1, State and federal pipeline safety investigators have been dispatched to the site of an explosion and fire at a liquefied natural gas storage facility in southeastern Washington.
2, The Eugene City Council had voted that the closing of the homeless camp could beginning immediately . With city officials set to begin closing the unauthorized Whoville homeless camp as early as today, about 30 camp residents and homeless advocates made a public plea Monday for another short delay. All Whoville coalition wants is for the the city to hold off until the City Council returns from its monthlong break on April 9.
3, Hanford: How long How much? and when should we pack up and run for our lives?
4, Gerrymandering: it's the only way Republicans can and will win seats in this next round of fanasty electioneering. Even if Democrats recruit great candidates, raise gobs of money and run smart campaigns, they face an uphill fight to retake control of the House in this year’s congressional elections, regardless of the political climate in November.
For lo these many years now Republican strategists have been developing a plan to take advantage of the 2010 census, first by winning key state legislatures and then redrawing House districts to tilt the playing field in their favor.
5, Christopher Hedges continues to hammer away at the ramparts of power. Barack Obama’s administration has filed a detailed brief designed to compel the courts to void a law that permits the military to arrest U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and indefinitely detain them. The Admin has filed a detailed brief with the Supreme Court asking the justices to refuse to accept Hedges et al’s petition to hear their appeal. Hedges & Co. will respond within 10 days. “The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice…”
6, Too much weather; too many people crowded together on a small, exhausted planet. Science has come through with the bad news once again: Yes Virginia the link between climate collapse and civil society collapse. The danger of civic unrest is increased by the pressure of extreme weather events that cause wild competition for non-existent resources and shelter. That plus the climate refugees who find avenues of escape overcrowded and closed.
7, It's that time again: Conscientious Objector Time, of course. Dr. Margaret Flowers doesn’t have health insurance. She’s not eligible for Medicaid and she’s too young to qualify for Medicare.
If she doesn’t sign up, she will be fined.
Dr. Flowers is not going to sign up.
And she’s not going to sign up as an act of civil disobedience. Dr. Flowers plans to be a coscientious Objector in the the fight for single-payer health insurance. And so do I.
8, Yesterday, March 31st was the anniversary of the 100the birthday of Octavio Paz, Although he would reject Socialist realism, later repudiate Stalinism and maintain his distance from the Cuban Revolution, Paz would long retain his faith in revolution as the true lever of social redemption, the only possible means for the positive transformation of history. As late as 1967, he would write that Marxism is “our point of view” and that the Revolution (with the capital letter ascribed to it in Mexican, and anarchist, tradition) was “anointed by the light of the idea, philosophy converted into action, lucid violence.” Enrique Krause wrote this Op Ed this past Saturday in the New York times
- KBOO