This morning I opened my front door to find a flier lying on the porch. I thought it was another local contractor ad or announcement of a barbecue-and-rummage sale, so I scooped it up to glance at it before dropping it in the recycle hopper. Instead, I find in my hand a vile piece of unconscionable poison. And it seemed like it would be such a nice day!
I’m not going to dignify this crap by citing the source. The header of the two-side sheet reads: The Holocaust Controversy The Case For Open Debate. What follows is a putrid example of revisionist nonsense designed to suggest that six million Jews were not systematically slaughtered by the Third Reich. In tone, it is reasonable. It does not make many strident claims with exclamation points, just calmly asserts one bullshit “fact” after another (plus a photograph of an open pit containing the skeletonized remains of concentration camp victims labeling it a photo of typhus victims) to lay the groundwork for the claim that the Holocaust didn’t happen, that it is all a Big Lie assembled by a Zionist conspiracy to advance the cause of sympathy for stateless Jews in order to get them a state.
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[Bias Warning: My 12-year old daughter happily attends the school I'm about to describe; this article might also serve as an invitation for you to learn more about Grand Center Arts Academy, especially if you have a 6th, 7th or 8th grade student in your home and you live in the St. Louis area].
About a year ago, my wife and I attended a meeting at which a calmly enthused woman named Lynne Glickert stood in front of a group of 15 families, waved her hands in the air in the process of describing a brand new art school she was trying to put together. The name of this new public school was to be Grand Center Arts Academy.
Ms. Glickert, formerly a music teacher who was to become the school's first principal, continued: The new school would start with only the 6th and 7th graders; it would add the 8th grade in the Fall of 2012 and it would continue to add a grade per year until it reached the 12th grade. It would be a public charter school, meaning that those eligible to attend (including any resident of the City of St. Louis and residents of many of the St. Louis suburbs) would do so without paying any out-of-pocket tuition. This new school would focus heavily on the arts, including theater, dance, music and visual arts. It would attract a lot of good students who were serious about the arts, she said. It would have a dedicated staff of teachers, who she was still in the process of hiring, she said. It would someday have a building of its own, though the school would initially be housed in the classrooms of a nearby Baptist Church. She urged that the arts would be taught by high quality professionals, who would accept children who had no formal training in the arts, as well as students who did have a head start. She urged that the core curriculum would be extremely important as well (Communications Arts,
Principal Lynne Glickert:
Social Studies, Math and Science). Ms. Glickert urged that in addition to everything else she promised, this school would cultivate a direction for the art produced by its students; this would also be a school that maintained a focus on "social justice."
The notable thing about this school, Ms. Glickert said, is that the students would receive at least two hours of intense art each and every day. Glickert introduced a quiet-spoken man named Dan Rubright, an accomplished musician and composer, who indicated that he would be involved in cultivating "Partnerships" with many St. Louis area arts organizations, including the St. Louis Symphony and many of the other arts organizations located in Grand Center, the Arts District of St. Louis.
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On today's episode of Democracy Now, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales the entire hour interviewing Bill Moyers, who had a lot to say about the state of the nation. Here are Moyers' closing comments:
I think this country is in a very precarious state at the moment. I think, as I say, the escalating, accumulating power of organized wealth is snuffing out everything public, whether it’s public broadcasting, public schools, public unions, public parks, public highways. Everything public has been under assault since the late 1970s, the early years of the Reagan administration, because there is a philosophy that’s been extant in America for a long time that anything public is less desirable than private.
And I think we’re at a very critical moment in the equilibrium. No society, no human being, can survive without balance, without equilibrium. Nothing in excess, the ancient Greeks said. And Madison, one of the great founders, one of the great framers of our Constitution, built equilibrium into our system. We don’t have equilibrium now. The power of money trumps the power of democracy today, and I’m very worried about it. I said to—and if we don’t address this, if we don’t get a handle on what we were talking about—money in politics—and find a way to thwart it, tame it, we’re in —democracy should be a break on unbridled greed and power, because capitalism, capital, like a fire, can turn from a servant, a good servant, into an evil master. And democracy is the brake on my passions and my appetites and your greed and your wealth. And we have to get that equilibrium back.
I said to a friend of mine on Wall Street, "How do you feel about the market?" He said, "Well, I’m not—I’m optimistic." And I said, "Why do you, then, look so worried?" And he said, "Because I’m not sure my optimism is justified." And I feel that way. So I fall back on the balance we owe in a—in the Italian political scientist, Gramsci, who said that he practices the pessimism of the mind and the optimism of the will. By that, he meant he sees the world as it is, without rose-colored glasses, as I try to do as a journalist. I see what’s there. That will make you pessimistic. But then you have to exercise your will optimistically, believing that each of us singly, and all of us collectively, can be an agent of change. And I have to get up every morning and imagine a more confident future, and then try to do something that day to help bring it about.
A few weeks ago, we talked about Dutch mobile phone carriers planning to charge for the use of different kinds of application, such as Skype, WhatsApp, and so on. They would check people's data traffic using deep packet inspection, and charge accordingly. This led to a massive outrage here in this glorified swamp - and this outrage has had its effect.
Our parliament stood up to defend the concept of net neutrality, and as such, motioned the government to have it added to our telecommunications act. Not only will this prohibit carriers from forcing customers to pay additional fees for specific types of data, it also prohibits them from blocking certain types of traffic - something the Dutch branch of Vodafone is already doing by blocking VoIP services. This applies to regular internet service providers as well.
I wrote the following poem to commemorate the ongoing rampant hypocrisy.
Tim Hogan
--
Rep. Vitter (R-LA) went a “DC Madam” whoring, he was elected US Senator and the GOP found it boring.
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
Sen. Craig (R-ID) had a “wide stance” but, the GOP said; “so what?” to his advance.
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
The National Republican Campaign Committee twice went a Vegas sex clubbing, the GOP gave it no drubbing.
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
The RNC youth went to club featuring bondage and had its fill; the GOP didn’t blink an eye paying the bill!
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang; the GOP made it into a big thang!
Gov. Mark Sanford (R-NC) went a “hiking;” the GOP still kept its liking!
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) preyed upon a married staffer; to the GOP, it was a laugher!
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) pushed and threatened a server when rebuffed, the GOP elected him Governor, the charges were stuffed!
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
Reps. Bunn (R-OR), Burton (R-IN), Calvert (R-CA), Dan Crane (R-IL), Chenoweth (R-ID), Gingrich (R-GA), Hyde (R-IL), Scmitz (R-CA) and Sherwood (R-PA) cheated and lied; the GOP just sighed.
Rep. Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
Sen. Thurmond (R-SC) had knowledge of his family’s “colored” maid, had a child and about the races the Senator ranted and raved; the GOP and the South were saved!
Weiner tweeted his clothed wang, the GOP made it into a big thang!
The Republicans have cheated, whored and upon women and children preyed, all the while politics they’ve played. Me, I’m just dismayed.
[And here's a one-stop source for Republican sex scandals]
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