Seymour Hersh: U.S. is blaming Iran, ignoring Saudi Arabia

There's a fascinating interview with Seymour Hersh at Democracy Now. The main themes are that the U.S. is about to drum up a war against Iran based on no evidence, while ignoring numerous atrocities being caused by Saudi Arabia. Complicated and fascinating discussion. Hersh argues that the U.S. is motivated to claim that there are nuclear weapons in Iran, where there is no evidence of that. Meanwhile we are needlessly making enemies in Pakistan.

Continue ReadingSeymour Hersh: U.S. is blaming Iran, ignoring Saudi Arabia

What happened to the little Vietnamese girl running from the napalm?

I spotted this article on Reddit.com today.   The little Vietnamese girl who was photographed running, terrified, naked and burned from the napalm attack recovered, grew up to become a doctor and is now living in Canada.  She has lived quite an interesting life.

Continue ReadingWhat happened to the little Vietnamese girl running from the napalm?

Celebrity Republicans

I'll assume that most of DI's readers, like me, hate the celebrity phenomenon of the "famous for being famous". This rising class of psuedo-celebs, the "famesque", are a newish phenomenon who owe their livelihoods to media over-saturation. In a world of thousands of channels and millions of websites, in an economy where celebrity gossip magazines and gossip sites flourish as newspapers decline, there is a consistent demand for fluffy content. The outrageous and fame-hungry, who are willing (it seems) to do anything to garner attention, bloom and profit in such an environment. If you have no standards and no shame, it is relatively easy to make a celebrity career of puff piece interviews and reality TV appearances. Far easier than launching a career based on hard-work, creative production, and talent, anyway. But there is a new subclass of the 'famesque', one far more insidious than the droves of Paris Hiltons and Snookies and Osbornes and Kardashians we all despise and ignore. They are Celebrity Republicans- wannabe politicos who are pundits just for the sake of being pundits. And they are tearing the Republican party and political discourse apart.

Continue ReadingCelebrity Republicans

“Retard” and other disability-insults.

The word "retard" possessed dual meanings for a long time. First used as a term for intellectual disability in 1788, the word took on a pejorative sense in the 1970s. For thirty years the two meanings curiously co-existed. Universities had "Mental Retardation and Developmental Disability" Departments and students who drunkenly called one another 'retards' for lobbing bad beer-pong balls, and the two existed in tandem. But once medical and social service experts finally disavowed the word 'retard', it vanished from official usage with amazing swiftness. The Special Olympics ceased using the 'r-word' in 2004, initiating the trend. In 2006, the (former) American Association of Mental Retardation changed its name to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. By 2008, Special Olympics turned the abolishment of 'retard' into a full-time effort and launched R-word.org. The site protested the derogatory use of 'retard' (including a protest campaign against the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, which featured a lengthy discussion on 'retard' roles in film). Special Olympics and R-word.org also pushed for their fellow disability-service organizations to drop the term. In 2010, 'retard' was legally banished from the professional lexicon. On October 5 of last year, Obama signed "Rosa's Law", which banned the use of "retard" in all federal health, education, and labor policy. "Intellectual disability" and "developmental disability" became the approved nomenclature. Non-federal organizations followed hastily: in Ohio, Google directs you to the "Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities", but the website itself has already been scrubbed of the R-word(even if the url still has the dreaded 'r' in it). It's official: 'retard' has no place in formal usage. Once a medical term for someone with an intellectual disability, it lives now only as an insult. One that means, roughly, unintelligent. Like moron, which began as medical terminology for one with a mental age of 8 to 12. Or imbecile, which meant 'a mental age of 6 to 9'.

Continue Reading“Retard” and other disability-insults.

On the death (again) of Osama bin Laden

Those who are uncomfortable with cognitive dissonance or so-called conspiracy theories might be better off skipping this post. Those who seek to understand the machinations of our government however, are encouraged to read on. Firstly, let me clearly state that I disapprove of the manner of this killing. Extrajudicial assassinations are an anathema to a society that claims to live by the rule of law. Numerous voices are loudly praising this decision to kill bin Laden rather than capture him, supposedly to save the fragile American public from the rigors of a trial. They claim that a trial would have been "too controversial", as if that had anything to do with the law or its application. Either we believe that laws matter or we don't. Either we believe that there is justice available under our system of laws, or we do not. In this case, it's clear that we do not trust our own system of justice to arrive at the "right" conclusion. Implicitly, this suggests that we are hoping for a kangaroo court, already convinced of the guilt of the accused based upon the mere say-so of our government. When the president can order someone to be killed, with no oversight or evidence presented, we no longer a democratic system of checks and balances. We have an emperor, a tyrant, relatively benign though he may appear to be. I argued much the same in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed last year. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingOn the death (again) of Osama bin Laden