McDonald's has sunk to a new very low

I learned this today:

Yes, There Is A McDonald's Menu Item Called The 'McGangBang'

Gastronomically and nutritionally, both, that's bad, even horrible, but THAT name, too?

Seriously?

Entertainment overnight

The Beatles favorite.  Who knew?

One last note (probably) on the Zimmerman verdict

David Simon, the writer and creator of "The Wire" TV show wrote the following on his blog The Audacity of Despair  I thought it too excellent and on point to not post here:

Trayvon

You can stand your ground if you’re white, and you can use a gun to do it. But if you stand your ground with your fists and you’re black, you’re dead.

In the state of Florida, the season on African-Americans now runs year round. Come one, come all.  And bring a handgun. The legislators are fine with this blood on their hands. The governor, too. One man accosted another and when it became a fist fight, one man — and one man only — had a firearm. The rest is racial rationalization and dishonorable commentary.

If I were a person of color in Florida, I would pick up a brick and start walking toward that courthouse in Sanford. Those that do not, those that hold the pain and betrayal inside and somehow manage to resist violence — these citizens are testament to a stoic tolerance that is more than the rest of us deserve.  I confess, their patience and patriotism is well beyond my own.

Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies:  Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible.  I can’t look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country.  Tonight, anyone who truly understands what justice is and what it requires of a society is ashamed to call himself an American.

Additional evidence why we shouldn't have "stand your ground" laws:    15 Shocking 'Stand Your Ground' Cases

Link:  'The Wire' Creator David Simon on Trayvon Martin Case

A report all voting Americans need to read

But so few will:

A BAGFUL OF CASH: 

How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Orchestrated a Corporate Takeover of Government

The US Chamber of Commerce-- a 101 year-old organization formed as corporations’ first union—is the chief agent behind Congress’ kowtowing to corporate interests, the Supreme Court’s favorability to corporations in its rulings, and presidents of both parties’ insistence on accommodating the wishes of multinational corporations at the expense of working-class people all over the world. This report outlines how the Chamber first formed, their blueprint for ultimate success as revealed in the confidential Powell Memo, how that blueprint has been realized in the 40 years since its writing, and the devastating effects of that agenda on small business. Despite the US Chamber purporting to be pro-jobs, pro-small business,and pro-growth, they have consistently lobbied for policies that kill jobs, stall economic growth, and take competitive advantages away from small businesses to enrich their corporate members. The Chamber of Commerce’s unchecked power over government will only continue to worsen unless the American people build a movement to mobilize against them.

Download the full, 28-page report here. http://shutthechamber.org/news/bagful-cash-how-us-chamber-commerce-orchestrated-corporate-takeover-government

I've said it before, I'll say it again--if we don't get the big, ugly, corrupting money of the wealthy and corporations out of our election system and government, nothing will change. It will remain legislators and representatives and their legislation and so, our laws and government, for those same wealthy and corporations first, with us second, if even then. We have to end campaign contributions.

Link to the organization's site:  

Shut the Chamber | End Corporate Pollution. End the U.S. Chamber ...

America's game: Blame the Victim

...or female.

...or poor.

A change has gotta' come

Maybe it starts here.

Hopefully it starts now.

And we didn't think a worse Kansas governor could possibly come along

Think again:

Koster ramps up fundraising for 2016 governor campaign 

Holy hell.

Entertainment overnight

John Oliver and the staff at "The Daily Show" got the Zimmerman verdict right

They got/get it right again, as they so usually do.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

There's so much hypocrisy, ignorance and injustice coming out of this case and verdict, it's nearly mind-numbing.

KC Royal in the (money) news

From Yahoo! Sports yesterday:

MLB All-Star paydays

The MLB All-Star game will take place on July 16 in New York. The All-Stars will represent their teams and play for bragging rights and home field advantage for the World Series. Aside from pride, players also get plenty of perks and money. We have compiled a list of the players who have All-Star bonuses written into their contracts. Find out who will be getting a nice one-day payday and the other perks the league provides for the players selected for the 2013 All-Star game.

(Data and numbers courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts and the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement)

Alex Gordon

Contract bonus: $500,000 in 2014 and 2015. Kansas City's Gordon didn't even realize he'd pocketed and extra million until his agent reminded him of the big clause in his contract. He also tacks on another $500K to his now $13.25M player option in 2016.

Makes you feel better about our Royals, doesn't it?  (Not).

Whaddya' bet Mr. Gordon is on a short list to be traded off soon, with that in the budget, if he stays hitting.

Confirmed: Still "open season" on black males in America

Let's not kid ourselves. The title, above, is precisely what the jury and their verdict confirmed last week in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial, like it or agree with it or not.

It's been made clear once again, shoot a black male in America and chances are extremely good you will not only get away with it but not spend any time in jail whatever.

Forget that Mr. Zimmerman was told by the police to not tail the stranger in the hoodie:

Police dispatcher:  "Are you following him?"

 Zimmerman:  "Yes"

 Dispatcher:  "Okay. We don't need you to do that."

Put that out of your head.

All that matters is that it has been proven, once again, that a black male's life in our society still, to this day, has precious little value.

Douglas Blackmon, in his important, revelatory book Slavery by Another Name pointed out how, after the Civil War--and for far too many decades--black men in the South could be and were, repeatedly arrested for doing nothing more than walking in very public areas.  If, at time of arrest, they couldn't prove they were gainfully employed, which was not uncommon at all, of course, they were not only arrested but found "guilty." To make matters far, far worse, they were not only put in jail but then sold--seriously, sold--by the jail to corporations for their work.

If you didn't know this, it doesn't surprise me.  Far too many Americans know far too little of our nation's own history and far less than that, of course, about black Americans and their history.

So along with being discriminated against and lynched and held down socio-econonically, they were also treated like this, as I just described.

Keep in mind, too, the numbers and ratios of black Americans that are in jails now, and have been for far too many decades, showing our justice system incarcerates black men at far, far higher rates than white males or other minorities.  Just a few of the very factual statistics:

• A black male born in 1991 has a 29% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life.2
• Nearly one in three African American males aged 20–29 are under some form of criminal justice supervision whether imprisoned, jailed, on parole or probation.
• One out of nine African American men will be incarcerated between the ages of 20 and 34.
• Black males ages 30 to 34 have the highest incarceration rate of any race/ethnicity.

I'll stop with the statistics there.

Suffice it to say, as so many have so rightly pointed out, this society and our social and economic systems are slanted or tilted or worse, against the black male in America.

What's great is that we get to blame it on them, too.

Just as happened just now, with Trayvon Martin.

Turns out he was guilty.

Links:  Statistics of incarcerated African-American males 

Jail Inmates at Midyear 2009 - Statistical Tables

The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality

Slavery by Another Name | PBS

Entertainment overnight

Local author gets great, national coverage

Charlie Riedel

From NPR today:

"Author Joel Goldman has found there's plenty of true crime to write about in the Kansas City metro area."

crime in the city

G-Man Fights Crime, And A Medical Disorder, In Kansas City

Since the tale is told here in town, the article has quite a bit about our burg, from KCK and Quindaro to parts thereabout. Good, fun, brief article.  Should be a great teaser for the book.

Timely quote of the day

Another case of "Imagine if..."

Kris Kobach in the news today

Mr. Kobach's extreme Right Wing, ultra-conservative stances got him and Kansas, once more, in the news today, this time in The New York Times --rather prominent coverage:

Kansas Official Holds Line Against Moderation in Debate on Immigration

By JOHN ELIGON

 

Kris W. Kobach, Kansas' secretary of state, is not budging in his arguments against moderation.

 

Too bad about and for Kansas.

 

It will be nice one day, in Kansas and other parts of the US, when we get back to realizing that moderation and compromise are positive attributes to be admired and put into daily practice, won't it?

 

It can't happen soon enough.

 

Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

America? Unfair??

And racist??

Nah....

Couldn't be.

Right??

The one thing, the only thing that mattered in the George Zimmerman case

Police dispatcher:  "Are you following him?"

 Zimmerman:  "Yes"

 Dispatcher:  "Okay. We don't need you to do that."

Entertainment overnight

Texas does it again

Congress' continued work for the wealthy. And corporations

From The New York Times today, news that the Senate and House can keep in millions and billions for war and defense and weapons of war we don't need--or even use--but nothing for "the least of us":

Missing: The Food Stamp Program

As the Times said:  "By brutally stripping food aid from its farm bill, the House ended a tradition of decency."

Then, on top of that, this one:

Pain on the Reservation

"Legislation specifically exempted many programs that benefit low-income Americans, but virtually none aiding American Indians were included."

Not that we, as Americans, ever really showed that we gave a collective damn about Native Americans, though, right?

One last note. This same group of government legislators also want to strip out two tax deductions:

Two Tax Credits That Work

 It seems these two tax credits that help build up and rejuvenate poorer neighborhoods--and so, the poor--are being considered for elimination.

Nice, huh?

Our legislators just keep heaping benefits on the wealthy and corporations while they take from the poor.

Yay, us, huh?

How is it the churches and religious people--the ones who are supposed to be "moral"--aren't screaming about these atrocities?

I will never understand the last 20 years in America

Quote of the day--on progress

Local girl makes more good

From Facebook earlier this evening from the GREAT PERFORMANCES l PBS page.

 

Click below to watch Joyce DiDonato give an incredibly moving performance of Mary's (Maria's) prayer, "Deh! Tu di un'umile preghiera" from the upcoming Sunday broadcast of Donizetti's 'Maria Stuarda'



Links: http://to.pbs.org/12lVwTp

 Photo credit: Ken Howard / The Metropolitan Opera

The Insanity that is US Defense Spending

And we can't begin to even touch Defense spending, in spite of all this insanity, in spite of their losing and not being able to account for millions and billions of dollars, annually.

I tell you, our Defense budget is weakening us, not making or keeping us stronger.

Entertainment overnight

We're going to kill ourselves

There was another great, rather important article on NPR yesterday about Monsanto, farmers in the country and insecticides:

As Biotech Seed Falters, Insecticide Use Surges In Corn Belt

Really, fascinating.

It seems the genetically-modified seeds that Monsanto created some years ago have--SURPRISE!!--evolved (take that, Right Wing Christians!) and so now they aren't as effective keeping parasitic bugs away.

Imagine that.

Wouldn't Charles Darwin have told us this was bound to happen?

Couldn't ANY scientist have told us that is PRECISELY what would happen, given enough time?

I mean, come on.  The little guys who couldn't take it died. The ones who could, lived and then their offspring lived.  Sheesh.  It's not that complicated.

And the thing is, now, the farmers are buying up yet more and more insecticides, for pity's sake, to spray on their crops--our food, thank you--in order TO KILL THE BUGS.

\

In the first place, that's what Monsanto said their seeds would do. That is, repel the bugs.

Second, again, Monsanto should have known this would happen. For that matter, the farmers should have known.  Heck we all knew better and we aren't growing the stuff.

So now the farmers will all start getting sick again, applying the insecticide (it's in the article, straight from a farmer) and then the stuff is in our food, in our food supply.

This is no way to live, folks, no way to grow our food.  It makes no sense.

The article also points out the solution, too.  You likely heard it in grade school.  I know I did.

All the farmers have to do is rotate their crops.

That's right, all they have to do to avoid these problems is grow a different crop, simple as that.

But then they won't be growing the big cash-cow crop that is, right now, corn.

So instead, we're going to poison ourselves.

Brilliant.

We'll be sick, at minimum, those of us who don't get cancer or other diseases but we'll have out corn.

Oh, and our money.

Yeehaw.

Americans one, big, real problem with "Obamacare"

The fact is, the facts are, we here in America have THE MOST EXPENSIVE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD.

Bar none.

It's no way even remotely debatable.

Added to that, we have the worst health outcomes for that system OF THE TOP 17 INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS.

Again, not debatable.  Fact.

So someone in Washington comes up with a solution--some solutions--in federal legislation out of Washington and sure, it's nor perfect, far from it.  No way close.

But it's an improvement.

And it's for us this time, not just for the health insurance companies and corporations.

But what's our big response to this legislation for us?

We're agin' it.

I got to thinking about it and I've been thinking about it for some time.  I've come to a conclusion why we a lot of us don't like or want this legislation, too.  It's so obvious.

We don't like being told what to do.

Especially by government.

And especially by this guy:

"Thank you"

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you and have a great day.

Yes, please, thank you.

There.

Is that so difficult?

How is it these few little words--possibly as few as two--are so rare in business today?

So beautiful, so easy, so nice to hear.

You go to a store or restaurant (more likely a retail store, I think)--maybe out of your way to go there--and it gets nearly impossible to have the person at the register say "Thank you."

Is that so difficult?

And "Have a nice day" is not "thank you", okay?  It's not a substitute.

Retail and grocery stores are the biggest offenders, by far, I think. The businesses want your business and they want you to come back but I'll be danged if the person at the register has been trained to say those two little words. Once in a great while it will come out but extremely rarely.

I need to give Human Resource training on it to company's employees.

I'd make millions.

"YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!"

Kansas makes it into the news again

Yet another person, this time a person with a limerick/political blog, rightly mocks Kansas legislators:

Kansas Gun Law Backfires (Multi-Verse Limerick)

The Kansas legislature, in its great wisdom, recently passed a law allowing gun owners to carry weapons in public buildings. And surprise, surprise, insurance companies think this is dangerous.

The EMC Insurance Cos. insures 85 percent to 90 percent of all Kansas school districts and has refused to renew coverage for schools that permit teachers and custodians to carry concealed firearms on their campuses under the new law, which took effect July 1. It’s not a political decision, but a financial one based on the riskier climate it estimates would be created, the insurer said.

Kansas Gun Law Backfires (Multi-Verse Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
In municipal spots, like a school,
Concealed weapons in Kansas are cool.

But the pols that decreed this
May soon have to heed this:
They’ve entered a sky-high risk pool.

“You are too great a risk,” said the co
That insured Kansas schools. What a blow!
“We do NOT mean to screw you,
But just can’t renew you.
It’s financial — a matter of dough.”

Forrest Knox, who’s an NRA shill
And the fellow who sponsored the bill
That started this mess,
Says insurers should bless
Teachers toting their weapons at will.

“This will make us all safer,” he swears.
“What do carriers know about scares,
And dangers and risk
And hazards. Tsk-Tsk!
I know better than they!” he declares.
What’s next? It remains to be seen.

At the least, it will take far more green
To insure any school
Where an NRA tool
Hides a gun in her purse or his jean.

Link:  MAD KANE’S HUMOR BLOG