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 we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens. March, 2012. Photo credit: joanneleon
The Trees
by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
News
Kentucky beats Kansas to win NCAA title
The Kentucky Wildcats beat the Kansas Jayhawks 67-59 Monday night to win the NCAA men's basketball championship in New Orleans.
Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions
BO’AO, China — The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst.
[ ... ]
In a joint conclusion, the authors say the level of strategic distrust between the two countries has become so corrosive that if not corrected the countries risk becoming open antagonists.
The United States is no longer seen as “that awesome, nor is it trustworthy, and its example to the world and admonitions to China should therefore be much discounted,” Mr. Wang writes of the general view of China’s leadership.
In contrast, China has mounting self-confidence in its own economic and military strides, particularly the closing power gap since the start of the Iraq war. In 2003, he argues, America’s gross domestic product was eight times as large as China’s, but today it is less than three times larger.
7 dead, 3 wounded.
7 die in college shooting rampage
OAKLAND, Calif. - A 43-year-old former student of a small Christian university in California opened fire at the school Monday, killing at least seven people and setting off an intense, chaotic manhunt that ended with his capture at a nearby shopping center, authorities said.
Police Chief Howard Jordan said One L. Goh surrendered about an hour after the shooting at Oikos University. Jordan said cops recovered the weapon they believe he used in the rampage.
[ ... ]
Tashi Wangchuk, whose wife attended the school and witnessed the shooting, said he was told by police that the gunman first shot a woman at the front desk, then continued shooting randomly in classrooms.
The media has already gotten OWS and 99Spring mixed up in a news story once and it hasn't even really started yet.
Occupy Wall Street and MoveOn Go Together Like Woodstock and 1999
A funny thing happened in a New York Magazine blog post last Friday. In a piece on Occupy Wall Street's upcoming plans, reporter Joe Coscarelli made a little mistake. He wrote:
...next month will bring "99 percent Spring Action Training" across the country. "In April we will train 100,000 people in nonviolent action," the group's site says. "It's an audacious plan, but movements can do great things when everyone works together." Backed by organizations like Greenpeace, MoveOn.org, and the United Auto Workers, the preparation is meant to culminate in the general strike on May 1.
Here's the problem: May's general strike belongs to the nationwide Occupy movement, the grassroots rejection of co-opted corporate politics. "The 99 Percent Spring"-which makes no mention of May 1-is astroturf.
[ ... ]
Two, one of the virtues of progressive pushback against Bush/Cheney and the kill-'em-all Galtpocalypse of the GOP this last decade is that it's stood as a repudiation of slickly prefab conservative populism. The left has spent 2009-present damning the Tea Party for being a Koch/Forbes/Armey-funded co-optation of American history and the Ron Paul 2008 campaign's fundraising and organizing. Soul-sucking remora Rick Santelli had his Reichstag fire moment, delivering a cri de coeur on behalf of poor bedeviled millionaires, setting in motion pre-planned outrage for moneyed interests, cloaked as ordinary folks just havin' it up to here. Now, establishment Democrats will slather the face of Occupy with enough concealer and foundation and powder and run it out to the mainstream, as much of a clownish dishonesty as Santelli himself.
99 Percent Spring: the Latest MoveOn Front for the Democratic Party
Beyond the triumphant rhetoric lies a sober truth: “The 99 Spring” is yet another calculated and carefully planned MoveOn.org front group.
[ ... ]
The eight smoking guns show quite clearly that The 99 Spring is a front group for MoveOn.org, and therefore, as investigative journalist John Stauber have shown in articles past, yet another case study of an attempt at co-option of multiple movements of radical protestation by MoveOn.
[ ... ]
In MoveOn.org’s short history, the front group has proven that co-option works, but co-opting Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring has been no easy task for it this time around.
It has been a particularly tough task because the Democratic Party, which it fronts for, is beholden to Wall Street and the Obama Administration whichMoveOn.org dutifully supports, plans on raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the 1-percent during his 2012 election campaign.
Back to Occupy Wall Street.
Occupy will march to Independence Mall
Occupy Philly will take to the streets again this weekend with a march at noon Friday from Rittenhouse Square to Independence Mall, where the group plans to spend much of Saturday and Sunday.
Occupy has been without a home since police evicted the group from Dilworth Plaza in late November, but members say they have been busy planting vegetable gardens on vacant lots and protesting Mayor Nutter's proposed ban on feeding the homeless in city parks.
[ ... ]
Occupiers are also planning protests in West Philadelphia for May 1. The group is canvassing the neighborhood to find out what problems residents want them to draw attention to, said Amanda Geraci, an organizer there.
A new kind of general strike?
Occupy’s “precarious” general strike
Of the many questions that the Occupy movement faces before its May 1 general strike, the most important may be who exactly will be striking. Due in part to restrictive U.S. strike laws, organized labor has not endorsed the action. And many of the protesters from which the Occupy movement has drawn its energy are the under- and unemployed who have been victimized most by the economy — people who are not exactly in a great position to withhold their labor.
That’s where the Precarious and Service Workers Assemblies come in. These groups have been popping up around the country to try to forge links between unorganized laborers with tenuous employment. Last month, the first such meeting in New York drew 60 some people from an odd mix of professions – writers, adjunct professors, bar backs, dog walkers, baristas, sex workers, movers and designers. Despite their very different backgrounds, they discussed the one thing they all shared: a precarious earning situation. This was more than just an occasion to share their fears. It was, as the event invitation noted, an organizing platform to “engage together in upcoming actions like the May Day General Strike.”
[ ... ]
But the question of whether a general strike can take place without organized labor’s formal support seems to me moot at this point: No one is working under the impression that May Day in New York will resemble the general strikes of 1946 [ ... ] Occupy organizers, though, are planning a very different type of general strike. Calls include a consumer strike (“No Shopping! No Banking!”), student debt strikes, school walkouts, a data strike (leave the smartphone at home), slow work days and, of course, calls to take the streets. [ ... ] In New York, we have already seen rumblings of the type of activity May Day might bring. In the last week of March, a number of activists self-affiliating with OWS who according to a communiqué were working “in conjunction with rank and file workers from the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Amalgamated Transit Union” chained the doors open of numerous subway stations [ ... ]
Occupy the SEC’s Goldstein Exposes Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s Banker-Favoring Ways
As we pointed out, the representative from the Upper East Side, Carolyn Maloney, in being maneuvered into position in an effort to displace Maxine Waters, who would otherwise become either the ranking member or the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, depending on which party wins this fall. The idea of Waters, who is acutely skeptical of bankers and not afraid of making a ruckus, having even more influence on a key committee is something financiers are keen to stop. (Full disclosure: I’m a Waters fan simply by virtue of her remark: “The Tea Party can go to hell. I intend to help them get there.”)
[ ... ]
At the end of the segment above, Maloney says she was for regulation and tried supporting Brooksley Born on trading commodities on exchanges. Goldstein pounces on her and asks why she is sponsoring a bill that would water down Dodd Frank on precisely that issue. Contrast this speechifying with her co-sponsorship of the bill.
BP Accuses Government of Witholding Evidence Ahead of Gulf Liability Trial
The U.S. government has until Thursday to respond to oil giant BP's accusation that it is withholding thousands of documents that could prove the size of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 was smaller than originally reported. The size of the spill will play a crucial role as the courts determine the scope of BP's liability following the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Last Thursday, embattled BP (NYSE: BP) accused the government of hiding critical data and reports that show that the oil spill was not as serious as prosecutors claim and requested the court to compel the government to release these documents. On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Sally Shushan in New Orleans gave U.S. prosecutors until Thursday to answer these assertions.
New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake's 80th birthday
British pop artist Sir Peter Blake has taken inspiration from his most famous artwork – the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures he most admires as he marks his 80th birthday.
Twiggy, Amy Winehouse, Grayson Perry, JK Rowling and even Monty Python's emblematic foot all feature in a reworked version of the 1967 cover created for his birthday celebrations.
How butterflies are teaching scientists about better renewable fuels
What do the latest hydrogen fuel production technology and your tramp stamp have in common? They both take inspiration from butterfly wings.
Hydrogen fuel could be the ultimate renewable — it’s a clean-burning fuel made from sunlight and water, and it doesn’t get much greener than that. But to be practical, it requires really efficient solar power (the solar energy is used to split water molecules to produce the fuel). [ ... ]
See, the black part of butterfly wings are amazingly good at absorbing light without reflecting it. It’s like, how much more black could you be? And the answer is none. None more black. As Fan and his team discovered, this absorption power comes down to the structure of wing scales — their ridged arrangement actually helps funnel light down to a deeper layer.
Why you should be glad there are bugs in your Frappuccino
Okay, yes, everybody — especially vegans, corporation-haters, and bloggers who like writing about gross things you just put in your mouth — got a little excited over the news that Starbucks’ Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino derives its red color from crushed bugs. But here’s what you didn’t know: That’s actually a good thing.
Coolest jobs in tech: hackers for hire
Thrill of the hunt
Finisterre is one of the "good guys." He works as a penetration tester who gets paid to hack into Fortune 1000 casinos, banks, and energy companies; exploits like these are all in a day's work.
"I really, really love it," he says of his job—currently senior research consultant at security firm Accuvant Labs. "I've been able to get exposed to a lot of things that I wouldn't get exposed to unless I was trying to get myself arrested. What other opportunity are you going to get to try to hack into a bank?"
It's a common sentiment.
"There is a thrill," agreed Billy Rios, the 33-year-old leader of a team at Google acting as the company's front line of defense. "You're going up against some of the largest organizations in the world. They're basically hiring you to thwart them and circumvent all their security mechanisms."
Backlash over plans to monitor all internet use
Amid criticism that the scheme runs counter to Tory and Liberal Democrat pre-election opposition to the "Big Brother" scheme, Ms May has been summoned before MPs to justify her proposals. Under legislation in next month's Queen's Speech, law enforcement agencies will gain extra powers to access information about contacts through Skype and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Internet companies will also reportedly be told to install hardware allowing GCHQ to examine "on demand" any phone call made, text message or email sent and website accessed, in "real time" and without a warrant. Similar proposals were abandoned in 2009 by the Labour government.
Poles talk about CIA prison, breaking silence
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — For years, the notion that Poland could allow the CIA to operate a secret prison in a remote lake region was treated as a crackpot idea by the country's politicians, journalists and the public.
A heated political debate this week reveals how dramatically the narrative has changed.
In a string of revelations and political statements, Polish leaders have come closer than ever to acknowledging that the United States ran a secret interrogation facility for terror suspects in 2002 and 2003 in the Eastern European country.
Syria agrees to Annan's peace plan deadline
UN-Arab League envoy says Syria has accepted an April 10 date to begin implementing plan that calls for end to violence.
Syria has agreed to start partially implementing Annan's peace plan by April 10 and that there should be a "full cessation of hostilities" within 48 hours, the former UN secretary general told the council.
Syria's Ambassador to the UN confirmed on Monday that Damascus has accepted the deadline for partially implementing Annan's peace plan, but wants the same commitment from the opposition.
Robert Fisk: Watch us lead the UN donkey up the Khyber
So back to THAT BLOODY WAR. I mean not the Syrian one – where we're going to stay hands off – or the Libyan one (where we were hands on, but not touching the ground). Nor the Iraqi one, which is a war at 60-a-day fatalities (pretty much equal with Syria's daily death toll, though we can't make that comparison). Nope. Of course, I mean the Afghan war which we fought in 1842 and in 1878-80 and in 1919 and from 2001 to 2014 (or 2015 or 2016, who knows?). We wouldn't let them down this time, we said about the Afghans – or Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara said – in 2001. Oh yes we will.
We learned our lesson in Iraq where our belief in a bloodless victory – bloodless for us, very bloody indeed for them – came hopelessly unstuck. We died, too. Which is why the Americans went home. Vietnam was supposed to see the end of Western casualties. But we are not immune to death. No more in Afghanistan than in Iraq. So we are going home there, too. We may not leave behind a "perfect" democracy – the Americans were admitting years ago that we might not leave a "Jeffersonian democracy" behind. Ho-hum, no we're not!
In defence of 'Iraq syndrome': liberal values never drive intervention
We are right to be weary of wars waged by the west. Nations' claimed values are always trumped by strategic self-interest
Every so often, a memorable phrase enters the discourse, providing a telling insight into some of the deeper assumptions held in our political culture. One such term, now mostly forgotten, is the "Vietnam syndrome".
[ ... ]
It is worth reflecting on the fact that a widespread popular aversion to the horrors of war – something one might regard as quite healthy – should come to be repeatedly described as a "syndrome"; a collective psychological defect that would hopefully be overcome at some future date. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that state violence has long been a highly valued policy tool, as indicated by the vast resources devoted to it, out of all proportion to genuine needs of "defence".
After the comprehensive defeat of a disobedient former ally, Saddam Hussein, in the 1991 Gulf war, George HW Bush declared euphorically, "by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" Many senior Republicans spent the next few years cultivating various fantasies about what could be achieved the next time an opportunity arose to let US forces off the leash. Such an opportunity was presented to them on 11 September 2001.
After sentencing, bin Laden's family might leave Pakistan soon
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's government might wash its hands of Osama bin Laden's family as early as April 17, after an Islamabad court's decision Monday to impose the lightest possible sentence on his three widows and two teenage daughters for violating minor immigration laws.
Each of the five women was sentenced to 45 days in prison for illegally entering and residing in Pakistan since 2002, the date that Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al Sada, the youngest of the widows, gave in a statement to federal investigators. The widows and several of their children and grandchildren were left behind after U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid last May.
The women's lawyer Atif Ali Khan said the Yemeni government had agreed to allow al Sada, a Yemeni national, to return home. He expressed confidence that talks with authorities in Saudi Arabia over accepting bin Laden's Saudi wives, Khairiah Sabar and Siham Saber, would conclude successfully "in a few days."