Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 75

A Bridge Too Far: Tappan Clean-Up Funds

Latest scandal surrounding biggest construction project in U.S.--building the new three-mile-long Tappan Zee Bridge, just down the hill.  Cuomo and state rammed through the project hurriedly with little funding in place--beyond danger of tripling current bridge tolls.  Now they've gotten a state board to approve an outrageous $511 loan from key fund meant for environmental clean-up and much-needed new sewers.  No public comments allow earlier or today. See complaints by environmental groups and EPA regional chief.   And local residents being subjected to ear- and nerve-shattering noise.

Flooding for Big Game--As Suarez Banned

Incredible rainfall overnight (and it's still coming down) has put scheduled start of today's big USA-Germany soccer match in doubt (it's supposed to begin at noon ET).  Fans may not be able to get to match and field may be hazardous.  Decision to be made at 10:30 ET we are told. 
Also see here: two Ghana players sent home.  And Suarez biting penalty due any minute.  UPDATE:  He is suspended for four months and nine int'l matches.  Fined equivalent of $112,000.

The Dangers of Droning On

A top story at NYT:  new report declares U.S. risk never-ending war by continuing wide use of drone strikes.

The Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killings using armed drones risks putting the United States on a “slippery slope” into perpetual war and sets a dangerous precedent for lethal operations that other countries might adopt in the future, according to a report by a bipartisan panel that includes several former senior intelligence and military officials.

The group found that more than a decade into the era of armed drones, the American government has yet to carry out a thorough analysis of whether the costs of routine secret killing operations outweigh the benefits. The report urges the administration to conduct such an analysis and to give a public accounting of both militants and civilians killed in drone strikes.

The findings amount to a sort of report card — one that delivers middling grades — a year after President Obama gave a speech promising new guidelines for drone strikes and greater transparency about the killing operations. The report is especially critical of the secrecy that continues to envelop drone operations and questions whether they might be creating terrorists even as they are killing them.

I will refer you here to my must-read interview with Robert Jay Lifton re: drone strikes.  

And We're Still Reeling

Donny and Marie Osmond cover Steely Dan classic "Reelin' in the Years" in 1978 followed by a kind of Rockettes-on-Ice and promises of Ruth Buzzi, Buddy Hackett, and Suzanne Somers.  No, I don't want to "do it again."  I would claim that I was there for first public performance of the song at Steely Dan's debut press party in NYC in 1972 (I think it was at Max's and during the afternoon but can't say for sure). 

Just Desserts for Suarez

FIFA announced this morning that it has officially charged the Uruguayan soccer hero Suarez with biting his Italian opponent yesterday just before his team scored the winning goal in World Cup action.   He can respond but FIFA must sentence him quickly--before the next match on Saturday.  Suarez, who was already known as "The Cannibal" because of two previous biting incidents, and suspensions, may get sent off for the rest of the Cup. 

Woman Fires Round at Little Squirts

A fine Pennsylvania woman, 24, has been sent to jail this week after she responded to four kids playing with squirt guns out on the street by pulling out real gun and firing off a round.    This fine specimen is named Billie Joe George.

One of the neighbors reacted by yelling to George, “What are you doing with a real gun! Why are you pointing it at my kids? They are only kids!” according to court documents.

The woman then ran inside her home and called police, and while inside, she said she heard a loud “pop.”

One of the neighbors reacted by yelling to George, "What are you doing with a real gun! Why are you pointing it at my kids? They are only kids!" according to court documents. The woman then ran inside her home and called police, and while inside, she said she heard a loud "pop."

Read more from WFMZ.com at: http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/police-woman-opens-fire-near-children-playing-with-squirt-guns/26623214
Connect with us! Facebook/69WFMZ or @69NewsOne of the neighbors reacted by yelling to George, "What are you doing with a real gun! Why are you pointing it at my kids? They are only kids!" according to court documents. The woman then ran inside her home and called police, and while inside, she said she heard a loud "pop."

Read more from WFMZ.com at: http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/police-woman-opens-fire-near-children-playing-with-squirt-guns/26623214
Connect with us! Facebook/69WFMZ or @69News

Member of the House

A top aide to a GOP congressman from Ohio has resigned after a porn actress he'd been involved with posted a photo of his penis--perhaps we should call it his "weiner"--online via Twitter.   The veteran of 200 sex movies--that's the actress--was upset with the fellow, Adam Kuhn, aide to Rep. Steve Stivers, for some reason.  “Over the weekend, I was the victim of an attack on Twitter from a woman I had a relationship with in my personal life,” Kuhn said. “I realize and apologize I had used poor judgement in my personal life regarding this relationship. The woman who posted this has reached out to me to apologize.”  Anthony Weiner has commented: "Give the kid a break."   Her Wiki page.

Cash and Caring

Rosanne Cash is testifying before Congress tomorrow re: songwriters rights in this difficult age of the "digital economy."   She was asked by the Americana Songwriters Assn. to do this, and they've posted her prepared remarks online.   Here's an excerpt:

I tell you these things to underscore that to me as a singer/songwriter, a recording artist, and a participant in many other parts of the music business it seems painfully obvious that all creative people deserve fair compensation when their work is used by others. For various reasons, that does not seem to be happening in the marketplace today, and we need a realignment.

I am a fan of new technology, both as a consumer and an artist. I am active in social media and do it myself, and I love it— I Iove the connection and the
conversation. I’m also excited about the potential I see in the multiple new means of distributing music digitally that are being offered to music lovers, but my enthusiasm is tempered by the realization that these new business models are all cast against the backdrop of at least two decades of crushing digital piracy. This is important, because the royalties we are often offered as a result seem non-­‐ negotiable. We can license services on the terms they offer. The alterative is piracy.

My father, Johnny Cash, testified before this committee in 1997 in support of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He told the committee then how challenging and dispiriting it was to find one of his biggest hits, ‘Ring of Fire’, being sold by someone in Slovenia on an illegal website and that he hoped the DMCA would aid in solving that. What an innocent time that was. Isolated illegal websites have morphed into a multi-­‐national juggernaut that threatens to decimate the livelihoods of all musicians, songwriters and performers. There is a team at my record label devoted to issuing takedown notices to pirate sites. It is an absolutely futile gesture. The most popular search engines list pirate sites on the opening page of a search.

The Green Beret and the Reporter

Kind of amazing ABC story here on a famed Green Beret officer in Afghanistan who was forced to step down after his affair with a Wash Post reporter was revealed (they each had four kids).

His commanders charged in confidential files that he had "indulged in a self-created fantasy world" of booze, pain pills and sex in a tribal village deep in Taliban and al Qaeda country with his "wife," journalist Ann Scott Tyson. 

And, naturally, they now have a book coming out.  They have married and are living in Seattle where he "blends in" with his long beard...

Freedom Summer

I was old enough to follow it--though not to take part--and now there's an acclaimed doc airing tonight on PBS on the "Freedom Summer" civil rights organizing and trips to Mississippi in 1964 (the year the three activists were murdered).   To mark this, here's Nina Simone's great "Mississippi Goddman" and Phil Ochs' "Here's to the State of Mississippi."