I thought I’d share a few things that caught my eye in my online travels. Some news, some views, and some intriguing tidbits.
See No Evil
Here in Oklahoma, Republican Governor Mary Fallin is still working out her little problem with executions. This week she announced yet a new fix to that problem, and no, by “fix” she does not mean ” to make (something) whole or able to work properly again : to repair (something)” but rather another popular usage of the word (not that I really want executions to “work” anyway, or happen at all). The ACLU objects.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ new execution policy has legal experts sounding an alarm, saying it’s a step in the opposite direction when it comes to transparency in government.
The new procedures reduced the number of media as witnesses to the execution from 12 to just five.
More below the fold …
In Memoriam
Last month, the death of activist vet Jacob George hit his brothers and sisters in the GI and vets resistance movement hard. On Oct. 7, they will recall his life as they gather in DC to mark a somber anniversary.
At 7 pm on October 7 veterans and their allies will gather again at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to lament 13 years of war in Afghanistan and to grieve for and remember a very special human being, one of the finest examples of resistance to war and the inhumanity that spawns war, Jacob George. We will play Jacob’s music, and members of Guitarmy, who marched with Jacob, will play some of his songs. We will remember and be motivated by this much beloved comrade’s life.
Koch Kickback
Within hours of its publication, the Koch brothers started whining on Twitter (@kochfacts) about a damning expose in this month’s Rolling Stone by Tim Dickinson. Then they sent a long letter “refuting” the author (not the facts). RS and Dickinson respond.
I find it, frankly, amusing that a company that has been convicted of six felonies and numerous misdemeanors; paid out tens of millions of dollars in fines; traded with Iran, and been so reckless in its business practices that two innocent teenagers ended up dead, attempts to impugn my integrity, and on the basis of my association with Mother Jones — where I worked as an editor in the late 1990s and early 2000s, on a team that was twice nominated and once awarded a National Magazine Award for General Excellence.
Not Invisible Any More
At the 35th Annual News & Documentary Emmy® Awards on Sept. 30, the documentary The Invisible War, about military sexual assault, was honored twice, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism-Long Form and Best Documentary. The film previously won an Independent Spirit Award. It was shown on the PBS series Independent Lens and is available on Netflix and other streaming services.
Ellsberg on ISIS War
The Pentagon Papers leaker calls for more whistleblowers to expose the truths about the latest call for war.
[I]n 1964, many in the Pentagon could have put out the information the public and Congress needed to know. Not random documents. Just one drawer of selected documents showing that President Johnson was deceiving people and leading them into a hopeless war that his own Joint Chiefs believed could never be won at the level he was willing to do it. (The heart of the Pentagon Papers took up about one drawer of a top secret safe in my office at RAND, or earlier in my office in the Pentagon).
I’m sure that comparable documents exist in safes in Washington and Arlington and McLean, Virginia, right now. I’m just as sure that dozens if not hundreds of insiders could provide the information in those documents from their own safes to Congress and the public, if they’re willing to take the risks.
Wild Wednesday
Charles P. Pierce got a little obsessed with a fleeting mention of the admirably named Hedrick Van Loon in the recent PBS documentary series The Roosevelts, and thus a new weekly feature was born. Van Loon joins James Madison and Finley Peter Dunne among those thus honored by Pierce.
In case you wondered why my favorite Bostonian blogger was smitten:
It turns out that Van Loon is a remarkably discursive, and utterly eccentric, stylist, following his peculiar muse to fascinating and unmapped literary acreages. He has a positive gift for off-the-wall historical comparisons and, occasionally, he appears to be having his readers on.
Bittier Bits:
Oh, Shit, We’re Doing It Wrong
