Poll_Blind
Poll_Blind's JournalRachel Jeantel, witness at Zimmerman trial, can't read or write in cursive. Is that a big deal?
Today I was on Reddit and came across an article about today's developments in the Zimmerman trial.
George Zimmerman Witness Can't Read Letter She 'Wrote' About Shooting:
In a painfully embarrassing moment, Rachel Jeantel was asked to read the letter out loud in court.
"Are you able to read that at all?" defense attorney Don West asked.
Jeantel, head bowed, eyes averted whispered into the court microphone, "Some but not all. I don't read cursive."
It sent a hush through the packed courtroom.
I found this immediately disturbing and was profoundly sorry that the young lady had to admit such a thing, in open court, and in such a notorious and publicized trial. It made me sad and then angry. And while I was doing what I usually do when I'm angry about something, composing a post in order to inflict it on all of you here at DU, another much simpler thought occurred to me. I walked into the other room where my 11 year old was studying the periodic table -just kidding, he was playing LEGO Lord of the Rings- and asked him if he knew how to read and write cursive and other questions about the teaching of it in school. I also got out a ballpoint pen and a pad and had him read a couple of things I wrote and write a couple of things for me, as well.
Thankfully, he could read and write it but couldn't do the capitals very well- didn't know them all- and although he's moving into 6th grade when school starts up again, he said they only covered cursive in fourth grade but not fifth. I asked him if he hadn't had any writing assignments this year which had to be turned in, in cursive, and he said he hadn't.
Is...this...a...big...deal? Or maybe I should ask, isn't this a big deal?
I realize we live in the digital age and all but I was exploring why I found the whole issue so upsetting. First, for me cursive is the writing style adults use. When learning to write, moving from printed block letter to cursive was a signifier that I was becoming an adult, writing as one.
Is this a universal view or is it just me?
Second, I was surprised to find another more persistent thought bothering me: How can you write a decent love letter if you don't do it in cursive? How can you properly lasso a heart without letters fashioned from dreamy curves and loops? I imagine a love poem printed out in block letters and it strikes me as something out of Flowers for Algernon.
Is this only a big deal to me or is...America "moving on" or something?
PB
Obama On Snowden: U.S. Won't 'Be Scrambling Jets To Get A 29-Year-Old "Hacker"
I applaud the wise choice by President Obama not to personally contact presidents Jinping, Putin in this situation.
After all, can you imagine how those conversations might go?
"We have documents showing our fiber optic cables have been compromised and-"
"I welcome the discussion as always Xi, but my leg just started...It feels like a charley horse. I think I need to-"
"These are very serious allegations, Mr. President, we-"
"Wow, really need to get a banana or something! My leg...just flopping around now. It's freaking out Bo."
"Mr. President, your National Security Agency is-"
"Okay, just kicked over a potted plant. Really, gotta jet! As I said, I welcome the discussion and SoS Kerry will be giving you a followup call a little later. Okaybye!"
-CLICK-
------ (sometime later) ------
"Hello, President Putin? President Obama of the United States, here. I just wanted to take a moment and personally request-"
"We've already seen the documents and don't try the banana trick."
(lifting sheaf of papers off the desk, waving them by the phone's receiver) "Whoa! Can't hear you! Strong wind over here all of a sudden. I welcome the discussion, but I'm going to have to..."
"Mr. President, this isn't amusing. NATO already has-"
(ruffling papers harder) "...I'm going to have to close a bunch of windows in here, stuff's just blowing around everywhere! As I said, I welcome the discussion and SoS Kerry will be giving you a followup call a little later. Okaybye!"
-CLICK-
PB
^ Says a citizen of the Empire, perturbed the coin of the realm nolonger buys loyalty as it once did
Your toga, citizen. Check the label. Made in China.
PB
So basically the dude tazed that little naked napalmed girl running down the road in Vietnam.
Remember that pic?
You know, one day some cop's gonna taze an infant and you're going to see video of that baby flopping around on the ground like a live fish in a hot skillet. And at some point, in between desperately trying to unsee that, you're going to wonder to yourself "This shit...we didn't get here overnight."
And you'd be right.
This is one of the stepping stones to that day.
PB
RANT: I'm glad Hong Kong, China and now Russia told us to get fucked. But how sad it's come to that?
Because I don't love Hong Kong or China or Russia. I love America. I do. I have one son and my girlfriend has two and as much as I hate some of the things that go on in this country, it's far more often than not that I thank the God I don't believe in that we had the unimaginable luck to be born here.
I couldn't give a rip about Hong Kong other than I hear it has nice parks. China's the world's biggest slave empire and Russian politics are so corrupt they might as well use it as a selling point.
Grim truth? In reality, America is actually a pretty fucking great place to live...in comparison to the rest of the world. Because where else you gonna move to?
But having said all that, it should also be said that Barack Obama is about as bold as soggy toast when it comes to bringing us back from the National Security State architected and initially constructed in the Bush years. Dudeman gets behind the wheel of America and decides he likes driving us down Shady Lane.
So while I don't have any love for Hong Kong or China or Russia, I'm thrilled that the President has been made to look like an ass, and not just by those countries but by world opinion in this matter, because he totally deserved it.
You lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
So if a politician, any politician, goes to bat for the corrupt banking interests, predatory corporate interests or, in this case, a Sauron-like omniscient National Security Snooping State, you're damned right I'm going to enjoy it when they take a pitch to the balls. Whether they're Republicans or Democrats or even the President, I have a little something for everyone who shills for evil:
[center]
Go ahead, eat the whole box[/center]
I would have hoped that in voting to elect the man...twice...that he would have put more of his candidacy's rhetoric into action via the few choices he can make with such an obstreperous congress. Instead, it's come to simply hoping that his adoption and expansion of so many Bush-era policies blow up and get egg on his face. Just like this one with the snooping and the outsourcing.
And we'll be having this talk again when Keystone XL starts shitting all over the place. Because you know three things, whether you'll admit it out loud or not: 1) Obama's going to build it and 2) It's going to fuck up, spectacularly and 3) Everyone responsible is gonna walk when it does.
PB
No, but she's President Obama's grandmother and probably my grandmother, too.
People go forgetting Obama's incredible, incredible 'More Perfect Union' speech. Here's one little facet of that historic speech, an excerpt:
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
That whole speech is real and raw and...politically? Rare. Rarely does a politician running for office summon the honesty to give a speech such as our President did. I, too, hope for Deen to have an enlightening experience. But I'd also hope that Progressive/Liberal white America could learn to come to grips with the issue of race and deal with it in some more meaningful, less binary, manner.
Because until that time comes, we'll be clapping and crying at the bold truthfulness of Barack Obama's 'More Perfect Union' speech, yet failing miserably when confronted with actual situations when we need to apply the wisdom from it.
I watched that speech live and it blows me away today just as much as it did then.
I've long-since given up believing in the man...but I will never stop believing in those words or the ideas they represent.
PB
'A Beautiful Body' Book Project: Jade Beall, Photographer, Celebrates Mothers' REAL Bodies (PHOTOS)
'A Beautiful Body' Book Project: Jade Beall, Photographer, Celebrates Mothers' Real Bodies (PHOTOS)
Now, these women’s photos (Beall has captured more than 50 moms and counting), and written accounts of their journeys from self-doubt to body confidence, will appear in "A Beautiful Body," a book that Beall is bringing to fruition via crowd-funding and help from volunteers. Put together, these images are meant to show mothers as they really look, imperfect but no less beautiful for what society might consider their physical "flaws."
--snip--
"We are facing an epidemic of women who feel unworthy of being called beautiful," Beall told HuffPost, describing a world in which "nearly all of us struggle to feel beautiful in our own skin." And the expectations faced by women who have given birth are particularly harsh. "Shaming mothers for not 'bouncing back' after childbirth can cause feelings of failure when being a mother is challenging enough and when a big number of us have already lived a life of feeling un-beautiful prior to giving birth," she says.
More at the link!
PB
p.s. Unrelated to the story but related to the topic is 007 Breasts's Normal Breasts Gallery of women who've been pregnant. Real breasts. Can't recommend it enough, for men and for women. Maybe more for women than men, even.
Poll_Blind adds another name to the list. "Do not conjure: Yog-Sothoth, Tlaloc, Neb-Sanu." nt
PB
UPDATE on unapproved Monsanto GMO wheat found in Oregon: Monsanto suggests wheat sabotage
Monsanto suggests wheat sabotageThe St. Louis-based company said in a call with reporters Friday that sabotage is the most likely scenario partly because the modified wheat was not distributed evenly throughout the field and found in patches.
Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, said that is the “pattern you would expect” if someone had dispersed the seeds.
The Agriculture Department is investigating the discovery of the wheat, which is not approved for farming in the United States. The department has declined to speculate on what caused the wheat to sprout in Oregon but has said it appears to be an isolated incident.
--snip--
More at the link!
Previously:
May 29 2013: Modified Wheat Discovered In Oregon
May 30 2013: Wheat Falls as Japan Suspends U.S. Imports on Biotech Crop Find
May 30 2013: Unapproved Monsanto GMOs Found In Oregon Shake Wheat Market
Just to be clear:
* Monsanto says it's a victim
* Government says it doesn't have any idea but it appears to be an isolated incident
Expect more of that in the future. Zero oversight. ZerOversight™.
PB
Officials Amp Up Spying Defense
Source: Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—The director of the National Security Agency on Tuesday mounted his most vigorous defense of two controversial data-surveillance programs, saying they helped thwart more than 50 terror plots and contending the agency might have been able to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had it had such capabilities.
Testifying before a mostly receptive House Intelligence Committee, Gen. Keith Alexander, flanked by four other top government officials, said the programs have helped the U.S. stave off another major attack on its soil. He and his colleagues disclosed two new examples of known terrorist plots they said were disrupted by the programs, including an attack on the New York Stock Exchange.
He also repeatedly described the surveillance programs as rigorously overseen by various branches of the government.
The comments came at a hastily arranged hearing at which lawmakers and intelligence officials tried to reframe the debate over government surveillance that exploded in the days since former contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the two NSA programs. One collects phone-call records from millions of Americans, and another, called Prism, uses U.S. Internet companies to intercept foreign communications. On Tuesday, Google Inc. GOOG +1.62% asked a secret surveillance court for permission to say more about its involvement in Prism.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324520904578553302776398828.html
PB
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