The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Watt Childress's picture

    Nashville's song for our country (land and nation)

    By Watt Childress on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 12:19pm |

    Last month I received a phone call from a friend in Nashville who I worked with when I lived there in 1991. His name is Sizwe Herring.

    Sizwe -- which means "land and nation" in Zulu --  is the visionary director of the George W. Carver Food Park. For two decades, the park has served as a community demonstration site for composting and gardening in Nashville’s inner-city neighborhoods. The park is located on state-managed public land adjacent to an interstate that runs through the city.

    Rootman's picture

    Tears for Osama

    By Rootman on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 7:43am |

    It's been great this week watching people who condemned Bush for not killing bin Laden condemn Obama for doing it. I have really never seen so much silliness. Who was speaking out in concern for bin Laden's safety all these years when we knew he was targeted? A little too late now.

    While the Republican Party collapses under its own idiocy, I guess that's the cue for us to walk out of the Dem Party in droves.

    Pakistan agreed

    By Flavius on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 6:40am |

    it's true even tho Juan Cole says it,kgb.

     

     

    http://www.juancole.com/

    Juan Cole on OBL's "illegitimate" end

    By Flavius on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:42am |

    http://www.juancole.com/

    the United Nations Charter ......... recognizes the right of a state to defend itself from attack. Bin Laden had demonstrated that he............. would attack the United States. He was ......... having US troops ..................................................... attacked  .............. every day............ wouldn’t the US have the same right to defend itself as everyone else?

    Jamie Friedland's picture

    GOP vs. the Vatican?

    By Jamie Friedland on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 9:48am |

    Three years ago, the Roman Catholic Church commissioned a report to investigate the environmental changes occurring on our planet.  The Vatican’s non-denominational scientific arm, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, reached out to international experts and asked them to compile the report that will soon be delivered to Pope Benedict XVI.

    Richard Day's picture

    AMERICAN BESTIALITY!

    By Richard Day on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 4:00pm |

    File:The Men Who Stare at Goats poster.jpg

    Florida, your long nightmare is over!

    No, I'm not talking about the current reign of your grifter governor -- that's a nightmare of much shorter duration.

    Tommy Holmes's picture

    Thoughts On Protectionism

    By Tommy Holmes on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 6:58am |

    Free Trade is killing the American middle class. You know Washington has to be in bed with Corporate America to have passed these laws. No unions, environmental laws and ultra cheep labor will certainly attract business to out-source jobs; but when you killed the import tariffs and allowed them to get the goods back into this country free, you sealed the fate of the American worker! I know there's nothing here you didn't know and understand. If you truly represent the American people, advance some protectionism legislation. If someone doesn't soon, the boycotts will start.

    Wisconsin SC Recount Insanity.

    By kgb999 on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 8:55pm |

    If you haven't been following the recount for the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race, you probably should be. It keeps getting crazier and crazier. This is pretty much a highlight of the past week's coverage by Brad Friedman at Bradblog. His coverage opens....

    Where Minnesota's post-election hand count of the 2008 U.S. Senate election between then Sen. Norm Coleman and now Sen. Al Franken was, as we wrote at the UK's Guardian at the time, "one of the longest and most transparent election hand-counts in the history of the US," Wisconsin has made it extremely difficult (putting it nicely) to know what the hell is actually going on in their statewide "recount" of the April 5th, 2011, state Supreme Court election between Justice David Prosser and Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

    From there, things have just gone downhill.

    Barth's picture

    Preserve, Protect and Posture

    By Barth on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 1:19pm |

    The Washington Post, reviewing Ron Suskind's book, The One Percent Solution, described one of its anecdotes, likely from former CIA director George Tenet or one of his allies:

    we are stardust's picture

    Where Did All the Black Jockeys Go?

    By we are stardust on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 11:32am |

    It’s Derby Day, and the Belles and Gents from all over are already getting dressed in their finery and mixing their vats of mint juleps to haul along, though I’d guess that the image I might have of tail-gate parties may be a bit too ‘down-class’ for the parking lots at Churchill Downs in Lou’vlle (gotta say it like ya have enlarged tonsils, remember…).

    In the afternoon the crowds of dapper men and spectacularly-hatted women will at least pretend to be singing the old song which starts like this; and will bring a tear to many an eye:

    The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
    'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
    The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom,
    While the birds make music all the day.

    Taking a hard turn away from the 'gay darkies' trip, a century later some folks are asking what really happened to erase them from the Derby and most big races so completely.  Richard Watkins writing at the Root has some answers based on a newspaper article found by a researcher in Washington DeeCee. 

    Pakistan under the interrogation lights

    By artappraiser on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 2:24am |

    Probing Link to Bin Laden, U.S. Tells Pakistan to Name Agents
    By Helene Cooper and Ismail Khan, New York Times, May 6, 2011

    WASHINGTON — Pakistani officials say the Obama administration has demanded the identities of some of their top intelligence operatives as the United States tries to determine whether any of them had contact with Osama bin Laden or his agents in the years before the raid that led to his death early Monday morning in Pakistan.

    The officials provided new details of a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and an American envoy who traveled to Pakistan on Monday....

    Note: Ismail Khan, now writing for the Times, is a Pakistani journalist with lengthy up close and personal experience covering Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, starting several years before 9/11.

    FurudeRikaChama's picture

    Five things that absolutely get me hot under the collar

    By FurudeRikaChama on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 8:20pm |

    I'm absolutely, positively livid right now, so I need to vent my frustration out right now. I wanted to watch a movie on TV, but the channel it was supposed to be on decided to change it to a stupid reality show about babysitting kids! Damn those idiots! How dare they lie to me!

    Anyway, these are the ten things that tick me off.

     

    cmaukonen's picture

    What's the difference....two recessions

    By cmaukonen on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 5:01pm |


    Dick Oberholtzer and his wife listening to radio signals from Sputnik I.

    Richard Day's picture

    THE DEBATES & RAW CHICKEN

    By Richard Day on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 2:10pm |

    If you are what you eat, then this alleged burglar is a rare bird, according to police in Texas.

    Torture Is Us

    By Flavius on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:08pm |

    Let's review the bidding.

    o Around 8 years ago torture produced some facts  which did not lead to Osama.

    o Last year without torture we learned some things which did.

    o We don't know the decisiveness of  those   8 year old facts.Maybe they were crucial in causing us to focus  on something we might have overlooked.  Or merely interesting :"oh, there's that guy again".

    o We won't be told by the Govt. We'll learn from a leak. 

    Eyeless in Abbotabad

    By Flavius on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 9:58am |

    From Juan Cole today.

    It turns out that the US military has to share the humiliation of Bin Laden’s having been right under their noses in Abbotabad. State Department cables revealed by Wikileaks confirm that there were 100 US military trainers at the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbotabad sometime in or after 2008.

    Wanna fight?

    By Flavius on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 12:54am |

    Over at Brad Delong's there has been some fervent expressions of opinions about this. Tar and Feathers were mentioned.

    Richard Day's picture

    DOUGLAS THE BRUCE & THE TABOR MOVEMENT

    By Richard Day on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 3:26am |

    File:Vincent Willem van Gogh 002.jpg

                            AT ETERNITY'S GATE (Willem_van_Gogh)



    Savanarola and the Oilogopoly

    By Flavius on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 10:40pm |

    "In Australia , the RX 201 , 935 dollars"

    Pause. Then a different voice

    "In South Africa , the landesmeer goes to 2080 rand"

    Pause. Another voice

    "Germany. The fixed compressor operated XYZ. 5010 deutschmarks"

    Long pause. Last voice

    "United States. The hand held nut runner. 425 dollars."

    Pause. "Got to get a plane."

    "Safe trip"

    "See you next time".

    You've just attended a price fixing session.courtesy of The  Voice of Flavandia.

    we are stardust's picture

    His Code Name Was Geronimo

    By we are stardust on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 10:14pm |

    They stole his name, Geronimo, a bad thing to do.  Geronimo, the legendary warrior and leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, whose name was cavalierly besmirched  and used as the code name for Osama bin Laden in the operation that was meant to, and did, exterminate him.

    cmaukonen's picture

    Monetary Power to The People

    By cmaukonen on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 8:06pm |

    I've been sort of mulling things over concerning our current economic state of affairs and reading some blogs.  I came across this piece by Stephen Zarlenga co-founder of the American Monetary Institute concerning some legislation being introduced, for

    Who needs a death panel?

    By Flavius on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 8:50am |

    From Brad Delong

    Pear:

    Medicare Proposal Financing Differs From Federal Employee Plan: Under the federal employees’ health plan... the government pays a fixed share of premiums. So the federal contribution generally keeps pace with rising premiums, which in turn reflect rising health costs. No such guarantee exists under the Republicans’ plan to transform Medicare....

    Jamie Friedland's picture

    Campaign Curiosities

    By Jamie Friedland on Tue, 05/03/2011 - 8:41pm |

    For the last few months, I’ve been working for a campaign consultant group.  Others might find collecting and formatting electoral data boring, but I actually enjoy it.  Every so often you come across a real gem or bizarre anecdote, and I finally have the time to share a few of these with you.  Please forgive me for the following schizophrenic list:

    The 2012 Republican candidate for Kentucky Attorney General is named Todd P’Pool [sic].  Evidently his family could not find a satisfactory Earth language to pick a name from.

    The Hamas/Fatah unity discussions

    By Flavius on Tue, 05/03/2011 - 5:15pm |

    Just  so  there is  some alternative to the  Netanyahu prononcements it's worth recognizing that there are other Israeli views which are  much more balanced. As usual they can be found on bitter lemons.

    The two Israeli views in the link are from a former assistant to Prime Minister Barak, and  a retired general. One of the two Palestinian views is from a former minister in an Hamas govt.

     

    http://www.bitterlemons.net/

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