She said she was quitting her job as Alaska governor to pursue some unspecified “higher calling.” Then after her resignation took effect on July 26 Sarah Palin disappeared from public view. Twitter bursts to her followers were the only evidence that she was still around …hunkered down at an undisclosed location (rumor has it it that she was in San Diego with her new book’s co-author).

Beginning in August 2008 with her selection as John McCain’s running mate Palin soared – she went from being an obscure self-described “hockey mom” governor of a remote state to a charismatic national political figure. Less than a year later, Sarah Palin was gone as Alaska governor. And making new plans for her future … BIG plans, it seems.

Since her resignation Sarah Palin has emerged from her self-imposed seclusion only when a financial incentive is offered. For instance she breezed into Hong Kong on September 23 to give a relatively mundane speech hyping Alaska’s natural resources and slamming Obama’s economic policies for a speaking fee rumored to be in the low six figures. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/palin-hong-kong-speech-im_n_295812.html

Her various websites (SarahPac, AlaskaFundTrust) are still pleading for donations – allegedly for “legal fees” incurred during her tenure as governor. How much money has flowed into these websites into Sarah’s pockets is not known – there has been no public disclosure or accountability.

Throughout the 2008 campaign – and ever since — Palin has been dogged by charges that she had taken advantage of her position, whether as governor or vice-presidential candidate, for personal gain. Remember the $190K wardrobe provided by the RNC that included silk undies for Todd, a pricey Coach bag for 6-year-old Piper and diapers for baby Trig as well as designer duds for the VP candidate? Then there is the deluge of gifts that poured into the Alaska governor’s mansion and have yet to be accounted for and reported as required by Federal campaign finance laws and/or Alaska ethics laws.

That’s a lot of booty that Sarah Palin has yet to account for. Will we ever know the price-tag for her fame?

Sarah Palin seems to be on a constant quest for new ways to capitalize on her newfound fame as John McCain’s running mate. There have even been been rumors that Palin was attempting to ink a lucrative lipstick or cosmetics deal. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/sarah-palin-seeking-lipst_n_307603.html

Some insights into the motives behind Sarah Palin’s behavior are offered by the 19-year-old father of Palin’s grandchild in the October 2009 issue of Vanity Fair in an article entitled “Me and Mrs. Palin.”. Johnson describes Palin’s attitude after the presidential campaign ended. http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/09/levi-johnson-the-father-of-former-gov-sarah-palins-grandchild-offers-a-peek-inside-the-palin-household-with-a-story-calle.html

Sarah was sad for a while. She walked around the house pouting. I had assumed she was going to go back to her job as governor, but a week or two after she got back she started talking about how nice it would be to quit and write a book or do a show and make “triple the money.” It was, to her, “not as hard.” She would blatantly say, “I want to just take this money and quit being governor.” She started to say it frequently, but she didn’t know how to do it. When she came home from work, it seemed like she was more and more stressed out.

Sarah Palin holding Trig greets Levi Johnston and daughter Bristol during 2008 campaign

Clearly the lucrative multi-million-dollar book deal inked last May provided the impetus for Sarah Palin’s abrupt departure from the Alaska governor post before her term ended. She wanted more money and the book deal offered a way to cash in.

The original publication date for the Palin memoir, entitled “Going Rogue” was set for May, 2010. It looked like she would have to wait a bit for the royalties to start flowing in to her coffers. But Palin got lucky. She developed such rapport with the Lynn Vincent, the ghostwriter hired by HarperCollins to “assist” in producing the opus that the publication date was moved up to November 17 with an e-book to come out on December 26. In publishing terms this is lightning speed.

Besides money, it is likely that the rush to publish was motivated by the perceived need to get her tome into the bookstores before Levi Johnson’s tell-all book hit the stands with potentially embarasssing and/or damaging revelations.

Another factor in the swift publication of “Going Rogue: Sarah Palin’s Life” is the bond that Palin formed with Lynn Vincent, the ghostwriter hired by Rupert Murdoch to work on the book. According to Ben Smith at Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27777.html

One Palin ally said she and Vincent had bonded over what they had in common as women of similar political backgrounds.

“She’s very conservative, so politically she’s a good fit. And she has demonstrated her ability to tell somebody else’s story,” said Vincent’s former literary agent, Chip MacGregor.

For the past 10 years, she has been working for Christian evangelical World Magazine, from which she took leave to work full time with Palin.

Palin’s choice of Vincent demonstrates that the book will be aimed at the conservative Christian base, not at the broader group of independent voters in the middle who tip the scales in national elections. Vincent has been successful at “telling the story” of other conservative public figures, including controversial General Jerry Boykin, who was seen as inappropriately mixing religion with public policy during his time in the military.

Two other Vincent books reviewed Wednesday by POLITICO reveal a lively writing style and deep roots in evangelical Christianity. Gen. Boykin – who was forced out of the Pentagon … employed her for a book that is part special forces memoir, and part an attempt to set the record straight against what he and Vincent cast as a biased media and a White House that caved to its demands….

A second co-written memoir, “The Blood of Lambs,” tells a very different story from another Evangelical perspective: That of a Muslim convert to Christianity writing under the name Kamal Saleem.

“Many Muslims are kind and gentle people, but about one in ten, according to scholars who study Jihad, have declared war on our way of life,” the book – largely a colorful memoir of Saleem’s life in Beirut – declares on one of its occasional forays into politics.

What both books co-authored so far by Vincent share is an extremely conservative, evangelical worldview that is outside the American mainstream. Vincent has also written a highly inflammatory screed against the Democratic Party titled “Demo Cons”.

Palin’s deep ties to a far-right evangelical brand of Christianity has often been overlooked by the MSM, even if her base understands her dog-whistles directed toward them. The quitter governor is a longtime member of a rightwing evangelical church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. It shares many common traits with The Family and the C-Street house in Washington that received media notice and scrutiny after Governor Mark Sanford went “hiking on the Appalachian Trail.” One defining feature in both The Family and the Wasilla Assembly of God church is the belief that certain individuals are “chosen” for special leadership roles by God and therefore are exempt from the rules required of ordinary folk (e.g., not needing to pay attention to commandments against adultery, stealing or lying). These “chosen ones” can do as they please and everything’s OK.

Video of a 2005 ceremony in which Sarah Palin is anointed as a “chosen one” has surfaced. Max Blumenthal describes his experience on Huffpo. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/the-witch-hunter-anoints_b_128805.html

I went specifically to see a pastor visiting from Kiambu, Kenya named Thomas Muthee. Muthee gained fame within Pentecostal circles by claiming that he defeated a local witch, Mama Jane, in a great spiritual battle, thus liberating his town from sin and opening its people to the spirit of Jesus.

Muthee’s mounting stardom took him to Wasilla Assembly of God in May, 2005, where he prayed over Palin and called upon Jesus to propel her into the governor’s mansion — and beyond. Muthee also implored Jesus to protect Palin from “the spirit of witchcraft.” The video archive of that startling sermon was scrubbed from Wasilla Assembly of God’s website, but now it has reappeared….

Behind the Christian right’s enthusiasm for Palin’s conservative credentials is a visceral sense that that she has come from them, not to them. Some right-wing evangelicals even believe she has messianic potential. As former Christian Broadcasting Network vice president Jim Bramlett wrote, “Sarah is that standard God has raised up to stop the flood. She has the anointing.”

The Christian right’s analysis is accurate to a certain degree. While Palin may not be The One, she is certainly one of them. Her social policy views, from her rejection of scientific evidence on global warming to her opposition to publicly funding emergency contraception for rape victims, are explicitly influenced by the sectarian theology she has subscribed to since she was a teenager. There is no better evidence of the depth of Palin’s radical convictions than her startling encounter with the witch-hunter, Bishop Muthee.

The Youtube version is below (Palin appears after about 7:30):

Sarah Palin’s continuing association with this radical branch of evangelical Christianity was demonstrated at Palin’s Wasilla church in June 2008, just weeks before she was picked as McCain’s running mate. On June 7th, 2008 Sarah Palin interrupted her schedule of state business and spent Alaska state taxpayer money to fly up to Juneau to the Mat-Su Valley where she attended on June 8th two religious events dominated by the Wasilla Assembly of God, which is demonstrably Palin’s key Alaska church. The video of these ceremonies is posted below. This is pretty scary stuff IMHO.  The videos are posted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/17/754489/-Video:-Palin-Attended-Church-Event-With-Samurai-Sword-Ceremony

Read this description of the event:

In one of the two ceremonies Palin attended on June 8, 2008, known as “One Lord Sunday”, a Christian supremacist gathering of Mat-Su valley area Christian church members, Palin was blessed and anointed by Wasilla Assembly of God head pastor Ed Kalnins. A second ceremony Palin attended that day was nationally publicized for footage on the Wasilla church’s website that showed Palin giving a speech in honor of students graduating from the Wasilla Assembly of God’s Masters Commission program. In the speech, governor Palin effused, “It was so cool growing up in this church!” and went on to suggest the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was sanctioned by God, and the governor. And Palin was prayed and blessed over by Ed Kalnins and Wasilla Assembly of God Paul Riley….

Anyone who bothered to do so would have noticed, later on in the ceremony, 1) a speaker addressing Palin from the stage, indicating she was still in the audience and, shortly after, a ceremony in which male 3-year Masters Commission students were presented with Samurai swords, in a ceremony which mentioned the Samurai code of honor….

The one female 3-year graduate of the program present in the ceremony was presented with a western-style broadsword that also was larger than the Samurai swords presented to the male students.

With this background it is easy to see why Palin and Vincent became so chummy that the Palin memoir was able to be produced so quickly. They both sprang from the same evangelical Christian culture.

Ben Smith concludes:

Vincent’s posture on the confrontational, conservative right matches Palin’s post election stand, in which she has powerfully secured her standing as a leading figure of the Republican party while doing little to broaden her appeal beyond the party’s base.

That’s also the posture likely to sell books.

“She doesn’t need a writer who understands government – she needs a writer who understands the Christian heart – that’s what the books going to be about and that’s who the books’ going to appeal to,” said Nelson.

Sarah Palin’s book currently ranks at the top of Amazon and the New York Times bestseller lists even before release so it is possible that Palin’s gamble in ditching the governorship midstream may well pay off, at least in the short term.

The question is whether the money will be well spent.

So where is the money from the book going? Will it be stashed away to pay for college for the Palin brood? Will it be put into a retirement account for Todd and Sarah’s “golden years”?

No. It appears that neither of these long-term goals are under consideration by either Todd or Sarah Palin. It looks like there is a rash of new construction at the Palin compound on Lake Lucille. Take a look at the pictures from the Palingates site: Is that a tower for queen Sarah? Or security structure to protect against intruders?

New construction is evident adjacent to the original Palin house. Note the round tower.

Another view of new construction at the Palin site

If you compare the above pictures to this pre-2009 photo of the Palin home, you will see that  major changes have occurred.

Pre-2009 photo of the lakeside Palin residence shows more trees and no construction

It is rumored that this construction includes an airplane hangar for Todd’s floatplane. More info is available at http://palingates.blogspot.com/2009/10/sarah-palin-and-chateau-of-mystery.html

Whatever is being built dwarfs the original house – the one rumored to have been constructed with supplies pilfered from the nearby Wasilla Sports Complex that was being built at the same time with taxpayer money. For more info just google “housegate + Sarah Palin” to find a multitude of websites like palingates, immoralminority and divasblueoasis where the charges are all laid out and documented in painstaking detail.

There’s always been a whiff of nouveau riche hillbilly emanating from Palin. If you look back at Sarah Palin’s career it is pretty clear that she has always been “on the make.” It is likely that this rush to spend, spend, spend on an extravagant house located on a polluted lake is just one more episode in her quest for self-aggrandizement.

If Sarah Palin is not careful she will be left with nothing than her glitzy little kingdom on Lake Lucille and no money in the bank to pay the bills. I wonder what she will do when the book money is all gone?

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Top Ten Reasons to Buy “Going Rouge”, instead of “Going Rogue”

By now every sentient being who is even minimally interested in U.S. politics has probably heard about Sarah Palin’s first venture into literature. Her new book “Going Rogue” is scheduled for release on November 17. Palin’s book is already at the top of the pre-order charts at Amazon and the New York Times. Far fewer are aware of a competing tome that is scheduled for release on the same day. From the publisher’s website here’s the scoop: http://orbooks.com/

Going Rouge An American Nightmare is compiled by Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, two top editors of the left-leaning weekly The Nation, and includes essays by Nation regulars like Katrina vanden Heuvel, Naomi Klein, and Katha Pollitt. It’s the first release from OR Books, a fledgling outfit founded earlier this year by publishing veterans John Oakes and Colin Robinson that “embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business,” according to its website.

They promise to deliver “the most honest, revealing account of the Palin story to appear this fall? You betcha! “

The complete list of contributors, in alphabetical order, is below. Many are regular contributors to The Nation or other periodicals. Two are outspoken Alaska bloggers, Shannyn Moore (just a girl from Homer) and Jeanne Devon (aka AKMuckraker).

Amy Alexander, Max Blumenthal, Joe Conason, Eve Ensler, Michelle Goldberg, Jane Hamsher, Christopher Hayes, Jim Hightower, Linda Hirshman, Naomi Klein, Dahlia Lithwick, Amanda Marcotte, Shannyn Moore, John Nichols, Tom Perrotta, Katha Pollitt, Frank Rich, Hanna Rosin, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tomasky, Rebecca Traister, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jessica Valenti, Patricia Williams, JoAnn Wypijewski and Gary Younge.

Note that Going Rouge features a background of menacing black storm clouds while Sarah Palin’s book shows nothing but sunny blue skies with wispy white clouds.

The two book covers side by side

If you are on a limited budget and can choose just one of these Sarah Palin books, here are the “Top Ten Reasons to Pick Going Rouge over Going Rogue”.

You should purchase “Going Rouge” because the contributors …

• Number 10 — Attended fewer than 7 colleges in six years
• Number 9 –   Were never even on the shortlist to be John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate
• Number 8 –  Were never elected governor of Alaska and quit midterm
• Number 7 –  Have never claimed to be able to see Russia from their house, even if they live in Alaska
• Number 6 –  Do not need the help of a “co-author” or ghostwriter in order to write a book (several are the solo author of multiple books)
• Number 5 –   Could give Katie Couric a list of publications they read regularly any time she asks
• Number 4 –   Don’t think killing wolves from airplanes is cool, would rather use a camera than a gun to shoot wildlife
• Number 3 —    Know that it is not necessary to say “too” when you’ve already said “also” – you betcha!
• Number 2 –   Can speak complete English sentences without a teleprompter – no word salads
• Number 1 –   Do not know how to field dress a moose and frankly, my dear, don’t give a damn (shades of Rhett Butler)

The guerrilla protest group which calls itself, somewhat satirically, “Billionaires for Wealthcare,” has struck again.  They staged an epic punk at a meeting ofthe Association of Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

Dressed in appropriate business camouflage, a team of musical protesters disrupted the AHIP meeting just as a guy named Bill McInturff was supposed to be giving the keynote address.  And just who  is this Bill McInturff ?  He’s a Republican pollster who’s notorious for helping to kill Bill Clinton’s health care plan with the “Harry and Louise” commercial. Just the kind of guy who should be receive the “psychic compensation” of  guerrilla protest.

The signal for the start of the protest appears to be aggressive cheering from the back of the room. After a shout of “Thank you for your hard on health care” the group broke into a relatively lengthy and harmonious rendition of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie, only with the chorus focused on government-run insurance. “The option, the option, we must have, the option… ” went the lyrics in reference to the public plan.

Watch and enjoy.  Notice that the B4WC protesters continue singing in perfect pitch as they are escorted out by event security. A well-delivered protest with the right mix of humor and chutzpah.

]]> http://bluebanshee.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/guerrilla-musical-protest-disrupts-health-insurance-conference/feed/ 0 bluebanshee http://bluebanshee.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/rep-grayson-gives-a-constitution-lesson/ http://bluebanshee.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/rep-grayson-gives-a-constitution-lesson/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:03:07 +0000 bluebanshee http://bluebanshee.wordpress.com/?p=350 ]]>

Alan Grayson, freshman Representative from a swing district in Florida, has emerged as a rising star within the national Democratic community due to his plainspoken “take no prisoners” comments on the House floor regarding health care reform.

This week Grayson shifted his attention to the U.S. Constitution, a document which certain GOP members do not seem be be familiar with, even though they (and all other members of Congress) swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” it. How GOP members expect to do those three vital things which they swore to do without having even a rudimentary familiarity with the foundational document of our government is baffling.

One does not have to be a Constitutional scholar to understand the basics of our system of government. Even grade-schoolers in this country learn about the separation of powers and the three branches of government. But perhaps the future GOPers were just too busy shooting spitwads at their fellow students when those lessons were being taught – or did they just sleep right through it?

The issue that drew Rep.Grayson’s attention was an amendment introduced by a certain dimbulb representative from Georgia named Paul Broun that attempted to deny Federal funding the non-profit group ACORN. ACORN has never been found guilty in a court of law of the charges that the GOP likes to hurl it it. But the GOP never lets concepts like “innocent until proven guilty” get in the way of their agenda. They don’t like ACORN (mostly because it helps poor people who often vote Democratic) – and that is enough for them to hurl insults and invectives at their perceived enemies. Right now they are busy branding ACORN as “Public Enemy Number One” and figuring out ways to enact punishment legislatively (even though the Constitution says they can’t).

Alam Grayson takes the occasion to “school” Rep. Broun about the provision in the Constitution banning bills of attainder. Grayson quote the Father of the Constitution James Madison and the late (Republican) Chief Justice William Rehnquist while Broun frantically casts out a lifeline to fellow Republican James Sensenbrenner (WI). Watch the entire clip – what transpires during this interchange says a lot about the current disarray and intellectual emptiness on the Republican side of the aisle.

The answer to that poignant question, according to 86-year-old veteran Philip Spooner is “freedom and equality.  These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.” Spooner, who describes himself as a “lifetime” Republican, potato farmer, active chaplain member of the VFW, husband, father and Meals on Wheels volunteer would seem to be an unlikely spokesperson for Maine’s Marriage Equality Law. But surprising as it may seem, Spooner stepped up to the microphone on April 22 during hearings on Maine’s law and spoke out movingly in favor of the right of gays and lesbians to marry. He said that he did not fight in World War II so one of his four sons could be treated like a second class citizen.

Here’s the part of Spooner’s speech that garnered uproarious applause (http://rawstory.com/2009/10/86yearolds-plea-gay-marriage-internet-rounds/)

“I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting,” Spooner says. “A woman at my polling place asked me, “Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?’ I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, ‘What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?’ I haven’t seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.”

Be sure to have a supply of kleenex handy when you watch this video. Spooner makes a strong effective case for marriage equality, which Maine voters will have a chance to support at the ballot box on November 3. I hope Maine voters listen to the voice of this representative of the “Greatest Generation” and vote to support marriage equality.

Here’s the complete transcript of Philip Spooner’s testimony, thanks to http://the44diaries.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/86-year-old-life-long-republican-and-wwii-vet-on-gay-marriage-what-do-you-think-i-fought-for/

Transcript: Good morning, Committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live at 5 Graham Street in Biddeford. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican and an active VFW chaplain. I still serve three hospitals and two nursing homes and I also serve Meals on Wheels for 28 years. My wife of 54 years, Jenny, died in 1997. Together we had four children, including the one gay son. All four of our boys were in the service. I was born on a potato farm north of Caribou and Perham, where I was raised to believe that all men are created equal and I’ve never forgotten that. I served in the U.S. Army, 1942-1945, in the First Army, as a medic and an ambulance driver. I worked with every outfit over there, including Patton’s Third Army. I saw action in all five major battles in Europe, and including the Battle of the Bulge. My unit was awarded Presidential Citations for transporting more patients with fewer accidents than any other [inaudible] I was in the liberation of Paris. After the war I carried POW’s back from Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and also hauled hundreds of injured Germans back to Germany.

I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman at my polling place asked me, “Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?” I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, “What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?” I haven’t seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.

I give talks to eighth grade teachers about World War II, and I don’t tell them about the horror. Maybe [inaudible] ovens of Buchenwald and Dachau. I’ve seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste systems and it make some people less than others, or second class. Never again. We must have equal rights for everyone. It’s what this country was started for. It takes all kinds of people to make a world war. It does make no sense that some people who love each other can marry and others can’t just because of who they are. This is what we fought for in World War II. That idea that we can be different and still be equal.

My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that three of them would have a certain set of rights, but our gay child would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud, and loyal Americans and they all did good. I think it’s too bad [inaudible] want to get married, they should be able to. Everybody’s supposed to be equal in equality in this country. Let gay people have the right to marry. Thank you

Mention of a city that had suddenly vanished into the sea comes from Plato.  He called that sunken city Atlantis and many efforts have been made to locate it in the millennia since. 

Speculation about possible sites for the ‘Lost City of Atlantis’ have ranged all over the Mediterranean and even into the Atlantic.  The volcanic island of Santorini, for instance,  is often mentioned as a  potential candidate.

However, a new discovery just off the Greek mainland has marine archaeologists abuzz with excitement.

Ruins from a sunken city were discovered 40 years ago but only recently explored.  What the joint Anglo-Greek team of scientists have found is truly astonishing.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/oct/16/lost-greek-city-atlantis-myth

Known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer’s heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.

“There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world,” said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. “It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique.”

Because this city was undisturbed and not reoccupied these ruins may yield new insights into Mycenaean society, the culture that dominated Greece during the Homeric Age.

So far the exploration has  revealed a world of buildings, courtyards, main streets, rock-cut tombs and religious structures. In addition, the seabed was replete with thousands of shards of pottery.

“We found ceramics dating back to the end of the stone age, which suggested that the settlement was occupied some 5,000 years ago, at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought,” said Henderson, who co-directed the underwater survey.

“Our investigations also revealed over 9,000 square meters of new buildings. But what really took us by surprise was the discovery of a possible megaron, a monumental structure with a large rectangular hall, which also suggests that the town had been used by an elite, and automatically raised the status of the settlement.”

This site dates back to the time of Troy, when Achilles, Agamemnon and Odysseus are said to have walked the earth and performed heroic deeds.  We have much to learn about the society and culture of that ancient time and this new discovery will contribute to our understanding of the everyday life of those living in Homeric Greece.

More than any other underwater site so far, the find offers potential insights into the workings of Mycenaean society.

“It is significant because as a submerged site it was never reoccupied,” said Elias Spondylis, who co-directed the survey as the head of Greece’s underwater antiquities department. “As such it represents a frozen moment of the past.”

The tale of Atlantis has often been dismissed as some kind of fairy tale, a nice story but not necessarily true.  Now it looks like there really might have been a sunken city that gave rise to the story recounted by Plato.

Once upon a time, the sagas of Iliad and the Odyssey were dismissed as mere myths with no basis in historical events.  Since then the ruins of Troy have been excavated and  identified in modern Turkey. Other Mycenaean sites around the Mediterranean have also been explored. The findings from these excavations tend to confirm the Homeric accounts of  a world that existed in the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean around Greece.

Now it looks like Plato’s tale about the lost city of Atlantis is being confirmed.

No longer can these stories be regarded as mere myths with no historical basis but rather a retelling of ancient events that had been handed down via oral history for generations before they were written down. 

It is the first time a sunken city has been found in Greece that predates the time that Plato wrote his allegorical tale of the sunken continent of Atlantis.

“Atlantis was a myth but it is a myth that keeps underwater exploration going,” said Sakellariou. “Less than 1% of the world’s ocean floors have ever been surveyed. This is an extraordinary find but there is still a lot more down there that has to be found.”

Who knows what the next discovery will tell us about the ancient past?

The headlines  screamed about a new cache of ‘Anglo Saxon’ gold artifacts that had been found in Staffordshire England by an unemployed treasure-hunter using a metal detector.    Then the pictures surfaced, showing exquisite workmanship.  Truly an impressive find, estimated to be from somewhere around the 7th and 8th centuries.

Yet something niggled at me from the first moment I saw the pictures.  There was a haunting familiarity in the sinuous interlocked animals that swirled across the surfaces of the glittering objects.

Then I realized where I had seen such images before.  The Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels both feature similar interlocked motifs of animals.

First take a look at the pictures of pieces from the Staffordshire hoard:

Lavishly decorated gold piece from the Staffordshire hoard

Helmet piece from the Staffordshire hoard

Some of the gold artifacts from the Staffordshire hoard

Notice the interlocked animals on the large piece near the center of the picture — also on the bent piece on the upper left.

Now take a look at this page from the Book of Kells, the Gospel of John.  One sees the same sinuous intertwined designs in the Book of Kells as are used in the golden artifacts found recently in Staffordshire.

Portrait of St. John from the Book of Kells

Or how about this one, called the “Incipit to Mark”

Incipit to the Gospel of Mark, Book of Kells

Or perhaps this magnificent page, the picture of Christ Enthroned:

It appears that both the Book of Kells and many items from the Staffordshire hoard share a common style.  This is significant because the Book of  Kells is a manuscript of Irish origin  consisting of the four Gospels and dating from the 8th century.  The Book of Kells is a masterpiece of calligraphy and is said to be Ireland’s greatest treasure, currently being housed in Trinity College, Dublin.

The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass that of other Insular Gospels in extravagance and complexity. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, enliven the manuscript’s pages.

The Book of Kells is demonstrably of Irish origin.  The use of common themes and style of decoration suggests that some, if not all, of the artifacts that comprise the Staffordshire hoard may be from Ireland or at least Celtic dominated parts of the British Isles.  The ancient Celts were known to be skilled metalsmiths so it is not surprising to find artifacts crafted by Celtic goldsmiths bearing decorative motifs similar to those used on other items.

Therefore the attribution of these artifacts to the Anglo Saxons appears to be an error.  The history of the British Isles during this period does not show a dominance by one group such as the Angles or the Saxons or the Celts but rather an intermixing and interaction through both peaceful exchanges like trade and through warlike border raids.

Does this cache of gold represent the booty from a long-forgotten raid?  Was it buried in haste?  Or lost by accident?  Was it, perhaps, donated to a local monastery?

We will probably never know the full story.  We can surmise that the Celts (and not the Anglo-Saxons) had some role in the creation of the golden objects that comprise the Staffordshire hoard.   But the treasure may have fallen into the hands of an Anglo-Saxon warlord at some point.

However, it is a mistake to assume that just because some golden treasure was found in what is now England, it was placed there by ancient Anglo-Saxons.  Celtic artisans most likely created the items. It will be  hard to prove whether it was a  Celtic or Anglo-Saxon warrior’s hands that brought them to Staffordshire for Terry Herbert an amateur treasure hunter using a metal detector to find.

Let’s give the final word to Dr. Kevin Leahy who is cataloging the artifacts for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm

“It looks like a collection of trophies, but it is impossible to say if the hoard was the spoils from a single battle or a long and highly successful military career.

“We also cannot say who the original, or the final, owners were, who took it from them, why they buried it or when.

“It will be debated for decades.”

Further reading:   http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2009/09/massive-anglo-saxon-hoard-discovered.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/24/staffordshire-anglo-saxon-gold-find

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm

To hear  Republicans talk these days, you would think that the Brits, the Canadians and the rest of the industrialized countries that have (gasp!)  socialized medicine were all dropping like flies from all the rationing and long waits for necessary surgeries.

You’d think they were all unhappy and envious of America’s expensive health care system.

Turns out,  the exact opposite is true — the rest of the world is quite happy with their government-run health programs and not eager to trade it for the fragmented insurance-driven health care system in the U.S.  In addition they have better health outcomes while paying less money for their care.

But don’t just take my word for how great the socialized health programs are in other countries, listen to what some of our fellow Americans who have had occasion to receive health care abroad have to say about their experience.

First there is John Aravosis of Americablog.  He flew into France for a planned vacation and ended up having emergency surgery for a detached retina.     http://www.americablog.com/2009/10/my-2000-eye-surgery-in-france-would.html

Just went to an eye specialist for further follow-up to my eye issues, and he checked out the surgery I had in France for my detached retina, and told me two things:

1. Wow, they did a good job.
2. The surgery would have cost, easily, $20,000 in the states. It cost me a little over $2,000 in France.

It’s amazing how bad our health care system really is, when you finally get sick enough to find out. I can’t wait for Blue Cross to give me a hard time for the $2,000 French surgery when they’d have had to pay ten times that, were I to have had the surgery here. We’ll cross that bridge when the French finally bill me for the surgery that took place at the end of July…

A happy outcome for John since travel back to the U.S. was precluded by the delicate nature of the detached retina.  Prompt attention, no waiting, quality care and not so expensive that bankruptcy looms.  So the French system seems to be pretty good — but according to the Republicans we don’t want the French system because .. er, it’s socialistic — and we can’t have that pinko commie stuff in the U S of A — or can we?

Then there is the heartwarming story of  Stephen Amidon’s newborn daughter in Britain — another bastion of government-run socialized medicine.  Stephen and his British wife were living in UK when their eldest daughter was born.   http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/22/nhs/

My eldest daughter had a rough first week. Born after 22 hours of hard labor, her pink skin proceeded to turn an alarming shade of yellow on the second day of her life. It was a bad case of jaundice. She would need to be placed in an incubator, whose ultraviolet light would hopefully clear up the condition. If not, a transfusion would be required. My exhausted wife and I watched in numb horror as our child was encased in the clear plastic box that was to become her crib for the next seven days. What we had hoped would be a straightforward delivery had turned into a nightmare….

I was initially skeptical about the NHS. I’d grown up comfortably in suburban New Jersey; good private healthcare was always immediately available through my father’s insurance. When my English wife became pregnant soon after we settled in London, I was alarmed by the idea of having our first child born in a system I had been told was underfunded, overstressed and inefficient. After all, healthcare in the UK was free. How good could it be? Friends and relatives back in the States were spending thousands to have children. If you get what you pay for, I was about to get a whole lot of nothing….

Directly following the birth, we were taken to a large ward whose 20-odd beds were separated by curtains and changing tables. It was visiting hour; the place was alive with excited relatives, shellshocked fathers and the constant susurrus of hungry new life. That first night, however, the atmosphere grew peaceful. Crying babies were attended immediately by sensibly-shod nurses so that others could sleep. But it was after my daughter began to turn the color of saffron rice that I really began to appreciate the NHS. The moment she showed distress, we were whisked off to a private room, where we were looked after by a no-nonsense pediatrician and the imposing Irish ward sister, or chief nurse, who quickly made it clear to me that my sole useful contribution to the whole process had come nine months earlier. Blood was drawn regularly from our daughter’s tiny heel; test results came back promptly….

As my blindfolded daughter slept in the incubator’s eerie violet glow, I would take occasional strolls through the ward. It was the most egalitarian place I had ever seen. The yuppie woman honking into her newfangled cell phone, the young Pakistani mother who always seemed to be surrounded by a half-dozen gift-bearing relations, the self-sufficient older woman desperate to get home to look after her other children — all of them were cared for in exactly the same manner. Whoever needed help got it. When a terrified Afghani girl arrived, rumored to be only 14 and apparently abandoned by her family, several nurses dropped what they were doing to teach her the rudiments of child care. The rest of the mothers waited patiently until they were finished. Other wards were the same. There was no private wing with champagne service. Everybody was in this together. If you were a woman and you were in labor and you were in our part of London, this is where you came. If things went wrong, skilled doctors appeared with the latest technology. Nobody asked about insurance or co-pays….

On the day we were finally given the all-clear, there were no papers to sign, no bills to settle. All we had to do was remove our daughter’s blindfold and go.

Both of these stories of health care received abroad demonstrate the fact that the patient’s needs are paramount, not those of health insurance companies.  These countries (as well as  the rest of the industrialized world, with the exception of the U.S.) have reached a basic agreement that all members of a  society should receive decent basic health care irregardless of income or social status.

As Stephen Amidon concludes:

This, I learned, is what the NHS is about — common decency. It is about the shared belief that all the people who live in the United Kingdom constitute a society, and a decent society provides certain necessities for its members. Freedom from hunger is one. Police protection is another. Free healthcare from the cradle to the grave is simply one more item on this list.

I saw this decency at work countless times over the following decade, until my return to the United States. I saw it with the twice-daily home visits by community midwives for the fortnight after each of our newborn children’s release from hospital, and in the vouchers for free milk we were given for those babies. I saw it when our GP paid us a house call early one Sunday morning to treat our son’s spiking fever.

I saw it most clearly, however, in the treatment my in-laws received at the end of their lives. My wife’s father, who suffered from acute myloid dysplasia, spent his last year receiving constant care, including several sprints to the hospital for emergency transfusions, where doctors struggled heroically to keep him alive. His final week was spent in a very comfortable single hospice room whose French doors opened onto a terrace overlooking his beloved Yorkshire moors. When he died, he left us his house, and not a penny of healthcare debt. My mother-in-law, stricken by arthritis, got two artificial hips and two knees from the NHS, and received daily home visits from social workers during the last three years of her life so she would not have to go into a nursing home.

This cradle-to-grave big-tent approach to healthcare is universal, except for the U.S.  Much of the focus of discussions about health care reform do not focus on the needs of human beings for basic quality health care.  Instead we have endless blethering about tort reform, bending the cost curve, cost containment, CBO scoring, public option, co-ops and exchanges.

Let us re-frame this discussion.   We need to be talking about how to provide health care for everyone in this country.  We need to work to build a sense of community and caring so that we can take care of the health care needs of all Americans.

Health care is a universal human need.  We can build a better health care system if we all join hands and work together.  As Martin Luther King Jr. said:   “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

Let us build a system to meet the health care needs of all Americans, not just those who can afford to pay.  We need to build a society of caring, compassion and community so that the needs of human beings come before health insurance company profits.

Note: Comparative data about health care outcomes for industrialized countries can be found at   http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf     The U.S. has the third highest infant mortality rate and the third highest mortality due to medical errors (Find it on page 57).  Lots of other shocking data showing  better health care outcomes in other industrialized countries.

Bob Dylan’s version of the Woody Guthrie tune at the end of ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ captures the raw unvarnished outrage of the original.

As the final closing credits rolled on Michael Moore’s  latest film the nasal twang of Woody Guthrie rang out and I wanted to get the lyrics to it.  The song “Jesus Christ” is a ringing condemnation of an economic system that values money more than human beings. 

Here are the rabble-rousing lyrics,  sung to the tune “The Ballad of Jesse James” (a celebration of the bank robber who  famously “stole from the rich to give to the poor”).

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
Hard working man and brave
He said to the rich, ‘Give your goods to the poor.’
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
He went to the sick, he went to the poor,
And he went to the hungry and the lame;
Said that the poor would one day win this world,
And so they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
He went to the preacher, he went to the sheriff,
Told them all the same;
Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the Poor,
But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
When Jesus came to town, the working folks around,
Believed what he did say;
The bankers and the preachers they nailed him on a cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
Poor working people, they follered him around,
Sung and shouted gay;
Cops and the soldiers, they nailed him in the air,
And they nailed Jesus Christ in his grave.
Well the people held their breath when they heard about his death,
And everybody wondered why;
It was the landlord and the soldiers that he hired.
That nailed Jesus Christ in the sky.
When the love of the poor shall one day turn to hate.
When the patience of the workers gives away
Would be better for you rich if you never had been born
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
This song was written in New York City
Of rich men, preachers and slaves
Yes, if Jesus was to preach like he preached in Galillee,
They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave.
Sung to Jesse James

Download From SuperLyrics.net =>www.SuperLyrics.net

Woody Guthrie wrote this tune in 1940 — before the video age. Bob Dylan’s version captures the raw grittiness of Woody’s style.