Month: November 2017

Turkey Day as My Family Knows It

Most people send holiday letters for Christmas. To avoid the rush last year I got an early start and sent mine in November. Have a fabulous Thanksgiving day, everybody. Whether at the table or in any other room, give no quarter to those reactionary know-nothing relatives. Story syndicated from my pages at cowbird.com.

Cutting Cords to Kurds: Facebook’s Foreign Policy

NOTE: This article has been updated to include subsequent events. It is also posted on CounterPunch.

One of my correspondents (let’s call her Jinwar), a supporter of autonomous areas in northwestern Kurdistan, notified me that Facebook had deleted her support group’s page plus her personal page as well those of others, requesting that the above graphic be shared widely on social media. (But before doing so, please read the last four paragraphs.)

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Judge Roy Moore Bumps and Grinds His Way to Washington

This is an update of the Daily Eruption post If These Allegations Are True. Representative clip from Fox News, 11/9/17.

As we sadly know, the GOP candidate to replace Alabama’s Jeff Sessions in a December special election, ex-ex-Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, is a piece of work. Discharged from the bench twice for defying federal court orders to remove religious symbolism from his courthouse and permit legalized gay marriage, Moore has now been accused via the Washington Post by four women of juvenile seduction, including that of a 14-year-old (now 53) named Leigh Corfman who says on their second “date” he disrobed and fondled her in his bedroom.

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Dateline Sutherland Springs, Texas on Its Three Days of Fame

Gun Violence Archive

Boston MA, November 5th, 2017, 8 PM. Around 11 this morning another lone gunman struck. This time in the peaceable little community of Sutherland Springs, TX (pop. some 500 human souls), 25 miles southeast of San Antonio, in a Baptist church during a Sunday service.

By 6 PM, television and radio news networks were pre-empting regular content to cover breaking developments. In my TV media market, ABC led the charge, with an independent VHF station bravely following suit. No doubt, the 11 o’clock news will be about the S.S. Massacre virtually entirely, as it was for NPR’s All Things Considered late this afternoon. “Special coverage” then forced its way in to regurgitate what little was known.

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Down Memory Lane with ISIS

My first foul whiff of the Islamic State came in June of 2014, when I sensed their gathering ominous presence in Syria and Iraq. Little did I know how bad they would make life for the people of those countries or how complicit my country was in facilitating their rise. True, some of my predictions were wrong; Iraq did not fall. But ISIS isn’t over yet. As long as it continues to make trouble, I’m sure the Trump regime will react stupidly, at great cost to taxpayers, and even greater cost to Middle East citizens and refugees. All it takes is for some sorry-ass immigrant to mow down a few people—as in lower Manhattan recently—for the government to amp up the fear level and intervene in more places they want to destroy in order to control. Continue reading “Down Memory Lane with ISIS”