Tag Archives: OddBox

Madam Vice President

Great good fortune for you and us!

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Kamala Harris

At 11:42 AM EST today, Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President of the United States of America. She is the first woman to hold that office. She is the first Black Vice President. She is the first person of South Asian descent to be Vice President. All good things to celebrate on this momentous day.

Tags: Kamala Harris   politics

The Long History of Right-Wing Terrorism in America

One of the critical things that Luke Mogelson’s must-read piece about the Jan 6th assault on Congress does is define the attack as the latest in a string of right-wing militant actions in DC and across the country, incited by Republicans (and Trump in particular):

In April, in response to Whitmer’s aggressive public-health measures, Trump had tweeted, “Liberate Michigan!” Two weeks later, heavily armed militia members entered the state capitol, terrifying lawmakers.

In her January 16th dispatch, historian Heather Cox Richardson took a quick dive further back into history, connecting the dots between the undercurrent of right-wing authoritarianism that has long been part of the nation’s political landscape, the right’s reaction to the New Deal, the fight against Black rights, the rise of partisan talk radio after the FCC airness doctrine ended, Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Bundys, etc. It is a story of American self-interest & whiteness that found a home in the Republican Party.

Convinced that he was a hardworking individualist, Bundy announced he did not recognize federal power over the land on which he grazed his cattle. The government impounded his animals in 2014, but officials backed down when Bundy and his supporters showed up armed. Republican Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) called Bundy and his supporters “patriots”; Democrat Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader at the time, called them “domestic terrorists” and warned, “it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over.”

There are many threads she doesn’t explore — America’s lax gun laws, the larger racial context, religion — but the piece does pack a lot into its relatively short length. You can read her whole post here. (thx, meg)

Tags: Heather Cox Richardson   Jan 6 attack on Congress   Luke Mogelson   politics   terrorism   USA

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~ A Legacy of Wisdom

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.

Today we celebrate the incredible life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of us think of him as a warrior for social justice.  And he was.  But roots in his character and associations suggest that at the heart of all he was, he was first and foremost – a peacemaker. 


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In 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end racial discrimination and segregation through the avenues of civil disobedience and other non-violent means. He was also awarded the Catholic Pacem in Terris Award (Peace on Earth).  It is awarded “to honor a person for their achievements in peace and justice, not only in their country but in the world.”

Four years after his work for social justice began in the streets of Montgomery, forcing social issues to the forefront and into the American and international psyche, he began to focus his energies on stopping the Vietnam War and ending poverty. He started a process of shifting, re-sifting, toppling norms and ideologies long held by establishments at odds with anything resembling human dignity and justice. These monumental shifts in the soul of our nation and the world are largely attributed to his courage and his voice.

Oh, but there was more to the man.
I was reminded today that he was inspired by the writings and teachings of another such activist.
When Dr. King visited India in 1959, he came away with a profound respect and understanding of the non-violent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.


He later reflected, “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”


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He knew how to connect spiritual laws with scientific laws, science with morality, spoken words with unspoken fire, and generations of spiritual evolution into threads of commonalities within all cultures and religions while steadfastly holding to his own. Intrinsic ideas and truths became actions and deeds.


It is always the intrinsic that matters the most.

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What I admire and appreciate about Martin Luther King, more than the amazing dream speech, more than his courage, more than his learned theological spirit, and even more than his political and social causes of injustice and equality, was his ability to intellectually intertwine all of those attributes and aspirations into powerful common sense purpose.  The sum of all those parts made his greatness.
Sometimes we focus on a few shining moments of publicity and grandeur so long that we forget what made him great in the first place. He knew who he was. He stayed in his lane. That was his true genius.
Dr. King surrounded himself with learned men, intimate and scholarly mentors, often controversial, books and a love of words, prayers, and a burning desire to pour out what was inside of him in letters and essays to the rest of us, even from a Birmingham Jail.
Because he honored the wisdom of others, to his credit, we not only find a profoundly cerebral giant among men, we find humility.
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We mostly remember a speech, a bullet, a march, a statue, a remarkable iconic individual – and all those things are to be remembered, mourned, and revered about the man – but what lay underneath is more important to me, because without that brilliant, questioning, analytical ability to connect the dots and eloquently espouse them into one cohesive truth the whole world could understand, there wouldn’t have been a march, a speech, or a movement.



marchpublicdomain.jpgThe rest of his legacy would have been impossible to achieve and he would have become not a shining human light upon a hill of ugly darkness or a seeker of truth in Gandhi’s shadow, but just another speech maker, noise maker, rabble-rouser and activist marching down roads at the whim of every wind with no direction and no clear path. No leader can lead walking blindly around corners of pivotal change and unrest, and take others with him, unless he already knows what lies ahead.
So today I celebrate Martin the man. The thinker. The preacher. The spirit. The leader.
And a man who understood who he was, where he’d been and where he was going.
This is one of my favorite quotes by Dr. King:

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.


How I long for a time when the leaders we see before us in the world today, humble themselves before voices of wisdom gone by.  
May we find ourselves worthy of his fine example. 


Edited and reprinted from a previous version of Mimi Writes

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DuckDuckGo Surpasses 100 Million Daily Search Queries For the First Time

Go Duckduckgo

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Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo reached a major milestone in its 12-year-old history last week when it recorded on Monday its first-ever day with more than 100 million user search queries. From a report: The achievement comes after a period of sustained growth the company has been seeing for the past two years, and especially since August 2020, when the search engine began seeing more than 2 billion search queries a month on a regular basis. The numbers are small in comparison to Google’s 5 billion daily search queries but it’s a positive sign that users are looking for alternatives. DuckDuckGo’s popularity comes after the search engine has expanded beyond its own site and now currently offers mobile apps for Android and iOS, but also a dedicated Chrome extension. More than 4 million users installed these apps and extension, the company said in a tweet in September 2020.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Can Twitter and Facebook censor Trump in the name of democracy?

Privately owned companies cannot censor – governments can censor or not. Both companies have terms of use contracts/rules that users accept when they register to use the service. Violate the terms of use/service and you are gone. Same as baseball – if you break the rules, you’re out of the game – sometimes forever!

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Although we find the censorship of the still-president of the United States sympathetic and fair, we must not forget that the world’s two most powerful social networks are actors with political and economic interests.

Telegram Adds 25 Million New Users In Just 72 Hours

Link up with Russians and US right wing – boom – lock them all up!

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According to founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Telegram gained 25 million new users in the last 72 hours as it smashed past the 500 million active monthly user mark. Android Police reports: For comparison, the app averaged around 1.5 million new users per day in 2020, which was impressive enough already. Durvov says that this is down to his company’s simple privacy and security promise, above all else.

The bulk of the new users are coming from Asia (38%), Europe (27%), and Latin America (21%), with around 8% signing up from the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). Although not explicitly noted in Durov’s post, there is likely a good number of Parler orphans joining Telegram — although there are differences between the functions of the two apps, there’s talk that former Parler users are heading to encrypted messaging apps in search of a more private platform. Signal has seen a similar rise in popularity for the same reason.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.