Amy Winehouse:
Month: December 2012
The look of love
Diana Krall:
Unchained melody
Cyndi Lauper:
Family
My sister and I went to see my dad’s sister today. It’s really strange, how much she looks like my father — it’s almost like he was still here. Of course, Aunt A. is very, very Catholic and talked a lot about how she saw on TV (Fox News) the government is now pushing euthanasia, in addition to killing babies. As my sister and I were leaving, I said what I always say after seeing my aunt: “Well, I have to go have an abortion now.”
Student debt
A father struggled with son’s student loans after he died.
Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike
A hero, standing up for her people:
Ontario, the three Prairie Provinces as well as large parts of British Columbia and the Northwest Territories all sit on land that First Nations people signed over to Canada in exchange for a package of government guarantees. Treaty 9, the 1905/1906 treaty signed the people of Attawapiskat, for instance, guarantees that, in perpetuity, First Nations would receive “benefits that served to balance anything that they were giving.” The treaty also guaranteed total Aboriginal control over reserve lands. Idle No More organizers point to the disastrous state of Aboriginal health and living conditions on First Nations reserves and allege that these treaty rights are not being properly honoured — and that current attempts to amend the Indian Act will only erode existing Aboriginal rights. “Canada has not committed itself to addressing the colonial relationship it still has with indigenous peoples,” wrote Metis blogger Chelsea Vowel earlier this month. “I think it’s fair to say that most Canadians believe that kind of relationship no longer exists. We are trying to tell you that you are wrong.”
Back to the garden
It would not surprise me at all to see young people forming farm communes again here.
Quote of the day
Like some Sandy Hook parents who have spoken to the media, Veronique has shied away from portraying Lanza as evil or diabolical. “If we describe him as a demonic force or as a beast with the sign of the beast on his forehead, that is a mistake,” she says. “Because then we are making him apart from humanity when in fact he is part of what is possible in humanity. How do we help these people so this doesn’t happen again, so they never sink so low, so they never have to go to a place so dark where they can take out small children in a fit of rage?”
Back to 1965
My DD’s Jason Williams on the fiscal cliff bullshit:
Republicans don’t find themselves without a specific demand because Vouchercare isn’t on the table, they are in this bind because Vouchercare was only popular with Republicans primarily as a gateway to privatization.
I find it hard to believe the same party that successfully sold trickle-down economics for 3+ decades with little push back from Democrats, or managed to get the very tax cuts being debated now on the table then (as a job creator, no less) is suddenly too timid to bullshit the American populace into getting behind their latest proposal. No. They would praise the genius of toddler’s finger painting if they thought the public would buy it. The reason Republicans can’t make a specific demand now with the White House bluntly asking them to name their price is simple: they haven’t considered it much.
Reform is the white wash, overblown fears of fiscal solvency the excuse, and privatization the thrust. But the goal has always been an end to the social safety net.
Not something you admit to outside of the country club, even if it is the President asking.
Well, now. I think you’re assuming the president doesn’t want the same thing.