Come Veterans' Day

Haven't posted anything for a while.

That being said - all that bad stuff that happened in the election last week is not my fault! ;-)

But, more to the point - Veterans' Day.

Thanks, folks!

Come Veterans’ Day I sat on the stand in my dress blues
I held your mother’s hand, and they passed with the red, white and blue
One minute you’re right there, and somethin’ slips..........…

- B. Springsteen, "Brothers Under the Bridge"

"How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?"

Fifth anniversary of the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.

"Gonna be a judgement, that's a fact
A righteous train rolling down this track."



Something to remember, if you're thinking of voting for the Republicans in November.

Friday Night Springsteen

Yes, I know that we don't do "Friday Night Springsteen", but leaving that aside.

This evening I saw a video with Chuck Berry and the E Street Band.

How cool is that?

In Manhattan

I am really, really tired of the right-wing haters, who have attached themselves like lampreys to the issue of the Islamic cultural center proposed for lower Manhattan.

Those people are parasites. They serve no useful purpose. The suck blood for their own use, and don't care what harm they cause.

That intro out of the way, Mr. Olbermann:

We sacrificed 4,415 of our military personnel in Iraq to save Muslims, and there are thousands of us still there tonight to protect Muslims, but we don't want Muslims to open a combination culinary school and prayer space
in Manhattan.

From the beginning of this nation we have fought prejudice and religious intolerance and our greatest enemy stupidity exploited by rapacious politicians. It is only 50 years now, this month since Americans publicly and urgently warned their countryman not to support a presidential candidate because he was Roman Catholic. He would bow to the will not of the American people, but of the Pope. He would be a papist. He would be the agent of a foreign state. His name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Despite the nobility of our founding and the indefatigable efforts of all of our generations, there have always been those who would happily sacrifice our freedoms, our principals to ward off the latest unprecedented threat, the latest unbeatable "outsiders". But once again at 45 Park Place, we are being told to sell our birth right. To feed the maw of xenophobia and vengeance and mob rule.

The terrorists who destroyed the buildings from which you could only see 45 Park Place as a dot on the ground, wanted to force us to change our country, to become more like the ones (they) knew. What better way could we honor the dead at the World Trade Center than to do the terrorists heavy lifting for them.

Do you think 45 Park Place is where it ends? The moment this monstrous betrayal of our America gained the slightest traction, the next goal was unveiled. "No more building permits for any Mosques in this country" brayed the man from the euphemistically named American Families Association. Of course, he said maybe the permits could be granted if the congregation was "willing to publicly denounce the Koran."

They came first for the building permits....

The whole thing --



[Edited] I highlighted the text from Mr. Olbermann, about President Kennedy, because it really is applicable. And it's another reason to Nuck Fewt.

Cross of His Calling

Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog has a great post responding to the extremes to which the right-wing hate machine (in this case, as channeled by William Kristol) is going in order to attack the Muslim community center in lower Manhattan (and, since the President decided to say they have a right to build it, that's just made it personal for the haters). Steve at "No More Mister" points out the absurdity of Mr. Kristol's attack on the President, for noting how the September 11 attack was a traumatic experience:

Here's Bill Kristol's gloss on one line in the president's speech Friday night:

... For Obama, 9/11 was a "deeply traumatic event for our country." Traumatic events invite characteristic reactions and over-reactions--fearfulness, anger, even hysteria. That's how Obama understands the source of objections to the Ground Zero mosque. It's all emotional. The arguments don't have to be taken seriously. The criticisms of the mosque are the emotional reactions of a traumatized people.

But Americans aren't traumatized. 9/11 was an attack on America, to which Americans have responded firmly, maturely, and appropriately....

So wait -- it's inappropriate to say that Americans were "traumatized" by 9/11? It means you're a contemptuous America-hating appeaser?

Gosh, I guess Kristol just never got around to making this point in August 2004, when, at a campaign rally, President Bush said this about Rudy Giuliani:

I'm proud to be traveling with this good man. He's a great leader, a great friend, and a wonderful American. He showed the world great courage during traumatic times, and I'm proud to be standing by him.

And I guess Kristol also neglected to make this point a few months earlier, when President Bush said of 9/11,

It affected our national psyche and it affected the economy. Remember, we had to shut down Wall Street, and airplanes didn't fly. It was a traumatic time for the American economy.

Read the rest. Anyway, I posted a comment, and decided to repeat it here (in a slightly revised form), since I've been neglecting any posting on this page. Here goes:

But, it wasn't traumatic for Bill Kristol. It was just a "golden opportunity" for his grand plan to kill as many Arabs as he wanted. Kuck Fristol.

It was traumatic for me, and not just because of the terrible loss of life, or the fact that I live in a community where some people didn't come home that day, or ever. One of the reasons it was traumatic for me is that, when I awoke on 9/12, I heard on the news that a New York Fire Department chaplain had been killed; I realized immediately that it must have been Father Mychal Judge, who had been a priest in my parish when I was a kid. I called my Mom right away, because I knew she'd be hearing it, also. Father Mychal always kept in touch with the families he met - he baptized one of my nieces. He had sent two pictures to my parents, not long before the attacks, which were on the 'fridge at their home that day. They were pictures of him in his two uniforms - one, his Franciscan habit, and the other his FDNY uniform, as a chaplain.

I have written about this before on this site, and rather than repeat myself, I would appreciate it if anyone reading here would check out those earlier "random thoughts", where the pictures I described above are posted. There is also a link there to the final picture of Father Mychal - his body being carried away from the scene of destruction.

His brother Franciscan, Brian Jordan, stood behind Mayor Bloomberg, when the Mayor gave his recent forceful refutation of the haters.

Also, I live in a commuter town in NJ, where we lost neighbors, fellow parishioners, and active members of our community in the attack. I know that some people who experienced loss on that day are disturbed by the proposed community center. But, that's different from the "opportunity to hate" folks, who are screaming about "Muslim Extremists!!!", as if that was one word, not two.

We know that the haters aren't speaking for the people who actually experienced the pain of that day.

I really believe that the extent of hatred towards the proposed community center, increases the further one gets from Manhattan.

Oh, yes, and Nuck Fewt, also

Irony

I think that Newt Gingrich posing with his third (Is it third? I've lost track.) wife to support his proposition that marriage is between one man and one woman is - - - self-explanatory.

Sunday Night Not-Springsteen

From reading this news story:

President Obama paid tribute to 29 fallen West Virginia coal miners today by citing the one plea made by families after a deadly explosion this month: "Don't let this happen again."

"How can we fail them?" Obama asked during a memorial service in Beckley, W.Va. "How can a nation that relies on its miners not do everything in its power to protect them?"

As Steve Earle sings in "The Mountain", "There's ghosts in the tunnels ..."

Human Touch

Yes, I know, we've been "off the air" for a little while. But, I commented on a post at the "Lawyers, Guns and Money" blog, and figured I'd repeat it here.

In that post, entitled "I'm With Edward Olmos", one of that site's contributors endorses a proposal for everyone to write down "Human" as their race, on the 2010 Census. There followed a bunch of comments criticizing this suggestion. I added my two cents:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea. If too many people do this, there would be no way to track any patterns of segregation (or, optimistically, integration) in cities, suburbs or small towns. The Census isn’t a form of political expression, it’s necessary in order to get a handle on what the country is really like in 2010. I’m just surprised that a “liberal” or “progressive” would endorse something that would mess up any way to see if our country is living up to our ideal of full equality.

What I didn't write in the comment was another thought, that this suggestion would probably sound just great to David Brooks, because it would help perpetuate his ideal of little enclaves, where everybody is exactly the same as their neighbors.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Once again, we've neglected this blog. The "random thoughts" never seem to make it onto the page.

Still planning to do better. In the meantime, something with Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Elvis Costello, from the latter's "Spectacle" show - lots of "radio" songs -