Volume 265 | No. 21

Mon, July 5

2009—Terry Herbert finds a spectacular hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ornaments on Fred Johnson’s farm in the West Midlands. It makes both men rich—and bitter enemies. 1968—The US. Congress effectively tramples on the First Amendment to ineffectively “protect” the flag. 1968—The Marine base at Khe Sanh is abandoned 90 days after the lifting of a 78-day siege which cost 737 lives. 1950—Shipped out hastily, without a plan, ill-equipped and outnumbered ten to one, Task Force Smith is decimated by North Koreans at Osan. Gen. “Dugout Doug” MacArthur lets his troops take the blame. 1937—Leaving Berlin, IBM President Tom Watson thanks Adolf Hitler for a big order …

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Sun, July 4

1994—Nye County, Nev., Commissioner Dick Carver re-opens a Federally-closed road with a bulldozer, reigniting the Sagebrush Rebellion. 1975—Eleven years after Goldwater got the GOP nod there, the Ant Farm’s “Media Burn” crashes a customized Caddy into a wall of burning TVs at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. 1970—At “Honor America” day in D.C., Billie Graham and Bob Hope preach and joke, protestors smoke pot atop a truck shoved into the Reflecting Pool, and neo-Nazis snarl and jeer. 1951—In Madison, Wisc., 99.2 percent decline to sign a petition containing excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. 1947—The Boozefighters, a subset of “The Greatest Generation®,” …

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A Lack of Progress Report

Come Sunday it will have been 245 years since the U.S. of A. told King George III, “Thanks, we can handle it from here on our own.” So, how’s that working out? Let’s be optimistic and call it a mixed bag. We’ll begin with the meta-news. This will be our third paper since we resumed our traditional practice of manifesting on a substrate of newsprint. The distribution of said newsprint—always the true challenge—is going well enough; the downtown crew has been exceptional. On the editorial end, of course, there is infinite room for improvement. The true highlight has been the enthusiasm of readers and subscribers. …

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Wealth Hoarding Endangers Democracy, Report Says

by Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams The growing concentration of wealth in fewer hands—including among corporate robber barons’ descendants who continue, after multiple generations, to wield the “financial, political, and philanthropic clout” afforded by enormous inheritances to “advance their dynasty-building agenda”—intensifies working-class suffering in the U.S. and poses a threat to society and democracy. That’s according to Silver Spoon Oligarchs: How America’s 50 Largest Inherited-Wealth Dynasties Accelerate Inequality, a new report out June 16th from the Institute for Policy Studies. Analyzing data from Forbes, IPS tracked the assets of the country’s 50 wealthiest families—“including the Waltons, the Kochs, the Mars family, and many others, some well-known …

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Whatever Happened to Chance?

by Jean Stimmell Today nothing happens by chance: It’s always someone’s fault. Even illness is now seen as personal failure: We blame the victim, saying it is their fault because of what they ate or didn’t eat, the amount they drank, or whether or not they exercised. Absurdly, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the architects of the World Trade Buildings were threatened with lawsuits, alleging the design of their buildings was faulty because the occupants couldn’t get out safely. Legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen noted in the aftermath of that attack, “contemporary Americans, in particular, are not well equipped to deal with arbitrary threats …

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