"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington
A Christmas Carol is one of the classics of the ancient western world. It's available in book form all over the place and you can read it online at Public Bookshelf. This post has the first ever movie made about, a silent movie made in 1910 as well as the first ever audio movie ever made of this book. The movies are followed by the book read out in audio form which can be downloaded and put on mp3 players for car drives etc. The first movie of The Christmas Carol ever made: 1910 Silent Film:Marc McDermott stars as Ebenezer Scrooge in this silent film version of Dickens' classic ghost story, A Christmas Carol.
Seymour Hicks plays the title role in the first sound version of the Dickens classic about the miser who's visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This British import is notable for being the only adaptation of this story with an invisible Marley's Ghost and its Expressionistic cinematography. This is the uncut 78 minute version.
Online Audio Books Audio Book: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (full title: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening. (Summary from Wikipedia)
Read by Glen Hallstrom.
Notice that at 1 minute and 25 seconds Romney was FOR Abortion and then Became Governor and became against abortion (he has a very long record of not keeping his words... calling these "flip-flops' is being way way way too nice to his past! (though this CNN documentary takes a major step forward).
INFORMATION ABOUT THE "MODERATE" THAT THE GOP STOOD BEHIND WITHOUT QUESTION FOR MANY MONTHS:
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney artfully dodged a question about whether states have the right to ban birth control during Saturday's Republican presidential debate, calling the question "silly" and saying that states wouldn't want to do that anyway. But as governor of Massachusetts in 2005, Romney took a harder line on contraception, vetoing a widely supported bill that would make the morning-after pill available over the counter in that state and require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.
His surprising veto did not stand. The Massachusetts state Senate voted unanimously to overrule it, and the state House voted 139-16 to do the same.
Romney tried to explain his controversial act by arguing in a Boston Globe op-edthat he did it in order to keep a campaign promise not to change Massachusetts' abortion laws. But the scientific community and longstanding federal policy agree that the morning-after pill cannot end a pregnancy once it has begun.
Mitt Romney making money from aborted fetuses (i.e. dead pre-born babies):
Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show And these documents challenge Romney's claim that he left Bain Capital in early 1999. Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.
From Mother Jones: "Under Ryan's pro-life bill, a rapist could go to court and prevent his victim from getting an abortion."
Notice how commonly known amongst ex-soldiers the military's tradition of rape is under our current line of Generals/Ceasars; (read all the way to the end)
By Mick Krever, CNN - It is not every day that the man in charge of all of America’s Air Force calls a modest sergeant. Which is why Jennifer Smith was so surprised to get General Mark Welsh’s call.
Sgt. Smith had filed a formal complaint alleging sexual assault and harassment, which she said had gone on for years. When she finally revealed the assault to her superior officers, after years of keeping it a secret, she expected the Air Force to act.
“I was so caught off-guard by the fact that he called me, and considering who he is, and I know my place, I said, ‘Yes, sir. Well thank you for calling me.’”
“He just said that he was going to do the best that he could,” Smith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
But as far as Sgt. Smith is concerned, the phone call, and all the conversations with her superior officers that led up to it, have amounted to nothing.
“They know the case,” she said, “but as far as I’m concerned, nothing has been done.”
The fact that Smith reported the assault, one of several she suffered, was in itself a rarity.
According to the recent documentary “The Invisible War,” about rape in the military, 33% of sexual assaults are not reported because the victim’s superior officers is a friend of the assailant. And 25% are not reported because the superior officer is himself the assailant.
“I kind of didn’t tell anyone,” Sgt. Smith said. “I came back, went to work the next day like nothing happened, and buried it.”
Sgt. Smith said she knew many people who were assaulted. But for many like Smith, who is a 17-year-veteran of the Air Force, they feel like they have invested too much in their careers to jeopardize it by reporting assault.
Often, the harassment comes in a seemingly more benign, but just as destructive, form.
Sgt. Smith was compiling a report from files on a shared server when she came across a songbook with explicitly pornographic lyrics.
The page read, “F*** songs and Trash Tunes.”
“The reason that I didn’t come forward was because of stuff like this,” she said. “I just didn’t think that it would be taken care of or taken seriously.”
The pornography seemed like it was almost de rigueur for the Air Force.
But the event that truly changed Sgt. Smith happened while she was stationed in Balad, Iraq.
“I was assaulted by an Army personnel and he basically just grabbed and threw me up against the wall,” she said. “When I came back from Iraq I was different. That time was very different because it was so aggressive and it was so hostile.”
After some time back in the U.S., her husband convinced her that she needed to seek medical help, and come forward to her Air Force superiors. She was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Regarding her complaint she said, “I started at the lowest level of the chain, and went all the way to the top.”
Sgt. Smith is a 17-year veteran of the Air Force, and has come forward with her story just a few years shy of being able to retire with full pension and benefits. “My father was in Vietnam,” Sgt. Smith told Amanpour. “And I remember coming home when I was a junior in high school and saying, ‘Dad, I think I want to join the army or the Marine Corps.’ And he said, ‘No, honey, we’re going to take you down to the Air Force recruiter, because you’ll be safe there.’”
4. From Mother Jones: "Under Ryan's pro-life bill, a rapist could go to court and prevent his victim from getting an abortion."
Articles related to this;
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — The Army general at the center of a sexual misconduct case that put the military justice system itself on trial was spared prison Thursday and sentenced to a reprimand and a $20,000 fine — a punishment legal experts, a women's group and members of Congress decried as shockingly light.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, 51, immediately announced his retirement, capping a humiliating fall for the battle-tested commander once regarded as a rising star in the Army. A disciplinary board could still bust him in rank and severely reduce his pension.
"The system worked. I've always been proud of my Army," Sinclair said outside court after reacting to his sentence with a smile and an embrace of his lawyers. "All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and my wife."
Ever since the Navy’s Tailhook scandal in 1991, the Pentagon has declared a “zero tolerance” approach to sexual assault and rape by troops. But as “The Invisible War,” a powerful new documentary out on DVD this week makes clear, the U.S. military’s actual measures to prevent rape and punish rapists range from insulting to laughable to virtually non-existent. Meanwhile, women (and men) who sign up to risk their lives for our country are being driven out of the armed forces after having their bodies assaulted and their careers ruined.
Director Kirby Dick’s previous documentaries include a film about sexual abuse in the Catholic church, and the scandals in these two institutions do have a striking number of similarities. Both handle sexual assault charges internally, both have erred on the side of protecting the reputations of those accused while ignoring the needs and rights of victims. And in both worlds, the often intimate relationship between victim and rapist can make the crime even more confusing and painful.
The women of “The Invisible War” are almost deceptively strong, taking great pride in their military service and relating the abuse they suffered in unflinching detail. At one point, a former Army criminal investigator who has appeared throughout the film to testify about the Army’s reluctance to handle rape cases talks about her own rape by a commanding officer. It takes a moment to register that this no-nonsense woman is no longer in the military because she reported her rape (she was given an administrative discharge with no benefits after nearly ten years of service) while her rapist continues to rise up the ranks.
Going deeper; We all know about the Iraq War Coverup....
We all know about Dick Cheney crazy torture techniques (such as feeding a person through his ass - probably got that one from South Park). We all know about the prison for Iraqi's where they were doing weird sexual things to them (notice the pattern here?); We know, by accident, that the military had private torture centers which is immoral and unconstitutional;
You have to ask, whose security are our Generals really interested in? Thiers or our country's? Clearly they need to be all fired. Their whole lineage of Army top brass needs to go. God knows what else they are hiding.
Planned Parenthood popular with Americans despite GOP attacks -
Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president, talks with Rachel Maddow about the favor Planned Parenthood enjoys with Americans because of the health services they provide, and what she sees as an obsession among elected...
Planned Parenthood president stands up to House GOP grilling- Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president, talks with Rachel Maddow about the five hours of testimony she gave in Congress today, and explains the facts (surprisingly unfamiliar to many members of Congress) of what Planned...
Colbert Report exposed the Benghazi coverage a long time ago with jokes, satire, news bits and logical analogies. This is a flashback & images & links below help provide context;
1:30 :The acts of terror verses vicious terrorism or, whatever word for terror you use , is using different words for the same thing getting across the SAME MEANING... i.e. these were terror attacks. That's not under dispute.
He's both a scientist and a politicianChris Hayes talks to the mayor of South Miami, Philip Stoddard, who is also a biology professor, about what it's like when most of your senior politicians are climate change deniers.
Chris Hayes one-on-one with Al GoreThe former vice president sits down for an exclusive interview on the climate, his activism, and the 2016 presidential race.
Al Gore on GOP climate denialismThe former vice president talks about the only party in the world that doesn't accept climate science - America's Republican party.
Pope Francis' influence on climate changeAuthor and activist Naomi Klein talks with Chris Hayes about Pope Francis' Encyclical and his appeal to take action on climate change.
