Saturday, December 26, 2015

noted news December, 2015

There were a pair of mass shootings that seems to have sucked most of the air out of the media room in this month of December. One was the lone white guy in Colorado who shot up a health clinic because he'd been misled into thinking they sold dissected baby parts for money there. Three were killed, including a police officer while five more police and four civilians were wounded. The 57 year old suspect wanted to represent himself in the trial but prosecution has been delayed until mental tests can be performed to ascertain his competency. Instead of many worthwhile discussions, this cartoon seems to sum up the popular mood.
It's outrageous that a country as prosperous as the US has to suffer such indignities because of greed and how easily fear sells in the media. From mindless tragedy to worse, a few days later, on December 2nd, a man and a woman began firing at an holiday office party in San Bernardino, California. These two novice terrorists wanted to be in touch with extremist radical terrorists of the Daesh variety but probably failed to. They did amass a huge quantity of guns, ammo and explosives and killed fourteen people, wounding twenty-two more.

Then there were at least nineteen negative reactions within a week by likely xenophobes.
By the time the second week of December was finished there were many such destructive hate crimes as reported by the New York Times.
But it turns out that the terrorist org in Nigeria called Boko Haram is also getting called more deadly than Daesh. The Int'l Business Times even gives up statistics.
____________________________________________

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has announced a one quarter of a one percent rise in their benchmark interest rate. The economic world has been readying for this for ten years.

Minority Leader Rep Nancy Pelosi has made it clear to new US House Speaker Paul Ryan that he needs the Democrats if the House wants to do anything after passing the omnibus spending bill this month.

The State of California has decided to consider treating drug abuse as a medical condition for low-income residents.

Snapshot of shopping in Venzuela from npr.

Cool audio piece (5 min) on electric car sharing in Paris from npr.
______________________________________________

The month was full of protests in Minneapolis following the marked lack of communication on the part of law enforcement - why do people keep getting shot? - after the killing of Jamar Clark back in November. Many encampments have been upturned, protests quashed , lives and commerce disrupted. But the #BlackLivesMatter movement have taken up this case as their own and Minneapolis has responded in actions last month and again all this month. This included blocking off a terminal at the airport and also the trains to the huge Mall of America. This is where things were Xmas Eve.
_____________________________________________

It's been an unusually warm December in the US with rare tornadoes and a cool summer in Argentina. Christmas Day saw the worst pollution in Beijing.

Though there was the climate deal in Paris this month.
_________________________________________
Mt Momotombo in Nicaragua blew for the first time in a century on December 4th.
Also early in December, Mt Aetna, Sicily blew up.
Meanwhile closest images from Ceres have made it back to Earth.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)