Patum Peperium

Will Boston cause Obama to 'evolve' on Bill and Bernardine?

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

This was a heinous and cowardly act. And given what we now know about what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism.  Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror. What we don’t yet know, however, is who carried out this attack, or why; whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual.

- President Obama on the Boston Marathon Bombings, April 16, 2013

 

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THE DAILY BEAST :  There was a big hullabaloo duirng the 2008 presidential election over your relationship to Obama. What is or was your relationship to him?

BILL AYERS : I brief him every Monday in the White House, and he never listens! No. The truth is exactly what he said and what the campaign said in 2008. David Axelrod said we were friendly, that was true; we served on a couple of boards together, that was true; he held a fundraiser in our living room, that was true; Michelle [Obama] and Bernardine were at the law firm together, that was true. Hyde Park in Chicago is a tiny neighborhood, so when he said I was “a guy around the neighborhood,” that was true.

-- Bill Ayers On the Weathermen, Obama’s Crap Job & More, April 3, 2013

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"Now we are everywhere...we are not just attacking targets...guard your planes, guard your colleges, guard your banks, guard your children, guard your doors."

- Bernardine Dohrn, 1970

 

 

 

 

 

 

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.''

- No Regrets For A Love of Explosives, NYTimes, September 11, 2001

 

"Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror."

- President Barack Obama, April 16, 2013

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This—violence, death, and white-hot rhetoric—is his past and Ayers insists he has no regrets. "I acted appropriately in the context of those times," he says. But it's hard to reconcile this quick-witted man with that revolutionary. Today Bill Ayers seems too happy to have ever been so angry.

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-- "No Regrets For A Love of Explosives, NYTimes, September 11, 2001

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For years, his was "Joe." Hers was "Rose."

"I was at the top of my field," the wife says. "I was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list."

She smiles at her husband.

"He was on the bottom," she adds. "I was most wanted, he was just wanted, sort of wanted."

"Sexism," he contends, shrugging. "We were facing the same federal charges. She has better legs. I could have been No. 1."

They laugh.

"She likes my jokes."

"Laughter," she says, "is what has kept us together all these years."

The couple, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, will need their sense of humor in the coming weeks...

-- Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn, September 2001 "The Calm After the Storm"

 

 

 

 

In 1970, Bill Ayers summed up the Weatherman philosophy: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at."

-- Rebel Without A Pause, Chicago Magazine 1993

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Weathermom Guess who's opening speaker for the Women...

September 23, 1990|By Kathy O`Malley and Dorothy Collin.

Weathermom

Guess who`s opening speaker for the Women in Charge conference sponsored by the Junior League and United Way? Why, none other than Bernardine Dohrn. The conference brochure describes her as ``a child advocate, a law graduate, a mother of three boys, an anti-war and civil rights activist, a Little League coach . . . `` That leaves out a few minor biographical details such as her role in the Days of Rage in Chicago in 1969, her years on the FBI`s Most Wanted list and her conviction in connection with the infamous Brink`s robbery in New York. But that was then. Now, the most frightening thing about Dohrn, THE 1960s radical, is that she is not only a Little League coach, but she`s 48 years old.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published Sept. 27, 1990:
Corrections and clarifications.
The INC. column Sept. 23 erroneously said Bernardine Dohrn had been convicted ``in connection with the infamous Brink`s robbery in New
York.`` In fact, she served seven months for civil contempt for not cooperating with a grand jury investigating the robbery.

- Chicago Tribune, 1990

 

 

 

At the time, she was unapologetic, and, to this day, she has made only guarded public expressions of remorse. Indeed, she told me she senses continuity between her past and her present work. Her brother-in-law John Ayers, adds, "I don't think she's ashamed in any way. She continues to have a radical view of American society." [...]

Stronger language comes from Peter Collier, a radical turned conservative whose 1989 book, Destructive Generation (co-written with David Horowitz), is bitterly critical of late-sixties political movements. "The part that I think is outrageous has very little to do with her," he says. "It's Northwestern and it's MacArthur and it's the bar. What it shows me is this moron Dan Quayle, he really hit a nerve here on this notion of the cultural elite, the idea that these people would protect and enhance the reputation of this vicious, bloody-minded woman who is kind of the Lady Macbeth of the movement. This is an amazing thing and it could happen only on the Left."

-- Rebel Without A Pause, Chicago Magazine, 1993

 

 

 

 In Destructive Generation, Collier recounts a chance meeting at around that time between Dohrn and Mark Rudd, another radical leader who'd also been underground for a time. "She asked him what he thought about the whole experience," Collier writes. "He told her that he thought of it as seven years of wasted life; that neither he nor they had accomplished anything, and he wished he'd gotten out at the beginning. 'She got furious [Rudd recounts] and said: "But what about the contribution we made to the overall struggle for armed struggle and revolution in America?" I couldn't believe the rhetoric. The same old shit. I just said to myself, "Oh, later for you, lady," and took off. Later on it occurred to me how her ego was still totally involved with all that dead history. How little she had looked at herself all those years. She should have had to admit how wrong her ideas were, how meshuga her self-conception was. A great revolutionary leader' She had no great revolutionary ideas. None of us did. She was just the daughter of a credit manager of a Milwaukee furniture store.'''

-- Rebel Without a Pause, Chicago Magazine, 1993

 

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Bill & Bernardine, Occupy Chicago May Day Protest, 2012

 

 

THE DAILY BEAST: All things considered, would you do it again the same way with the Weather Underground?

BILL AYERS: I feel like I’ve lived a very blessed life. Having three amazing kids and three amazing grandchildren, being a teacher for 40 years, it is all terrific stuff. And opposing the war in Vietnam with every fiber of my being? I couldn’t be happier or prouder of that. In terms of opposition to the war, I have no regrets. People want me to say I really regret being in extreme opposition of the war, and I don’t regret that.

Bill Ayers On the Weathermen, Obama’s Crap Job & More, April 3, 2013  

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Why isn't anyone concerned with the similarities between Bates Motel and Newtown?

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Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

 

 

A&E's "Bates Motel" is kind of a mess, but that's one of the reasons it's fun to watch. The drama is, of course, based on Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," and the novel by Robert Bloch. Technically, it's a prequel, focusing on Norman Bates before he went off the deep end, and on his mother before she became beef jerky on a rope.

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Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, Lanza had shot and killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

 

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Norman Bates

 

Adam Lanza

 

Norman's mother.

 

Adam's mother.

 

 

 

Norman's home.

 

Adam's home.

 

Unfortunately for Hollywood, the similarities extend beyond the physical:

"Norman discovers a strange notebook filled with drawings of Asian women in bondage..."

"Just two weeks before the Newtown shooting, Nancy discovered ghastly and sinister pictures in her son’s room featuring dead bodies..."

 

We get that he's an outsider and that he has no social skills. But as a character, he becomes ironically more three-dimensional only when he's home with his mother. Well, you know what they say: A boy's best friend is his mother. In the case of "Bates Motel," make that "fiend."

 

What emerges in this exploration of a still unfolding story is a portrait of a mother, apparently devoted but perhaps misguided, struggling to find her son a place in society, and a boy, exceptionally smart in some areas, profoundly deficient in others, who never found a place in the world. Although he had played musical instruments, studied foreign languages and had a part-time job at a computer shop, Adam remained isolated and distant.

 

Any chance Bates Motel will go the way of the assualt rifle?

A&E has picked up the "Pyscho" prequel series, which stars Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga as Norman and Norma Bates respectively, for a second season.

The renewal of "Bates Motel" comes as no surprise: The premiere brought in 3.0 million viewers total, making it the most-watched original drama debut in the key demographics in A&E's history.

“Bates Motel’ has garnered critical acclaim and a loyal audience in its first few weeks,” said A&E President Bob DeBitetto in a statement. “With superb writing and exceptional acting, led by the critically acclaimed performances of Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, we’re incredibly excited to see where [executive producers] Carlton [Cuse] and Kerry [Ehrin] take Norma and Norman Bates next.”

 

Incredibly excited?

The 26 victims of Sandy Hook were unavailable for comment.

 

 

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Gone, but will never be forgotten.

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Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

 

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Lady Thatcher, October 1925 – 8 April 2013

The story as I was told it is that in the early years of her prime ministership, Margaret Thatcher held a meeting with her aides and staff, all of whom were dominated by her, even awed. When it was over she invited her cabinet chiefs to join her at dinner in a nearby restaurant. They went, arrayed themselves around the table, jockeyed for her attention. A young waiter came and asked if they'd like to hear the specials. Mrs. Thatcher said, "I will have beef."

Yes, said the waiter. "And the vegetables?"

"They will have beef too."

- Peggy Noonan

 

Related :

"Some Socialists seem to believe people should be a numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We're all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is quite like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. And we believe everyone has the right to be unequal, but to us, every human being is equally important."

--Prime Minister Thatcher

 

 

Thank you Lady Thatcher. Rest in Peace.

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Michelle Obama changes facebook status to 'single'.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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Michelle Obama didn't change her facebook status to 'single'. She merely left out another adjective when describing herself to CBS. Michelle Obama is a busy, vacationing single mother.

 

Related reading :

Expensive massages, top shelf vodka, and 5-star hotels: First Lady accused of spending $10m of public money on her vacations.

Obama, Michelle took separate U.S. planes to Martha's Vineyard

Michelle Obama's taypayer-funded spending is embarrassment for the White House.

Michelle to Remain in Hawaii, Costing Tax-payers Over 100K

Separate Vacations for Barack and Michelle Obama

 

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Not only did Al Gore invent the internet, the wise Latina discovered how to use a word-processor for senior theses.

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Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor at Princeton, circa 1972.

 

From this week's Princeton Alumni Weekly:

 

I very much enjoyed reading my classmate Sonia Sotomayor’s account of her Princeton experience in her book, My Beloved World, and found much that I could relate to as another daughter of immigrants from modest circumstances. I did, however, have to chuckle at her immodest claim of having been the first to discover how to use a computer to word-process her senior thesis. By the spring of 1976 a goodly number of seniors, myself included, were making use of the computers at the EQuad to produce our theses. It required no computer knowledge, which I certainly did not have; in fact, the only skills needed were the ability to type on the keyboard of a computer monitor and to handle a box of punch cards.

[Name Withheld] ’76

Newton, Mass.

 

 

 

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From Sotomayor's My Beloved World, pages 133-2:

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Part of my financial aid package committed me to weekly hours in the work study program. At the start of freshman year, I was assigned to food service at the commons, but a lingering case of mononucleosis took me off the cafeteria line. I needed a desk job where I couldn't cause an epidemic. I was eager too, to explore something new. The food service job was standard student fare in a predictable environment. But when I saw a posting for a keypunch operator at the Computer Center I was intrigued.

Computers were a brave new world when I started work there in 1972 and access to their powers was confined to cavernous campus centers. Judith Rowe, head of the center's social sciences division, was a pioneer; among the first to envision the potential of quantitative analysis in the social sciences, she saw that computers would be the key to realizing it. To advance that vision she encouraged graduate students to use computers to analyze their research data, an effort she facilitated by hiring work-study students like me to do the data entry. One project I worked on was with the historian Vernon Burton, who had discovered a treasure trove of old census records near his hometown in South Carolina. (There is such serendipity in historical research: Vernon had stopped on a back road to buy a soda when he spotted the stack of ledgers holding up a shelf; he offered to build some proper shelves for the shopkeeper in return for the ledgers.) My job was to key all the census data onto punch cards and help Vernon run the analysis.

I had taken a typing course in high school, figuring I could always get a job that way, if necessary. That was qualification enough to start, as no one beyond the programmers themselves, had any computer skills. Under Judith's guidance I learned a bit about programming and became skilled at keypunching. Because the work was specialized, I earned double what I had been making in the cafeteria. There were other perks too, we could set our own hours and come in a we were; in jeans and T-shirts. It was a student's dream job, and I kept it all 4 years at Princeton, working there 10 or 15 hours a week on top of the other jobs that came and went.

The mainframe of the computer gave off so much heat, its room was cooled to frigid temperatures, and I wore a jacket and gloves whenever I went down to into the basement to feed my stack of punch cards into the machine. If the program crashed, I had to inspect each card individually to find the error. Often that meant perusing hundreds or even thousands of punchcards for a single mistaken keystroke, a maddening effort. Next to the monitor that showed the jobs queuing to run on the computer was a metal post that seemed to serve no purpose. It was a while before someone explained it to me; after repeatedly replastering the wall, the administration had decided to install the post for the convenience of frustrated students, who invariably needed something to kick when their code crashed.

Later, in my senior year, I was taking a break from writing my thesis to catch up on a couple of hours of keypunch work when an idea occurred to me: Why not enter the text of my thesis on the same type of punch cards that we were using for data analysis? That way, I could make changes as needed to individual cards without having to retype all the subsequent pages. Judith was intrigued. She thought it a worthwhile experiment, and she assigned another operator to do the data entry for me. It's hard to be certain, but I might have submitted the first word-processed senior thesis in Princeton's history, and I didn't even have to type it myself.

 

Related reading :

"There’s something weird about the need to tell quite so many unnecessary fictions."

--Mark Steyn's No One left to Lie To.

 

 

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