Image by kkirugi, posted under Creative Commons license
The flood of news and propaganda continues, and so I’m occasionally drawn into fact checking. Here are some of my fact checks for the past 24 hours. Continue reading
Author Archives: Mary Turck
Russian bear or Washington weasel?
Wikipedia: “Wikipedia: In English-speaking areas, weasel can be a disparaging term, noun or verb, for someone regarded as sneaky, conniving or untrustworthy. Similarly, weasel words is a critical term for words or phrasing that are vague, misleading or equivocal.” [Image from Fotolia – https://us.fotolia.com/id/48296139#%5D
Filed under elections, media, Tracking Trump
What’s wrong with the “Russian election hacking” meme
Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale, and Fearless Leader were cartoon representations of Russian spies in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon (1959-1964). Any resemblance between comic cartoons and current political rhetoric is purely intentional.
On December 29, the New York Times headlined, Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking. As news consumers, what questions do we need to ask about that story?
Question #1: What is this “election hacking?” Continue reading
Vetting the refugees: how it really works
U.S. government graphic shows nine steps in multi-year vetting process. Click here to view complete graphic.
St. Patrick’s Catholic parish in Hudson, Wisconsin was asked to help receive five Syrian refugee families, a total of 11 adults and 15 children. Hatemongers stirred up opposition, and the church and community divided. (Read that sad story here, as reported by MPR.) In Hudson, and across the country, hatemongers stir up fear against refugees, saying that the government doesn’t vet their applications well enough. Truth – political refugees get screened by multiple government agencies and Syrian refugees get the most stringent vetting anyone has been able to devise. Here’s how it works. Continue reading
Filed under immigration, refugees
Confirmation bias: I really wanted to believe
The Guardian article about Julian Assange, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin was one I wanted to believe.
I read The Guardian, and rely on this British publication for accurate, wide-ranging reporting on world news, including U.S. news, since we are part of the world. I also read and rely on The Intercept, a publication edited by Glenn Greenwald, Betsy Reed, and Jeremy Scahill, and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. So when The Intercept said an article in The Guardian was “completely false,” they got my attention. Continue reading
I’m moving on: 2016 into 2017
Photo by deux-chi, used under Creative Commons license
I published 131 News Day blog posts in 2016, which got more than 21,000 views from about 15,000 visitors (readers). I also finished a novel in 2016, completed a first draft of another during NaNoWriMo, joined a writers’ group, and published my first poetry chapbook. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Words matter
Tish Jones, courtesy photo
As long as she can remember, Tish Jones has loved words, loved writing and loved being on a stage. A self-identified student of hip-hop culture, she traces her passion for words to African diasporic cultural practices, including the griot, hip-hop, jazz, funk, bebop and blues. Now she’s a poet, spoken word artist, and the executive director of TruArtSpeaks – an organization she founded to cultivate spaces for youth and community, especially through hip-hop and spoken word. Continue reading
Filed under gender, organizing, race, writing
Stand up, speak up, show up: Resistance for a new year
Looking toward the new year of 2017, I resolve to resist. Again. Still. Forever.
Resist hate. Resist racism, xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism.
Resist greed. Resist privatizing Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and prisons and probation and schools and social services. Resist taking away the very limited gains won under Obamacare. Resist defunding Planned Parenthood. Resist pipelines and fracking and environmental destruction in the service of private profit.
Resist repression. Resist limits on free speech and academic freedom and freedom of ALL religions. Resist defunding of public defenders and restriction of the right to an attorney. Resist registering people by religion or nationality. Resist mass deportations and denial of asylum.
Figuring out what to resist is easy. Figuring out how to resist is tougher. Maybe if I were 16 or 26 again, I could do it all: write letters, sign petitions, door-knock for voter registration and get out the vote, march in the streets, choke on tear-gas, risk arrest, stay up all night writing briefs for federal court challenges to suppression of civil rights, and show up in court the next morning.
I’m not young any more. I don’t have the same energy. And I’ve been broken more than a few times. I get up and keep going, but I can’t go as far or as fast as I once could. (Or thought I could.) Continue reading
Filed under elections, organizing
Looking for light on the longest night
Photo by L.C. Notaasen, published under Creative Commons license
At this year’s winter solstice, the darkness seems worse, deeper, more threatening. The Seasonal Affective Disorder, in which lack of light brings on depression, can’t hold a candle to this year’s Systemic American Dysfunction.
Light marks solstice, from pagan fires on British hilltops to Scandinavian Yule logs to Hanukkah candles and Christmas trees. Like lighting candles against the long winter night, I’m offering stories of hope to shine through the post-election darkness. Continue reading
Filed under organizing, Uncategorized
The genocide you haven’t heard about
More than 340,000 people fled the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, this year. Millions of people have been internally displaced, along with the hundreds of thousands who have fled into Uganda since fighting began at the end of 2013. More than 50,000 people have been killed in the civil war. Now, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says, “the risk of these mass atrocities, which include recurring episodes of ethnic cleansing, escalating into possible genocide is all too real.” Continue reading
Filed under human rights
Mary Turck