in the militant Jihadist movement in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union invaded that nation. After returning to Saudi Arabia, he was confined to house arrest, and left the country in the early 1990s - his Saudi citizenship publicly revoked in 1994.
If Obama's mission in the Middle East has a clear purpose, the administration maintains, so does the timing of al Qaeda's message.
The tape's broadcast follows comments from al-Qaeda's second- in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urging Egyptians to shun Obama and contending that the "torturers of Egypt" and "slaves of America'' had invited the American leader to speak in Cairo.
The administration has attempted to draw a contrast between an al Qaeda in hiding and an American leader taking a high-profile stance with his appeal to the Muslim world.
"You have, you know, the leader of the free world speaking from one of the great cities in the world, and you have, you know, bin Laden speaking from an undisclosed... location,'' said Philip J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs. "That speaks volumes in terms of the contrast.''
Bin Laden in hiding, Obama in public
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Bin Laden in hiding, Obama in public
[Source: Accident News]
Bin Laden in hiding, Obama in public
posted by 77767 @ 4:15 PM, ,
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
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What's the administration's specific aim in bailing out GM? I'll give you my theory later.
For now, though, some background. First and most broadly, it doesn't make sense for America to try to maintain or enlarge manufacturing as a portion of the economy. Even if the U.S. were to seal its borders and bar any manufactured goods from coming in from abroad -- something I don't recommend -- we'd still be losing manufacturing jobs. That's mainly because of technology.
When we think of manufacturing jobs, we tend to imagine old-time assembly lines populated by millions of blue-collar workers who had well-paying jobs with good benefits. But that picture no longer describes most manufacturing. I recently toured a U.S. factory containing two employees and 400 computerized robots. The two live people sat in front of computer screens and instructed the robots. In a few years this factory won't have a single employee on site, except for an occasional visiting technician who repairs and upgrades the robots.
Factory jobs are vanishing all over the world. Even China is losing them. The Chinese are doing more manufacturing than ever, but they're also becoming far more efficient at it. They've shuttered most of the old state-run factories. Their new factories are chock full of automated and computerized machines. As a result, they don't need as many manufacturing workers as before.
Economists at Alliance Capital Management took a look at employment trends in 20 large economies and found that between 1995 and 2002 -- before the asset bubble and subsequent bust -- 22 million manufacturing jobs disappeared. The U.S. wasn't even the biggest loser. We lost about 11 percent of our manufacturing jobs in that period, but the Japanese lost 16 percent of theirs. Even developing nations lost factory jobs: Brazil suffered a 20 percent decline, and China had a 15 percent drop.
What happened to manufacturing? In two words, higher productivity. As productivity rises, employment falls because fewer people are needed. In this, manufacturing is following the same trend as agriculture. A century ago, almost 30 percent of adult Americans worked on a farm. Nowadays, fewer than 5 percent do. That doesn't mean the U.S. failed at agriculture. Quite the opposite. American agriculture is a huge success story. America can generate far larger crops than a century ago with far fewer people. New technologies, more efficient machines, new methods of fertilizing, better systems of crop rotation, and efficiencies of large scale have all made farming much more productive.
Manufacturing is analogous. In America and elsewhere around the world, it's a success. Since 1995, even as manufacturing employment has dropped around the world, global industrial output has risen more than 30 percent.
More after the jump.
--Robert Reich
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Market News]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: News Leader]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Television News]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Channel 6 News]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Duluth News]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
[Source: Murder News]
THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AND THE AMERICAN WORKER.
posted by 77767 @ 3:15 PM, ,
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