Archive for April 22, 2011
Mother Earth
Again, Happy Earth Day.
Too tired to do much more than put up this gorgeous, gorgeous photo.
I’d love to be lazily swimming in that warm Bahamian water right now:
Bahamas, sand and seaweed patterns. NASA image acquired January 17, 2001. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Landsat. Image courtesy Serge Andrefouet, University of South Florida.
Happy weekend everyone.
Gorgeous Cupcakes
Do these look delicious or what?
Easter cupcakes:
I want one.
Strike that.
I want three — chocolate please — and a big glass of milk!
Volunteering
Some days are slow here at the ol’ blog because I’m volunteering at Emergency Family Assistance:
Obama — You Just Dropped Another Big Notch in my Book
Regulars to this site know that I was a paralegal in my past life. I spent nearly 20 years working at private law firms, a legal aid office and at my local county court. One thing everyone in that world knows is not to publicly declare a criminal defendant guilty before he or she has had a trial or their case is otherwise adjudicated (via a plea bargain, etc.). Governors know it. State attorney generals know it. Local district attorneys know it as do sheriffs and local police chiefs.
People are innocent until proven guilty in this country and that’s why something President Obama said yesterday has outraged me (don’t forget, he’s a Constitutional lawyer for God’s sake):
Obama speaking about Bradley Manning:
OBAMA: So people can have philosophical views [about Bradley Manning] but I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source [basis]… That’s not how the world works.
And if you’re in the military… And I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law.
We’re a nation of laws! We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He broke the law.
Bradley Manning has been held in a military brig for almost a year and possibly tortured for allegedly — allegedly — providing “restricted material” to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. However, to date he has not been charged with anything. Nothing. No charges have been brought against him yet he languishes in jail.
If the government, and President Obama, are so sure “he broke the law,” what’s the delay in bringing charges and getting Manning to trial so they can present their air-tight evidence?
Obama isn’t the king. Manning has a right to a trial, at which evidence is presented against him, at which he can present evidence of his innocence and cross-examine those who are accusing him. It is not up to Obama to decide whether he’s guilty or not and it is shocking, seriously, that a Constitutional lawyer would say what he said. It’s reprehensible.
Here’s the video:
Creating Jobs
Remember, back in the fall during the run-up to the election, when Republicans were chanting “jobs, jobs, jobs?”
Glad to see that’s still their #1 priority: Congressional Republicans go after D.C. over abortion funds.
Gasholes.
Most Influential People in the World?
Did you catch Time magazine’s “The 2011 Time 100,” a list of the — ahem — 100 most influential people in the world? How about the 100 most influential people in the “world” of a preppy New York City 24-year old pretending to be a “journalist?”
NJ Gov. Chris Christy? Yeah, I’m sure people in India drop everything and listen when he speaks.
Tom Ford? He designs clothes, right?
Justin Bieber? Blake Lively? Rain? Who (or what) is Rain? Sting?
Who put this list together for God’s sake?
Happy Earth Day!
Happy Earth Day everyone.
(Image via.)
Earlier today I was remembering the very first Earth Day, way back in 1970, and feeling discouraged; like we’ve moved backward instead of forward. But back then, Earth Day was scorned as craziness; a reason for a bunch of hippies to get together, sit around and complain.
While we haven’t made progress in terms of saving the planet — far from it – at least Earth Day has gone mainstream and I think and hope people ponder what we’re doing to the planet for this one day.
That, after 40 years.
Alas, we have a long way to go and a lot to do.
