Announcing It With P.R. and Trumpets
Poor Goldman Sachs. Everybody, even their own shareholders, hates them for their gluttonous ways. They cancelled their holiday party and told employees not to hold private parties. Now a skeptical media is being so bold as to note that their much-touted charitable fund to small business is insultingly small potatoes: $100 million a year, or the worth of one good day of trading, or 3 percent of the obscene $16-plus billion they're paying themselves. God's work: It's a tough gig.
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men." - Matthew 6:2
Smoking Gun
A Florida jury has ordered tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay almost $300 million in damages to a former smoker, the largest fine ever levied against nicotine peddlers. The case of Cindy Naugle, 61, who quit smoking but developed severe emphysema, is one of 4,000 similar claims pending in federal court.
"The cigarette companies managed to hide the truth about their product for a long time, but the truth is out now."
Black Caucus Protest
US Rep. John Conyers Rips Into President Obama and Rahm Emanuel
Katharine Seelye on the New York Times Prescriptions Blog this afternoon:
Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and the second-most senior member of the House, today ripped into President Obama and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, accusing them of "bowing down" to "nutty right-wing" proposals just to get a health care bill passed.
"I'm getting tired of saving Obama's can in the White House."
Hungry Heart
Bob Dylan just released his first Christmas album, with proceeds going to three organizations fighting worldwide hunger - World Food Program, Feeding America, and Crisis. More here.
When the Circus Comes to Town and You Don't Wanna Go But Everyone Else Is
What to do with the Palin furor? Oh yeah. Turn to Comedy Central. To see Stewart complain "there's no onion there," Colbert declare her so-called book "a steaming pile of shit," and little kids hilariously proclaim they'd rather kill themselves than read it, go here
"How Do We Get Out of Here?"
Citing the lessons of Vietnam, Retired General Wesley Clark, former head of NATO forces in Europe, told Congress this week the U.S. should begin planning an exit from Afghanistan. Clark told a House Armed Services subcommittee "our presence long term there is not a good thing."
"The legacy of Vietnam really looms over these discussions. It's particularly painful for me to see where we are in Afghanistan."
In Praise of Books: Great Things to Come
Despite the much-rumored death of the printed word, last night's National Book Award winners voiced hope about the future of books. Among the winners were Maine's own Phil Hoose, who won the prize for young person's literature for his book Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, about a black teenager who refused to give up her seat on a bus a year before Rosa Parks did the same.
"It seems to me that American literature is able to embrace the other...As fiction writers and as people who believe in the word, we have to enter the anonymous corners of the human experience and to make that little corner right." – Colum McCann, award winner for his novel Let the Great World Spin.
