By The Numbers

2008: Bush’s Last Year

President Bush issued a statement yesterday in which he heralded New Year’s day as “an opportunity to remember the events of the past and look forward with hope to the year ahead.” But as Bush looks forward to leaving office, the nation is stuck with the results of many of the Bush administration’s failed policies.

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
– Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
– Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
– Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

– Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
– Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
– Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
– Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
– Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
– Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Paul Krugman noted recently that the Bush administration’s failings have often been obscured in the short-run because the White House was particularly effective at inventing an alternate reality that it then “impressed on the public.” In 2008, however, despite its repeated attempts to wish it away, the reality of its domestic policy failures caught up with Bush administration and the nation.

No, It Comes in Threes

My dearest

Aunt Jo

gave up a long
and difficult strugglewith cancer today.


I'd like nothing better than to believe


she is finally at peace having a joyful reunion with her boy.


Roberta Josephine Smith Mills 11.24.1929-12.26.2008

Bad News comes in twos?

Critically acclaimed entertainer and political activist, Eartha Kitt, has died...






I once had the thrill of accompanying Eartha Kitt on the piano
one evening when she slinked into the club where I was performing. She obviously had perfect pitch, began singing
"I Can't Give You Anything But Love" in the key of C (the "people's key") which any self respecting piano player should be able to follow. I met the challenge and we connected on a profound level for a few unforgettable(at least for me) moments.
Afterwards she waited by her limo while I went to get my dog
"Ella Fitzgerald Feingold" to meet her two poodles.
She got down on the ground and hugged my dog
- that's when I really fell in love.
Many years later I sometimes saw her in Pound Ridge, NY where I lived at the time, walking her
most recent pair of poodles while I walked my most recent golden. I never bothered her but always remembered the warmth of our connection once upon a time.









–and Harold Pinter, praised as the most influential British playwright of his generation and a longtime voice of political protest, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.

Harold Pinter on "Art, Truth and Politics"

Eartha Mae Kitt 1. 17. 1927-12.25.2008
Harold Pinter 10.10.1930 - 12.24.2008

merry x love Sarah

celebrating Yip Harburg

they used to tell me I was building a dream...






E. Y. (Yip) Harburg, often known as "Broadway's social conscience," was born on April 8, 1896 of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, raised in poverty on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and later attended City College of New York where he struck up a lifelong friendship with his classmate, Ira Gershwin.


Yip was a master lyricist, poet and bookwriter who was dedicated to social justice. Credit him with
"Brother Can You Spare A Dime",
"It's Only a Paper Moon"
not to mention "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
and other songs from the Wizard Of Oz.

This episode of Democracy Now features an interview with Yip's son, Ernie
- an amazing exploration into the creative process and the politics behind "The Wizard Of Oz".

http://i2.democracynow.org/2008/12/25/stream


E. Y. (Yip) Harburg 4. 8. 1896 - 3.4.1981

remember Mike Connell?? (see Nov 1 blog)

GOP consultant killed in plane crash was warned of sabotage:
John Byrne, David Edwards and Stephen Webster






The Republican consultant accused of involvement in alleged vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004 was warned that his plane might be sabotaged before his death in a crash Friday night, according to a Cleveland CBS affiliate.

45-year-old Republican operative Michael Connell was killed when his single-passenger plane crashed Friday into a home in a suburb of Akron, Ohio (PREVIOUS REPORT). The consultant was called to testify in federal court regarding a lawsuit alleging that he took part in tampering with Ohio's voting results in the 2004 election.

Without getting into specific details, 19 Action News reporter Blake Renault reported Sunday evening that 45-year-old Republican operative and experienced pilot had been warned not to fly his plane in the days before the crash.



"Connell...was apparently told by a close friend not to fly his plane because his plane might be sabotaged," Renault said. "And twice in the last two months Connell, who is an experienced pilot, cancelled two flights because of suspicious problems with his plane."

More on that "clean coal" myth

Monday, more than 500 million gallons of toxic coal sludge burst through a retention wall in eastern Tennessee, causing massive property and environmental damage and leaving residents holding their breath over possible long-term consequences. Environmentalists said the spill was more than 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The incident underscored the false nature of the “clean coal” propaganda. In an interview with NBC Nightly News, Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists explained:

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