sent 5/24/2018 "Dem operatives craft Trump-Mueller message for 2018 elections"

"Dem operatives craft Trump-Mueller message for 2018 elections," by Alex Roarty, McClatchy, May 23, 2018

Apparently most people are not aware of the fact that the investigation has led to 22 indictments so far.  Apparently most people think that nothing has been found.  There is more in the article, but the best thing to do seems to be to inform people about the fact that the investigation has in fact yielded big results so far.

love to you and your family,

Larry

sent 5/24/2018 ‘Savagely funny and bitingly honest’ – 13 writers on their favourite Philip Roth novels

"‘Savagely funny and bitingly honest’ – 13 writers on their favourite Philip Roth novels," by Arifa Akbar, David Baddiel, Hannah Beckerman William Boyd, Peter Bradshaw, Emma Brockes, Xan Brooks, Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Linda Grant, Joyce Carol Oates, Alex Ross Perry and James Schamus, The Guardian, May 23, 2018.
One of America’s greatest novelists, Philip Roth died this week, aged 85. From 1959’s Goodbye, Columbus to 2010’s Nemesis, 13 acclaimed writers including William Boyd, David Baddiel, Linda Grant and Joyce Carol Oates pick their favourite work

I remember some of his work.  He is worth remembering. May he rest in peace.

love to you and your family,

Larry

sent 5/23/2018 big mouthfuls from Dr. David Romei, PhD.

Boy is this guy Dr. David Romei, Phd. (twitter link) wonderful!  He has collected and summarized and picturized much news, one thing after another, with links.  Not to feature it exclusively, but you might want to note the link to another thread under a picture of Betsy DeVos.  Yes she is still a serious embarrassment but perhaps not quite as much as is Trump.  Betsy Devos and Scott Pruitt compete on that parameter, the embarrassment to our country parameter.

I do not have a Twitter account, but nonetheless I am able to view this (repeat link), thankfully.

love to you and your family,

Larry

sent 5/22/2018 "Israel Continues Aggression Against Syria While Playing the Victim" plus "History Shows Hypocrisy of US Outrage Over Chemical Weapons in Syria"

"Israel Continues Aggression Against Syria While Playing the Victim," by Zak Witus, Truthout, May 21, 2018
Israel has been trying for years to get control of the land of Syria.  So far Israel controls only parts of Syria.  Israel has huge military power.  The only thing that has held Israel back from an all-out invasion is a desire on the part of Israel and the United States to avoid war with Russia.

"History Shows Hypocrisy of US Outrage Over Chemical Weapons in Syria," by Stephen Zunes (Wikipedia link), Truthout, April 24, 2018
The United States has a history of supporting the use of chemical weapons, even against civilians, when doing so has suited its purpose.  And just never mind that U.S. drone warfare has killed large numbers of civilians.

love to you and your family,
Larry

sent 5/22/2018 The story of the boy scout Ambassador to Panama quitting the Trump administration

"The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration," by Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, May 28, 2018 issue  For John Feeley, the Ambassador to Panama, moral failings at home seemed to compound tactical failings abroad. "His values are not my values," John Feeley said, of Trump.  He quit this March.

This is another very sad story, of course.  The details are rather fascinating.  They include changes in the relations and attitudes between the United States and Panama and between the United States and Mexico that will take a long time to restore if they can ever be restored. 

There is also news about the decimation of the State Department, some of which is familiar.

You can read the article or listen to it.  The audio is 42min17sec.

love to you and your family,
Larry

sent 5/21/2018 Daddy's little ghoul--Ivanka Trump smiles

As for the Daily News picture down toward the bottom of this message, I struggle not to hate Trump or his family. So perhaps you can appreciate the picture without hating.

"In Jerusalem, Christian Zionists Seal the Deal With Netanyahu," by Bill Berkowitz, Truthout, May 18, 2018

"Israeli Forces Kill 58 In Gaza Clashes As US Embassy Opens In Jerusalem," by George Bowden and Reuters, Huffpost UK, May 14, 2018 updated May 15, 2018

"While Many US Outlets Equivocate on Israel's Massacre of Unarmed Palestinians, The Onion's Piercing Satire Destroys IDF Talking Points and War Crime Apologists," by Jon Queally, staff writer, Common Dreams, May 16, 2017
Scroll down for links to the headlines at The Onion:
"IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child"
"Netanyahu Announces Day Of Mourning For Fence Damaged In Yesterday’s Conflict"

"As World Condemns 'Appalling' Crimes, US Defends Israeli Massacre in Gaza and Blocks Call for UN Probe," by Jake Johnson, staff writer, Common Dreams, May 15, 2018
In contrast to White House refusal to condemn Israel, the U.N. Human Rights Council denounced the massacre and slammed Israel for repeatedly violating international law

"Donald Trump cares more about re-election than the lives and rights of Palestinians," by Andrew Buncombe, Independent UK, May 15, 2018
This week, as the US controversially moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and scores of Palestinian protesters were shot dead by Israeli snipers, the evangelicals received their reward.  It's about the end of the world, the rapture, coming.




love to you and your family,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
sent 2/22/15 my motive
sent 4/19/2018 The BEST song: "O, America" (YouTube)
 Fast national and world news review: https://www.commondreams.org/news
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; get over fear.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.
"Lead with your ears, follow with your tongue, let anger trail behind"--Reverend Ryan Henderson September 18, 2016
"Life isn't fair.  That is not the problem.  The problem for some is that they think that life should be fair." [link]
PLEASE REMEMBER the reading list that is contained in part-two-at-the-top in sent 11/18/2016 Action organizations that might represent one or more of your primary concern(s); (29 min video) President-Elect Trump: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) and
sent 12/14/16 Keep Your Spirits Up: You Can’t Resist Trump When You’re Tired and Sad" + 3 more from Yes!

sent 5/16/2018 major, detailed: "Draining the swamp" means getting rid of law and order: "Trump vs. the 'Deep State'"

"Trump vs. the 'Deep State,'" by Evan Osnos (Wikipedia link), The New Yorker, May 21, 2018 issue

The "deep state" is people like the employees of the Civil Service (Wikipedia link).  Traditionally they have considered their service to be to law and order rather than to a political party.  Trump is trying to mess them up to gain control for his own destabilizing purposes.  The great article includes many details of that and goes on.  It is not good thing, but we do need to know what is going on.  There are various ways that we can respond.

Included part way down is an interesting video of an interview with former FBI Director James Comey concerning his "infamous dinner" with Trump.

-------------------------------------------

This came to me via David Pell of NextDraft.  Again I recommend signing up for his news summary emails.  The short introductions he gives are great introductions to news items from all over.  His emails come five days a week except when he is away with his family or some such.  You can see the latest issue here (link).  The NextDraft archive is here (link).

love to you and your family,
Larry

sent 5/13/2018 New book plus Interview with Ronan Farrow "Woody, Weinstein and me"

Interview with Ronan Farrow May 13, 2018 "Woody, Weinstein and me"
Ronan Farrow, the son of Mia and Woody Allen, is the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist whose exposé triggered #MeToo. Now, he has written an acclaimed book on waning US diplomatic influence – and he’s still only 30.

The interview itself is quite fascinating, especially if you remember movie director Woody Allen and/or actress Mia Farrow.  But Ronan Farrow alone is a brilliant and fascinating man.

The new book is War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow (April 2018).

I have not read the book and so am not recommending it personally.  You might want to read the reviews at Amazon.
------------------------------------
This is one review that I found very interesting.  Note that the author of this review is criticizing the book, not just repeating what is in it.  I have emphasized one paragraph in particular.  A reply to this comment suggested that we need both diplomacy and warmongering, not just diplomacy alone.  Me I would like to try stopping the warmongering and leave diplomacy and a more isolationist type of self-defense even though I know that won't happen.

Four star review of book: The Decline and Fall of the State Department
By David Swanson on April 24, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Ronan Farrow's book War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence recounts episodes from the Obama-Trump militarization of U.S. foreign policy. While the book begins with and has been marketed with the story of Trump firing lots of key diplomats and leaving positions unfilled, much of its content is from the pre-Trump, Obama-era and even Bush-era erosion of diplomacy as something distinct from war and weapons sales.

The distinction between employing diplomats whose opinions are allowed to matter only when they agree with the Pentagon and not employing them at all is not as sharp a distinction as people may imagine. As with the distinction between drones that fire on unknown people when some poor schmuck is ordered to push a button and drones that decide when to fire all on their own, the question of whether or not you have diplomats sounds dramatic but can make little actual difference on the ground.

Farrow might partially agree with my assessment, but he writes as someone who believes that the United States responds to North Korean threats, rather than the reverse, and works nobly to "contain" Iranian pursuits of "regional hegemony," rather than strives for global hegemony at all costs.

While Obama was president, the State Department helped break all records for weapons sales, the United States bombed several countries, the U.S. and NATO destroyed Libya, drone wars came into their own with catastrophic results, serious action on the earth's climate was carefully sabotaged, and the U.S. military expanded into much of Africa and Asia. The crowning achievement called the Iran Nuclear Agreement was not some sort of advance in human rights, peace, justice, or cooperation. Rather, it was the unnecessary and pointless product of U.S. propaganda creating a false threat from Iran, belief in which may outlast the agreement.[emphasis added--LS]

A large chunk of Farrow's book is a portrait of Richard Holbrooke as a power-mad schemer but frustrated advocate for non-militarized diplomacy. This is the same Richard Holbrooke, I had to remind myself, who publicly told Congress that the State Department's job in Afghanistan was to support the military. This is the same guy who claimed that if the United States ended the war, the Taliban would work with al Qaeda which would endanger the United States -- while at the same time admitting that al Qaeda had virtually no presence in Afghanistan, that the Taliban would be unlikely to work with al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda could plan crimes from anywhere in the world, there being nothing special about Afghan air for that purpose.

Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing in 2010, the year he died, what in the world he was doing and toward what end in Afghanistan, Holbrooke repeatedly failed to produce an answer. That could explain his deathbed conversion and his final words to his surgeon: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." As if his doctor could do what he refused to play any role in, or at least failed to play any role in. It's hard to picture Holbrooke as struggling for peace when we recall that this is the very same man who in 1999 intentionally raised demands to include what Serbia would never accept, so that NATO could begin bombing.

The least we can say is that Holbrooke was employed as a diplomat, a job that can sometimes involve choosing peace instead of war. And nobody replaced him. So, we now have to expect peace out of people employed to wage war.

But the notion that the State Department is now engaged in or was until recently even partially engaged in pursuing peace is difficult to swallow because no account of life inside the State Department can compare with our encounter with that life itself as it was slipped to us through WikiLeaks in the form of all those cables.

It's interesting, for sure, to read about the frustrations of those who want to actually provide humanitarian aid but whose intended recipients need to not be publicly associated with the United States due to its unpopularity. But the need to kiss up to the war makers is something we've seen in public. And the State Department cables reveal an institution dripping with contempt for humanity, democracy, peace, justice, and the rule of law.

The solution is not, I think, to shout "good riddance!" and dance on the grave of diplomacy. Though it is to get out of the way and allow the two Koreas, and numerous other partners, to engage in it unmolested. In the end, what we need is to recognize diplomacy as something incompatible with war mongering and to choose the former over the latter.

My question in my message just previous received a ninth response since I sent you the link, one that I think is quite good, from Hans Mulders.  To see it, scroll down.  If some of your realistic forecasts for the future are gloomy, do you think sharing those realistic gloomy forecasts with your children is a good thing to do for the sake of providing them with your best adult guidance?

love to you and your family,

Larry

sent 5/9/2018 Thoughts on children and reality

Yesterday I asked a new question on Quora, assigning topics related to parenting.  So far the question has received 975 views, according to Quora.  I do not know what counts as a "view" except that it does not count the same person twice.  "If some of your realistic forecasts for the future are gloomy, do you think sharing those realistic gloomy forecasts with your children is a good thing to do for the sake of providing them with your best adult guidance?"

Nine people have answered so far, all but one of them previously unknown to me.  So far those individual answers have been viewed between 7 and 116 times each.

You might be interested.  There are no comments, just some upvotes.  Upvotes are the same as "likes."  So there may not be a reason for you to log in.

If it should chance that you are inspired to provide your own answer to the question, that is easy enough to do once you have set up a minimal "profile."  I am being notified of answers as they happen, so I would see yours.  This time I have no plan to write an answer myself.

As always, you are invited to reply to this message.  I might or might not share whatever you you say.  If I did share your words then I would make you anonymous.

love to you and your family,

Larry