Music is the sound track of our lives, books the script and buildings the set. Let the play begin -
First let's turn out the lights. http://www.onehournopower.com/
Strike up the band (well, at least he was part of The Band) Levon Helm, who is making some great music - http://levonhelm.com/
Now before you turn up your nose and go Eeeeww, books and Ugggh, history – hear me out on this one - “A Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin is simply the best book I've read in years. It takes you to a different time. A time when you could walk into the White House and talk to the President without getting shot or a least beaten up and thrown in jail unless you come bearing huge bags full of cash. One of Lincoln's first and biggest problems upon assuming office was making time to talk the crowds of job seekers who lined the hallways and crowded the White House one on one even though he knew he could help almost none of them. Now that is being a “compassionate conservative” in my book.
The National Mountain Centre, Canmore Alberta, Canada – Saucier + Perrotte
Using the 1860 presidential election as her pivot-point, Kearns-Goodwin offers a group portrait of the Lincoln administration during our Civil War crucible, with pronounced emphasis on New York Senator William H. Seward (secretary of state), Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase (secretary of treasury), and Missouri State House Representative Edward Bates (attorney general). All three had sought the White House only to have their dreams foiled by a gangly dark-horse candidate from Springfield, Ill. ''That Lincoln, after winning the presidency, made the unprecedented decision to incorporate his eminent rivals into his political family, the cabinet, was evidence of a profound self-confidence and a first indication of what would prove to others a most unexpected greatness," Goodwin writes.
All three of these guys (and several others in the cabinet) thought they would be the hand behind the throne that was really running things...it didn't work out that way, the rube from Illinois molded these powerful men to his will and they came to respect and admire him.
That didn't mean Lincoln's job was easy. Not in the beginning, not in the middle, not in the end. He had generals who couldn't fight, wouldn't fight or failed to press the advantage when they did fight. He had hostile congressmen who derided him as "King Lincoln" and a vociferous peace movement that refused to quit. He had a horrific body count that ate away at him, year after year. And one of his own cabinet members, Chase, openly schemed to run against him for president in 1864.
Called “The Marilyn Monroe” this condo is going up in Mississauga, Ontario, designed by Beijing-based MAD Architectural Design Studio
Stanton treated Lincoln with utter contempt at their initial acquaintance when the two men were involved in a celebrated law case in the summer of 1855. Unimaginable as it might seem after Stanton's demeaning behavior, Lincoln offered him "the most powerful civilian post within his gift"--the post of secretary of war--at their next encounter six years later. Lincoln had found in Stanton the leader the War Department desperately needed. Lincoln's choice of Stanton revealed his singular ability to transcend personal vendetta, humiliation, or bitterness. As for Stanton, despite his initial contempt for the man he once described as a "long armed Ape," he not only accepted the offer but came to respect and love Lincoln more than any person outside of his immediate family. He was beside himself with grief for weeks after the president's death.
Chase never ceased to underestimate Lincoln, nor to resent the fact that he had lost the presidency to a man he considered his inferior. His frustration with his position as secretary of the treasury was alleviated only by his his dogged hope that he, rather than Lincoln, would be the Republican nominee in 1864, and he steadfastly worked to that end. The president put up with Chase's machinations and haughty yet fundamentally insecure nature because he recognized his superlative accomplishments at treasury. Eventually, however, Chase threatened to split the Republican Party by continuing to fill key positions with partisans who supported his presidential hopes. When Lincoln stepped in, Chase tendered his resignation as he had three times before, but this time Lincoln stunned Chase by calling his bluff and accepting the offer.
Preformance Centre, Abu Dhabi, by Zaha Hadid Architects
When Seward was offered his cabinet post as secretary of state he intended to have a major role in choosing the remaining cabinet members, conferring upon himself a position in the new government more commanding than that of Lincoln himself. He quickly realized the futility of his plan to relegate the president to a figurehead role. Though the feisty New Yorker would continue to debate numerous issues with Lincoln in the years ahead, exactly as Lincoln had hoped and needed him to do, Seward would become his closest friend, advisor, and ally in the administration. More than any other cabinet member Seward appreciated Lincoln's peerless skill in balancing factions both within his administration and in the country at large.
Bates's ambitions for political success were gradually displaced by love for his wife and large family, and he withdrew from public life in the late 1840s. For the next 20 years he was asked repeatedly to run or once again accept high government posts but he consistently declined. However in early 1860, with letters and newspaper editorials advocating his candidacy crowding in upon him, he decided to try for the highest office in the land. After losing to Lincoln he vowed, in his diary, to decline a cabinet position if one were to be offered, but with the country "in trouble and danger" he felt it was his duty to accept when Lincoln asked him to be attorney general. Though Bates initially viewed Lincoln as a well-meaning but incompetent administrator, he eventually concluded that the president was an unmatched leader, "very near being a 'perfect man.'"
Would that in our own troubled time we had another “nearly perfect man” instead of -
Above from the fine pages of Spannerhead http://spannerhead.stumbleupon.com
Right now, one of the busiest spots on the oil map of the world is Club Tropicana. It's a little poky, but the beer is cold and, crucially in a town that rises late, enjoys a siesta and retires at dusk. "British riggers, Scandinavian geologists, Japanese diplomats, you name it, Those tables are seeing some deals." Seismic tests have suggested that São Tomé and Principe, two tropical rocks off the coast of West Africa with a population of 199,000, might be sitting on billions of barrels of oil.
São Tomé and Principe is part of a string of countries on the Gulf of Guinea, the right angle in Africa's west coast, which is the oil industry's new El Dorado. By some estimates, Africa holds 10% of the world's reserves, but that figure belies the importance West Africa has already achieved as a source of energy. According to Poisoned Wells, a new book on African oil by Nicholas Shaxson, an associate fellow with international affairs institute Chatham House in London, the U.S. imported more oil from Africa than from the Middle East in 2005, and more from the Gulf of Guinea than from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined.
In his 2007 book Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil, John Ghazvinian, a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the euphoria like this: "African oil is cheaper, safer and more accessible, and there seems to be more of it every day ... No one really knows just how much oil might be there, since no one's ever really bothered to check."
What will this do for the Africans? Probably not much...oil does not bring prosperity. As in other parts of Africa, oil will no doubt continue to dominate the economy. It currently accounts for around 90% of all exports, compared with 77% in Gabon and 95% in Nigeria. The second stage of the oil curse kicks in at this point. Investment in other industries gets crowded out, in part because it's hard for them to provide high enough returns to meet the costs of rising rents and salaries. Oil becomes virtually the only game in town, and the benefit to workers is surprisingly limited, with many of the more lucrative jobs — such as rig operator and refinery manager — going to foreign experts. Hence the expat enclaves in oil towns from Port Gentil to Baku. In some cases, unemployment can actually worsen. Fueled by the new spending power of the few, the cost of living also goes up. If the government doesn't share the wealth, the higher prices mean real poverty actually rises. And in Angola there's little evidence of government sharing: a 2004 Human Rights Watch report claimed that $4.22 billion in oil revenues went missing between 1997 and 2002.
Entrepreneurial spirit has all but evaporated: while rich locals may fund new businesses, most are set up and run by Europeans. And the nations are afflicted by a widespread sense of moral degeneration — from bureaucratic corruption to petty theft to sexual violence. "The lack of standards shown by Gabon's leadership has generated a complete immorality in the country," says a European economist in Gabon. "That's the real curse of oil."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1626751-1,00.html
Anatomy of a Black HoleFascinating stuff, great graphics and an easily understood narrative. Take a look at http://www.thinktechnologies.com/portfolio/demos/Blackhole.swf
"One of physics' brightest stars ventures into 10 dimensions, visits other universes, explains gravity, and keeps her sense of humor."
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.
Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for them being held. Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' "
The Republican presidential candidates were asked at their debate in South Carolina about "a million-to-one scenario'' involving the interrogation of suspected foreign terrorists. Only one in 10 got it right.
That one would be Senator John McCain, the only presidential candidate who has experienced torture. "Torture" is McCain's correct description of the "enhanced interrogation techniques'' that President George Bush authorized the CIA to use on captured members of Al Qaeda – methods that soon spread to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and then to Afghanistan and Iraq. Until McCain succeeded in passing a legislative restriction two years ago, the methods included "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, an ancient torture technique that every U.S. government before the Bush administration considered illegal and immoral.
The scenario posited by questioner Brit Hume supposed that, after suicide attacks in several U.S. cities, a group of attackers believed to know about further strikes was captured off the coast of Florida and taken to Guantanamo. "How aggressively would you interrogate ...?" Hume asked. McCain answered that in that extreme and most unlikely situation, "I, as the president of the United States, would take that responsibility" for determining interrogation methods. But, he added, "We could never gain as much from that torture as we lose in world opinion.''
The above courtesy of charity (who never comes to see me anymore) http://charity.stumbleupon.com
The senator's words carried the weight not only of his own experience but that of the Bush administration, which has all but destroyed U.S. standing in many parts of the world because of the human rights abuses at Guantanamo, at Iraq's Abu Ghraib and in the CIA's secret prisons. Yet McCain's rivals seem to have learned nothing from this history. Rudy Giuliani said he would tell interrogators to use "every method they could think of," including waterboarding. Nonsensically, he added, "I've seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this," though prisoner interrogations had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Mitt Romney, noting that "some people" have said we ought to close Guantanamo, boasted that "we ought to double Guantanamo," presumably doubling the international damage. He added that he liked to have suspects in Guantanamo because "they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil."
Romney and most of the other Republican candidates are calculating that they can curry favour with voters by promising that torture will be a tool of their presidential administrations. Let's hope they are wrong. As McCain put it, "It's not about the terrorists, it's about us. It's about what kind of country we are."
http://www.thestar.com/article/215175
It is, indeed, about what kind of country we are...first, we catch mostly the wrong guys, second, it devalues what America is both to ourselves and abroad and finally, it just doen't work - every "terrorist" we torture and kill creates fifty more. It's not the answer, any fool can see that, what is does is perpetrate the private security business, the defense industy and the government...that's the ONLY reason this crap goes on - those people all could care less about your well being. I for one will not live in the U.S.A. until this shit stops.
I'll be here in Canada going to the Leonard Cohen art exihibit. (see below)
