|
So I Was up in Alaska |
 |
|
Thursday, 20 April 2017 08:44 |
|
Keillor writes: "Nobody I talked to in Alaska began a sentence with 'I was reading an article the other day that said that ...' - everything they said was from their own experience. This is different from the world I live in, of people tuned in to media."
Cordova, Alaska. (photo: Rochelle Van Den Broek)
So I Was up in Alaska
By Garrison Keillor, The Washington Post
20 April 17
 p to Alaska last week to visit old friends and relive fragrant memories of previous trips. Landing on a short uphill grass strip near a native village and later taking off on that strip and off the edge of a cliff. Fishing in a fjord near Juneau as a dark enormity rolled up from the deep, a humpback 30 feet off starboard. Encountering a moose while biking around Anchorage. Sitting in a friendly cafe in Sitka that felt like family. Hiking the Iditarod trail and seeing the body of a moose who broke through the ice of a lake and drowned. Going to the state fair in Palmer and mingling with Alaskans in a state of euphoria produced by sunlight.
It is a state that one remembers long afterward.
Last week I sat in a little cafe in Anchorage and got into conversations by the simple device of asking directions. In a state that offers so much solitude, people are happy to talk. I met a couple who’d lived for many years in the mountains east of there, raised two kids, got divorced and now live a few blocks apart in the city. “We’re still best friends,” she said cheerily, and he gave her a wan look. He is still in love with her, he said, and wants to get back together, and she isn’t interested. Instead of directions, you get a novella.
I met a Tlingit woman who gave me her unvarnished views on Alaska politics and an old trucker who hauled materials for the pipeline, and finally quit, fed up with the rules and regulations. His first truck was a White, a good truck, and he wound up driving a Peterbilt, which he hated. “Never buy a truck that is on the assembly line on Friday and they finish it on Monday,” he said. He was once fined $250 in Arizona for speeding; the highway patrol sent him a picture of his truck taken by a roadside camera on the desert that also recorded his speed, and he sent them a photo of $250 arranged on his kitchen table.
I was sitting in my hotel room in Anchorage on Wednesday morning, when someone yelled, “Open up! Open the door!” I opened the door. Two uniformed officers stood there. It wasn’t me they wanted. They were yelling at the door next to mine. One cop had a revolver drawn, aimed at the next door. Another cop yelled, “Open the door now! And keep your hands where we can see them!” Police can yell really loud and their diction is quite clear.
An officer with an assault rifle stepped into my room and said that they had a warrant out for a man next door and that the man had announced he had a gun. The officer opened the door to my balcony and suggested I go into the hall. So I stepped out, barefoot, without glasses, in jeans and a T-shirt. Seven officers stood in the hall, including a slight young female, and four of them had guns drawn, including her, and were focused on the door next to mine. They were on high alert. I slipped past the uniforms and none of them glanced at me. The one closest to the door yelled again, “Open the door! Now!”
I’m a civilian. I lead a casual jokey life. I mess around. I wouldn’t know how to bring that steady intensity to bear on a closed door. That’s just a fact. I can do panic; I don’t do high-focus readiness. If I am responsible for your security, you are in serious trouble.
They got their man. He surrendered and was handcuffed and I got a glimpse of him in the hall, a skinny guy with a hangdog expression, wanted for drug dealing. He had been dealing out of the hotel room. Whatever drugs he himself was on were not a kind that make you smarter.
Nobody I talked to in Alaska began a sentence with “I was reading an article the other day that said that .?.?. ” — everything they said was from their own experience. This is different from the world I live in, of people tuned in to media. I can say from my own experience that an armed man dealing drugs in the next room is a danger to me and that I maintain my casual jokey way of life thanks to public servants whose training enables them to bring highly focused attention to bear. That’s what I know.
 |
|
Jared Kushner Calls Kim Jong-un "Totally Unqualified Person" Who Got Job Only Through Nepotism |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
|
|
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 13:16 |
|
Jared Kushner Calls Kim Jong-un "Totally Unqualified Person" Who Got Job Only Through Nepotism
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. (photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty)
Jared Kushner Calls Kim Jong-un "Totally Unqualified Person" Who Got Job Only Through Nepotism
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
19 April 17
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 ffering a stunningly blunt appraisal of the North Korean leader, Jared Kushner said on Tuesday that Kim Jong-un was a “totally unqualified person” who attained his position of power only through nepotism.
“Here you have a guy who has no government experience, and he’s in charge of the whole thing,” Kushner said, in an interview with Fox News. “It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
Kushner noted that, instead of working his way up and acquiring the skills necessary to do his job, the North Korean leader had been given huge responsibilities and power “only because of family connections.”
“There’s only one word for that,” he said. “Nepotism.”
Kushner called the notion of such an unqualified person conducting foreign policy “beyond belief.”
“I mean, why would you let someone with no experience in foreign affairs anywhere near such important decisions?” Kushner added. “Why would anyone take someone like that seriously?”
Kushner said that the people of North Korea must look at the powerful position attained by the “totally inexperienced and unqualified” Kim and shake their heads. “They’ve got to be asking themselves, ‘Who elected him?’ ” he said.
|
|
|
FOCUS: The Coming Muslim Century: Bad News for President Bannon |
|
|
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 11:52 |
|
Cole writes: "Demographically, the 21st century will be the Muslim Century, as the Pew Research Center on Religion in Public Life has shown. Muslims will go from 24% of the world's population today to 31% by 2060."
Muslim women praying. (photo: Sue Ogrocki/AP)
The Coming Muslim Century: Bad News for President Bannon
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
19 April 17
 emographically, the 21st century will be the Muslim Century, as the Pew Research Center on Religion in Public Life has shown. Muslims will go from 24% of the world’s population today to 31% by 2060. I.e. they will equal the Christian population of the world by that date. And then they will outstrip the Christians by 2100.
Pew writes:
“Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s population is expected to increase by 32%, to 9.6 billion. Over that same period, the number of Muslims – the major religious group with the youngest population and the highest fertility – is projected to increase by 70%. The number of Christians is projected to rise by 34%, slightly faster than the global population overall yet far more slowly than Muslims.”
h/t Pew Research Center.
Most of the increase will occur because of population growth where people live. Africans will be a larger proportion of the world’s population in 2060 they they are now. In fact, over the next century, the African population could quadruple, and 40% of the human population could be African by 2100. Muslims in Africa will form a larger proportion of the world Muslim population, while the Middle East will remain stable with about a fifth of the world’s Muslims. Nigeria could go to 900 million over the century, coming to dwarf the European Union and equaling a shrinking China by 2100.
Some countries will be deeply affected by these changes. The Russian Federation will go from 11% Muslim in 2010 to at least 33% Muslim in 2060. The future of Muslims in Europe depends in part on immigration policy (most of Western Europe is not reproducing itself, and so Europe will get old and less dynamic if it decides against immigration). The European Union could remain steady at about 500 million, but I suspect that projection takes immigration into account.
The publisher of Time magazine, Henry Luce, called the twentieth century “The American Century.” It was an apt description. The US had half the world’s GDP just after WW II and even in 1999 it had nearly a quarter. It was the main world center of technological innovation, and has an enormous military-industrial establishment probably costing $1 trillion a year, dwarfing that of all the other countries of the world.
It isn’t clear whether the Muslim world will have that kind of economic clout. China and Hindu-majority India will be the two largest countries and may well have the two largest economies. But China’s population may fall and age, which could be an economic challenge.
Prejudice against Muslims has grown by leaps and bounds in the United States, and hatred of Muslims played a role in Trump’s campaign and in the policies he tried to enact once elected. Not all Americans are bigoted toward Muslims, and most understand that you can’t blame 1.8 billion Muslims for the violence and extremism of a tiny fringe. The Neo-Nazis and their slightly less illiterate fellow travelers over at Breitbart froth at the mouth on this issue. I am sorry to say that Evangelical Christians are according to opinion polls pretty hateful in this regard, much moreso than the general population (they are also the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump, which makes me think a lot of them are dressing up white supremacy as Christianity). The Zionist right wing seems to think if only you can badmouth Muslims enough, no one will mind if you steal all the remaining land owned by Palestinians in the West Bank. And, a small sliver of the US left, exemplified by Bill Maher, hates Muslims almost as much as they hate Evangelicals and Republicans.
Despite White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s impractical dreams, there is no prospect that government policy or other measures can kickstart population growth among the “white” population, whatever that is. Middle class people tend to have smaller families. They want to enjoy some leisure, and be sure to be able to send their children to college.
The only proven antidote to shrinking populations is immigration. Countries like Japan that are allergic to letting a lot of immigrants in will simply shrink, that is all, and will have a very large number of old people. Countries that welcome immigrants, as France traditionally has, will grow and be economically vibrant.
So to sum up, Muslims will go from a fourth of humankind to a third just in the next 43 years. They will then likely go on up to 38% or 40% during the rest of the century. That is, a plurality of human beings in 2100 could well be Muslim. Since growing populations will be increasingly rare, countries will prize young, dynamic Muslim immigrants and will compete for them. Those countries that lose out and just can’t get Muslims to move there will get small and old and stagnant. Islamophobia may have a future. Islamophobes do not.
|
|
FOCUS: Who Among Us Has Not Misplaced an Aircraft Carrier? |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
|
|
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 10:50 |
|
Pierce writes: "Let us catch our breath for a minute and take stock. These people misplaced an entire carrier attack group and then tried to bluff their way past it in a way guaranteed to make a crazy guy with a bad haircut and a huge army nervous."
Donald Trump. (photo: Getty Images)
Who Among Us Has Not Misplaced an Aircraft Carrier?
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
19 April 17
The newest scene in our national tragicomedy.
K, somebody needs to explain how these things happen. From the NYT:
The problem was, the carrier, the Carl Vinson, and the four other warships in its strike force were at that very moment sailing in the opposite direction, to take part in joint exercises with the Australian Navy in the Indian Ocean, 3,500 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula. White House officials said on Tuesday they were relying on guidance from the Defense Department. Officials there described a glitch-ridden sequence of events, from a premature announcement of the deployment by the military's Pacific Command to an erroneous explanation by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — all of which perpetuated the false narrative that an American armada was racing toward the waters off North Korea. By the time the White House was asked about the Carl Vinson on April 11, its imminent arrival had been emblazoned on front pages across East Asia, fanning fears that Mr. Trump was considering a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea. It was portrayed as further evidence of the president's muscular style two days after he ordered a missile strike on Syria while he and President Xi Jinping of China were finishing dessert during a meeting in Florida.
Let us catch our breath for a minute and take stock.
These people misplaced an entire carrier attack group and then tried to bluff their way past it in a way guaranteed to make a crazy guy with a bad haircut and a huge army nervous.
Thank god my running mate advised us not to get too crazy about this.
This episode does not seem to be a lie as much as it seems to be a further demonstration of the clusterfckish management style there at Camp Runamuck. At this point, my faith in what the administration says is such that I believe that, when the missiles flew into Syria, the president* and Xi actually were splitting a Twinkie and a bottle of YooHoo.
A beautiful Twinkie.
And the best bottle of YooHoo you ever saw.
|
|
gain and again we are seeing that the American people do not support Donald Trump's extreme right-wing agenda. Trump and the Republican Party want to give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the top 1 percent and large, profitable corporations. It's not just Democrats that are sick and tired of giving more tax cuts to the richest Americans, while most people work longer hours for lower wages. According to a new poll, Republicans said they were also bothered "a lot" by the fact that some wealthy Americans do not pay their fair share of taxes and that corporations are paying too little. Enough is enough. We don't need more tax breaks for the wealthy. We need to invest in the middle class of this country and make sure the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share.
