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History Repeats Itself

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Sad but not surprising news out of Bangladesh:

MUMBAI — More than 100 people died Saturday and Sunday in a fire at a garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, in one of the worst industrial tragedies in that country.

It took firefighters all night to put out the blaze at the factory, Tazreen Fashions, after it started about 7 p.m. on Saturday, a retired fire official said by telephone from Dhaka, the capital. At least 111 people were killed, and scores of workers were taken to hospitals for treatment of burns and smoke inhalation.

“The main difficulty was to put out the fire; the sufficient approach road was not there,” said the retired official, Salim Nawaj Bhuiyan, who now runs a fire safety company in Dhaka. “The fire service had to take great trouble to approach the factory.”

Bangladesh’s garment industry, the second-largest exporter of clothing after China, has a notoriously poor fire safety record. Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in factory fires, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an antisweatshop advocacy group in Amsterdam. Experts say many of the fires could have been easily avoided if the factories had taken the right precautions. Many factories are in cramped neighborhoods and have too few fire escapes, and they widely flout safety measures. The industry employs more than three million workers in Bangladesh, most of them women.

(via NYTimes.com)

It was just a little more than 100 years ago that more than a hundred workers, most if not all of them women, died in a fire at the Triangle Waistshirt Factory in New York City. The doors had been locked to discourage petty theft and unauthorized breaks. Many of them died using the on,y exit available: the window. Barbarous working conditions have now been exported to the third world, where they can be safely hidden away, and where events like this will pass largely unnoticed by the ultimate consumers and unopposed by pesky unions. Perhaps there’s some small amount of progress in the past hundred years; so far as we know these women weren’t locked in the factory as were the New York women, though little good that did them. Strange how in these days of globalization we have had no problem structuring treaties that more than amply protect the “rights” of capital, yet it is beyond our capacity to protect the rights of workers.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, November 23, 2012

The gloating continues.

While helping to prepare our Thanksgiving Dinner I chose to play the American Songbook album of songs by lyricists Yip Harburg. Actually, I didn’t know all the songs were by Harburg, only that the cover art said “American Songbook”. It was a fairly random pick, except I was looking for something “American”, for after all, I was celebrating the greatest American holiday.

Of course I didn’t really concentrate on the music, but I did catch these lyrics from a song called The Begat, from a musical named Finian’s Rainbow:

When the begat got
to gettin’ under par
They begat the daughters
of the D.A.R.

They begat the babbits
of the bourgeoisie,
They begat the misbegotten G.O.P.

Not surprising from the guy who wrote Brother, Can you Spare a Dime, but doesn’t it prove that some things never change? Anyway, it occurred to me that this piece, from the same musical, could be considered a sort of anthem of Romney’s 47%, which by the way, is apparently the percentage of the vote he will end up getting. The song is called When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich, and truly can it be said again that nothing ever changes, except the ethnicity of the perceived idle poor.

From the comments to the video I gather that the film version of the musical was disappointing, mainly due to poor direction and camera work.

By the way, Harburg, whose name shall live forever if only because he wrote Over the Rainbow, was blacklisted by Hollywood due to his political views.

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A mystery solved

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Four years ago Al Franken won a Senate seat after a six month court battle. One of the more bizarre sidelights to the battle was the revelation that someone had voted for the “lizard people”. Here’s the ballot:

Images

At the time I had no idea what the motivation for this was, and I don’t believe this story at all, in which a publicity seeker tried to take credit for the ballot and referenced some conspiracy theory about lizards.

Most likely lots of Douglas Adams fans got the reference, but I never saw anything in the political blogosphere about it at the time. However, yesterday, while re-reading Adams’s, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, something clicked, and I can now say that I have at least a modicum of respect for the Minnesota voter. Anyway, I thought I’d pass my findings along.

It so happens that a flying saucer lands on Harrods, and somewhat as in The Day the Earth Stood Still, a shiny robot emerges from said saucer and says, much like in The Day the Earth Stood Still “We come in peace”, but adds, much unlike in The Day the Earth Stood Still “take me to your lizard”. Ford Prefect, the alien friend of hapless earthling Arthur Dent, explains to poor Arthur that the robot comes from a planet in which the people enjoy the blessings of Democracy.

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No”, said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did”, said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hopping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so that all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh, yes”, said Ford with a shrug, “of course”.

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

So, this year, we can comfort ourselves with the thought that, for the most part, the right lizards got in, and we must all acknowledge that the unknown voter in Minnesota had a bit of a point.

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The Nation Mourns

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Today, we mourn collectively, North and South, rich and poor, black and white, Democrat and Republican, religionists and atheists. Is there a person living who can recall an event since the Kennedy assassination that has brought the nation so together? Hostess, the maker of the iconic Twinkie, has been Romneyed, plundered by takeover artists and financial pirates, and is no more. But in this hour of sorrow, we must learn to put things into perspective, for in all such tragedies there are things from which we can take solace.

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I, for instance, have never actually eaten a Twinkie, having been averse from an early age to creamy substances, be they composed of real cream or chemical stews. There was no redeeming feature in the substance surrounding the cream that tempted me to overcome this aversion. Not so, I confess, with the Twinkie’s cousin, the Hostess Cup Cake. How was I to know that while the color was chocolate, any chemical resemblance between it and the holy substance that was worshipped by our neighbors to the South long before Columbus, was purely coincidental? And don’t even get me started on Ring Dings, for which I also overcame my aversion to cream, which I purchased numberless times from the little grocery store near the spot where, as a paperboy, I waited for the man from the Hartford Times to deliver my papers. He was often late- always, he said, because the presses broke down, and I always believed him, but alas I now know that it was more likely his spirit had broken down, and he was comforting himself at a bar while I shivered in the cold and comforted myself with Ring Dings. At all events, I can date my last Ring Ding from on or prior to the date I last delivered a newspaper, and my last Hostess cupcake from long before then.

But let us not forget Wonder Bread, which I, along with probably 80% of my contemporaries, ate in vast quantities on an almost daily basis in those golden years. This bread like substance, we were assured, built strong bodies 8 ways, a number increased at one point to 12 under the pressures of competition, no doubt from Sunbeam, which manufactured a similar substance. We believed it, and who knows, it may be true. While the growth does not occur in the three spatial dimensions with which we are familiar, nor even in the fourth dimension of time, it may very well occur within those tiny curled dimensions posited by string theory. The possibility cannot, at this point in our state of knowledge, be completely gainsaid.

Still, along with so many of my contemporaries, if asked, I would have said that I took some small measure of comfort in knowing that these products were still on the supermarket shelves, even though, like almost all of those contemporaries, it would never cross my mind to buy them. Nonetheless, like Velveeta cheese, they served as an ever present reminder and bridge to times past. They will be missed, for at least a couple of weeks, after which we will all go about our business and forget all about them.

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Christian love in action

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Only religion can make people this cruel:

An Irish woman has died after she was denied an abortion, even though she was having a miscarriage, because the medical staff found a fetal heartbeat and so would not intervene.

31-year-old Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to University Hospital Galway on October 21 with severe back pain and nausea. She was found to be having a miscarriage.

When her condition worsened she and her family repeatedly asked that a doctor induce labor so she could be treated. Despite their pleas, staff at the hospital said that Ireland is a “Catholic country” and because they had detected a fetal heartbeat, and that the fetus could not survive on its own, they would not intervene.

(via Care2 Causes)

The fetus was not going to survive in any event, but what of that? Can anyone doubt that Jesus would have left the woman to die? Well, actually many could, but then, Jesus wasn’t a Catholic. This case may eventually, along with the increasing secularization of Ireland, lead to liberalization of Ireland’s draconian abortion laws. To be fair, the hospital could have legally performed the abortion, but apparently there’s a lot of wiggle room available and these folks chose to wiggle.

It appears the anti-abortionists in Ireland are every bit as dogmatic as our homegrown members of that club:

However, so-called pro-life groups have clamored to downplay this story, with the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Children saying in a statement:

“It is not ethical to induce delivery of an unborn child if there is no prospect of the child surviving outside the womb. At 17 weeks’ pregnancy Mrs Halappanavar’s child was clearly not viable outside the womb, as there is no scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of surviving outside the womb at such a young age. Rather than removing the protection of the womb from unborn children, the ethical response to emergency situations in pregnancy is medical treatment of the mother for the conditions causing the emergency. In the case of infection, this is usually timely administration of antibiotics. It is also not ethical to end the life of an unborn child, via induction or any other means, where the child is terminally-ill.”

So there you have it. The viability of a fetus, or for that matter a zygote, doesn’t matter. It must be allowed to die a natural death. The mother’s death is merely collateral damage, or as some Republicans might say, something “God intended”.

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Speaking of Wallowing

Friday, November 16, 2012

(See Previous post)

The Groton Democrats will be holding a victory party at which we non-traditional Americans will celebrate our deliverance from the specter of a Romney presidency, never mind the almost equally frightening specter of a Senator McMahon. If you hate America too, come join us at the Groton Motor Inn at 3:00 PM on Sunday as we celebrate the re-election of our Kenyan socialist fundamentalist-Muslim power mad president. Donation, strictly to cover costs, is $15.00. Here he is, by the way, on election night in Groton where he made a brief, little noted appearance.

IMG 1638

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Friday Night Music-Still wallowing

Friday, November 16, 2012

Couldn’t resist. First saw this here.

Yes, Randy Newman yet again.You have to admit, though the words don’t always fit, the tone of the song goes great with the visuals.

I saw the video a few days ago and when I went searching for it on youtube to post it here, I stumbled on this, a version of the same song by a guy named Howard Tate, who I’m guessing is from New Orleans. The song is actually about the flooding that took place in 1927, so it became quite topical after Katrina. About a minute or so into this video the voice of our former president comes on, and it’s really quite shocking. How did a dunce like that ever manage to steal the office? I’d almost forgotten the way he talked in empty cliches, straight from an empty heart and an empty brain.

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Ready to charge any price and impose any burden

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

…to assure the survival and success of the Republican Party.

The Ohio Secretary of State, Jon Husted, has been slapped down by a federal judge for unconstitutionally trying to deprive people of their right to vote, but he is undeterred:

Husted fired back, saying through a spokesman late Tuesday that the judge’s ruling would allow potentially fraudulent votes to be counted. Husted will appeal the ruling. (Emphasis added)

(via cleveland.com)

It’s simple really. Better that thousands of valid votes be rejected than that one fraudulent vote be counted. It’s the same noble sentiment expressed by Bismarck that “it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape”.

Take a gander, by the way, at the judge’s decision, which is reproduced in full at the link above. He makes good and creative use of Bush v. Gore. The court, as I recall, practically directed the lower courts not to use the case as precedent, because (and I’m injecting my reading here, the court did not admit this) it opened an equal protection loophole that might actually be turned against the interests of the right. Well, that’s what the court did in this case, basically ruling that the Secretary of State violated equal protection, citing Bush v. Gore, by threatening to apply different standards to different groups of voters. Exactly the sort of thing the Supreme Court wanted to leave in place if they could, for their sole objective was to find a rationale, however legally absurd, for installing Bush in office. The equal protection argument actually makes sense in the Ohio case, but it’s richly ironic that the judge is able to make it by citing to a case in which the court ruled as it did in order to keep votes from being counted.

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Pundits and hypocrites

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

David Atkins, at Hullabaloo makes the legitimate point that the punditocracy has insisted on treating expressed concerns about the deficit as real, when recent and current history establishes quite definitively that the deficit scolds (Krugman’s spot on term) are really only interested in slashing benefits for everyone who isn’t them. But I take issue, sort of, with this:

The fact that everyone in the Village Media has bought into the deficit obsession as it were a real thing rather than simply the latest iteration of a decades-long tactic designed to further enrich the wealthy shows not just herd mentality and willful blindness. It shows a craven willingness to go along with direct economic sabotage and shameless lying in the guise of politics as usual.

(via Hullabaloo)

Yes, they’re willfully blind, but with good reason. Just as “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”, it is easy to get him to parrot a lie when it enhances his financial position. We mustn’t forget, these folks are beneficiaries, albeit not to the grossly obscene extent as people like Romney, of the economic policies they claim we have no choice but to adopt. They are all rich, and they all benefit from low taxes on the rich. None of them need social security or Medicare or Medicaid, though to be fair, some of them know people who do. They just don’t care about them. They ignore and distort the truth because it suits their own purposes, as well as those of their corporate masters.

It would be wonderful if there were a law that required every pundit to disclose his or her net worth and annual income before allowing them to opine on anything.

Meanwhile, hypocrisy and deceit run rampant at the very epicenter of the Beltway. The Center for American Progress has proposed a long term (it’s in the long term that the deficit is a problem) solution to the cost of health care, which is the chief driver of the deficit. It involves squeezing money from the overpaid health providers and providing incentives for Medicare recipients to only go the doctor when they’re sick. No benefit cuts, just reductions in payments to bloated providers. But Republicans will have none of it:

Congressional Republicans call the approach wishful thinking. They argue that all health care programs, including Medicaid for the poor and Obama’s law covering the uninsured, must be on the table. They say any plan that walls off big portions of government health care spending is simply not credible.

(via Huffington Post)

These are the same Republicans who falsely claimed that Obama was cutting Medicare and only they could preserve the program inviolate. That was then, and this is now, and there’s nothing they’d like better than taking a crack at really cutting Medicare and, of course, turning around and blaming Democrats again.

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Who would have thought?

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The New London Day’s headline today:

Petraeus Hoped affair would stay secret

What would we do without the press to tell us these things?
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