According to published reports, American military commanders are authorized to pay between $1,500 and $2,500 to a family that has lost a child or an adult. The loss of a limb or other injury is worth between $600 and $1,500; a damaged or destroyed vehicle, $500 to $2,500; damage to a farmer's fields is worth between $50 and $250.
While such amounts are sizeable in a country where the average daily wage is less than $5 a day, politicians, human-rights groups and ordinary citizens have expressed outrage at the policy.
"Afghans must seem like animals to the Americans if they can put prices on them," said Ismail, a 55-year-old Afghan businessman in Kabul.
"If someone killed an American and offered to pay $10,000, would they accept it?" he asked. "They destroy a complete village if one of their soldiers is killed, but set a price of $2,500 for an Afghan's life."
Source: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/04/16/blood-money-angers-afghans.html#ixzz1FgTlmOcN
Now reported CIA asset Raymond Davis is facing trial for shooting two Pakistani citizens in Lahore and once again blood money is being offered as compensation. In stead of accepting payment the widow of one of the victims committed suicide by eating rat poison.
"I do not expect any justice from this government," said Kanwal in a statement recorded by the doctor before she died. "That is why I want to kill myself."
Kanwal also spoke to reporters after arriving at the hospital, saying "I want blood for blood."
And so it goes. And so it goes.
Be seeing you.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Maybe I Can Be Proud Tomorrow
Muslims hold a fundraiser for the homeless and women's shelters. Knuckle dragging xenophobes chant, "Go back Home!" and call what they're doing "Unadulterated evil."
If you change the display to black and white it looks just like Mississippi in the 50s and 60s.
About that "shining city on the hill"...not so much lately.
Posting more when the futility and rage subsides.
Be seeing you
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Stalker of The Cubicle Farm
Jon Carroll wrote a really nice column a few days ago about mothers who came to his door selling Girl Scout Cookies on behalf of their children. As I said, it was really nice. Mr. Carroll's work is always great. However, since he has worked from home for some time there is an aspect of the Girl Scout Cookie pusher that he may be unaware of. Uh huh. Some of you are nodding. I speak of The Stalker of The Cubicle Farm. (Cue theremin music.) For nine years I worked in a call center for a major telecom company. Every Spring the Girl Scout mothers would start wheeling in luggage carriers stacked high with weapons-grade high fructose corn syrup delivery systems. There were three hundred people in my building and two thirds of them were women. At least half of them had children of the scouting age. Do the math. One hundred cookie monsters fighting turf wars and my little work station smack in the middle of no man's land.
A lot of people take their vacations at the start of Spring. I think I know why now and it has nothing to do with Mardi Gras.
Unwritten rules of combat are made and broken each year. No selling outside your own team. (That one lasts about a week.) No flyers on windshields...It happened one year. I plead a lethal nut allergy and get away with a couple of boxes of thin mints which I do not take home but rather display on my desk as a talisman to ward against further forays by the smores brigade. By the use of that ruse I escape with only ten or twenty dollars in damage. I breathe a sigh and relax.
Until I hear the dread words, "Band Candy?"
A lot of people take their vacations at the start of Spring. I think I know why now and it has nothing to do with Mardi Gras.
Unwritten rules of combat are made and broken each year. No selling outside your own team. (That one lasts about a week.) No flyers on windshields...It happened one year. I plead a lethal nut allergy and get away with a couple of boxes of thin mints which I do not take home but rather display on my desk as a talisman to ward against further forays by the smores brigade. By the use of that ruse I escape with only ten or twenty dollars in damage. I breathe a sigh and relax.
Until I hear the dread words, "Band Candy?"
Monday, February 21, 2011
An Update From Iceland
Iceland, by virtue of having less than a million in population, is a purer form of democracy than our own. The results can be refreshing. From IceNews:
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland, is once more in the world media spotlight following his decision to reject the latest Icesave repayment plan and send it to another referendum.
Read more: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/02/21/icesave-puts-icelandic-president-in-world-spotlight-once-again/#ixzz1EdOk54DP
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland, is once more in the world media spotlight following his decision to reject the latest Icesave repayment plan and send it to another referendum.
Bloggers are split on the issue, with those against the President’s decision saying, among other things, that British and Dutch taxpayers have already been forced to pay the Icesave debt and that the debt now has to be repaid by Iceland.
Others who support the President and/or oppose the Icesave bill say, among other things, that the Icelandic public should not be forced to pay the banksters’ debts. One blogger wrote that ordinary Icelandic citizens bear no more responsibility for Icesave than the Brits did for the Great Train Robbery conducted by Ronnie Biggs and associates in the 20th Century.
Read more: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/02/21/icesave-puts-icelandic-president-in-world-spotlight-once-again/#ixzz1EdOk54DP
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Way to Dusty Death
I had intended to post a new column on the events in Egypt days ago. Each day as I would begin it would seem that new events would unfold that rendered what I was about to write obsolete.
And so here we are.
President Mubarak, made a public announcement today on State sponsored television. Rumors had been circulating that it would be his resignation. Several signs seemed to support this conclusion. For the first time the state controlled TV was showing the protesting throngs in the street. Public officials had referred to the grievances of the protesters as "lawful and legitimate". Over the space of several hours anticipation built. An excited crowd filled the streets.
Then the let down.
"I cannot and will not accept to be dictated orders from the outside no matter what the source is.", Mubarak stated. This after he spent much of the opening minutes of the speech reciting a litany of his accomplishments as President. He condescendingly referred to the listeners as, "my children."
"I am totally determined and adamant to fulfill all the promises," he said. "I'm keen on implementing all these promises on all these things with no going back."
The following is from "Foreign Policy" link follows:
It's hard to exaggerate how bad Hosni Mubarak's speech today was for Egypt. In the extended runup to his remarks, every sign indicated that he planned to announce his resignation: the military's announcement that it had taken control, the shift in state television coverage, a steady stream of leaks about the speech. With the whole world watching, Mubarak instead offered a meandering, confused speech promising vague Constitutional changes and defiance of foreign pressure. He offered a vaguely worded delegation of power to Vice President Omar Suleiman, long after everyone in Egypt had stopped listening. It is virtually impossible to conceive of a more poorly conceived or executed speech.
Omar Suleiman's televised address which followed made things even worse, if that's possible, telling the people to go home and blaming al-Jazeera for the problems. It solidified the already deep distrust of his role among most of the opposition and of the protestors, and tied his fate to that of Mubarak. Even potentially positive ideas in their speeches, such as Constitutional amendments, were completely drowned out by their contemptuous treatment of popular demands. Things could get ugly tonight --- and if things don't explode now, then the crowds tomorrow will be absolutely massive. Whatever happens, for better or for worse, the prospects of an orderly, negotiated transition led by Omar Suleiman have just plummeted sharply.
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
And so here we are.
President Mubarak, made a public announcement today on State sponsored television. Rumors had been circulating that it would be his resignation. Several signs seemed to support this conclusion. For the first time the state controlled TV was showing the protesting throngs in the street. Public officials had referred to the grievances of the protesters as "lawful and legitimate". Over the space of several hours anticipation built. An excited crowd filled the streets.
Then the let down.
"I cannot and will not accept to be dictated orders from the outside no matter what the source is.", Mubarak stated. This after he spent much of the opening minutes of the speech reciting a litany of his accomplishments as President. He condescendingly referred to the listeners as, "my children."
"I am totally determined and adamant to fulfill all the promises," he said. "I'm keen on implementing all these promises on all these things with no going back."
The following is from "Foreign Policy" link follows:
It's hard to exaggerate how bad Hosni Mubarak's speech today was for Egypt. In the extended runup to his remarks, every sign indicated that he planned to announce his resignation: the military's announcement that it had taken control, the shift in state television coverage, a steady stream of leaks about the speech. With the whole world watching, Mubarak instead offered a meandering, confused speech promising vague Constitutional changes and defiance of foreign pressure. He offered a vaguely worded delegation of power to Vice President Omar Suleiman, long after everyone in Egypt had stopped listening. It is virtually impossible to conceive of a more poorly conceived or executed speech.
Omar Suleiman's televised address which followed made things even worse, if that's possible, telling the people to go home and blaming al-Jazeera for the problems. It solidified the already deep distrust of his role among most of the opposition and of the protestors, and tied his fate to that of Mubarak. Even potentially positive ideas in their speeches, such as Constitutional amendments, were completely drowned out by their contemptuous treatment of popular demands. Things could get ugly tonight --- and if things don't explode now, then the crowds tomorrow will be absolutely massive. Whatever happens, for better or for worse, the prospects of an orderly, negotiated transition led by Omar Suleiman have just plummeted sharply.
The one pattern that has held constant throughout the protests in Egypt is that the big events on the protester's side are planned for Fridays. The mood looks ugly from what I have seen and heard on Al Jazeera. Throughout history the most violent revolutions begin when people are given hope and then have it snatched away when it is too late to stop them. President Mubarak once more announced that he will die on his native soil. The crowd sounds more than willing now to assist him in attaining that goal.
The speech seems so ill-timed, so poorly done and so provocative that I am tempted to say that it may have been designed to inflame the crowd into a violent mob so that he could call upon the military and the police to crush them without the condemnation of the community of Western nations. It is not certain what the military would actually do in such a case. The rank and file officers and soldiers seem to sympathize with the people in the street.
Tomorrow will tell but I fear there will be blood now. A lot of it.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Macbeth. Act 5 Scene 5.
Monday, January 31, 2011
A Phoenix is Born in Cairo
I am totally addicted to Al Jazeera now. I must have watched 25 or 30 hours of live feed from Cairo and Alexandria since I found the live link Friday. How can you not want to watch? It's like watching a baby being born. It's beautiful and wonderful and mysterious and magical. It is all those things and more. It is a people rising up spontaneously and taking to the streets and saying to a despot, "We refuse to be ill-used and neglected any longer. You have cheated us and lied to us and taken what was not rightfully yours from us. You have imprisoned us without due process. You have tortured. No more. You will go away now."
They have stood up to the secret police and the riot squad and the jack-booted thugs fled.
I missed Tunisia but now it has begun in Egypt and the under-class is winning and how wonderful it is! The old men in power turned off the telephones and the internet and imposed curfews and still more took to the streets. Now it has spread to Algeria and to Lebanon, and to Yemen and to Jordan.
The people have risen up because the rich run the government.
The people have risen up because emergency powers that were invoked 30 years ago are still in force.
The people have risen up because the men in power have done nothing about rising unemployment and prices.
The people have risen up because the President keeps promising change but change never comes.
If you listen to the leaders here and in Europe talking about a "peaceful transition" you can tell they are afraid. They are afraid because the guns and the tear gas that are turned on the crowd were made in the USA. They are afraid most of all that their own people will notice that all too many of the sins of President Mubarak are to a lesser degree their own as well. If it spreads to Italy or to France people might remember 1968 in America and in Europe.
In 1968 there were riots in hundreds of cities all over the world.
Hundreds.
One hundred and twenty-five in just one week in America.
All that is necessary is to give people hope...and then make them angry.
I will be posting regularly as this phenomenon progresses.
More tomorrow.
Be seeing you
They have stood up to the secret police and the riot squad and the jack-booted thugs fled.
I missed Tunisia but now it has begun in Egypt and the under-class is winning and how wonderful it is! The old men in power turned off the telephones and the internet and imposed curfews and still more took to the streets. Now it has spread to Algeria and to Lebanon, and to Yemen and to Jordan.
The people have risen up because the rich run the government.
The people have risen up because emergency powers that were invoked 30 years ago are still in force.
The people have risen up because the men in power have done nothing about rising unemployment and prices.
The people have risen up because the President keeps promising change but change never comes.
If you listen to the leaders here and in Europe talking about a "peaceful transition" you can tell they are afraid. They are afraid because the guns and the tear gas that are turned on the crowd were made in the USA. They are afraid most of all that their own people will notice that all too many of the sins of President Mubarak are to a lesser degree their own as well. If it spreads to Italy or to France people might remember 1968 in America and in Europe.
In 1968 there were riots in hundreds of cities all over the world.
Hundreds.
One hundred and twenty-five in just one week in America.
All that is necessary is to give people hope...and then make them angry.
I will be posting regularly as this phenomenon progresses.
More tomorrow.
Be seeing you
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