We watched some of The Power on Amazon. The first three episodes are up right now. We watched episode one. Would have done more if we knew it was up already -- it was supposed to post to Prime tomorrow. Toni Collette is the star.
That's the voice in Allie's head that drives her out of church. The voice tells her about a power and how it's in her hands. Literally, it turns out. She and all the other teenage girls develop electricity in their hands. And they can make it happen for women as well.
If you read Naomi Alderman's book a few years back, you know this transforms the society and leads females to be the dominant sex on earth.
I'm interested to see how this plays out as a series.
Tuesday, March 30, 2023. The US Senate votes in favor of repealing the
AUMF, Senators Patty Murray, Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown want
accountability on the VA electronic record program, Mother Tucker
Carlson continues to issue jihads against the LGBTQ+ community, and much
more.
The Senate on Wednesday voted to repeal a pair of Authorizations for
Use of Military Force (AUMF) with bipartisan support, taking a step
toward closing the door on the Iraq War 20 years after it started.
Senators voted 66-30 to officially repeal the 1991 authorization for
the Gulf War and the 2002 AUMF that opened the door to the Iraq War the
following March.
At least 20 years. At least? It's not repealed yet. Mary Claire Jalonick (AP) explains, "If passed by the House, the repeal would not be expected to affect any
current military deployments. But lawmakers in both parties are increasingly seeking
to claw back congressional powers they have given the White House over
U.S. military strikes and deployments, and some lawmakers who voted for
the Iraq War two decades ago now say that was a mistake." Yes, now we're waiting on the House of Representatives.
On the topic of Congress, March 17th's "Iraq snapshot" reported on the latest Senate hearing on the Electronic
Health
Record Modernization -- an effort that's gone on since Bully Boy Bush
occupied the White House. Yesterday, Senator Patty Murray's office
issued the following:
March 29, 2023
Murray, Tester, Brown Announce Comprehensive Bill to Overhaul VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Program
Senate Veterans’ Affairs and Appropriations Committees leaders
spearhead effort to restructure, enhance, and improve the new EHR
program while increasing oversight on behalf of veterans, VA personnel,
and taxpayers
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senators Patty
Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs
Committee, Chairman Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are
spearheading a legislative push to deliver a complete overhaul of the
Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Record
Modernization (EHRM) program.
The Senators will be introducing comprehensive legislation in the
coming days that would require VA to implement a series of EHRM reforms
to better serve veterans, medical personnel, and taxpayers. Their bill
would restructure, enhance, and strengthen the entire EHRM program while
also mandating aggressive reporting to Congress to increase oversight,
accountability, and transparency following a series of challenges with
the system and program, including those found in VA’s recent EHRM Sprint Report and a review
from the Government Accountability Office. This is just the latest in a
series of challenges related to the program which launched in 2017 and
was deployed at the first VA hospital in 2020, during the COVID-19
pandemic.
“I have been clear from the start -- VA cannot continue with its
current EHR system until it works for providers and keeps patients
safe. This legislation will put into law the kind of aggressive
oversight necessary to fix the current system -- that's my first priority,”
said Senator Murray. “Importantly, this set of reforms
will also overhaul the contracts and acquisitions process so that the
issues we’ve seen these last few years can be prevented in the future. I
want to make sure the dedicated providers at VA can do their jobs and
that our veterans are getting the high quality care they have earned and
deserve. Let’s pass the EHR Program RESET Act as soon as possible.”
“It’s clear that the new EHR system is failing veterans,
medical personnel, and taxpayers, and we need aggressive measures to
right this ship and get a better return on investment through this
contract,” said Chairman Tester. “That’s why my
colleagues and I are putting forth comprehensive legislation to increase
transparency and oversight over the new electronic health record
system—holding VA and Oracle Cerner accountable on behalf of the men and
women who risked their lives to defend our country. Veterans deserve
nothing less, and I won’t back down from our continued commitment to
safely deliver them the health care they need and earned.”
“Too many veterans and workers have faced confusion and
unnecessary problems because of VA’s Electronic Health Record rollout.
VA needs a reset, and must meet specific metrics on patient safety,
cost, and VA employee productivity, to improve morale and improve
veterans’ experiences when they turn to the VA for care,” said Senator Brown.
“As VA employees at Chalmers in Columbus continue to work through
issues related to Oracle Cerner’s product, I’ll continue fighting for
them, and for the veterans they serve, to improve this program before
the Department moves forward with any other VA facilities.”
Among its many provisions, the Senators’ legislation would require VA to:
Develop clear metrics to guide whether and how VA should go forward
with the new EHR at additional VA facilities and require additional
resources to support those facilities;
Require VA and Oracle Cerner to fix the technology features connected to the health safety and delivery issues found in VA’s March 2023 Sprint Report;
Not move forward with the new EHR at other VA health facilities
until the data at the existing five facilities demonstrates an ability
to deliver health care to veterans at standards that surpass metrics
using VA’s VistA system or that meet national health operations
standards as determined by the Under Secretary for Health;
Appoint a lead senior negotiator and leverage other federal agencies
and independent outside experts to offer advice and strategies for
managing aggressive EHR contract negotiations with Oracle Cerner to
protect taxpayers and veterans;
Develop an alternative “Plan B” strategy for a new EHR in the event
Oracle Cerner will not agree to new contract terms that protect
taxpayers and increase accountability and penalties for poor performance
or when VA data shows it cannot get the technology to work to serve
veterans efficiently and safely;
Reform major acquisitions at VA to prevent future programs with poor
contracting, oversight, management, and planning from occurring; and
Require an existing VA Advisory Committee to add health care experts
with proven experience implementing EHR deployments to advise VA
leaders on potential strategies on how to improve VA EHRM’s
implementation based on prior lessons learned in the private and
non-profit health sectors.
The legislation would also require the Department of Defense (DoD) to
report to Congress quarterly on steps it is taking fix DoD information
technology systems, including those which are outdated and are
negatively impacting VA’s ability to deliver health care, benefits, and
other services, including through the new EHR.
###
On Iraq, tonight, at 7:00 pm EST, WBUR
will air ON POINT's latest episode "The American Invasion Through An
Iraqis Eyes." Host Meghna Chakrabarti will be joined by Iraqi
journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. If your local NPR airs it, great, grab it
off that. I'm sure the episode will go up at NPR's home page for ON POINT
at some point. I'm noting the Boston station because a friend there is
the one who provided the heads up. I've honestly never listened to ON
POINT and didn't even know about it until the phone call. I will be
listening tonight. And, no, Tom Bowman is not the voice of NPR. Many
people with NPR are offended by his nonsense last week.
A friend at PBS asked for a link as well. No.
They're
not getting it. Ava and I may rip apart what they wanted promoted this
weekend. Otherwise, we'll just ignore the airing of lies on the public
airwaves.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the American invasion of
Iraq, a conflict that was broadcast into our living rooms on our TV sets
in great detail thanks to the many reporters who were allowed to become
“embedded” with U.S. troops as they made their way across the
battlefields of Iraq.
Some commentators today refer to the War in Iraq as a mistake, but
that implies a mere error in judgment. However, that assessment
completely ignores the simple fact that the war was predicated on a
deliberately-false narrative.
Someone at PBS needs to review that editorial with their staff.
The
bodies of the six innocent victims – including three precious children –
killed in the latest school shooting weren’t even cold yet before the
“don’t politicize tragedy” brigade was politicizing tragedy.
On
Monday, a female-to-male transgender man shot his way into Covenant
School – a pre-k through sixth-grade private school affiliated with the
Evangelical Presbyterian Church of America – in Nashville, Tennessee.
The right quickly pounced on the shooter’s transgender identity, using
it to target an entire community that it has already spent the first
three months of this year targeting through state legislatures.
Republican Senator JD Vance tweeted that the
left needed to do some “soul searching” over the Nashville shooting
because the shooter was trans and targeted a Christian school.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, his fellow Republican, blamed the “hormones
like testosterone and medications for mental illness” the shooter may
have been on for the violence, adding that “everyone can stop blaming
guns now.” Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, called transgender people the “natural enemy” of Christianity in a hateful tirade on his Fox News show.
These comments are all part of an emerging narrative on the right that seeks to turn an isolated incident – only three mass shooters out of over 300 since 2009 have been trans –
into a rallying cry for further hate and violence against the LGBTQ
community. We must reject this narrative because the reverse is true.
The right is the radicalized threat to public safety, not the LGBTQ community. I have the receipts to prove it.
[. . .]
If
folks like Vance, Greene, and Carlson are concerned about sectarian
violence in the United States – and we all should be, given its ubiquity
in modern America – they ought to take a step back and consider the
rhetoric they use to demonize and dehumanize their political opponents,
the laws they pass targeting them, and the actions they take to harm
them. They ought to also consider the use of violence on their own side.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson stoked anti-trans fears in the wake of
Monday's Nashville school shooting, warning of what he described as the
rising threat of "trans terrorism."
Carlson cited the deadly shooting
at the Covenant School, a private Christian school, to assert a broad
and unfounded claim that trans people are waging a war against
Christians.
"Why are some trans people so angry, and why do they seem to be mad specifically at traditional Christians?" Carlson asked.
What is FOX "NEWS" to do? Haters in poverty and struggling
watch FOX NEWS over the airwaves -- a low income group which effects
advertising rates. And when FOX NEWS owned FOX entertainment, that was
good for the bottom line. But ABC-DISNEY-et all now owns FOX
entertainment. So the free viewers continue. But advertising alone's
not making it these days. Which is why they started FOX NATION. But,
bit of a problem, the people who signed up for it -- a two week trial or
even for a full month? They're leaving. And they're not leaving
silently. The feedback FOX NATION is getting -- and they do ask for
feedback when you cancel your subscription -- is that there are too many
hateful attacks on LGBTQ+. They're getting comments like that. Some
of the comments include statements such as "I'm not a supporter of gay
people but even for me it's too much with the attacks."
Tucker
brings in the freeloaders, no surprise there. But FOX "NEWS" is going
to have to figure out another way to get people to pay for content
because those who sampled the for-pay service are not impressed with
Mother Tucker.
In the real world, people have to live
with the hate Mother Tucker stokes. QUEER NEWS TONIGHT notes Nebraska
state senator John Fredrickson.
It
takes a lot of courage on the part of the LGBTQ+ community in this
country as elements of the right-wing push for a holy war -- that's the
only term for it -- against LGBTQ+ persons.
Meanwhile,
Josselyn Berry has resigned. Who? The press secretary for Arizona's
governor. Monday the shooting in Tennessee took place. Monday night,
Hobbs Tweeted with a gif of Gena Rowlands in GLORIA, gun in each hand,
adding "Us when we see transphobes." There's not a defense for it. It
was a dumb Tweet. It also wasn't the end of the world. She was right
to resign because she would have been a distraction to the governor's
work. But it's also true that those whining that she was threatening
them -- huh?
People can be stupid. That includes HUFFINGTON POST which (mis)covered this.
Right-wingers, she wasn't talking about you. It was in a thread about
how harmful transphobes on the left are. Oh, right-wingers, did you not
know you could break bread with the left on this topic? I've got an
elderly, one-foot-in-the-grave, self-identified Communist just waiting
to meet you! (See Betty's "Shut your bigoted ass, Dr. Anthony Monteiro"
for more on that fool.) It had nothing to do with the right-wingers,
but you know how they love to play the victim, you know how they're
always playing the victim and always running for a Mommy or Daddy to
tattle because they're just victims (Mother Tucker Carlson projects
victimhood onto others), so they got butt hurt over something that had
nothing to do with them as usual.
Or maybe they were just whoring -- as usual.
Megyn
Kelly knows she has to whore. She's got no career at FOX and no career
at NBC and no one else will touch her so YOUTUBE's all she got.
Remember that when she Tweets:
. Never ceases to amaze when you see courage like that on these tapes (of them taking out the shooter). Professionalism, bravery, respect for one another, honor.
The heroes?
I believe the police department did a very poor job.
A
friend of the shooter's called the police department and was palmed
off. Hours after the shooting ended, they finally showed up to take
the woman's story. That's not good police work. Now I know Megyn's not
very smart. But, let me repeat, that's not good police work.
Just
reading the first Tweet she received over the phone to the first
point-of-contact with the Nashville police should have been enough. The
statement indicates the person texting has plans to harm someone and is
about to act on that plan.
This should not have been fobbed off.
The Nashville Police Department needs to figure out how they failed.
Megyn appears to be praising those who shot the shooter.
I
know that a certain Texas school shooting lowered everyone's
expectations regarding law enforcement but that is the police's job. I
don't know that those at the location did it well. I don't know that
they didn't. But I know the Nashville police department failed
Nashville when they treated the friend calling as something to push off
and ignore.
Megyn's whoring
isn't helping anyone and it won't make the people of Nashville any
safer. But, hey, maybe it'll get some right-wing crazies to embrace
Megyn again? For Megyn, it was either that or endorsing Blackface again
-- she had to do something to rally her base.
Repeating,
the first call should have addressed reality and done so immediately,
then there was a second call and it didn't address the issue either.
This is not a time for praise. A tragedy took place and Nashville
Police needs to look at their actions and ensure more training so that
they're not ignoring an impending shooting again when presented with
clear information that someone's about to harm someone else in the city.
Related, "You are supposed to be a feminist! Trans 'women' are erasing women!" So claims an e-mail.
Uh,
no, they're not. A lot of straight, cis gender women are erasing
women. It's not your industry probably but I don't understand why, for
example, actresses -- a noble profession -- are expected to want to be
called "actors." I don't get it. Singer is an inclusive term.
Songstress is not, but singer is. So fine and dandy. But if we're
really worried about women being erased -- and our society never has
been -- then I'd worry more about women being forced to adopt male terms
than about people misgendered by birth. And then take a moment to
grasp that this is happening in 21st century -- this notion that women
should be happy with a male term. If we're going to rename the
profession why not go with "actresses" for all? Why do we have to
reward the male norm all the time? That's a better worry if you're
worried about erasure. Then again, if you were worried about actual
erasure, you'd be promoting Merlin Stone's WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN and
other books that deal with the actual erasure of women from history.
If
Erica is transitioning or has transitioned, how is
her being a woman erasing me? Help me with that because I don't see it.
The
e-mail continues, "They are doing this just to win races!" Really?
Most of the transgender people I know are over college age and not
running or competing in any sport, first off. And while there probably
could be economic incentive for someone born physically female to switch
to male, there's no benefit to the reverse. Transitioning to male
could allow an athlete to make a lot more money if they have talent at
the sport. Anyone who transitioned to female to make money in sports
had bigger problems than greed because society ignores women's sports in
this country. The WNBA is mentioned most often to mock it. (That's
not me saying they deserve to be mocked. They don't. But if, for
example, FAMILY GUY mentions the WNBA, it's to mock it. And, no, the
same thing does not happen with the NBA.)
Riley
Gaines? Isn't that the loser's name. As Marcia's documented
repeatedly, that woman has changed her story repeatedly. Maybe now that
her sports career is over, she feels she can be honest? Here's some
honesty, it's over because she wasn't that good. More reality, Marcia's
right, she came in sixth in that race she keeps whining about which is
why she didn't get the fifth place trophy at the swim meet. They had to
send her a trophy. They were being kind to her and letting her have a
fifth place tie -- when she actually came in sixth. No good deed goes
unpunished which is how Riley ends up degrading us all today. And,
dear, with those tiny breasts, I don't think you need to be insulting
Lia Thomas. And maybe don't talk about others because, Riley, your
shoulders and arms do not look normal for a woman. They don't look like
normal swimmers shoulders, no. And look at the bulky arms and then the
chest that looks like it has pecs and not breasts.
I
get it, I really do. Lia didn't just beat you in the water, she also
beats you in front of any mirror. Rachel McLish is a body builder who
won many competitions and she never looked like she was juicing so I
really don't get 'swimmer' Riley and all the testosterone that appears
to be racing through her own system while she's attacking Lia. Same
with Cory Everson. I started working out in the 80s -- like many, led
there by Jane Fonda. I knew what I wanted my body to look like and what
I didn't want it to look like. I wasn't going for Rachel or Cory's
look but I didn't feel they lost any part of what made them a woman.
They looked like women with muscles. Riley Gaines' body really doesn't
look like a woman's body. Again, that might account for her
bitterness.
March is winding down, which means Women's History Month is winding down. So let's note some women's history via Kaitlyn Greenidge (Harper's Bazaar):
This
Women’s History Month, as women and queer people in the United States
face growing challenges to their bodily autonomy, it’s encouraging to
turn to audacious women from the past who also lived through challenging
times. My forthcoming book, The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall, is
filled with stories of women who surmounted life in the Jim Crow era to
craft the relationships they desired, and Gladys Bentley was one of the
boldest of them all.
Bentley
was the most popular and infamous speakeasy performer in
Prohibition-era New York. A large, masculine, Black woman—a
“bulldagger,” in the language of her day—she was known for wearing a white tuxedo and top hat onstage while expertly playing the piano and singing dirty versions of popular songs to rapt“slumming” audiences. She even married her white girlfriend in a well-publicized Atlantic City wedding ceremony.
There is a rich history of“male impersonators”
on the popular American stage going back to the 19th century, who today
are often known as “drag kings.” Some of these performers actively
crafted male personae, but others like Bentley used the category of male
impersonator just to be their masculine selves, on and off the stage.
In
the 1920s, lesbian identity was just becoming visible in America
popular culture, but it was still generally viewed as immoral, criminal,
and akin to a mental illness. Despite this, Bentley was able to make a
successful living being her openly queer self, a rarity for the time.
She made sapphism more visible in a time of changing ideas about sex and
gender, as women were entering more professions and having fewer
children.
Her
performances often involved going into the audience and flirting with
all the female patrons. One reviewer wrote she “sang wicked blues in a
deep contralto voice” and “bemoaned her girlfriend who had deserted her
for another woman.” As Bentley sang, she went from table to table, and
“much to the delight of the audience, every once in a while she’d feign
recognition only to find disappointment upon closer inspection.” As for
her bawdy songs, one included the lyrics, “It’s a helluva situation up
at Yale / As a means of recreation / They rely on masturbation / It’s a
helluva situation up at Yale.”
The
early 20th century was still a conservative time in many ways, but the
banning of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 created illicit spaces in northern
cities like speakeasies and rent parties, which offered temporary
freedom from social norms. Hundreds of thousands of Southern African
Americans went to these cities in search of new opportunities, in what
became known as the Great Migration. And Black soldiers who had served
in World War I came home with a renewed sense of racial pride. This led
to an explosion of Black literature, music, art, and performance often
referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. All these factors helped make
Harlem the epicenter of the era, where Gladys Bentley rose to fame.
In 1930, Bentley lived with a woman named Beatrice Robert.[20] In
1931, Bentley had a civil ceremony in New Jersey, in a public union
with a white woman whose identity is unknown. When Bentley relocated to Los Angeles, she allegedly married J. T. Gibson, who died in 1952,[21] the same year in which she married Charles Roberts, a cook in Los Angeles; they were married in Santa Barbara, California, went on a honeymoon in Mexico.[21] Gibson denied ever marrying her.[22]
Bentley died of pneumonia unexpectedly at her home in Los Angeles on January 18, 1960, aged 52.[1][2][23] It
was initially believed to be the "Asian flu" but later turned into
"pneumonia". At the time of her death, she had been more involved in the
church and had just been ordained as a minister despite never getting
her official paperwork. She is buried beside her mother at Lincoln
Memorial Park in Carson, California.
Aside
from her musical talent and success, Bentley is a significant and
inspiring figure for some in the LGBT community and African Americans,
and she was a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance. She was
revolutionary in her masculinity: "Differing from the traditional male
impersonator, or drag king, in the popular theater, Gladys Bentley did
not try to 'pass' as a man, nor did she playfully try to deceive her
audience into believing she was biologically male. Instead, she exerted a
'black female masculinity' that troubled the distinctions between black
and white and masculine and feminine".[24]
Fictional characters based on Bentley appeared in Carl Van Vechten's novel Parties, Clement Woods' novel Deep River, and Blair Niles' novel Strange Brother.
In 2016, musician Shirlette Ammons released an album entitled Twilight for Gladys Bentley, that paid tribute to Bentley's legacy and "reimagined" Bentley in relationship to hip hop culture.[25]
In 2019, The New York Times newspaper
began a series called "Overlooked No More," in which the editorial
staff aims to correct a perceived bias in reporting by republishing
obituaries for historical minorities and women.[26] Bentley was one of the featured obituaries in Overlooked No More.[2]
Wednesday, March 29, 2023. The
Great Glenneth rallies his fellow transphobes to froth at the mouth, FOX
"NEWS" brings on an 'expert' who -- as usual on FOX "NEWS" -- doesn't
know what the hell he (ibid) is talking about, and much more.
Glenn Greenwald spent the week thus far on Twitter and on his
awful show -- it's the eyebrows, Rebecca,
not just the
at-home-out-of-a-box hair dye that make him look so awful these days --
offering conjecture and insisting others (people on the left) were
forcing him to do that. He's a liar. He's always done that. If it
weren't
for conjecture he'd have nothing. His whole career is conjecture and
his pretense that he's fair is a load of nonsense as well.
Monday,
a shooting took place. It was The Covenant School in Nashville. It is
not a Catholic school despite the claims of some. It's Presbyterian.
(To anyone dismissing the difference, ask a Presbyterian and they'll
tell you there's a difference. They have differences of opinion on many
Biblical stories. In college, I did pre-K at a Presbyterian Church's
day school as one of my many jobs.)
The shooter is said to be a person with the last name of Hale. As THE DAILY BEAST explains, "Police
initially described Hale as a teenager, then a 28-year-old woman, later
adding that Hale was transgender. A source close to the Hale family
told The Daily Beast that Hale had 'relatively recently' started 'identifying as he/him'."
If
you're not already grasping it, the possibility that the shooter
identified as transgender is what got Glenneth Greenwald and his fellow
transphobes in a dry-mouthed tizzy.
First
off, anyone is capable of violence. You may not fit the profile but
that's the thing about profiles, they're not 100% accurate. That's why
they're called "profiles" and not "here's the killer." Of course a
transgender person is capable of violence, any person is. It's like in
BLACK WIDOW when FBI agent Alex (Debra Winger) is trying to convince her
peers that she's stumbled onto a serial killer (Theresa Russell) who
uses sex to lure in men and then kills them. Her boss won't believe
her, it's not something you see a woman do, they insist. "Which part
do
you think a woman isn't up to? The seduction or the murder." Or as
they note in Billy Eichner's BROS, "There are trans terrorists too --
Caitlyn Jenner."
Back
against the wall -- or feeling that it is -- can make a person turn to
violence. Isn't that the whole point of the nod-along that's always
greeted "Thin Line Between Love And Hate"?
Second, we
know three children -- Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie
Scruggs -- and three staff members -- Mike Hall, Cynthia Peak and
Katherine Koonce -- were killed. Our thoughts should be with their
loved ones. And I'm sure it was very awful for everyone present --
other children and other staff.
Third,
I don't note these events in the immediate aftermath due to the whole
attempt to use them as a political football. Disarm the government
first. And drop the sense of entitlement that allows all the wrongful
murders by the police to happen in the first place. You see the
entitlement all over. For example, Afroman's home gets
invaded by police and he does a music video including that footage and
we're all supposed to feel that he's in the wrong? No. Cowardly police
officers filed a suit against Afroman -- the most frivolous police
lawsuit since Marcelo Rodriguez tried (and failed) to steal $10 million
from George Michael because he was mocked in the "Outside" video.
If
I'm remembering correctly, the Ninth Circuit found in this similar
case, "Granting police officers immunity from actions for damages is one
thing; granting them immunity from public criticism is quite another."
Per Dan Ladden Hall (THE DAILY BEAST),
the police have some issues to address because Hale contacted Averianna
Patton who attempted to relay information to the police:
Patton
told WTVF that Hale had previously spoken to others about feeling
suicidal so she knew to take the messages seriously. At her father’s
instruction, Patton said she contacted the Suicide Prevention Help Line
at 10:08 a.m. before calling the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s
Office five minutes later. They in turn told her to call Nashville’s
non-emergency line, Patton said.
“I
called Nashville’s non-emergency line at 10:14 a.m. and was on hold for
nearly seven minutes before speaking with someone who said that they
would send an officer to my home,” Patton said. “An officer did not come
to my home until 3:29 p.m.”
Patton
said she shared Hale’s messages because she thinks officials should
have responded to her information with more urgency. “After phone calls
from friends and Audrey’s name was released as the shooter at Covenant
Nashville school, I learned that Audrey was the shooter and that she had
reached out to me prior to the shooting,” Patton said. “My heart is
with all of the families affected and I’m devastated by what has
happened.”
Here's The Great Glenneth Greenwald:
Who radicalized the Nashville shooter?
What media outlets, pundits and politicians share and spread the murderer's ideology?
I
don't know. You don't either but you went there. Could be the hatred
aimed at transgender persons triggered the shooter. I have no idea. I
know, as a nontransgender person, I want to scream as I keep hearing all
the hate being tossed around. I can't imagine how I would cope if I
were transgendered. It's been ugly and it's been awful. That might
have radicalized the shooter. Might also have had nothing to do with
it. But, Glenneth, just knows what's going on.
Really?
With those jazz hands and that awful sweater that wouldn't look good on
a slim-waisted 14-year-old girl? Friends of Glenneth should
immediately take it upon themselves to thin out his closet of all age
inappropriate items. And sit on those hands if you can't control them,
Glenneth. First clue, if you're heads already moving back and forth on
camera, you don't also need to punctuate every word with hand
movement.
There
are people who are saying that this or that person in the media is
"defending the shooter." The examples they give do not read as people
defending the shooter. (Terry Moran, of ABC NEWS, for example, was not
defending the shooter in his Tweet.) But, for the record, I'm not
defending the
shooter. I don't know the shooter and I don't know their motives. If
the shooter
did go to the school, I will again note that schools have been
intolerant in the past. I've stated before how hearing tales last
summer about how then-young males were bullied in middle school and high
school by teachers and principals, my response was that they should sue
them. Even if it never went to court, the filing of a lawsuit would be
news and knock a lot of shine off people who got away with bullying
from a position of authority. I have no idea if the shooter attended
that type of school or not.
If
the shooter did attend that school, something traumatic could have happened there.
Equally true, something wonderful could have happened there and in the
messed up mind it was chosen for that reason. I have no idea. Neither
do the people like Glenneth who keep running with their anti-trans
narratives.
I wonder . . .
Glenneth does grasp that his 'friends' will dump him if they ever get
their way, right? That their hatred is aimed at the entire LGBTQ+
community and they need him to hide behind right now but they'll be the
first to put him down (like a sick dog) or 'fix' him (I don't mean
conversion therapy, I mean snip-snip) if they get their way?
I
can't figure out whether he's that big of whore that he can't see
beyond the money or if he's a masochistic bottom boi who can't get
enough humiliation and punishment. Really, that would be the difference
between being a bottom and being a sub. If it's the latter, can
someone
please build Glenneth a home dungeon? I'd offer to pay for any sessions
he needed after it's built but I have a feeling that if you tell people
Glenn
needs to be whipped and punished, there'll be a line two blocks long in
less than 30 minutes. Point out that the men can spit on him and piss
on
him as well and the line will be twice as long.
Meanwhile
FOX "NEWS" brought on the failure that is Jonathan Gilman. There's a
reason he hasn't worked in the media since 2004 -- other than spots on
FOX "NEWS." It's cute the way his Tweets don't match what he says at
the top of his Twitter feed -- his pinned Tweet from 2000. He wanted
you to know that as an Air Marshall, Navy Seal and more, he knows the
criminal mind. And the criminal mind is these people, "I was doing my
research" he insisted, meaning he was listening to archived broadcasts
of Candace Owens or someone similar, "and it is a fact that the majority of school shooters
and mass shooters that we've had in the recent history of the nation
are all people who have sexual identity dysfunction."
No, it's not a fact. Saying it on FOX "NEWS" is fitting since that's neither a fact nor news.
The
reality is that people with mental illness account for a very small
proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings in the U.S., says Ragy Girgis, MD,
associate professor of clinical psychiatry in the Columbia University
Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
In
2021, Dr. Girgis, an expert in severe mental illness, and colleagues
from Columbia’s Center of Prevention and Evaluation authored the first
report on mass shootings using the Columbia Mass Murder Database (CMMD),
which examined the relationship between serious mental illness and mass
shootings.
Columbia Psychiatry News spoke
with Dr. Girgis about the role of mental illness in mass shootings, the
motivations behind mass murder, why the perpetrators of mass violence
use guns, and more.
Are people with mental health disorders more likely to commit mass shootings or mass murder?
The
public tends to link serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia or
psychotic disorders, with violence and mass shootings. But serious
mental illness—specifically psychosis—is not a key factor in most mass
shootings or other types of mass murder. Approximately 5% of mass
shootings are related to severe mental illness. And although a much
larger number of mass shootings (about 25%) are associated with
non-psychotic psychiatric or neurological illnesses, including
depression, and an estimated 23% with substance use, in most cases these
conditions are incidental.
Additionally, as we demonstrated in our paper,
the contribution of mental illness to mass shootings has decreased over
time. The data suggest that while it is critical that we continue to
identify those individuals with mental illness and substance use
disorders at high risk for violence and prevent the perpetration of
violence, other risk factors, such as a history of legal problems,
challenges coping with severe and acute life stressors, and the epidemic
of the combination of nihilism, emptiness, anger, and a desire for
notoriety among young men, seem a more useful focus for prevention and
policy than an emphasis on serious mental illness, which leads to public
fear and stigmatization.
Look at
that, an actual medical doctor refutes your trashy claims. Hmm. Well
it's not like you had any real training -- in fact, I don't think
there's been any brain activity in your head for decades.
And
speaking to a friend a few seconds ago, a medical doctor published in
professional, peer-reviewed periodicals such as THE HARVARD REVIEW OF
PSYCHIATRY, he diagnosed Gilliam with OTRS -- Off The Rocker Syndrome --
as in, he's off his rocker.
Because,
guess what, Jonathan Gillman is off his rocker and underwater
demolition skills don't mean a great deal for the topic FOX NEWS brought
him on to address. In fairness to Gillman, FOX "NEWS" only brought him
on because they didn't want an expert on the subject. An expert would
have rejected their line of smears and slanders instantly.
The U.S. media has recently been
filled with retrospectives on the 20th anniversary of the beginning of
the Iraq War. Most of these outlets eagerly helped the George W. Bush
administration sell the war, publishing lavish falsehoods about how Iraq
posed a terrible danger to the U.S. (It did not.)
So you might hope that in the past two decades, the same publications
have learned the most basic facts about Iraq — and would steer clear of
publishing obvious and stupendous errors yet again. You would hope in
vain.
One incredible example appeared in a March 13 article
in The Atlantic by David Frum, who is best known for serving as a
speechwriter for President Bush and coming up with the phrase “axis of
evil” in the 2002 State of the Union address. Frum is now a staff writer
at The Atlantic, which is probably the most prestigious magazine in
America behind the New Yorker. The Atlantic is forthrightly endorsing
Frum’s fabrication and will not respond to basic questions about it.
As you may have heard, Bush’s case for war was that Iraq had programs
to produce “weapons of mass destruction” — that is, biological,
chemical, and nuclear weapons. In his article, “The Iraq War
Reconsidered,” Frum tells us in the first paragraph that Iraq was found
to possess “an arsenal of chemical-warfare shells and warheads.”
This is false. You don’t even need to know the details to understand why.
Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, never said a word about
this arsenal of chemical weapons that Frum says were discovered by the
U.S. This means there are two possibilities:
Iraq did have an arsenal of chemical weapons, thus totally
vindicating Bush and Cheney and proving that they were right about the
most famous political issue on Earth. However, they never mentioned this
because they’re super-modest.
Iraq did not have an arsenal of chemical weapons.
If you’d like to understand this subject in detail, you can read this long explanation I wrote a few years ago.
The “big lie” about Iraq wasn’t just about the regime’s possession of
weapons of mass destruction, but a preposterous deceit about the war’s
costs and terms of engagement. Leading administration spokespersons
actually testified that: the war would be over in a few weeks; US forces
would be greeted as liberators; it would cost no more than $1 or $2
billion; and in the end, a new democracy in Iraq would be a “beacon for
the new Middle East”.
Journalists
and commentators echoed these fact-free claims making it the dominant
narrative. Most politicians cowered, and because the overwhelming
majority of the public couldn’t find Iraq on a map (according to a
survey conducted days before the invasion was to begin), they went
along.
During
the months leading up to the start of the war, my wife and I were in
North Carolina where I was teaching at Davidson College. At one point, I
flew back to Washington to debate a resolution
I had submitted to the Democratic National Committee urging the party
to oppose sending our young people into a war without knowing its costs,
terms of engagement, and consequences, in a country whose history and
culture we did not know. The party leaders allowed me to present it but
wouldn’t permit a vote. One even said: “We don’t want to appear weak.”
At
the time, I was hosting a weekly live television call-in programme on
Abu Dhabi TV and Direct TV in the US. ADTV arranged two live satellite
shows connecting students at Davidson with students at Baghdad
University. While the exchange exposed the Iraqi students to the debate
about the war taking place on campus, my students had their eyes opened
to Iraqi history, culture and sensitivities. After the programme, one of
the Davidson students told me that it was so hard to be speaking with
the Iraqis knowing that we were going to bombing them.
Because
North Carolina is also home to military bases that were staging areas
for US troops being sent to Iraq, it was especially painful to watch
local news programmes interviewing family members about their loved ones
heading to the war. Because of the lies they had been told, in
interview after interview they tearfully repeated lines like “he’s a
hero fighting to keep our country safe”, or “he’s fighting to make the
world freer”. I feared for these young soldiers and their families, and
in my heart I damned those who had taken advantage of their goodness
(and lack of understanding) putting these young people at risk to fulfil
their own blind ideology.
With the UK’s unconscionable decision to send Depleted Uranium
ammunition to Ukraine, it’s perhaps useful to revisit the environmental
and health consequences of the US’s widespread use of such weapons in
Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf War. This short essay is adapted
from my book, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the
Politics of Nature.
At the close of the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was denounced as a
ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti
oil fields, clotting the air with poisonous clouds of black smoke and
saturating the ground with swamps of crude. It was justly called an
environmental war crime.
But months of bombing of Iraq by US and British planes and cruise
missiles has left behind an even more deadly and insidious legacy: tons
of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted
uranium. In all, the US hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive
bombs and missiles.
It took less than a decade for the health consequences from this
radioactive bombing campaign to begin to coming into focus. And they are
dire, indeed. Iraqi physicians call it “the white death”-leukemia.
Since 1990, the incident rate of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than
600 percent. The situation is compounded by Iraq’s forced isolations
and the sadistic sanctions regime, recently described by UN secretary
general Kofi Annan as “a humanitarian crisis”, that makes detection and
treatment of the cancers all the more difficult.
“We have proof of traces of DU in samples taken for analysis and that
is really bad for those who assert that cancer cases have grown for
other reasons,” said Dr. Umid Mubarak, Iraq’s health minister.
Mubarak contends that the US’s fear of facing the health and
environmental consequences of its DU bombing campaign is partly behind
its failure to follow through on its commitments under a deal allowing
Iraq to sell some of its vast oil reserves in return for food and
medical supplies.
“The desert dust carries death,” said Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, an oncologist
and member England’s Royal Society of Physicians. “Our studies indicate
that more than forty percent of the population around Basra will get
cancer. We are living through another Hiroshima.”
Most of the leukemia and cancer victims aren’t soldiers. They are
civilians. And many of them are children. The US-dominated Iraqi
Sanctions Committee in New York has denied Iraq’s repeated requests for
cancer treatment equipment and drugs, even painkillers such as morphine.
As a result, the overflowing hospitals in towns such as Basra are left
to treat the cancer-stricken with aspirin.
Sanctions
destroyed Iraq. Most on the left call out Mad Maddie Albright's
support and defense of those sanctions. But some on the left look the
other way with regards to convicted pedophile Scott Ritter who spent the
90s supporting those sanctions right there along with Mad Maddie
Albright.
Let's wind down with some good news -- and, yes, I'm promoting a friend's news:
Diana Ross "The Music Legacy Tour" 2023!
Hi
I’m
delighted to announce “The Music Legacy Tour” 2023: a celebration of my
greatest #1 hits! I’m coming home to the US to sing hit after hit from
my solo career and my time with The Supremes. It’s going to be a love
fest. I am so looking forward to making memories and more memories with
all of you ❤️
Tickets for this special tour go on sale this Friday 3/31! Stay tuned for more info and dates…
Share the #1 songs you would like to hear on social media with #dianaross #themusiclegacytour!
Asking myself:
What is it like to be turning 79?
How do I feel?
I feel blessed.
I have a beautiful life,
the love of my children and grandchildren
whom I love with all of me.
I have a wonderful career
I think about music & its amazing power
Happy, thankful, blessed.
I Celebrated National Hat Day!
I have always loved wearing hats.
I think it could be really fun to design some!
What do you think?
New Items Added To The Online Shop
I've added some new merchandise to my online shop! There are new tee styles
in
addition to more apparel for adults & children, accessories, music
and collectibles. Below are a few of the many items available...
Stay tuned for updates on new designs and exclusive products...
