Where in the world is Vladimir Putin?

 

Courtesy of Ted McCagg/The Monkey Cage

50th Anniversary of the first march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama

Of the several "50th Anniversary's" occurring this year, the remembrance of the bravery and commitment of the roughly 600 Alabama citizens and supporters who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, despite high levels of violence, in peaceful pursuit of basic human dignity is extremely important and deservedly commemorated. The marches from Selma to Montgomery were one giant step in a long march towards freedom for people suffering around the world. 

Indeed my own brief confusion about today's news coverage stems from the fact that the phrase "Bloody Sunday" is more often attributed to a very different display of violence in Northern Ireland. Different, yes, and yet also a circumstance of citizens desperately seeking freedom from fear and access to equal rights and human dignity. Citizens who were inspired by the people of Alabama and across America.

This link will take you to the pre-prepared transcript of President Obama's speech in Selma earlier today, which I believe he delivered quite well. CNN: President Obama's remarks at #Selma50

We should never forget the struggle of those who have fought for the freedoms we have come to enjoy, or even demand, and we should never forget that this struggle is ongoing.

Some excerpts:

"We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing's changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or Los Angeles of the 1950s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing's changed. Ask your gay friend if it's easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago. To deny this progress, this hard-won progress --- our progress --- would be to rob us of our own agency, our own capacity, our responsibility to do what we can to make America better."
...
"We know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won. We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged, all of us, by the content of our character requires admitting as much, facing up to the truth. "We are capable of bearing a great burden," James Baldwin once wrote, "once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.""

#Selma50

The Spocked Fiver

As ridiculously hipster as this is:
I've owned a "Spocked" Fiver since "before they were cool."
I received this 5$ bill while working at DQ in Carlyle. Back in around 2005-6, I think. Props to the individual who first coloured my hero on to the Sir. Laurier that graced this old-style fiver. It was in my wallet for many years before being moved into a box of odds and ends for safe-keeping. As you can see, because it is the old paper-style bill, the ink has seeped into the bill over time.
I had forgotten about it until suddenly the Spocked Canadian Five became an internet sensation.
Canadians can be fantastic people, can't they!?

To see one example of the recent trend: http://sourcefed.com/canadians-awesomely-commemorate-leonard-nimoy-by-spocking-their-5-bills/

Everything looks a little different from the outside looking in...

A snap-shot of world headlines:

• Iranian backed Iraqi soldiers press to take back Tikrit from the Islamic State (IS). Iraqi's and the world react to IS demolishing the archaeological site of Nimrud.
• North Korea (DPRK) launched two nuclear missiles in to the Sea of Japan, Japan has lodged a formal UN complaint - this is not the DPRK's first act of this kind in response to US-South Korean military exercises in the region.
• The death of Russian opposition leader and former Kremlin official, Boris Nemtsov highlights the growing dissent and crackdown between the current Russian government and their people.
• American politics are split over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Congress calling out President Obama's efforts to work with Iran on their Nuclear policy.
• The Conservative Party of Canada is under fire (and rightly so) for publishing fear-mongering images regarding IS threats to Canada while seeking to stir up support for Bill-C51, a bill that could put Canadian freedoms at risk.

I recently read something that I would like to share in response to all of this news and conflict:

“From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

Edgar Mitchel, Astronaut, 1974.

Let's be realistic about the politicisation of this issue. This is an blatant act of fear-mongering and should not be the public face of a governing party.

Post by Conservative Party of Canada - Parti conservateur du Canada.

Here is the original article: "West Edmonton Mall named in Al-Shabaab Video as Possible Target"

The quote in full is as follows:

"If just a handful of mujahedeen fighters could bring Kenya to a complete standstill for nearly a week, then imagine what a dedicated mujahedeen in the West could do to the American or Jewish-owned shopping centres across the world," ...
"What if such an attack was to occur in the Mall of America in Minnesota, or the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, or in London's Oxford Street, or any of the hundred or so Jewish-owned Westfield shopping centres dotted right across the western world?"

The question becomes, is this threat of attack coming from a real initiative to cause terrorist havoc in the named developed centres? Or is this an attempt to build upon a nation's already flourishing fear tactics?

Always be open to new possiblities

Bill Nye, after reviewing facts on GMO Foods, happily changes his stance in order to forward research in a positive and productive manner.
This is how we should all react to science that challenges our commonly held beliefs. Not with fear, but with an eagerness to understand more.

 

I have to admit, as annoying as the whole The Dress thing was over the weekend - it was great to see so many people getting really excited about science.

Krugman: Walmart's move to raise pay is a very big deal. It will likely lead to raises for millions of other workers. http://t.co/bkpnkZNai5
— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) March 2, 2015