The Supreme Leader's Gamble: Iran's Crisis Deepens

There are many lessons to be learned from the events in Iran. But one profound lesson is the toxic brew that results from mixing religion and democracy. It is not a democracy when any one religion holds authority over the government. Any group that views their country as a Christian or Moslem or Hindu or Buddist nation is a danger to the very notion of democratic republic. Iran will not truly be a democracy until the mullahs go back to the mosques.
About Middle East
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The Peacock


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Heroic Iranian Soldiers Stand up for Democracy & Dissent Share

Don't Assume Anything on Iran

It seems that nearly every hour some inspiring and facinating news manages to makes its way out of Iran to us. Anyone who assumes that the Iranian Military is unified will find it surprising to read this post from Nico Pitney's Blog:

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Nico's blog on Huffington Post
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3:45 AM ET -- Journalist defies the crackdown on foreign media. Via readers John, Pejman, and Colin: the pugnacious British reporter Robert Fisk witnesses a stunning scene in which Iranian soldiers keep a group of plainclothes paramilitaries away from Mousavi supporters:

In fact at one point, Mousavi's supporters were shouting 'thank you, thank you' to the soldiers.

One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi's supporters, and said 'can you protect us from the Basij?' He said 'with God's help'.

It was quite extraordinary because it looked as if the military authorities in Tehran have either taken a decision not to go on supporting the very brutal militia - which is always associated with the presidency here - or individual soldiers have made up their own mind that they're tired of being associated with the kind of brutality that left seven dead yesterday - buried, by the way secretly by the police - and indeed the seven or eight students who were killed on the university campus 24 hours earlier.

Quite a lot of policeman are beginning to smile towards the demonstrators of Mr Mousavi, who are insisting there must be a new election because Mr Ahmadinejad wasn't really elected. Quite an extraordinary scene.

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Ironing Day Adds Color to a Room


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Nico Pitney Discusses Covering The Iranian Election With Rachel Maddow (VIDEO)

No matter what the outcome of the next few days in Iran, the Genie is out of the bottle in Iran and the people of the country will continue to press for changes. 20 years ago - as with the Chinese in Tiananmen Square - the government could have hidden this and gotten away with it. Today, the citizen journalist will not be kept down (Time Magazine please note: My vote for person of the Year 2009 is the citizen journalist) for all of the drawbacks to having our reporting coming from people who are in the middle of the news stories, we can't avoid the truth that without the tools of web 2.0 and the young people who are using those tools to bring the uprising to us, we would all be in the dark. The fact that the state department asked Twitter to delay maintenance work on the website speaks volumes for its value.



President Obama has handled the crisis brilliantly. Stand up for democracy and human rights - stand down on the personalities and the specifics of the uprising, lest they be tarred as puppets of the west. It's really political science 101 though some pretty high ranking US political leaders seem to have been out drinking during that class (take note Sen McCain and Rep Pence).
About Rachel Maddow
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Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting

From the NY Times

Jeffrey Sauger for The New York Times

LED streetlights in Ann Arbor, Mich., are expected to cut maintenance and electricity costs.

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: May 29, 2009

To change the bulbs in the 60-foot-high ceiling lights of Buckingham Palace’s grand stairwell, workers had to erect scaffolding and cover precious portraits of royal forebears.

This is the second in a series of articles about stopgap measures that could limit global warming. Future articles will address appliance-efficiency standards, transportation, reducing global-warming gases other than carbon dioxide and other efforts.

So when a lighting designer two years ago proposed installing light emitting diodes or LEDs, an emerging lighting technology, the royal family readily assented. The new lights, the designer said, would last more than 22 years and enormously reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions — a big plus for Prince Charles, an ardent environmentalist. Since then, the palace has installed the lighting in chandeliers and on the exterior, where illuminating the entire facade uses less electricity than running an electric teakettle.

In shifting to LED lighting, the palace is part of a small but fast-growing trend that is redefining the century-old conception of lighting, replacing energy-wasting disposable bulbs with efficient fixtures that are often semi-permanent, like those used in plumbing.

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Waiting for the Stragglers

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Trail Blazers - Jane Addams: A new impulse to an old gospel

Remembering the Trail Blazers series is a series of pieces remembering and honoring those who have played an important part in "securing the blessings of liberty" for all Americans.

With more than 100 years between today and the days prior to universal public education and the many fields of social sciences, its easy to forget that a free public education and the study of social sciences required a protracted struggle to make them realities.

Jane Addams (B. September 6, 1860 – D. May 21, 1935) was a founder of the U.S. Settlement House movement, and one of the first women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was a leading figure in the Progressive era. Born into wealth and tempered by tragedy (three of her siblings died in infancy and her mother died from tuberculosis during pregnancy when Jane was just two years old.) Jane used her considerable empathy and skills to exert her influence on a world where a thirst for leaders offered opportunity and a willing public.

Originally published as 'A new impulse to an old gospel' Forum 14 (1892) pp342-356 and later in Philanthropy and Social Progress, Henry C. Adams, Editor (1893) New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell. This version is taken from Addams 1910 book: Twenty Years at Hull House, New York: Macmillan. Today this lecture is referred to by the title "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements"

"In a thousand voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel's "Messiah," it is possible to distinguish the leading voices, but the differences of training and cultivation between them and the voices in the chorus, are lost in the unity of purpose and in the fact that they are all human voices lifted by a high motive. This is a weak illustration of what a Settlement attempts to do. It aims, in a measure, to develop whatever of social life its neighborhood may afford, to focus and give form to that life, to bring to bear upon it the results of cultivation and training; but it receives in exchange for the music of isolated voices the volume and strength of the chorus. It is quite impossible for me to say in what proportion or degree the subjective necessity which led to the opening of Hull-House combined the three trends: first, the desire to interpret democracy in social terms; secondly, the impulse beating at the very source of our lives, urging us to aid in the race progress; and, thirdly, the Christian movement toward humanitarianism. It is difficult to analyze a living thing; the analysis is at best imperfect. Many more motives may blend with the three trends; possibly the desire for a new form of social success due to the nicety of imagination, which refuses worldly pleasures unmixed with the joys of self-sacrifice; possibly a love of approbation, so vast that it is not content with the treble clapping of delicate hands, but wishes also to hear the bass notes from toughened palms, may mingle with these."

Read this lecture in its entirety

"Longview Flowers"

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Trail Blazers - Robert Kennedy in South Africa

Remembering the Trail Blazers series is a series of pieces remembering and honoring those who have played an important part in "securing the blessings of liberty" for all Americans.

Day of Affirmation Address (as delivered)
(often also referred to as the "Ripples of Hope" speech)

Among the most famous, and surely among the most substantive, speeches of the Century, Robert F. Kennedy seemed to reach across the globe with his words, speaking of the hopes and dreams as well as the ills and challenges of not only South Africa, where he had come to deliver this speech, but also of America and the planet. This is a speech that every America should be familiar with not only for its content but for the courage that it took to deliver it in the face of South Africa's Apartheid government and the US government's opposition to his trip to Johannesburg.


Robert F. Kennedy
University of Capetown
Capetown, South Africa
June 6, 1966

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in the isolated villages and the city slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Text of Speech

Audio of the Speech

Video Clip from the Speech


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Maintaining Perspective on the Pandemic

President Obama stated that we are "concerned but not alarmed" over the developments regarding the flu pandemic. The president is calm by nature, of course, but his demeanor on this front is particularly important in order to make sure that what is a source of concern does not become an unnecessary and calamitous amendment to the economic maelstrom in which we already find ourselves.

Panic and political opportunism both threaten to exacerbate the current international economic crisis. In order for cooler heads to prevail lets all agree to help tamp down the fear by using a few of these important facts to add some perspective to discussions that we are part of over the next few months.

1. A Pandemic is a world wide epidemic. We have an annual pandemic of the flu EVERY SINGLE YEAR. The question is always how serious is the pandemic NOT whether there is one.

2. The recent name change from Swine Flu to H1N1 Virus reflects the fact that we still do not know the actual origins of the flu but we know that it is genetically composed of viruses from past flu viruses including swine flue, avian (Bird) flu, SARS and possibly some others. In any case it is not spread by eating meat of ANY Variety. Calling it a swine flu has already had a serious detrimetal effect on pork producers, who have seen orders for their product plummet.
Additionally, always looking for a way to take advantage of an international crisis to violate world trade agreements and enhance their cash flow, countries like Russia are making a cynical play to close their borders to the importation of pork and in some cases other meats.

3. On any given year more than 36,000 people die from complications of the Flu in the US alone. So far, deaths from the H1N1 Virus are fewer than 300 in Mexico where it is believed to have started.

Before its all over, it could get much worse and there is no doubt that we should continue to operate as members of the Obama adminstration have said "with an abundance of caution",

Useful links:

Mapping the outbreak
Virus is 'a mild strain'
Your questions answered
Q&A: Advice about swine flu


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