Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where you can hang out, talk about what is going on with you, listen to music, talk about the news and the goings on here and everywhere.
Maybe you have seen some news stories that you think are not receiving enough attention and you'd like to post links to them. Maybe you'd like to just chat among friends about your life, your health, your family or social circle, your pets, etc. You can also post links to your own writings here on dkos or elsewhere. Perhaps you want to share some pictures or music or links to other things. This is your kind of place to talk about what's happening.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. If that is what you want, find another place to do it. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact. This diary series is produced by the TeamDFH group but anyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is welcome.
Good Morning!
|
Drop in any time of day or night to say hello. |
|
The Man with the Hoe
Edwin Markham
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More fraught with danger to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?
|
|
|
|
News
Obama sending troops to aid Africa anti-insurgency
(AP) WASHINGTON — Intervening in a volatile and brutal crisis, President Barack Obama said Friday he has dispatched 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to support a years-long fight against a guerrilla group accused of horrific atrocities. Obama said they were sent to advise, not engage in combat, unless forced to defend themselves.
In a letter to Congress, Obama said the troops will act as advisers in a long-running battle against the Lord's Resistance Army, considered one of Africa's most ruthless rebel groups, and help to hunt down its notorious leader, Joseph Kony.
The first of the troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday, the White House said, and others will be sent to South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fighting Erupts in Libyan Capital, 3 Killed
Libya's capital saw its first major fighting in two months as loyalists to former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi traded shots with provisional government fighters after a rally in the city.
Friday's violence erupted when about 50 of Gadhafi's supporters tried to stage a rally in a Tripoli neighborhood where he had strong support.
Officials say at least two Gadhafi supporters and one fighter from the National Transitional Council were killed. Several others were wounded.
Court blocks Ala. from checking student status
(AP) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In a blow to Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, a federal appeals court sided with the Obama administration Friday when it blocked public schools from checking the immigration status of students.
The decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said police can't charge immigrants who are unable to prove their citizenship, but it let some of the law stand, giving supporters a partial victory. The decision was only temporary and a final ruling wasn't expected for months, after judges can review more arguments.
Unlike crackdowns in other states, Alabama's law was left largely in effect for about three weeks, long enough to frighten Hispanics and drive them away from the state. Construction businesses said Hispanic workers had quit showing up for jobs and schools reported that Latino students stopped coming to class.
Anita Perry blames Obama for son's job loss
Pendleton, South Carolina (CNN) – Rick Perry's wife Anita said Friday that she could sympathize with the plight of the unemployed because her son was forced to resign his job to take a more active role on his father's presidential campaign.
Anita Perry blamed the Obama administration for her son having to resign his position.
"My son had to resign his job because of federal regulations that Washington has put on us," Mrs. Perry said while campaigning for her husband in South Carolina, after a voter shared the story of losing his job.
Talk like Yoda? We may have originally
Many linguists believe all human languages derived from a single tongue spoken in East Africa around 50,000 years ago. They've found clues scattered throughout the vocabularies and grammars of the world as to how that original "proto-human language" might have sounded. New research suggests that it sounded somewhat like the speech of Yoda, the tiny green Jedi from "Star Wars."
There are various word orders used in the languages of the world. Some, like English, use subject-verb-object (SVO) ordering, as in the sentence "I like you." Others, such as Latin, use subject-object-verb (SOV) ordering, as in "I you like."
In rare cases, OSV, OVS, VOS and VSO are used. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Merritt Ruhlen and Murray Gell-Mann, co-directors of the Santa Fe Institute Program on the Evolution of Human Languages, argue that the original language used SOV ordering ("I you like").
1 In 6 Cell Phones Carries Fecal Matter, UK Research
A UK-wide study of mobile phones planned to coincide with Global Handwashing Day, found that one in six carries fecal matter, probably because their owners are not washing their hands with soap after using the toilet. Researchers said some of the phones were contaminated with E. coli, fecal bacteria that can cause stomach upsets and serious food poisoning such as in the fatal O157 outbreak in Germany in June.
Once they are on hands and surfaces, fecal bacteria can survive for hours, especially in warm rooms away from sunlight. The germs are easily transferred from hands onto door handles, food and, as this study shows, mobile phones, from where they can transfer to other people.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London took 390 samples from mobile phones and hands in 12 cities around the UK. They analyzed the samples in the lab and they also questioned the participants about their handwashing habits.