Jonathon Brown | Feb 4

The Independent - Sarcastic letter to 19th-century plantation owner becomes an internet sensation

An extraordinary letter written by an emancipated slave to his former owner ridiculing his request for him to return to work on a Tennessee plantation after the Civil War has become an internet sensation.

More than two million people have already read the missive by Jourdon Anderson to "my old master" Colonel Patrick Hennessy Anderson since it appeared on the cult website LettersOfNote.com five days ago and became endlessly repeated on Twitter and Facebook.

It was written in 1865 with the help of a lawyer in Dayton, Ohio. In it, the illiterate former slave suggests he might consider returning south from his new home where he was being paid $25 a month should the Colonel – who twice tried to shoot him – consider reimbursing him and his wife for the three decades they toiled in the fields unpaid.

He points out: "In Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows" and suggests suitable recompense of $11,680 plus interest.

Shaun Usher, who has published historical correspondence on his website since 2009, said the letter had generated record traffic after being picked up by Yahoo to coincide with US Black History Month. He was satisfied the letter was genuine despite its sarcastic tone – it was published in newspapers and books and evidence of both men appears in American census documents.

But what really shines through is the searing intelligence of the former slave – just one of the descendants of 12 million Africans shipped to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries.

"He was certainly intelligent. I don't know how much was put in by the lawyer, but he seems like a refined and courageous man although he had an awful life," said Mr Usher. letter at link

Around here there is much consternation about why Obama hasn't started another war in Syria. No not a direct one but a Libyan NATO-style war. What's holding them up anyway?

Me, I figure that's it's just about oil. Or rather the lack thereof. But that's an easy armchair analysis. What I really want is something way more cynical. So a post in Counterpunch titled Cynicism Around Syria quickly grabbed my attention. And a subtitle of "Russia as Smokescreen" was more icing on the cake. It did not disappoint so I'm going to quote about a third here and mention that there are still additional good morsels in the rest.

Homs, Syria | February 4

Al Jazeera - At least 100 people have reportedly been killed in a major army offensive in the central Syrian city of Homs.

Activists talking to Al Jazeera in the early hours of Saturday said the army had used mortars and nail bombs in the assault on the Khaldiyeh neighbourhood.

The military was reportedly responding to attacks by army defectors in the area.

February 3

BBC - Alleged Wikileaks suspect Bradley Manning is to face a court martial, the US Army has confirmed.

Private Manning, 24, an intelligence analyst who served in Iraq, is alleged to have leaked US government cables to the whistle-blowing website.

...I think we can all (hopefully) get behind.

PS I work with Mayors Against Illegal Guns. And the ad is still funny :)

By now, you've no doubt heard about Facebook's IPO (intial public offering, or in lay parlance, going public.)

How big is this thing going to be? Well, put it this way: way back in the dim dark past of 2005, an artist was commissioned to paint a mural for the company headquarters.

Since Facebook hadn't even really become a national phenomenon beyond college campuses yet, CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered the artist, local graffititian David Choe, the ludicrous option of stock options instead of cash. Two-tenths of one percent of the available shares.

Those options could be worth $200 million at execution, meaning the company could be valued as high as $100 billion dollars.

As the media continues to run lurid stories about perfidious Persians in what Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress describes as a "coercive public diplomacy campaign", it's worth examining our basic assumptions again. Does Iran want a nuke in the first place, is there the political backing for a strike to prevent it doing so, how easy would such an attack be to execute and what would be the blowback?

Congressman Kucinich writes at the HuffPo today:

The headline number from the Unemployment Report this morning showed 243,000 jobs were created, more than the highest estimated increase by any of the economists surveyed before the report was released (the average expected increase from the economist survey was 120,00 jobs). The unemployment rate fell to 8.3%, again lower than predicted, and certainly good news for President Obama. Job growth was nearly across the board – in retail, construction, manufacturing, business services, and the hotel and restaurant industry. You can believe all this if you want, or you can go into the details in the report for some interesting context.

Some good news.

"We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives," a Komen statement said.

Nice to see that people power can still make a difference on occasion in this corporate oligarchy of ours.

Update Oops, not so fast. Greg Sargent and Sara Kliff are both skeptical about whether Komen's statement is anything more than a PR move.

Then there's this:

In addition to pulling funds from Planned Parenthood for The Susan G. Komen Foundation also decided to stop funding embryonic stem cell research centers making it fully transparent the organization has evolved from non-political non-profit to a partisan advocacy organization.

That means the loss of $3.75 million to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, $4.5 million to the University of Kansas Medical Center, $1 million to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, $1 million to the Society for Women’s Health Research, and $600,000 to Yale University. That’s a loss of nearly $12 million dollars in research money to eradicate breast cancer this year alone.

I hate when my optimism, scarce as it is, is so misplaced.

As the years-long drought in Texas subsides, I feel this would be a good time to remind everyone that water is not only precious, but scarce.

Indeed, Africa is seeing some of the worst droughts in recorded history. Drought doesn't only affect humanity, afflicting us with thirst, famine, and war, but wildlife too. And while the famine in Somalia (not directly water-related, but...) has been declared "over", countries like Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone face dismal prospects for the near future.

An Internet meme of which I am not aware.

Would one of you commentariat please be so kind as to enlighten me to this new trope?

TIA

David Brown | Washington | February 2

WaPo - The number of people who die annually of malaria is roughly double the current estimate, with a huge overlooked death toll in adults who, according to conventional teaching, rarely die of the tropical disease. That’s the conclusion of a new study that, if widely accepted, could affect billions of dollars of charitable spending and foreign aid in the developing world. The new estimate is likely to spur increased competition for global health spending, which has stalled in the economic downturn.

The report, published in the Lancet, describes malaria as a problem not only far bigger than thought `but also declining rapidly because of better prevention and treatment.

The aftermath is never as full of rose petals and candy as neo-whatever advocates of the intervention told us it would be.

(Tripoli) - A Libyan diplomat who served as ambassador to France died less than 24 hours after he was detained by a Tripoli-based militia from the town of Zintan, Human Rights Watch said today. Dr. Omar Brebesh, who was detained on January 19, 2012, appears to have died from torture.

A preliminary autopsy report viewed by Human Rights Watch said the cause of death included multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs. Photos of Brebesh's body, seen by Human Rights Watch, show welts, cuts, and the apparent removal of toenails, indicating that he was tortured prior to death. Human Rights Watch also read a report by the judicial police in Tripoli, which said that Brebesh had died from torture and that an unnamed suspect had confessed to killing him.

Quiet admiration for a gentle boy.

Alternet, By Thomas Frank, February 1

After a brutal recession was brought on by Wall Street greed, it looked for a moment like we'd rejected the Right's economic mythology. Then the "Tea Party" came along.

An appropriate metaphor for the conservative revival is the classic switcheroo, with one fear replacing another, theoretical emergencies substituting for authentic ones, and a new villain shuffling onstage to absorb the brickbats meant for another. The conservative renaissance rewrites history according to the political demands of the moment, generates thick smokescreens of deliberate bewilderment, grabs for itself the nobility of the common toiler, and projects onto its rivals the arrogance of the aristocrat. Nor is this constant redirection of public ire a characteristic the movement developed as it went along; it was present at the creation. Indeed, redirection was the creation.

Declan Walsh | Islamabad | Feb 2

NYT - The simmering crisis between Pakistan’s government and judiciary flared dramatically on Thursday when the Supreme Court announced it would pursue contempt charges against the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, for failing to reopen a corruption investigation into the finances of his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari.

The Supreme Court said it would start proceedings for contempt of court against Mr. Gilani on Feb. 13. If convicted, he faces up to six months in jail and possible disqualification from public office.

The court order was a significant escalation of long-simmering tensions between the judiciary and the government and threatened to plunge the country into fresh political turmoil as its leaders debated the contours of a new strategic relationship with the United States.

Since 2009, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has insisted that the government write a letter to the authorities in Switzerland, asking them to reopen a corruption investigation against Mr. Zardari that stretches back to the 1990s and involves his finances in that country.

The government has responded with stalling tactics, using various ruses to dodge the order in court, while in public it has contended that Mr. Zardari enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office.

But the court’s forbearance ended last month when it ordered Mr. Gilani to appear before it under threat of contempt charges. Amid dramatic scenes, Mr. Gilani turned up on Jan. 19, flanked by supporters, and he was represented by Aitzaz Ahsan, one of the country’s most famous lawyers.
...

“It seems like the court has run out of patience,” said Cyril Almeida, a political columnist with Dawn, a leading English-language newspaper. “It’s in a mood to wrap this up quickly — either to ensure the government writes the letter, or let the gallows come crashing down on Gilani’s premiership.”

I missed this at the time, but it's too good not to share.

Last week, Sir Richard Branson, high-profile head of the Virgin Group, told a select group of senior British lawmakers that drugs should be legalized.

Branson began, naturally, with cannabis. He insisted that the decriminalisation, regulation and taxation of the drug libertarians have traditionally seen as a start-point for reform would reap widespread rewards for society as a whole. Responsibility for drugs policy should shift from the Home Office to the Department of Health, he argued, quite compellingly enquiring of his inquisitors whether, upon finding out that their own son or daughter had a drug problem, would they rather seek medical help or be having to deal with the police? Tellingly, they offered no answer. In Portugal, where even heroin addicts are hospitalised rather than arrested, drug use has fallen by 50% as a result of legalisation. Each year some 75,000 young Britons have their futures ruined by receiving criminal records for minor drugs offences. Treating drug users as patients rather than criminals would be an important first step to a more effective drugs policy.

Emanuel Stoakes | Jan 29

Truthout - The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed to comment on military activity during the island nation's bloody civil war.

The source, whose name is withheld for reasons of safety, had high-level security clearance and access to the flow of orders during the final days of the conflict. He made the assertions in legally binding testimony to a US lawyer in New York in 2010, recorded in an affidavit seen by Truthout.

His statements hold particular significance because they appear to corroborate claims made in reports by prominent human rights organizations, international media and a report for the United Nations by a panel of experts published in 2011. The allegations also closely corroborate the accounts of other members of the Sri Lankan Army during the civil war.

It is believed that representatives of the United States State Department have spoken to the source and hold a rich collection of testimonies and other evidence regarding alleged crimes committed during the civil war.

The most explosive claims have meaningful implications in terms of international law, given that they contribute to a body of evidence that places the command responsibility for alleged war crimes at the feet of key figures in Sri Lanka's civilian leadership.

@MikeBloomberg tweets:

Politics has no place in health care. Join me in standing with #PlannedParenthood: http://bit.ly/y2HHjl

The post on his own website he links there says "Mike Bloomberg will match every donation to the Planned Parenthood Breast Health Fund dollar-for-dollar up to $250,000."

Nice one.

A good backgrounder on the Komen Foundation/Planned Parenthood controversy is here.

There's a rather large "feetsball" game, as Tom Swift called it* on Sunday or so I'm informed.

Allow me to save you four hours of rooting and drinking. Here's the best commercial of the evening.

Right? The entire show is about who paid their $3.7 million and got the biggest bang of the night?

*Mega street cred points to anyone who works out the origin of that.

Romney charges that the Obama administration's announcement of a 2013 end to combat missions in Afghanistan and 2014 pull-out date "makes absolutely no sense."

One of the few moderate, sane Republicans left, James Joyner, responds:

Critics who worry that this announcement of a withdrawal severely undercuts our negotiating position with the Taliban are surely correct. They can easily bide their time now that they have a date certain.

So how can a decision that undermines our allies and our own negotiating power nonetheless be the right one? Because the alternative is to continue getting people killed -- not to mention inadvertently killing innocents -- in a fight we can't win.

I wonder why the UN is dragging its feet here.

I'm trying to think of a sovereign leader who, in the face of international pressure of the nature that Assad faces and without the support of his own people, has stayed in power for very long.

Qaddafi certainly had the grudging support of the Libyan people until he unmasked as the monster that he was. Hussein had to only deal with "No Fly" zones for much of his tenure.

Anyone else?

Losers endorse losers.

Now, no one was surprised by Trump's endorsement of Gingrich, for a few reasons: a) Like Trump, Gingrich has been divorced and married multiple times and committed adultery with his current wife while married to another, 2) Gingrich wants to drop the capital gains rate to zero, which benefits a real estate typhoon...pardon me, tycoon...like Trump and c) they're both colostomy bags of the highest order.

TP Green notes that Mitt Romney is climbing aboard the denialist crazy train in his search for GOP primary votes, attacking Gingrich in a public email for appearing in a 2008 ad for Al Gore's climate campaign.

Romney’s campaign spokesman Ryan Williams bashed Gingrich as being part of the “Soros agenda” for the advertisement:

"It is interesting to see the latest attack from Speaker Gingrich and his disintegrating campaign. Unlike Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney never sat next to Nancy Pelosi in an ad funded by George Soros on behalf of Al Gore’s global warming initiative. As recently as 2008, the Soros agenda had no better friend than Newt Gingrich. Nice try, Mr. Speaker."

For most of the world, anthropogenic climate change is settled science.

Yaakov Katz | Jerusalem, Israel | February 2

Jerusalem Post - US secretary of defense is concerned Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters so-called "immunity zone" when military strike won't bust Iran's nuclear facilities, 'Washington Post' reports.

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed.