… who looks after things.
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With the Nation’s lawyer’s lawyer threatening to take the 5th before Congress, having Amy Goodman ‘84** of Democracy Now! in the area tonight is a rare breath of fresh air. Stonehill College Easton Ma 6:30 PM tonight. Details… |
*”of whom Harvard can be proud?” Get real.
** Harvspeak for Class of 1984.
Some were asked of me privately.
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Reading the names of U.S. military killed in Iraq on the steps of Memorial Church, Harvard, March 20, 2007 - Invasion + 4 years. A comparable number of names of the much more numerous Iraqi dead were also read.
Others asked quite publicly.
A question of law students, by law students, and for law students, North Yard Harvard, March 20, 2007 - Invasion + 4 years, “Complicit HLS Alums, Chertoff*, Gonzales, You?”
Gotta go hear what Dave Weinberger has to say about the Internets saving democracy. BBL -r
*I’m making you hunt for the Michael Chertoff Wikipedia link, because I have not yet posted about his visit to his alma mater the night before George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Coincidence? After he spoke, a phalanx of secret service men escorted him out of the Ames Court Room. The HLS website offers a brief synop and a Realmedia webcast, but does not mention that the event was cohosted by the HLS Federalist Society.
Harvard’s Legal Left took me to dinner and a movie and didn’t ask me for sex afterwards. I had a good time anyway. With more time, I’ll describe the conference hosting the movie. I promised my companero who could not stay that I would take notes.
The movie focuses on the workers at one factory that management closed as “inefficient” and describes their struggle to organize themselves and take over the factory. It depicted their occupation of the factory, getting the factory back into production, and appearances in court in the hope of obtaining legal title - expropriation. [Perhaps “eminent domain” is more familiar.] The movie ended on an optimistic note for the workers.
… is a corporation called Blackwater USA. [Wikipedia*] It is headquartered in North Carolina. Being unnoticed by the American public is an essential part of their business model. We are not supposed to notice that the number of “private security contractors”** in Iraq, for example, is comparable to the number of U.S Armed Forces personnel. The war effort is twice as big as what we’re supposed to see.
__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)
There was something happening here:
Crossing the Bridge to the Pentagon Saturday
A demonstration sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. marched to the Pentagon. [An AP story through CNN. A slightly different AP story through Yahoo.] Some of them are what Professor Roberto would call necessitarians. Some would call them the OLD Necessitarians.
__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)
These days, public discussion of economic policy and related laws (e.g. bankruptcy) tacitly assumes that property is something predetermined by laws of God or Nnature.* But an apartment which can be rented, cannot be sold as a condominium until and unless a master deed is filed on the building. And in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts “the condominium” did not exist at all until The Great and General Court [the real name of the Legislature] added it as a “form of ownership.” Property is a creation of Man Person. [:)] Perhaps it’s no accident that Harvard’s Economics building is adjacent to the Law School.
Knowing how to resolve conflicts over “property rights” means knowing what property is. French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon posed his answer under the title, “What is Property?” There is a course at Harvard in the Government Department by the same name. Or you can find some views of Harvard’s Legal Left in their Journal Unbound.
*When I first published this, I had the unqualified deitistic ‘N’. My bad. I do be after all, an empiricist, experimentalist, a bit of a nominalist, and just may be a crit although as of this posting we Wikipedians got some ’splaining to do. The homorphism with this is not obvious. I met a bunch of Foucauldians**. Am I? [Am I truculent?] “I don’t know what that is, but if that’s good, I’m that!”
** People who respect Michel Foucault, but not consonants.
In his trip to Latin America, George W. Bush remarked, ‘We are all sons of George Washington and Simon Bolivar.” Venezualan President Hugo Chavez implied different heritage and pointed out a strong difference in the careers of Washington and Bolivar. Democracy Now! had substantial clips from Chavez’ “shadow tour” of Bush. According to Chavez, George Washington was born to a poor family and ended up a wealthy slave owner, while Bolivar was born ‘with a silver spoon in his mouth’ but [after leading the successful struggles for independence in several Latin American countries] died wearing borrowed clothes. Which historiography is more nearly right? Let’s go to the Internets!
__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)
To sidestep the issue of whether one can acquire “ownership” of a holiday merely by registering a domain name, I offer links to events not listed on the official website and local to the Boston area:
An Electronic Vigil in Solidarity with Women’s Rights Activists in Iran
Online and ongoing. [Thanks to Kaveri Rajamaran of Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice.]__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)
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International Women’s Day is today.* [click logo for “Official site,”**] I wouldn’t have known, if Amy Goodman hadn’t told me. |
Featuring an interview with Sargent Eli Painted Crow USAR a woman soldier for 22 years and mother of 4, two of whom also served. Also Professor Helen Benedict about her salon.com article, “The Private War of Women Soldiers.”[Salon server is temporarily slashdotted]. Clip of Colonel Janice Carpinsski, former Brigadier General and commander of Abu Gharib prison. Phone interview with Specialist Mickiela Montoya, “there are only three things they let a woman be in the military, a bitch, a ho, or a dyke.”
Geena Davis, actor and founder of the See Jane Foundation, speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform on the paucity and stereotypes of female characters in children’s media.
Web rebroadcast, headlines and transcripts available at noon.
*There’s currently a minor edit scirmish on Wikipedia. The IWD 2006 logo has been replaced with an “unofficial” logo. It is more provocative than the official logo, but the “Quick Delete” banner says only that it is a licensing matter.
**The “Official Site” has corporate sponsors including Big Four accounting firm Deloitte. This must truly thrill the Marxist crowd or any remaining Marxians who founded the day.
| Tonight at sunset/moonrise the earth will cast it’s shadow on the moon. Last night’s glorious full moon will not be blotted out, but turned red from light refracted through the earth’s atmosphere. According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the moonrise in |  |
| Boston will occur at 5:30 PM and the sunset at 5:36 PM. I would imagine that the buildings might make sunset a little earlier and moonrise a little later. For other locations, visit the USNO site and for a fuller fluffier press release, including viewing tips, visit the NASA website. [4:00 PM] My own viewing tip - be somewhere that doesn’t have a thick cloud cover. Looking at the composite reflectivity radar loop from Taunton, MA, it doesn’t look good for the shore north and south to the entrance to the Cape. Oh, well. | |
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Former four star General Wesley Clark on Democracy Now! for the most of the hour.
www.democracynow.org
Shows are normally archived for post-broadcast streaming by noon.
Highlights:
Re: The Times of London report* that Generals will quit if Iran is invaded, “It’s good the generals are asking these questions.” [He doesn’t know who specifically.]
Gitmo should be closed.
The truth about the Middle East - had there been no oil, it would be like Africa.
*In an earlier edition, I attributed this report to Sy Hersch. I apologize for this error. If you read his recent article, The Redirection, you will understand my confusion.
