Author: Trish

If King Were Alive Today, He’d Likely Protest Bush Policies

Trish

Celebrating amazing courage in the face of fear is what today is supposed to be all about. And when you realize what the followers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went through, you feel kind of puny for not doing more to protest our presence in Iraq. Or at least I do.

King and the civil rights activists stuck to their pledge to wage a nonviolent fight for desegregation. But it’s a good thing improvised explosive devices weren’t around back then because people on the other team probably would have used them.

According to my hometown paper, you can’t throw a rock here in St. Augustine, Florida without hitting a site where someone, um, threw a rock during the civil rights struggle. A short list, with me substituting descriptions for the actual addresses, since you probably don’t need those:

The black dentist was beaten by the Ku Klux Klan, and his home was shot up, narrowly missing his pregnant wife and killing the family dog

A “safe house” at the beach: In the summer of 1964, King was moved to this house from [town], because of the fear for his life. Ironically, this house was then shot up and firebombed. King was not there at the time but returned later, and a famous photo (above) shows him pointing to the bullet holes.

House in the north part of town, near me: Nothing is there today but the brick steps. The house was destroyed by fire, believed to be arson, after the…family who lived there sent their sons to integrate previously all-white Fullerwood School. The investigation of this fire was so significant that it is included in the 700 pages of King’s Florida FBI file, now at the University of Florida Smathers Library.

Old Woolworth & Co. downtown: Just weeks after the first lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C., in 1960, Florida Memorial College students [a teaching college in St. Augustine for black future instructors] conducted a three-day sit-in at the Woolworth’s on King Street…[Another sit-in] in June 1963, resulted in the teenagers known as the St. Augustine Four spending six months in jail and reform school. They were finally released by the action of the governor and cabinet in January 1964.

A house in West Augustine: The home of Dr. Robert B. Hayling, a [black] dentist who was the best-known leader of the St. Augustine efforts. He was beaten by the Ku Klux Klan, and his home was shot up, narrowly missing his pregnant wife and killing the family dog. He later moved to Fort Lauderdale, but in 2003 he came back with his family for ceremonies re-naming the street in his honor.

On Saturday, King’s former secretary, Dora McDonald, died from cancer in Atlanta.

An Associated Press story Sunday said King entrusted his family to McDonald’s care when he was in jail or traveling, and it was McDonald who told Coretta Scott King that her husband had been assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.

In a 1989 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, McDonald described her role as King’s secretary at Ebenezer Baptist Church and later at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as “a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job.”

McDonald never married or had children, and has no immediate survivors.

McDonald was working on a book about her life called, “Sharing the Dream: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Me.”

Are Hangings and Accidental Beheading a Cover-Up?

Trish

Can this get any worse?

The official video of the hangings showed Hussein’s half-brother lying headless below the gallows, his severed head several yards away

Iraq hanged two of Saddam Hussein’s aides early Monday, and one of the men was decapitated in the process.

The official video of the hangings showed Hussein’s half-brother lying headless below the gallows, his severed head several yards away, The Associated Press reported.

Good Lord.

The new barbarities come as people continue to question the timing of Saddam’s recent hanging, which took place after he was found guilty of a charge that paled in comparison to the biggie — gassing thousands of Kurds. Some observers, such as Ghada Karmi in The Guardian, wonder if the Bush administration wanted to see Saddam die before American support for Iraq’s 1980 — 1988 war on Iran, which took place while Junior’s dad was vice president, could be explored.

But it was also essential to stop him revealing secrets about the west’s past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail, after a plot to assassinate him. Far better to put him away safely for that rather than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double-dealing.

New Poll: The Military Thinks Bush Blows Too

Trish

Bush has never been less popular among American troops, maybe, as Jon pointed out, because he stands in front of them and tells them bold-faced, transparent lies.

No doubt there are other reasons, too, such as demanding they serve…and serve…and serve as he, himself, was never willing to do.

A poll released at year-end by the Military Times shows our soldiers are no longer pickin’ up what Bush is puttin’ down.

Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the [Dec. 22,] 2006 Military Times Poll.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.

Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president’s approval rating among the military is only slightly higher than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of Bush’s handling of the war…

Just as telling, in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

The poll was taken before His Assholiness spoke the other day.

Whatever war plan the president comes up with later this month, it likely will have the replacement of American troops with Iraqis as its ultimate goal. The military is not optimistic that will happen soon. Only about one in five service members said that large numbers of American troops can be replaced within the next two years. More than one-third think it will take more than five years. And more than half think the U.S. will have to stay in Iraq more than five years to achieve its goals.

Almost half of those responding think we need more troops in Iraq than we have there now. A surprising 13 percent said we should have no troops there. As for Afghanistan force levels, 39 percent think we need more troops there. But while they want more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly three-quarters of the respondents think today’s military is stretched too thin to be effective.

And they should know. So much for Bush listening to those “boots on the ground.”

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Trish

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) sent an otherwise party line newsletter to constituents this week extolling the boldness of Pres. Bush’s new strategy for Iraq. Yeah, whatever.

But this little tidbit was buried toward the end. Mel congratulated the “city” of Umatilla, Florida’s volunteer fire department for receipt of a nearly $35,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

And they even have a weekly newspaper!

Umatilla calls itself “the gateway to Ocala National Forest” on its website. It’s home to the Florida Black Bear Festival, “a fun and educational event” held each October. Although it was once a citrus-growing area, today you will find, “shops, restaurants, a honey co-op, doctors & dentists, a pharmacy, banks, and a weekly newspaper. Our community also features active civic clubs, churches, a library, exemplary schools and ample recreational activities.”

Its Wikipedia listing said it had a population of 2,214 in 2000 but it grew to 2,502 by 2004.

Martinez issued a press release announcing the grant, which he evidently views as tax money well spent.

“The AFG grant is terrific news for this department in Umatilla. The continued financial support for the men and women who voluntarily serve their communities will aid in the life and property protection services that they provide,” said Martinez.

Gale Norton is Going to Hell

Trish

I hope all those cynics who said former Interior Secretary Gale Norton was too damn friendly to industry are listening. Because, man, were you guys right!

Shell’s getting a bargain, no matter how much Norton sold her soul for

Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is returning to Colorado to work for Shell, the energy behemoth that is pouring millions of dollars into an ambitious research project to produce oil shale on the Western Slope…

Norton will provide legal advice and services to Shell beginning in mid-January. She was unavailable for comment.

Or just unable to come up with anything to say that could ever in a million years put a good face on this.

But let’s face it. Shell’s getting a bargain, no matter how much Norton sold her soul for.

“I think Shell is serious about going in for commercial production of oil shale,” [Director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency in Aspen, Randy] Udall said. “They would need permits for air quality, permits for water quality, and Norton’s Colorado background plus her experience in the Interior Department makes her the perfect person to spearhead their permitting process.”

Yeah, perfect. Say hi to everyone in hell for me when you get there, girl.

How Bad is This?

Trish

Way bad.

The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty.

The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.

Um, That Global Warming Stuff? It’s Happening

Trish

What were you doing on Aug. 13, 2005? If you were a Canadian ice shelf, you were melting and breaking free. Yikes.

“What surprised us was how quickly it happened,” Copland said. “It’s pretty alarming.”

A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 497 miles south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada’s remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.

“This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are loosing [sic] remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead,” Vincent said Thursday…

Laurie Weir, who monitors ice conditions for the Canadian Ice Service, was poring over satellite images in 2005 when she noticed that the shelf had split and separated.

Weir notified Luke Copland, head of the new global ice lab at the University of Ottawa, who initiated an effort to find out what happened.

Using U.S. and Canadian satellite images, as well as data from seismic monitors, Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed in the early afternoon of Aug. 13, 2005.

“What surprised us was how quickly it happened,” Copland said. “It’s pretty alarming. Even 10 years ago scientists assumed that when global warming changes occur that it would happen gradually so that perhaps we expected these ice shelves just to melt away quite slowly, but the big surprise is that for one they are going, but secondly that when they do go, they just go suddenly, it’s all at once, in a span of an hour.”

Who Let Bush Near the Emailer Thingie?

Trish

Al Kamen, in his “In the Loop” Washington Post blog, shares an announcement that could have been written by the president himself.

President Bush’s pre-Christmas visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center caused some unexpected problems, judging from an e-mail alert we received. There were the usual traffic rerouting and parking restrictions, from 8 p.m. on Dec. 21 until 2 p.m. the next day.

The e-mail lists 12 such changes likely to frustrate drivers and includes an apology:

“Traffic will be blocked temporarily around the campus and re-routed if necessary. Sorry for the incontinence during this mission.”

We’re sorry, too.

Florida District 13: Oooh-oh, That Smell!

Trish

Two things to take from this post: 1) Bush, et al campaigned way too hard for this loser to lose, and 2) Oh no, you did-int say the voters can’t see how the votes are recorded!

I didn’t think I would still be this appalled, all these weeks later, about the race in which Republican multimillionaire car dealer Vern Buchanan stole the U.S. House Florida District 13 seat. But with the Jetsonesquely named iVotronics’ manufacturer claiming that we, the voting public, have no right to know how (or if) their machines work, I’m outraged all over again.

Of all the races where there could have been problems with electronic voting machines, isn’t it funny that the one where the Bush Administration lobbied most heavily is the one that looks the most tampered with?

By now, everyone knows the story: Buchanan, according to his own internal polling, was behind Democrat Christine Jennings by three to six points going into the election. Jennings voters, upon exiting the booths, immediately reported difficulties with the touch-screen interface in that one race.

Not in dispute is how many voters were affected — about 18,000. The reason why 18,000 voters drove all the way down to the polling place, signed up for a ballot, cast a vote in every other race on that ballot, and then just stopped, is less clear.

Depending on who you listen to, 18,000 random folks lost interest and whiffed off just as they were about to choose between Buchanan and Jennings. Another theory holds that 18,000 people participated in a mass, extemporaneous protest of negative ads which somehow failed to stop them from voting in the governor’s race. That was the one where Republican Charlie Crist ran a month-long ad blitz with an empty chair portraying his opponent.

As we reported just before the election, Buchanan had some heavyweight support. Both Pres. and Mrs. Bush appeared on his behalf, with Laura making multiple visits. America’s mayor, Rudy himself, stumped for Buchanan, and the Vice President even left the secret bunker to make rare, daylight appearances. No doubt his garlic necklace kept him safe.

Yet, of all the races where there could have been problems with electronic voting machines, isn’t it a funny coincidence that the one where the Bush Administration lobbied most heavily is the one that looks the most tampered with?

And with ES&S, the machine’s maker, refusing to divulge how its machines work, things are getting fishier and fishier. Can you imagine the makers of optical scanning machines refusing to tell anyone how it scans ballots? Excuse me? When did Americans make a deal to be kept in the dark about the accuracy of vote counting? Was I out of the room?

It’s time for us all to wake up and smell the tuna — and this one’s been decomposing since Nov. 7.