George Orwell With A Twist

     

Tucson Weather Today

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On January 14, 2014 the New York Times reported:

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks. While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

More from the New York Times

My opinion:

A more appropriate designation for the NSA (National Security Agency) would be the SS (Secret Service) and it is the most dangerous current threat in existence to individual liberty for the United States of America, and perhaps, eventually, for the entire population of Earth itself.

I understand that President Obama will issue some new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but it is clear that he believes the NSA has a right to use modern technology to gather and store information from any source in order to ensure security for the nation.

What such actions by the NSA will do, even though Obama says his administration would never do it, is to allow this government agency to gather and store data that can be used to suppress and negate any and all protests by the citizenry. Even if Obama is sincere and correct, these stored data will still be available (by law) to a future governing body that is not so trustworthy as is Obama's. Imagine what a Richard Nixon type regime could and probably would do with such information.

Think about it.

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Did You Know . . .?

Human Beings are the only primates whose numbers are not in decline.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1997, comedian and TV star Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son Ennis Cosby was murdered after he stopped to fix a flat tire along California's Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The 405 is known as one of the planet's busiest and most congested roadways. A Ukrainian-born teenager, Mikhail Markhasev reportedly high on drugs, approached Cosby to rob him but when Cosby took too long to hand over money he was shot and killed.

Ennis Cosby was the third of Bill Cosby's five children and said to be the inspiration for the character of Theo Huxtable on the hit TV sitcom "The Cosby Show."

In August 1998 Markhasev, then 19. was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of  parole, plus 10 years for first-degree murder and attempted robbery.

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WORD FOR TODAY

subjugation
noun
the state of being kept down by unjust use of force or authority; oppression

Subjugation is one of many types of injustice in the world. It has to do with one group of people dominating another group by taking away their freedom. When slavery was legal in the U.S., that was a clear-cut case of subjugation: African-Americans were forced to live without rights, under the control of their white owners.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Deborrah Kaye “Debbie” Allen

(born January 16, 1950)

Debbie Allen is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She is perhaps best known for her work on the 1982 musical-drama television series Fame, where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series' principal choreographer. She is the younger sister of actress Phylicia Rashad.

Josie Rebecca Davis

(born January 16, 1973)

Josie Davis is an American actress, best known for her role as Sarah Powell in the television sitcom Charles in Charge from 1987 to 1990.

Yvonne Marie Zima

(born January 16, 1989)

Yvonne Zima is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Sheila Carter's daughter, Daisy Carter on The Young and the Restless.

Renée Felice Smith

(born January 16, 1985)

Renee Felice Smith is an American actress best known for portraying Nell Jones on NCIS: Los Angeles.

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Whether it's rude or not, multitasking is probably ruining your brain. You should stop.
--Kevin Drum

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

That Was Then And Today Ain't

  

Tucson Weather Today

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The blog titled Rensselaer Adventures has a photo of a new sign that recently caught my eye.

The sign reads, Potawatomi Park, which probably means nothing to most of those citizens who are either not living in or near the area.

The name Potawatomi itself brought back some memories spent in Rensselaer, Indiana where I was born and lived for the first 40 years of my life. One tribe of the Potawatomi Indians lived in that region along the Iroquois River before the white man arrived to kick most of them out of the State of Indiana and relocate them to Kansas and to other territories.

Potawatomi Park

Rensselaer, Indiana

When I was a  member of the Boy Scouts of America, there in Jasper County, circa 1940, our troop (It was troop 52 then, changed later to 152) was introduced to and then adopted a little ditty that went:

Potawatomi Kini-Kinick!

We're the Scouts who never get sick;
We brush our teeth, we comb our hair;
We try to be neat, we try to play fair.

Potawatomi Rensselaer!

To be effective, of course, the words were not actually sung by we of Boy Scout Troop 52, but were enthusiastically yelled out at the top of our lungs, as subteen boys will always do with any encouragement at all.

There exists an image of one of the early Potawatomi chieftain, Leapold Pokagon, and the picture is represented by Wikipedia as being out of copyright and in the public domain.

I have just a vague memory of a tall, bent-over, old man, a raggedy poverty stricken fellow living back in those days named KiKi Rizensun who loved to walk the banks of the Iroquois River. He was a full-blooded Native American man who was widely rumored to be a member of the Potawatomi tribe. But my dad told me, and often reminded me, that this was not true, that KiKi was not a Potawatomie but a Cherokee. And I always wondered about that.

I suppose we'll never know. I tried once to research the name KiKi Rizensun using Google but could never uncover even the hint of such an appellation anywhere. And even though I told the Jasper County Librarian, via email, that KiKi was a full-time resident of the welfare department's County Home back in the 1940s and middle 1950s, she could find no trace of him in any of the records.

Oh well . . . as always, we are born, we die, all of us. -- and all of us are eventually forgotten.


Information about the Potawatomi Indians

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WORD FOR TODAY

indigenous
Adjective
Originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.
Synonyms
native - aboriginal - native-born

From Wikipedia:

Indigenous peoples are ethnic minorities who have been marginalized as their historical territories became part of a state. In international or national legislation they are generally defined as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory and on their cultural or historical distinctiveness from politically dominant populations.

The concept of indigenous peoples defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation, marginalization and oppression by nation states that may still be formed from the colonizing populations, or by politically dominant ethnic groups. As a result, a special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization and the World Bank. The United Nations have issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to guide member-state national policies in protecting the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources.

Although no definitive definition of "indigenous people" exists, estimates of a World total population of post-colonial indigenous people seeking human rights and discrimination redress range from 220 million in 1997 to 350 million in 2004.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Nichelle Nichols

Born Dec 28, 1932
Age:   79 years old

Nichelle Nichols (born Grace Dell Nichols) is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting.

Her most famous role is that of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura aboard the USS Enterprise in the popular Star Trek television series, as well as the succeeding motion pictures, where her character was eventually promoted in Starfleet to the rank of commander. Her Star Trek character was groundbreaking in U.S society at the time, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. personally praised her work on the show and asked her to remain when she was considering leaving the series.

Denzel Washington

Born Dec 28, 1954
Age:   57 years old

Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. is an American actor, film director, and film producer. He has received much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas, and Herman Boone. Washington is a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and was a frequent collaborator of the late director Tony Scott.

Washington has received two Golden Globe awards and a Tony Award, and two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Glory (1989) and Best Actor for Training Day (2001).

Cliff Arquette

Born Dec 28, 1905
Died: Sep 23, 1974

Clifford Charles "Cliff" Arquette was an American actor and comedian, famous for his TV role as Charley Weaver.

Billy Mitchell

Born Dec 28, 1879
Died  Feb 19, 1936

William "Billy" Mitchell was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force.

Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars. He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.

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Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.
--James A. Baldwin