DS9 Document EFTA01142796

From: To: Bcc: Subject: Date: Attachments: Inline-Images: Gregory Brown <[email protected]> undisclosed-recipients:; [email protected] Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 08/25/2013 Sun, 25 Aug 2013 07:01:21 +0000 Moment_of_Truthiness_Paul_Krugman_NYT_August_15„2013.pdf; How economies_have fared since their_pre- recession_peaks_The_gconornist_kug_16th_2013.pdf; Where_languages_are_spoken_in_the_U.S._Dan_Keaton_&_Darla_Cameron_TWP- Aug._17,2013.pdf; Overseas_Americans„Time_to_Say2Bye_to_Uncle_Sam_Laura_Saunders_&_Liam_Pleve n_WSJ_08_19_2013.pdf; Republicans_increasingly_eager_to_get_the_word_o_ut_lu2014_en_EspatI_Ed_OKeefe_ TWP_August_ I 8„2013.pdf; The_Magical_World_Where_McDonald's_Pays_$15_an_Hour„It's_Australiajordan_Weiss mann_The_Alantic_August_5„2013.pdf; For_retailersjow_wages_aren't_working_o_=? WINDOWS-1252?Q?ut=5FHarold_Meyerson=5FTWP=5FAugust_20,2013.pdf?=; PPP- GOP_Louisiana-poll-August-2013.pdf; ALBERT_MURRAY_DIES_AT_97_NY_TIMES_8_19_13.pdf; Martin_Luther_King's_Speech_August_28„1963.pdf; Colin Powell slams_NC's new_voting_law_in_speech_at_Raleigh_CEOforum_John_Mur awski_Newsoiserver.com:Aug._22,_2013.pdf; THE_POLICE_bion 08_25_2013.pdf image.png; image(I).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png; image(14).png; image(I5).png; image(16).png; image(17).png DEAR FRIEND.... Albert Murray, Essayist Who Challenged the Conventional, Dies at 97 EFTA01142796 For those of you who have never heard of him or know his work, Albert Murray, (May 12, 1916 — August 19, 2013), an influential essayist, critic and novelist who found literary inspiration in his Alabama roots and saw black culture and American culture as inextricably entwined, died on Sunday at his home in Harlem. He was a national treasure and 97 years old at the time of his death. Lewis P. Jones, a family spokesman and executor of Mr. Murray's estate, confirmed the death. With a freewheeling prose style influenced by jazz and the blues, Mr. Murray challenged conventional assumptions about art, race and American identity in books like the essay collection "Stomping the Blues" and the memoir "South to a Very Old Place." He also gave expression to those views in a series of autobiographical novels, starting with "Train Whistle Guitar" in 1974. Mr. Murray established himself as a formidable social and literary figure in 1970 with his first book, a collection of essays titled "The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture. " The book constituted an attack on black separatism, a movement supported by the Black Panthers and others that was gathering force in the late 196os, particularly among alienated young blacks. "The United States is not a nation of black and white people," Mr. Murray, a fervent integrationist, wrote. "Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black." America, he maintained, "even in its most rigidly segregated precincts," was a "nation of multicolored people," or Omni-Americans: "part Yankee, part backwoodsman and Indian — and part Negro." The book also challenged what Mr. Murray called the "social science fiction" pronouncements of writers like Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who he said had exaggerated racial and ethnic differences in postulating a pathology of black life. As Mr. Murray put it, they had simply countered "the folklore of white supremacy" with "the fakelore of black pathology." The novelist Walker Percy called "The Omni-Americans" "the most important book on black-white relations in the United States, indeed on American culture," published in his generation. But it had fierce detractors. Writing in The New York Times, the black-studies scholar and author J. Saunders EFTA01142797 Redding called the essays contradictory, Mr. Murray's theories "nonsense" and his "rhetoric" a "dense mixture of pseudo-scientific academic jargon, camp idiom and verbal play." For many years Mr. Murray and the novelist Ralph Ellison, who met in college, were close friends and literary kindred spirits. In "King of Cats," a 1996 profile of Mr. Murray in The New Yorker, Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote that the friendship between the two men "seemed a focal point of black literary culture." "Both men were militant integrationists, and they shared an almost messianic view of the importance of art," Mr. Gates wrote. "In their ardent belief that Negro culture was a constitutive part of American culture, they had defied an entrenched literary mainstream, which preferred to regard black culture as so much exotica — amusing perhaps, but eminently dispensable. Now they were also defying a new black vanguard, which regarded authentic black culture as separate from the rest of American culture — something that was created, and could be appreciated, in splendid isolation." Like Ellison, Mr. Murray proposed an inclusive theory of "the American Negro presence." (He disdained the use of the term "black" and later spurned "African-American" — "I am not an African," he said, "I am an American.") Mr. Murray contended that American identity "is best defined in terms of culture." And for him, American culture was a "composite," or "mulatto," culture that owed much of its richness and diversity to blacks. Yet Mr. Murray was not always sure that whites understood this shared legacy when they embraced black artists; he could be suspicious of them, asking whether whites, even in their applause, nonetheless continued to regard black culture, in Mr. Gates's words, "as so much exotica." Thus Mr. Murray asked whether the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Toni Morrison in 1993 was not "tainted with do-goodism," and whether the poet Maya Angelou's readings at President Bill Clinton's first inaugural echoed a song-and-dance tradition in which blacks entertained whites. What Mr. Murray called Negro culture was, he wrote, not apart or different from American culture but inseparable from it. Much of American culture, he believed, derives from the vigorous embrace of a "blues aesthetic," which he found permeating the works of musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, artists like Romare Bearden and writers like Ellison. "For him, blues music, with its demands for improvisation, resilience and creativity, is at the heart of American identity," Laura Ciolkowski, a professor of literature now at Columbia University, wrote of Mr. Murray in The New York Times Book Review in 2002. To him, she wrote, the blues were "the genuine legacy of slavery." Mr. Murray himself wrote: "When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet, the priest and the medicine man. He is making an affirmative and hence exemplary and heroic response to that which Andre Malraux describes as la condition humaine." Albert Lee Murray was born on May 12, 1916, in Nokomis, Ala., to middle-class parents who soon gave him up for adoption to Hugh Murray, a laborer, and his wife, Matty. "It's just like the prince left among the paupers," said Mr. Murray, who learned of his adoption when he was about 11. The Murrays moved to Mobile, where Albert grew up in a neighborhood known as Magazine Point. In "Train Whistle Guitar," his largely autobiographical first novel, he called it Gasoline Point. Through the novel's protagonist, Scooter, his fictional alter ego, Mr. Murray evoked an unharrowed childhood enriched by music, legends, jiving and jesting, and the fancy talk of pulpit orators and storefront storytellers. As rendered in Mr. Murray's inventive prose, the adolescent Scooter and his friend Buddy Marshall could imagine themselves as "explorers and discoverers and Indian scouts as well as sea pirates and cowboys and African spear fighters not to mention the two schemingest gamblers and back alley ramblers this side of Philmayork." EFTA01142798 After graduating from the Mobile County Training School, where he earned letters in three sports and was voted the best all-around student, Mr. Murray enrolled at Tuskegee Institute, where he discovered literature and immersed himself in Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce and Mann. He met Ralph Ellison, an upperclassman, as well as another student, Mozelle Menefee, who became his wife in 1941. She survives him, as does their daughter, Michele Murray, who became a dancer with the Alvin Ailey company. Mr. Murray received a bachelor of science degree in education in 1939 and began graduate study at the University of Michigan. But the following year, he returned to Tuskegee to teach literature and composition. He enlisted in the military in 1943 and spent the last two years of World War II in the Anny Air Corps. After the war, the Murrays moved to New York City, where he used the G.I. Bill to earn a master's degree from N.Y.U. and renew his friendship with Ellison. In 1951, a year before Ellison published his classic work, "Invisible Man," Mr. Murray rejoined the military, entering the Air Force. He served in the military, peripatetically, for 11 years — teaching courses in geopolitics in the Air Force R.O.T.C. program at Tuskegee in the 1950s, taking assignments in North Africa and studying at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the University of Paris. After retiring from the Air Force as a major in 1962, he returned to New York with his family and settled in an apartment in the Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem. He began writing essays for literary journals and articles for Life and The New Leader, some of which were included in "The Omni- Americans." He also became a familiar figure on campuses, holding visiting professorships at the University of Massachusetts, Barnard, Columbia, Emory, Colgate and other schools. And he resumed exploring the streets and nightclubs of Harlem with Mr. Ellison. From 1970 to the mid-1990s, as if compensating for his slow start, Mr. Murray published nine books. His second, "South to a Very Old Place" (1971), recounted his return to his Southern homeland. The book later became part of the Modern Library. In "The Hero and the Blues" (1973), a collection of essays based on a series of lectures, Mr. Murray criticized naturalism and protest fiction, which he said subjugated individual actions to social circumstances. In "Stomping the Blues" (1976), he argued that the essence of the blues was the tension between the woe expressed in its lyrics and the joy found in its melodies. He saw the blues, and jazz, as an uplifting response to misery. "The blues is not the creation of a crushed-spirited people," Mr. Murray said years later. "It is the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people." He next began a long collaboration with Count Basie on his autobiography, "Good Morning Blues," which was published in 1985, a year after Basie's death. Along with the writer Stanley Crouch and the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Murray was actively involved in the creation of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the institution's first permanent jazz program. In 1991 he returned to his fictional alter ego, Scooter, depicting his college years at Tuskegee in the novel "The Spyglass Tree." Four years later, as he neared 80, Mr. Murray published two books: "The Seven League Boots," the third volume of his Scooter cycle, and "The Blue Devils of Nada," another essay collection. Still another collection, "From the Briarpatch File: On Context, Procedure, and American Identity," which explored in part the "existential implications of the blues," was published in 2001. Mr. Murray published the fourth and last novel in his Scooter cycle, "The Magic Keys," in 2005. The book, which received tepid reviews (it "feels plotted rather than lived," John Leland wrote in The Times), brings its narrator, whose real name is never learned, to graduate school in Manhattan, where he befriends a thinly disguised Ralph Ellison and Romare Bearden. Mainstream recognition was slow EFTA01142799 to come for Mr. Murray. But by the mid-199os, the critic Warren J. Carson had called him "African America's undiscovered national treasure," and in 1997 the Book Critics Circle gave Mr. Murray its award for lifetime achievement. The next year he received the inaugural Harper Lee Award as Alabama's most distinguished writer. In 2000, Mr. Murray published "Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray," which he edited with John F. Callahan. That same year he appeared as a commentator in Ken Burn's multipart PBS documentary "Jazz." The critic Tony Scherman wrote of Mr. Murray in American Heritage, "His views add up to a cohesive, elegant whole, malting him a rarity in today's attenuated intellectual world: a system builder, a visionary in the grand manner." He could also write on a personal scale: his first book of poems, "Conjugations and Reiterations," appeared in 2001. And he was candid in writing about advanced age. "I'm doing more than ever," he wrote in an Op-Ed essay in The Times in 1998, two years after undergoing spinal surgery, "but it's harder now. I'm in constant pain. At home I use a four-pronged aluminum stick to get around. I need a stroller when I'm on the street. At receptions and in airports I need a wheelchair to get down the long aisles. "But nothing hurts quite like the loss of old friends. There are ways to cope at the time they die. But weeks and months later you realize you can't phone them and talk: Duke Ellington, Romare Bearden, Ralph Ellison, Alfred Kazin, Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Mitchell. It's hard to believe they're all gone " My friend Rudy reminded of me of the time while shooting the movie Sugarhill starring Wesley Snipes we made a pilgrimage to the great man's home in Harlem which served as inspiration for all of us to keep it real.... ******* \-TUNISIA ziAgair. * .A.K....., GAArpAn. Tripoli Mediterranean Sea A i rata ` A I We' • Al EA , ;A. .C.artian .1 Jbruc NAM . 8-3- ?WO 117- ;`3 ,ro' . 0 ,703P1 .s ert Gulf of 'Si nawin S•dra .0.,idsoira . solo An til isfabriaoi• .Asser Gruipestme ALGERIA 0 I$Qkm NA364111• Ilariaah. "beat Ada'. .842k •Alcit4In• Avrtlan. S31)". LIBYA pan., .Ze. 'Al thrallNH .Gnat AICIA;r(O• Ja,arr.. NIGER • VA. al K.itair CHAD AI Jig riti0b. "Am ran . Tar 4rbu Bele 7 43it ft a l? 266 m) Al Jtrof * . Al B3701 EGYPT SUDAN EFTA01142800 As many of you may know, I am a huge fan of the new leadership in Libya as the country has entered into a new chapter of its history. Looking next door to Egypt, the transition is unlikely to be easy and the emergence of a western-style democracy by no means a given. But, should such a thing come to pass, Libya's economic potential is enormous. Libya has the ninth largest oil reserves in the world and its production, before the revolt against Qaddafi began, was 1.6 million barrels a day. Its proximity to Europe and its low cost of production— only $1.00 a barrel in some fields—make it highly attractive for new exploration, and two-thirds of Libya has yet to be fully explored for oil. Because Libya's population is only 6.4 million, it can be a low-tax state, thanks to oil, and still build the infrastructure a modern economy needs. And the population is well-educated. Libya has the highest HDI (Human Development Index) in Africa, a UN metric that measures life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living. At 0.755, it is a little higher than Mexico's. With political stability and the rule of law, it could easily develop modern light industries to supply European markets, as it already has the human capital needed to do so. with the largest crude oil reserves and second largest natural gas reserves on the African Continent, as well as more than US$ioo billion in cash and assets residing outside of the country. With a small population of approximately six million people, together with huge crude oil and national gas reserves, the World Bank defines Libya as an 'Upper Middle Income Economy' and in the 1980s its GDP per capita was higher than Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and New Zealand. Therefore, with prudent management and financial responsibility, there is no reason that Libya can't return to its position as the #1 GDP per capita economy on the African Continent and one of the strongest in the world. Economists say that Libya's GDP should grow 15% annually over the next 5 to lo years, making it one of the most attractive places to invest in the planet and a potential Singapore, Qatar, Abu Dhabi or Hong Kong. And its tourist potential is unparalleled. Libya is an easy flight from anywhere in western Europe. Its winter climate is mild and it has great beaches, some of the longest on the Mediterranean and a pristine coastline of moo miles. The Sahara Desert, which covers much of the country, has prehistoric rock carvings and paintings and magnificent scenery (think David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia). It has some of the most impressive Roman ruins to be found anywhere in Leptis Magna, one of the great cities of the Roman Empire, and birth place of the Emperor Septimius Severus, who lavished the wealth of the empire upon it. If Libya can develop a modern, reasonably democratic political system, it could quickly develop into a first-world country. That, of course, is a very big if indeed with the history of kleptocratic government EFTA01142801 in the Arab world. But South Korea did it in the late loth century. South Korea was far poorer in 1960 than Libya is now and had been devastated by war in the previous decade. It, too, had been saddled with a miserable government. It had no oil to provide easy capital and needed to maintain a vast military establishment to defend against North Korea. But today, South Korea is a modern, prosperous state. Libya can be also—and soon. The nonprofit ocean-protection group Oceana genetically tested 1,215 samples from across the United States and genetically tested them in order to bring us the following astonishing facts: • 59% of the fish labeled "tuna" sold at restaurants and grocery stores in the US is not tuna. • Sushi restaurants were far more likely to mislabel their fish than grocery stores or other restaurants. Mislabeling by Retail Outlet Number of Fish 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 1 8% 38% mislabeled U correctly labeled 74% Grocery Stores Restaurants Sushi Venues In Chicago, Austin, New York, and Washington DC, every single sushi restaurant sampled sold mislabeled tuna. • 84% of fish samples labeled "white tuna" were actually escolar, a fish that can cause prolonged, uncontrollable, oily anal leakage. • The only fish more likely to be misrepresented than tuna was snapper, which was mislabeled 87% of the time, and was in actuality any of six different species. EFTA01142802 If you've ever wondered why the sushi in the display case is so affordable, given the dire state of the world's tuna supply, well, now you know, and if you are a sushi lover like me this might be of interest to you too. ***** We are a nation in denial as there has been five serious gun incidents in American schools since the Sandy Hook rampage that killed 26 people (20 children) on December 20, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut, and this week a 20 year old Michael Bandon Hill went into an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia with an assault rifle and more than goo rounds of ammunition threaten/endangering the lives of 80o students. Luckily the school's bookkeeper, Antoinette Tuff, was able to talk him into putting down his weapon and giving himself up to the police. Miraculously, no one was injured and Tuff is being hailed as a hero for possibly saving the lives of more than 800 students at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy. "[I saw] a young man ready to kill anybody that he could and take any lives he wanted to," Tuff told ABC. She asked the gunman his name in an attempt to keep him calm and at first he wouldn't tell her. "He told me he was sorry for what he was doing. He was willing to die," Tuff said. She remembered him loading his gun in front of her and the rest of the staff. "I just started telling him stories," she said, saying things like, "You don't have to die today." See ABC's interview with Ms. Tuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=MelCICCImDD8&noredirect=1#t=141 Tuff told him about the tragedies she had endured in her own life, like her divorce, and was eventually able to convince him to surrender to the police. "I told him, 'OK, we all have situations in our lives," she said. "It was going to be OK. If I could recover, he could, too." The gunman's brother, Timothy Hill, told NBC News that Hill "was bipolar and suffered from ADD." Hill exchanged fire with police and took several school employees -- including Tuff -- hostage in the front office. Hill has been charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, terroristic threats and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. EFTA01142803 We have to ask ourselves why do we submit every passenger boarding a plane in America to take off their shoes because one deranged terrorist unsuccessfully tried to ignite a bomb in his shoes and we do nothing to curtail assess to assault weapons by potential deranged gunmen. The NRA is wrong and America's efforts to protect our young is bankrupt. Thank God for Americans like Ms. Antoinette Tuff. ****** According to a Public Policy Polling survey, 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans say President Obama is more to blame for the botched executive branch response to Hurricane Katrina while just 28 percent blamed George W. Bush. A plurality of 44 percent said they were unsure who was more responsible, even though Hurricane Katrina occurred over three years before Obama entered the presidency when he was still a freshman Senator. When the Hurricane hit in 2005, Bush was slammed by both parties for errors pre- and post-Katrina. Later, a congressional report determined that a lack of presidential leadership failed the people of New Orleans. But Bush praised the federal response at the time, saying FEMA director Michael Brown was doing "a heckuva job." Since Obama took office, he has directed federal funding to rebuilding New Orleans hospitals. President Obama received some better reviews for at least one storm that actually occurred while he leads the executive branch. After Hurricane Sandy storm hit the East Coast, Republican governors Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell, praised federal efforts. Even Brown's criticism of Obama during Sandy came across as a compliment, because the disgraced FEMA director slammed Obama for responding "so quickly" to the oncoming storm. We have to asked why Republicans blame President Obama for everything bad, even when there is no way he could have helped or hurt. And if you are trouble coming up with an answer, let me help you. It is because he is a Black Democrat. Attached please find the results of the PPP survey. ****** One of the favorite sports in politics is bashing government agencies and employees. The federal workforce has been used as a political football for decades. Feds know the drill: A politician from either party needs to win points with the folks back home on the issue of cuffing government. S/he makes sweeping over-generalizations about federal pay, federal employee performance or competence, unions or any one of a hundred other issues, and neatly avoids any admission of complicity in the problem. The "unelected nameless, faceless bureaucrats" are always to blame. If only they could be forced to work and the bad ones fired, our government's problems would vanish, the sun would shine and there would be peace in the world. The fed-bashing has risen to unprecedented levels in recent years. Let's take an inventory. It has been 43 months (January 2010) since federal employees have received a general pay raise. Just this week the House voted to allow senior executives to be suspended without pay when accused of wrongdoing. Not found guilty of wrongdoing — just accused. They voted to allow anyone to record any conversation with a federal employee without the employee's consent. It isn't just one party either. A bipartisan majority voted to pass the "Stop Playing on Citizen's Cash Act" to restrict conference spending. Other bills are pending to cripple federal unions, deny feds' bonuses for outstanding performance, cut federal retirement benefits and more. While that kind of rhetoric may be useful in politics, it is destructive for governance and the people who make up our government. These are not nameless, faceless bureaucrats. They are people. They have names. They have faces. They have families, feelings, hopes and dreams. They also have vital skills the government needs to operate effectively. More important for the government as an employer — they have choices and are free to leave. How long will it take before we crush the federal workforce? What happens if we do? A recent study suggests that it takes two years to crush and employee as a EFTA01142804 result of disillusionment caused by the constant barrage, job insecurity and a belief that whatever they do it is not being appreciated. The damage has started already. Federal retirements are up and continuing to rise. Employee responses to the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey are showing increasing unhappiness. Virtually every question related to morale and engagement showed a decline from 2O11 to 2012. Every chief human capital officer I've spoken with believes the numbers will be lower — much lower — in the next round of the survey. As a result government agencies are reporting more difficulty in recruiting and hiring talent. Think about it — How easy is it to recruit a new star employee when all you can offer as a motivator is the opportunity to serve and do interesting work? No pay raises and constant bashing by politicians are not exactly strong recruiting incentives. The potential damage is compounded by the fact that morale-induced turnover tends to drive the highest performers out of organizations. They are typically the most marketable and most able to take advantage of new opportunities. Even if you believe government is too big and federal employees are overpaid, is this a good approach to reducing its size? I have never found a credible leader who believes employee abuse is a legitimate management tool. 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey website: http://www. fedview.opm.gov/20 12/Definitions/ Study after study shows the corrosive effects of poor morale in the workplace. Productivity goes down, leave use goes up, discretionary effort goes down, and attention to detail is often non-existent. In her book "Good Company," author Laurie Bassi says, "The trademark of a worthy employer is the ability to masterfully manage the tension between employees as costs and employees as assets." I think that is a great standard — one that the federal government is failing to meet. The political battles today completely disregard the employees as assets and go beyond treating them as costs to the point where they are pawns in a political chess game. If we truly want to have a government that functions efficiently and effectively, it is time for the fed bashing to stop. Have the debates regarding the power and reach of government, but stop treating the federal workforce as though they are the problem. They are not, and they can only take so much before their spirit, dedication and willingness to serve are crushed beyond repair. Last Monday Michigan Republican Rep. Kerry Bentivolio shared his fantasy scenario with a crowd that it would be a "dream come true" to submit articles of impeachment against President Obama. He further explained, "I stood 12 feet away from the guy and listened to him. I couldn't stand being there, but because he is president I have to respect the office. That's my job, as a congressman, I respect the office." And the only thing stopping his "dream" from becoming a reality sooner? Bentivolio says he has no concrete evidence of Obama's impeachment-worthy schemes... yet. Answering a question from an attendee about what Congress is doing to stop Obama "from everything he's doing against our Constitution," Bentivolio said, "You know if I could write an (impeachment] bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true...." "I went to my office and I've had lawyers come in," Bentivolio continued. "These are lawyers, PhDs in history and I said 'tell me how I can impeach the President of the United States." But they advised him that he would first need some evidence. "Until we have evidence," Bentivolio said, "you're going to become a laughing stock if you've submitted the bill to impeach the president because number one, you've got to convince the press. There are some people out there no matter what Obama does, he's still the greatest president that they have ever had. That's what you're fighting." With delusions like this, Bentivolio seems well on his way to becoming that laughing stock' he mentioned... On a serious note, there is a real similarity here between Bentivolio's excuse for not impeaching Obama and Ted Cruz's excuse: Both of them blame their political circumstance. Bentivolio says he's not impeaching Obama because he's afraid of mockery from the press; Cruz says he's not pushing for impeachment because Republicans wouldn't win the impeachment trial. At least Bentivolio utters the word "evidence," but neither of them have the guts to tell their constituents that the real reason EFTA01142805 Republicans aren't impeaching President Obama is that President Obama hasn't committed an impeachable offense, or anything close to it. I'm pretty sure both of them understand this, but the fact that even these are guys are too scared of their base to tell them the truth is a pretty good example of just how dysfunctional things have gotten within the GOP. Both of these wachos are one of the reasons why Washington is so dysfunctional.... And should not be tolerated.... A Great Day In Harlem 1994 Film complete Video Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFDOUYuF4A and Interactive Website: httplAvww.a- great-dav-in-harlem.corn/ A Great Day in Harlem or Harlem 1958 is a 1958 black and white group portrait of 57 notable jazz musicians photographed in front of a Brownstone in Harlem, New York City. The photo has remained an important object in the study of the history of jazz. Art Kane, a freelance photographer working for Esquire Magazine, took the picture around 10 a.m. on August 12 in the summer of 1958. The musicians had gathered at 17 east 126th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues in Harlem. Esquire published the photo in its January 1959 issue. Kane calls it "the greatest picture of that era of musicians ever taken." Musicians include Hilton Jefferson, Benny Golson, Art Farmer, Wilbur Ware, Art Blakey, Chubby Jackson, Johnny Griffin, Dickie Wells, Buck Clayton, Taft Jordan, Zutty Singleton, Red Allen, Tyree Glenn, Miff Molo, Sonny Greer, Jay C. Higginbotham, Jimmy Jones, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones, Gene Krupa, Max Kaminsky, George Wettling, Bud Freeman, Pee Wee Russell, Ernie Wilkins, Buster Bailey, Osie Johnson, Gigi Gryce, Hank Jones, Eddie Locke, Horace Silver, Luckey Roberts, Maxine Sullivan, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Thomas Scoville Browne, Stuff Smith, Bill Crump, Coleman Hawkins, Rudy Powell, Oscar Pettiford, Sahib Shihab, Marian McPartland, Sonny Rollins, Lawrence Brown, Mary Lou EFTA01142806 Williams, Emmett Berry, Thelonius Monk, Vic Dickenson, Milt Hinton, Lester Young, Rex Stewart, J.C. Heard, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldgridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. ****** Shame on the US Supreme Court for gutting the Voting Rights Act and here is another reason why. Earlier this month, Gov. Pat McCrory signed what many have dubbed "the nation's worst voter suppression law." The new bill requires photo ID at polls, cuts down on early voting and eliminates other measures that were meant to empower voters. And on Thursday night Rachel Maddow tackled voter suppression in North Carolina focusing on one town's "dangerous, million-step process, newly instituted for you to exercise a right that used to be really easy." The segment focused on the town of Boone in Watauga County, Maddow highlighted the challenges now facing students who want to vote. Weblink: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/rachel-maddow-north-carol_n_3801705.html In the video dip above, Maddow reveals the obstacle course thousands of Boone residents will now have to conquer in order to vote. As Maddow explained, although the county just barely voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, the Boone precincts containing Appalachian State University voted strongly for President Barack Obama. Last week, the Republican-controlled county board of elections announced plans to eliminate two of the three Boone precincts, including on-campus voting. As Appalachian State University professor Renee Scherlen argued, "Our students make a large part of what Boone and Watauga county are, and to deny them the right to participate in politics here is unconscionable." If Gov. Pat McCory and the GOP don't want people to vote, then they should be honest and publicly say what we all know to be true.... they no longer want or believe in democracy. ****** EFTA01142807 Every so often there is a thought provoking movie and over the past two weekend, I saw two. The first is acclaimed director Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey and featuring an ensemble cast. Inspired by the real-life account of Eugene Allen, the film stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, an African-American who eyewitnesses notable events of the loth century during his 34-year tenure serving as a White House butler and in many ways a masterly work of art. But the real magic of this film is that couched in a bio-op is a searing look at the struggle of economic and racial equality from the mid-195os to the election of our first Black President. As someone whose mother was a maid for 5o years and as a kid did the opposite, when early on I realized that if I made myself conspicuous and entertained my mother's bosses and their friends I could move from the kitchen to the living room. But Cecil Gaines, chose to not do this, as he was trained to know 'his place', yet his quiet demeanor, discipline, strength and resolve may have helped the Presidents whom he served see the struggle for equality in a more empathetic way. From some, this argument will be a stretch. For others it is a provocative proposition, powerfully and at times disjointedly. At its core, The Butler is an attempt to alter the way that domestic workers have historically figured into the black cultural imagination. Rather than following in the classic Hollywood tradition of representing black domestic workers (particularly butlers, maids, and cooks) as clownish, one-dimensional caricatures whose sole purpose is to aid in the moral enlightenment of white people -- Daniels presents us with Cecil Gaines: a hardworking, family man whose subservient labor arguably constitutes a form of "quiet" protest. Based on the life of former White House Butler Eugene Allen, Gaines is depicted as neither an apolitical, happy-darky (in an early dinner-table scene, he objects to his wife's claim that life for black folks in Washington, D.C. is "better" than in the south by reminding her that blacks are also "treated badly" in the north) nor is he portrayed as a larger- than-life hero. Instead, Gaines is figured as a multidimensional human being who is doing the best that he can to feed a family, maintain a job, and live with a modicum of dignity. But the real brilliance of the film is that it plays straight man to the the many facets and factions of the Civil Rights Movement, making it accessible to people who would have never entertain going to film centered around the subject. EFTA01142808 As someone who has lived almost all of his life in two worlds, the film show how Forest Whitaker's character, Cecil Ganes navigates through live maintaining "two faces"; the friendly, nonthreatening face that must be worn when entering the white man's public sphere, as well as the more authentic, humane, and multidimensional face that must be worn at "home" in the presence of other black folks. uninhibited manner at home with his wife, Gloria (Oprah Winfrey), and among his friends and his black colleagues at the White House, is altogether different from the near-robotic repression of his service demeanor. In juxtaposition to those people of color who tried to survive by not rocking the boat, the film also shows how the sacrifice and dedication by freedom activists pushed the White House to finally support the civil rights movement. I saw the film at a Saturday afternoon screening in North Hollywood, California with an audience that was almost all-white and older, who universally came out of the cinema (as I heard a number of conversations), feeling that they better understood the plight of the civil rights movement, from both the point of those in the struggle and the quiet majority of people of color like Cecil Gaines who were just trying to provide a better life for themselves and their families. I grew up around men like Cecil Gaines who had to live as if they were happy with their lot in life, (civil service workers, shop stewards, low-level managers) and whom my generation couldn't understand why they weren't upset about their second-class station in life. With this said and on the week of the Both anniversary of the 1963 March On Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech , I emphatically urge everyone to see THE BUTLER directed by Lee Daniels, as it is much more than a movie about a butler, Presidents, the White House, Dr. Martin Luther King or the Black Panthers. The other film that I saw last weekend with FRUITVALE STATION, a new film by Ryan Coogler, which tells the story of Oscar Grant: a young, 22 year old black Oakland man who was shot and killed on a train platform by a Bay Area Regional Transit police officer coming home with friends from celebrating New Years 2009 in San Francisco. The film opens with phone footage of the actual incident at the Fruitvale train station in Oakland, California. From here, however, the film winds back. It gives us the last 24 hours in Oscar's life, together with an elegant flashback to his time in prison. The drama idles deceptively, lulling us with a whirl of domestic routines in verdant, blue-collar EFTA01142809 suburbia. Yet all the while that final destination keeps clanging in the memory, like a train driver's announcement. We know where this is leading, whether we want it to or not. III/ 11;111 ill CIISIt III flit( MIMI I' 'GNU li lt. Stift l tuttlE .1 atilt% lilt 1/tIC(t FRUITVALE STATION See Trailer: http://youtu.be/ZxUJwJfcQaQ Michael B Jordan (as Wallace in The Wire) plays Oscar, a cocksure charmer who loves his mother (Octavia Spencer), dotes on his daughter and attempts, by and large, to stay true to his girlfriend (Melonie Diaz), as much as any would be player can. He's the sort of guy who is happy to help with the groceries or lend a hand to a pregnant woman in search of a bathroom. And yet Oscar is also wired, jumpy, easily frustrated, as things are not going his way. Like many young men of his age who society has been allowed to slip through the cracks, he has too much energy and no reliable outlet. "Calm down, Oscar!" his mother hisses — and her steely, unblinking stare suggests that she has had to talk him down from this ledge before. EFTA01142810 We lmow that one way or another Oscar is destined to run aground, either as a result of his hair-trigger temper, a trigger-happy cop or some grisly combination thereof. But Coogler's skill is in showing how he gets there, how life is precarious and how disaster can blow in almost out of nowhere, surprising even the perpetrator himself. But in light of the killing of Trayvon Martin, FRUITVALE STATION, is a sobering reminder how easy it is for a young black male in America to be killed because of someone else's reckless act or mistake with little consequence. Although memories fade, anger dissipates and one alleged miscarriage of justice is overtaken by others. It's a sharp, earthy, convincing film about a true-life case; a heartfelt memorial to every innocent young man of color who died unnecessarily, especially since FRUITVALE STATION opened in the US the same weekend that George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the Trayvon Martin case. Again, I strongly urge everyone to see this wonderful and poignant film. THIS WEEK's READINGS EFTA01142811 This week on August 28 is the Sot ` anniversary of the 1963 march and rally at which King delivered the indelible "I Have a Dream" speech. That event — one of the watershed moments of loth-century America — was officially called the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." Meaningful employment was a front-and-center demand. The idea and impetus for the march came from A. Philip Randolph, one of the most important labor leaders in the nation's history. Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union that demanded and won decent pay and better working conditions for thousands of railroad employees, most of them African American. By 1963, Randolph had become a vice president of the AFL-CIO labor federation. King and his fellow civil rights leaders understood the importance of good jobs that paid a living wage — and the social and economic mobility such jobs provide — in forging a nation that honors its promise of fairness and equality. If he and Randolph were alive today, given the devastating blows that poor and working-class Americans have suffered, I'm confident they'd be planning a "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom IL" As an African American old enough to have lived through malignant racism in the North and experienced Jim Crow segregation in the South, I'm amazed at the progress toward racial justice. And despite the fact that we are light-years from those years and we have a Black President, we are still nowhere close to a truly benign multi-cultural society. King was a passionate advocate for economic justice, speaking not just for African Americans but for all Americans seeking to pull themselves out of poverty and dysfunction. On this score as Eugene Robinson recently wrote ,"we haven't just failed to make sufficient progress. We've stopped trying." With real unemployment above 8 percent and more than 45 million Americans living on the edge of hunger, much of Dr. King's dream is still yet to be realized. As an alternative to Dr. King's vision of a more just society whereby the core principle is equalized the playing field for all Americans. Instead, for the past three decades government and business policies have favored those at the top on the theory that wealth would trickle-down to the masses. In the process they gutted union and worker protection, as well as programs targeted to help the poor, elderly, children and disadvantaged. EFTA01142812 So it's no coincidence that this massive transfer of wealth — from workers to investors — took place at a time when union membership was in steep decline. In 1983, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.1 percent of wage and salary workers belonged to a union. In 2010, only 11.9 percent were union members. The result? In 2010, the median weekly pay of a male worker over 25 who belonged to a union was $982, according to the BLS. The comparable figure for a worker not represented by a union was $846. Instead of focusing on needs of workers and ways to put people back to work, our politicians are obsessed with deficit-reduction measures that, if applied in the short term, would destroy jobs rather than create them. King was assassinated in Memphis, where he was supporting the demands of sanitation workers for more pay, better working conditions and the right to unionize. The civil rights leader was increasingly focused on the economic dimension of the freedom struggle and was planning a massive Poor People's Campaign at the time of his death. The fact that Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech still resonates is because much of his dream is still out of reach for tens of millions of Americans. We have 49 million Americans who rely on food assistance programs to feed their families and themselves. We have an public education system that dysfunctional and a higher education system that has saddled the last two generations of Americans with more than $1 trillion in student debt. We have a Republican opposition whose #1 priority is to kill Obamacare, without one solution to replace it. We have Supreme Court recently that gutted rights that protected voters at a time of fa,[amt voter suppression in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas and elsewhere. Dr. King's dream of "upward mobility" in many ways as "out of reach" today as it was 5o years ago, and this should be acknowledged, confronted, addressed and cured. Please take the time to read Dr. Kings's Have a Dream"speech or view it on the weblink and substitute the word "Negro" with Poor, Children, Elderly, Gay, Hispanic, Women or disadvantaged as it resonates to us all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flshI_gxxew Last week in The Washington Post, Ed O'Keefe wrote — Republicans increasingly eager to get the word out - en Espanol - as National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and other GOP leaders explore what the party should do to attract more Hispanic support after 71 percent of Latino voters backed Obama last year. Concurrently these efforts also come at a time when Spanish television is peaking in popularity and fast becoming a rival to the more established networks. Univision, the nation's largest Spanish broadcaster, has been more popular than ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC several weeks this summer among viewers ages 18 to 34, a coveted demographic. Overall, 68 percent of Hispanics get at least some of their news in Spanish, less than in previous years but still high, according to a recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. In several of the nation's largest cities, Univision's nightly national newscast is more popular than some of its English-language rivals. The hottest topic on Spanish TV is immigration, but Republicans are hoping that they can appear more frequently on Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Espatiol and Spanish-language radio stations to also discuss budget cuts, health care and the economy — issues that they say can draw new Hispanic support. And instead of trying to come up with policies that might attract Hispanics, Republicans are concentrating on learning Spanish and the proper Spanish terminology for "debt ceiling" is "tope de la deuda,"or top of the debt. "Border security"translates to "seguridadfronteriza,"so that they can speak the language well enough to do live interviews. Democrats have long dominated the Spanish-language airwaves thanks to a long bench of Hispanic politicians, including Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), the fourth-ranking House Democrat; Reps. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.) and Luis V. Gutierrez (Ill.); Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.); and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Democratic political operatives suggest that the GOP will have to do much more than offer new faces to make their case on Spanish television. Democrats have long dominated the Spanish-language airwaves thanks to a long bench of Hispanic politicians, including Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), the fourth-ranking House Democrat; Reps. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.) and Luis V. Gutierrez (Ill.); Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.); and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. EFTA01142813 Democratic political operatives suggest that the GOP will have to do much more than offer new faces to make their case on Spanish television. "On paper it's the right approach for communicating better with this group, but it doesn't eliminate the central dynamic of the party," said Fernand Amandi, managing partner of Bendixen & Amandi International, a Democratic political and polling firm that has worked with several Hispanic Democrats. "Three-quarters of Hispanics say that the [Republican party] doesn't represent their perspective and in many ways they feel ignored and antagonized. Until they can address that problem ... it's going to be difficult for them to seduce Hispanics on other subjects." But members of Washington's Spanish-language press corps said they appreciate the renewed attention. "It's been refreshing for them to reach out,"said Fernando Pizarro, a Washington correspondent for about 6o Univision affiliates across the country. "Republicans have tried to do this in the past, but we were getting pretty much our old, regular Republican Latino regulars. They're going beyond the usual suspects ... and they're being persistent." Obviously this is a good approach: "On paper it's the right approach for communicating better with this group, but it doesn't eliminate the central dynamic of the party,"said Fernand Amandi, managing partner of Bendixen & Amandi International, a Democratic political and polling firm that has worked with several Hispanic Democrats. "Three-quarters of Hispanics say that the (Republican party] doesn't represent their perspective and in many ways they feel ignored and antagonized. Until they can address that problem ... it's going to be difficult for them to seduce Hispanics on other subjects." Obviously members of Washington's Spanish-language press corps said they appreciate the renewed attention. "It's been refreshing for them to reach out," said Fernando Pizarro, a Washington correspondent for about 6o Univision affiliates across the country. "Republicans have tried to do this in the past, but we were getting pretty much our old, regular Republican Latino regulars. They're going beyond the usual suspects ... and they're being persistent." And although speaking in Spanish to Hispanic audiences and media may help, if the messages are that "we really don't want you" or "you're un-American," speaking the language won't help Where languages are spoken in the U.S. More than a quarter of counties in the United States have at least one in 10 households where English is not the language spoken at home. Spanish is, by far, the most common language other than English spoken in the home, especially on the West Coast, in the Southwest, the Eastern urban corridor and other big cities. Native American languages are also common in the West, as is French around New Orleans and in some counties in the Northeast. German is a common language in some Midwestern and Western areas. Please click on the weblink below to access the interactive map as shown below. Weblink: http:fiwww.washingtonpost.comfup-snIspccialfnationalius-langtAgc-mapf7woisrc=nl politics EFTA01142814 r 1 les43 a: .. MR 14,071 ... , • ... • - - . ,... • P ilairlis te l e_18,16.-°. .. .. .. . • -. •,..• .-.„ e:ri• ..•.. 4.,.. ..,e,.. • .1. • „.• • 'ftii Ni -r4aVr t ic e' . ti 1114•4•4•:—.--: 01•11,0w eile iii 1 rib . . tinsil reii,„zta .-- , 4Te t : fY • • • • .3 . • • • •11 t . •., Most common languages Counties where at least 10 percent of people speak a language other than English at home: • Spanish 708 counties • Native American languages 29 counties • German 21 counties • French 15 counties • Pacific Island languages 5 counties • English is spoken in at least 90 percent of homes in 2,347 counties. Last week economist Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times - Moment of Truthiness — where he pointed out that although politicians are supposed to campaign on the issues, and an informed public is supposed to cast its votes based on those issues, with some allowance for the politicians' perceived character and competence, they aren't. As a result many voters are misinformed and worse disinformed and often lied to. As an example he cites the budget deficit, which had dominated Washington discussion for almost three years and EFTA01142815 although it has recently receded, in fact the deficit is sharply down, still a plurality of voter and majority of Republicans believe that is has gone up. In a Google Consumer Survey — when asked whether the deficit has gone up or down since January 2010. And the results were even worse than in 1996: A majority of those who replied said the deficit has gone up, with more than 40 percent saying that it has gone up a lot. Only 12 percent answered correctly that it has gone down a lot. One of the reasons for the false perception is that Republicans made a lot of political hay over a supposedly runaway deficit early in the Obama administration, and they have maintained the same rhetoric even as the deficit has plunged. Thus Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, declared on Fox News that we have a "growing deficit," while Senator Rand Paul told Bloomberg Businessweek that we're running "a trillion-dollar deficit every year" You have to believe that both Canter and Paul know that what they are saying is untrue and a lie. And obviously they don't care as long as they can still score points with voters on the issue. But let's ignore the political motivated and ask why isn't the Moderate Republicans and the non-partisan press. And why aren't people like Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairmen of President Obama's deficit commission, (their report was ominously titled "The Moment of Truth,") and as a result did a lot to feed public anxiety about the deficit when it was high. - So have they changed their tune as the deficit has come down? So it's no surprise that the narrative of runaway deficits remains even though the budget reality has completely changed. I disagree with Krugman who tries to provide the excuse that we shouldn't think that voters are stupid because they don't have the time to review and analyze Congressional Budget Office reports, relying on authority figures to give them the skinny. Let's be honest voters are stupid. You still have Americans from both major political parties who will tell you that Ronald Reagan did a masterful job when handling the economy, when his own Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush famously called "trickle-down economics — voodoo economics", more than tripled the national debt and set the country on an economic course that economically eviscerated America's Middle Class. I still have friends tell me how, George W. Bush kept America safe but that has to be after 9/12. And even candidate Barrack Obama called Afghanistan, "a just war", when in fact it was one of the biggest foreign policy and military blunders in American history, still he continued this no win situation through now... One of the reasons for all of this, is that no-one cares about the truth. And few politicians care about anything beyond their own constitutes and ideology. And worse of all there is a faction in the Republican Party that truly dislikes government and actively hopes that it fails. How else can you explain why, the Republican leadership in Congress is trying everything that they can to obstruct its successful implementation, instead of offering ways of making it better. Even Moderate Republicans are now being targeted for being to cozy with the Democrats or the White House. Example: Lamar Alexander a Republican who served as Governor, Secretary of Education, state University President, and now a 2 term Senator and Republican Conference chair has been told in a public letter from county Tea Party organizations to retire. His offense? "Unfortunately, our great nation can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship, two traits for which you have become famous. America faces serious challenges and needs policymakers who will defend conservative values, not work with those who are actively undermining those values. . . you do not represent the conservative values that we hold dear and the votes you have cast as Senator are intolerable to us." Note the echo (not a quote) in the last line of the Declaration of Independence cadence and wording. Democracy once meant we had a common voice. For these folk, there is no middle ground. Freedom's only common promise or purpose is to resist "the takeover:" Yet it has already taken place in their minds. This is not the way that Democracy should work, and people who play these partisan games should be vigorously challenged. This week's headlines were dominated by the Arab Spring turning to Arab Fall in Egypt, as clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and government forces claimed over 600 lives. Not getting a EFTA01142816 fraction of the media attention was the continuing violence in Iraq, where more than 1,OOO have been killed since July, including 33 on Thursday alone. More than 1O years after it began, and 2O months since U.S. withdrawal, the Iraq War continues to be a disaster of epic proportions, with a seemingly limitless supply of unintended consequences. Reports note that U.S. efforts are now focused on making sure Iraq's Shiite government doesn't get too close to Iran's Shiite government, which is sending weapons to Syria, whose conflict is destabilizing key U.S. ally Jordan. And yet the war's catastrophic impact remains inversely related to our desire to reckon with how it happened. Case in point: the prominence still afforded those who beat the drums of war the loudest. Arianna Huffington - Huffington Post - August 18,2013 How economies have fared since their pre- recession peaks We all know that many Americans are disappointed with the slow economic recovery and the current state of the economy, evidenced by President Obama's dismal poll numbers of his handling of the US economy, they should look at how the US economic recovery compares to the rest of the industrialized nations. Please take a look at the chart below from The Economist Magazine last week comparing how economies have fared since their pre-recession peaks and you will see that the US's economy in comparison is not doing too bad. I GDP 02 2013, % change on Q2 2013, %change from country's pre-crisis peak (2007-08) previous quarter 12 10 4 2 0 + 2 4 6 United States 0.4 Germany 0.7 Belgium 0.1 France 0.5 Japan 0.6 Euro area 0.3 Britain 0.6 Netherlands -0.2 Finland 0.7 Cyprus -1.4 Spain -0.1 Portugal 1.1 Italy -0.2 Ireland no Slovenia no Greecet ii no Source: Eurostat *01 data 'Data not seasonally adjusted: charge from 02 2007 Fronomist.com/graphicdetail THE prayed-for recovery in the euro area has finally come to pass. After a dismal 18 months in recession, GDP rose by 0.3% (an annualised rate of 1.196) in the second quarter from its level in early 2013. The upturn was led by Germany, whose GDP grew by O.796. France outperformed expectations, with output up by O.5%. The rate of decline in Italy and Spain slackened and there was a sharp EFTA01142817 rebound in Portugal, which has suffered a deep recession. Nonetheless, the pickup still leaves GDP across the euro area 0.7% lower than a year ago. Declines have been biggest in tiny Cyprus, where GDP is down by 5.2%, and in Greece, where it has fallen by 4.6%. And the record of the euro-zone economy since the peak reached before the global financial crisis is even more depressing. Output is still 3% lower; in America it is more than 4% higher. Among the big euro-zone economies only German GDP now exceeds its pre-crisis peak, by 2%. A recent European Central Bank survey forecast that GDP for the whole of 2013 would be 0.6% lower than in 2012, and that it would grow by only 0.9% in 2014. The end of the recession will give heart to European leaders but weak growth will still leave the euro area vulnerable to social and political discontent. ** It is estimated that 7.2 million U.S. citizens live abroad. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates there were 13.3 million green-card holders living here as of Jan. 1, 2012. Despite the campaign against undeclared accounts, U.S. taxpayers filed only 825,000 foreign-account reports last year — meaning that millions of people likely aren't complying with the law. As a result the IRS has expanded its enforcement efforts. In response to the crackdown that mass-market tax preparer H&R Block has expanded services for taxpayers with international ties. In May, the company launched a tax-preparation service via the Internet that is targeted at expatriates and highlights the firm's ability to help taxpayers with unfiled prior-year returns. U.S. laws and rules provide few options for people who are in a showdown with Uncle Sam. Here is some of what U.S. taxpayers need to know: Understand what is different about the U.S. Unlike almost all other countries, the U.S. taxes citizens and permanent residents on all income, wherever it is earned in the world. So a U.S. taxpayer living in India could owe U.S. levies on income from a British investment. The U.S. tax code does allow taxpayers living overseas an exemption for wages earned abroad of up to about $100,000, plus a housing allowance, but taxpayers must file a return to claim the benefits. Tax treaties might help U.S. citizens or green-card holders who live abroad avoid double taxation, but there can be gaps, experts say. For example, treaties typically don't provide an offset for foreign sales or value-added taxes. And if the tax rate is lower abroad than in the U.S., the U.S. taxpayer could owe the difference to Uncle Sam. The U.S. also has an expansive definition of who is a citizen. It includes people born on U.S. soil as well as people born to U.S. citizens living abroad. Kevin Packman, a partner with law firm Holland & Knight in Miami, has a Canadian client who was born in the U.S. to Canadian parents but moved to Canada as an infant. "She had no idea she was a U.S. citizen until she was nearly 50," he says. Experts say there are many similar "accidental citizens." While U.S. taxes on world-wide income have existed for decades, experts say laws regarding such income were seldom enforced. That changed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in part because of concerns about terrorism. In 2004, Congress imposed severe penalties — up to $100,000 or so% of the account, whichever is greater, per year — on U.S. taxpayers who choose not to tell the IRS about foreign financial accounts totaling $10,000 or more. Critics point out that this penalty is for not filing a form, not for evading taxes. Bryan Skarlatos, a New York partner with law firm Kostelanetz & Fink who has handled hundreds of offshore accounts cases, says the total includes more than a dozen in which the tax and interest owed on offshore accounts was less than $20,000. Yet the IRS assessed penalties of more than $1 million, he says. The IRS declined to comment. U.S. officials ramped up their campaign after the 2009 settlement with UBS. As part of the deal, the Swiss bank turned over the names of more than 4,000 U.S. taxpayers with secret accounts. Other banks have since made payments to the U.S. and named names. In 2010, Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as Fatca, which requires further disclosures by U.S. EFTA01142818 taxpayers with offshore accounts. The law also requires foreign financial institutions to report information to the IRS about U.S. account holders or face steep costs for not doing so. The crackdown started in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, and it gathered force after Swiss banking giant UBS greed in 2009 to pay $780 million to settle charges it had helped U.S. taxpayers hide assets. Since then, more than 8o U.S. taxpayers have been criminally charged, and Switzerland's oldest bank, Wegelin & Co., closed down after pleading guilty to helping U.S. taxpayers hide more than $1.2 billion abroad. On Friday, a prominent Swiss lawyer pleaded guilty in U.S. court to helping U.S. taxpayers hide millions of dollars abroad. U.S. officials are enforcing rules established by Congress— some widely ignored for years, and others added more recently — that threaten stiff penalties and even prison for failure to comply. The crackdown has brought more than $6 billion in taxes and penalties into U.S. coffers, and experts say another $5 billion is in the pipeline. A representative for the IRS declined to comment. Effective IncomeTax and Social Security Rates on USD100,000 of Gross Income • rue,. Erodes los • Maw bor. W Nos • X) • + 4 00010011101111 bobb lip! Ism in is oginzioinumillill I" 1 I PH For some reason, a lot of rich people have decide that they no longer want to pay taxes and to suggest it because of high US taxes, is a phony excuse, as many Industrialized countries such as Germany, France Denmark and Australia have higher taxes. And if you see the graph below you can see that 2/3 of the countries included have higher taxes then in the US. The country can't provide services when people don't pay taxes, and when billionaires who have made their money here in the US and benefited because of the economic strength and the many opportunities that the country affords entrepreneurs and businesses here and abroad. And for the Wall Street Journal to suggest that high US taxes are causing thousands of American citizens to renouncing their citizenship in their article this week — Overseas Americans: Time to Say 'Bye' to Uncle Sam? — is a spurious issue. One of the biggest problems in the US is income inequality caused by government policies that favor business and the wealthy and the changing dynamic global trade, which has pressured wages. Conservatives like to tell you that low wages are allowing American companies to be more competitive internationally, enabling companies like Wal-Mart to sell goods at lower prices. But as Harold Meyerson wrote this week in The Washington Post — For retailers, low wages aren't working out — as same stores sales in Wal-Mart declined by o.3 percent, and the company lowered its earnings-per-share forecast. Bad news wasn't limited to Wal-Mart. At the low end of the retail consumer market, Kohl's reported similarly bad news; Macy's, a little higher up the food chain, lowered its earnings forecast as well. EFTA01142819 While Americans with money are boosting both the housing and auto markets, the growing number of Americans without are curtailing their shopping. As Douglas McMillon, chief executive of Wal-Mart International, noted last week, "When we do see good things in the economy, sometimes they don't immediately flow through to a paycheck. Remember how the average American lives." Wal-Mart which is the largest private-sector employer on the planet contributes to its problems because in America it aggressively suppress wages and like many other American companies — corporate profits — which comprise a larger share of the nation's economy than at any time since World War II — are being plowed into share buybacks or dividend payments, but decidedly not into wage increases. Worse yet, a steadily higher share of the jobs created in the current "recovery" are low-wage positions in retail and restaurants, while wages for the new generation of auto workers are half that of their predecessors. The United States leads the industrial world in the percentage of its jobs that are low-wage. Fully 25 percent of the workforce makes less than two-thirds of the nation's median wage — ahead of Britain (where just 21 percent hold such low-paying jobs), Germany (2o percent) and Japan (15 percent). This is not what the "We're Number One!" chant presumably refers to, but it could. This is not the first time U.S. mass retailers have faced the problem of under-consumption. In the 1920s, as U.S. cities swelled, the low incomes of the new urban consumers posed a constant challenge to merchants. In contrast to today's Walton family heirs, however, some of those merchants realized that the solution was to raise workers' incomes. In the '20S, Edward Filene, whose family owned both its eponymous chain and the Federated Department stores, called for the establishment of a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, a five- day workweek, legalized unions and cooperatives where people could do their banking. (He helped establish some of the first banking co-ops himself.) The Straus family, which owned Macy's, and shoe- magnate Milton Florsheim endorsed similar measures and were among the more prominent business leaders who supported Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. They were well compensated for their clear understanding of how to make an economy thrive: During the 3o years of broadly shared prosperity that the New Deal reforms made possible, department stores catering to the vast middle class were a smashing success. Today's economy, alas, has increasingly more in common with the pre-New Deal era than with the more robust and egalitarian mid-loth century. The mass market has fragmented into a bustling luxury trade and a stumbling low-income sector. As in the 1920s, wage increases are few and far between. And with the economy disproportionately generating low-wage jobs as middle-income positions dwindle, it's time to ask why the Waltons can't see what the Filenes and the Strauses saw fully 90 years ago: that a nation whose workers have inadequate incomes and no bargaining power isn't likely to be one where mass retailers can thrive. Those workers, meanwhile, are growing restless. After a series of one-day walk-outs in a number of cities, a coalition of fast-food workers has announced a nationwide day of walk-outs on Aug. 29. They are asking for a minimum wage of $15 an hour — not that much when you consider that 70 percent of today's fast-food workers are adults and that $15 an hour comes to just $30,000 a year. As in the '20s, these nonunion workers probably can't persuade their employers to give them a raise. Yet that doesn't mean they can't prevail. Writing in 1924, Filene predicted that if workers "cannot settle their issues inside industry by industrial methods, they will go outside industry and settle them by political methods." States (and some cities) have the authority to set their own minimum wage standards. As long as employers like the Waltons remain so indefatigably dense, that may be the only way workers can win adequate pay — and the only way mass retailers can return to health. While Wal-Mart saw an anemic 1.2 percent rise in sales and other competitors such as J.C. Penny and Target TGT -3.61% experienced even greater disasters in their sales results — compared to its primary competitor Costco's most recent quarterly earnings report reveals a fairly healthy eight percent rate of EFTA01142820 growth in year-on-year sales—including a five percent rise in same store sales. What's more, with membership fees rising from $459 million in the same quarter last year to $528 million this year, it's pretty clear that a significant number of customers are moving over to the retailer to do their discount shopping. Meanwhile in an identical economy, how do we explain Costco's growth vis-à-vis the failures over at Wal-Mart. Here's a crazy thought—might it have something to do with the fact that Costco pays nearly all of its employees a decent living (well in excess of the minimum wage) while Wal-Mart continues to pay its workers as if their employees don't actually need to eat more than once a week, live in an enclosed space and, on occasion, take their kids to see a doctor. And just in case the occasional Walmart employee finds a way to squeak by, the company has sought to put an end to that by cutting their employment roster by 1.4 percent, even as they increased their store count by thirteen percent. The result? As everyone knows, Walmart service pretty much sucks — and it appears that customers don't like it. Without enough employees to get the basic work of a retail operation done — and with those on site being paid a wage so low that it is difficult to expect much in the way of pride or motivation — Wal- Mart merchandise remains stacked on pallets in the warehouse rather than making it to the floor where customers can find the products they want. At the same time, check-out lines are painfully long and annoying as the overall shopping experience continues to deteriorate. One is left to wonder about the value of offering products at a lower price if those products are not on the shelves when the customer needs to buy them? Last month, fast-food workers around the United States yet again walked off the job to protest their low pay and demand a wage hike to $15 an hour, about double what many of them earn today. In doing so, they added another symbolic chapter to an eight-month-old campaign of one-day strikes that, so far, has yielded lots of news coverage, but not much in terms of tangible results. So there's a certain irony that in Australia, where the minimum wage for full-time adult workers already comes out to about $14.5o an hour, McDonald's staffers were busy scoring an actual raise. On July 24, the country's Fair Work Commission approved a new labor agreement between the company and its employees guaranteeing them up to a up to a 15 percent pay increase by 2017. And here's the kicker: Many Australian McDonald's workers were already making more than the minimum to begin with. The land down under is, of course, not the only high-wage country in the world where McDonald's does lucrative business. The company actually earns more revenue out of Europe than it does from the United States. France, with its roughly $12.00 hourly minimum, has more than 1,200 locations. (Australia has about goo). EFTA01142821 2,±Inline image 7 4.50 4.00 Western Europe' 3.50 3.00 Latin America' b. it 2.50 Middle East' 2.00 The re 1.50 East Europe' uth Africa of Asia' Russia China India Japan 1.00 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00 PAMme FIGURE 7: THE BIG MAC PRICE COMPARED TO THE MCWAGE, 2007 So how exactly do McDonald's and other chains manage to turn a profit abroad while paying an hourly wage their American workers can only fantasize about while picketing? Part of the answer, as you might expect, boils down to higher prices. Academic estimates have suggested that, worldwide, worker pay accounts for at least 45 percent of a Big Mac's cost. In the United States, industry analysts tend to peg the figure a bit lower -- labor might make up anywhere from about a quarter of all expenses at your average franchise to about a third.* But generally speaking, in countries where pay is higher, so is the cost of two all beef patties, as shown in the chart below by Princeton economist Orley Ashenfelter. Note Western Europe way up there in the upper-right hand corner, with its high McWages and high Big Mac prices. That said, not every extra dollar of worker compensation seems to get passed onto the consumer. Again, take Australia. According to the The Economist, Aussies have paid anywhere from 6 cents to 70 cents extra for their Big Macs compared to Americans over the past two years, a 1 percent to 17 percent premium. If you were to simply double the cost of labor at your average U.S. Mickey D's and tack it onto the price of a sandwich, you'd expect customers to be paying at least a dollar more. Why don't they? To start, some Australians actually make less than the adult minimum wage. The country allows lower pay for teenagers, and the labor deal McDonald's struck with its employees currently pays 16-year-olds roughly US$8-an-hour, not altogether different from what they'd make in the states. In an email, Greg Bamber, a professor at Australia's Monash University who has studied labor relations in the country's fast food industry, says that as a result, McDonald's relies heavily on young workers in Australia. It's a specific quirk of the country's wage system. But it goes to show that even in generally high-pay countries, restaurants try to save on labor where they can. It's also possible that McDonald's keeps its prices down overseas by squeezing more productivity out of its workers. Researchers studying the impact of minimum wage increases on American fast food chains in the Deep South have found EFTA01142822 that while restaurants mostly cope by their raising prices, they also respond by handing their employees more responsibility. It stands to reason that in places like Europe and Australia, managers have found ways to get more mileage out of their staff as well. Or if not, they've at least managed to replace a few of them with computers. As Michael Schaefer, an analyst with Euromonitor International says, fast food franchises in Europe have been some of the earliest adopters of touchscreen kiosks that let customers order without a cashier. As always, the peril of making employees more expensive is that machines become cheaper in comparison. Finally, McDonald's has also helped its bottom line abroad by experimenting with higher margin menu items while trying to court more affluent customers. Way back in 1993, for instance, Australia became home to the first McCafe coffee shops, which sell highly profitable espresso drinks. During the last decade, meanwhile, the company gave its European restaurants a designer make-over and began offering more localized menus meant to draw a higher spending crowd. So if President Obama waved a magic wand tomorrow and raised the minimum wage to $10 or $15, does this all mean that U.S. fast food chains would be able to cope? "Were that to happen overnight, it would be a hugely traumatic process," Schaefer says. After all, virtually every fast food franchise in the country would have to rethink its business model as their profits evaporated. But as the international market shows, the models are out there. It would certainly mean more expensive burgers . It would almost definitely mean fewer workers, as restaurants found ways to streamline their staffs, either through better management or technology. And it might mean fewer chains catering to the bottom of the market. In some people's eyes, it might also be worth it. Please feel free to see the Atlantic article by Jordan Weissmann - 77w Magical World Where McDonald's Pays $15 an Hour? It's Australia. Are the Rich Getting Too Much of the Economic Pie? When asked, "Are the rich getting too much of the economic pie," here are the facts. And when are talking about how the economic pie is sliced we are really talking about how money is distributed between rich and poor families. Obviously rich families will have a bigger slice of the economic pie, as this is what makes them rich. But today the problem is the gap that had widen over the past thirty years between the rich and poor families. Let's start with economic growth between 1979 and 2007 — the top 196 got 38% of the growth and the next 9% got another quarter (25%), while the bottom 6o% received 1196 and the bottom fifth received only .796 of the economic growth. Hence the bottom 2o% grew by very little while the top grew by a lot. This is widening economic equality. As a result today the top 2o% earns almost half of the country's after-tax income, while the bottom 20% earns less than 6%. When looking at wealth, including income, stocks, house and other assets, the wealth pie turns about to be much more unequal with the top to% owns nearly 3/4 of the total wealth pie and everybody else owning only 27%. There is no question that the Rich has a lot more of the pie than they have had for more than a century and their slice of the economy is growing. This doesn't mean that income inequality is bad, its good. Because if everybody made the exact same wage there wouldn't be the incentive for people to work hard and try to get ahead. Even in growing economies, income inequality matters because countries with less economic inequality seem to have stronger and more resilient economies. The grow more. They expand for longer periods of time. And they have fewer poor. While, countries like the United States with the largest gaps between the rich EFTA01142823 and the poor have the lowest social mobility, making it hard for poor people to get ahead. Therefore if we really want to grow the pie/economy we should ask for evenly slices of the pie. Please feel free to dick on the weblink: hup://bcove.rnekfpf390d ****** Last Thursday, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell took aim at North Carolina's new voting law, saying it hurts the Republican Party, punishes minority voters and makes it more difficult for everyone to vote. "I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote," said Powell, a Republican, at the NC CEO Forum in Raleigh. "It immediately turns off a voting block the Republican Party needs," Powell continued. "These kinds of actions do not build on the base. It just turns people away." The retired general served as the keynote speaker at the event and made his remarks moments after Gov. Pat McCrory left the stage. McCrory's office said the governor left the event before Powell's comments. The comments represent the most high-profile criticism of the Republican-crafted law that requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, cuts early voting days and makes it harder for students to vote. In one comment, he seemed to rebuke McCrory for suggesting that voter fraud likely exists but is hard to detect. The governor had compared it to insider trading. "You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud," Powell said. "How can it be widespread and undetected?" Powell, who served under President George W. Bush, also said the new law sends the wrong message to minority voters. "What it really says to the minority voters is ... 'We really are sort-of punishing you,"' he said. McCrory delivered the event's opening remarks and preceded Powell, but didn't address the election law directly. Instead, he focused on the role of community colleges in education and job training. "Education is our greatest challenge. There's a disconnect between what we're teaching and what employers need. What I'm trying to do is bring commerce and education together." EFTA01142824 After Powell's speech, McCrory's office issued a statement thanking Powell for complimenting some of the initiatives the governor has focused on since taking office in January. "The Governor appreciates the warm compliments Secretary Powell made today regarding many of the Governor's initiatives and on voter ID we respectfully disagree," the statement said. During his speech, Powell also blamed the political impasse in Washington on the Internet, cable TV and extremist advocacy groups. And he defended the liberal arts as a discipline that gives people as sense of their place in the world — another line that hits at McCrory, who said earlier this year in a radio interview that the state should focus on careers for graduates and away from academic pursuits "that have no chance of getting people jobs." At least there is one major Republican leader who is willing to call the phony issue of voter fraud, what we all know that it is — just another way for Republicans to suppress voting by minorities, young voters and the elderly. SOMETHING OF INTEREST Website: http://twistedsifter.corn/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/ 40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World Categories: ART, BEST OF, DESIGN, FUNNY, LISTS, NATURE/SPACE, SCl/TECH, STORIES, TRAVEL Tags: • facts, maps, world tour • Leave a Comment 'Pin It If you're a visual learner like myself, then you know maps, charts and infographics can really help bring data and information to life. Maps can make a point resonate with readers and this collection aims to do just that. Hopefully some of these maps will surprise you and you'll learn something new. A few are important to know, some interpret and display data in a beautiful or creative way, and a few may even make you chuckle or shake your head. If you enjoy this collection of maps, the Sifter highly recommends the r/MapPorn sub reddit. You should also check out ChartsBin.com. There were also fantastic posts on Business Insider andBored Panda earlier this year that are worth checking out. Enjoy! 1. Where Google Street View is Available EFTA01142825 ;1'map-of-the-world-where-google-street-view-is-available Map by Google 2. Countries That Do Not Use the Metric System ;1'map-of-countires-that-use-metric-system-vs-imperial Map via Wikimedia Commons EFTA01142826 3. The Only 22 Countries in the World Britain Has Not Invaded (not shown: Sao Tome and Principe) 2the-only-countries-britain-has-not-invaded Map by Stuart Laycock (via The Telegraph) 4. Map of Pangea' with Current International Borders EFTA01142827 ;map-of-pangea-with-current-internatoinal-borders Map by eatrio.net via Reddit Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, forming about 300 million EFTA01142828 years ago. It began to break apart around 200 million years ago. The single global ocean which surrounded Pangaea is accordingly named Panthalassa. 5. McDonald's Across the World 2map-of-countries-with-mcdonalds Map by Business Management EU 6. Paid Maternal Leave Around the World EFTA01142829 -.-paid-maternal-leave-by-country Map by The New York Times 7. The Most Common Surnames in Europe by Country EFTA01142830 Rmap-of-most-common-surnames-in-europe Map by Teepr on Reddit EFTA01142831 8. Worldwide Driving Orientation by Country ;]Worldwide_Driving_Orientation_by_Country-(1) Map by ChartsBin.com 9. Map of Time Zones in Antarctica EFTA01142832 RMap-of-time-zones-in-Anarctica Map by Phoenix B 1 of3 10. Global Internet Usage Based on Time of Day EFTA01142833 Rinternet-usage-of-the-world-based-on-time-of-day_2 Map by Carna Botnet via Reddit 11. The World's Busiest Air Routes in 2012 EFTA01142834 Wop-10-busiest-air-travel-routes-of-2012 Map by Vizual Statistix 12. Visualizing Global Population Density EFTA01142835 Where-are-more-people-living-inside-this-circle-than-outside-of-it Map by valeriepieris on Reddit 13. Flag Map of the World EFTA01142836 RFlag-Map-denmark-puerto Map by andrewfahmy on Reddit 14. Map of Alcohol Consumption Around the World EFTA01142837 Rmap-of-alocohol-consumption-around-the-world Map by World Health Organization 15. Map of Alcoholic Drink Popularity by Country EFTA01142838 drink-popularity-by-country Map by World Health Organization 16. Map of Rivers in the Contiguous United States EFTA01142839 Rmap-of-united-states-rivers Map by Nelson Minar 17. US Map of the Highest Paid Public Employees by State EFTA01142840 Rhighest-paid-US-public-employees-by-state Map by Deadspin.com 18. World Map of Earthquakes Since 1898 EFTA01142841 Rearthquakes-by-magnitude-since-1898 Map by John M Nelson 19. Map of Where 29,000 Rubber Duckies Made Landfall After Falling off a Cargo Ship in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean EFTA01142842 Pmhere-rubber-ducks-made-landfall-after-being-dumped-in-pacific-ocean Map via prometheus08 on Reddit 20. Map of Countries with the Most Violations of Bribery EFTA01142843 Rbribery-nigeria-is-the-worst Map by James Mintz Group 21. World Map of Vegetation on Earth EFTA01142844 Rmap-of-vegetation-on-earth Map by NASA/NOAA 22. Average Age of First Sexual Intercourse by Country ;1'Average_Age_atlirst_sex_by_Country-(1) EFTA01142845 Map by ChartsBin.com 23. If the World's Population Lived in One City EFTA01142846 Whe-worlds-population-concentrated EFTA01142847 Maps by Tim De Chant @ persquaremile.com 24. The Number of Researchers per Million Inhabitants Around the World -, 2,Number_of Researchers_per_million_inhabitants_by_Country Map by ChartsBin.com 25. Worldwide Map of Oil Import And Export Flows EFTA01142848 Etworldwide-oil-import-and-export-flows Map by BP via Business Insider 26. The 7000 Rivers that Feed into the Mississippi River EFTA01142849 Rmap-of-rivers-that-feed-into-the-mississippi-river Map via Gradeskee on Reddit 27. World Map of the Different Writing Systems EFTA01142850 i -,map-of-the-writing-systems-of-the-world Map by Maximilian Dorrbecker (Chumwa) on Wikimedia Commons 28. Worldwide Annual Coffee Consumption Per Capita EFTA01142851 Coffee_Consumption-(3) Map by ChartsBin.com 29. The Economic Center of Gravity Since 1 AD EFTA01142852 Rev° I ution-of-the-earth's-economic-center-of-gravity Map by McKinsey&Company 30. The World Divided Into 7 Regions, Each with a Population of 1 Billion EFTA01142853 Rpopulation-of-the-world-split-into-equal-sections-of-one-billion Map by delugetheory on Reddit 31. Earth's Population by Latitude and Longitude EFTA01142854 Whe-worlds-population-by-latitue-and-longitude Photograph by mrgeng on Reddit 32. Map of Contiguous United States Overlaid on the Moon EFTA01142855 Rmap-of-united-states-overlaid-on-the-moon Map by boredboarder8 on Reddit EFTA01142856 33. Frequency of Lightning Strikes Throughout the World - frequency-of-lightning-strikes-in-the-world Map by Citynoise on Wikimedia Commons 34. Overall Water Risk Around the World EFTA01142857 Rdrought-risk-its-not-just-isolated-around-the-equator Map by World Resources Institute 35. The Most Dangerous Areas in the World To Ship Due to Pirates EFTA01142858 Rriskiest-areas-to-ship-where-the-pirates-rule-the-seas Map by Control Risks 36. Area Codes in Which Ludacris Claims to Have H*es (song reference) EFTA01142859 Rarea-codes-in-which-ludracris-claims-to-have-hoes Map via asonjones on Reddit 37. Where 2% of Australia's Population Lives EFTA01142860 Pmhere-2-percent-of-australia-lives Map by e8odie on Reddit 38. The Longest Straight Line You Can Sail on Earth (Pakistan to Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia — 20000 EFTA01142861 miles) 2the-longest-straight-line-you-can-sail-in-the-world Map by kepleronlyknows on Reddit 39. Map of Europe Showing Literal Chinese Translations for Country Names EFTA01142862 laliteral-map-of-europe-by-chinese-name Map by haohaoreport.com 40. Reversed Map with Southern Hemisphere at Top of Map (because position of North is arbitrary) EFTA01142863 Rmap-of-world-upside-down-south-pole-on-top Map via nnm.me THIS WEEK's QUOTE "If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude." Colin Powell THIS WEEK's MUSIC EFTA01142864 I initially thought that I would make this week's music around, Sting who I first began appreciating after seeing the British cult-rock classic "Quadrophenia," but having a bit of history with the group The Police that brought him to prominence, I realized that I should start with them. As such this week's music is from The Police which was an English rock band formed in London in Dm. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting (Gordon Matthew Thomas - lead vocals, bass), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums). The Police became globally popular in the late 197os and are generally regarded as one of the first new wave groups to achieve mainstream success, playing a style of rock that was influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz. Without a doubt, Sting is the star of The Police but without the group I am not sure that he would have risen to the stature he enjoys today. Their 1983 album, Synchronicity, was number one on both the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, and sold over 8 million copies in the US. Due to conflicting egos the group disbanded in 1986, but reunited in early 2007 for a one-off world tour lasting until August 2008. The band has won a number of music awards throughout their career, including six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards—winning Best British Group once, an MTV Video Music Award, and in 2003 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Police have sold more than 5o million albums worldwide, and were the world's highest-earning musicians in 2008, thanks to their reunion tour. The first time that I saw The Police was when Miles Copeland (their manager) corralled a group of us one night at the Next Door Club in Covent Garden in London to see his "little brother's band" who were rehearsing in a studio space in the Worlds End area of The Kings Road. And although they seem okay, I remember him telling us that this trio with one of them playing a stand-up bass, were going to be bigger than The Beatles, allowing me to wonder what drugs he was doing. This was before they dyed their hair blond. And like Sting, I first heard their first hit "Roxanne" while I was in NewCastle, England. And then I remember when Miles played "Every Breath You Take" for another group of us on a cassette player in the back of a limo driving down Broadway in New York and everyone immediately believing that it will be a hit. I also remember Sting's first solo gig in New York and wondered how was Miles Copeland still the Sting's manager even though he had left his brother's band. Without a doubt, The Police was and is one of the greatest rock bands in music and I invite you to enjoy a selection of their music. The Police - Roxanne -- http://www.youtube.corn/watch?v=odf9t113oT38 EFTA01142865 The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me -- http://www.youtube.corn/watch?v=KNIZofPBSZM The Police - Message In A Bottle -- http://www.youtube.corn/watch?v=MbXWrmQW-OE The Police - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic -- http://www.youtube.comlwatch? v=aENX I Sf3fgQ The Police - Wrapped Around Your Finger -- http://www.youtube.comlwatch?v=svWINSRhQU0 The Police - Every Breath You Take -- http://www.youtube.com/watch? vKMOGaugICpz.s&list=RD023TIc7GIczRQQ The Police - Walking On The Moon -- http://www.youtube.corn/watch?v=dk4WRhPQuyi) The Police - De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da -- http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=7v2GDbEmjGE&Iist=RD023T1c7GIczRQQ The Police The Police The Police The Police The Police — Synchronicity — http://www.youtube.cornAvatch?v=0A154Oavghl - King of Pain -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?vmgSCICXSp9M - Can't Stand Losing You -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOe5bjNBEc - Man in a Suitcase -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bzyGplFcu8 — Voices Inside My Head -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7mB7Opu6s0 Sting - Englishman In New York -- http://www.youtube.corn/watch? v=d27gTrPPAyk&list=RD023T1c7GIczRQQ Stewart Copeland on Drum Solo on Letterman -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwIVDzgQNs8 Stewart Copeland & Stanley Clarke — School Days - Live in Paris -- http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=R94d7Y3gAcw Andy Summers - The Police -- http://www.youtube.cornAvatch?v=YFWAIIPLI8 Sting - They Dance Alone -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4K_q3XNHkY Sting - If I Ever Lose My Faith in You -- http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=VATkqDkcb4s&feature=youtu.be Sting - Russians. Live in Berlin 2010 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qeDC Yc4yD, I hope that you enjoyed this week's offerings and wish you a great week and rest of the summer Sincerely, Greg Brown Gregory Brown Chairman & CEO EFTA01142866 GlobalCast Partners, LLC US: +1-415-994-7851 Tel: +1-800-406-5892 Fax: +1-310461-0927 Skype: gbrown1970 Gregerypiglobaleasipanneatcom EFTA01142867