Walking Eagle, The Groveling of Pakistani Elites, This I believe,

President BARACK OBAMA was invited to address a major gathering
of the American Indian Nation in upstate New York .

He spoke for almost an hour about his plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living. He referred to his time as a U.S. Senator and how he had voted for every Native American issue that came to the floor of the Senate. Although President Obama was vague about the details of his plans, he seemed most enthusiastic and spoke eloquently about his ideas for helping his "red sisters and brothers."

At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented Obama with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name, "Walking Eagle." The proud President then departed in his motorcade to a fundraiser, waving to the crowds. A news reporter later asked the group of Chiefs how they came to select the new name they had given to the President. They explained that "Walking Eagle" is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly. [thanks SR]


Two excerpts from Thomas Friedman

1: The context within which people live their lives shapes everything — from their political outlook to their religious one. The reason there are so many frustrated and angry people in the Arab-Muslim world, lashing out first at their own governments and secondarily at us — and volunteering for “martyrdom” — is because of the context within which they live their lives. That was best summarized by the U.N.’s Arab Human Development reports as a context dominated by three deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of education and a deficit of women’s empowerment. The reason India, with the world’s second-largest population of Muslims, has a thriving Muslim minority (albeit with grievances but with no prisoners in Guantánamo Bay) is because of the context of pluralism and democracy it has built at home.

2: To me, the most important reason for the Iraq war was never W.M.D. It was to see if we could partner with Iraqis to help them build something that does not exist in the modern Arab world: a state, a context, where the constituent communities — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — write their own social contract for how to live together without an iron fist from above. Iraq has proved staggeringly expensive and hugely painful. The mistakes we made should humble anyone about nation-building in Afghanistan. It does me.

In a hard hitting piece M. Shahid Alam dissects:

Will the departure of Mr. Sethi and his distinguished colleagues make a difference? I doubt if the owners of DT will have difficulty finding their replacements, voices equally shrill in their advocacy of foreign powers. More than at any other time, growing numbers of Pakistanis have been grooming themselves for service to the Empire, as their predecessors once eagerly sought to serve the British Raj. This groveling by Pakistan’s elites will only change when the people act to change the incentives on offer to the servants of Empire. It will only change when the people of Pakistan can put these mercenaries in the dock, charge them for their crimes against the people and the state, and force them to disgorge their loot. [thanks AL]

The Palestinians who are being evicted from Sheikh Jarrah have lived in their homes there since at least 1948, and some have lived there much longer, living in the homes passed down for hundreds of years from their ancestors. In the last several years, Israeli settlers have repeatedly attacked the neighborhood, injuring residents, damaging property and eventually kicking Palestinians by force out of their homes, and then moving into those homes. Evicted Palestinians have tried to camp out in the street in front of their homes, and hold protest vigils in the street, but these have repeatedly been dismantled and broken up by Israeli authorities.