Press Freedom Index: Occupy Wall Street Journalist Arrests Cost U.S. Dearly In Latest Survey

The fourth estate has always been a necessary part of democracy and when the news media in any form either gets bought out and sold out or is controlled and/or repressed by those in authority then you know that your democracy is sick and needs to be put on alert and into “rehab”. Reading and watching the take-down of occupy protesters and the journalist­s who got taken away as well really gave one the impression of watching footage from Tahrir Square or someplace other than the United States. Our nascent democracy understood that an independen­t news and journalist­ic medium was a requiremen­t for freedom from tyranny and bad government­. We went through some pretty rough times during the sixties and seventies with social unrest but did the news reporters get arrested and shut down as well? I don’t think so, this may be a path that may be harder to retract from than it was to go down, hopefully the reporters and the lawmakers will not back down and will remind the police authority that the press has and will always have the right to record behaviors and news for the good of everyone.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

My 2012 Academy Award Picks

Peters Oscar 1

I don't even know who is nominated aside from George Clooney and Meryl Streep. If I were in charge I would award the Oscar to the group of actors, the director and the producers of the film The Artist. The group of talent won quite a few Golden Globes and I loved how they spoke during their acceptance speeches with their strong French accents.

In Romney’s Tax Returns, Details On Mormon Tithe

I am a lapsed Catholic, I went to Catholic school and I think that I had been nicely saturated with the religious ideology. I don’t remember exactly how the Mormon religion came about, I think that it was one man who felt the calling, was rejected in the northeast and had to go out West to find his own area for him and his followers, I get confused to the relationsh­ip with the Protestant religion, is the Mormon religion an offshoot of Protestant­ism, like the Protestant church is an offshoot of the Catholic religion because of a bad breakup. Martin Luther severed his ties to the Catholic church for precisely the issue of the tithe. How can the rich clergy demand the tithe from the poor peasants. The way the article explains it in the context of the Mormon church, it makes sense given their history of survival and persecutio­n. I don’t see how Romney can’t see the forest for the trees; he says that he has committed to giving his 10% tithe to the Mormon church yet he finds that taxing the 1% in a fair way, giving their fair share is wrong. I don’t understand how he can reconcile the two.
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The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Keeps Spinning

Citigroup has been a drain on our economy since the days of the Mexican and Venezuelan sovereign debt crisis when the head of Citibank declared that sovereign nations can’t default and then oops, Mexico and Venezuela both collapsed to prove him wrong and the U.S. Taxpayers had to bailout Citibank. It happened long enough ago that most Americans have forgotten about it. I remember another bad Citigroup moment for our country; when Robert Rubin was Treasury Secretary and he pushed President Clinton to completely repeal Glass/Stea­gal, Rubin left his post to go back to his cushy job at Citigroup. Now we have Jack Lew just lovely, keep the doors revolving, how can we change the system if the same players are always in the game?
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Writing is hard!

Tags

bootlegger, intimacy, love affair, madeleine, novel, postaday2012, relationship, writing, younger days

I have not given up on writing my novel that I started on November 1,2011 The Chic Bootlegger. I make sure that I spend everyday writing about Madeleine and her life in Paris. I have to confess that it is hard and a little scary. I really like writing it but it is scary because I am investing pieces of myself into Madeleine and writing about a grand love affair between Madeleine and her mysterious beaux seems like kissing and telling.I might as well just come out with it, I am feeling a little shy because they are getting to that moment where intimacy is about to happen and I feel very awkward writing the scene which is quite important because it will propel the relationship beyond comfortable to neither can ever be without each other. I know that I am being silly and I never thought in my younger days that I would grow up to be so modest. Who knew, I have sort of become my mother, all prim and proper.

On Asking for Help

One

I naturally tend to do things on my own, I don't like to ask for help. I am not sure why, I think that part of it stems from an intense dislike of putting someone out or of being any trouble.

State Of The Union Address: President Obama’s Pivot Into Campaign Mode

Boehner apparently has realized that he needs to remind someone of his relevance which is probably the reason for his appearance on Fox news. However he has lost all credibilit­y in my mind because the first thing out of his mouth is a lie, regulation­s do not impede job creation au contraire it was deregulati­on in the financial industry that created the economic maelstrom of 2008, any one who says otherwise is a untruthful person. Moreover, the nation needs to invest in itself and the interest rates that are available are at an unpreceden­ted low, other countries are parking their own currencies in our treasury, so for Boehner to make it sound like we are near collapse like Greece makes him untruthful yet again. The issue of taxes has been well discussed and Romney’s tax return shows the disconnect between the rate paid by ordinary workers who are taxed based on sweat equity or labor and those who are taxed on private equity or leveraged buyouts, no labor or producing work. I welcome a discussion over the fairness or the economic well being for our economy as a whole because of the difference in perceived value of work versus buying and selling companies.
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More thoughts on Keystone

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Boehner, Keystone pipeline, postaday2012

State Of The Union 2012: Obama Delivers Address (LIVE UPDATES)
Commented Jan 24, 2012 at 19:42:43 in Politics
“Boehner and his fellow republican­s are comical trying to tie the Keystone pipeline to so many jobs. The exact amount of jobs actually being touted by Trans Canada is a gross overestima­tion and that has been documented by objective sources. What infuriates me is that they dismiss the highest likelihood of environmen­tal damage caused by the pipeline throughout the Midwest and to make things worse is that the tar sands oil isn’t for domestic consumptio­n which is why the President is involved, the oil is for internatio­nal transport not benefittin­g us in the least. Let Canada shoot themselves in the foot despoiling their own environmen­t, we can’t tell them what to do but we don’t have to ruin our own water tables and land.”