Update no.592

Update from the Heartland

No.592

15.4.13 – 21.4.13

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

This has been one hellava week!

• ·      Monday, 15.April – (Boston, Massachusetts) two terrorist bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon
• ·      Tuesday, 16.April – (Washington, DC) first of the ricin letters intercepted
• ·      Tuesday, 16.April – (worldwide) American Airlines grounded due to a “computer glitch”
• ·      Wednesday, 17.April – (West, Texas) fertilizer plant exploded.

I have never been a fan of coincidence.  I know providence, happenstance, accident, acts of God (as we call it in the aviation biz), and such do in fact occur, but to my experience, they are extraordinarily rare.  The more likely scenario involves a failure to connect the dots and to see the real picture.  As events unfolded, rays of clarity began to emerge from the chaos.

            At 14:50 [R] EDT {4:09:43 on the race clock}, the first bomb detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, then 12 seconds later, about 100 m farther up the course, the second device exploded.  Statistics tell us success was inevitable; we have thwarted numerous attacks; we were bound to fail eventually.  So it happened.  My first impression was al-Qa’ida – near simultaneous, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), at a crowded public event.  Then, we learned only three killed, with 183 injured.  The low number of fatalities with so many people in close proximity to ground zero suggested someone other than al-Qa’ida.  In the light of the assassinations of Mark Hasse, Tom Clements and Mike McLelland with his wife Cynthia, I suspected the more likely culprits were anarchists or white supremacists.  The FBI sorted through terabites of video from surveillance and security cameras, as well as individual video files to identify the two persons of interest.  By the end of the week, two ethnic Chechen brothers were tracked down; Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a gun-battle, and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was wounded and captured two days later. So far, based on public information, the bombings appear to be a homegrown terrorist event by disgruntled immigrants. 

            The first of the ricin letters was detected at the suburban congressional mail screening facility, addressed to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, with others showing up or suspected letters, including on to President Obama.  The attack was eerily similar to the 9/11 and the anthrax attack.  No one has a yet been injured by the chemical agent.  The FBI made quick work of this threat as well, arresting Elvis-impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, for the terrorist action.

            American Airlines “computer glitch” remains quite the puzzlement.  The last time so many aircraft were grounded by something other than weather was also on 9/11.  I have no idea what exactly caused such a monumental action, and I still do not know.  The actual cause may not be made public for many years, but may have just been lost in the Boston Marathon event and aftermath.  I envisioned a collateral cyber attack to complicate the situation, and might well have involved other airlines not made public. 

            The fertilizer plant fire and explosion in the City of West, Texas, immediately reminded me of the Texas City port disaster of 16.April.1947 [please note the date].  Two ships, the Grandcamp and the High Flyer, were loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer intended for devastated Europe.  A fire broke out on the Grandcamp, and the entire ship exploded like a massive bomb.  The High Flyer exploded the next day. The disaster devastated the port and killed 581 people and injured more than 3,000 others.  The West, Texas, event killed at least 14 with several dozen still unaccounted for and injured more than 200.  As of this moment, sources report that investigators have identified ground zero, but not much else.  It is still considered a crime scene, until proven otherwise.

            Since dates have been used as justification or rationale for violent events, I offered some related information.

• ·      19.April.1775 – Battle of Lexington & Concord
• ·      20.April.1889 – birthday of Adolf Hitler (neo-Nazis, white supremacists)
• ·      19.April.1992 – first raid at Ruby Ridge, Idaho (anarchists)
• ·      19.April.1993 – Branch Davidian raid in Waco, Texas (anarchists)
• ·      19.April.1995 – Oklahoma City bombing (anarchists)

We could add other dates; however, these should be sufficient to convey my sensitivity to this week on the calendar.

            I spent inordinate amount of time writing, deleting and rewriting as I absorbed information from a myriad of sources.  I have still not disconnected this week’s events, although the weight of public evidence suggests an even more rare of the rare in the realm of coincidence.  Some of the perpetrators have been killed or apprehended, while the investigations into all the events continue.  This has been a very rough week.

The second of the major gun control bills failed to pass the Senate – Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013 (S.649) [591].  The Senate voted 54-46-0-0(0) and failed to achieve the necessary 60 votes to pass in the Senate, despite a compromise, bipartisan amendment sponsored by Senator Joseph “Joe” Manchin III of West Virginia and Senator Patrick Joseph “Pat” Toomey of Pennsylvania.  The proposed legislation broadened the application of background checks for gun purchases.  The Senate did what it should have done, what it had to do.  The legislation offered woefully insufficient protections for the privacy and freedom of peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

            President Obama was not pleased.  Later in the day, the President angrily blasted senators as he pronounced, “the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.”  He went on to say, “There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this,” and concluded, “All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

            I shall respectfully disagree, Mister President.  I laud your desire to prevent any future Newtown tragedies; however, legislation like S.150 and S.649 are bandaids on cancerous lesions.  We must find the will to treat the root cause(s) rather than the superficial symptoms of this disease.  I urge you to refocus your rhetoric and influence on the root causes of gun violence and avoid imposing upon the vast majority of good citizens.

In all the excitement of this week, we nearly missed a critical happening related to the civil war in Syria.  Great Britain and France informed the United Nations that they have credible evidence that chemical weapons of mass destruction have been used in Syria, presumably by the government, since they are the only ones who possess such weapons.  The significance rests on the redline drawn by Europe and United States regarding the war.  Previous declarations implied direct military intervention would be warranted if the redline was crossed.  There is no public indication as to whether the West will make good on their threats.  Let us remain vigilant.

Every once in a while, I am pleasantly surprised and reassured that sanity might actually prevail in a state that passed a constitutional amendment to discriminate and deny equal protection under the law to a segment of its law-abiding, peaceful, productive residents.  A few months ago, the Kansas Supreme Court rendered its judgment in the case of Frazier v. Goudschaal [KS SC case no. 103,487 (2013)] – a child custody case.  What makes this particular case of family law noteworthy in this forum, you ask?   Kelly Goudschaal and Marci Frazier, both females, began their relationship in 1995.  The couple decided to start a family, utilizing Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) in the form of artificial insemination.  Their mutual plan involved both women being impregnated, so that they could share a child from each partner.  When Frazier was unable to conceive, they mutually agreed that Goudschaal would bear both children. Before the birth of their first child, Frazier and Goudschaal signed a co-parenting agreement.  In 2002, Goudschaal gave birth to their first daughter; their second daughter was born in 2004.  It is important to note at this juncture in their relationship chronology that the voters of Kansas passed Constitutional Amendment 1 by public referendum in 2006, which prohibited marriage or civil unions for anyone other than a bilateral, heterosexual couple.  By September 2007, the relationship between Frazier and Goudschaal began to unravel, and they were staying in separate bedrooms. In January 2008, Goudschaal moved out of their home, but continued to share parenting responsibilities and maintained equal parenting time with the girls.  However, by the following July, Goudschaal began to decrease Frazier's contact with the girls, allowing her visitation only 1 day each week and every other weekend.  Finally, in October 2008, Goudschaal informed Frazier that she had accepted a new job in Texas and intended to move there with both girls within a week.  Frazier responded by seeking relief in the Johnson County District Court.  The district court found in favor of Frazier.  Goudschaal appealed.  The state supreme court affirmed the district court’s general finding, however the justices were not satisfied that the best interests of the children had been properly addressed and documented as part of the judgment.  The court clearly stated that same-sex couples have the right to define their family as they wish, as long as the best interests of any children involved are protected.  The journey for equal rights continues.

News from the economic front:

-- The People’s Republic of China (PRC) National Bureau of Statistics reported the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the country rose 7.7% in 1Q2013, compared to a year earlier, down from a growth of 7.9% in 4Q2012.

-- A senior Chinese auditor warned that local government debt is “out of control” and could spark a bigger financial crisis than the U.S. housing market crash and banking collapse.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF), rating agencies and investment banks have all raised concerns about Chinese government debt, but it is rare for a quasi-government figure to make such stark comments.

-- The IMF warned that an “uneven recovery is also a dangerous one” for the global economy as it again downgraded its growth forecasts for 2013.

-- The IMF also said, “The global financial crisis could morph into a more chronic phase, marked by a deterioration of financial conditions and recurring bouts of financial instability.”  The IMF voiced its concern with extraordinarily loose monetary policy that risk sparking new and dangerous credit bubbles, which threaten to tip the world back into financial crisis.

-- Japan’s finance ministry announced that exports to U.S. rose 10% to ¥11.4T (US$116B), which means the U.S. has exceeded the PRC as the top importer of Japanese goods for the first time since 2009.

-- Finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations agreed that Japan’s massive monetary easing is needed to boost growth, a sign they are not stepping up pressure on Tokyo over the yen’s recent drop.

Comments from Update no.590:

“A couple notes, the international Arms Trade Treaty you cited, is just that- an international arms trade treaty.  While the NRA is trying to make political hay- (and maximize donations), it does not affect internal domestic trade.  Wayne LaPierre has put himself on the same side as Kim-Jong Un and the Iranian mullahs, if not the Chinese and Russian arms industries.  The ATT is designed to get control over arms trade between countries- of which there is precious little- and to the detriment of U.S. security. And it is to the benefit of U.S. arms makers for that matter, as we have stringent regulations for such trade.  Good question, why is the NRA positioning itself against U.S. arms makers?

“U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Internal Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, has stated that the Obama administration only wants to make it more difficult to ‘conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms.’  In addition, a press release issued by the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs said that ‘The outcome will not seek to prohibit citizens of any country from possessing firearms or to interfere with the legal trade in small arms and light weapons.’

“Regarding Dennis Prager, you charitably described him as ‘a writer, theologian, and daily talk show host on KABC Radio.’  I have heard of him and heard and read his articles/shows...I would have to add that he is very conservative and candidly, a bigot against certain religions and races.  In fact, the late former NYC mayor Ed Koch called out Prager as a bigot and called for him to be kicked off the United States Holocaust Memorial Council for Prager's continued criticism of Minnesota Representative Keith Ellis using a Quran for being sworn in (Ellis is a Muslim- and black as well, a two-fer for Prager). The ADL also strongly criticized Prager for that.   He has also made racist comments about blacks and Mexicans on his show, as well as having espoused the view that women should be barefoot, preggers and in the kitchen.  You are more generous than I would be for giving his views on homosexuality a platform.”

My reply:

            With all the excitement this week, I missed your contribution.  Please accept my humble apologies.

            Re: Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).  I do not agree with the NRA being on the same plain as the DPRK or IRI.  As I read the ATT language, it sounds quite like most of the gun control legislation . . . let’s punish or restrain the good folks so the bad people can do their dastardly deeds.  I am all in favor of going after the bad or mentally disturbed guys to prevent them from injuring anyone, but not without protections for good citizens.  Thus, my rejection of S.150 and S.649; we are treating symptoms, not the root cause.

            Please pardon the suspicions of citizens like me who have seen far too much abuse of existing laws by federal, state and local prosecutors.  Every time over-zealous prosecutors do that, they add another link in the chain of resistance.  Why should we trust them with more power?  Intellectually, I want Countryman and the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs to be spot on correct and empowered, but not at the cost of our individual rights.  So, let’s see the protections against political or unwarranted prosecutions, disclosures, defamation and such.

            Re: Prager.  I believe it is vital in democratic public debate, especially within this Grand Republic, to hear the full spectrum of political thought.  Prager’s representation of fundamentalist Judeo-Christian morality is accurate.  His thinking is accepted by a goodly portion of our citizenry.  I do not fear his words, but I do resent and object to those who translate words like his into damnable, oppressive, intrusive laws that violate the fundamental right to privacy of every citizen . . . including Dennis Prager.  I know what he says about homosexuality is flat wrong, for a host of reasons both religious and secular.  Yet, I also believe our resistance of such thinking should be in the power of our argument rather than suppression of his voice.  I am offended by Prager’s opinion, just as I am offended by the vitriol of Adolf Hitler or Grand Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei; there are extremists at both ends of the political spectrum.  We must watch and listen to all of them.

No comments and contributions from Update no.591.

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)