Beautiful Horizons

Occupy Wall Street- It's About Time

While there is an argument to be made that Occupy Wall Street has inspired some protests around the world, in some countries it's probably more accurate to say that they have reinvigorated protests.

When Mércia and I were in Portugal in May, we noticed any number of encampment style protests and organized demonstrations. Here's an encampment in Praça Rossio, one of Lisbon's main squares:

While this photo does not show the encampment (it was taken from a moving vehicel), the sign says it all. It's in Porto near a government minister's residence. The sign says "You won't let us dream, so we won't let you sleep!"

Organized rallies took place in strategic locations designed to draw attention. This was the tail end of one in Porto's Ribeira district, a popular area by the Douro River filled with bars and restaurants:

I work at 120 Broadway, which as you can see is across the street from Zucotti Park:

 

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I walk by the area two to three times a day. I have not been harassed, intimidated or otherwise interfered with. I have not seen any acts of violence or anything uncivil.

What I have seen is a great deal of frustration and anger, which is finally being channelled into something however imperfect. For the past several years we've been fed a steady diet of panis et circenses. The circuses are no longer distracting us and the bread is running low. Time for some new beginnings.

The American people believe...

...incoming congressmen who ran against expanding health care coverage should continue their firm stand against "government health care" by...uh...not taking it for themselves.

Putting Some Doubts in the Minds of the Taliban

    Certainly is wasn't the intent of Julian Assange, but the WikiLeaks document dump might be nipping the Afghanistan Taliban in the arse... 

    Divide and Conquer.  Or so it is said.  

Failing to See the Big Picture

I'm thrilled to see Bishop Oscar Romero receiving the attention and respect he deserves on the thirtieth anniversary of his death. I'm especially gratified to see at long last, the government of El Salvador sharing in that recognition.

Unfortunately, the likes of Bishop Romero are getting harder to find in the Roman Catholic Church. I write this as a regular mass-attending Roman Catholic and am simply disgusted by the Vatican's response to the continually unfolding scandals that are spreading across Europe, to the point where the official response is to smear the media reporting on the matter or this bit of tu quoque nonsense:

Earlier in the week, New York's archbishop, Timothy Dolan, used his blog to dismiss the New York Times' reports and defend the pontiff's record by arguing that authorities outside the church also are culpable. Stories about sexual abuse by priests were "fair" if "unending," he wrote. But he condemned the media for portraying child sexual abuse "as a tragedy unique to the church alone. That, of course, is malarkey."

Sadly, this latest everybody-is-responsible-so-nobody-is-to-blame defense is of a piece with a little-noticed section of Benedict's letter to the Irish church in which he seemed to blame the crisis, in part, on "new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society."

Let me dumb this down for the hierarchy at the Vatican: you are hemorrhaging members of your flock. You are desperate to recruit new priests. Without parishioners, you have no church. You're men first and right now, you appear to be a bunch of weak man busily covering your glutei to protect yourselves. Shame on you.

Small data point suggesting there is a God...

Lou Dobbs - who has been promoting the "birther lunacy", as Randy has eloquently put it - is facing a ratings slide. Some folks including Bill O'Reilly, Dobbs' peer over at FOX, have suggested that Dobbs apparent fascination with the "birther" alleged-issue (hysteria over whether the President's birth certificate, which has been verified by the state of Hawaii, is a proper document) is a bit of calculated Cable Guy noise-making to get a ratings boost. The discourse over this is so stupid and the people engaged in what appears to be little more than code for racist hysteria over a black POTUS are so obviously lunatic fringe that it stretches credulity that even a race-baiting hack like Lou Dobbs would legitimatize it. So, yeah, it was probably a ratings-driven gimmick to re-inflate the exhausted Dobbs franchise. Dobbs' ratings had been sliding.

That Dobbs' ratings had been going down is good news, but it gets better. Since he latched onto the "birther" story, Dobbs' ratings have slid even more. The New York Observer reports:

London's Police

Sunday's New York Times had this article about London's police force and their "harsh tactics" during the  G-20 Summit in April. Here's the takeaway line:

“It isn’t a question of a few misbehaved police officers,” he [David Howarth, a Member of Parliament] said. “There’s a culture of impunity. Some are violent. Others are abetting them or covering up for them.”

How different is this from say, following a man who happens to live in an area where a suspected terrorist lives into the subway, putting seven bullets in his head when he is not resisting at all and lying about the circumstances repeatedly? Here's what I'm writing about. No one paid any price for Jean Charles Menezes' murder.

If, as the article indicates, the seeds were sown in the 1990's for this culture, Menezes murder clearly made it worse.

This just in - Is Sotomayor Racist ?

Judge Sotomayor has ruled on 96 race-related cases in her tenure as an appeals court justice. In only ten of those cases did she find for the claimant who argued they had been discriminated against.   Could this mean...????

(Via Political Animal)

This Just In ! Conservative judges display "empathy" on the bench...

Sonia Sotomayor, according to conventional wingnut wisdom, is a steely, agenda-driven bully who has no empathy for white men or Constitutional law.  Conservative jurisprudence, on the other hand, understands the importance of deeply emotive experience when considering controversial cases.

Sweet Justice

Some people have a piece of coal where their hearts should be:

A Spanish driver who killed a 17-year old cyclist in a traffic accident is suing the boy's parents for €20,000 (£14,800) for the damage caused to his luxury car.

Businessman Tomas Delgado, 43, claims his Audi A8 suffered €14,000 (£10,400) of damage when he collided with Enaitz Iriondo, who died instantly in the crash on the night of Aug 26, 2004.

Mr Delgado, who faced no criminal charges for the incident despite allegedly travelling at more than 100 mph on a road with a speed limit of 50 mph, is also asking for a further €6,000 (£4,400) to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his was being repaired.

[...]

"I'm also a victim in all of this, you can't fix the lad's problems, but you can fix mine," Mr Delgado told the newspaper [El Pais], ahead of a court ruling on his claim expected on Jan 30.

Some, on the other hand, have a sense of justice:

It has been confirmed today that Tomás Delgado - the 43 year old businessman who had tried to sue the parents of a teenage cyclist who died in a collision with his Audi 8 in August 2004 for €20,000 euros for damage caused to his car and the cost of a replacement rental car and who dropped the case yesterday - will be made to pay the costs of yesterday's five-minute court hearing.

There was further bad news for Delgado yesterday, who dropped his claim because of the adverse media reaction the case had provoked, when the dead cyclist's parents confirmed that they are pursuing a private prosecution against him on the grounds that the official Guardia Civil record of the crash, which alleges that the cyclist jumped a Give-Way sign, is incorrect, arguing, instead, that their son had been mown down from behind.

Sweet, lovely justice.