Eternity News Now

Max Eternity - Noted African-American journalist, Bob Herbert, writes today in The New York Times; pointing out what he calls "the most disappointing aspects...of the Obama administration." Herbert sheds light on many issues that other journalist have already pointed out, including Glenn Greenwald @ Salon.com. However, because Herbert is Black--being a very passionate support er of Obama, I think his criticisms sound louder and resonate deeper.

Obama is the nations first Black president and though I am a supporter of President Obama, I have already felt the sting of what happens when you cricize him in the presence of his supporters. It's as if, without saying it, we've decided that Obama must be a success, a huge success at any cost, even if it means spending half our time turning a blind eye.

But I'm not willing to do that, because it's not right and in the end, coddling the President will only serve to hurt us all. We should have already learned that l…

By Jeff Stein | June 22, 2009 7:45 PM

CQ Politics - He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials. Read more.

By Barry Ritholtz - June 18th, 2009, 7:00AM

It is exceedingly difficult to convey exactly how much we are spending on all these bailouts. Whenever I start talking trillions (versus mere billions), I get puzzled looks from people. Humans have a hard time conceptualizing any number that large. I wanted a graphic way to clearly show how astonishingly ginormous the amounts involved were.
It is nothing short of astonishing. It includes the total outlay for all the bailouts to date. In just about one short year (March 2008 - March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in excess of nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including WW1&2 (omitted from graphic), the moon shot, the New Deal, total NASA budgets (omitted from graphic), Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED. 206 years versus 12 months. Total cost: ~$15 trillion and counting . . .
Read more.

Allison Kilkenney - the figure of Iraqi civilians who have been killed during the US-led invasion and occupation may be as high as 1.3 million, according to justforeignpolicy.org. — The recent outpouring of support from Americans for Iranian citizens ranges from the sincere to the premeditated. For every post of Twitterific solidarity from a well-intentioned American, there is a wily Jonah Goldberg spouting empty platitudes about needing to preserve freedom by _____ (we can only assume invading Iran.) Everyone seems outraged that an authoritarian power would dare to steal an election, though Americans seemed widely unconcerned when this happened in Azerbaijan in 2003 and Egypt in 2006. There was also little outrage from Americans when police beat citizens in Agri/Kurdistan as they tried to protest election results:
In fact, if one searches the database over at Human Rights Watch for “election fraud,” page after page of reportedly stolen elections comes up. But the citizens of Kenya, Nige…

Glenn Greenwald - Anyone who believes that NPR is a "liberal" media outlet -- and anyone who wants to understand the decay of American journalism -- should read this column by NPR's Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, as she explains and justifies why NPR bars the use of the word "torture" to describe what the Bush administration did. Responding to what she calls "a slew of emails challenging NPR's policy of using the words 'harsh interrogation tactics' or 'enhanced interrogation techniques' to describe the treatment of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration," Shepard hauls out every trite and misleading bit of journalistic conventional wisdom to dismiss listeners' concerns and defend NPR's Orwellian practice (as I noted recently when writing about TheNew York Times' refusal to use the word "torture," NPR's compulsive use of Bush euphemism has been a constant complaint of the excellent blog NPR Check)…

Most of the Sioux's land has been taken, and what remains has been laid waste by radioactive pollution. (Photo: Library of Congress)***
truthout - The Fort Laramie Treaty once guaranteed the Sioux Nation the right to a large area of their original land, which spanned several states and included their sacred Black Hills, where they were to have "the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the land. Read more.

Quotes from Chris Hedges most recent Truthdig article:


"The fundamental problem in the Middle East is not a degenerate and corrupt Islam. The fundamental problem is a degenerate and corrupt Christendom"

"We have not brought freedom and democracy and enlightenment to the Muslim world. We have brought the opposite."

"Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught"

"We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the region is submissive and cowed"

"The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country"

"Where were we when our election was stolen from us in 2000 by Republican operatives and a Supreme Court that overturned all legal precedent to anoint G…

Email Picture
The Ennis House in Los Feliz was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Image - John Vincenti

The 1924 Ennis House, heavily damaged in the Northridge quake and by rains, is being offered for $15 million. It's the largest of the architect's experimental 'textile block' houses. Frank Lloyd Wright home in Los Feliz is for sale to the right buyer

By Martha Groves
12:40 AM PDT, June 19, 2009

L.A. Times - Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House, a Los Feliz hilltop masterpiece composed of patterned and smooth concrete blocks that has been mightily threatened by man and Mother Nature, is being offered for sale at $15 million by the private foundation that has been restoring it.

Eric Lloyd Wright, the architect's grandson and a member of the nonprofit Ennis House Foundation's board, said that, given harsh economic realities, private ownership would be the best way to save the house and honor his grandfather's intentions. Read more.

Barak Obama, we love him because he's playful and friendly. I should know, I voted for him. But in each passing day, policy wise, it seems more and more that our intelligently charming President Obama is morphing into our deceptively charming pResident Bush. What's this all about?




In stark legal turnaround, Obama now resembles Bush

By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.

"It's putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it's so at odds with Obama's campaign commitment to more open govern…

Glenn Greenwald @ Salon - The Washington Post's firing of Dan Froomkin reveals much about the modern establishment media. Froomkin was one of the very few journalists working for an establishment outlet who understood and practiced the function of journalism. That is why he had a history of tension with the Post. Froomkin is everything that a political journalist is supposed to be -- and everything that most of them are not. That's why he was an aberration -- and, to them, an unpleasant one. Just look at the record. Read more.

Friday, 19 June 2009
Khamenei warns of protest crackdownBy Ali Akbar Dareini and Nasser Karimi, Associated Press
Independent UK - Iran's supreme leader said today that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sided with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and offered no concessions to the opposition. He effectively closed any chance for a new vote by calling the 12 June election an "absolute victory." Read more.

Max Eternity - Two years ago Brian Ross of ABC broke a story about the U.S. Government's C.I.A. plan to destabilize the soveriegn nation of Iran. It was a plan designed to take a propagandist approach to flooding the media with mis-information, while also attacking the country's currency. The United States has a very long and sorted history of interfering with Middle Eastern affairs, in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and Palestine. In an imperial quest exercised over the last 8 years, the U.S. has spent over $1,000,000,000,000.00 occupying Iraq. Now it seems we've grown restless, and are looking for new red meat. All eyes on Iran. A week ago, an election was held in Iran, which found the American supported candidate losing. Now interestingly, the nation has become destabilized, with a mis-informed American public, Obama and Bush supporters alike, acting out what the C.I.A. had mapped out since 2007. For Western imperialists interest, the timing couldn't b…

MaxEternity - From age 12 when I first discovered GQ magazine, there are certain things I will never forget. I will ever forget the stunning images of Iman. I will never forget Willie Wear. I will never forget Andy Warhol's Absolute Vodka illustration. I will never forget San Francisco's I. Magnin and I will never forget New York's Charivari Boutiques; the pinnacle of cutting-edge fashion and sophistication.

GQ has long since lost it's flavor, preferring celebrity to fashion. And alas ,it seems that all good things must come to an end.


- Supermodel and wife of David Bowie, Iman -


Now, Iman -- married to David Bowie -- still looks as sculpted as ever, but Willie Wear is gone, Warhol has passed, I. Magnin is closed and now Selma Weisner, the founder of Charivari Botiques, has just crossed over as well.

God bless you Selma, and Charivari, I miss you too!


***



Selma Weiser, Boutique Innovator, Dies at 84

By BRUCE WEBER Published: June 16, 2009 New York Times - Selma Weiser, w…

Published on Thursday, June 18, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Daring Dragline Protest Launches 7 Days That Will Shake Mountaintop Removal Operations


- Mountaintop removal in Martin County, Kentucky -


by Jeff Biggers


Four daring protestors accomplished something today that no high ranking member in the Obama administration involved in the recent mountaintop removal mining policy decisions has ever bothered to do: These four American patriots made an actual visit to a mountaintop removal site.

They also went beyond the call of duty.

Scaling a towering 20-story dragline (those behemoth stripmining machines that could rip up a Manhattan block in a New York minute) and then unfolding a 15 x 150 foot banner at the Twilight mountaintop removal strip mine in Boone County, West Virginia, they also unveiled a simple message on how the EPA, the Department of Interior and the Council on Environmental Quality can best enforce the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws:

JUST STOP MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL

Read…

News Junkie Post - The CIA destroyed videotapes that showed its agents subjecting high-level al-Qaeda detainees to waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods after the agency’s inspector general issued a classified report in the spring of 2004 that concluded the techniques used on the prisoners “appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture.” Read more.

Every man-made fiber we wear, sit on, cook with, drive in, are by-products of the petroleum industry -- all of which could be replaced by hemp.


- Industrial Hemp -


By Dara Colwell, AlterNet.
Posted June 18, 2009
AlterNet - As the recession renews interest in the growing hemp marketplace as a potential boon for the green economy -- even Fox Business News has touted it -- hemp is becoming impossible to ignore.But the plant's potential extends far beyond consumer-generated greenbacks. A low-input, low-impact crop, industrial hemp can play a significant role in our desperate shuffle to avoid catastrophic climate change."In terms of sustainability, there are numerous reasons to grow hemp," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial-hemp advocacy group.Goggin launches into its environmental benefits: Hemp requires no pesticides; it has deep digging roots that detoxify the soil, making it an ideal rotation crop -…

Carter wants Hamas off US terror list
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:44:07 GMT



Press TV - Former US President Jimmy Carter has advised the Obama administration against keeping the Hamas resistance movement on its list of terror organizations.

Carter, who was in the Gaza Strip to meet rulers of the area, says he will meet with officials in the Obama administration in two days to discuss his latest trip to the Middle East.

Hamas, whose main objective is Palestinian statehood, has long been branded by the European Union and the United States as a terrorist group and is under boycott for its refusal to recognize Israel.

During an interview with Fox News, Carter said Israel must stop treating Palestinians "like animals." Read more.

Max Eternity - While America has its attentions once again focused on an Arabic nation, -- for the moment being Iran, -- under the auspices of President Obama the federal treasury has been plundered once again, funding the occupation of Iraq; a place that some have begun referring to as the 51st State. On the the 2 year campaign trail, before becoming president, then Senator Obama promised the Americans and the Iraqi's that he would immeadiately end the war and occupation of Iraq; this very fact being the centerpiece of his entire platform. But now, just 6 months into his White house role, Obama's reversed course on this issue, and quite frankly, he's reversed course on lots of other issues too.

Many, like myself, voted for Obama, because we were willing to give him the benefit of doubt. But with the sketchy track record that he's already established, it's starting to appear that he might just be another sweet talking politician, you never had our interest in h…

Max Eternity - While most of the mainstream press, including The Huffington Post, continue to perpetuate the notion that the voice of the Iranian people has not been heard -- that vote fraud has just taken place in the latest Presidential election, which saw President Ahmadinejad re-elected in a landslide -- there are still a few voices in the press, stating otherwise. The hype is loud and clear, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election. But is that really the truth, or is it what the Western interests wants the world to believe?

Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran


By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009

Washington Post - The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin…

Generative Flowers II from Don Relyea on Vimeo.***

Having just returned from Florida's Digital Graffiti festival,
artist Don Relyea gives AD Mag the full report.

***

- website -

- Jun Kaneko's Untitled. 9.5' Head. 2007 -

Hemp is a sustainable solution for the economy and environment.
America needs hemp...now!

This summer there's a whole crop of food related films being released. Good Magazine has a feature piece about this on their website. Once there, film trailers and previews are available to watch and download. Click here to read more.

In our troubled economy, with environmental concerns growing every day, perhaps it's time for America to look to hemp; a plant we once relied upon -- a plant that can change the world.

The biodegradable hemp plant is non-toxic, and can be used for fuel, clothing, textiles, cosmetics, paper and building materials. It also makes a wonderful substitute for plastics, with one company in particular, ZEO International, already at the forefront of developing this sector in manufacturing.

Hemp also has medicinal qualities.

A natural alternative to toxic petrochemicals, hemp is a hearty plant that is easily grown and harvested. It should also be mentioned that George Washington Carver, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were all proponents of hemp. So along with solar and wind, now is the time to reconsider hemp. Because, if we are ever tobecome truly energy independent, we must be willing to logically embrace every available natural resource within our reach.

Incorporating the hemp plant into the …

Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks

By MICHAEL POWELL
Published: June 6, 2009

“They referred to subprime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as ‘those people have bad credit’, ‘those people don’t pay their bills’ and ‘mud people.’

- Tony Paschal, Wells Fargo
New York Times - As she describes it, Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank “rode the stagecoach from hell” for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages.These loans, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services. Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed …

"In the world we want, the organization of economic life mimics healthy ecosystems that are locally rooted, highly adaptive, and self-reliant in food ad energy. Information and technology are shared freely, and trade between neighbors is fair and balanced." ***
Published on Saturday, June 6, 2009 by YES! Magazine
Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy

by David Korten
Wall Street is bankrupt. Instead of trying to save it, we can build a new economy that puts money and business in the service of people and the planet-not the other way around. Whether it was divine providence or just good luck, we should give thanks that financial collapse hit us before the worst of global warming and peak oil. As challenging as the economic meltdown may be, it buys time to build a new economy that serves life rather than money. It lays bare the fact that the existing financial system has brought our way of life and the natural systems on which we depend to the brink of collap…

"We are on a dangerous path to a militarized society" - Nan Grogan Orrock, Georgia State Representative

Atlanta BeltLine Inc. (ABI), an affiliate of the Atlanta Development Authority, is the entity tasked with planning and executing the implementation of the BeltLine in partnership with the BeltLine team including City of Atlanta Departments. Its functions include specifically defining the BeltLine plan; leading efforts to secure federal, state and local funding; continuing the BeltLine community engagement process; and serving as the overall project management office to execute the BeltLine plan, including the coordination of planning and execution activities with other City of Atlanta departments and managing all vendors and suppliers. Atlanta BeltLine Inc. is also responsible for tracking and reporting progress on the BeltLine to the Atlanta City Council, AtlantaPublic Schools and FultonCounty, the three taxing authorities that authorized the BeltLine TAD legislation in 2005.Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. Board of Directors
Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. Staff
Contact Us