Department of Interior Announces Big Rock Candy Mountain Management Plan

The U.S. Department of Interior made three announcements today. One establishes rules to protect the lemonade springs at Big Rock Candy Mountain. Second, is a management plan for unicorn populations on public lands.

The third announcement is for rules to produce safe, responsible fracking. Clearly announced on the same day because all three are all equally realistic things that exist in the same world of make believe.

Can't stop the memes

McKayla reacts to Romney-Ryan ticket

Can't resist the meme.

Happy 100th Birthday Woody Guthrie!

This means I get to post my favorite Woody Guthrie songs!

Pastures of Plenty...





Perhaps the saddest song ever written, The Dying Miner, written about a Centralia, Illinois mining disaster.





And the best song to listen to when you visit the union cemetery in Mt. Olive Illinois.





Apart from Obama's speech, the part of the inaugural ceremonies that inspired me most was seeing the old blacklisted Pete Seeger lead the crowd in This Land is Your Land. He even included the rarely sung radical final verse.

It still gives me hope that America can move beyond the latest wave of hate-filled political movements. Not much has changed since the time that Woody sang. The forces of hate have always been with us. And they almost always lose in the end.

NATO summit protest drinking game!

Are you hanging out at your apartment or favorite watering hole in Chicago's South Loop during the NATO summit? Liven up your afternoon or evening with the NATO protest drinking game!

Take a drink anytime you see:

A crowd shouting "Whose streets?! Our streets!"
A helicopter overhead
Tom Morello trying to be Woody Guthrie
A police officer near retirement age with an "I'm too old for this shit" look on his face
Someone jaywalk in front of a dozen or more police
An anxious reporter desperately looking for something to cover
"9/11 was an inside job" sign
Someone getting arrested!

Visit Chicago's South Loop!

Yesterday was the most empty I've ever seen the South Loop on a weekday. Enough workers and residents have been sufficiently scared out of town for the NATO summit.

Friday evening there were around 200 harmless occupiers in Grant park off Michigan Ave surrounded by an even larger number of uniformed police. It must be the safest evening in the history of the South Loop.

What would Lincoln say about Occupy Wall Street?

Here's my best guess.



I was the first Republican President.

I created the first federal income tax. It was a graduated tax based on ability to pay that required the wealthiest to pay their fair share at a higher rate.

Most Americans didn’t make enough to pay any income tax at all when I was President because that’s fair and just. I also created the estate tax on large inheritances.

In my day, Republican Presidents paid for the wars we fought by taxing the 1% instead of leaving a debt for future generations.

I am the 99%

What kind of jobs does Rick Perry create? Great Chris Britt Cartoon

Chris Britt delivers another classic cartoon.



Great point! If you have to squint for this version, check it out here.

And yes, I'm purposely not linking to it at the SJ-R because their comment section is still completely out of control.

Would a modern day Martin Luther King Jr get press coverage?

I've been watching coverage of the Martin Luther King Jr. monument dedication this week. I'm eager to visit DC again to see it.

While news networks are honoring the most famous advocate of civil disobedience in American history, I've seen very little coverage of the mass civil disobedience happening this week at the White House to protest the Keystone tar sands pipeline. So far 275 people and counting have been arrested in what must be the nation's largest act of civil disobedience to stop climate change.

Apparently, news outlets believe that memorializing civil disobedience of the past is more newsworthy than similar acts happening today. The only mention I've seen of the Keystone XL pipeline on MSNBC, for example, is in oil industry ads running to support the project. I have to get news updates at Tar Sands Action. It must be difficult for reporters in the White House press room to reach protests happening directly outside the White House.

I wonder how Martin Luther King Jr. would have fared in today's news environment. Modern police forces are trained to not repeat the public spectacles provided by Bull Connor and his dogs. Even in the rare cases when police tactics are overly aggressive it rarely receives news coverage and blame is routinely placed on the victims. You'll have to turn to the alternative press to learn about the unbelievable abuse of civil liberties surrounding the 2008 republican convention. Massive anti-war protests of hundreds of thousands before the invasion of Iraq received only brief mention on the evening news. Leaders of those protests were generally not given time to speak for themselves as guests on news programs.

Was the press this unimpressed with civil disobedience in the 1950's and 60's? Would MLK have been nationally known if the press of his time were as reluctant to cover civil disobedience as today's networks?

Next time environmentalists want news coverage for a protest they should pretend to be the Tea Party. Reporters will flock to them.

Running on empty ideas

Americans for Prosperity has a "running on empty" bus tour. The group is funded by the Koch brothers, who are invested in oil, and what do you know, the tour is pushing the oil industry position on energy issues.

Their website is so stocked full of anti-environment talking points that it inspired me to create a new logo for their gas-guzzling bus tour. Maybe someone can make use it of at one of the stops.

Sarah Palin disses Illinois State Fair

Sarah Palin's bus sneaked in and out town before I knew she was here. Apparently, she only stayed long enough to visit the Lincoln Presidential Museum, two blocks from the Old State Capitol building where Obama announced his campaign for President.

Just a few days ago Palin claimed she took her bus tour to the Iowa State Fair during the Republican straw poll, while all the national press happened to be there, to celebrate the historic importance of state fairs. She even said, "I love this all-American venue. I consider the Iowa State Fair very historical."

OK, that's cool. And since she's in Springfield today it makes sense that she would also stop by the Illinois State Fair that's happening here right now. But no! She totally skipped the Illinois State Fair!

What, our state fair isn't historical enough for you, Sarah Palin? But, the fair grounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places! Springfield held the first one in 1853! Iowa has nothing on the Illinois fair! Our butter cow is just as good as theirs!

She gets to Illinois and all of a sudden she doesn't care about "historic" state fairs anymore. Whatever.

If you're really interested in the historical significance of state fairs, unlike Sarah Palin, check out the Illinois State Fair Museum Foundation.

Happy Memorial Day from John A. Logan and Frederick Douglass

Happy Memorial Day!

I was reading that Memorial Day has its origins in Decoration Day. The Grand Army of the Republic, led by Illinois politician and union general John A. Logan, made it a national holiday to decorate the graves of civil war soldiers.

In Logan's time, Decoration Day was an occasion for speeches that would be considered politically incorrect today. Logan's Decoration Day proclamation made it clear which side of the Civil war armies was being honored.
"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic."



Frederick Douglass was more explicit in an 1894 Decoration Day speech.

"Fellow citizens: I am not indifferent to the claims of a generous forgetfulness, but whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery; between those who fought to save the Republic and those who fought to destroy it."

Today the nation honors Americans who died in any war, on any side, regardless of whether the cause they were fighting for was a just one, or whether the war they died in was popular. Even deceased white confederate soldiers can be the beneficiaries of political correctness.

Let America be America Again

The title of Langston Hughes' famous poem is stuck in my head. I think about the nightmare of the last decade and wonder if we can turn it back now that bin Laden is dead. Can we erase years of fear, propaganda, and a war founded on lies by a tyrant who stole more of our freedoms than any terrorist ever could? Can we go back to being what America should be?

Then I read the poem just now and remembered the point: America never was what it should be. But at least we can go back to trying. We can try to be America, instead of whatever we were trying to be for the last decade.


Langston Hughes - Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Reagan v Grant: Terrorism

Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 today. A Republican Congressman's proposal to replace U. S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill gives good reason to compare the nation's most underrated President with its most overrated.

Ulysses Grant's reputation has been attacked over the years, but no President other than Lincoln did more during the first 185 years of our history to fight domestic terrorism and defend the basic civil rights of all Americans. Grant used powers given to him by Congress to successfully destroy the largest domestic terrorist organization in American history, the KKK. He stepped in when local authorities refused to prevent or prosecute attacks on freed slaves.

Grant used the military and Attorney General's office to protect the right to vote and hold office for African-Americans. After he left office, it would be nearly a century before the federal government once again intervened to guarantee the civil rights and safety of all Americans in the South.

How does Grant compare to Reagan? It would be hard to argue that any President has done more to support acts of terrorism than Ronald Reagan. I know it's not very nice to write that on his birthday but let's be honest about his record amidst the whitewashed hero worship.

I'll start with his well known support of Saddam Hussein. The Reagan Administration authorized military aid to Iraq, including chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. He sold helicopters that were used to gas the Kurds and Iraqi Shiites.

He gave Iran intelligence and sold them weapons in violation of the law. He lied about negotiating with terrorists who took American hostages.

He supported the Nicaraguan Contras, who carried out horrifying acts of torture and terrorist attacks against civilians, in addition to lending direct and indirect support to roaming death squads in other Latin American nations.


"I'm a Contra too!" - Ronald Reagan

His administration trained multiple dictators and terrorists at the School of Americas.

Reagan supported, along with the South African apartheid government, a terrorist campaign in Angola and other African nations.

Along with Osama bin Laden, he aided the Afghan Mujahideen who he called the "moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” Yes, that means Reagan indirectly helped give rise to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The verdict is easy. Grant, the fighter of terrorists, wins out over Reagan, the funder and enabler of terrorists.

When I point out Reagan's support of terrorism to die-hard conservatives they usually start by denying that Saint Ronald the Liberator would ever do something so vile. When I cite specific examples they shift from denial to justifying it as a defense against Communism.

It's amazing to see how quickly people will abandon their core beliefs, like the idea that America shouldn't support terrorists and brutal dictators. All you have to do is find a charismatic leader and frighten people by exaggerating an external threat.

Senator Claire McCaskill likes the blizzard and wants another

She won't say it but Senator Claire McCaskill is showing by her actions that she wants more climate disasters like the snowpocalypse that has me stuck in my house right now.

I haven't seen it mentioned on my local news, but the storm blowing across America is just the sort of thing scientists have been telling us would happen more often due to global climate change. It's no coincidence that so many unusual, once-in-a-generation storms have happened in the last few years.

McCaskill and five other Democratic Senators obviously can't take a hint because they're re-introducing a bill to prevent the EPA from regulating pollutants that cause climate change. They want to stop new EPA regulation from going into effect for two years while Senate Republicans (and a few cowardly coal Democrats) obstruct a meaningful bill from passing Congress, just like they did for the last two years. If they really believe it's better for Congress to act first, as they claim, then all they have to do is pass a clean energy bill right now.

Climate change is one of those problems that has deadly consequences for delaying action. Waiting means that future climate disasters will be more frequent and more severe. We can expect more catastrophic blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, food shortages, flooding, disease epidemics, and other problems that threaten human life.

But hey, they're in swing states. They have to get re-elected, right? I guess they're supposed to get a pass for making the future of our nation the cost of their political ambition.

While I'm on the topic, I'll point out that Senator Lamar Alexander wants downtown Nashville to flood again, James Inhofe wants even worse tornadoes in Oklahoma, Kit Bond is eager for major destruction along the Mississippi, and John Shimkus wants harvesting and planting seasons interrupted by unpredictable heavy rains. At least, that's what they're telling us by their refusal to support meaningful efforts to slow climate change.

For all the politicians whose loyalty to the fossil fuel industry is greater than their concern for the well being of future generations, I would like to present my favorite picture of Johnny Cash.



Right now is a good time to call your favorite coal or oil politician and thank them for the nice weather we're having!

The Senate is still useless

First, the Senate is useless because they aren't even talking about voting on an energy bill in the lame duck session.

And let's face the fact that we can't blame this entirely on Republicans. Harry Reid is protecting certain Democratic Senators who are in the pockets of the coal and oil industry from having to take a controversial vote. Yes, I'm looking at you Mary Landrieu and Joe Manchin, among others.

The only saving grace is that a Senate energy bill might have been so overloaded with subsidies for coal that it could have ended up being worse than doing nothing. The fact that industry is so nervous about EPA regulating greenhouses gasses indicates that it's probably an effective way to keep making progress.

The Senate is also useless because they blocked or watered down every proposal Obama sent them for two years. When they should have been dealing with pressing, life-and-death issues of the day, they passed a bill to limit the volume of TV commercials. WTF?!

Doesn't anyone on Capitol Hill understand that Democrats didn't show up to vote in the recent election because the Senate blocked major parts of the change we voted for in '08? Now is the time to finish their incomplete work from the past two years!

At least things are changing during the lame duck session. Senate Democrats are finally starting to get angry and show a little spine. Of course, they aren't standing up to Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans who have been pouting roadblocks.

Instead, they're standing up to a Democratic President! You know, the same guy conservative Democratic Senators (and Russ Feingold) have been failing to support for the past two years. The Senate finally grows a pair and all they can do is fight a President of their own party who's trying to extend unemployment, cut payroll taxes, and keep education tax credits.

Congratulations President Obama! You did what I thought was impossible. You made the Democratic Senate finally stand up for themselves.

If the past two years is the best Harry Reid can do then it's time for him to step down as Majority Leader (while Democrats are still in the majority).

Rand Paul opposes existence of Paducah Kentucky

I've been casually following the Kentucky U.S. Senate election since it's one of a few Republican seats Democrats could win this year. The latest I've heard is the back and forth about federal earmarks.

Republican Rand Paul wants to eliminate earmarks completely. Democrat Jack Conway wants more transparency.

I wonder if Rand Paul will take his anti-earmark message to Paducah Kentucky. Outside of Washington DC, I don't know of any other town that owes so much of its existence to nearly 200 years worth of federal projects. If you haven't been there before then you should visit their beautiful downtown and riverfront.

In the early 19th century, William Clark (of the Lewis & Clark expedition) gained title to land in the area. It was inherited from his brother for service in the Revolutionary War. Clark used his influence to get several key federal facilities located there which gave Paducah its start. This enraged his rival, John Frontage, but that's another story.

During the civil war, it benefited from being a key point along the supply line for union armies.

The federal government has spent millions on local flood control.



(Murals along the Paducah flood wall)


The heyday of federal pork came through the efforts of Paducah's favorite son, Alben Barkley. He was a popular US Senator, Democratic Majority Leader, and Harry Truman's Vice-President. He's the namesake of Barkley dam, Lake Barkley, Barkley Airport, Barkley Park and a long list of other federally funded projects. Most, if not all, of those projects fit Rand Paul's definition of a pork barrel earmark.

If anyone knows of a comprehensive list of federal pork Barkley secured for western Kentucky, please let me know. It would probably fill several volumes of books.

And don't forget two major employers in town, Paducah's US Coast Guard base and the US Department of Energy's uranium enrichment facility.

If Rand Paul is so opposed to federal earmarks then maybe he should ask western Kentucky to give up all the projects they received as a result of the influence wielded by their former Senator. That would be the logically consistent thing to do if he really believes what he says. Clearly, Paul would have secured none of those projects had he been Senator instead of Barkley.

Then Paul can explain why he wants to destroy the regional economy and put everyone out of work. In western Kentucky, and in the rest of the real world, government does create jobs.

Require Viagra disclosure for Oklahoma legislators

I read that the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill to collect personal information about women who receive an abortion and then post the data on a website. Among other details, the questionnaire would ask any "woman seeking an abortion to provide marital status, reasons for ending the pregnancy, whether she currently is receiving public assistance and whether the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest."

Since the Oklahoma legislature has such low regard for medical privacy, I suggest that they be required to fill out a similar questionnaire when they're treated for "ED." It will help them empathize with what they're requiring from women.



It should include detailed questions about why they're seeking treatment, what sort of problems they're having, and whether or not it exclusively involves their spouse. The data should be posted on a public website, just like the data for abortions.

I suspect it would help us better understand why Oklahoma politicians do some of the things they do.

Howard Zinn

No single writer has had more influence on my thinking about history and politics than Howard Zinn. He was 87 when he died yesterday but I was convinced he should keep on living, writing and speaking out forever.

Zinn wrote about the history that polite society and Presidential historians prefer not to talk about. I minored in history and grew up visiting civil war battlefields on family vacations. But, being introduced to Zinn meant discovering a side of American history I had only glimpsed in college.

Two memories of him stick out in my mind, one impersonal and one personal.



The impersonal memory was the night of the invasion of Iraq. I was flipping through channels watching all the gung ho cheering for the shock and awe campaign, which predictably killed more civilians than the 9/11 attack. What name are we supposed to give a war tactic which intentionally bombs civilian targets in an effort to psychologically terrorize the population?

The corporate media's pathetic subservience to Bush was universal until I flipped to PBS. Howard Zinn was one of four panelists. He was the only voice I heard that night on any network with the courage to speak out against the invasion. I wasn't surprised when conservatives re-launched their attacks on PBS funding. What they really mean by "liberal media bias" is that they don't want to see any liberal viewpoints expressed on any network, ever.

Around that time, I was taking a few classes and thinking about grad school at the University of Tennessee when Zinn came to speak. I had read half a dozen of his books but decided to buy a hardback version of A People's History for him to sign.

I don't remember much of what he said, but I learned the importance of keeping a broader perspective than the conventional wisdom that otherwise intelligent people mindlessly accept. I learned that people who make well-reasoned, intelligent judgments on their own are usually vindicated in time over those who safely follow the crowd.

Zinn never had to apologize for his comments leading up to the Iraq war like so many others have (or should have).

I was involved with a student group supporting wage workers who were trying to form a union at the University. He agreed to meet with us after his speech. It ended up being an hour long informal rap session where we tried to grab as much knowledge and inspiration out of him as we could. He didn't simply have an academic concern for the average person in history. He had a genuine passion for people's movements of today.

That warm-hearted passion and ceaseless activism are why many mourn him today. The words he left will continue to vindicate him for years to come.

National Geographic to women: make me a sandwich!

I don't normally pay attention to sexism in the media but it sticks out when it's in a place you don't expect. I was flipping through a copy of National Geographic at my Mom's house before Christmas and noticed an article about bionic limbs.

The teaser line said it allowed a woman to do things most of us take for granted, like folding laundry. That seemed like an odd example, I thought. The headline of the story gave the next example of fixing sandwiches. Wow. Apparently millions of dollars was spent on high tech bionic limbs to make sure women like her can make sandwiches and fold our laundry.

Later in the article it tells the story of a man with new legs. What was he doing? Running the track because he's a "warrior soldier!" Perfect! Women are in the kitchen and folding laundry while men are out running and killing.

In most magazines I would have chuckled and not thought twice about it. But this is National Geographic! Shouldn't some editor have picked up on that before it wen to print? WTF?