The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

Image via CrunchBase

I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iran, of course. I hope something good comes out of all this for the Iranian people, but one huge winner has already emerged. Twitter has grown up so fast. Biz Stone and all the Twitter folks have to be walking on air even as they take their new responsibility to the world seriously. The were even asked to stay online and delay planned maintenance – asked by the State Department, no less.

Seldom, if ever, has a web service become so consequential so quickly. YouTube is a vital part of it all, too, of course, but it’s been around long enough to have established that it’s not just about stupid pet tricks. Not that there’s anything wrong with stupid pet tricks. Can’t get enough of them really. But nowadays you can’t run a political campaign without it, and the stupid candidate tricks can change the fate of nations. When all this is said and done citizen journalism will have come of age and proved its worth to any remaining doubters.

Sunday Evening Pleasures

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

First, Indulgence

This was a pretty good Sunday night as those things go. First we got taken out for a Mothers' Day/Fathers' Day/Anniversary dinner. Our son and his girlfriend (who I think of as my future daughter-in-law) took us to a lovely café where we had a fantastic meal. Everything was good, but the most sinful part was the dessert I shared with my son. A "chocolate bag". We had to see what that was and OMG that was good. Pure chocolate shaped like a bag and filled with white chocolate mousse, whipped cream and berries.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Then home and the season premier of True Blood. The living room was packed for it. It really hit the ground running and the second season is looking even better than the first. I'd watch anyway. It's worth watching just for the theme song and opening credits. I think the song for the closing credits is new this season.

On A More Serious Note - Iran

I'm in total awe of the reform movement in Iran. It was heartbreaking to see what had happened in the election, but those people are so amazingly courageous. And they've had it. I guess there's no way for them to win this battle, but down the road I hope there's some way that they can win their war.

Let's Keep Not Investigating Torture

Image via Wikipedia

I have to say that for something that's not being pursued we're getting a lot of new information about the previous administration's actions regarding torture every day. I hope we keep not investigating the whole thing and I certainly hope that the Cheney Family Torture Tour keep doing what they've been doing so well. We're learning a lot more than the details of the Cheney/Bush administrations adventures in " enhanced interrogation".

We might well be learning the why and the who of it. And we're getting daily confirmation that Cheney really was running the show for a long time. And apparently thinks he still is, but hey, don't tell him yet. He's on a pace to move popular opinion firmly to the side of prosecution for war crimes within a few more weeks. That can only help.

So, let's see more of this inaction. It's working pretty well so far.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Speaker Pelosi: Bush team misled her (msnbc.msn.com)
• Cheney Torture Authorization/Suggestion For Iraq-Al Qaeda "Link"? (oliverwillis.com)
• GOP Strategists to Cheney: Enough, Already (usnews.com)
• Pelosi, CIA dispute what she knew about interrogations (nationalpost.com)
• Cheney's GOP Critics Afraid To Go On The Record (huffingtonpost.com)
• Nancy Pelosi Goes on the Offensive (themoderatevoice.com)
• Another turn of the crank: Why Cheney won't shut up (thestar.com)

If Cheney Was Still In Charge

The whole right wing is in a state of mourning today because the very courageous Captain Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates.  They’re afraid that this might reflect well on President Obama and that’s put them in full attack mode, even though by any sane standards, there’s nothing to attack. That’s not going to stop lunatic fringe that has become the right of center.

They are either constructing scenarios that didn’t happen in which President Obama provided some sort of impediment to the rescue that did happen or superfluously pointing out that President Obama himself didn’t perform the rescue. The Mahablog very correctly identifies this as a severe case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. On Steroids.

We can play, too. As long as we’re imagining, let’s think how Cheney would have handled it. Now, Cheney’s administration could go any which way. Given the kind of rhetoric they liked to use it’s easy to assume that they’d have blown that  lifeboat right out of the water, Captain Phillips and all. We do not negotiate with pirates! But it’s hard to say. They might also have dillied and dallied and futzed around until the pirates managed to break away and make for Somalia with Phillips. Or they might have thrown a hissy fit when the USS Bainbridge offered to tow the lifeboat to safer waters. Coddling pirates, you know.  Really, when Cheney was in charge just about anything was possible. What was for sure was that no matter what the outcome, former President Bush would be called away from his bike ride to show up and take credit for a victory and then we’d have invaded Madagascar, just for the hell of it.

Election in El Salvador

Image by LShave via Flickr

El Salvador just had a bit of revolution – by election.  After all the years of war, death squads, repression and oppression, the people went to the polls and voted for change – and got it. It’s something that’s going around the world.

Angela, my friend and colleague, just returned from working as an international observer of the electoral process there. She and her family came here from El Salvador years ago, not to make a fortune, but just for some freedom and maybe some safety. Like most people who make such a move, it wasn’t their country they wanted to leave, but rather a terrible government. I don’t know how old Angela is, but I know she’s older than I am. She almost didn’t go to El Salvador because her husband’s been very sick and she didn’t want to leave him alone. He knew she wanted to go and he wanted her to do it, too. He and her sisters conspired to have him stay with them and be taken care of so Angela could go and go she did.

She said there were attempts to steal the election, but enough were uncovered so that they didn’t work. People were brought in from neighboring countries to vote illegally but were discovered and sent packing.

She also said that she was told, and it some cases shown, that if the election had gone differently, there was going to be an armed revolution. And she seems sure that the transition will take place. When it was all over, after days and nights of working hard, she said, “Wonderful. Now we can get some sleep.” She was told no, now it was time to celebrate! Which they did. For all that, she came back glowing and happy. It’s a good thing to get your country back, even if you don’t live there anymore.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Historic power shift in El Salvador - former FMLN wins elections (isiria.wordpress.com)
• Latin America Continues Its March To The Left (plastic.com)
• Elections in El Salvador Invoke Rivalries of Civil War Years (nytimes.com)