Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1030
August 5, 2015
The GOP and Fox News have a secret plan to prevent ridiculous candidates from turning debate into a laughingstock
The Republicans know that Thursday night's presidential debate could potentially devolve into the political equivalent of a 1970s disaster film -- call it "The Trumpeting Inferno" if you must -- and are desperately trying to stage-manage the debate so that it doesn't turn into something only Democrats can kick back with a bucket of popcorn and enjoy, like 
Jeb Bush, worst candidate ever: Does this man even want to be president?
Oops, he did it again. Jeb Bush had to walk back another dumb comment Tuesday night, after he told the Southern Baptist Convention, “I'm not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women's health issues.”
What he meant to say, Bush now claims, was that Planned Parenthood shouldn’t get that much federal funding – even though the context of the remark made clear that he was talking about futile GOP plans to transfer that funding from Planned Parenthood to other health agencies. That’s when he mused that it might be a tad too much cash to spend on the ladies, anyway. His walk back made so little sense he might have to walk it back.
So far in this campaign cycle, Bush has made Rick Perry look positively presidential.
“The aircraft debris is indeed MH370″: Remains of missing plane confirmed by Malaysian prime minister
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Experts have confirmed that the debris found on Reunion Island last week was that of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 that went missing last year, Malaysia's prime minister said Wednesday.
"It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris ... is indeed MH370," Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters.
The Boeing 777 jetliner disappeared 515 days ago on March 8 while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. It is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, but the reason remains one of aviation's biggest mysteries.
The first ever physical evidence of the aircraft was found on the French territory of Reunion Island in the Indian ocean, thousands of miles (kilometres) from the site near Australia where the plane is believed to have gone down.
"We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean," Najib said.
"The burden and uncertainty faced by the families during this time has been unspeakable. It is my hope that this confirmation, however tragic and painful, will at least bring certainty to the families and loved ones of the 239 people onboard MH370. They have our deepest sympathy and prayers," he said.
August 4, 2015
“It’s OK to always be a loser”: Patrick Stickles reveals the secrets of Titus Andronicus
Patrick Stickles just turned 30. The frontman of Titus Andronicus celebrated by singing Billy Joel and Replacements songs at the end of his fifth concert in a row in Brooklyn, New York. When he and I talk, he's cleaning up the band's practice space in preparation for a tour in support of his band's new rock opera, "The Most Lamentable Tragedy." Lately, he's been watching an Eagles documentary on Netflix to deal with his worsening tinnitus.
"It's leading to some pretty interesting auditory hallucinations," says the songwriter. "So that's fun to be lying in the darkness late at night and hear something. The other night, at about 5 in the morning, it was 'Take It to the Limit.' I never liked the band but I'm obsessed with this movie now."
It's a shame sleep is starting to get harder for Stickles, considering the first track on his new album finds him screaming the refrain, "I hate to be awake," over and over. It seems the thing keeping him content to move through his waking hours is his endless capacity for analysis and deep thought about, well, everything — his interests run from Shakespeare to Springsteen spaces, from Nietzsche to Naked Raygun.
“You tell me that the riots are a good thing? F*ck you. Come to Baltimore and say that”: David Simon on police brutality, the legacy of “The Wire” and the future of American cities
The legendary showrunner David Simon isn’t so sure about his “legendary” status—as wide-ranging and influential as his masterwork “The Wire” has been, to his mind, it’s never quite enough. To wit: This month, HBO is debuting a six-part miniseries from Simon called “Show Me a Hero,” based on Lisa Belkin’s 1993 book of the same name, about real-life Yonkers Mayor Nick Wasickso (played by Oscar Isaac in the miniseries). Wasickso was an opportunist politician who ended up caught in the rancorous politicking around public housing that reveals an uncomfortable sticking point for communities the world over: Where do we house our poorest?
It’s a topic that reveals Simon’s passion for politics at the city level—zoning ordinances, federal funds, section 8 housing, property tax codes. Topics with a reputation for being boring—but Simon’s life work has been bringing the drama of civic politics to life. “Show Me a Hero,” like “The Wire,” is gutting: The title comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s line, “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.” It’s poised to be the next game-changing drama in the televisual canon—another show that transforms political consciousness for millions. I’ll be writing more about the miniseries as we approach the premiere; in the meantime, I sat down with Simon to talk about how he makes the mundane into the sublime, how “The Wire” has aged, and the rising profile of police brutality in America.
South Africa’s growing pains: The “Born Free” generation inherits a country awash in contradictions
State of Mind
The state of the mind gets oppressed.
The longer it takes, the quicker you
Break. Choose to let the wind blow.
The foretelling of time spelled unknown.
I still don’t know why continuously I
Feel alone. The bare feet have nowhere
To go. And I’ve lost my way home.
Count from one to ten to please my
Soul yet inside remains a big hole.
When I’m in the most or the warmest
I still feel the brush of the cold, the
Urge to have someone to call,
For I’m the one who didn’t have it all. —Annasuena
Some days, Annasuena simply longed to be a girl. She couldn’t say what her ideal girlhood looked like, and she did not need ideal anyway. If she could re-create her past, she would locate herself in a time before she knew the troubles that now consumed her.
She would reconstruct her family life. Her mother would be alive and Annasuena would grow up living with her, and with her brothers and sister. They would all stay together in the same home. She didn’t have to live with her father, but she would know who he was. She would have the chance to meet him, to know what he looked like, to see whether she inherited her deeper complexion from him.
Digital Orwellian nightmare: Are our smart devices really smart enough to spy on us?
Smart devices have become the latest target in an anti-electronic backlash that has swept the nation in recent years. Spurred by conspiracy theorists, dubious YouTube videos and social media, the public is being led to think smart devices are akin to artificial intelligence spying on our personal lives. While there may be some concerns about electronics that capture or share consumer data, we are far from a digital Orwellian nightmare. Let’s look at the facts behind three maligned “smart” devices.
1. Smart televisions. Earlier this year, the Internet was buzzing with headlines declaring that smart televisions, particularly Samsung’s Smart TV, were designed to spy on everything people say while at home.
“Your Samsung TV is eavesdropping on your private conversations” declared CNN Money in February. In fact, Samsung Smart TV comes equipped with a speech recognition technology, which is not so different from similar technologies used by Apple (Siri), Microsoft (Cortana) or Google, and sometimes your requests are captured and sent over the Internet, which might make you a bit nervous.
This will haunt Jeb Bush: GOP candidate says we spend too much on “women’s health issues”
Jeb Bush asserted Tuesday that the U.S. government spends too much on "women's health issues," quickly backtracking following a political firestorm and claiming he "misspoke."
Speaking before the Southern Baptist Convention today in Nashville, Tennessee, the Republican presidential candidate boasted that as governor of Florida, he defunded Planned Parenthood. Bush vowed to defund the women's health organization federally as president.
When asked about the Republicans' most recent efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, Bush dismissed the notion of a "war on women," to argue, "I'm not sure we need half a billion dollars for women's health issues":
The comment came as part of a larger attack on Planned Parenthood, who according to the organization's own records, received a combination of federal and state funding, totaling around $528.4 million in 2014. Senate Republicans' effort to defund Planned Parenthood failed to garner the veto-proof 60 vote majority in a vote last night but some Republicans have already vowed to keep up the fight, even threatening another government shutdown this fall.
Kelly Osbourne’s Donald Trump fail: Fighting his racism with her own harmful stereotypes
Well, the Donald Trump Award for insensitive statements about race just went to … someone assailing Donald Trump. Or specifically, to Kelly Osbourne, the daughter of Ozzy and reality TV mainstay, who was referring to Trump’s nasty comments about Latinos coming to America to rape and pillage.
Osbourne was on “The View,” where Whoopi Goldberg mentioned Trump’s steadiness in the polls; Rosie Perez, Michelle Collins, and Raven-Symone batted the idea around a little bit. Osbourne made a good point with, "In what way does he think that people are going to vote for him after he's just called them rapists and murderers?"
But then, she tossed out these two cents: "If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?" Osbourne asked. "In the sense that...you know what I mean? But I'm saying that in L.A., they always..."
Perez seemed a bit thrown and fired back, "Latinos are not only the only people doing that." Osbourne appeared to be attempting to describe how rich people (and in California, most people) depend on the labor of Latino immigrants. Collins articulated this a bit more clearly, helping her out with, "I think what you're saying is that Trump himself probably relies on a lot of these people he's insulting,"
Joe Biden finally breaks his silence on 2016 speculation
The New York Times set off a fresh round of speculation over the weekend that Joe Biden may enter the 2016 presidential contest, first with a Maureen Dowd column reporting that Biden "has been having meetings at his Washington residence to explore the idea of taking on Hillary in Iowa and New Hampshire," and then with an article from the paper's Amy Chozick essentially corroborating Dowd's reporting.
Much of the political chattering class has been consumed by will-he-or-won't-he talk in the days since, and on Tuesday, Biden finally broke his silence on the matter.
At the end of a meeting with UN Ambassador Samantha Powers in the White House today, Biden jokingly replied to a reporter questioning whether he'd mount a bid.
