Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.
The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.
For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.
The important stuff to get you started:
– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.
– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)
– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, … or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).
– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”
– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”
(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)
In 1801, John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court.
In 1841, China was persuaded to give Hong Kong to Great Britain. They gave it back in 1997 (with a period of Japanese occupation during WW2).
In 1885, though he wasn’t the original inventor, L.A. Thompson patented the roller coaster (the first of many patents for that technology he obtained). It’s been up or down ever since.
In 1920, the ACLU was founded.
In 1954, the first black-owned radio network, the National Negro Network, was founded.
In 1961, the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was sworn in.
In 1981, the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, was sworn in. Coincidentally, Iran released a bunch of hostages as soon as this deed was done.
In 1986, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.
In 2001, George W. Bush received his court appointment as the 43rd president of the United States.
In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States.
Born on This Day
1756 – Jean-Antoine Constantin, French painter (d. 1844)
1795 – Frans Vervloet, Flemish painter and lithographer (b. 1872)
1798 – Anson Jones, 5th and last President of Texas (d. 1858)
1811 – Vincent Vidal, French painter (d. 1887)
1829 – John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, English painter (d. 1908)
1834 – George D. Robinson, 34th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1896)
1837 – David Josiah Brewer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1910)
1838 – Willem Geets, Belgian history, genre, and portrait painter (d. this same day in 1918)
1867 – Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (d. 1944)
1871 – Nicolas Alexandrovitch Tarkhoff, Russian painter (d. 1920)
1878 – Finlay Currie, British actor (d. 1968)
1878 – Ruth St. Denis, American dancer (d. 1968)
1888 – Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, influential blues musician, singer, songwriter (d. 1949)
1896 – George Burns, American actor, comedian (d. 1996)
1896 – Isabel Withers, American actress (d. 1968)
1900 – Colin Clive, British actor (d. 1937)
1902 – Leon Ames, American actor (d. 1993)
1907 – Paula Wessely, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
1918 – Juan García Esquivel, Mexican bandleader (d. 2002)
1920 – Federico Fellini, Italian film director (d. 1993)
1920 – DeForest Kelley, American actor (d. 1999)
1926 – Patricia Neal, American actress (d. 2010)
1929 – Jimmy Cobb, American jazz drummer
1929 – Arte Johnson, American actor
1930 – Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut
1934 – Tom Baker, British actor and best of the early Doctor Who actors.
1943 – Rick Evans, American singer (Zager and Evans)
1945 – Eric Stewart, English musician and songwriter (10cc, Hotlegs and The Mindbenders)
1946 – David Lynch, American film director
1952 – Paul Stanley, American musician (Kiss and Wicked Lester)
1956 – Bill Maher, American author, comedian, and political analyst
1959 – Tami Hoag, American novelist
1959 – R.A. Salvatore, American author
1960 – Scott Thunes, American musician (Frank Zappa) and good friend, happy birthday, ya old reprobate!
1965 – Greg Kriesel, American bassist (The Offspring)
1969 – Nicky Wire, British musician (Manic Street Preachers)
Died on This Day
1779 – David Garrick, English actor (b. 1717)
1814 – Jean-François-Pierre Peyron, French painter and draftsman (b. 1744)
1815 – Caroline-Friederike Friedrich, German still life painter (b. 1749)
1875 – Jean-François Millet, French painter (b. 1814)
1900 – John Ruskin, English art critic and sometimes painter (b. 1819)
In March, 1968, Dr. King was in Memphis to lend support to the striking sanitation workers. They were striking for better wages and working conditions:
On 1 February 1968, two Memphis garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. Twelve days later, frustrated by the city’s response to the latest event in a long pattern of neglect and abuse of its black employees, 1,300 black men from the Memphis Department of Public Works went on strike. Sanitation workers, led by garbage-collector-turned-union-organizer, T. O. Jones, and supported by the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Jerry Wurf, demanded recognition of their union, better safety standards, and a decent wage.[…]
King himself arrived on 18 March to address a crowd of about 25,000 – the largest indoor gathering the civil rights movement had ever seen.
As I came in tonight, I turned around and said to Ralph Abernathy, “They really have a great movement here in Memphis.” You’ve been demonstrating something here that needs to be demonstrated all over the country. You are demonstrating that we can stick together. You are demonstrating that we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we are all down.
If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you’re commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician. All labor has worth.
You are doing another thing. You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. I need not remind you that this is the plight of our people all over America. The vast majority of Negroes in our country are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. My friends, we are living as a people in a literal depression. Now you know when there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the black community, they call it a social problem. When there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the white community they call it a depression. But we find ourselves living in a literal depression all over this country as a people.
Now the problem isn’t only unemployment. Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working everyday? They are making wages so low that they can not begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. These are facts which must be seen. And it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income.
[…]
I will hear America through her historians years and years to come saying, “We built gigantic buildings to kiss the sky. We build gargantuan bridges to span the seas. Through our spaceships we were able to carve highways through the stratosphere. Through our airplanes we were able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Through our submarines we were able to penetrate oceanic depths.”
But it seems that I can hear the God of the universe saying, “even though you’ve done all of that, I was hungry and you fed me not. I was naked and ye clothed me not. The children of my sons and daughters were in need of economic security, and you didn’t provide for them. So you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness.” This may well be the indictment on America that says in Memphis to the mayor, to the power structure, “If you do it unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.”…
Now you’re doing something else here. You are highlighting the economic issues. You are going beyond purely civil rights to questions of human rights. That is distinct…
Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality.For we know now, that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger? What does it profit a man to be able to eat at the swankest integrated restaurant when he doesn’t even earn enough money to take his wife out to dine? What does it profit one to have access to the hotels of our cities, and the hotels of our highways, when we don’t earn enough money to take our family on a vacation? What does it profit one to be able to attend an integrated school, when he doesn’t earn enough money to buy his children school clothes?
[…]
Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God’s children, now is the time to make the real promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God’s children, now is the time for city hall to take a position for that which is just and honest. Now is the time for justice to roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.
[…]
We can all get more together than we can apart. This is the way to gain power. Power is the ability to achieve purpose. Power is the ability to effect change. We need power…
Now the other thing is that nothing is gained without pressure. Don’t let anybody tell you to go back on your job and paternalistically say, now, “You’re my man, and I’m going to do the right thing for you if you’ll just come back on the job.” Don’t go back on the job until the demands are met. Never forget that freedom is not something that must be demanded by the oppressor. It is something that must be demanded by the oppressed. Freedom is not some lavish dish that the power structure and the white forces imparted with making positions will voluntarily hand down on a silver platter while the Negro merely furnishes the appetite.
[…]
You know, many years ago, America signed a huge promissory note which said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It didn’t say “some men,” it said “all men.” It didn’t say “all white men,” it said “all men,” which includes black men.
It said another thing which ultimately distinguishes our form of government from other totalitarian regimes. It said that every person has certain basic rights that are neither derived from nor conferred by the state. In order to discover where they came from, it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity. They are God-given.
America hasn’t lived up to this. She gave the black man a bad check that’s been bouncing all around. We are going to demand our check, to say to this nation, “We know that that check shouldn’t have bounced because you have the resources in the federal treasury.” We are going to also say, “You are even unjustly spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill a single Vietcong soldier, while you spend only fifty-three dollars a year per person for everybody categorized as poverty-stricken.” Instead of spending thirty-five billion dollars every year to fight an unjust, ill-considered war in Vietnam and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, we need to put God’s children on their own two feet.
[…]
We have great challenges ahead, and great possibilities. And let us not lose hope. When you lose hope you die. We’ve got to keep going. I know how difficult it is. We’ve got to have that kind of ‘in spite of’ quality, to say that we are going on anyhow. We will keep the kind of hope alive that will make us know that if we will unite, if we will organize, we will be able to dramatize these issues to the point that something will be done.
Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend was lovely. One weekend closer to Spring.
PLEASE Don’t Recommend the check-in diary!
Fierces on the weather jar comment are still welcome.
The check-in is an open thread and general social hour. Come back when time allows through the day – the conversation continues.
It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:
I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.
OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES – the feline-focused Cat Art Show – featuring the works of more than 60 artists including Shepard Fairey and Tracey Emin – will be at the 101 Exhibit Gallery in Los Angeles for nine days (from January 25th to February 2nd).
LONG-TIME VIEWERS of Saturday Night Live may well recall the character that the late Gilda Radner created, “Roseanne Rosanadanna” … who always answered questions submitted by a rather whiny Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey … who was a real person, yet never actually wrote those letters (he was simply the brother-in-law of an SNL staff writer).
Well, even though Mr. Feder hasn’t lived in Fort Lee for some time …. you’ll never guess what bridge he tried to cross last September.
THURSDAY’s CHILD is Nyankichi the Cat – an injured, abandoned Japanese kitteh brought to a shelter near Osaka …. and now has a job as deputy to the chief veterinarian.
IN THIS CENTENNIAL YEAR of the start of World War, BBC News online is having a series of photo-laden profiles of major European cities as they were in 1914 ….. with Berlin its first stop.
THEATRE NOTES – British comedian Tim Minchin has announced plans to turn the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day into a musical on the London stage … with the blessing of Stephen Sondheim, who gave up on the project.
JUST IN TIME for the Olympic figure skating competition: the memoirs of long-time analyst Dick Button – a two-time Olympic champ himself.
I MAY BE KNOWN as the Separated-at-Birth guy around here … but here is a photographer’s exhibit of Doppelgangers that is staggering.
NOTE on TODAY’S POLL – I have not listed Chris Christie this week because (a) he was the runaway winner last week (and I try to avoid a repeat selection), (b) this past week saw more of a continuation (rather than much that was new), and (c) he may well be a future nominee, as other shoes continue to drop.
FRIDAY’s CHILD is Piper the Cat – who was rescued from a school drainage pipe in Findlay, Ohio … hypothermic, emaciated and covered in mud … but has recovered nicely, and many have inquired about adopting him.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the actor Russell Johnson – yes, the Professor on “Gilligan’s Island” – who has died at the age of 89 ….. and Hiroo Onoda – the last Japanese imperial soldier to emerge from hiding in a jungle in the Philippines and surrender, 29 years after the end of World War II – at the age of 91.
SEPARATED at BIRTH – Kathy Stover-Kennedy, the girlfriend of Freedom Industries CEO Dennis Farrell – the firm whose chemical leak poisoned the Elk River in West Virginia – and Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow.
……and finally, for a song of the week …………… in the field of world music, it is difficult to think of a band whose sound has come to better represent their own nation than The Chieftains - who have been together for fifty years although (with their first seven years spent as a semi-pro band) it has only been since 1970 that they have become known around the world. They have changed the image of Irish folk music through two methods: fine musicianship and a staggering number of collaborations with other musical genres that have brought their sound to a wider audience … and influenced their own sound, as well.
Before their advent: many people in the Irish diaspora thought of Irish folk music as either (a) the barroom sound of the Clancy Brothers and Irish Rovers, or (b) the sentimental sounds of John McCormack and Mary O’Hara. In fact, the Chieftains came out of the band Ceoltoiri Chualann (a group founded in 1960 and lasting through the decade) that performed traditional music, but removing the highly-orchestrated pop influences (that had crept into traditional music over the years) and adding more improvisation to their sound.
In 1963, its twenty-five year-old uilleann pipes player Paddy Moloney founded the Chieftains (taking the name from the novel “Death of a Chieftain”) with some other members of Ceoltoiri Chualann, and he is the only charter member still with the band. Their first four album releases (on a small label) were a big success in Ireland and, later on, in Britain. There were a few personnel changes during the early semi-pro years, with Moloney and violinist and percussionist Martin Fay joined by Seán Keane on violin and tin whistle.
When they became a full-time project (circa 1970) they first found a waiting audience in North America, where younger people were looking for something different and found it in their new Island Records discs (with much wider distribution). Another key addition in 1975 was that of harpist Derek Bell, whose sound gave the music even more panache.
Their big break came later in 1975, where they were enlisted by Stanley Kubrick for the film Barry Lyndon and especially on one song Women of Ireland – which got some airplay on US progressive FM stations (and a few AM Top-40 stations as well). In addition, they were featured on many TV news magazines and even as the musical guests on Saturday Night Live. By the end of the decade, some more personnel changes brought their final new members Matt Molloy on flute, plus Kevin Conneff on vocals and the indigenous Irish instrument bodhran (a hand-held frame drum). This sextet (over the next two decades) would become known as the band’s classic lineup.
From the 80’s on, they delved into more collaborations with other performers (more on this later on). They wrote for several film soundtracks, released several live recordings and a Christmas album and had one notable 1988 album called Irish Heartbeat – with Northern Ireland’s own Van Morrison – that won much critical acclaim.
In the new century, the permanent lineup has now become a quartet as in 2002 harpist Derek Bell died just short of his 67th birthday and violinist Martin Fay retired from music at age 66 (and who died ten years later in 2012).
In 2010, the band released its first studio album of new material in seven years, and was one of their most ambitious ever. Paddy Moloney had long been fascinated with the 1845-46 US-Mexican War; fought as part of President Polk’s Manifest Destiny aims. There were a band of US soldiers (who were Irish immigrants) that deserted to fight for the side of Mexico … and the Chieftains’ 2010 album San Patricio was named after that group and told their story. Based upon his success with integrating Spanish-speaking musicians, they hired Ry Cooder as a co-producer, who utilized several Mexican musicians to form an unusual sound that garnered much critical praise.
In 2012, the band celebrated its 50th anniversary and had a long reunion tour featuring every surviving former member. They also released their most recent album Voice of Ages (with T-Bone Burnett as co-producer) with a number of younger musicians from a wide range of genres.
To begin to appreciate their influence on the music world you only need to see the number (and variety) of noted musicians who agreed to perform/record with the Chieftains. A sampler includes the following not already mentioned (and this is a rather incomplete list):
Rock/pop (Mark Knopfler, Elvis Costello, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Tom Jones, Sting, Rickie Lee Jones, Natalie Merchant, Art Garfunkel, the Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne), folk and New Age (Loreena McKennit, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Nanci Griffith), jazz (Bela Fleck, Diana Krall, Herbie Hancock), classical (Luciano Pavarotti), reggae (Ziggy Marley) and country/bluegrass (Roseanne Cash, Lyle Lovett, Earl Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs and Willie Nelson). In addition, they have had several other fans including Lennon/McCartney as well as Bob Dylan – shown with Paddy Moloney in the center photo below (and the last Chieftains album features When the Ship Comes In from Bob Dylan’s album “The Times They Are A-Changin”).
Their impact has been so great that the Irish government formally awarded them the title of “Ireland’s Musical Ambassadors” in 1989. In addition, they have won a lifetime Achievement Award from BBC Radio 2, an Emmy award and have six Grammy Awards (out of eighteen nominations). In 1995, they were named as honorary chiefs of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma – the first musical act to have been so honored. They performed an open-air concert in Dublin before an estimated one million people to welcome Pope John Paul II in 1979, were the first Western ensemble to be invited to perform at the Great Wall of China and upon Queen Elizabeth II’s first formal visit to Ireland in 2011 … well, who else would be invited to perform for it?
The Chieftains begin a US tour next month, including my new hometown of Keene, New Hampshire in March (which will be my first time seeing them). And in the photos below, the current quartet consists of: Kevin Conneff on bodhran (age 69), second in left photo, top in right photo … Paddy Moloney on pipes (age 75), center in both (actually, all three photos) … Seán Keane on violin (age 68), next-to-last in left photo, on left in right photo … and Matt Molloy on flute (age 67), on right in both photos.
What song to choose? Well, why not an example of their traditional music (with a guest vocalist) … and a celebrated collaboration?
From their most recent album Voice of Ages is the traditional ballad My Lagan Love – sung by a multitude of performers (Irish or otherwise) over the years. This version features the Irish singer Lisa Hannigan – an eclectic performer who has recorded with Celtic bands all the way to Herbie Hancock. You may have already heard her sing five years ago … if you were someone who watched the video (posted prominently on lefty blogs) of the Irish pro-same sex marriage TV commercial Sinead’s Hand (about what it’d be like for a young man to have to ask strangers if it was OK for him … to marry his girlfriend). And below you can hear Lisa Hannigan and the Chieftains.
Where Lagan stream sing lullaby
There blows a lily fair
When twilight gleam is in her eyes
The night is on her hair
And like a lovesick lenanshee
She hath my heart in thrall
No life have I, no liberty
With love is lord of all
In 1994, The Who’s lead singer Roger Daltrey assembled a series of shows for a musical tribute to his bandmate Pete Townshend. One stop he made (along with their late bassist John Entwistle) was at Carnegie Hall – where the Chieftains backed them up on one of my favorite Who songs, Behind Blue Eyes – which has an acoustic intro and ending. How on earth, though, would they handle the rocking improvisation portion? Below you can hear for yourself.
Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.
The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.
On weekends (and holidays), you may find the check-in thread earlier or later than normal because … it is the weekend! Moosies need their beauty rest:
For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.
The important stuff to get you started:
– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.
– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)
– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce … or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).
– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”
– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”
(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)
In this week’s address, President Obama said 2014 will be a year of action, and called on both parties to help make this a breakthrough year for the United States by bringing back more good jobs and expanding opportunities for the middle class.
Hi, everybody. This week, I visited a company in Raleigh, North Carolina that helps make electric motors that save businesses money on energy costs and cut harmful carbon pollution.
And I stopped by N.C. State University, where engineers are set to develop the new technology that will make those motors even better.
It’s part of my push not only to make America home to more high-tech manufacturing – but to make America more attractive for the good jobs that a growing middle class requires.
And increasingly, we are. Thanks in part to our all-of-the-above strategy for American energy, for the first time in nearly two decades, we produce more oil here at home than we buy from the rest of the world. We generate more renewable energy than ever, and more natural gas than anybody. Health care costs are growing at their slowest rate in 50 years – due in part to the Affordable Care Act. And since I took office, we’ve cut our deficits by more than half.
So we are primed to bring back more of the good jobs claimed by the recession, and lost to overseas competition in recent decades. But that requires a year of action. And I want to work with Congress this year on proven ways to create jobs, like building infrastructure and fixing our broken immigration system.
Where Congress isn’t acting, I’ll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who’s willing to work for it. That’s what I did in Raleigh by launching America’s second “manufacturing innovation institute.” It’s a partnership between companies, colleges, and the federal government focused on making sure American businesses and American workers win the race for high-tech manufacturing and the jobs that come with it – jobs that can help people and communities willing to work hard punch their ticket into the middle class.
I firmly believe that this can be a breakthrough year for America. But to make that happen, we’re gonna have to act – to create good jobs that pay good wages, and to offer more Americans a fair shot to get ahead. That’s what I’m focused on every day that I have the privilege of serving as your president. That’s what I’m going to be focused on every single day of this year.
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Bolding added.
~
Bonus Videos: Remarks by the President and First Lady at College Opportunity Summit. Transcript
~
Editor’s Note: The President’s Weekly Address diary is also the weekend open news thread. Feel free to leave links to other news items in the comment threads.
Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.
The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.
On weekends (and holidays), you may find the check-in thread earlier or later than normal because … it is the weekend! Moosies need their beauty rest:
For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.
The important stuff to get you started:
– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.
– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)
– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).
– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”
– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”
(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)
[Post 9/11], in our rush to respond to a very real and novel set of threats, the risk of government overreach — the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security — also became more pronounced. We saw, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, our government engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques that contradicted our values. As a Senator, I was critical of several practices, such as warrantless wiretaps. And all too often new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate.
Through a combination of action by the courts, increased congressional oversight, and adjustments by the previous administration, some of the worst excesses that emerged after 9/11 were curbed by the time I took office. But a variety of factors have continued to complicate America’s efforts to both defend our nation and uphold our civil liberties.
[…]
Now, to say that our intelligence community follows the law, and is staffed by patriots, is not to suggest that I or others in my administration felt complacent about the potential impact of these programs. Those of us who hold office in America have a responsibility to our Constitution, and while I was confident in the integrity of those who lead our intelligence community, it was clear to me in observing our intelligence operations on a regular basis that changes in our technological capabilities were raising new questions about the privacy safeguards currently in place.
[…]
First, everyone who has looked at these problems, including skeptics of existing programs, recognizes that we have real enemies and threats, and that intelligence serves a vital role in confronting them. We cannot prevent terrorist attacks or cyber threats without some capability to penetrate digital communications — whether it’s to unravel a terrorist plot; to intercept malware that targets a stock exchange; to make sure air traffic control systems are not compromised; or to ensure that hackers do not empty your bank accounts. We are expected to protect the American people; that requires us to have capabilities in this field.
[…]
As the nation that developed the Internet, the world expects us to ensure that the digital revolution works as a tool for individual empowerment, not government control. Having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism, the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely — because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.
Those values make us who we are. And because of the strength of our own democracy, we should not shy away from high expectations. For more than two centuries, our Constitution has weathered every type of change because we have been willing to defend it, and because we have been willing to question the actions that have been taken in its defense. Today is no different. I believe we can meet high expectations. Together, let us chart a way forward that secures the life of our nation while preserving the liberties that make our nation worth fighting for.
President Obama will wade into treacherous waters Friday when he delivers his much-anticipated address on government surveillance. Already the knives are out on both sides.
Privacy activists worry that he won’t go far enough to curtail government snooping. Conservative national security experts want him to reject all recommendations for change; a member of Obama’s own review panel is expressing disappointment over reports that the president will reject one of the panel’s key recommendations.
After spending much of the last month pondering 46 recommendations he received from a blue-chip panel he convened in the face of public outrage spurred by a series of revelations on government snooping by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Obama seems intent on taking a middle path.
Ahead of Obama’s speech, in which he will endorse some new limits on phone record collection — though nothing big and broad — and call upon Congress to help shape the future of the program, it’s worth taking a look at where the American public stands.
* 60 percent: That’s the percentage of Americans who said they believe Edward Snowden’s exposure of surveillance programs harmed national security, according to the poll.
* 68 percent: Nearly 70 percent said the NSA’s surveillance of telephone call records and internet traffic intrudes on some Americans’ privacy rights, according to the Post-ABC poll.
* 53 percent: More than half of Americans said they disapproved of the way Obama had handled the NSA surveillance activities, compared to just 35 percent who said they approved
* 2 percent: The NSA programs were not named among Americans’ list of Obama’s “biggest failures” in the Gallup poll.
President Obama has spent a huge amount of time working out what to do. Over the last two weeks there has been a steady stream of visitors to the White House as he hears from senators, congressmen, CEOs of internet companies and civil rights groups.
One of those who have been consulted is Richard Clarke, former national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism and a member of the group set up by the president to advise him on how to respond to this crisis.
They made 46 recommendations and Mr Clarke says this is an important opportunity that won’t come again – an opportunity to get the balance right.
A committee tasked by the White House with reviewing U.S. electronic surveillance has come up with to National Security Agency spying practices. Here are arguments for and against five recommendations that President Obama may take up in a speech announcing policy changes Friday. [The five recommendations:]
– Limit Access To Bulk Telephone Data
– Privacy Safeguards For Foreign Leaders
– Judicial Approval Of Seizure Of Financial And Phone Records
President Barack Obama on Friday outlined specific changes he was recommending the National Security Agency make to two of its most contested practices: its phone records collection program and its surveillance of foreign leaders.
Obama’s first concrete recommendation addressed the NSA’s phone records collection program, authorized under section 215 of the Patriot Act. While he emphasized that the program does not examine the records of ordinary Americans and that the review board found no evidence the phone records program was abused, he announced the program would be altered.
“I believe we need a new approach,” the President said, according to his prepared remarks. “I am therefore ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists, and establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk meta-data.”
In 1806, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, gave birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House.
In 1917, the United States paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands. I wonder if they would have cost less if they were not virgins?
In 1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, was taken into Soviet custody in Budapest, Hungary. (His fate has never been determined.)
In 1946, the United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.
In 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.
In 1994, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 61 people and causing $20 billion worth of damage. 20 years already! Feels like only yesterday.
In 1995, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the city of Kobe, Japan; more than 6,000 people were killed.
In 1997, an Irish court granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country’s history.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil suit when he answered questions from lawyers for Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of sexual harassment.
In 2001, faced with an Enron-created electricity crisis, California used rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people. I was lucky that the Socialist DWP in L.A. did not have to do that.
Born on This Day
1581 – Bernardo Strozzi, Italian Baroque painter (d. 1644)
1657 (baptism) – Pieter van Bloemen Flemish painter and draftsman (d. 1720)
1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American statesman and inventor (d. 1790)
1820 – Anne Brontë, British author (d. 1849)
1829 – Raphaël Ritz, Swiss painter (d. 1894)
1840 – Lorenzo Delleani, Italian landscape painter (d. 1908)
1863 – David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister (d. 1945)
1863 – Constantin Stanislavski, Russian actor and theatre director (d. 1938)
1880 – Mack Sennett, Canadian film director (d. 1960)
1899 – Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
1904 – Patsy Ruth Miller, silent film actress (d. 1995)
1905 – Peggy Gilbert, American jazz saxophonist and bandleader, advocate for women musicians (d. 2007)
1922 – Betty White, American actress
1923 – Carol Raye, Australian actress
1925 – Patricia Owens, Canadian actress (d. 2000)
1926 – Moira Shearer, Scottish actress (d. 2006)
1927 – Tom Dooley, American humanitarian (d. 1961)
1927 – Eartha Kitt, American actress and singer (d. 2008)
1928 – Vidal Sassoon, English hair stylist and cosmetologist (d. 2012)
1931 – James Earl Jones, American actor
1939 – Maury Povich, American talk show host and Tabloid TV pioneer
1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer
1944 – Françoise Hardy, French singer
1949 – Andy Kaufman, American comedian (d. 1984)
1949 – Mick Taylor, British musician (John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and The Rolling Stones)
1955 – Steve Earle, American musician
1959 – Susanna Hoffs, American musician (The Bangles)
1960 – John Crawford, American musician (Berlin)
1964 – Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States
1964 – Andy Rourke, English bass guitarist (The Smiths and Freebass)
1966 – Stephin Merritt, American singer and songwriter (The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, and The Gothic Archies)
1966 – Shabba Ranks, Jamaican singer1967 – Richard Hawley, English singer, guitarist, and songwriter (Pulp and The Longpigs)
1969 – Naveen Andrews, British actor
1978 – Ricky Wilson, British singer (Kaiser Chiefs)
Died on This Day
1654 – Paulus Potter, Dutch painter (b. 1625)
1686 – Carlo Dolci, Italian Baroque painter (b. 1616)
1706 – Phillip Peter Roos, aka “Rosa da Tivoli,” German painter (b. 1657)
1737 – Jacob Laurensz van der Vinne, Dutch Mennonite painter and engraver (b. 1688)
1826 – Joseph Boze, French portrait and miniature painter (b. 1745)
1884 – Henry Brittan Willis, British painter (b. 1810)
1886 – Paul Baudry, French portrait painter (b.1828)
1893 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)
1927 – Juliette Gordon Low, American founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA (b. 1860)
1933 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American artist and designer (b. 1848)
1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1925)
1967 – Evelyn Nesbit, American model, actress, and star witness in one of the many murder trials that were dubbed Crime of the Century by the journalists of the day. This one (Stanford White killing Harry Thaw) is now so forgotten that you probably never heard of it. (b. 1884)
1972 – Betty Smith, American writer (b. 1896)
1996 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (b. 1936)
