Today is the first day of the twelve days of Christmas.
It is also the first anniversary of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where twenty children and six teachers were killed.
Sunday is the funeral of Nelson Mandela who died December 6. This last week has been full of the celebrations of this great man's life, honoring his achievements and those of his countrymen for moving past the policies and some of the cultural prejudices of white rule and that apartheid which controlled generations of people, on all sides in those lands. Lots of courageous people who now step boldly into the future without the guiding hand of their most famous son and father.
Some things actually got a bit better since the last month and last year, and even the year before that, or more.
Last week the US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) went ahead after years of threatening to forego the current 'gentleman's agreement' of 'limiting the filibuster' in the Senate, thereby needing a supermajority in Congress for confirmations of presidential appointees. This was something the minority Republican party has thus used in holding up nominations and appointments for several years, preventing over eighty Obama administration appointees from going to work. So this week, Harry Reid led several votes in the Senate for federal district judges, bureau department heads and other leaders of basic functions of what used to be understood as being good government. The Republicans responded angrily and with threats of how they will treat the Dems when they are in the majority. If that ever happens.
This week it was announced that both legislative houses in the US have found a compromise plan [!?*&!] for a future budget framework. This is big news since Congress haven't passed a basic, legitimate budgetary framework for years.
Today it snowed in Egypt.
China made a soft land on the moon. Rover called Jade Rabbit gets ready to take off.
Protests in Kiev over presidential rebuff of stronger economic ties with EU, grow and last for three weeks. The people are angry and fed up with this president and would like greater economic freedom with European countries. Described as a battle over the soul of the Ukranian people, the state itself and the government of Russia are merely players in deciding whether Ukraine is European or is it Russian. For centuries the great plains of the Ukraine have been taken and retaken by Russians, Germans, Poles and Austrio-Hungarians. It has been Russia's central link to the Black Sea, it has been ruled by Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants and Atheists. It has always been rich farmland, the best place to hunt and clearly the preferred getaway for east europeans, when they could. US Senator John McCain went there today to tell them he loves them and find out what he can.
More 'serious people' are bearing witness that the NSA surveillance revelations are 'worth talking about', on a national scale. Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker makes a case.
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