The Duke Ellington collective

Stephen Brown
Published: 2 May 2012
tls

David Schiff
THE ELLINGTON CENTURY
336pp. University of California Press. #24.95 (US $34.95).
978 0 520 24587 7

It wasn't easy being Duke Ellington: every night, along
with your tuxedo and your Brylcreem, to put on a mask of
urbane sophistication, to say "I love you madly" even when
playing to a segregated audience in some Southern dance
hall, to give that audience music that was popular in part
because of the prejudices it reinforced - the "jungle"
style - even as it glowed with a brilliance only available
[...]

Tidbits and Announcements - May 16, 2012

* Re: Don't Return to a Grim Chapter of Our History (Jeff
Singer)
* Re: No Country for Rich Men (Stan Nadel)
* The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize
* Contemporary LGBT rights in Cuba with Mariela Castro
May 29 at 7:00 - New York Public Library

==========

* Re: Don't Return to a Grim Chapter of Our History [...]

Court ruling may force advocacy groups to disclose secret
donors

By Matea Gold

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-court-ruling-may-force-advocacy-groups-to-disclose-secret-donors-20120515%2c0%2c6306060.story

May 15, 2012, 9:57 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Advocacy groups spending millions of dollars
in the 2012 campaign are now faced with the prospect of
having to reveal the donors who have been secretly
financing their efforts after a federal appellate court
panel refused to block a lower court order requiring the
move. [...]

The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his
death

Groundbreaking Columbia law school study sets out in
shocking detail the flaws that led to Carlos DeLuna's
execution in 1989

[For the full report, go to this url -- moderator:
http://www3.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/ltc/]

Ed Pilkington in New York

guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 23.00 EDT

'Los tocayos Carlos' - Hernandez and DeLuna looked so
alike that they were sometimes mistaken for twins.
Photographs: Corpus Christi police department/DeLuna
family/Hernandez family/Texas dept of criminal
justice/Corpus Christi Caller Times
A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices
on the US [...]

Older Workers Have Highest Long-Term Jobless Rate

By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO News
May 15, 2012

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Older-Workers-Have-Highest-Long-Term-Jobless-Rate

Older workers who lose their jobs have the highest rate
of long-term unemployment compared to any other age
group. In 2011, more than half of jobless workers, ages
50 years and older, were out of work for more than six
months. The trend continues this year. [...]

New York Cabbies Drive for Dignity

By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO News
May 15, 2012

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/New-York-Cabbies-Drive-for-Dignity

The 45,000 taxi cabs in New York City have been described as
the seventh-largest transportation system in the United
States-and at the AFL-CIO Innovators webpage, writer Robert
Struckman notes:

If you ask a driver, there's a good chance he or she will
tell you, "I'm a member of the National Taxi Workers
Alliance (NTWA)." [...]

Two Items on Greece

1.New Greek Elections Called as Left Holds Firm Against
Austerity Drive
2. Greece: Trying to Understand SYRIZA

1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1

New Greek Elections Called as Left Holds Firm Against
Austerity Drive

Coalition efforts fail to build consensus; financial markets
tremble as possible Euro exit looms

Common Dreams staff
Common Dreams
May 15, 2012 [...]

Tidbits and Announcements - May 15, 2012

* Breaking: Common Cause files historic filibuster challenge
* Re: Occupy Isn't About Electing Democrats--It's About
Exposing a Broken System (Ethan Young, David McReynolds,
Gordon Fitch)
* Re: Natural Selection Is Still With Us (Steve Lane, Lorna
Salzman)
* Re: The Reports of Dinosaurs Dying of Farts Are Greatly
Exaggerated (Thad Williamson)
* Nurses and Tom Morello Heal America, Tax Wall Street,
May 18 in Chicago.
* Re: Oregon Attorney General election (Jim Greig) [...]

Nurses Push Tax on Trades to Help Sick

By Sarah Anderson
Chicago Sun-Times
May 15, 2012

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/12452745-452/nurses-push-tax-on-trades-to-help-sick.html

Of all the street actions leading up to the NATO summit, the
one that might seem most perplexing is a nurses’ rally for a
tax on securities trades. Financial markets are pretty remote
from hospital bedsides, you might think.

Why would nurses get mixed up in an issue like that? [...]

No Country for Rich Men

From Manhattan to Monaco, the world's wealthiest people are
disconnecting into a class of stateless transients.

By Sam Pizzigati
OtherWords
May 14, 2012

http://www.otherwords.org/articles/no_country_for_rich_men

Back in 1863, a short story took the American reading public
by storm. Edward Everett Hale's The Man without a Country
told the tale of a poor treasonous soul sentenced to spend
the rest of his life endlessly sailing the world in perpetual
exile, as a prisoner aboard Navy warships. [...]

Occupy Isn't About Electing Democrats--It's About Exposing a Broken System

By Max Berger, AlterNet

May 14, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/155325/occupy_isn%27t_about_electing_democrats--it%27s_about_exposing_a_broken_system

As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall
Street, there have been people who've suggested it
should become the left's version of the Tea Party. Josh
Harkinson's piece is a notable contribution to the
conversation because it comes after eight months of
in-depth reporting on the movement. Harkinson, like
Jennifer Granholm, suggests that Occupy should recruit
and run candidates, so the left has champions in
Congress and can credibly threaten less ideologically
aligned Democrats. According to this logic, it [...]

More Unions Applaud Obama for Marriage Equality Stance

By Kenneth Quinnell
AFl-CIO News
May 12, 2012

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Other-News/More-Unions-Applaud-Obama-for-Marriage-Equality-Stance

This is a cross-post form Crooks and Liars

Thursday, I reported that several major labor unions
expressed support for Barack Obama's statement that he
supports the right of all Americans to marry,
regardless of their sexual orientation. More unions
expressed their support for the president and marriage
equality in a move that, as I pointed out yesterday, is
good for Obama, for unions and for LGBT Americans: [...]

DSA Statement on the European Elections

Democratic Socialist of America News From DDS May 14,
2012

http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/Statement_on_French_Elections.pdf

One week after Socialist Francois Hollande won the
election in France, this Sunday the Social Democrats
won almost 40% of the vote in the most populous state
in Germany. It is too soon to say what these results
(and the more complicated ones in Greece) will mean for
Europe, but DSA welcomes these signs of a potential
turning of the tide against the austerity politics of
the 1%. [...]

Some Good News, Lots of Bad News

Victor Grossman, Berlin

Bulletin No. 42, May 14, 2012

In a way, it’s a “good news” and “bad news“ angle. The
good news: the Christian Democratic Union of Angela
Merkel took a real whipping in the election in North
Rhine-Westphalia (usually abbreviated to NRW), the
largest German state in terms of population. Her
smiling, almost benign mien, with little bluster or
braggadocio, disguises less and less her tough advocacy
of austerity – a code word for overcoming deficits not
by hitting big banks and big biz, who caused the
calamity, but rather the [...]

Russia Today and the New Cultural Cold War

By Steve Horn

This article was published at Nationof Change
Monday May 14, 2012

http://www.nationofchange.org/russia-today-and-new-cultural-cold-war-1337002874.

For those frustrated with the sorry state of the U.S.
mainstream news media, Russia Today's RT America is a
nice diversion from the norm.

With punchy coverage on political and social topics of
great importance, be it the ongoing collapse of
American news networks, domestic drone use, the U.S.
covert war in Somalia, poverty and economic inequality,
Occupy Wall Street, among many other topics, some would
even go so far to claim that it is better than [...]

National Coalition Urges Congress to Consider
Sweeping Social Security Proposals for Women,
Caregivers and Same-Sex Couples
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO PRESERVE SOCIAL
SECURITY & MEDICARE
May 11, 2012
http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/ss_proposals_wrapup_release/

"The truth is -- as our nation ages and
retirement income continues to decline for
millions of Americans - Congress should be
talking about the adequacy of Social
Security's benefits not cutting them.
Congress should examine the inequities
that have created a poverty rate for
senior women and widows that is 50% higher
than other retirees 65 and older. We can
break this Social Security glass
ceiling...in fact, we must do [...]

Analysis of Proposed Illinois FY2013 General Fund
Budgets
Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
April, 2012
http://www.ctbaonline.org/New_Folder/Budget,%20Tax%20and%20Revenue/CTBA%20%20FY2013%20Proposed%20Budget%20Analysis_FINAL.pdf

[moderator: the full report, with accompanying
charts and graphs, may be found at the link above]

1. INTRODUCTION Many of the fiscal problems that
have plagued Illinois over the last decade remain
apparent in the FY2013 General Fund Budget
proposals that the Governor and Illinois House of
Representatives have put on the table. These
problems include a significant accumulated deficit
that, at a minimum, will be just over $7.7
billion, a failure to invest adequately in basic
core services like educating our children [...]

Debunking the Missile-Defense Myth
Yousaf Butt
The National Interest
May 7, 2012
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/debunking-the-missile-defense-myth-6889

[moderator: the Pentagon report may be found here:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA552472.pdf

A report by the Pentagon's own Defense Science
Board (DSB) has poured cold water on U.S. missile-
defense plans. It basically backs up what
independent scientists and engineers have been
saying for decades: a dedicated adversary easily
could defeat the planned system by using simple
decoy warheads and other countermeasures. So while
missile defense will create incentives for U.S.
adversaries and competitors to up their ballistic-
missile stockpiles, it won't provide any combat
capability to counteract these enlarged [...]

(1)
Why Is NATO Necessary?
The Editors
May 9, 2012
This article appeared in the May 28, 2012 edition
of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/article/167819/why-nato-necessary

For much of the post-cold war era, NATO has been a
military alliance in search of a reason to exist.
When ministers from the alliance's twenty-eight
member nations meet in Chicago in May, the
question Why NATO? will once again hang over the
proceedings. [...]

The Reports of Dinosaurs Dying of Farts Are
Greatly Exaggerated
by PZ Myers
Pharyngula
Posted on: May 7, 2012
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/the_reports_of_dinosaurs_dying.php

No, dinosaurs did not fart themselves to death.
This is what happens when you get your information
from Fox News.

Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to
extinction, according to a new study from
British scientists.

The researchers calculated that the
prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520
million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a
year -- enough to warm the planet and hasten
their own eventual demise. [...]