tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52839499788630941042024-02-07T20:52:18.851-05:00More Outspokenabout stuff that delights me & stuff that pisses me off
(probably more of the latter)Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-1242107497865647942021-04-07T17:12:00.004-04:002021-04-07T17:12:44.908-04:00The Far Right in Uniform<p> <a aria-label="Share on Share" class="dpsp-network-btn dpsp-facebook dpsp-no-label dpsp-first" data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftomdispatch.com%2Fthe-far-right-in-uniform%2F&t=The%20Far%20Right%20in%20Uniform" rel="noopener nofollow external noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Share on Share"><span class="dpsp-network-icon"></span></a><a aria-label="Share on Reddit" class="dpsp-network-btn dpsp-reddit dpsp-no-label" data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftomdispatch.com%2Fthe-far-right-in-uniform%2F&title=The%20Far%20Right%20in%20Uniform" rel="noopener nofollow external noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Share on Reddit"><span class="dpsp-network-icon"></span></a><a aria-label="Send over email" class="dpsp-network-btn dpsp-email dpsp-no-label" href="mailto:?subject=The%20Far%20Right%20in%20Uniform&body=https%3A%2F%2Ftomdispatch.com%2Fthe-far-right-in-uniform%2F" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="Send over email"><span class="dpsp-network-icon"></span></a>How Extreme Is the U.S. Military?
</p><div class="byline">By <span class="author vcard"><a data-wpel-link="internal" href="https://tomdispatch.com/authors/nanlevinson/" rel="tag">Nan Levinson</a></span></div>
<p>It was around noon and I was texting a friend about who-knows-what
when I added, almost as an afterthought: “tho they seem to be invading
the Capitol at the mo.” I wasn’t faintly as blasé as that may sound on
January 6th, especially when it became ever clearer who “they” were and
what they were doing. Five people would die due to that assault on the
Capitol building, including a police officer, and two more would commit
suicide in the wake of the event. One hundred forty police would be <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/police-union-says-140-officers-injured-in-capitol-riot/2021/01/27/60743642-60e2-11eb-9430-e7c77b5b0297_story.html" rel="nofollow external noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wounded</a>
(lost eye, heart attack, cracked ribs, smashed spinal disks,
concussions) and the collateral damage would be hard even to tote up.</p>
<p>I’m not particularly sentimental about anyone-can-grow-up-to-be-president and all that — in 2017, <em>anyone</em> did — but damn! This was democracy under actual, not rhetorical, attack.</p><p>cont'd at TomDispatch -- https://tomdispatch.com/the-far-right-in-uniform/</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br /></p>Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-88101804434585415002020-11-06T12:06:00.005-05:002020-11-06T12:08:17.358-05:00Kick him when he's down -- why not? He would.<p>So, as it looks that we'll be done with Trump at last, I think about the annoying TV ad for<a href="https://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en"> Got Junk?</a>, an international company (with franchises) which does trash removal -- or as it advertises, "no contact junk removal." In the Boston version, people are encouraged to just point at what they want removed and it disappears instantly. If I knew how to make a meme, that one's too tempting. <br /></p>Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-24491808727578292222020-09-05T12:14:00.001-04:002020-11-06T12:18:29.416-05:00notable quotes from our 3-year-old-in-chief<p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Trump's next book should be titled, "Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten" </span></p><p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Chapter 1: I know you are, but what am I?</span></p><p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Chapter 2: Ya gonna make me? You and who else? </span></p><p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Chapter 3: I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me & sticks to you.<br /></span></p>Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-12046145484952148882020-08-29T11:31:00.000-04:002020-08-29T11:31:19.574-04:00🎵 Ivanka and the King of I Am 🎵<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<b><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-char-type: symbol-ext; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-symbol-font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji";">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
(with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein)</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
He will not ever say </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
what you would have him say,</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
but now and then he'll say </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
something horrible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The thoughtless things </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
he'll do will hurt and worry you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Then all at once he'll do </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
something terrible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
He has a thousand dreams </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
that won't come true.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Who knows if he believes in them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
They’re aimed at screwing you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b>chorus sung by the bass</b>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
You'll always go along,</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
defend him when he's wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
tell him when he's headstrong</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
he is wonderful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
He'll always need your love </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
and so he'll get your love.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
It's unfathomable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<b><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-char-type: symbol-ext; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-symbol-font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji";"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:DoNotShowRevisions/>
<w:DoNotPrintRevisions/>
<w:DoNotShowComments/>
<w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions/>
<w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="376">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Mention"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Smart Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hashtag"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Unresolved Mention"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Smart Link"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:auto;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:auto;
mso-para-margin-left:.5in;
text-indent:-.5in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;}
</style>
<![endif]--></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></b></div>
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-88448315736900830082019-01-02T17:09:00.003-05:002019-01-02T17:09:38.389-05:00for the new year<b>EARTH RISE</b><br />
I wish for the new year a rebirth of wonder,<br />
Not just about how to get out from under,<br />
Or to figure out how, more or less,<br />
We got ourselves into this ungodly mess.<br />
So let's raise a glass, a pinky or a shout<br />
For, if we got ourselves in, we can get ourselves way out!<br />
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-13199999801777748842018-07-01T17:01:00.001-04:002018-07-01T17:01:03.841-04:00Bad week -- for us all, whether we know it or not<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
</h3>
<div class="post-header">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5053542864017945609" itemprop="description articleBody">
Dutifully went to let's-treat-immigrants-as-people rally yesterday on
City Hall Plaza in 90-plus degree heat (note to Brutalist architects:
plant trees). Found a bit of shade from which we couldn't hear or see
the speakers, didn't matter because I knew what they were saying
(accurate & suitably outraged, but no less predictable for being
so). My contribution: another body to swell the count. We stood,
chatted, noted the usually earnest, occasionally witty T's and signs,
then decamped for oysters in the North End. This is not enough. This
really isn't anything. I need to do direct action, civ dis, something to
make a dent. </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5053542864017945609" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGko1GYYO7hRXg_TnQ1qZtybCFIJS811UMkm_ssfxUN0Bmbj-uPb8p2iPQl-X5fIMVzIgudjJRFVXkckis56MhBPNiqDoGME2k6WI51EbuonYk9dQss7SsxG4VoCwcNNT9bLlZOjJGVQ/s1600/screenshot-www.bostonglobe.com-2018-06-21-13-49-57.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="758" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGko1GYYO7hRXg_TnQ1qZtybCFIJS811UMkm_ssfxUN0Bmbj-uPb8p2iPQl-X5fIMVzIgudjJRFVXkckis56MhBPNiqDoGME2k6WI51EbuonYk9dQss7SsxG4VoCwcNNT9bLlZOjJGVQ/s320/screenshot-www.bostonglobe.com-2018-06-21-13-49-57.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5053542864017945609" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">me trying to get out of photo of cute kids that appeared </span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5053542864017945609" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> in the <i>Boston Globe</i> report of an earlier rally at the State House</span></div>
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-23842759801133637072017-08-02T23:45:00.002-04:002017-08-02T23:45:41.245-04:00Hobbes on Trump?Ok, because no one reads this, I'll amuse myself with Trump dumps (which, I admit, would be a lot more amusing if he weren't really prez).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
So, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, the natural state <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M0pKbq_AlNg/WYKcJeUrINI/AAAAAAAAES4/MlRhHG9NRyEpePPmnpahtTwf_qqM2sY5QCLcBGAs/s1600/donald-trump-short-fingered-vulgarian-fingers-bruce-handy-ss01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="885" height="133" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M0pKbq_AlNg/WYKcJeUrINI/AAAAAAAAES4/MlRhHG9NRyEpePPmnpahtTwf_qqM2sY5QCLcBGAs/s200/donald-trump-short-fingered-vulgarian-fingers-bruce-handy-ss01.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
of Trumpkind is nasty, brutish,<br />
and short-fingered.<br />
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-32859512177966239432017-03-15T18:20:00.001-04:002017-03-15T18:20:03.979-04:00A Trump Thesaurus (a work in progress)<div class="content-list-component text" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: "notonashkarabic","proximanova","helvetica neue","helvetica","roboto","arial",sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Of all the possible complaints about Donald Trump, a limited vocabulary should rank </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">low on the list, and not just because it’s a telltale sign of the elitism we’re supposed to </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">scorn these days. But Trump’s language – in his speeches, rare press conferences, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">interviews, tweets, and tossed-off asides — highlights the Manichaean view that </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">seems to inform his beliefs and actions. (Manichaeanism – Damn! Is it more elite </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">to define it or not to? — was a philosophy that divided the world into good and evil.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">So with a bow to Roget, herewith:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">A TRUMP THESAURUS</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 1</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">good</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(adj.) terrific, beautiful, amazing, smart, tremendous, uge, big league</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">(aka bigly), first, best, most, greatest, very, very good, wonderful, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">unbelievable, like never before</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">(noun) tough talk, Wikileaks, wall</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">(pronoun) I, me, my (see above: best, most, greatest)</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 2</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">bad</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(adj) disgusting, sad, disgraceful, dishonest, terrible, unfair, stupid, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">not funny, overrated, ugly, so-called, phony</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">(noun) loser, really bad dudes, radical Islamic terrorists, leakers, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">fake news, failing New York Times</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I was all set to say there is no Part 3 when I came across this explication </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">of Trump’s vocabulary at a recent press conference:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="content-list-component text" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: NotoNashkArabic,ProximaNova,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; width: 715.006px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.75rem; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"citation","mpid":1,"plid":"http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-military-adjective-sean-spicer-deportations-2017-2","lnid":"military operation"}}" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-military-adjective-sean-spicer-deportations-2017-2" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #2e7061;" target="_blank">military operation</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(adj) stepped-up deportation of undocumented immigrants, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">emphatically not having anything to do with the military. “<i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The president was </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">using that as an adjective. It’s being done with precision and in a manner </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">in which it’s being done very, very clearly” (Sean Spicer)</i>.</span></div>
</div>
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-29023850024555947302017-02-11T11:09:00.004-05:002017-02-11T11:09:45.902-05:00Letter to NYT Sunday Magazine 1/11/17<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="16" data-total-count="3025">
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/magazine/afghanistan-soldier-ptsd-the-fighter.html"><strong>RE: THE FIGHTER </strong></a></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="16" data-total-count="3025">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="16" data-total-count="3025">
<strong>War Is Not/Shouldn't Be finally made it<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/magazine/the-1-117-issue.html"> into the NYT</a> </strong></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="16" data-total-count="3025">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="90" data-total-count="3115">
<em>C.J. Chivers wrote about Sam Siatta, a Marine Corps veteran, and his fraught journey home.</em></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="349" data-total-count="3464" id="story-continues-1">
<strong>It was reassuring</strong>
to learn that Sam Siatta is finally getting the medical and
psychological care he needs, and I hope the government will fund fully
the treatment required by those who fight our perpetual war. But for
some kinds of wounds, there is no palliation. In addition to his
psychological injuries, Siatta may be dealing with a moral injury.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="634" data-total-count="4098">
Moral
injury results from doing or witnessing something significant that
violates your deeply held beliefs about yourself and your role in the
world. It isn’t a disease or a diagnosis, and though it may be related
to PTSD, it is more a sickness of the heart than of the head, so it
can’t be medicated away. It’s not necessary for someone to be trained as
a killer to be marked in this way because, at its most basic, moral
injury is the recognition that few, if any, escape from war unscathed.
Apparently, the only sure way to avoid the moral injury of war is not to
go to war in the first place. <em>Nan Levinson, Somerville, Mass.</em></div>
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-91309522836311176182016-08-04T11:41:00.004-04:002016-08-04T11:41:58.065-04:00sexual assault in the militaryBy the Pentagon's own reckoning, only about 1 in 60 of the <u>reported</u> sexual assaults in the U.S. military resulted in jail time. (Estimates of <u>actual</u> assaults are several times greater.) Turns out that's not so different from civilian proportions. That in itself ought to be disturbing enough, but in the military, where the chain of command controls nearly every aspect of a serviceperson's life, there is no recourse and no escape. Solving the problem -- i.e. stopping sexual assault utterly-- is complicated and requires long-term approaches, but there is a specific one that would help -- a lot. That is taking the decision whether or not to prosecute from commanders, who often have conflicting interests, and giving it to trained and more impartial legal entities. The United States Congress has had the opportunity to do that 3 times in the past few years and has either voted against that change or, as happened a couple of months ago, refused even to debate it.<br />
<br />
Here's <a href="http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/veterans-military-sexual-assault-rape/">my story</a> about congressional pusillanimity and what some organizations and individuals are doing about it. Thanks to <a href="http://wagingnonviolence.org/">Waging Nonviolence</a> for publishing it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wagingnonviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/58828_10151071786146787_2007551916_n-1-615x494.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://wagingnonviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/58828_10151071786146787_2007551916_n-1-615x494.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-2736124688861597872014-08-02T14:17:00.002-04:002014-08-02T14:17:24.011-04:00Americans think the wars weren't such a good ideaThat's the latest insight from an <a href="http://ap-gfkpoll.com/featured/our-latest-poll-findings-35">AP poll</a>. It only took a decade, 60,277 tallied Iraqi lives, around 20,000 Afghan lives, 6800 American lives, and god knows how much money.Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-60443934471248258902014-07-14T11:50:00.003-04:002014-07-14T14:21:52.276-04:00Another voice gone, already missedNadine Gordimer (1923-2014), a wise voice, presence and conscience for many years + a writer of memorable stories. RIP, since she didn't appear to rest or encounter much peace in her lifetime.Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-2333613464090944622014-04-26T12:47:00.003-04:002014-04-30T19:02:55.724-04:00military suicide down: yes, butThe most recent stats out of the Pentagon indicate that suicide among the active-duty <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/25/active-duty-military-suicides-drop-reserves/P8rPLqycJRQAIClZFOIa0O/story.html"></a>military went down a significant percentage since last year (somewhere around 15%, depending on which numbers you use), but increased among reservists and the National Guard, so that now they outnumber active-duty suicides. The Army, in particular, believes the measures it has instituted to counter suicidal tendencies have helped, and fingers crossed that that's true, but the kicker for me came toward the end of the <a href="http://According to Army data, more than half of the reservists who committed suicide in 2012 and 2013 had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials, however, have not been able to establish a strong link between military service on the warfront and suicide.">AP article</a>:<br />
<br />
"According to Army data, more than half of the reservists who
committed suicide in 2012 and 2013 had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials, however, have not been able to establish a strong link between military service on the warfront and suicide."<br />
<br />
Ok, yes, we like "strong links" as evidence; they're more reliable than anecdotes, and there is that other substantial group who hadn't deployed before they killed themselves. Also, I'm increasingly wary of confirmation bias -- the tendency to believe evidence that proves what you already believe. But might the premises behind the research make it hard to figure out what's really going on? Can it really be that being trained to kill reflexively has no repercussions? Or that being a part, even at a distance, of a mechanism that engages in such senseless, futile, soul-sucking belligerencies doesn't take a toll?<br />
<br />
It has always seemed obvious to me that the best way to prevent suicide, PTSD and other psychic distress is not to send heavily-armed people into such untenable situations in the first place. Ah, yes, but then we'd have to reckon with what we've been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and now Africa and god knows where else in the first place -- and we don't seem to have any encouraging statistics for that.Nanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464078689482694621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-8403455830937367922013-10-31T21:57:00.000-04:002013-10-31T21:57:02.716-04:00Levinson’s 1st Law of the Marketplace<i>Law</i>: Good stuff gets replaced by crap. <br />
<i>Corollary</i>: Not long after, a backlash offers good stuff as an alternative to crap – usually at a higher price for consumers who like to think they have discovered something new.Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-87130841610568535532013-09-14T11:48:00.001-04:002013-09-15T17:35:08.472-04:00a war lost<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the first time that I can recall, popular opposition stopped a war action by the U.S. It wasn't just citizen resistance to another misbegotten incursion into someone else's civil war; <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/interactive/article/20130911/NEWS/309110009/Troops-oppose-strikes-Syria-by-3-1-margin">the military thought</a> it was a rotten idea too. So bravo for that -- or at least a sigh of relief. For now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, it's hardly a perfect solution: not lobbing Tomahawk missiles is a far cry from peace and a lot of people were let off the hook who should be on the hook. Syria's violent revolution and its government's violent suppression of that revolution will continue (I'm not making an equivalence here; Assad's government has the power and apparently the will to be more ruthless), thousands of people will die, communities will be destroyed, hundreds of thousands of lives will be upended, and those mind-boggling refugee camps will continue to grow and grow and grow. (Spending the cost of several Tomahawks there would be a way to start addressing that misery.) Still, for one moment, our government has acknowledged, at least tacitly, that not all international problems require a military solution, and for that, I'm grateful.</span>Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-80357295072468566932013-08-30T12:05:00.002-04:002013-08-30T12:05:38.636-04:00deja vu all over againThe U.S. is no doubt going to war in.on/over/with Syria -- with rush-to-judgement "evidence," little international support (or national, for that matter), and clear signs that we will be sucked into something we can't control. I don't doubt for a minute that Assad is monstrous or that the people in Syria are suffering massively and tragically. Nor do I doubt that Obama is a smart man and, unlike his predecessor, not keen to swashbuckle his way into war. I suppose he's equally in thrall to the interests of oil companies and, like all presidents, unable to take on the military.<br />
<br />
But, still, don't they ever goddamn learn? Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-74182400432379914792013-08-30T11:54:00.000-04:002013-08-30T11:54:22.586-04:00slow learning curveWhen protests erupted in Istanbul at the end of May and police forces
reacted with a sledgehammer response that was both brutal and
unnecessary, my husband asked, "Don't they ever learn?" We had left the
Taksim neighborhood only days before, so we could picture exactly where
it was happening and -- because everyone in the city seemed to be
selling something or building something -- why. But the "they" were the
government, which responded as governments and others in power do when
they think they're loosing control: they try for more control.<br />
<br />
It
doesn't work, at least not in the long run and not usually in the short
run either. You can't keep the lid on when it has already blown off and
by now you'd think someone would have learned that out-of-proportion
responses only make things worse.<br />
<br />
The mess in Turkey
has been followed in quick succession by the crackdown in Libya, the
coup and resulting slaughter in Egypt, the rigged trial of Bradley
Manning (which would have been much worse had the military been able to
keep the public in the dark, as it no doubt was counting on), and just
yesterday, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow">9-hour detention</a>
and interrogation at London's Heathrow Airport of David Miranda, the
partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has pissed off a lot of
people by aiding Edward Snowden's in publicizing the U.S. government's
spying on its citizens.<br />
<br />
I don't believe that power
necessarily makes people stupid, but I don't get why people in power are
so blinkered when it comes to responding to challenges to their power.
I don't get why they don't ever learn.Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-17200316831898271862013-08-02T21:28:00.000-04:002013-08-02T21:28:27.027-04:00what's good for the union?<span style="font-size: small;">In a letter announcing a vote on unionization of part-time faculty at Tufts University, her deanship wrote: "We do not believe that unionization is necessarily in the best interest of the University as a whole or of all of the part-time lecturers." Not at all surprising and it reads as boilerplate, but it makes me genuinely curious to know if any administration -- aka management -- at any time anywhere in the U.S. <i>did</i> believe unionization was in its best interest. </span>Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-27893980602933536412013-08-01T18:49:00.002-04:002013-11-12T19:21:47.336-05:00um, maybe there are better forms of protection?"One of our primary missions is to protect the population over there,"<br />
Army Brigadier General (ret.) Robert Carr<br />
testifying in the sentencing phase of Bradley Manning's court martial<br />
about the damage his leaks caused "over there" in Afghanistan<br />
<br />
Is this the Afghanistan version of: We had to bomb the village to save it? And if the mission is to protect the population, maybe a good place to start would be not killing the people we're protecting callously -- as recorded in Iraq in the <a href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/">Collateral Murder video</a> Manning leaked and Wikileaks publicized? Or "mistakenly killing" 5 Afghan police at a highway checkpoint, as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/nato-helicopter-mistakenly-kills-4-afghan-troops-taliban-attack-kills-afghan-official-others/2013/08/01/9b5236d4-fa96-11e2-89f7-8599e3f77a67_story.html">reported</a> the following day?Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-3645838335839289412013-07-26T18:01:00.000-04:002013-09-22T11:59:56.589-04:00The Sad Pleasures of Travel<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixbMg9G12VThDeRWuTlJwCrzM10qpRyyPvxX3iRwxXqobaHNHH7LVtdRjWfaqK53ldBRl259ETW70lWcRFz400c_vnS4uuIOHRC2vJpwZ_8UiFRNN2TQLrTPsbxANZw97bpzROeJpVp24/s1600/better+gorey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixbMg9G12VThDeRWuTlJwCrzM10qpRyyPvxX3iRwxXqobaHNHH7LVtdRjWfaqK53ldBRl259ETW70lWcRFz400c_vnS4uuIOHRC2vJpwZ_8UiFRNN2TQLrTPsbxANZw97bpzROeJpVp24/s320/better+gorey.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cartoon by Edward Gorey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;">"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. "The great affair is to move." To move, to go, to travel; the need can be so great as to be almost a sickness, away-sickness, maybe, an untamably sweet longing to go somewhere that will never be your home among people you'll never know well enough to belong to.<br />
<br />
When I was little, my uncle gave me storybooks with pictures of kids around the world: a Dutch girl surrounded by tulips and wearing a starched white cap with wings; a Chinese boy with a pigtail who slept on a brick bed heated by coals. They were cliches so bald it's embarrassing to think about, but I loved those books and wanted to be everywhere those children were. More than that, I wanted to be those children, each of them in turn. I think maybe the first real sadness of my life came when I realized that I couldn't.<br />
<br />
Later on, I pinned a map to a wall and drew a red line along the routes I had traveled: Europe, the Andes, India and Nepal; for some reason, I didn’t chronicle the U.S. or Canada. Then I realized that all I had seen was what was on either side of that line, and that made me too sad to continue.<br />
<br />
One night in the seventies, friends and I, probably stoned, created a travel agency of the mind. We'd offer package deals to tiny countries (Andorra, San Marino, Fiji), or to countries colored green on the globe, or we'd organize terrorism tours to the sites of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. (Long before 9/11, I used to walk a version of that in Washington on my way to work.) We would call our agency Book in Haste, Repent at Leisure.<br />
<br />
And why not, really? Once you eliminate travel for work or family obligation, you have tourism, and tourists have more pretexts than reasons for choosing one place over another. But once you do choose, the world becomes full of reasons: the tart crunch of the apples the Buddhist monk pulled like a magic trick from his maroon-and- saffron robe when we shared a bus seat on the world's highest highway; the Andean air that's ripe as cheese and thin as gauze (music and smells are most evocative of place and time); the moment the lights come on in Florence's Brancacci Chapel and you see the Masaccios for the first - or tenth - time. I have no words for that.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;"><br />
<br />
In Venice late one afternoon, as I put my camera to my eye to shoot a narrow canal with laundry flapping overhead like Chinese kites, a man came out of his house right in front of my lens. He looked at me as if I were nuts, photographing his underwear, and all I could do was point at the sky and say, "La luce." The light. "Ah," he said, nodding gravely, and walked on.<br />
<br />
So there's that too in the mix: those giddy moments when you connect across language and custom and all the ways that we divide the world into pieces. And we do divide. Every culture I know of has a word that means not-us."<br />
<br />
With luck and time, you make deeper connections, too, but the odd convergences are particularly seductive because they can't last, would turn into something else if they did. Travel, too, by definition moves and changes. Travelers arrive with such expectation, peer into a landscape and leave. They're always passers-through, outsiders. They try to hold onto a place with travelogues and photos, but even the teller tires of twelfth-told tales, and snapshots begin to seem like the blur of calendar pages that movies use to signify the passing of time. Travel is sweet because it doesn't wear out its welcome, bittersweet because it puts time and place in perspective and reminds us how small we are.<br />
<br />
I went through a sixties graduate program in which one of our "learning modules" (we had nothing so pedestrian as courses) was Cross Cultural Training. We studied a seven-step acculturation process, which began with establishing communication and ended somewhere around Nirvana. In between were all the clumsiness and victories people go through when they try to navigate a place they don't know very well.<br />
<br />
One assignment was a Peace Corps exercise called the drop-off. With to one dollar and whatever fit in a small backpack, you were left in an unfamiliar town for 24 hours to fend for yourself. I ended up in Zoar, Massachusetts, which, as far as I could tell, was home to three workers building a nuclear power plant, ten snarling dogs and one whorehouse. I immediately hitchhiked to the next town. There, embarrassed by the preciousness of my situation, I told people I was researching the psychology of humor, whereupon they invited me in, answered my impromptu questions and fed me cookies. It wasn't the last time I traveled on prevarication, little money and the kindness and strangeness of strangers.<br />
<br />
When I was 33, dissatisfied at work, bored at play and living as if busyness were the moral dimension of my days, I decided to move to Portugal. Why Portugal? everyone asked, right after they said, You're so, lucky; I wish I could do that, which I knew they didn't mean because I'd learned that Americans view anyone who chooses to live somewhere else with suspicion. Besides, most of them could have done it if they had really wanted to.<br />
<br />
I suppose I was working on the assumption that if you can't change who you are, at least you can change where you are, but I still don't know why I chose Portugal. I told people it was because it was cheap, until my mother told me to cut it out, but when it came time to go somewhere anywhere (and what a dizzying freedom that is), Portugal was it. I broke my lease, threw out what I couldn't pack and stored the rest in a friend's attic. I bought a map of Portugal, an international driver's license, and a plane ticket to Lisbon and left before I could chicken out. More busyness, but it worked.<br />
<br />
The woman at the <span style="font-style: italic;">pensaõ</span> where I stayed made me speak Portuguese. "<span style="font-style: italic;">A practicar</span>," she said. When I could bear to practice no longer, I fled to the streets, getting happily lost for hours. Lisbon is a wonderful city, full of half-seens and dead ends, and I'd find triumph one minute in mastering the ticket machines for the subway, despair the next when I couldn't understand directions back to my hotel. Being a tourist must be the single most disconcerting occupation in the world.<br />
<br />
How I reveled in anonymity those first days! I could be anyone I wanted, could make myself up out of whole cloth in the good American traditions of lying and rebirth. I imagined disappearing, simply slipping away - easy enough, since no one knew me there and the people who knew me elsewhere didn't know where I was. (If a tourist falls in a strange city, does she make a sound?)<br />
<br />
I headed to the Algarve, the south coast, to live by the sea out of season, as I had promised myself I would, then did everything in reverse: place to live, clothes in closets, calls to contacts of the contacts I had called in the States. I had arrived with only two suitcases, English and Portuguese dictionaries and baggies of the five spices I had determined I couldn't do without. I had nowhere to be for the rest of my life. But soon enough, other things found their way into this new life of mine and they, too, had to be hauled around whenever I moved. You can run under Moorish arches at the sea's edge to your heart’s content, but you're still running on your own feet.<br />
<br />
Some time around then it occurred to me that the only way to avoid being a culture cliche is to live in someone else's culture. It may be also the only way to live outside history. When you travel, it's easy to avoid your own history in the making; you just don't buy a <span style="font-style: italic;">Herald Tribune</span> or watch CNN. As for the history of another country, you escape that without trying too hard to translate the rapid-fire newscasts, too complicated to unravel the allegiances of power. After a while, it comes to seem no more consequential than a children's story: Once upon a time in a far-off land called Portugal, the escudo was devalued for the third time in a year, so one day when little Jose and Maria went to the store, they found that the price of bread had risen once again.<br />
<br />
We travel to look at people who have stayed put. We'd rather their cultures stayed put too, stalled in some moment we think of as genuine. The Guambiano Indians, who live on a high plain in the Colombian Andes, used to hand-dye the deep blue fabric from which they made their clothing, but by the time I lived there, RIT and polyester had taken over. When I bemoaned this - what - impurity? - to an anthropologist (the place was lousy with anthropologists), she scolded me: insisting the Guambianos stop at the plant-dye stage, she said, was like insisting that American culture be Elvis Presley.<br />
<br />
I think about that often, and not just because some people do think American culture is Elvis Presley. The commercial dyes were crummier than the natural ones, but they seemed to come along with the paved road and potable water that our town was lucky to have in this poor region. The changes made life easier and safer for the Guambianos at the same time that they undermined what I -- and probably they -- thought of as their culture. So I'm not sure where I stand. Predictability is the enemy, inimical to travel, but no matter how lightly they tread, travelers leave footprints. I travel to find what I don't already know, and the more I and everyone else aims for that, the less possible it becomes.<br />
<br />
After nine months in Portugal, I returned to London, where I had worked two years before. I'd sit in pubs for hours, nursing a whiskey and reading, while the other patrons watched me with suspicion since pubs aren't libraries. I gloried in hearing my language spoken all around me, though, if pressed, I'd have to admit that I'm most at home when I'm out of place. It was probably the first time in my life that being taken for a tourist didn't seem like a mortal sin.<br />
<br />
Then I walked. At Parliament Hill, I imagined taking a little house furnished with a desk and a daybed pushed in front of the window to look out over London's rooftops. I'd live there from April to October, when it wasn't perpetually damp, and I'd read and write and take a lover who was married and lived a little ways off. (Oxford sounded right.) He'd visit me a few afternoons a week when we'd make vigorous love, and after, we'd wrap ourselves in robes and drink whiskey or tea, whatever the weather demanded. Then he'd go back to his town and his wife and not bother me. Laws of travel: To know how a society functions, transact business at the post office. To know how a society falls apart, fall in love.<br />
<br />
Expatriates tend to be great monologuists, as if they are renting space in their adopted country and using words to form the walls and ceilings and floors. They strike up conversations easily (people on the move recognize each other by their lack of belongings and their shoes), but all they really share is the knowledge that they don't fit and the itch to move on. So many ways to be out of place, all these refugees fleeing nothing and playing at exile because, unlike real exiles, they can go home again. Travel is the rare situation in which you can change and be yourself at the same time.<br />
<br />
Travelers also like to talk, and have a penchant for sweeping statements like the ones in this essay. The best of them are able to sum up whole continents in a single adjective. They're notorious plagiarizers, too, forever quoting opinions and seldom giving more credit than "someone said" or "I hear." I hear Indian men are the most sexist in the world. My friend says Portugal is a cold country with a warm sun. Someone told me Parisians are less rude these days. Oh no, please not that last one. Insult is part of travel, and one of its many mixed blessings.<br />
<br />
Travelers collect things - factoids, addresses, train routes, totemic clothing. I collect words about states of travel.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Querencia</span> (Spanish): A sense of belonging intensely to a place, which can be as big as a country or as small as a room. You don't have to know<br />
you're looking, but when you find it, you feel as if the only time you're whole is when you're there.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Saudade</span> (Portuguese): Inchoate longing, fond remembrance, the almost but not quite, the satisfaction just beyond reach. It's the kind of voluptuous yearning that infects travelers, expatriates, refugees, exiles, all the people misplaced by choice or circumstance. But these definitions miss the delicious languor of its melancholy. They miss, too, the understanding of how futile it is to try to tame sadness (some cultures embrace it, others deny it), which is just as well, because if you could say the ineffable, it would be just one more thing with a name.<br />
<br />
Two final stories. The first takes place at a casino on Portugal's south coast where a bunch of us who were living nearby went to hear a friend, a singer, perform. She sent over bottles of wine and joined us between sets as we jabbered about all the places we had been and liked best; but after a while, our talk lessened. "It is well known," wrote Neruda, "that he who returns never really left." But that's true only sometimes. Love for a place is like love for a person, and remembering from a distance is really very lonely.<br />
Then, as she was going back on stage, the singer threw her arms wide to encompass us all and with a cackle proclaimed, "You know, for people who've never had any money, we certainly have had a good time."<br />
<br />
The second story takes place in Lisbon. Two old women are taking photos of each other in front of a looming statue, and I stop to watch for several minutes as one takes a picture, then walks carefully across the plaza to hand the other the camera before arranging herself-- a little to the left, the right, smile. Then, their task complete, they help each other down the subway stairs and disappear. That will be me too someday, l think (do 1 laugh or mourn?), a traveling companion to some equally lost old woman, taking pictures to prove we were there, so light and dry that we rustle.<br />
<br />
Ah yes - but having a very good time.<br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 78%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">*****</span><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-size: 78%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;">© Nan Levinson 1998</span><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;">Originally printed in the </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">Women's Review of Books</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;"> (1998). Reprinted in </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">Life Studies: An analytic Reader</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 78%;">, 2001.</span><br />
</span></span>Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-22126762159447568602013-07-19T22:16:00.000-04:002017-05-02T17:50:16.525-04:00it's time part-time An <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/175214/academias-pink-collar-workforce#">article</a> about the plight -- and burgeoning fight -- of part-time college faculty in <i>The Nation</i>. The comments seem to get hung up, as these things do, on how many women are asked to dance on the head of a pin and loses the focus: that part-timers are generally underpaid (academia is heavy-duty don't ask, don't tell when it comes to who makes how much), overworked, and underappreciated. <br />
<br />
At Tufts, where I teach, our salary is considerably better than the average cited here and we're offered a benefits package, but we haven't gotten a cost-of-living increase or merit raise in 4 years and have been informed that those of us who have been there for any length of time -- the majority, I think -- will never see one again. (My contract specifies that I'm getting the same amount -- down to the last 48 cents.) Market rates, we're told. No one actually says "salary cap," nor have they said explicitly, like it or lump it -- but that's what they mean. As far as I know, no other group of employees at the university is in this position. (And, incidentally, it sure looks like the majority of us are female and older. Or maybe we're just the ones who show up at meetings?) Even those of us who have taught there for years and, by all accounts, are skilled, committed, hard-working and valuable teachers, are on year-to-year contracts, so we could be let go with no repercussions or recourse. (The only reverberations might come from students and alums, two groups who are hard to organize for any sustained action.)<br />
<br />
I'm happy at Tufts; I like my students a lot, like teaching them, appreciate the facilities I and they have access to & the people who staff them. When I used to work in arts administration (including a stint with the govt at the National Endowment for the Arts), we called that sort of thing "psychic benefits," noting that while those are nice, you can't eat them.<br />
<br />
So it seems like a no-brainer that a union would give us some leverage, some bargaining power, with an ever more numerous administration (how many deans have had their pay frozen, I wonder?) and would help us protect our jobs, work situation and status. We have no way to push back now and the administration, like all administrations, likes it that way. They could have bought us off on the cheap and instead they chose to piss us off. <br />
<br />
The larger issue -- the end-run around tenure, which results in an academic workforce that is increasingly fractured and harried -- is a political one, but my beef is more specific. I don't like being pushed around and I resent being treated unfairly. I'd prefer not to be in an adversarial position with people I used to think of as colleagues and friends. I just want what I deserve. Tufts talks big about being a community, but to us they talk about being a marketplace -- and it isn't a marketplace of ideas they have in mind.. Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-79510792625035953452013-07-01T16:44:00.003-04:002013-07-02T12:59:04.051-04:00where you'll find meSee under "formidable" in the <a href="http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=formidable">American Heritage Dictionary</a>. Really. I couldn't make it up. And (you'll excuse me if I boast) it's probably my proudest publication credit.Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-49526214488523302952013-07-01T16:44:00.001-04:002013-08-02T21:34:03.529-04:00ohh, baby, baby, where did our love go?Marriage being some combination of symbolism, legalities, and romance, the Supremes got it right on 2 out of 3 in ruling no mo DOMA -- or was it, stop, in the name of love? So, though the robed 9 often give me nothing but heartache, I'd like to say to them, no matter what sign you are, somedays, we'll be together.Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-77127917519131050772013-06-13T12:54:00.000-04:002013-06-13T12:54:06.586-04:00law of older relativityAging = Diminution + Letting GoNan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5283949978863094104.post-22975316618211459222013-04-19T13:01:00.001-04:002013-04-19T13:01:16.967-04:00my city in ruinsApril 19, 2013: So this is what it's like to live in a war zone.Nan Levinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04365408498780106418noreply@blogger.com0