Tikkabik

I’m really disappointed with anyone who thinks CVS or any other business is justified in _not_ selling Rolling Stone because they are afraid of controversy over the current issue’s cover, which features a picture of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect in a pose that makes him look like a teen heartthrob. (Accompanied by the words “The Bomber” in large, bold letters, and the description of him as “a monster.”)

If you don’t want it, don’t buy it. But having a vendor turn their back on carrying it – especially if it’s because _some_ of their customers might get offended – prevents anyone else who might want it from buying it.

If you’re thinking “Yeah, that’s it, exactly,” just hold on for one second. That’s *economic censorship* plain and simple. And that’s against the very spirit, if not the letter, of the First Amendment.

You know, one of those rights that some terrorists would just as soon see us do without.

The whole point of the cover is to demonstrate the paradox of the Boston Marathon bombings – that this wasn’t carried out by some swarthy “evildoer” in an Afghanistan cave wearing a turban – this was done by a kid that could just as easily be your neighbor, your boyfriend, or your college roommate.

We’ve watched our constitutional freedoms dissolve since 9/11 in a miasma of panicked, ill-thought-out responses to a largely invisible enemy. Here’s another opportunity for us to show we’re better than them, and, as usual, we’re fumbling the fucking ball.

I’m particularly appalled at my fellow Bostonians and Bay Staters who share my left-leaning Massachusetts librul sensitivities, who think, inaccurately, that this cover or the editorial content therein in any way glorify this incredibly twisted and malevolent young man. You need a lesson in reading comprehension and less knee-jerking.

For shame on all of you. For shame.

In Voting Rights, Scalia Sees a Racial Entitlement : The New Yorker.

Justice Antonin Scalia, during oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, said that the Court had to rescue Congress from the trap of being afraid to vote against a “racial entitlement”—the “entitlement” in question being the Voting Rights Act.

Anyone else mad yet?

Most of the news reports I’ve read and seen on television reporting the US Postal Service’s decision to stop Saturday letter delivery have one common theme – that the USPS’s “red ink” is correlated to dwindling first class mail revenue and changing times, as people use e-mail and pay bills online.

This is wrong – this isn’t why the Postal Service has lost billions. It’s because of a 2006 law passed by Congress that required the Postal Service to prefund health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years within 10 years.

This required the USPS to set aside billions of dollars to pay health care benefits for employees it hasn’t even hired yet and won’t for DECADES. This legislation is unprecedented – never before has the government mandated that any business or government agency fund such payments for such a period.

In other words, this is a problem that Congress created. an American institution is suffering, and American citizens are seeing a service they’ve counted on for generations get unnecessarily diminished.

“l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier” – Jacques Necker

“Treppenwitz.” – Germans

Resignation Suggests Rift Between CNET and CBS – NYTimes.com.

“CBS has nothing but the highest regard for the editors and writers at CNET, and has managed that business with respect as part of its CBS Interactive division since it was acquired in 2008. This has been an isolated and unique incident in which a product that has been challenged as illegal, was removed from consideration for an award. The product in question is not only the subject of a lawsuit between Dish and CBS, but between Dish and nearly every other major media company as well. CBS has been consistent on this situation from the beginning, and, in terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100% editorial independence, and always will. We look forward to the site building on its reputation of good journalism in the years to come.”

If this isn’t yet another screaming condemnation against corporate media control, I don’t know what is.

I’m very disappointed but not surprised that the corporate media has reported Hostess’ demise as an uncooperative union refusing to budge rather than vulture capitalists intent on wringing as much money as they could out of a company already in trouble when they took it over.

The leveraged buyout firm that bought Hostess had already pilfered the pension fund and had previously gotten huge wage concessions out of the baker’s union. To position this now as the fault of the union is a bit like saying that a woman shouldn’t have let her throat be cut after refusing to be raped again.

Not to mention that Hostess’ top management, fully aware of what was coming, did its best to line its own pockets by dramatically changing its compensation structure in the year before the shutdown.

It sickens me almost as much as binging on a box of Twinkies would.

Some Republicans like to imagine there are people who want an easily life of living on the dole. Anyone who’s ever actually *needed* public assistance will tell you that it’s not easy.

Simply qualifying for basic assistance is an endless slog, a miasma of paperwork and bureaucracy that’s gotten gradually more complicated as more disparate services are offered. Coordination of care and service requires very advanced logistical skills, and you need to constantly renew your credentials whenever you’re asked in order to continue to qualify for help.

You’re also advised repeatedly that if you get gainful employment or any sort of windfall, you risk the services and assistance that you’ve spent in some cases weeks or months getting to begin with. And if you do lose services, you’ll have to start over at square one.

So is it any wonder that once people are in the system, they’re very reluctant to get out?