A Few Links/Monday Morning Open Thread

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In considering what to do and being lazy today I thought I might just share a few links from last week that might have been missed.
Gary Younge sat down with representative Barbara Lee and discussed her vote against the rush to war after 9/11 and other issues in Congresswoman Barbara Lee on her lone vote against the war in Afghanistan (video)

Walter G. Moss in "Hollywood Progressive" looks back on Mark Twains politics in Mark Twain’s Progressive and Prophetic Political Humor

Laurie Goodstein points out that U.S. Nuns are formulating a response to the Vatican telling them to quit caring about those poor people and gays and the rest of the riff-raff inNuns Weigh Response to Scathing Vatican Rebuke

And last but not least UPWORTHY has a video of Bill Moyers (one of our last journalists) discussing how the international banking industry affects us all in Bill Moyers Breaks Down The Biggest Financial Scandal You've Never Heard Of.

Down below there is a tune.

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Good morning

geomoo's picture

Sun is shining and I will have no choice but to go do tedious outside work as soon as I've exhausted all stalling possibilities. I usually enjoy this, but I am completely out of shape from lying around sick for 3 weeks. Once I get started . . .

Something ate everything in the garden while we were gone--even squash and tomatoes. I have never seen an animal take a squash from a plant or a tomato from a vine. Very weird--can't imagine what it is.

Danny Chen is a Chinese American soldier who committed suicide in Afghanistan. The trial started last week.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/danny_chen/...

Army officials said Private Chen killed himself after being hazed by fellow soldiers. In December 2011, the Army charged eight soldiers in Private Chen’s battalion, including one officer, in connection with the death.

The array of charges announced — the most serious of which were manslaughter and negligent homicide — suggested that military prosecutors believed that the soldiers’ actions drove Private Chen to commit suicide.

The defense claims he killed himself because of family pressures. I can't figure why this one case was brought by the Army when I have heard that severe "hazing" is endemic in units in Afghanistan. It seems that racism has become a sacred issue, which is a good thing, so that people are outraged at the racial aspect of this story. I have read of other cases of equally humiliating hazing not involving race, but those don't seem to hold as much fascination for people nor to stimulate as much outrage.

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