“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.” - Lillian Hellman
Joined January 2013
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Cool Clear Waters retweeted
More on the Cornell 7 - great reporting by NY newspaper, the Times Union. Lordy, there are tapes!
“Recordings offer a striking firsthand account of a national fraternity official claiming personal access to campus police around the time the department was also investigating the "Cornell 7" case.”
“Within weeks of the Cornell University Police Department investigating an alleged gang rape at the school’s Chi Phi house two years ago, a top official of another national fraternity privately boasted that he could get his “friends” inside the campus police force to brush aside alleged misconduct from his chapter’s members.”
“In one of the recordings, Paese referred to the chief of Cornell’s police department as “a good friend of mine.” Paese also said he and the chief’s “boss, the guy that’s in charge of campus security overall, … go back even farther.””
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
On the Cornell 7 and Jane Doe: I don't know if anyone reads or follows LA Magazine? I don't.
But they have been intensely covering the situation, and failed to publicly disclosed what is a glaring conflict of interest, while promising a "bombshell" to come.
The attorney for Winston Lee, one of the Cornell 7 who is from a very prominent and wealthy South Korean family (his grandfather is a former prime minister), has hired Teny Geragos, a high profile attorney, to represent him.
The co-owner of LA Magazine is Mark Geragos, Teny's dad. Their relationship has not been publicly disclosed as a conflict of interest in their coverage. One of the LA Magazine reporters is promising a "bombshell" to discredit Jane Doe. Just making you all aware.
H/t to David Denney for bringing this to my attention.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Who was first? Palestinians or Jews? The answer is not 'either or'.
In the Egyptian Museum in Cairo stands a slab of black granite carved around 1208 BCE. Its hieroglyphs celebrate the victories of the pharaoh Mernepta: “Israel is laid waste; his seed is not.”
The display makes no mention that more than three thousand years ago, an Egyptian king who knew nothing of the Hebrew Bible recorded that a people called Israel was living in Canaan.
The modern pro-Islamist claim that Jews are latecomers is historically false. Numerous ancient records refute it.
Around 840 BCE, King Mesha of Moab carved a stone boasting of his war against Israel and naming the Israelite king, Omri.
A ninth-century BCE inscription found at Tel Dan refers to the “House of David.”
In 701 BCE, the Assyrian king Sennacherib recorded his siege of “Hezekiah the Judean” in Jerusalem.
These records are written by people with every reason to ignore Israel, that confirm that an Israelite and Judean people lived in the hills of Canaan for centuries before Rome existed.
The second claim is that Palestinians are an ancient people of the region, even older than Israel. This also fails.
The word Palestine is truly old, but it never referred to the people who carry that name today. Herodotus used Palaistinē in the fifth century BCE, and it comes from the Philistines, a seafaring people who arrived on the southern coast around 1200 BCE.
A 2019 study of ancient DNA from Ashkelon, published in Science Advances, found that the Philistines brought European-related ancestry with them, and that within two centuries it had been absorbed into the local population.
The Philistines disappeared after Babylon destroyed their cities around 604 BCE. Rome revived their name in about 135 CE, after crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt, and renamed the province of Judea as Syria Palaestina.
The Arab armies came in the 630s CE, some 1,800 years after Merneptah’s scribe carved the word Israel. They brought new rulers, a language, and a religion, and over the centuries most of the population adopted all three. What we call the distinctly Palestinian national identity arrived much later.
The Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi, no friend of Zionism, dates its emergence in his book Palestinian Identity to the late Ottoman period and the early twentieth century.
Under the British Mandate, “Palestine” was attached to any group that lived in the region, including Christians, Muslims, and Jews, that the country’s leading English-language Jewish newspaper was called the Palestine Post.
It became the Jerusalem Post in 1950.
Modern genetic studies show that both Jews and Levantine Arabs, including Palestinians, carry substantial similar ancestry from ancient populations.
But historically, the Jewish people have an independently documented presence in that land going back more than three thousand years. Palestinians are, in large part, Arab descendants of the land’s long-term inhabitants, but their national identity is about a century old.
As to the claim of who lived in the land first, between Jews and Palestinians, the answer is not close.
Anyone who stands on a campus and calls the Jews of Israel foreign colonizers in their ancestral home is arguing with a granite slab in Cairo that names a Judean king in Jerusalem nearly 1,300 years before Muhammad was born.
Stones never lie.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
One end of the woke spectrum is sensible: Be kind, help people, be generous...
The other end is absurd: learn to spot microaggressions, reject biology in matters of sex, teach people hypersensitivity, never stop virtue posturing, ban any sign of stoicism...encourage people to gain advantage by weaponising weakness...
They're not the same set of ideas
This is a John Cleese appreciation post
The man is a national treasure and a comedy legend and isn’t woke
@JohnCleese
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
The Texas Quote of the Day: "I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to, and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going, just keep soaring. I like that spirit."
---- Barbara Jordan. Barbara was a trailblazer in so many ways. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, one of the first two African Americans elected to the U.S. House from the former Confederacy since 1901, and the first woman descended from slaves to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. And she nailed Texas with this quote!
Shown here: Barbara Jordan on the floor of the state senate in 1965.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Sad new that the glorious Eva Marie Saint passed today at the age of 102.. one of the last links to the golden age of Hollywood.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Zionism is both historic and spiritual; the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and their right to self-determination in their historic homeland.
I am British by birth, belonging and love; Jewish by inheritance, memory and faith. Britain is my country. Israel is not a competing loyalty, it is the homeland of the Jewish people to which I am bound by ancestry, memory and identity.
For millions of Jews, that is the heart of Zionism. Not supremacy, dispossession or the killing of Palestinians and not a colonial claim to a foreign land but the self-determination of a people with an ancient and continuous connection to it. In practice, it must mean two peoples entitled to self-determination both living in security and freedom with neither people’s future purchased with the lives, rights or humanity of the other.
That is why declaring “Zionism is racism” is not merely wrong, it tells most Jews that their understanding of their own history, identity and collective freedom is itself morally suspect. The Greens should ask themselves whom they are trying to please by adopting a slogan that turns Jewish self-determination into a moral stain. If your politics of inclusion requires millions of Jews to renounce a central part of their history and identity before they qualify for your solidarity, it isn’t inclusion. You are telling Jews: you may belong here but only if you disown Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. That is not anti-racism. It is imposing a political test on Jews that no genuinely progressive movement would dream of imposing on any other minority.
“…the legislation authorizing DHS's waiver authority explicitly prohibits appeals court review. This was meant to make it nearly impossible to challenge the waivers, …it now means DHS can't appeal this injunction to the 5th Circuit—only directly to the Supreme Court.”
“It restores dozens of our nation's most important environmental, public health and cultural protection laws to more than 500 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.”
“…this decision slams the breaks on $7 billion in federal contracts given to politically connected construction tycoons and campaign donors.”
“…this decision slams the breaks on $7 billion in federal contracts given to politically connected construction tycoons and campaign donors.”
The word "historic" is thrown around a lot, but Friday's ruling halting wall construction across Big Bend truly made history. In the 21 years since the REAL ID Act was passed, more than a dozen legal challenges have been filed by almost as many different groups. And we've lost every single time. Not once has a federal judge ever issued an injunction like this.
To put it into perspective, this decision slams the breaks on $7 billion in federal contracts given to politically connected construction tycoons and campaign donors. It restores dozens of our nation's most important environmental, public health and cultural protection laws to more than 500 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. It stops the bulldozers from again tearing into Big Bend National Park, which DHS's own attorneys told our judge they were planning on doing next week.
Another fascinating element here: the legislation authorizing DHS's waiver authority explicitly prohibits appeals court review. This was meant to make it nearly impossible to challenge the waivers, but in a poetic twist, it now means DHS can't appeal this injunction to the 5th Circuit—only directly to the Supreme Court.
Whether and when that might happen is a big question mark. And how the Supremes might rule is another.
It ain’t over yet, but we absolutely should savor this win—it belongs to every single person fighting so relentlessly to save the wildest corner of Texas.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Wonderful portrait of Groucho by celebrated photographer Irving Penn for Vogue magazine, late 1947. This is probably one of the last formal portraits taken before he grew a natural moustache.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
A true hero
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (1909–1989) was the only woman to lead a major French Resistance network during WWII, directing the vast intelligence-gathering group known as "Alliance". When Navarre was compromised and arrested in 1941, 31-year-old Fourcade took over leadership of the entire organization at grave personal risk...
In the dark hours of a cold night in occupied France, a woman stripped off her clothes and squeezed her slender body through the tight iron bars of a Gestapo prison cell. Holding her dress in her teeth, she fell silently to the street below and melted into the shadows of the night.
Marie-Madeleine grew up in a world of wealth and beauty. Long before the war broke out, she lived an exciting life filled with fast cars, flying airplanes, and playing classical music on the piano.
Most people expected her to spend her life enjoying quiet luxury. However, when German forces invaded and occupied France, everything changed. She felt a deep call to protect her homeland, so she joined a small secret network dedicated to gathering intelligence against the enemy.
When the leader of her group was arrested in 1941, he handed total control of the operation over to Marie-Madeleine. She was only thirty-one years old and a mother of two young children, but she stepped into the role without hesitation. Under her guidance, that small group grew into the largest secret intelligence network in France, known as Alliance.
Over 3000 brave men and women joined her network, including ordinary doctors, shopkeepers, priests, and mothers. Nearly 20% of her agents were women, which was almost unheard of for military intelligence at that time. The network used animal code names to protect their real identities.
The Gestapo began calling them Noah's Ark because of this practice.
Marie-Madeleine chose the code name Hedgehog for herself. She picked it because a hedgehog is small and quiet, yet its sharp quills mean that even a fierce predator will hesitate to touch it. Her greatest advantage was that the Nazis could never believe a young, fashionable woman was running the entire operation. They spent years looking for a male general or a hardened officer, completely unaware that the mastermind was standing right in front of them in disguise. Leading this underground network came with painful personal sacrifices. The enemy worked tirelessly to destroy her group.
Many of her close friends and fellow agents were captured, tortured, or killed. To protect her own children from harm, she had to send them away to safe locations. She could not even hug them goodbye for fear of revealing their whereabouts. Instead, she stood quietly behind a curtain and watched her children walk down the street, unable to let them know she was standing just a few steps away.
Even after being captured twice by enemy forces, Marie-Madeleine managed to escape both times and rebuild her broken organization from scratch. Her agents provided vital intelligence that helped Allied forces plan successful operations, including key details about enemy positions along the beaches of Normandy.
When the war finally ended, her extraordinary efforts were largely overlooked by history books. The official lists of honored resistance leaders favored men, leaving her off the top lists of recognized national heroes.
Yet she never gave up or sought personal glory. She spent the rest of her days helping surviving agents, supporting families of fallen fighters, and ensuring that the bravery of her team was recorded forever. Near the end of her life, when reflecting on her purpose, she looked back on her journey and quietly said, "God gave me the strength to stand in the dark so that others could walk in the light."
#archaeohistories
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
Celebrating Groucho Marx born Oct 2, in 1890.
Over 30 roles including Captain Spaulding, Professor Wagstaff, Rufus T Firefly, Otis B Driftwood, Doctor Hackenbush - & and of course himself on You Bet Your Life :)
#botd classicmoviehub.com/bio/grou…
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
In federal district court in El Paso Judge Kathleen Cardone just issued an injunction to halt border wall construction in the Big Bend sector, effective immediately. This applies across 500+ miles of the border, including Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Celebrating Groucho Marx, #BOTD 10/2/1890...the cigar-chomping, eyebrow-raising master of the wisecrack—and the fastest mouth of the Marx Brothers.
Among the best films with his brothers, including "Duck Soup", "A Night at the Opera" and "Animal Crackers - he was never more perfect than when insulting the perfect straightwoman Margaret Dumont.
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Remembering iconic comic Groucho Marx, born today in 1890. "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."
Cool Clear Waters retweeted
Neiman Marcus closed its downtown Dallas flagship yesterday. The store played a notable role in the history of desegregation in Dallas during the 1960s.
Previously, Black shoppers across the US could enter department stores, but they weren't allowed to try on clothes before purchasing without adhering to certain conditions. For instance, they had to try on clothes over their clothes, put on protective covers when trying on hats, or weren't allowed to make returns once they purchased clothes and brought them home. These policies stemmed from the racist fear that white customers would refuse merchandise previously worn by Black shoppers.
The downtown Neiman Marcus flagship was one of the first major Dallas businesses that broke with these practices. In 1961, the company desegregated its Zodiac Room, a swanky restaurant frequented by Dallas elites. Neiman Marcus later welcomed Black shoppers without restrictions. These victories were achieved through the efforts of Civil Rights activists, along with support from Neiman Marcus president Stanley Marcus, who was an early advocate for desegregation in Dallas. The Neiman Marcus store manager purportedly warned Marcus that he would ruin his business — and indeed, some shoppers closed their accounts — but he stuck with his decision.
At the time of the flagship's closure, the Main Street store had been open for 112 years.
