ONE BIG CAVITY?

Is everything being literally sucked from the planet the same way violence wipes us off the top? Absolutely. Theoretically we're that professional. But from this explanation Does oil extraction leave a cavity?, the earth's a porous sponge that remains as hard as concrete. Reinforcing the premise the planet will outlast us since the ecosystem we were born from isn't really that important to us? Or at least not as significant as being paid well enough for our opinions and support? Perhaps the big ideological push, from both political Right and Left, is more sport than principle?

What happens will be. Nonetheless, it's hard not to fear what exploiting the earth has already done due to the convenience of framing environmental issues for comfort rather than clarity. The big picture constructed as a nitpicking commercial evasion of responsibility. Global warming or not. How cheap or rewarding gas could ever be wouldn't justify what already might never be fixed, cleansed or neutralized? Some things could have been already solved if this were really the genius generation it claims? Pragmatic people will remember. Even if our overheating the planet were a complete myth. Its irresponsible to ignore possible realities. So?

So wondering, I searched for who wrote, "Necessity is the mother of all evil" figuring at least a few have heard that paraphrasing. But had to settle for finding Plato wrote, "Necessity is the mother of invention" in the dialogue Republic. 

Our question is why pollution's still more profitable than treating the planet the best we can? Transition is too expensive? Incentives difficult to monetize? Green-technology must form and perform with a boot at its neck in the marketplace as was done destroying the possibility of a comprehensive American Rail System? A shattered legacy this modern age is left with in pieces and deaths and tragedy where cars and trains cross the others' paths. Its not the mistakes that always happen that caused New York's, February 3rd, car and train accident. It was the absence of answers where a train trestle, bridge or tunnel would have already been there if this country really had properly subsidized our transportation system. Right. Hindsight. There are crossings all over the world and therefore cheap of all of us not to correct that accident of commercial stability. Be realistic? Uh huh. People dying when they shouldn't isn't realistic either.

Well. There is at least one explanation. "... power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton, John Dahlberg-Acton

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NO WE'RE NOT EVEN ACQUAINTANCES

So. President Putin. No shortage of press. For instance Thomas L. Friedman's Czar Putin's Next Moves in The New York Times.  

Your suits do become you, but don't excuse you. You'll be remembered as just another one that sat on a throne and nation's unshared wealth. Period. History's an open book. Soapbox View

Why complain? You abstractly know your cunning self, Mr. President. You know. Some day most will. How Stalin claimed he couldn't control everything and blamed the machine for whatever injustices the people suffered. Your precipice too. Where you're seen protecting ruthlessly indifferent schemes. Where your legacy lays with Stalin's. Maybe its not your choice? The cultural political structure is not all yours. But Russia's fate should be all honor. If national prestige is where your reputation always stands? Then nothing worth surviving remains. Nationalism does not replace citizens' interests when cliques rule empires. Carry the real standard's dream, President Putin? And please, don't remain behind the patriotic façade. Amnesty For Everybody Soapbox View

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Pray for our shedding the our martyrdom is greater than yours violent cycle terrorizing the planet?  

 Don't Be Anyone's Sycophant  

Justice Is Not Revenge  

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NO ONE'S GUILTY OF CONTRIVING A SOAP OPERA OUT OF AMERICAN POLITICS?

Thursday, January 15th, Sean Hannity on Facebook plugged the FOX NEWS INSIDER headline:

Giuliani: Obama Didn't Want to Make Statement Against Islamic Terrorism 

Mr. Hannity's post quoted Mr. Giuliani. “If the president spoke out against radical Islamic fundamentalism, he would rally a lot of very good Muslim people. He would give them a place around which they could rally, where they may feel more of an affinity than for you or me.”

Then Sean asked: Do you agree with Rudy Giuliani? 

And there was also this quote of Mr. Giuliani's. "If we can't use the words radical Islamic terrorism, we can't get rid of them." 

Pragmatic realism. But the frame of mind, cited  here, was manufactured by, yes, people out of their minds hysterical with vengeance. And? More and more martyred generations believe vengeance is a reward? That's not civilized. Where what's not right rises up, the belief is security will and should defend us. 

The truth? Better people will have to be the ones walking out on this violence. When adults are no longer children following Pied Pipers to promised lands that aren't really our business when you consider how especially expansive our one Allah/God is. When only the wisdom of Solomon can save us, we're we're still not thinking, because Solomon's wisdom would be to settle what's disagreed without revenge. 

So. Desperately sad the world's mired in this violent status quo. The business of martyrdom. Woven to appear the only way out for the devout, reducing the innocent to enemies? Delusions. Moronic. The mess Public Relations uses to build the next big catastrophe. 

Mr. Giuliani tours the world teaching elites how to protect themselves from the criminal class. How pragmatic? As a witches brew? This hard-nosed authoritarianistic pot brought to a boil between the public and our police. But just as there are keys to protecting ourselves from criminals, there are keys to people never becoming criminal at all that this man publicly, at best, only shrugs about. But battling the Criminal Enterprise System's wars is the ship his honor rode in on and possibly exploits as long as it lasts. Because who in his peer group has the guts or level of friendly reparté to get Mr. Giuliani to at least smirk at these theories in  ?

Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody's Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World by JOSÉ MARTÍN 

To which I commented, "Beautiful first paragraph. No. 1's alternative is still police. There should be more peace officers. The whole idea of patrolling creates a hunt atmosphere. No covering territories. Small information booths everywhere and no more criminal enterprise system as No. 2 delineates. Hunting criminals has to go. We are smarter than this. 

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To conclude. Hopefully this essay isn't mere benign smoke and mirror entertainment. The bandwagons that dominate American political discourse are essentially convenient, more the merrier, money traps. Good debate  exists. Just not within a system that thrives on tantalizing the public with redundant jargon and - fireworks.  

Some day there'll be better people beyond the confines of ritual and reward?

Photo credit: SuspensionStories

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TO REITERATE: 
The Soapbox View is

President George W. Bush Should Apologize,
and this, The Soapbox View of the
Medical Industrial Complex.

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Curious why the near bottom of the page photo 

QUEEN MOTHER OF REALITY by Paweł Althamer honoring Dr. Delois Blakely, third from left, a U.S. Ambassador of Goodwill to Africa, who spoke at the dedication about ENDING ALL VIOLENCE TOWARD WOMEN. 

has remained up since last year? Soapbox View's in check. That space was originally beaches for luring hotel advertising. But now in check because it feels unjust to replace that photo when ALL VIOLENCE TOWARD WOMEN hasn't stopped.

Good News For Modern Management?

Issues Are Resolving and Power Is In Check?

Before President Obama's, relatively cohesive, September 10th, explanation of the Syrian chemical gas crisis, ritualized public debate was already off to the races over how much or little influence the president has left in his second term.

Monday morning quarterbacking abounded before last Tuesday night's speech and will, of course, continue such that, as a political opponent, the president's days are depicted waning, as if tunnel-visioning American opinion wasn't the most despicably shallow commercial act feasible. Hardly. But there's (been) a virtual chantlike cacophony that to do the right thing and negotiate political compromise is nothing compared to the power to do what one wants anyway as the only true definition and test of what wielding presidential power is. Forget just getting people to understand there's no such thing as a holy war for Allah/God. Hands, anyone? Soapbox View!

Focusing on the manner in which people are led by cock and bull, the more amusing and tawdry jokes tangentially evolve (freedom fries) into the irrelevant re-paraphrasings of public perception that are as much or more focused than polling's serious punchlines. Because the consuming public is indoctrinated into what's optimal, infotainment moods, rather than open questioning that values discernment. For that reason it has been assumed for generations that mass communication is a poisoned well of propaganda such that no one can be told what they don't want to know. In spite of the smiling serious show faces of newsreaders.

So we really can democratically joke it's not just emperors who're not wearing clothes anymore? Why even serious News is so heavy-laden with sugar and sappy that the taint drips off of us onto the voting booth floor where, as an electorate, we're slipping and sliding to the polls on one or only a few well worn-out tracks the in-crowd is content with for political expedience. 

Amnesty for Alexei Navalny? Everybody?

On the surface what appears amazing about Syria is, outside of Syria, it's almost as if everyone is on the same page? Though Washington's The Hill documented congressional reactions that were relatively correct perceiving slights to American Interests, smoke rings aside when I finished last Wednesday's editorial printed by The New York Times, A Plea for Caution From Russia, What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria by Vladimir V. Putin, I was struck wondering if President Putin, or even their stand-in speechwriter, can write so relatively well, why was it so necessary to stockpile such a huge personal fortune to fall back on in active retirement?

Though according to the Public Editor Margaret Sullivan in The Story Behind the Putin Op-Ed Article in The Times in The New York Times, Russia's president didn't collect a fee for the editorial submitted by his Moscow Public Relations firm. So it's probably naive, as usual, to question why federal funds anywhere seem to have to go missing from off the top since everyone must get paid? Ba dump bump. And an oh well.

Whatever's true or politically true isn't the point. True or not in negotiations positions aren't given up unless something is gotten in return. But in light of innocents dying every day, you'd think there'd be more pride in accuracy than knee-jerk diplomacy. After all history sweeps it all up after the victors and victims are gone and this world's heavy-hitters should care more about how they'll be written up than how well the world's honorable PR professionals are paid to depict them to a consuming rather than active public consciousness. 
Already, of course until Syria heatens, the world doesn't stand still as we're all overwhelmed by the many diverse personal tragedies associated with daily survival. Last week's Colorado flooding as an example that dominated the next day's news after President Obama's speech and President Putin's written public statement. But imagine war as apparently not hard to wish upon others?

When we should just be shaking our heads and smiling because we're truly thinking we're turning corners pursuing loftier horizons than ever endeavored upon before? While the public is led to think of itself as what the centers of power want? But in this one decision not to categorically strike is a deeper meaning than what, in not enough retrospect, was a rash decision to expand American participation in the cycle of revenge. All because the military industrial complex was ready and rar·in' to go? All Hail A Complaining Congress! Go Navy!

Life Is The Performance Or Actual Act Of Getting Our Acts Together?

COMRADE PUTIN CONQUERS CRIME?

How does anyone of President Putin's vision even have time to tackle something as profoundly elaborate and significant as crime? Because in The New York Times, Tuesday, June 25th's Putin Rules Out Extradition for Snowden in Russia Airport, it sounded a bit as if he's been in the gym. In addition, four days earlier, last Friday, June 21st, The New York Times ran Putin Puts Pensions at Risk in $43 Billion Bid to Jolt Economy, which stunned me with what could have just been lines of parody. Except what if President Putin's announcement is true in scope, this plan could begin changing the criminal enterprise system all over the world? 

Quoting The New York Times. President Vladimir V. Putin announced a risky stimulus program, along with an amnesty plan for white-collar criminals intended to improve investor confidence.

Wow! Amnesty, technically for arbitrarily supervised white collar crime is absolutely fabulous. Then Russia's justice system may seem less the result of darts thrown at targets with no civil rights? 

Russia's Government can't possibly expect to compensate all unjust fraud so the plan could just devolve into legalese that The State is kind to let anyone free. Victims may remain desirable statistics by reviving their business careers. While some entrepreneurs will disappear sloppily, unable to regain traction over tasks they'd conquered. Otherwise why bother confiscating their property at all? 

Why not wipe the full slate clean and forgive judges leveraged by  ruthless competition? Think about how deep forgiveness must reach for everyone to forgive? About how if this is just to calm investors, innocent Russians are once again betrayed by the absurdness of purity being a reason not to try. Not being a lawyer, I myself can only advise something unrealistically foolish. Buy out the corruption, President Putin. Early retirement for everybody. Because no court system in the world is large enough to alter the financing of corruption all by themselves.  

As President Putin can capably guess. Corruption won't be faced from behind a podium in front of cameras. Facing corruption is perhaps unrealistic, but still not a reason for half-hard-hearted zealous enforcement of law that should be altering crime's incentives rather than just perfecting the feeding at the trough.

So? Who will Boris Titov's miracle lawyer be, whose staff starts the untangling of the Great Stalinist Scapegoat, Opportunism? Or is this breakthrough a Patronage Feast too?

Ваш ход, сэр?

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Key Part of Voting Rights Act in The New York Times by Adam Liptak, June 25, 2013

Three Cheers For Summer Vacation

This decision could be thought of as nitpicking minutiae and hardly a political score. Because just because country clubs include all the right people now, doesn't mean the complete culture is included. So, no matter how cold this decision could be made to seem towards racial equality now, I hope the whole country takes the Supreme Court's challenge to prove them right when they're not completely wrong.

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Anthology Film Archives 32 2nd Ave at 2nd St

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The Soapbox View

PROGRESS DEVOURED THE NEWS?

Two 2012 Soapbox Views on George Zimmerman's Sanford, Fl. Trial 

May 23, Trayvon Martin Case July 18, Molded Opinion 

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Flying Bicycle - In Flight

Congratulations 2013 Inductee, Tim Raines
My First Interview, 1976

PATRIOTISM FOR EVERYONE?

1. Cultural Loyalty is noble and not just a civil obligation. 2. People can identify their patriotism reaching their very souls. 3. Which is why international dispute is not about - who's wrong? 4. But whether ruthlessness is rendered impossible?  

Centuries of diplomatic contest ironed out nations' differences so that theoretically now there are only remnants of rivalries festering in romantic violence in the 21ST Century. Civilized peace and tranquility shattered by hard heartedness? Diplomacy reigns opposing cold calculated zealotry? Jingoism or Responsible Pride? Leadership perhaps incapable of laughing at themselves? 

O.K. Corral sycophants? Torn nations' wrath? 

Humanity's up to our necks as reasons nation-states enforce character they can't afford? Support the Law!

Cue the band, "Do do what you tell me.""Come on?" 

However, Rebellious Individualism? 

A Person's Sanctity? Do not preclude the honor of citizenship. This past Spring I was privileged to serve a day of United States Federal District Court jury duty. A corralled experience that contradicted my feeling of complete independence. But it's marvelous watching the justice system's impressive apparatus of checks and balances impanel juries. An assembly line of respectful procedure requiring potential jurors have their moment on stage. Seated in the jury box where what you say can and is used to somewhat figure you out. I remembered being nervous questioned by two prior judges in other jurisdictions. Because this last time was a large jury pool and jurors were selected long before my scheduled interrogation. Which was an absolute relief for my preference not to judge. But our supervisor even said where'd they be if they "only considered volunteers?" 

As cordial a process as could be hoped, sitting in the gallery under the gaze of judges' portraits one hopes could close their doors to corruption. Not sacrifice honor. So? Serious scary business, profit and crime. No doubt people need more innocent incentive not to come into contact with direct supervision from the law. There has to be no sense of holiday in criminality? People can't be in their right minds to break the law? The law could be broken less without authoritarianism which is not civilized. Now is it? Soapbox View 

So? Pressed at this time of year for an expression of pride in my country the United States, what happened? What happened that such dignified judicial propriety has such a high price defendants' sentences are exaggerated when they don't agree to a plea? An eye for an eye court costs? Reality? Not that people aren't guilty, it's just people aren't more powerful than states or sufficiently motivated associations of individuals.
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Protecting People is a State's Sovereignty? 

Justice Is A Heavy Responsibility

So. It is nice governments can patiently and magnanimously judge citizens' interests in courts of law. Because Power is an unwieldy, flexing, reality, and more often than not defense is just pushing back. The best advise of course is to negotiate from a position of power. Gosh wouldn't we all like that oomph at our back? 

Speaking of power, President Putin has shown patient reserve, after sanctions, letting momentum appear to swing, because momentum's always an issue. Especially in this contest over Ukraine and Russia's quest to memorialize their national vigor. A popularly honored world-wide theme, patriotism. Well? Winning is everything? And shame on churches precluding God's/Allah's judgement of mortal sin. Condemn not to not be condemned, I'd speculate. Because tolerance is the one value that shouldn't be overshadowed.

So it's hopeful Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s initially rejected amnesty had legs after all, huh? With more chess chest thrusts to go? Ukraine Signs Trade Agreement With European Union, The New York Times, June 27, 2014. Officials enjoy chess. For governments recent events have gone down downright swift. But whether fogs of conflict ever lift, the general mood of engagement and perpetual victimhood leaves a pallor of haze over everything all over the world. Rationality is symbolic compromise offsetting financial sanctions against Russia. Negotiate. Why Crimea was taken swiftly as an important piece on the board. Sure. It's all about national pride until the money's sliced. Shrewd operation. Good business. But what would be nice, President Putin? Is an independent objective judicial system. True, nothing comes between the business of nation-states. Putin Presses Extension of Cease-Fire in Ukraine, The New York Times, June 24, 2014, by Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew Roth.

Litigation For Everybody!

If only a coin toss? Putin is Not a Nationalist, The Moscow Times,  June 24, 2014, by Andrei Tsygankov, highlights the president's blowing in the wind like any other politician. Exactly?

Who likes the sound of an independent Crimea as a solution? Crimea, the next Monaco?
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Dr. Arnold S. Relman dies at 91. 

Health System Critic and twenty-three year editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. From The New York Times ... On October 23, 1980, Dr. Relman, issued the clarion call that would resound through his career, assailing the American health care system as caring more about money than curing the sick. He called it a "new medical-industrial complex" - a deliberate analogy to president Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning about a "military industrial complex." ...  
According to The Times, Dr. Relman's prescription was a single taxpayer-supported insurance system, like Medicare, to replace hundreds of private, high-overhead insurance companies, which he called "parasites." To control costs, he advocated that doctors be paid a salary rather than a fee for each service performed.

Dr. Relman recognized that his recommendations for repairing the health care system might be politically impossible, but he insisted it was imperative to keep trying. ...

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What might be true? Beyond speculation? Is we all lose when money doesn't circulate. It's a waste locking doctors' lives in financial treadmills. Of course they're smart and digest a lot to advise their patients. But that doesn't mean the system isn't backwards if doctors spend more time not quite being doctors than they're doctors. Sure. Doctors are shrewd and pursued magnificent things for financial incentive. But we're smarter than repetitive slogans and political branding? You'd think?

 Happy 4th of July 

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The Soapbox View Pursuing Twin Legacies 

Andy Rooney and I.F. Stone?_____________________

THE PATRONAGE SYSTEM?

4. To Mideast Diplomacy Rendering Ruthlessness Impossible.