Badlands Journal

 I found some relief from depression about the coming kleptocracy and decade's long daily slaughter in a form of journalism nobody I know does better than Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the Independent (UK), He writes book reviews that are stories in themselves, soaked in the blood and history of the region in which he has been a resident and Arabic speaker for decades.

Whatever the wit and wisdom of that agonized region is, few Westerners seem to grasp it or care to. Perhaps the region's tragedy, above even the lethal, zooming drones and the equally lethal droning of zealots' cries, is only fully seen and felt by the old gods of the Greeks, who are perhaps immortal after all. The Arabs are more hospitable to Plato and Thucydides than are the lords of the Superpower, these days, who don't pause to wonder why the New Testament was written in Greek.

12-24-16

Washington Post

Pope Francis is waging a war on Christmas. Christians should join him.

  

. “Angels help us resist, Seamus,” I said. “They are the ones who give us the information and the courage to speak out when we would rather just hang out.  Our angel’s protest sign is good news! Our angel is reminding us that Trump isn’t our president. Right? We can still be good people, even though we have a terrible president.”

 Frida Berrigan, Commondreams.org, Dec. 24, 2016

Leonard Cohen  (September 21, 1934 -- November 7, 2016)

Suzanne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6zMPLcXZ8

PRINCETON  New Jersey, February 25, 1967: Six hundred people gather to commemorate the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the Atomic Bomb." George Kennan, veteran diplomat, ambassador and "father" of the postwar containment policy against the Soviet Union, said: "On no one did there ever rest with greater cruelty the dilemmas evoked by the recent conquest by human beings of a power over nature out of all proportion to their moral strength. No one ever saw more clearly the dangers arising for humanity from this mounting disparity. This anxiety never shook his faith in the value of the search for truth in all its forms, scientific and humane. But there was no one who more passionately desired to be useful in averting the catastrophes to which the development of the weapons of mass destruction threatened to lead. It was the interests of mankind that he had in mind here; but it was as an American, and through the medium of this national community to which he belonged, that he saw his greatest possibilities for pursuing these aspirations.

I have found that good taste, oddly enough, plays an important role in politics. Why is it like that? The most probable reason is that good taste is a visible manifestation of human sensibility toward the world, environment, people. -- Vaclav Havel http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/vaclav-havel/38812

10-29-91

New York Times

 Fewer suspensions not only benefits students, but translate directly into cost savings for schools because school funding is based on the number of students in attendance. A 40 percent reduction in suspensions would save $120,000 for county school districts. -- Scambray, Merced Sun-Star, Oct. 23, 2014

We are aware that the city is immersed in gang violence and that high schools are deeply affected. We had also heard something recently about a new thing, more a movement than a program, called "restorative justice," but it remained at least for us one of those buzzwords that the smart people throw around -- and requests for definitions are not encouraged.

 5-18-14

There are things that degrade a community, and this promotion of cock fighting (1) by McClatchy local outlet columnist Dave Bultena and Modesto Bee’s Joe Keita, “vice president of news” and managing editor, is one of them. These luminaries ought to be sent down to the men’s prison in Corcoran where they can be slapped around, kicked and beat up by real big, stupid men, and get hopped up and all buffed out. Then the guards can send them into that special little yard where they have the gladiatorial contests. The armed guards stand above, betting big wagers, and the prize for the winner is his life (with or without possibility of parole).