October 30, 2013

Making Sport of Veterans for Profit and Ratings

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

Making Sport of Veterans for Profit and Ratings
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Wednesday 30 October 2013

The Boston Red Sox are on the verge of winning the World Series for the third time since 2004, which, for fans of the team, is the sports equivalent of seeing Halley's Comet three times in one decade. The last two times the Sox won the title, they were on the road in St. Louis and Denver respectively. Tonight, if they win, they will have secured the championship at home in Fenway Park for the first time since 1918.

I am a Red Sox fan, a sports fan in general, and I make no apologies for it. Quite a lot of people in my neck of the political woods look down on sports, and on sports fans, with considerable disdain. This is, to no small degree, completely understandable; Howard Zinn once noted that America would be a far better place if the people followed the news and policy with the same detail-driven zeal they follow sports. The guy who calls a talk radio show demanding that the government keep its damn hands off his Medicare can turn on a dime, call a sports talk show, and remember the batting average of the guy who played shortstop for the Knobville Derptastics in 1947. The ability is there. The disconnect is astonishing.

That having been said, I am an avid sports fan for a couple of reasons: 1. The drama that can unfold during a really good game leaves even very good fiction and film in deep shade; and, 2. I'm allowed to have a diversion. Frankly, I need one. People who hate sports and call it frivolous would have me spend 24/7/365 tearing my guts out over all the ills of the world, but you know what? I give at the office, every day and twice on Sunday. Sports, for me, are a vitally necessary escape. Without them, I would have started firebombing years ago.

(snip)

So I will watch tonight. All the horror and sorrow and rage and woe is always waiting for me when the last out is recorded and the last second ticks off the clock. If sports do not make me entirely forget these things, they allow me to at least put them down for a little while. The fact that I choose to make a small space in time for a game helps me pick it all back up again. It is, in its own small way, a balm.

At least, that was the case until this particular World Series began. You see, the series is being broadcast on Fox. Beyond the fact that listening to the game commentators Joe Buck and Tim McCarver is the broadcasting equivalent of scraping fingernails across the chalkboard of my soul, beyond the terrible camera work and ghastly graphics, is what they have been doing to war veterans during the seventh-inning stretch of every game.

Fox, along with mega-sponsor Bank of America, has been "honoring" the veterans.

Fox, which did more than all the other networks combined to pour American soldiers into the meat-grinder of war by ginning up support for the invasion of Iraq, which coddled every lie-spewing Bush administration official to make damn sure that war happened, which spread every piece of propaganda they could find to make sure that war kept going and going and going, and which now works hammer and tong to promote politicians whose life's work involves stripping service members of benefits duly earned in blood and pain, is "honoring" the veterans during every game.

Don't try to tell me the sports division is different than the news division, by the way. Fox is Fox is Fox, period. They all get their paychecks from the same place, and are therefore party to the galling hypocrisy of it all.

Fox's sidekick in this gruesome charade: Bank of America, which, along with a handful of other monster banks, illegally foreclosed on the homes of thousands of American service members while they were fighting and dying overseas. In 2011, Bank of America paid out tens of millions of dollars in a settlement with the soldiers whose homes they stole, and now, they are "honoring" those same soldiers during the games.

Retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea served in Iraq. He was awarded the Bronze Star, and later the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in Fallujah. Upon returning home, his life very nearly collapsed in a frenzy of aggression, violence and madness, and he was later diagnosed with severe PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

Lt. Colonel Zacchea knows everything there is to know about that war and its horrific aftermath, and today sits on the Board of Directors of the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense. I asked him what he thought of Fox "honoring" veterans during the World Series.

Ever the Marine, he did not mince words. I quote in full...

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19701-making-sport-of-veterans-for-profit-and-ratings

October 30, 2013

A letter to my daughter

My dearest Lola:

You were born in Boston on Opening Day. The TV was on in the delivery room, and you came howling into the world just as the Red Sox plated their eighth run in what would be their first win of the year.

Your dad is an advocate, an activist, but more than anything else, a chronicler of the times. It is, more often than not, a brutal line of work; to bear the task of recording the stuff of nightmares that has become our daily gruel makes for a lot of sleepless nights.

So your dad is also an avid sports fan; he puts down all the horror and woe and rage and madness that is the world and carves out a small space in time for a game, because it helps him pick all that back up again after the last out has been recorded and the last second ticks off the clock.

Sports have already left a deep impression on your life. You were born on Opening Day, and one of the first voices you heard, after the doctor and your mom and me, belonged to Jerry Remy, who was calling the game on the television in the corner.

On your fifteenth day, a pair of cowards let loose two bombs at another sporting event, the beloved Boston Marathon. I had never missed a Marathon Day in my life until then; that was the first time I wasn't right down where it happened. I was home, because of you, so maybe you saved me from having to see the horror of aftermath. Maybe you saved my life.

Five days later, you slept soundly as our neighborhood echoed with the distant sound of gunfire, explosions and sirens, as the two cowards who bombed the Marathon were run to ground. When the last one was caught the following afternoon, you heard the neighborhood roar in exhausted relief.

We watched the Stanley Cup finals, you and I. The better team won, which wasn't us, so in a tiny little way, you got a taste of one of your birthrights: Boston sports heartbreak. You weren't around for the gluttony of victory Boston has enjoyed since 2001, so starting with a loser makes you something of a throwback, which is good for perspective and excellent for integrity.

You were born on Opening Day, and almost exactly seven months later, the Red Sox are on the verge of a third World Series title in nine years. You won't understand this, but for older Sox fans like your dad, three championships since 2004 would be the sports equivalent of seeing Halley's Comet three times in one decade.

You won't be awake for it if it happens, of course, but do not worry. We will watch the highlights on Sportscenter, your favorite TV show, like we always do every morning.

Your favorite show is Sportscenter. Your favorite toy is a little football. Every time you drop it, we say "Fumble!" and you giggle and coo and reach for it again. You were born on Opening Day, and have already seen so much of the good and bad and terrible that has been part of Boston sports since you came to be.

You will grow up to be and do what you please. I know you will do good as you choose to. I think, however, you will be like your dad, and carve out a small space in time for a game to help you put down your burdens, if only for a little while.

A few months from now, we will celebrate your first birthday, on Opening Day.

I love you with all that I am.

Dad

October 28, 2013

Terrible Tally: 500 Children Dead From Gunshots Every Year, 7,500 hurt, Analysis Finds

Terrible tally: 500 children dead from gunshots every year, 7,500 hurt, analysis finds

About 500 American children and teenagers die in hospitals every year after sustaining gunshot wounds — a rate that climbed by nearly 60 percent in a decade, according to the first-ever accounting of such fatalities, released Sunday.

In addition, an estimated 7,500 kids are hospitalized annually after being wounded by gunfire, a figure that spiked by more than 80 percent from 1997 to 2009, according two Boston doctors presenting their findings at a conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics, held in Orlando, Fla.

Eight of every 10 firearm wounds were inflicted by handguns, according to hospital records reviewed by the doctors. They say the national conversation about guns should shift toward the danger posed by smaller weapons, not the recent fights over limiting the availability of military-style, semi-automatic rifles.

“Handguns account for the majority of childhood gunshot wounds and this number appears to be increasing over the last decade,” said Dr. Arin L. Madenci, a surgical resident at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and one of the study’s two authors. “Furthermore, states with higher percentages of household firearm ownership also tended to have higher proportions of childhood gunshot wounds, especially those occurring in the home.”

The rest: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/terrible-tally-500-children-dead-gunshots-every-year-7-500-8C11469222

Because freedom and shit.

October 27, 2013

Fox and the World Series: a "Fuck You" in three paragraphs

I really have to say I think it's great that Fox has taken time to profit off of "honoring" America's veterans during these World Series games, seeing as how Fox News worked so hard to feed so many thousands of soldiers into the meat grinders of Iraq and Afghanistan...again, for profit.

You really want to honor our veterans, Fox? Send Rupert Murdoch and the rest of his henchmen out to home plate, have them get on their knees, and let them beg for forgiveness from the shades of the men and women who can't do something so simple as watch a baseball game because they're dead in wars your network promoted as if they were a fucking game show.

Fuck you sideways, Fox. The only thing you honor is ratings, and I will literally thank God out loud the day Major League Baseball un-fucks itself and finds another network for these great games. The troops deserve far, far better than the saccharine bullshit "honor" Fox is peddling.

October 25, 2013

The Powerful Pornography of the Gun Fetish

(Photo: via Shutterstock)

The Powerful Pornography of the Gun Fetish
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Friday 25 October 2013

(snip)

Over the weekend, hundreds of gun-rights activists descended on the Alamo in Texas to lament how hard it is these days for gun-owners in America. The crowd was regaled by luminaries like Alex Jones, who dispensed his gibberish with the proud fervor of someone who has taken to heart the old adage, "There's a sucker born every minute," because he knows he's getting paid no matter what he says. "If it's a war they want," he roared again and again as the day wore on, "it's a war they'll get."

Maybe I am desensitized at this point, but after another week of stories about dead children, I find myself most bothered by this thing at the Alamo, for it represents the distilled essence of the ongoing, blood-sodden catastrophe that is this nation's terminal fetish for guns in all forms. They really do think they are under siege, and see themselves standing post on the walls of their own fictional Alamo, facing down hordes of Obama-programmed FEMA soldiers who carry the banner of the UN and seek to take their guns before instituting Sharia Law across the land.

Under siege? It would be funny if it wasn't so completely lethal. It is almost like a magic trick: a pack of dangerous, dim-witted blivets who drape themselves in camouflage and masturbate relentlessly to "Red Dawn" on a nightly basis sprawled on a pile of NRA leaflets while clutching an AR-15 in their other hand have figured out a way to become an untouchable class in American politics, even as the blood and brain matter of children swells past their ankles and up over their fatted calves.

It is, perhaps, the most remarkable trick ever turned in modern American politics. A few bottles of Tylenol are poisoned in 1982 and kill seven people, and the country erupts, and Tylenol is scourged from every shelf in the land, and new safety measures are swiftly enacted. More than three hundred million guns kill tens of thousands of people on a yearly basis, however, with gun and ammunition sales going through the roof every time a mass slaughter happens, and the nation barely twitches.

Somehow, these sad, sorry, pathetic, weak, soulless, gutless sacks of shame have not only insulated themselves and their deadly little hobby from the normal procedures of civilized society that take place when a mortal threat is exposed, but have giddily convinced themselves that they are, in fact, the real victims in all this. They can, and do, sell guns on Instagram and evade any and all background checks or other firearm laws, yet somehow they are being crushed under the bootheel of tyrannical governmental overreach.

Several weeks ago, two gun rights groups - The Second Amendment Foundation and The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms - scheduled an event called "Guns Save Lives Day" for December 14th, the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre that took the lives of twenty children, six school staff members, and the shooter himself. Last week, the organizers moved the event up a day to the 15th, so as to challenge anti-gun groups "not to hold political events in favor of gun control" on that sad anniversary, or something.

To be clear: they originally scheduled "Guns Save Lives Day" to fall on the anniversary of Sandy Hook, where 27 people died because of guns. The event, and the ghoulish timing of it, were noted in the press, and out there for all to see.

Nobody in Washington DC said a word.

That, right there, is power.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19620-the-powerful-pornography-of-the-gun-fetish

October 23, 2013

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity...

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19119-of-all-the-preposterous-assumptions-of-humanity-over-humanity-nothing

October 22, 2013

This one time at band camp...

October 22, 2013

"Legacy Computer Systems": Interesting take on the ACA rollout problems

Via Josh Marshall at TPM:

Misunderstanding the Problem?

Are we not grasping the nature of the problem itself? TPM Reader ST says the issue isn't so much the website as legacy computer systems throughout the federal bureaucracy and the need to stitch them all together until a single interface.

From a TPM reader:

(snip)

The Healthcare.gov site itself is just like a server in a restaurant. The server may be the main point of interaction you have -- bringing you menus, taking your order, and bringing you food - but without the kitchen, there's no meal. And yet when a kitchen messes up and can't get food out, the server often unfairly gets blamed. And it doesn't matter if you have the best waiter in town if the kitchen can't get its act together.

Healthcare.gov is basically just showing you your menu of insurance options, taking your order for insurance, and bringing everything back to you when the order is complete. In tech terms, it's just the front end. All the heavy lifting takes place on the back end, when the website passes your data to an extremely complex array of systems that span multiple agencies (like so many cooks in a kitchen). A central processing hub needs to get data from each of these systems to successfully serve a user and sign up for insurance. And if one of these systems -- several of which are very old in IT terms-- has a glitch and can't complete the task, the entire operation fails for that user. Only if everything works perfectly, and the data gets passed back to the website, does the user have a good experience with Healthcare.gov.

The problem is that throwing more capacity at the website itself, or praising or criticizing how it was built, is as useless as criticizing a server when it's the kitchen that messed up. Maybe cathartic, but not much else.

The complexity involved in making all these systems work together is tremendous. Reader RN doubted that there are 500 million lines of code involved, but if you add up what originally went into building 10 or so huge systems, across multiple agencies, plus all the stuff to make them work together, 500 million lines of code might be realistic. (Especially as many of these systems are old and have been patched and built onto many times.)

The rest: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/misunderstanding-the-problem

Thoughts?

October 22, 2013

Ted Cruz Is the Republican Party

Although many pundits describe Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as on the fringes of the Republican Party, a new Democracy Corps poll finds he's actually right in the ideological middle.

Tea Party and evangelical segments of the party make up over half of all Republicans, and these groups think very highly of Cruz. He scores an 81.8 positive rating among Tea Partiers and a 75.9 rating among Evangelicals.

Among moderate Republicans, who make up just a quarter of the GOP, Cruz scores a 51.0 rating.

The rest: http://theweek.com/article/index/251460/ted-cruz-is-the-republican-party

Own it, GOP.

October 22, 2013

America on Fire

Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire, in
New York in a Jan. 29, 2008 file photo.
(Photo: Fred R. Conrad / The New York Times)

America on Fire
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Tuesday 22 October 2013

At this moment, a sizable percentage of southeastern Australia is on fire. More than 62 separate wildfires are raging, the three largest of which are poised to merge into a single monstrous "mega-fire" that could eventually threaten the suburbs of Sydney, or even the city itself.

Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, power has been lost in thousands of others, and the entire state of New South Wales is under a state of emergency. If those three large fires merge, fire officials are deeply pessimistic about their ability to get the situation under control.

The rural area where the conflagration began is prone to wildfires, though not at this unprecedented scale, but that did not stop New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell from successfully spearheading an effort to slash millions of dollars in funding from the Rural Fire Services that are now desperately trying to contain the destruction.

Mr. O'Farrell is a fiscal conservative, because of course he is. "There is not much we can do except wish those extraordinary volunteers and paid firefighters out there every success and every luck," said O'Farrell earlier this week.

He's exactly right, too. Cut their funds and wish them luck as the flames lick their heels. It's the conservative way.

Here on the other side of the world in America, another sort of fire is threatening to burn out the futures of millions of people. A bunch of billionaires are working hammer and tong with their bottomless pockets, their hired Congressional stooges, their idolaters in the press, and all those useful idiots who hate government but love Medicare and always vote to destroy Social Security and Medicare, because government programs that actually work really well are the enemy, and must be scourged.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19548-america-on-fire