News Nuggets 1280

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Marble Caves in Patagonia in southern Chile.  From the Huffington Post.

UP-FRONT MCCARTHY ERA NUGGET!!
A Kinship with Bradley Manning (Robert Meeropol) from the Los Angles Times 
"Democracy is doomed without informed citizens, says a son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed by the U.S. for spying. ... The nuanced understanding we gained from learning the truth about what went on behind the scenes has provided us with very valuable lessons both about security failures and the increased need for constitutional protections in times of crisis. The whole experience convinced me that citizens must know what the government is doing in their name."
The problems I have with transparency advocates (such as Greenwald and Meeropol) are several: the NSA program and FISA court oversight mechanisms were approved by Congress and are overseen by members of Congress.  News flash: they represent US -- and they reflect the concerns of Americans and (for good or ill) that includes the 30-40% who will happily give up civil liberties to feel safe against the "evil doers." More transparency sounds great -- until there is a serious terrorist attack after which a majority of Americans will deep-fat fry the President or lawmaker who was not doing "everything he could" to stop the terrorists.  The Greenwalds of this world will say that we have a right to know what our gov't is doing in our name.  Our representatives in Congress and the man we elected President DO know what the gov't is doing in our name.  We do not have direct democracy -- it is a representative democracy.  Too many critics of the NSA program (and I have my own set of criticisms) want it all; they want safety, transparency, and yet don't want to be bothered with getting informed about what their representatives are voting for or gleaning from their oversight responsibilities.  Both on the left and on the right you see the pervasive view of gov't as a "they" rather than an "us."  Part of Obama's campaign in '08 touched on the theme that "you are the change you've been waiting for."  In this context, the mantra should be "you are the ones you've been bitching about."  Too many Americans don't want transparency -- like so many other issues, the attitude is "just solve the problem; don't bother me with the details."  

Obama Is Giving Up Some Executive Power, and He’ll Still Get No Credit (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Obama’s NSA proposals may not have been broad and sweeping, but when was the last time any president gave up power when he didn’t absolutely have to? Not since the presidency became imperial,..."

How Obama Turned Obamacare into a Weapon (Brian Beutler) from Salon  
"For years the president was on the defensive about it. That's changed -- but not for the reasons the media thinks."

Milton Friedman, Unperson (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"What ever happened to Friedman’s role as a free-market icon? The answer to that question says a lot about what has happened to modern conservatism. ... Friedman, it turns out, was too nuanced and realist a figure for the modern right, which doesn’t do nuance and rejects reality, which has a well-known liberal bias."

The Law of the Wild West (Benjamin Todd Jealous) from US News and World Report
'Stand your ground' laws cause baseless killings and make no one safer.  ...  "stand your ground" operates under the assumption that the whole world is one's castle and everyone is a potential invader. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how this can drive community safety off the rails, and it has."

Old Folks Turning Away From GOP For Real? (Ed Kilgore) from Washington Monthly
"If the trend holds, this is a very big deal, folks, not just in the long term but in the immediate future. It’s the grip the GOP had on white seniors that made the 2010 GOP landslide possible, and which had convinced most attentive observers that Republicans possessed a big advantage going into 2014 ..."

The Tea Party’s Paranoid Aesthetic (Kim Messick) from Salon
To understand the powerful appeal of the movement to many of its adherents, a narrative history is first required

A Liberal's Confession: I Actually Enjoyed Glenn Beck's Latest Book (Ana Marie Cox) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Beck's absolutism is why I don't think you can call these books
"propaganda". Propaganda is designed to convince, these books are designed to incite. Beck's audience is inherently more limited because his subscribers not interested in instruction, or even in the appearance of learning more. They're interested in belief."

Republican Primaries Risk Repeat Misfires in Senate Majority Bid (John McCormick) from Bloomberg
"Kentucky, Wyoming and South Carolina should be easy wins for incumbent Republicans trying to regain the U.S. Senate majority in 2014.  Instead, the primary challenges they face threaten to drain resources, sharpen campaign trail rhetoric and build division for a party struggling to find its way after a demoralizing 2012 election"

GOP Anxiety Grows Over Ga. Senate Race from The Hill
"Republicans are increasingly concerned about Georgia's Senate race, where a crowded primary threatens to produce a flawed candidate who could put a seat in a Republican-leaning state at risk."

1950s PINUP NUGGET!!
Hilda, 1950s Pinup Girl, Makes Us Very Happy from the Huffington Post 
"The phrase "pinup girl" often conjures up images of hourglass figures and vintage fashion. But how often are the pin-ups we see actually plus-size women? Not often enough. That's why we're so excited that Hilda, originally drawn in the 1950s by illustrator Duane Bryers, resurfaced on the Internet this week."

WORLD WAR II NUGGET!!
Was the Mastermind of The Great Escape also Linked to the Death of 'Hitler's Hangman'? from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"New book suggests Roger Bushell was linked to Reinhard Heydrich's death.  Bushell was the mastermind of the escape from Stalag Luft III.  The prison break was the inspiration for the 1963 film The Great Escape Bushell was among Prague's resistance fighters at time of assassination."

SEXIST ADVERTISING NUGGET!!
Sexist Vintage Ads: 17 Vintage Ads Targeting Husbands And Wives from the Huffington Post
"Are you boring your husband to death? There used to be a pill for that. Click through the slideshow below to see some cringe-worthy vintage ads targeting married couples, then let us know: what would you do if you saw a sexist ad like this today?"

PIRATE NUGGET!!
Shiver Me Timbers! Man Builds PIRATE SHIP Tree House for his Granddaughter from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Shepherd explained that about 15 years ago, he gathered some long planks and began working on a tree house for his daughter, which somehow morphed into an authentic-looking pirate ship."