They Didn't Need A Second Amendment Remedy To Topple A Tyrant In Egypt

The 30 year regime of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak ended with his resignation today after 18 days of protests became a revolution; the strongman resigned his presidency with the tens of thousands of protesters never firing a shot. Today, the government has been turned over to the military, but Mubarak is out, and Egypt and Egyptians around the world are celebrating as if it were Mardi Gras and a Super Bowl win rolled into one.

And I could never be prouder of a people....a commitment to topple despotism with non violent protests worked. No guns or bombs were needed, no American flags were burned while crowds screamed about "The Great Satan", and the world watched in anticipation of what would happen next. And they got it done.

After the bungling of the Iraq war by the Bush administration when no weapons of mass destruction were found the Bushies and neocons shopped around for a new reason for the war; that aim became freedom for the Iraqi people. At last count 4,754 Americans and allies have been killed, as have tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, at a cost of $773 billion to a nation fighting it's way out of a devastating recession. We have fought and had a presence in Iraq since 2003.

It took 18 days for the people of Egypt to decide ENOUGH and end 30 years of one man rule.

Last night I thought about the vague speech Mubarak gave concerning stepping down....and it appeared he had no intention of doing so. You know that small, still voice we have within? It started jabbering to me.....as Mahatma Gandhi, as portrayed by Ben Kingsley. It was the sequence when Gandhi appeared before representatives of the British government, and told them they must leave. The British commander asked Gandhi why should the forces of Imperial Britain leave India.....Gandhi told the man "Because we will not co-operate with you. And there is no way you can force 100 million people to co-operate if they don't wish to".

And that was the beginning of the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent. The government knew Gandhi was right; the alternative was to fill the nation's prisons with protesters, and then face the prospect of protests involving those who were arrested.

India became a free and independent democracy largely thorough non violent civil disobedience and through non violent assembly.

History repeated itself in Germany in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell; and 1994 in South Africa when apartheid went on history's scrap heap; Poland, Indonesia, Romania, Tunisia.....and in America's South, when Jim Crow was no more.

And of course, the big one....the fall of the Soviet Union

Today, the people of Egypt have risen, and seized their destiny.

They didn't need to assemble with automatic weapons and confront troops with "second amendment remedies", a solution suggested by Far Right American politicians to "take America back".

I'm still trying to figure out...."Take it back? From whom".

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice

                                                                             Martin Luther King, on Henry David Thoreau

God bless the Egyptian people.

This is, indeed, a great day.

Quick Hits For August 22, 2010; End of the Summer Clearance !!!!!

Summer heat, drought, mosques, yellow jacket attacks, troop withdrawals, and FOX-es....all kinds of stuff, big and small.

Time for some Quick Hits!!!

(1). I really enjoy blogging. I only wish there was less typing involved.

(2). Beautiful, damp, delicious, glorious RAIN! I love it. For some of you reading this from cooler climes in the United States (is there such a thing in August?) and in foreign countries, it's been an exceptionally hot and dry summer in the Mid Atlantic states. I'm guessing that we've had more than 40 days of 90 degrees plus days this year (as opposed to nine all of last year), and for this summer we're at minus six inches in rainfall for the past three months; front lawns crunch when you walk on them, and there has been some limited water rationing.

This morning we woke up to some much needed rain, and there's a 100% chance for more during the day, and 60% for tonight. I don't think I've ever experienced a summer when it's been such a struggle to keep plants, herbs, vegetables, shrubs, and flowers alive...we've lost some, as have many other people. And in trying to keep the greenery from dying off other projects get sent to a back burner for another year, not to mention the toll all of the heat takes on you physically and even psychologically by the end of August. By the time evening rolls around you're gassed.

As much as I love summer (in most years) it will be a relief to see September roll in; they'll be cooler temps, and tropical systems churning up the coast to break the drought.....unless the climate change we're told is "only a theory" proves to be anything but.

(3) Rallies were held today in support and in opposition to the building of as Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan. The rallies were separated by police by several blocks, and as I type this no incidents of violence were reported.

One pro center supporter held a sign that said...."We don't care what bigots say, religious freedom is here to stay.".

And opponents sang patriotic songs and held banners as well... "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all the terrorists were Muslim."

Many of us have noted and asked the "why?" regarding Glenn Beck's Rally To Restore Honor on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, mere blocks from where the first African American President and his family reside. Now I have a question as to the lack of judgment of BOTH sides of the "Ground Zero Mosque Issue" having opposing rallies on anniversary of the day of one of the worst Christian on Christian acts of religious genocide in history. Namely, today at St Bartholomew's Church we celebrated the The Feast of St. Bartholomew The Apostle. Technically the feat is Aug 24, but today it was celebrated because he's the church's patron saint.

In France, 1572, on St. Batholomew's Day a massacre of epic proportions was set off by Catholic King Charles IX's supporters on the French Protestant population. The Huguenots were not only a religious minority who were gaining in numbers, but were part of a political movement as well. Civil war had been waged for three years between Catholics and Huguenots, but peace had been agreed upon, and the sister of the Catholic king was engaged to be married to a Protestant prince.

The anti-Protestant factions in the strongly Catholic city of Paris objected to the peace and the marriage. Tensions boiled over on the St. Batholomew's Day....Catholic troops and mobs attacked unsuspecting French Protestants.....the carnage went on for weeks. Men, women, and children were killed, and estimates of the murdered range from a low of 8,000 to a likely 30,000 dead.

Two years before French Protestants were granted freedom to worship by their King; two years later he ordered the same people slaughtered.

And on this St. Bartholomew's Day, 2010, we see Muslims at one rally asking for the same freedom of worship with no restrictions as other religions.....and at another rally there is opposition that says they respect that right, but don't agree with their judgment and perceived lack of sensitivity.

I'm not making a case that these situations distanced by hundreds of years are the same. I only make note of the irony. We pride ourselves as being a republic that treasures freedom; but at a certain basic level just how different are we from those we left behind in Europe, or from any other land of our ancestry?

(4). A further comment on one sign that was against the construction of the Islamic center....

"Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all the terrorists were Muslim."

It reminds me of a quote from a classic American television show.

"(Serial killer) Joel Rifkin was adopted. The Son of Sam was adopted. If you're adopted you'll become a serial killer"..... Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld, The Masseuse,
November 18, 1993.

(5). And while we're at it....St Bartholomew the Apostle. We Roman Catholics have a patron saint for everything. Tradition says Bartholomew served as an apostle to the east, into Parthia, Ethiopia, and even to India. He was said to have met martyrdom in Armenia....we are told that he was executed by being flayed alive.

And old St. Bart became the patron saint of a bunch of professions and conditions....remember, he died by being skinned alive!

He's the patron of butchers, tanners, cobblers, leather workers, trappers.....and plasterers, bookbinders, and Florentine cheese merchants. No, I didn't make that up.

Bartholomew is also the patron saint against twitching....so for all of you nervous people out there, he's the guy you pray to for intercession.

Maybe he should become the patron saint of offensive line coaches....you try anything to prevent false starts.

(5). Kathleen O'Brien of the Star-Ledger wrote a front page story about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his confrontational attitude towards New Jersey's teachers and the New Jersey Education Association. One of the main questions explored is...... does Christie have a vendetta against the state's teachers? And the answer is: it all depends on who you ask.

O'Brien interviewed some of Christie's high school and junior high teachers in Livingston, some for, some against, some angry, some hurt, some see a politician playing politics.

Here's a sample from two of them.

"We’re all puzzled by the attitude, more than by what he’s trying to do.....I agree with most of what he’s saying — I hope he has success, because we’re all going to benefit — but not how he’s saying it."..... Anthony Hope, a Christie supporter and his former baseball coach.

"It’s (Christie's barbs at New Jersey's teachers) over the top. It does nothing but create animosity. It’s going to hurt him......the people you diss and antagonize are the same people you’re going to have to deal with later."....Ed Hill, retired social studies teacher, a lifelong Democrat who voted for Christie.

And those, ladies and gents, are what a couple of friends and supporters say about New Jersey's governor.

This is a fascinating story, more of it here.

(6) According to The Huffington Post, Fox News spent less than ten minutes on the withdrawal of the last combat brigade from Iraq last week while MSNBC spent the entire night on the event, with Keith Olbermann in studio, Rachel Maddow with Richard Engel (embedded with the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division), and Chris Matthews commenting while on vacation.

While MSNBC, and to a similar extent CNN, gave the story a lot of coverage, FOX chose to ignore the story or marginalize it. Rather, it was given second tier status by both Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Their shows continued to present the story of the "Ground Zero Mosque" as the most significant story of the day.

Years before his death, Walter Cronkite was asked "What is the purpose of network news?"

Cronkite answered...."To inform the public of the things they need to know".

I wonder what Mr. Cronkite would have said of Fox's decision?

Are they a news organization, or a propaganda machine?

(7). Suppose there was a fictional cable company with a fictional on air host on it's relatively small news network; call him Cable Host. And pretend there was a fictional news organization, a giant in the industry, with a fictional host who might be the top dog at the News Giant; he's News Giant Host. And suppose Cable Host was critical of News Giant Host, and made that fact public. So News Giant Host leans on cable company, about what's in the best interest of cable company; he has the muscle and he uses it. And suppose cable company blinks....and Cable Host is first suspended, and then fired. He then sues cable company for wrongful "termination".

But this scenario may not be fictional.

Barry Nolan, former host of CN8's Backstage With Barry Nolan, was appalled that Bill O'Reilly was to receive the Governor's Award at local EMMY AWARD CHAPTER in Boston in May, 2008. Nolan protested in the lobby of the Boston Marriott Copley Place at the precise time O'Reilly was to receive his award. In less than two weeks, Barry Nolan was out of a job, first suspended by and then fired by COMCAST. And Nolan has suspicions who was behind his firing.

Terry Ann Knopf tells the story in her piece from Columbia Journalism Review, "The O'Reilly Factor". As you may or may not know, COMCAST is purchasing NBC-Universal, including NBC, MSNBC, BRAVO, Telemundo, and it's entire cable menu. Here's Nolan in the article's last paragraph.

"I don’t think they had the F-ing right to tell me what I’m allowed to say. In the end, I think they were trying to suck up to Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch and Bill O’Reilly in a way that’s spineless and appalling for a company [Comcast] that aspires to run a major network news operation [NBC]. What happens when Keith Olbermann goes after O’Reilly? I think that’s scary.”

Yes Barry, it is scary.

Click here for the complete article .

 (8). In closing.....as they say, at the end of the world, after the Apocalypse, only two things will survive; cockroaches and old pictures on the Internet.

Well....not really. I just made that up. But anyway.....look what I found!

The two ladies pictured above have logged thousands of hours on American TV in the past two decades, and both were contestants the same year (1992)  in the Miss America Pageant.....they didn't win. But they shoulda....coulda.....

One went on to make a name in news, and is currently the lead anchor on HLN's Morning Express. Yes ladies and gents, pictured above is Robin Meade from her days as Miss Ohio. and no, Robin does not lack for pictures (more than 40 pages) and attention in cyberspace.....so many choices, but somebody had to do it.



Also competing that year from Robin's neighboring state of West Virginia was Kim Parrish, who was a host on QVC for years, and later went on to become a clothing designer on HSN and ShopNBC.

She also serves as president of Miss America's Outstanding Teen, which holds it's scholarship competition in Orlando this week.

Truth be told.....I prefer the the 2010 editions of these two talented and quite beautiful women....but that's just the opinion of one Manly Man.

Don't laugh! I've still got it....but it just takes a lot longer to get it.

Got it?

That's all....time to get ready for MADMEN!

8-18-10; The Last US Combat Troops Leave Iraq

It's been nearly seven and a half years after the United States invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein,  but as I type these words the last combat troops are crossing the frontier from Iraq to Kuwait.

And it's an odd thing to watch....so under the radar the average citizen may not be aware that it is happening. There is coverage on the 24/7 news outlets; each of the Big Four networks is staying with their regular programming.  There are no celebrations in Times Square or Griffith Park, no fireworks and church bells ringing as in VE and VJ Days. The television news coverage has all of the elation and suspense of watching a moving van going about it's business.

There is a sense of relief, however. On May 1st, 2003 President George W. Bush made his dramatic landing on the air craft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declared "Mission Accomplished", and told the world that America had won the the combat operations against Saddam Hussein.

But the war dragged on through his presidency, and into the next. And now, thank God, it really does look like the end.

The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is the last group to leave Iraq; our first troops set foot on Iraqi soil on March 20, 2003. Though 50,000 troops will remain behind in non-combat roles, the "Last Patrol" is leaving; but another 4,415 American men and women did not. They are the ones who lost their lives in Iraq.

The State Department announced that the last combat forces would be leaving Iraq today at about 6:00PM EDT.....

More of the story, with updates, can be found here.

I'll be back with some additional comments tomorrow.