Turkey.

It's What's for Breakfast.

We Flowered in this Generation... Triumphantly.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I...
Sold I to the merchant ships.
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit...

But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty.
We flowered in this generation...
Triumphantly.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever heard:
Redemption songs.
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill de book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

[Guitar break]

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.

Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?

Yes, some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the Book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?

'Cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs.

Won't you help to sing?
These songs of freedom,
Redemption songs

Where is the Love?

What's wrong with the world, mama
People livin' like they ain't got no mamas
I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma

Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin'
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah

Madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practise what you preach?
Or would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love, the love, the love

It just ain't the same, old ways have changed
New days are strange, is the world insane?
If love and peace are so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong?

Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone?

So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in
Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover...

The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practise what you preach?
Or would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love)?

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' the wrong direction

Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity?
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality?
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity...

That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive 'til love is found
Now ask yourself

Where is the love?

Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love?

Sing with me y'all:
One world, one world (We only got)
One world, one world (That's all we got)
One world, one world
And something's wrong with it (Yeah)
Something's wrong with it (Yeah)
Something's wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah
We only got
(One world, one world)
That's all we got
(One world, one world)

Minneapolis Rally.

The rally near the 3rd Precinct and an earlier gathering at the University of Minnesota both drew hundreds of people carrying signs and chanting slogans in an effort to show solidarity with Michael Brown, the black teenager shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson in August. Ferguson erupted in violence Monday night after a grand jury declined to indict the officer.

On the steps of the university’s Coffman Union, demonstrators sat down for 4 ½ minutes of silence to mark the 4 ½ hours that Brown’s body reportedly lay in the street after he was shot. Some carried signs that read, “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” and speakers called for an end to racial discrimination.

Riot After Math.

Sadly, I think the idea is to scare white people of black people's rage potential, so white people will go along with the whole "pay me for peace" reparations idea. Worked before.

Nobody is scared these days though.
Saddened perhaps, plenty of liberal white isolation and guilt out there, too. But with the weaponry today, nobody is scared by the riot thing.

As a tactic, it's not working this call for reparations as racial justice. Great Republican recruiting tool though, but not out of fear. The bad drives out the good is all.
----------------------------
#STL #Thanksgiving Day Parade Postponed Due To Community Unrest - cbsloc.al/11TlbJR

Ferguson Little Caesar's vs. the Dublin Post Office.

I'm pretty sure the destruction to the General Post Office during the 1916 Easter Uprising was a byproduct of the fight, not planned destruction as an end in itself.

No body can do the hard work of strategy, and defining goals, for you. Where is the list of demands from the protestors in Ferguson? What was Michael Brown fighting for? A free box of cigarillos? Stolen not from a white man, but an immigrant storekeeper?

There are no black leaders there, and the white media is feeding on these images.

Disadvantaged children will learn to emulate this nonsense, with no end in sight. No generational triumph in sight. That's the saddest thing.
----------------------


"Mommy, why did they burn the Little Caesar's pizza place down?" *

ADDED: God help the little children if the public schools in the affected areas are closed again today, for the children's safety amidst the community unrest. Who is winning here, and who is losing really?

* A: "Because some people don't want us living here anymore. You'll like the new house too and we'll go out for your birthday there, just someplace else. Wait and see..."

The Silver Lining.

Had the large young man on the video in the liquor store, who later confronted the officer on the street and scuffled with him for the gun, been Spanish-speaking or of European descent, there is no doubt in my mind he would be dead today too. Ditto an Asian. A big menacing Samoan, even.

It's not a black members-only thing, sadly.

And it has nothing to do with slavery, friends, but our current concepts of power and force, and law and order.  Don't look now, but plenty of black men benefit in playing this game too.

When you earn a journalism and law degree, and spend years working around the country at various papers and companies, you start to think more rationally and less emotionally.  A white Mike Brown under the same circumstances would likely be dead today too, brought down by Officer Wilson's bullets. 

Do you understand that even?

I'm not sure if that's much consolation to the family, but it kind of upends the media narrative and reparations advocates to think this is more about police powers and perceptions than racial discrimination.  Fomenting racial unrest might feel good (and help the careers of up-and-coming newsies who want to see their names in the stories too, other than bylined observers and accurate recorders) but that's taking your eyes off the ball...

Who benefits there? 
I hope this passes quickly, and the people in the streets go home and think hard about how real change in society is made.

Distinguish Between "White People".

Sadly, the ones whose ancestors profitted off of slavery, the elite who truly have privilege in this nation?  They're sitting safely, laughing their asses off at the protests in Ferguson, I'm sure.

No street justice there...

Pitting working-class blacks against their working-class white neighbors, and crapping in their own backyards.  Wouldn't you be glad, if you were one of the elites, to see the release of misdirected anger?  They'll never touch you if they can't organize and articulate their community needs.

All of the anger, none of the true change,
and more and more ethnic whites being pushed via the "white people" tag, into the welcoming arms of the Republicans.

Job well done!

Every Three Minutes   ·

In the antebellum American South--someone just bought a person's grandparent.

 (I wonder if Mr. Coates understands, it's likely his father's personal choices, and not some old white slave owner from hundreds of years ago, who shaped the son's family life today.  Nobody split and sold your family members away, Ta-Nehisi.  Your father studded multiple women simultaneously, so your family was never an intact unit to begin with, and there was less emphasis on putting the kids' futures and needs first.  Your own father fell prey to the needs of the flesh, like the old slaveowners of yore, and that need defined the limitations of your upbringing, your fractured family, and all the opportunities that other fathers worked and sacrificed to give their children that you allegedly missed out on because of "racism".)

Where are the smart black leaders, who urge people to get out of the streets, and use their brains in fighting back.  Where is the roster of young black people, who have been identified as ideal candidates for police officer training in Ferguson?  I know the black leaders have been working behind the scenes to help their own qualify for the policing jobs in their own communities, right?

If you don't want the working-class whites doing these jobs, and there is ample job protection these days (and fear not: nobody is going to seize your wife and child and put them up on the auction block, if that's your fear trigger), why not step up?

Who are the candidates in Ferguson and St. Louis County who are running to replace the white political class?  When is the next election, and where are they?

How much of the money raised off of plastering Mike Brown's names on t-shirt sales will go toward paying a young person's college tuition?  Anything?  A scholarship to HVAC school in Michael Brown's name is too much to ask?

Men like Mr. Coates will get rich off of black people in Feguson, and return to rub shoulders with the white elites.  He'll summer in France, tour the country giving speeches, and claim the mantle of black leadership.  Already, he is pooh-poohing the progress Dr. King made, perhaps because that man, like his own father, was alleged to have fallen prey to the sins of the flesh too.  The women of the civil rights movement -- the Coretta Scott King's -- sadly, never were seen as equals.

Last night, Coates was on a roll, even invoked the memories of the 4 little black girls killed before church services that bloody Sunday...  I'm sure his new elite white friends will nod sympathetically.  "Poor blacks, we've got to do all we can to help men like Mr. Coates overcome..."

So much easier than living life independently as a free man, and taking responsibility for your own actions and well-defined family.  Now, what's the latest superhero flick, and the hot video game for Christmas or Kwaanza?  (write about what you know...)

Tamed, man.
Easily tamed.

Diss-Respect.

They haven't learned a goddamn thing in Ferguson it seems.  Arrogant as hell.

I've said before, if they had gotten the body out of the hot sun, off of the streets, before people could gather and the stories could grow... who knows?

Now, they've got the poor people waiting out in the cold for more than 10 minutes at a time the people inside set themselves.  Damn fools.  Why don't you treat other people with a little respect, and common sense, (friggin' show up on time!, when everyone's waited so patiently already) and don't keep them waiting out in the cold to hear the bad news...

Damned fools.
It's the arrogance, really.

And I Think I Know ...

What My Father Meant
When He Sang About a Lost Highway ...


Happy Monday.
Bustin chops...

Bill Cosby and Jameis Winston.

Sorry feminists, but I cannot celebrate the takedown of an aging black man, blind-eyed and face-marked, at the end of his career.

Where were you -- where are you -- when the winners like Winston allegedly get away with the same crime, whose accuser went to the police immediately, without waiting decades?  Weren't you all a bit sickened when he won the prize for football glory?  Wouldn't you like to have seen him pulled from the field, while the charges were immediately investigated, in real time?

Truth is,
it's easy to topple a now-ugly someone like Bill Cosby.  His career is waning; please don't tell me about all the shows he had lined up.  Nostalgia act, a man just riding out his career, like so many do, in academics, entertainment, politics, etc.

Not so in sports.  When your glory days are over, you're out.  They don't keep you around because of your name.  Perform, or go.  Bill Cosby wasn't making the money for people that he used to pull in.  Winston still is.  When he is not, then I suspect the hammer will finally drop on the younger black man too.

It's a shame we don't encourage more women to report their crimes to the proper authorities, not your agent and not your lawyer.  The police might laugh at you, but they cannot not take your report.  The statute of limitations protects the accused, by permitting time for a defense, to uncover facts.  (In the case of child victims, we might choose to waive the time required to report the alleged crimes;  but the idea is to give the accused a realistic chance to defend himself or herself.)

This reminds me of the old man who was forced to sell his basketball team because he said some ugly things to his girlfriend in private about "niggers".  If you believe that was about racial justice, and protecting the sensitivities of black and white people, and not about the firesale of his basketball team, think again...

I believe in my heart that whether these allegations are true or not, they are coming out now as payback:  Cosby in recent years laid down some pretty harsh language to the "black community" about accepting responsibility for what their lives had become, and not blaming others.

One of his current accusers reports she felt "used".  He gave her the pills, she voluntarily took them, and was a passive participant in what transpired sexually.  She went back, and reportedly took the pills again, and again had sex with Mr. Cosby.  Perhaps he believed her to be as into actively participating in his passive kink, as he was.

Perhaps, she was trying to please someone she wanted to impress, and only felt "used" years later when her own choices did not pan out as she perhaps wished.

One thing is for certain: so long as Mr. Winston is still playing ball, winning awards and leading his team, he is still untouchable.  There's no victory for feminism here, unless the bottomline message is, you must report rape in real time.  Even if you don't think you are strong enough, or believable enough, to be taken seriously.

Remember the two women at Liberty University who had accused the black man who now sits in jail awaiting trial for killing two more white women out east?  They said he raped them, and got him kicked off campus, but never reported the crimes to the police.  I wonder now...  what if they had?  Would the pattern have been spotted, and broken, sooner?

We will never know.
That's the saddest thing.

-----------------------------------------
ADDED:  In case you're all over the Cosby thing, but ignorant of the goings-on at FSU:

Winston accuser eyes civil lawsuit

Updated: January 10, 2014, 2:35 AM ET

ESPN.com news services

The woman who accused Jameis Winston of rape plans to file a civil lawsuit against the Florida State quarterback and the Tallahassee Police Department, her attorney told ABC News on Wednesday.

"I want heads to roll," Patricia Carroll said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

"The family is proceeding, with civil action against the TPD and Jameis Winston. And possibly the university."

Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe lawyer for Jameis Winston's alleged rape accuser told ABC News her client will "absolutely" sue the Florida State quarterback and "possibly the university."

Last month, the Florida state attorney decided not to charge Winston, who had faced felony charges after being accused of sexually assaulting the woman, a Florida State student at the time, at an off-campus apartment on Dec. 7, 2012.

His attorney, Tim Jansen of Tallahassee, said Winston had consensual sex with the woman. But Carroll said Winston raped her 19-year-old client, who withdrew from classes after the allegations resurfaced in media reports.

Those allegations were initially reported to Tallahassee police nearly a year ago, but the investigation wasn't turned over to prosecutors until November.

In the interview with ABC News, Carroll claimed negligence by the TPD, saying the way it handled the allegations led to the prosecutor's decision to drop the investigation.

"Absolutely you're going to see a civil suit," Carroll told ABC News. "You can not have law enforcement that is not held accountable."

Carroll said Thursday that she plans to file a notice to sue the police department early next week. Under Florida law, anyone filing a lawsuit against a government agency must file court paperwork six months prior to the suit itself.

David Northway, a spokesman for the police department, said in a statement Thursday that "based upon the facts and information gathered, no violation of department policy or Florida law was identified on the part of the investigators assigned to this case; therefore no formal internal affairs investigation will be conducted in this matter."

Northway also said: "The reports in this case document that our department took the case seriously, processed evidence and conducted an investigation based on information available at that time. We take seriously the obligation to respond to any individual who wants to report a crime."

FSU and an attorney for Winston couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Also Thursday, Gov. Rick Scott's office released letters written to him in December by the accuser and her mother, imploring him to reconsider opening an investigation into the case.

Carroll says she asked Florida's attorney general, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the governor for an independent examination of the sexual assault investigation, claiming it was riddled with problems.

Scott "didn't even give us the courtesy of a response," Carroll said Thursday.

Carroll sent Scott a letter Dec. 19 -- along with one from the woman and her mother.
The documents were released Thursday by Scott's office following a public records request.

In a one-page letter, the woman who accused Winston told Scott that her attorney received calls from two other FSU students who said they were raped but were "discouraged" from going through with prosecution.
Carroll said the family members of those two women contacted her following her December news conference.

The accuser's mother said in her letter that she knows the governor has daughters and asked him to "put yourself in my shoes for a moment."

Her daughter did not "fabricate" a rape, the woman wrote, and did not know Winston prior to Dec. 7, 2012.

"I want to tell you about my daughter with the hopes that you will see her as a real person and not just some name on a police report," the mother wrote, adding that her daughter was heavily involved in school activities and was a leader on sports teams and student government. "I am hoping that this letter makes an impact on your decision and you direct FDLE to open an investigation into the Tallahassee Police Department's handling of this matter. I will not give up on my daughter and will do everything in my power to see that everyone finds out the truth."

Winston won the Heisman Trophy last month and led the Seminoles to the national title earlier this week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Watching CNN.

U.S. Reps. Sean Duffy (WI) and Luis Gutiérrez (IL) are on tv now, discussing last's night's immigration move.

Journalist Cuomo tossed the opening pitch to Duffy, who took that as an opportunity to spill all of his talking points. He didn't answer the question though, of what he heard from the president last night that he disagreed with.

(Sounded like he too wanted the president to go further: covering 7 million more workers -- those without children yet, say).

-----------------

Ohh.... Chris Cuomo is DEVASTATING "Chairman" Sean Duffy...
Funny thing is: Duffy does not know how bad he is doing!! Cuomo is playing him, "Good cop (the "Chairman" ego-stroking)/Bad cop ("I will not call you 'Louie' in this formal context...", paraphrasing the dig.)

Cuomo even tried to help, give fair warning -- telling Duffy straight out he did not answer the opening question, thrice telling Gutiérrez to jump in and rejoin, thus implying Duffy should stop the monologuing) -- but Duffy is laughing off these cues, making it about him, telling us how nice-sounding he likes his new title, (though it is off-topic on the immigration issue and looks less than modest here)...

Congressman Duffy  believes he speaks for "the American people", and on immigration he too "wants to get this done". He knows what we American people want from our Congress, and he thinks the president is "going it alone".

Now he's preaching at us about bad tone and tenor...

But coming in last, it's Gutiérrez for the win!! describing the president's speech last night:
"He humanized us. He told our story... and for that, I am always going to be thankful."

"Duffy and I will be back with a bill."

Gutiérrez ends strong, predicting that on this issues, plenty of people will stand behind the president, despite Duffy's squawk of the recent election results, knowing what "the American people" want from his perch up in Northern Wisconsin, and his previous work out in The Real World... 

-----------------

ADDED:  Did Duffy just pile worse upon bad and threaten the environment via executive action EPA repeal, should a Republican president be elected in 2016? I think I heard him toss that out, in desperation, at the end...  He was catching on, finally I think.  Watching the tape will not be pretty...

Respectfully: not ready for prime time...  His assumed superiority over his colleague showed, and  Gutiérrez clubbed him over the head with it, then even extended a hand for Duffy to get back up.  ("Duffy and I will be back with a bill.")

That's when, I think I heard, Duffy's tierra threat...
Somebody get the tape and check it out for me?
Thx.

FINALLY:
I think the Democratic political strategy here is to shame the Republican Congress into passing a bill, and letting the president back off taking the reins through this executive action.  God help us if the Republicans are going to turn this into a game of chicken, making threats and waiting to see who blinks first...

Will this be the moment the president decides to stand up to their threats and indeed act in their absence, if need be?  Hope the newcomers' strength can buck him up.

A Welcome Mat for our Workers.

Hey, if they're good enough to roof our homes, clean our offices, change our elderly, carry our children, make our meals, and pick up our rooms, they're good enough be recognized in the sunshine as well as the shadows.

Competition is key, and the reality is: people are here. (Childless workers too!) We're not a nation of hypocrites. If they can drive in the next lane, worship in the next pew, and put their deposits in an adjoining account, then they're one of us.

Watching fireworks, playing music in the parks, grilling meats in the back yard... I see them here already, and I bet you do too. Are we really more entitled as a people -- to take their work, and give them just Wal-Mart trinkets in return?

I thought we believed in assimilation, community buy in?

Let them stay, let them compete openly, let them sacrifice themselves for their future generations. It's the American Dream, and it's long past time we keep rewarding wins to American kids, while so many contributors are sitting in the same country sidelined. In fact, the best-set American kids right now are already living alongside and studying with newcomers from all continents: diversity is prized in the achieving set, the idea being to expose the young, as much as possible, to all the beauty and magnificence still possibly out there in our shared world.

Come and get it... *

I believe it's not genetics, not inheritances, nor fixing the game that made America great as a nation. It's competition. Honest, hard competition where consequences count, you live and learn, and never stop growing. Family matters, faith follows, and friends don't have to share everything about you.

Welcome then, to those already here and to the better Future still to come, in many ways, for all of us. Amen.
--------------------------

* I asked of Life, what have you to offer?
and the reply came: What have you to give?

Happy Friday, friends! Get busy perfecting those Grape Salad recipes, or inventing a Bigger, Better, Badder Grape Slicing contraption, now that the market is there, whichever is your wont...

Dear New York Times...

Yes, it's a hot topic in a cool town:

Dear New York Times,
What the hell is “grape salad”?

Signed,
All of Minnesota
...

“I have never in my life heard of a ‘grape salad.’ Not at Thanksgiving, not at Christmas, not during a Vikings game, not during the Winter Carnival, not during the State Fair, and not during the greatest state holiday: the annual hockey tournament of the Minnesota State High School League.”

So how the hell did Minnesotan's get assigned the "grape salad" dish to bring to the nation's communal holiday gathering?

After lefse ended up chosen for North Dakota and wild rice for Wisconsin, The Times had to look beyond the obvious ...

Clearly, they should have gone with a traditional Jello salad! (ok to include grapes, if that's your fancy...)

Funny article about how food stories are born.
---------------------
ADDED:

Updated, Thursday, 7 p.m.: I heard from Julia Moskin, a reporter with The Times’s Food section, who offered some background on the project.

“The recipes were not intended to be traditional, popular, or fully representative of the state’s traditions — agricultural, Thanksgiving, or culinary,” she wrote in an email to me.

“We didn’t make stupid errors, or fail to check our facts with perfunctory phone calls. We worked hard — writers and especially editors — to generate a mix of 52 recipes that would not be cliched, repetitive, unhealthy, or unappetizing.”

Well there goes Jello salad then...
(I can't tell if the paper is taking this seriously, with the aggressive pushback on the recipe choice, but they really shouldn't. With the early onset of winter, this is the kind of thing that keeps people up here going, I have noticed. It's like a sport.)

Keep in mind: What Would Garrison Keillor Eat?, and you will do fine.*

And if anyone is still tempted to throw grapes at Julia from the kiddie table, please people, make sure they are not of the frozen variety!

* He'd hit the Jello salad, I'd bet.

Speaking of Good Men...

Norm Swanda of New Richmond passed away last Friday. He was 99, and went peacefully.

He lives on in our hearts and minds, in the things he taught us.

Joey, Ruth, Norm... the circle reforms.

Northwestern, Notre Dame...

Who needs a miracle when you've got the quiet confidence of knowing, down deep, just how good you are...  in mixed company too.

Go 'Cats.
-----------------

#NotIntimidatedInSouthBend.


ADDED:

Together: Victory!

Hail to Purple
Hail to White
Hail to Thee, Northwestern.

If You Could See Tomorrow...

(it's happening!)
... the Way it Looks, to Us, Today! ...
You'd say, "Incredible!"
"Lord, that's Incredible!"
In-cred-ible.

That was my favorite Ford commercial circa the late 70s. 
Catchy tune.
------------------------------
Make it a great Friday, and have a healthy weekend.  Here, it looks like the snowpiles and icicles are here to stay, for the next week at least.  Cold now, just such a quick transition into real winter:  boots, gloves, indoor warmth to outdoor cold to shared breathing spaces and all ...

Speaking of, did you know how much vitamin research comes from the University of Wisconsin,  and still?

by David Tenenbaum, July 6, 2011

...
Ever since biochemist Harry Steenbock discovered how to enrich the vitamin D content of foods through irradiation in 1923, the vitamin and its many derivatives have been a mainstay of UW-Madison pharmaceutical research. Facing considerable commercial interest in the vitamin, Steenbock believed the university should benefit, and together with Dean Slichter, he founded the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which opened in 1925 as the nation's first university technology transfer office.

The independent, non-profit WARF remains one of the most successful university technology offices: by now it has patented 1,900 university inventions and contributed $1.07 billion to university research, programs and initiatives. In harmony with its origin, WARF's largest source of revenue has been the many vitamin D inventions by biochemistry professor Hector DeLuca. Long after vitamin D supplements (primarily in milk) eliminated the bone disease rickets, the vitamin is being used to combat osteoporosis, kidney disease and other diseases. ...

In the story of technology transfer from American universities, biochemistry professor Hector DeLuca is a link to a glorious past. After all, his advisor, Harry Steenbock, had worked with E.V. McCollum, discover of vitamin A, before discovering how to produce vitamin D with ultraviolet radiation. Vitamin D has become DeLuca's life work, and the source of several successful spinoffs. ...

Vitamin D, as DeLuca acknowledges, is the current "human health darling," with a wide range of claimed benefits, but despite having devoted his life to the vitamin, DeLuca is a bit skeptical.
"People have correlated the blood level of vitamin D with health benefits, but these are not necessarily related as cause and effect, although the vitamin and related compounds are clearly related to osteoporosis and some types of kidney failure," he says.

"Wisconsin is a strong university when it comes to scientific matters," says DeLuca. "It ranks among the best, and lots of great ideas come out of this place. When they are put into practice, they can really build the state economy."

UW-Madison, DeLuca says, "lives on the good will of the people in the state. We are here because of the state of Wisconsin, and its people. Starting a business is not a bed of roses, but if you are really interested in getting your invention out to the public so it benefits people, a business is the way to go."

Even for a professor with an enviable record of inventions, however, a spinoff business "goes a lot slower than you think it should go," DeLuca says. "You have to be able to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, raise the money and get the leadership you need, but these spinoffs get started because the people of this state believe in this university. It has delivered, and we think it can keep delivering."

Memories of Journolist Behind-the-Scenes Work...

I just remember how Ezra Klein rewrote the rules of transparent journalism and rode a bachelor's degree in English from a small California school, and a face a grandmother could love!, into his allegedly being one of the leading lights of 21st century American journalism...

It paid off for him, and his little wife, too.  Big time!

Truth took a big hit though...

The funny thing is, we've always had poor, unhealthy and uninsured people amongst us.  Missionaries and charity care workers have always struggled to match resources with needs.  Only when a personal profit motive is introduced do these men double down on their duty to help others.

Ezra Klein, Jonathan Gruber... all those who would hide the truth to give us what we need... while the overall health of the country suffers.

Video of Mr. Gruber’s remarks, delivered at a University of Pennsylvania health care conference last year, has surfaced in which he explained how the details of Obamacare were kept under wraps until the measure was rammed through the Democratic Congress with no opportunity for anyone to read the legislation.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Mr. Gruber said.

“Call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever. But basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

Those “stupid” people have been extremely generous to Mr. Gruber. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2010 investigated the $297,600 that the Department of Health and Human Services paid Mr. Gruber to sing the praises of the health care scheme.

Congress — or part of Congress — was concerned that this payoff violated a federal law against paid government propaganda, but the GAO said it wasn’t a violation because Mr. Gruber had written his propaganda on his own time. Officially, he was paid only to “analyze various health care reform proposals and identify cost and coverage implications.”

This is an extraordinarily lucrative enterprise in the age of Obamacare that Mr. Gruber himself brought about. Individual states have lavished taxpayer cash on Mr. Gruber in return for cookie-cutter reports that describe the impact of Obamacare for each of the several states.

Minnesota, for example, used federal Obamacare grants to pay Mr. Gruber to attend one meeting, participate in a biweekly email list and print a copy of the report, all for $329,000.

Wisconsin paid Mr. Gruber $400,000 for the same material, requested by the office of then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. When the report was presented, Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, didn’t want Mr. Gruber at the news conference.

Vermont is paying him another $400,000. ... West Virginia, Maine, Colorado and Oregon have partaken of Mr. Gruber’s services, too, guaranteeing him a tidy sum. The money bought lies and deception. That’s Mr. Gruber’s characterization, not ours.

“If you had a law which made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people get money,” said Mr. Gruber, “it would not have passed.”

Think this is bad?  Wait until years later when it is revealed the reasons American forces are now back fighting in the Middle East civil wars...

The American people were pretty overwhelming in their calls to Congress and in their direction to the president:  do not intervene in Syria. At first, he heeded our warnings.

Then... somebody got to him.  ISIS is now a national security threat.  Seriously?

I don't for a minute believe some beheaded journalists swung our hearts and opinions.  One had been captured previously, and still went back undertaking the risks.  A shame, and a tragic loss for his family, but not a death that needed to be avenged by plunging American resources back into the fight, and recommitting ourselves to the cause of killing every last terrorist abroad to protect the American homeland.

I'm glad Mr. Gruber spoke out, because so much of American journalism today relies on the stupidity of the American news consumer.  We don't much care about the truth, they think.  We're dumb enough to go along to get along, always.  We will stand by our allies, and follow them to the gates of hell, if need be...

Except, we won't.

Our support of Israel is not a mutual suicide pact.  

We've provided defensive technologies in the forms of Iron Dome that have proven to work in their latest "wars".   How much more of a protective bubble can the American taxpayers be asked to provide?  How many troops must be stationed in the Middle East so that Israel never has to confront or acknowledge her precarious living situation?

There has never been a country built as such a prized hothouse flower before...  but once such precious resources are withdrawn, and artificial life meets reality, too often the artificial wilts and droops, unable to survive in the wilds when the hothouse environment is exited, and the artificial help withdrawn.

I'm not sure what these bright Jewish minds think of the American Evangelical help they are receiving in subduing their neighbors and settling the region.  They are discounting the rest of the story, and as Paul Harvey would tell, that's the most important part.

Mr. Gruber?  Take a note from the stupid American voters: We not as dumb as you thinks we is!

What a Man, What a Man...

What a Mighty Good Man... *

Attorney John Doar's death is getting a lot of play in the big city papers. Here's how his hometown weekly remembers the man...

Local Civil Rights Lawyer John Doar Dies

By Micheal Foley

New Richmond native John Doar, 92, died in New York early Tuesday, Nov. 11, of congestive heart failure.

Doar, a lawyer famous for his civil rights work for the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential administrations, was born Dec. 3, 1921, and called New Richmond home his entire life, according to his son Robert Doar, even though his career took him to Washington and New York.

“He grew up there and loved New Richmond as much as any place he ever lived and always viewed it as his home,” Robert Doar said. “He was just a great public servant and a good citizen -- and a great father too.”

John Doar and his wife Anne had four children, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and his legacy reaches well beyond his family and includes his civil rights work in the 1960s. In May 2012, President Barack Obama presented John Doar with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made significant contributions to the security or national interests of the U.S., to world peace, or to cultural or other specific public or private endeavors.

John Doar was a recognized leader of federal efforts to protect and enforce civil rights during the 1960s. He served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

In that capacity, he was involved with many major civil rights crises, including singlehandedly preventing a riot in Jackson, Miss., following the funeral of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963.

John Doar brought notable civil rights cases to trial, including obtaining convictions for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., and led the effort to enforce the right to vote and implement the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In acknowledging the role John Doar played in the Civil Rights movement, President Obama called the New Richmond native "the face of the Justice Department in the South."

Obama even went as far as to say that he might not have been elected president had it not been for the courageous work of John Doar and others in the 1960s.

John Doar later served as Special Counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary as it investigated the Watergate scandal and considered articles of impeachment against President Nixon. He was senior counsel at the law firm Doar Rieck Kaley & Mack

In New Richmond, plans have been underway for more than a year to create the John Doar Civil Rights Trail around Mill Pond to honor the man and his cause.

“He was very honored by it and so are all of us,” Robert Doar said. “It will be wonderful. It’s a real tribute and we want to help New Richmond make it happen. It’s a very lovely idea and it will be terrific.”

According to Public Works Director Jeremiah Wendt, the city and members of the Doar family are working together on the project, which is still in a pre-design phase. Wendt hopes to bring formal plans to the City Council in 2015.

“Our thoughts are with the family,” said City Administrator Mike Darrow on Tuesday. “He has had such a significant impact on the country. It’s an amazing thing that he was part of our community here, too. The purpose of the trail is to highlight the important things that he and others have done during that timeframe.”

Visible from the trail will be the Doar, Drill & Skow law firm building that John Doar’s father William Thomas Doar helped established in the 1910s. Both John Doar and his brother Tom Doar went on to work at the firm.

“John was still part of the Doar, Drill & Skow family, even though he had been away since 1960,” said local attorney Michael J. Brose. “He was back at least annually and would visit with members of the firm. Those of us who have been here for any amount of time are terribly saddened to think of how lucky we were to have been in contact with somebody who was such a legal giant and such a great guy. He was down to Earth. He was such a New Richmond guy.”

The Doar family is still making funeral and burial arrangements, and Robert Doar expects to hold a memorial service in New Richmond in the coming months.

“He was a great American, and he was proud to be from New Richmond,” Robert Doar said.

Former New Richmond News Editor Jeff Holmquist contributed to this report.

-----------------------------------
Here's Mal in the paper's Person-on-the-Street feature from this past June**:

---------------------------

* or, Northern Men, Represent.

** Mal cut Tom Doar's lawn for years.

(Photo above of John Glenn, John Doar and President Obama by Yetta Olmstead. )

Don't Yield to the Fortunes...

we sometimes see as Fate.

You may have a new perspective
on a different day...

And if you don't give up,
and don't give in,
you may just be okay...

It's Hard to Dance with the Devil on your Back...

I danced in the morning when the world was young
I danced on the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
at Bethlehem I had my birth ...

Dance, dance, wherever you may be...
I am the lord of the dance, said He.
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said He.

I danced for the scribes and the Pharisees...
They wouldn't dance, and they wouldn't follow me.
I danced for the fishermen, James and John;
They came with me so the dance went on...

I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame...
The holy people they said, 'twas a shame.
They ripped; they stripped; they hung me high.
Left me there on the cross to die...

Dance, dance, wherever you may be...
I am the lord of the dance, said He.
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said He.

I danced on a Friday when the world turned black.
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back...
They buried my body, thought I was gone.
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on! ...

Dance, dance, wherever you may be...
I am the lord of the dance, said He.
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said He.

~ Sydney Carter
(It's a funeral song, turned Broadway musical.)

Remember.

All Wars are Not Created Equal...

Never Forget.

Snow Day.

Saturday evening into Sunday morning...
came down all night long by the streetlight,
then, a few true inches today.  The Cities are getting slammed.

Welcome winter.

Mourning Becomes a Weekend. (Not.)

"And on this day, in this election, the Republican Party successfully told liberalism’s arc of history to get bent."
 ~ Ross Douthat.

----------------------------

Heads down, people...
Hands to work, hearts to God.


"Everybody's working for the weekend..."
~Loverboy.

Make it a great Friday, all.  (Boy, this one went fast...  Must be the cold setting in.)

Well He's No George Bush, Even...

Hey...

did you see that Moon last night and tonight even, where you're at?

Just Askin'.
(no reason)

"Heavens to Murgatroyd."

"Exit, Stage Right/Left," said Snagglepuss on election night, even.

Butler's voice characterization is reminiscent of the more soft-spoken aspect of Bert Lahr's broad-ranging characterizations, specifically the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. (Coincidentally, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera headed the MGM cartoon studio on the Tom and Jerry anthology before opening Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1957).

Snagglepuss has three signature catchphrases. His most famous is his perpetual exclamation, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" - a line first uttered by Bert Lahr in the 1944 film Meet the People. ^...

When the character of Snagglepuss was used for a series of Kellogg's cereal television commercials in the 1960s, Lahr filed a lawsuit, claiming that the similarity of the Snagglepuss voice to his own might cause viewers to falsely conclude that Lahr was endorsing the product.

As part of the settlement, the disclaimer "Snagglepuss voice by Daws Butler" was required to appear on each commercial, thus making Butler one of the few voice artists to receive a screen credit in a TV commercial.

-----------------------
ADDED:  Oh, the places we go...

John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is a British-based American theater critic, and the son of actor Bert Lahr. Since 1992, he has been the senior drama critic at The New Yorker magazine.
...
In 1994, Lahr published a profile in The New Yorker detailing the vagaries of Lady Maria St. Just, an executor of playwright Tennessee Williams's estate. The profile helped liberate Lyle Leverich's biography of Williams, Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, from a four-year legal stranglehold.

While working on a planned second volume in 2000, Leverich died and named Lahr as his favored successor. Lahr agreed to complete the second volume, which will follow Williams from 1945 to his death in 1983.  In October 2007, Lahr said that he was taking a half-year sabbatical from writing New Yorker profiles to work on the biography, and stated, "I'll probably finish it when I'm in my seventies."

The book, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh was published on 22 September 2014, when Lahr was 73.

A Life Where Nothing's Changed...

and nothing's lost... at such a cost!
Good morning, ruby Tuesday.  I'll take another bright day like the ones you've been delivering up, cold but clear...
ADDED:  I like to move it, move it.