Category Archives: Viva!

Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Lionel Hampton – YouTube

Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Lionel Hampton – YouTube.

Bob Bergdahl remains calm at centre of storm over son released by Taliban | World news | theguardian.com

The Berdaghl family made its home in a remote, wind-whipped Idaho valley to keep the world at a certain distance. But two outside forces – the Taliban and US politics – crashed into the idyll.

It says a lot about Bob Bergdahl, 54, and the son he raised that of the two, he appears to have handled the Taliban better.

The former UPS delivery man has intrigued, inspired and infuriated the US public since the release of his son, Bowe, 28, ignited a political firestorm last week.

The ponytail and straggly beard, the phrases in Arabic and Pashto, the refusal to look or sound like a conventional dad, the theories about Bowe’s alleged desertion – all have fuelled the clamour, prompting many to ask: just who are the Bergdahls?

Interviews with friends, neighbours and colleagues in the valley and in Hailey, the nearest town, paint a nuanced portrait of a family that on one hand is sporty, Christian and all-American, fond of horses, hunting, chocolate muffins and Jimmy Fallon; and on the other bookish, private and iconoclastic, carving an individualistic trail in its own private Idaho. That lifestyle bred idealism – and, arguably, naivety.

“Bob almost reads and thinks too much,” said Lee Ann Ferris, a neighbour. “You’d ask him a question and, whoah, what an answer you’d get.”

via Bob Bergdahl remains calm at centre of storm over son released by Taliban | World news | theguardian.com.

Brooklyn Will Vie to Host 2016 Democratic National Convention, de Blasio Says – NYTimes.com

Brooklyn, a nexus of the new Democratic left that has morphed from working-class enclave to a gritty, global arbiter of cool, will vie to host the Democratic National Convention in 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said on Friday.

via Brooklyn Will Vie to Host 2016 Democratic National Convention, de Blasio Says – NYTimes.com.

Egypt’s first veiled rapper is sick of sexual harassment | GlobalPost

She describes how Egyptian women often feel self-conscious for simply being out in public because sexual harassment can be found at every corner. Though women played a central role in both the uprising against strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the military-backed movement that removed Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi last year, hopes that the Arab Spring would empower women have been dispelled.

In fact, Egypt is considered the worst country in the Arab world to be a woman, according to a survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The report cited political instability and the rise of Islamist groups among the reasons for the repression.

Levels of sexual abuse in the country have reached new highs, according to the United Nations, which reported in 2013 that 99.3 percent of women in Egypt have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives.

“Girls are constantly paranoid when walking to the store or school,” Mahmoud said with frustration. “Harassment has become so widespread, some women rarely leave their homes.”

Victim-blaming is pervasive. “I see male rappers in Egypt writing songs to blame women for the sexual harassment inflicted upon them,” she said. “They say we deserve to be harassed because of the clothes or makeup that we wear.”

Mahmoud said she’s had it with the “double standards.”

“Girls are told what to do from day one — ‘dress conservatively, don’t be loud’,” she said. “I used the teachings I heard while growing up to write lyrics that show the previous generations in Egypt how they contributed to confining their daughters in boxes.”

Mahmoud’s hard-hitting lyrics are vexing Egypt’s ultra-conservative Islamists, who believe a woman shouldn’t be in the spotlight, especially if she wears the Islamic veil.

Mahmoud, in fact, faces discrimination because she’s veiled. Some critics go as far as calling her an “infidel” who is giving Egypt and Islam a bad name for openly discussing sexual harassment.

“One extremist man on Facebook threatened that he would find and kill me after my audition for ‘Arabs Got Talent,’ because I was a disgrace,” she said.

via Egypt’s first veiled rapper is sick of sexual harassment | GlobalPost.

Obamacare Skeptics Now Have to Explain Why the Uninsured Rate Is 22 Percent Lower – The Wire

Obamacare Skeptics Now Have to Explain Why the Uninsured Rate Is 22 Percent Lower – The Wire.

The uninsured rate is 13.4 percent for the second month in a row, after dropping from 17.1 percent at the end of 2013, according to new Gallup dataIn other words, the uninsured rate is 22 percent lower now than it was before Obamacare. Skeptics have argued that most Obamacare enrollments are people with cancelled plans, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that an estimated 11 million people gained insurance during a nationwide push to enroll people. At the very least, Obamacare helped. 

Obama Says He’s Not ‘Surprised’ by Bowe Bergdahl Backlash – The Wire

Obama Says He’s Not ‘Surprised’ by Bowe Bergdahl Backlash

President Obama isn’t “surprised” that the administration’s prisoner exchange to free POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl ended up being a big Washington controversy, because apparently nothing ever surprises him anymore. The remarks, from the president’s press conference in Brussels on Thursday, come as at least one Republican senator — Lindsey Graham — has called for Congress to consider impeaching Obama.

Legislators

and conservatives are mad that 1) Obama didn’t give Congress 30 days’ notice before exchanging five Guantanamo prisoners for the U.S. soldier and 2) that Bergdahl was captured after walking off his base in Afghanistan, with the implication that he was deserting his post. When asked about his take on that negative reaction, Obama said:

I’m never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington, all right? That’s — that’s par for the course. But I’ll repeat what I said two days ago. We have a basic principle. We do not leave anybody wearing the American uniform behind. We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated and we were deeply concerned about. And we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.

Obama was also asked, essentially, whether his administration would do things differently if they could, both to loop in Congress a bit more to the exchange beforehand, and to spare the soldier’s family the villianization that has followed what he seemed to think would be a positive Saturday Rose Garden announcement.  Here’s the rest of his response, via the Wall Street Journal:

We had discussed with Congress the possibility that something like this might occur. But because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did. And we’re now explaining to Congress the details of how we moved forward.

But this basic principle that we don’t leave anybody behind and this basic recognition that often means prisoner exchanges with enemies is not unique to my administration. It dates back to the beginning of our republic, and with respect to how we announced it, I think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction. This is not a political football. You have a couple of parents whose kid volunteered to fight in a distant land who they hadn’t seen in five years and weren’t sure whether they’d ever see again.

And as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces, I am responsible for those kids, and I get letters from parents who say, if you are, in fact, sending my child into war, make sure that that child is being taken care of. And I write too many letters to folks who, unfortunately, don’t see their children again after fighting a war. I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.

via Obama Says He’s Not ‘Surprised’ by Bowe Bergdahl Backlash – The Wire.

D-day 70th anniversary: ‘I remember every detail of the landing even now’ | World news | theguardian.com

Foote, from Tottington in Lancashire, has no shortage of stories to tell. He arrived in Normandy on D-day on Juno beach with the 51st Highland Division of the Scottish Horse Regiment and spent the rest of the war moving across Europe. He was with the Allied forces that relieved the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in 1945.

Foote was just 23 when he jumped off the landing craft along with Canadian troops from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and ran on to the French beach “at tea time … don’t ask when that was because we didn’t know what day it was let alone the time,” he says.

“I remember every detail of the landing even now. It was a terrifying experience,” he adds. “We just kept moving. It was the same after D-day, we kept moving across Europe fighting all the way.”

via D-day 70th anniversary: ‘I remember every detail of the landing even now’ | World news | theguardian.com.