Thursday, July 28th, 2016
Peter Holley, - The Washington Post
Stephan: In the Republican media bubble, there is the most amazing outrage about Michelle Obama's comment about the White House being built by slaves. The level of ignorance is surreal. Here a few facts.
Credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP
Michelle Obama’s speech during the first day of the Democratic National Convention was generally lauded.
One sentence in particular garnered more attention, and controversy, than the rest:
That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.
The mention of slavery was a stark reminder for those who may have forgotten the White House’s disturbing history or for those whose associate the iconic home with freedom and not the misery created in its absence.
Clarence Lusane, author of “The Black History of the White House,” isn’t one of those people.
The chair of Howard University’s Political Science Department, Lusane has done extensive research on the enslaved people who built the structure and later lived among 10 of the United […]
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Thursday, July 28th, 2016
Joanne Kimberlin , - The Virginian Pilot
Stephan: Here in one story you see why the failure of the Republican Party to govern from a factual basis puts the nation's security at risk. This is what willful ignorance looks like.
Nuclear carrier USS Harry Truman mooring in Hampton Roads.
Credit: Randall Greenwell/Virginian-Pilot
The latest scientific conclusion echoes others: It’s likely that sea level rise will eventually swallow huge swaths of Hampton Roads’ military installations, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists in a report scheduled for release today.
But if congressional Republicans have their way, the military will be blocked from doing anything about it.
Tacked on to defense spending bills passed by the House of Representatives: amendments forbidding the Pentagon from using federal dollars to study climate change or plan for its impacts.
Supporters say they want the military focused on enemies such as the Islamic State group, not rising seas.
Critics say flooding is a formidable foe as well.
“It’s kind of hard to attack the enemy when your base is underwater,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Southeast Virginia Democrat who voted against the ban.
Exactly how far underwater depends on a range of factors, says the report, which paints scenarios similar to those predicted […]
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2016
Michelle Obama, First Lady - The White House
Stephan: I think Michelle Obama is one of the most impressive First Ladies in our country's history; her dignity, grace, and good manners in the face of a constant litany of vituperation and calumny I find quite moving. This speech, which she made recently at Tuskegee University, reveals with candor a bit about what it has been like to be the first Black First Lady living in a house built by slaves for Presidents, many of whom were slave owners.
Michelle Obama at Tuskegee University
TUSKEGEE UNIVERSITY, TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA — You all have come here from all across the country to study, to learn, maybe have a little fun along the way — from freshman year in Adams or Younge Hall — (applause) — to those late night food runs to The Coop. (Applause.) I did my research. (Applause.) To those mornings you woke up early to get a spot under The Shed to watch the Golden Tigers play. (Applause.) Yeah! I’ve been watching! (Laughter.) At the White House we have all kinds of ways. (Laughter.)
And whether you played sports yourself, or sang in the choir, or played in the band, or joined a fraternity or sorority — after today, all of you will take your spot in the long line of men and women who have come here and distinguished themselves and this university.
You will follow alums like many of your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles — leaders like Robert Robinson Taylor, a groundbreaking architect and administrator here who was recently honored […]
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2016
Alejandro Davila Fragoso, - Climate Progress
Stephan: Strictly at the personal level, one of my rewards is to see one of my predictions about a trend become reality. All too often though at the social level, it is proof that degrades wellness.
The linkage of social disruption and climate change is becoming more and more obvious. Here is an example.
Peruvian troops
Credit: AP Photo/Karel Navarro
When one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded hit the South American country of Peru in 1982, the abnormal warming it brought to the Pacific Ocean was a catastrophic blow to the already economically fragile nation. The fishing industry quickly suffered massive losses as the anchovy harvest collapsed and the sardines suddenly migrated south into Chilean waters.
Heavy rains and flooding crippled agriculture and infrastructure in the north. Crops in the south and the highland were battered, too, with a drought that for some areas seemed to be the continuation of a short but intense dry spell that had ended just two years before. By 1983 the country was an economic and violent mess. It had lost more than 10 percent of its gross domestic product in a matter of months. Inflation was rampant. Poverty was widespread but particularly overwhelming for the indigenous population, and the Shining Path, a terrorist insurgency that went on to kill more than 70,000 […]
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2016
Tom Engelhardt, - Salon/Tom Dispatch
Stephan: I really like this essay, and I agree with it. A man like Dwight Eisenhower would be appalled at what we have become.
Why has this happened? I believe it has happened for two reasons: First, because very few politicians are veterans. Of the present members of Congress only 20% of the Senate and 18% of the House have or are serving in the military; and under 4% of the staff. An even smaller percentage of that small percentage have been in combat, or even in an active war zone. The vast majority have no idea what war is like, and what it does to social wellness. Second, because the Congress has been corrupted by money in a profit first social structure, and war is incredibly profitable for what Eisenhower called, "The military-industrial complex" corporate world the Congressional corruption is particularly great there.
And we are going to reap what we have sown. That's my prediction, and it is already happening.
A man holds a child in the window of a shelter at the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, Sunday, June 19, 2016. Since the start of the Syrian war, 4.8 million people have fled the country, with 655,000 taking refugee in country, 80,000 of which reside in Zaatari, the largest of Jordan’s three refugee camps.
Credit: AP Photo/Sam McNeil
I recently dug my mother’s childhood photo album out of the depths of my bedroom closet. When I opened it, I found that the glue she had used as a girl to paste her life in place had given way, and on many pages the photos were now in a jumble.
My mother was born early in […]
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