Ohio officials close wells after quake. [UPI.com] – Ohio officials say they have shut down four fluid-injection wells after a series of small earthquakes in and around Youngstown.
Capital Gains Biggest Driver of Income Inequality
The biggest driver of income inequality: capital gains. [The Washington Post] – Changes in income from capital gains and dividends were the single largest contributor to rising income inequality between 1996 and 2006, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan public policy branch of Congress.
This World In Arms
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
New Year – New Flag
Flying the Red and Black for 2012
A Frank Loesser Favorite
Apropos of the season, here’s one of my favorite Loesser songs, rendered by Joey and Zooey.
Happy New Year!
don’t walk – walk
he stands
blue
against a gray sky
memory
it’s loose gravel underfoot
you
remember one thing
you remember
another
and then the thing you wanted to forget
the bitter wind
chafes his cheeks
collar raised and
face set
he steps toward the abyss
With Love, From Occupy Wall Street
This is the official video from Occupy Wall Street to thank supporters. It was approved by consensus through the New York City General Assembly last week.
A Curse For Kings
A curse upon each king who leads his state,
No matter what his plea, to this foul game,
And may it end his wicked dynasty,
And may he die in exile and black shame.
If there is vengeance in the Heaven of Heavens,
What punishment could Heaven devise for these
Who fill the rivers of the world with dead,
And turn their murderers loose on all the seas!
Put back the clock of time a thousand years,
And make our Europe, once the world’s proud Queen,
A shrieking strumpet, furious fratricide,
Eater of entrails, wallowing obscene
In pits where millions foam and rave and bark,
Mad dogs and idiots, thrice drunk with strife;
While Science towers above;–a witch, red-winged:
Science we looked to for the light of life,
Curse me the men who make and sell iron ships
Who walk the floor in thought, that they may find
Each powder prompt, each steel with fearful edge,
Each deadliest device against mankind.
Curse me the sleek lords with their plumes and spurs,
May Heaven give their land to peasant spades,
Give them the brand of Cain, for their pride’s sake,
And felon’s stripes for medals and for braids.
Curse me the fiddling, twiddling diplomats,
Haggling here, plotting and hatching there,
Who make the kind world but their game of cards,
Till millions die at turning of a hair.
What punishment will Heaven devise for these
Who win by others’ sweat and hardihood,
Who make men into stinking vultures’ meat,
Saying to evil still “Be thou my good”?
Ah, he who starts a million souls toward death
Should burn in utmost hell a million years!
–Mothers of men go on the destined wrack
To give them life, with anguish and with tears:–
Are all those childbed sorrows sneered away?
Yea, fools laugh at the humble christenings,
And cradle-joys are mocked of the fat lords:
These mothers’ sons made dead men for the Kings!
All in the name of this or that grim flag,
No angel-flags in all the rag-array–
Banners the demons love, and all Hell sings
And plays wild harps. Those flags march forth to-day!
– Vachel Lindsay (1915)
Happy Holidays
From Our House To Yours:
May This Holiday Season Find You Happy, Healthy, Secure and Free
Best Wishes for the New Year
– Brian
Merry Christmas from the Man Who Never Died
Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas “and then some” from my Fellow Worker Joe Hill.
May your celebration be as joyous as the one he depicted!
Photo of watercolor and ink postcard created by Joe Hill is courtesy of of the Walter P. Reuther Library.