6.6 - For the Record: Castro had faults, but we have Gitmo

For the Record: Castro had faults, but we have Gitmo

For the record...
...when Fidel Castro died, it was immediately clear that in the US media that the old chestnut about not speaking ill of the dead did not apply to him. Accounts were filled to the brim with denunciations of his "communist dictatorship" and other sins.

And yes, there was enough to condemn, although it seems to me some room could have been found to comment on the improvements in health care and education which were also part of that history.

But what I wanted to quote here was the pointed and worthwhile observation of blogger Avedon Carol, who said:

Whatever else you may know about Cuba, you should certainly remember that there is a prison on that island where people have been held and tortured for 14 years without charges. And Cuba does not run that prison.

Something else that largely has slipped down the memory hole.

213.1 - Good News: US and Cuba resume diplomatic relations

Good News: US and Cuba resume diplomatic relations

Well, I managed to find one bit of good news this week.

On July 20, the Cuban flag was hoisted in front of a building in Washington, DC, symbolically marking that site's shift from the limited role of "interest section" to that of full-fledged embassy.

Just hours before, at the stroke of midnight, the US and Cuba resumed full diplomatic relations for the first time in over 50 years and each nation's interest section almost immediately changed their identification to "Embassy." Fittingly for the times, the Cubans made the switch on Twitter and the US on its Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The United States and Cuba severed diplomatic relations in January 1961, so it has been 54 years since there were normal diplomatic contacts between the two nations, but the two have been inching toward renewed relations for the past six years.

This is intended to be the start of a new,  post-Cold War era in relations between the two nations, even as serious differences and sources of conflict remain, although, happily, at least some of them are technical and legalistic rather than ideological - with conflicts in the latter category presenting the biggest obstacle to further improvements in relations.

The bottom line here is that US policy toward Cuba has been stupid and pointless and it was long past time to get beyond the rigid mental straightjackets of the past decades. So this reestablishing of embassies, yes, that is good news.

Damn, I have to say congratulations to Barack Obama two weeks in a row. The stars truly must be in some odd alignment.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-cuba-diplomatic-relations_55ac7645e4b065dfe89ea12a
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-severs-diplomatic-relations-with-cuba

Left Side of the Aisle #213

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of July 23-29, 2015

This week:

Good News: US and Cuba resume diplomatic relations
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-cuba-diplomatic-relations_55ac7645e4b065dfe89ea12a

The fight for LGBT rights goes on
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-u-s-senate-just-told-lgbtq-kids-they-dont-matter.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/were-failing-trans-students-in-new-york-and-probably-across-the-u-s.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/senate-votes-down-federal-protections-for-k-12-lgbt-students/2015/07/14/745da4dc-2a64-11e5-a250-42bd812efc09_story.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33601483
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/18/1403401/-Republican-Legislation-Will-Permit-Companies-To-Fire-Single-Pregnant-Women
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s1598/text
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/first-amendment-defense-act_55a7ffe6e4b04740a3df4ca1
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/07/2122.html

RIP, Theodore Bikel
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-theodore-bikel-20150721-story.html
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/theodore-bikel-dead-sound-music-719735
http://www.newportfolk.org/history

Too little, too late: Cleveland admits it should not have hired cop who killed Tamir Rice
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/20/1404016/-8-months-later-the-Cleveland-PD-admits-it-was-wrong-to-ever-hire-the-officer-who-killed-Tamir-Rice
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/07/cleveland_police_supervisors_d.html
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/99643d75107f42489a227a20493df1a3/boy-pellet-gun-warned-friend-police-shooting
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/06/judge_finds_probable_cause_for.html

Happy Birthday to "The Nation"
http://www.thenation.com/
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/1/started_by_abolitionists_in_1865_the

Outrage of the Week: Wesley Clark proposes internment for "disloyal" Americans
http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150719/NEWS/150719203
http://news.yahoo.com/chattanooga-shooting-suspect-doha-qatar-government-sources-212510026.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/us/tennessee-shooting-gunman-contacts/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wesley-clark-internment-camps-chattanooga-radical-muslims
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaPwqokBn9M
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/20/chattanooga-wesley-clark-calls-internment-camps-disloyal-americans/
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/RethinkingRadicalization.pdf

Footnote: Since 9/11, right-wingers have killed far more Americans than American jihadists have
http://www.refinery29.com/2015/06/89683/homegrown-terrorism-statistics
http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/The-danger-of-homegrown-terrorists-6356697.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/the-other-terror-threat.html

Clown Award: Planned Parenthood idiotically apologizes for "tone" of official in sting video
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-attacks-on-planned-parenthood-20150716-column.html#page=1
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/experienced-foe-behind-planned-parenthood-videos-120439.html
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/interview-didnt-happen/?dcz=
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/14/attack-on-planned-parenthood-3-deceptive-edits/204419
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspinning-the-planned-parenthood-video/
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/what-you-didnt-see-planned-parenthood-video
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/21/latest-video-attacking-planned-parenthood-full/204524
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/anti-abortion-group-releases-second-video-accusing-planned-parenthood-of-selling-fetal-tissue/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/16/1402922/-Planned-Parenthood-President-Cecile-Richards-Makes-Official-Statement-About-Under-Cover-Video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/07/16/planned-parenthood-head-apologizes-for-tone-of-doctor-in-covert-video/?tid=ptv_rellink

203.1 - Good News: US approves ferry service to Cuba

APOLOGIES FOR THE LATENESS OF THIS POST; THERE WERE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

Good News: US approves ferry service to Cuba

Starting, as I always like to, with some Good News, we have the news that the Amazing Mr. O continues his moves to normalize - to open normal political relations with - the nation of Cuba.

On May 5, the White House announced approval of ferry service between the United States and Cuba, the first such service in decades.

This comes in the wake - no pun intended - of the April meeting between Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro, the first time such a meeting has taken place in over 50 years.

Obama has also eased up some on the embargo on trade with Cuba and, more directly related to the ferries, has moved to ease long-standing travel restrictions between the two nations. While regular tourist travel is still prohibited, Cuban-Americans visiting family, officials on government trips, and journalists will no longer need to get special permission to go from the US to Cuba.

Even with the remaining travel restrictions, the new ferry service would open a new path for the movement of the hundreds of millions of dollars in goods that travel between the two nations yearly - not to mention the many people who make the trip from the US to Cuba each year, usually to visit relatives.

The Treasury Department said that specific ferry licenses are being issued on a "case-by-case" basis and there was no blanket permission for such ferry services. However, at least five ferry lines - one in Mexico, one in Puerto Rico, and three in Florida - have confirmed receiving a license for a ferry service between the US and Cuba.

The downside of all this is that this will also have to be approved, obviously,  by Cuba - and it's not a slam-dunk that Cuba would be comfortable with opening up the possibility of a new large-scale means of exchange. They are going to be cautious, to feel wary, about moving beyond a half-century of mutual hostility, just as the US government has been and still is. Even so, it's a step in the right direction.

And as the guy in the movie said, "Small moves. Small moves."

Sources cited in links:
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/05/06/obama-administration-approves-first-ferry-service-to-cuba/21180121/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/u-s-cuba-ferries/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_%281997_US_film%29

Left Side of the Aisle #203

APOLOGIES FOR THE LATENESS OF THIS POST; THERE WERE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of May 7-13, 2015

This week:

Good News: US approves ferry service to Cuba
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/05/06/obama-administration-approves-first-ferry-service-to-cuba/21180121/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/u-s-cuba-ferries/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_%281997_US_film%29

Congratulations to Dan Perkins
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/21/1379223/-Cartoonist-Dan-Perkins-aka-Tom-Tomorrow-announced-as-Pulitzer-finalist-for-This-Modern-World
http://www.pulitzer.org/2015_editorial_cartooning_finalist_2#

The death penalty must go
http://news.yahoo.com/boston-bombers-lawyers-aim-paint-tsarnaev-teen-gone-110816061.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=801
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-boston-bomber-sentence-20150409-story.html

Clown Award: Ben Carson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/05/ben-carson-gay-rights_n_6808230.html
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-federal-government-doesnt-need-recognize-gay-marriage-scotus-ruling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

Clown Award: unknown peer reviewer
http://www.boston.com/news/2015/04/30/peer-reviewer-rejects-journal-article-because-wasn-written-man/tHNo8WaBK5vtJeDuTlXL6M/story.html

TRAITOR Act provisions up for renewal
http://apps.americanbar.org/natsecurity/patriotdebates/lone-wolf
https://w2.eff.org/patriot/sunset/206.php
http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/06/the-fight-to-control-the-patriot-act/
http://www.gsm-security.net/faq/imei-international-mobile-equipment-identity-gsm.shtml
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/5067/international-mobile-subscriber-identity-imsi
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/obama-administration-nsa-verizon-records
http://webpolicy.org/2014/03/12/metaphone-the-sensitivity-of-telephone-metadata/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/11/footnote-to-footnote.html
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/diverse-groups-stand-united-against-plan-reauthorize-section-215-patriot-act
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/liberal-conservatives-nsa-spying-patriot-act-117586.html?google_editors_picks=true
http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/06/the-fight-to-control-the-patriot-act/
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-usa-freedom-act-telephone-records-privacy-20150506-story.html
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/way-nsa-uses-section-702-deeply-troubling-heres-why
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/what-it-means-be-target-or-why-we-once-again-stopped-believing-government-and-once

200.1 - Good News: a step toward normalizing relations with Cuba

Good News: a step toward normalizing relations with Cuba

Last week I said that to celebrate the 200th episode of Left Side of the Aisle, that for this one week the world would be a happy place.

Unfortunately, I have to pretty much break that promise because there wasn't a lot of good news to be found this week.

About the only Good News I found was that Barack Obama has given Congress the required 45-day notice of an intention to remove Cuba from the US's list of state sponsors of terrorism. (I had intended to add "a list which curiously enough we ourselves are not" on until I remembered that, unlike those other evil nations, we don't subcontract our terrorism.)

Getting back to Cuba, it has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism since 1982, but the US stopped actively accusing Cuba of supporting terrorism some time ago.

This is all part of an effort to normalize relations between the US and Cuba, something that is long overdue and which marks Obama's decision to do that as good news

Sources cited in links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/cuba-terror-list_n_7064762.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/14/obama-removes-cuba-from-state-sponsor-terror-list/

Left Side of the Aisle #200

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of April 16-22, 2015

This week:

Good News: a step toward normalizing relations with Cuba
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/cuba-terror-list_n_7064762.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=WorldPost
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/14/obama-removes-cuba-from-state-sponsor-terror-list/

Surprise! I might agree with Chris Christie on something
https://news.yahoo.com/video/christie-proposes-income-cap-social-172635702.html

Hero Award: Ashley Jiron
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/10/restaurant-owner-leaves-touching-note-for-dumpster-diver/21165463/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/13/pbj-restaurant-dumpster-trash-free-meal-oklahoma-city_n_7055672.html?cps=gravity_2082_4328149088083721193
https://www.facebook.com/pbjams66/photos/a.1526644477615662.1073741829.1524750647805045/1587459304867512/?type=1

Just for the fun of it: Satanists want their Bible in schools, too
http://kfor.com/2015/04/06/oklahoma-teacher-under-fire-for-handing-out-bibles-at-school/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/04/oklahoma-elementary-school-teacher-hands-out-bibles-to-her-third-graders/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/oklahoma-school-district-reluctantly-stops-handing-out-bibles-after-atheist-group-threatens-to-sue/
http://www.texomashomepage.com/story/d/story/devil-worshipers-want-book-given-to-oklahoma-child/16169/NLID0mNRwUC30eMEYF6XgA

RIP: Percy Sledge
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/article18494591.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8raabzZNqw
http://www.eonline.com/news/646061/soul-singer-percy-sledge-dead-at-age-73
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/14/entertainment/percy-sledge-dies-feat/

Clown Award: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/thimerosal/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/14/robert-f-kennedy-jr-apologizes-for-holocaust-remark-in-speech-against/?intcmp=trending
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html

Celebrating the 200th episode with a brief history of public access TV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/public-educational-and-governmental-access-channels-peg-channels
http://www.publicaccesstv.net/history01.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_W._Friendly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public-access_TV_stations_in_the_United_States
http://acommunitytv.org