Silver Mylar Balloons

The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez
and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio
Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they
drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas.
(AP/Julia Le Duc)

They stayed at the Mexico/America border for months.
They were turned away from the port of entry.

Metering is the term that Customs and Border Protection uses
for a process by which it limits the number of people who can
request asylum at a port of entry at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing
each day. As far as U.S. asylum law says, anyone who steps foot in
the U.S. has the ability to request asylum. So what CBP is doing is
they're stationing a guard at border crossings. Asylum-seekers that
show up there, they tell them they have to turn around and go put
their name on a waitlist, basically, back in Mexico and wait for
their turn to request asylum.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/29/737268856/metering-at-the-border

This was the week that The New York Times ran a photograph
on its front page of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, a Salvadoran
migrant and his 23-month-old daughter who had drowned in the Rio
Grande River near Brownsville, Texas, trying to reach the United States.
They lay side by side face down on the muddy riverbank, our own tableau
of innocent death alongside the photo of the dead Syrian boy lying in the
surf on a Turkish beach in the Mediterranean Sea, drowned while trying
to reach the Greek island of Kos.

This was the week that three children, including two babies, and a woman
were found dead near the Rio Grande River in south Texas, apparently
overcome by the heat, according to the Washington Post

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/29/this-is-the-week-it-became-accurate-to-compare-trump-to-hitler/

“He’s done hundreds of Trump cartoons,” Tyrell told The Post,
“but none has run in these [Brunswick] papers” that represent
de Adder’s home province, where he still has family, the
cartoonist tweeted. (Wes Tyrell, president of the Association
of Canadian Cartoonists)

In the viral cartoon, which de Adder tweeted last Wednesday,
Trump has pulled his golf cart up to two drowned bodies and
asks, “Do you mind if I play through?” His image references
the widely circulated photo of father Oscar Alberto Martinez
Ramirez and daughter Angie Valeria, who died crossing the
Río Grande from Mexico to Texas.


The immigration cartoon gained popularity after such celebrities
as George Takei and Mark Hamill noted it on social media.

News of de Adder’s canceled contract comes shortly after
the New York Times ended its contracts with two political
cartoonists, including longtime contributor Patrick Chappatte,
whose work appeared in the Times’ international edition.
The Times’ announcement followed controversy and an
apology from the publisher for an overseas cartoon mocking
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Last year, Rob Rogers was fired from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
after a quarter-century at the paper...

In April, Rogers was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for editorial cartooning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...ck-news/?utm_term=.49ec14a970c5&noredirect=on

First Look Media Verified Account
@ firstlookmedia
NYC

Provocative independent storytelling.
Home of @TheIntercept @Topicstories
@FieldofVision @TheNib @press_fund

First Look Media

Anna Holmes
@AnnaHolmes

It’s a strange day today. The editorial team of @topicstories
is at their desks and hard at work at our next issue, launching
tomorrow. As has been reported, this past Friday the team learned
that @firstlookmedia is shutting down our publication.

8:31 AM - 1 Jul 2019

Matt Bors
@MattBors

I also need to acknowledge our colleagues at @topicstories
which is being shuttered. They've produced some amazing
work with a small team—any media org should feel lucky
to have them.

(link)

11:18 AM - 1 Jul 2019

Matt Bors
@MattBors Replying to @elerimai @Lubchansky and 2 others

When I started The Nib a colleague said it wouldn't last six months.
It's been six years. We've put over $1.5 million into the hands of
cartoonists. I'm going to keep it going.

8:54 AM - 1 Jul 2019

awwww

The U.S. Airforce are such spoil sports!

July 15, 2019


On Monday, the number of people who signed up for the
tongue-in-cheek Facebook call to "Storm Area 51"
exceeded 1 million.

And now, U.S. military officials say they are monitoring
the situation.

"The U.S. Air Force is aware of the Facebook event
encouraging people to 'Storm Area 51,' "
an Air Force spokesperson told NPR.

"The Nevada Test and Training Range provides flexible,
realistic and multidimensional battlespace to test and
develop tactics as well as conduct advanced training
in support of U.S. national interests," said the official,
using the full name of a site that includes Area 51.

"Any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged."

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/7419...-storm-area-51-but-the-air-force-says-stay-ho

(It was started as a joke.)

The irony that this debate coincides with the 50th anniversary of Woodstock
is not lost on Claubaugh, who says he sees many “parallels.”

At Woodstock, from Aug. 15 to 18 in 1969, 400,000 people arrived
when only around 50,000 had been expected. Max Yasgur, the farm
owner who rented out his land for the music festival in Bethel, NY
was sued by his neighbors and Yasgur himself later won a settlement
of $50,000 from organizers for the chaotic event’s lack of proper
bathrooms, which left the land in disarray after the festival.

Woodstock August 15-18, 1969

Alienstock from Sept. 19 to Sept. 22, 2019

https://time.com/5653022/alienstock-area-51-music-festival-reaction/

Mutual UFO Network celebrates 50th anniversary (unrelated to Alienstock)

Alienstock is scheduled for 20-22 September.

The website has strict rules for attendees, including an
absolute prohibition on drones. After all, the site says,
this is “common airspace for government operations”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...the-new-burning-man-or-the-next-fyre-festival

Another beautiful French parade!

August 25, 2019

The city of Paris marked 75 years since its liberation from Nazi forces
in World War II with a Freedom Parade on Sunday. According to Press
TV, flag carrying Parisians came out onto the streets in 1940s period
costumes as tanks and military vehicles rolled through the French
capital to recreate the route taken by Allied forces, led by French
General Philippe Leclerc, to liberate the city.

Cokie Roberts

R.I.P.



Ms. Roberts started her career at CBS, then began working
for NPR in 1978, covering Capitol Hill. She joined ABC in
1988. Her three decades at the network included anchoring,
with Sam Donaldson, the Sunday morning news program
“This Week” from 1996 to 2002.

She eventually became a radio correspondent for CBS,
before joining NPR in 1978. With her fellow newswomen
Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer, she began to change
the journalistic landscape.

“As a troika they have succeeded in revolutionizing political
reporting,” the Times wrote in that 1994 article. “Twenty years
ago Washington journalism was pretty much a male game, like
football and foreign policy. But along came demure Linda,
delicately crashing onto the presidential campaign press bus;
then entered bulldozer Nina, with major scoops on Douglas
Ginsberg and Anita Hill; and in came tart-tongued Cokie
with her savvy Congressional reporting. A new kind of
female punditry was born.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/o...es-abc-says/CHAyLEGdacoad41S7IdqfJ/story.html

President Obama said - “Michelle and I are sad to hear about the
passing of Cokie Roberts.” (emailed statement)

Obama makes apparent dig at Trump with advice presidents
avoid TV and Twitter

‘Not watching TV or reading social media. Those are two things
I’d advise, if you’re a good president, not to do,’ Obama said

September 18, 2019

The former US president was speaking as a guest at an event
earlier today for Splunk, an international software firm, called
“The Beginning of Everything”.

When he was asked how he parsed information while in office,
he touted the importance of building a team to stay informed.

“The presidency is like drinking out of a firehose - you can’t
absorb that information yourself,” he said. “You can make sure
you have a team that is distilling info as effectively as possible
so you can get a basic framework for what the problem is.”

Obama said spending time on social media and becoming reactive
to how polls and media portray you as president can make it more
difficult to run the country effectively.

“It creates a lot of noise and clouds your judgment,” Obama said.
“You start mistaking the intensity or passion of a small subset of
people with a broader sense of how a country feels - it will sway
your decision in an unhealthy way.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-live-latest-climate-change-testimony-updates

September 19, 2019

"Area 51 is a place where normal, ordinary citizens can't go."

"When you tell people they can't do something, they just
want to do it more."

- Michael Ian Borer,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, sociologist

The U.S. Air Force has issued stern warnings for people
not to approach the gates of the Nevada Test and Training
Range, where Area 51 is located.

Eric Holt, the Lincoln County emergency manager overseeing
preparations, said he believed authorities could handle 30,000
visitors at the events in Rachel and Hiko.

Still, neighbors braced for trouble after millions of people
responded to the "Storm Area 51" Facebook post weeks
ago.

Joerg Arnu, a Rachel resident who can see the festival grounds
from his home, said he installed outdoor floodlights, fencing and "
Trespassing" signs on his 30-acre property.

Arnu said the military added razor wire to barbed cattle fencing
on the Area 51 boundary near his home, installed more cameras
and battery-powered lighting, and erected an imposing
spike barrier just inside a gate.

He noted a new sign telling trespassers they’ll be arrested
and fined $1,000.

https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2...-as-earthlings-arrive-for-area-51-events.html

"The Navy says it still doesn't know what the objects are
and officials aren't speculating.

A Navy spokesman simply confirming the objects seen in various
clips are unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs. The UFO reports
were first investigated by a secret $22 million program, part of the
Defense Department budget that investigated reports of UFOs.
The program has since been shut down. But it was run by a military
intelligence official who told CNN they found compelling evidence
that we, quote, 'may not be alone.' Randi Kaye, CNN, New York."

https://crooksandliars.com/2019/09/us-navy-ufo-videos-published-new-york

Martin Rowson on Rory Stewart leaving the Conservatives

The former Tory MP Rory Stewart has announced he will run
for the London mayoralty as an independent candidate


How Rory Stewart went from 'Florence of Belgravia' to PM hopeful

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ory-leadership

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: "Rory Stewart
wholeheartedly backed Tory cuts that have ripped the
heart out of our communities and done so much damage
to our police, NHS and schools. He would be a disaster
for London."

It comes after Mr Stewart's announcement that he was
stepping down as an MP at the next election and quitting
the Conservative Party.

The next scheduled general election is in 2022, but it is widely
anticipated a snap poll is imminent, with the prime minister urging
MPs to support his call for one. The London mayoral election will
be held on 7 May, 2020.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49931937

Paths of Glory | The New Yorker

Ian Parker

Nov 15, 2010

If Stewart’s desire for office surprised some, so did his choice of party.
According to Stewart, General David Petraeus made a joking reference
to the affiliation during a recent, off-the-record meeting with M.P.s.
Mathias Risse, a professor at the Kennedy School, and a friend of
Stewart’s, told me, “In terms of political positions, we always ended
up seeing quite eye-to-eye. I always thought he and I both had Harvard,
mainstream, liberal views.”

While the Conservative Party under Cameron’s leadership had little of the
right-wing ferocity of the Margaret Thatcher years—he rebranded the Party
as temperate and green—Labour still seemed the more natural fit. Stewart
had never voted Conservative, except against his will; in 2001, when he
was walking in India, his parents cast his proxy vote for the Conservatives,
to his dismay.

He had been a member of the Labour Party in his late teens.
(A few pounds a year; occasional meetings.) In 1997, he applauded
the election victory of Tony Blair. In a Times Op-Ed three years ago,
Stewart objected to the “feel-good, idea-light” policies of the Conservatives,
and wrote that “Churchill has been replaced by Bertie Wooster,” which is
hard not to read as a criticism of Cameron. When, in 2009, Risse considered
Stewart’s choice, he came to think of it as class-based, almost tribal, the
Conservatives historically being the party of land and tradition:

“Someone with his origins and his family history? Of course he can’t run
for the Labour Party.” (Stewart does not see it this way.) Risse did not make
the additional point that a Labour victory—after thirteen years in power,
and with the unhappy-looking Brown as Party leader—was generally
deemed impossible.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...ory-ian-parker



an odd duck

Guardian first book award 2004

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart


https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...irstbookaward5