|
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
|
By Sophia Kishkovsky, theartnewspaper.com, Jan.8, 2015
Berlin, Montenegro and, ironically, Kiev are popular destinations as Moscow curbs free speech
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment), Jan. 5, 2015
Iran’s system of government is a hybrid. One wing of it consists of a dictatorial theocracy, centered on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The other wing is elected and comprises the parliament and the presidency. President Hassan Rouhani, a reformer, is worried about being stymied in his economic and diplomatic initiatives by regime hard liners. He has been attacked for...
The author is Dr. Emilye Crosby a professor at SUNY Genesee that teaches history of Civil Rights, African American History and Women's History.
The article covers who was involved in bringing MLK to Selma 50 years ago. It is interesting because of the women who were involved locally in getting African American willing to register to vote and later bring in Southern Christian Leadership Council.
I was in high school when all of this was going on. It influenced my future politics and I also thought that LBJ was a better president then was given credit for after he left office. Younger people don't realize just how much the African American community was terrorized by local racist. We are still experiencing the backlash in southern dominated politics today.
DETROIT (AP) — An unusual home taking shape inside General Motors' sprawling Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant is intended to be part of a movement to rebuild the city's economy and deteriorating, disappearing housing stock.
Come spring, the house-in-progress will be delivered to Detroit's North End neighborhood and secured on a foundation where a blighted home once stood. After finishing touches and final inspections, the 40-foot-long former container will feature 320 square feet of living space with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, and will serve as home base for a university-student caretakers of a neighborhood farm and agricultural research activities.
guardian.co.uk, Jan. 3, 2015
US government asked for any documents it may have showing Duke of York lobbied on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein....Buckingham Palace said it was categorically untrue that the 54-year-old prince had tried to influence US prosecutors...There were also strenuous denials this weekend from the US lawyer who worked for Epstein and is also alleged to have had sex with a minor. Alan Dershowitz said the woman making the claims “should not be believed”. The former Harvard law professor said: “My only feeling is if she’s lied about me...
VOA News, Jan. 3, 2015
A suspected Libyan al-Qaida member has died just days before he was to go on trial in New York for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The lawyer for Abu Anas al-Libi said his client, who had hepatitis C and advanced liver cancer, died Friday at a hospital in the New York area/ Libi and Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi, were due to stand trial on January 12 for the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people [....]
By Bernard Avishai, newyorker.com, Dec. 31, 2014
....Kerry is trying to avoid “doing stupid stuff,” as Obama has often put it. If the nuclear negotiations with Iran finally produce an agreement this winter—even one that opens the country to permanent inspections and greater economic integration—Netanyahu and the Republican Congress can be expected to attack it. Why provide them with more reasons to accuse the Obama Administration of being unfriendly to Israel? At the same time, Kerry knows that doing nothing to quell the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians may not be shrewd...Kerry’s most subtle assumption is that a conflict with Washington will work to Netanyahu’s advantage. Here, I think Kerry is misinformed, even if Livni is informing him.....
By Nicholas Thompson, newyorker.com, Dec. 31, 2014
Here are fourteen magazine stories that we published this year, selected—for reasons detailed here—based on the total amount of time that people spent reading them, and arranged chronologically.
By Jim Yardley & Jo Becker, New York Times, Dec. 30/31, 2014
....if the story of South Stream shows how larger geopolitical concerns can, at least temporarily, limit Mr. Putin’s ability to use his energy riches as a foreign-policy tool, it is also a case study of how he has operated in Europe, and will probably continue to do so...
By Kathryn Shattuck & Hubert Mandeville, New York Times interactive, Dec. 31, 2014
As a chronicle of the ups and downs of fictional British aristocrats and servants, “Downton Abbey” weaves a surprising amount of authentic historical context into its plots. Here is an episode-by-episode look at some of the show’s period details, and how those events have been covered in The New York Times. “Downton Abbey” returns for its fifth season on PBS on Sunday — check back each week during the new season for updates.
Before Christmas TV Host Ellen dared viewers to "sneak up and dance behind total strangers". So a YouTube star, Alexander Bok, took the dare and on Christmas Eve danced in and around Grand Central Station in NYC. He danced behind one guy for 20 minutes, the guy hardly noticed. Another guy smiled and gave him a hug. How did members of the finest and most professional law enforcement organization in the world react? When he danced by NYC cops, they cursed and yelled epithets at him and physically threw him to the cold wet street.
By Mubarak Zeb Khan, Dawn.com, Dec. 30, 2014
ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee meeting on Tuesday observed that law enforcement and security agencies lacked proper training to investigate the financing of terrorist activities [....]
By Justin Mayer, Washington Post, Dec. 31, 2014
[....] One million died. Two million fled. Today, the population of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is still lower than it was before Abraham Lincoln became president. Now, the remains of some of those who tried to flee this cataclysm have been identified — on a beach in Canada [....] though they carried refugees of the Great Famine, coffin ships — illustrations of which resemble the sleeping quarters of Nazi concentration camps — were themselves deadly, claiming the lives of up to 100,000 would-be migrants [....]
By Andrew Jacobs, nytimes.com, Dec. 25, 2014
There may be no exact translation for “humbug” in Chinese, but in recent days, as popular fervor for the trappings of Western-style Christmas enveloped this officially atheist nation, the defenders of traditional Chinese culture have fought back with Scrooge-like zeal....
Marc Rogers gives a page full of reasons why: All the evidence leads me to believe that the great Sony Pictures hack of 2014 is far more likely to be the work of one disgruntled employee facing a pink slip. I may be biased, but, as the director of security operations for DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker conference, and the principal security researcher for the world's leading mobile security company, Cloudflare, I think I am worth hearing out.
Layoffs underway Sony Pictures...... Sony Layoffs Technology Department employees.
This sure qualifies as defining deviance down! There is, in reality, no sort of loophole pursuant to which the party who presents evidence in court which is known to be false can escape responsibility. Stay tuned. (Bar complaint to follow, guaranteed.)
I know some people might suggest the money spent on these rockets could be better spent lifting their people out of poverty, but given their population of well over a billion people, I think that forcing them into either/or options is narrow thinking.
Way to go, India!
Krugman explains why the ruble has fallen more then the deflation of the price of oil. He looks at all the debt that the oligarchs has accumulated out side of Russia. All this debt is held in foreign currency and not in rubles. Normally this type of currency crash happens when high foreign debt is caused by government over borrowing and low exports. This is not the case because exports have been high in Russia and government borrowing low. The private sector has been accumulating assets out side of Russia with heavy borrowing.
It is a good read. I like how in the end he brings up the love affair some of the far right's with Putin. Like I said in a comment on the other thread on this subject. Russia is a far right's wet dream.
Marketwatch, Dec. 19, 2014
S&P 500 scores biggest 2-day gain in more than 12 years
By Salman Masood & Declan Walsh, New York Times, Dec. 18, 2014
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani court on Thursday granted bail to a militant commander accused of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, drawing loud protests from India.
The suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, is a senior commander with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the blitz of attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that left 166 people dead and gravely worsened the relationship between Pakistan and India. He has been on trial since 2009.
The slow pace of the trial, which is closed to the news media, has been a continuing source of contention with India, which accuses the Pakistani authorities of tacitly supporting Lashkar-e-Taiban [...]
By Max Fischer, Vox, Dec. 17,2014
....The negotiations that led to today's announcement, in which the US and Cuba will take major steps toward normalization, took 18 long months, according to a report in the New York Times. And many of those negotiations were held in Canada, formally but secretly hosted by the Canadian government....Pope Francis played a similar role in helping to bring the Cuban leaders to the negotiating table. And, unlike Canadian officials, who did not sit at from the formal talks, Vatican officials participated actively in discussions.....
By Keith Johnson & Jamila Trindle, ForeignPolicy.com, Dec. 16, 2014
Apple shut down the iTunes store, people are racing to buy washer/dryers, and other scenes from an imploding Russian economy
"...The most incredible currency collapse I think I have ever seen in the 17 years in the market, and 26 years covering Russia,” said Tim Ash, head of emerging-markets research at Standard Bank...."
Agence France Presse, Dec. 17, 2014
DUBAI: A Saudi imam has sparked uproar by appearing on television along with his wife – whose face was uncovered in an open challenge to strict tradition in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.
Sheikh Ahmad al-Ghamedi, who has said covering the face is not a must for women under Islam, sat alongside his wife Jawaher bint Ali as she spoke to Dubai-based Saudi MBC television, in a program broadcast at the weekend [....]