Mahler's Prodigal Son

Hypocrisy reins supreme!   Marriage for life?   Sacred?  Yes, subject to certain conditions.... "Republican icon and religious leader Pat Robertson is very, very pro-marriage.  It is a sacred institution that needs to remain exclusive to heterosexuals and unmarred by divorce, just like in the Bible.  You know, til death do you part. Unless, of course, you’re married to someone with Alzheimer’s disease.  Than you should just ditch your spouse.  After all, he or she is “already gone” so it’s like your partner is already gone. That’s the advice that he gives on his show, anyway.  And an added benefit?  Divorcing your spouse means you’re off the hook for those medical bills, since the government will just take care of it." Watch the video, here , and remember, this is what keeping marriage “sacred” looks like.

"...... one was that the claim that the U.S. was being attacked because, as the president put it, they hate our freedoms was completely untenable. They hated our policy. In fact, it would be more accurate to say we hate their freedoms. There’s plenty of documentation about that, going back to the 1950s. Shortly after the president’s speech, the Pentagon had a study of this, and they concluded, yes, it’s not that they hate our freedoms, it’s they hate our policies." Noam Chomsky being interviewed on Democracy Now , here .

A New York City design blog, featuring single serving suggestions of beautiful design is curated by Jeannie Huang. In " The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects " see how to arrange and stack things in these everyday objects.

Not unnaturally most of the talk surrounding the recent 9/11 anniversary made note of terrorism.    Some commentary dealt with the effect of 9/11 and the so-called "War on Terror."   But there was one important "elephant (terrorism) in the room" not discussed.   truthout explains.... "In the commentary on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the news and infotainment media have predictably framed the discussion by the question of how successful the CIA and the military have been in destroying al Qaeda.  Absent from the torrent of opinion and analysis was any mention of how the U.S. military occupation of Muslim lands and wars that continue to kill Muslim civilians fuel jihadist sentiment that will keep the threat of terrorism high for many years to come. The failure to have that discussion is not an accident.  In December 2007, at a conference in Washington, D.C. on al Qaeda, former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjam...

From Mother Jones " The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles " read where contractors have reaped a motza! "After three years, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting completed its business this week. In its final report to Congress (PDF), it estimates that the federal government has lost between $31 and $60 billion to contractor fraud and waste since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started. "The government was not prepared to go into Afghanistan in 2001 or Iraq in 2003 using large numbers of contractors, and is still unable to provide effective management and oversight of contract spending," said commission co-chairman Michael Thibault. Beyond its bureaucratic title ("Inattention to contingency contracting leads to massive waste, fraud, and abuse"), the most interesting chapter of the commission's 248-page report reads like a greatest-hits list of expensive bloopers that make that famous $600 Pentagon toilet seat lo...

Maureen Dowd in The New York Times on the book and audio just released in relation to Jackie Kennedy - Ms Camelot herself.   Or is that a geisha woman? as Dowd would have it. "Not since Saki’s cat Tobermory suddenly began speaking, dismissively skewering a British house party of snobs, has a long silence been so blazingly shattered. The most mysterious, fascinating — and feline — woman in American political history has at long last spoken up. And Jackie Kennedy has plenty to say in that inimitably breathy little voice. The former first lady talked to historian and courtier Arthur Schlesinger after J.F.K.’s assassination in taped interviews that were sealed for 47 years. Caroline Kennedy is now releasing them as a book and audio recording, “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy.” In the 1964 tapes, the 34-year-old widow can be unsparing and caustic (except about her sometimes imperfect husband, whom she bathes in an impossibly perfect gl...

It looks like Israel's hard line on just about everything, may come back to bite it on the backside!     The Arab Spring, coupled with the large demonstrations over the last weeks in Israel itself, leaves the country in a bad spot.    Then, add in Turkey effectively breaking off relations with Israel and the protests in Egypt against Israel, and it isn't hard to see why there is a new paradigm afoot for Israel itself and in the region.  From The Telegraph [UK]: "But, with alarming speed, all these gains now seem in jeopardy, leaving Israel terrified that the jungle is creeping back once more. This month has already proved one of the most nettlesome in Israel’s recent history – with worse to come before it is over, as the Palestinian leadership heads to the United Nations with a potentially explosive application for statehood." At The Electronic Intifada : "We are all going to be invited to the funeral of the two-state solution if and wh...