CommonDreams.org

Army Lt. Dan Choi has been recalled to active duty in an apparent sign that enforcement of the military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy is already being relaxed ahead of its likely repeal. A West Point graduate, Arabic translator and gay rights activist who challenged DADT, Choi said his fellow guardsmen were supportive.

 "They were like, 'That's right, he came back to us!'"

In an unlikely success story here in Maine, ten family dairy farms that were dropped by an out-of-state processor have banded together to form, with the help of state agencies, their own organic milk company. Run like a co-op but legally a low-profit corporation, Maine's Own Organic Milk Co., aka MOO Milk, sells milk produced, processed and trucked by Maine family businesses, with 90% of profits going back to the farms. Very cool. See MOO here.

The Super Bowl went off without a security hitch thanks to Miami's high-tech Fusion Center, one of the country's 100-plus collaborations between local police and counter-terrorism experts aimed at collecting "actionable data" and foiling terrorist activity. The centers, though, pose a few problems. One in Ohio, which has spent $2 million, doesn't seem to do anything. One in Texas has spent its time, despite "no specific intelligence," targeting Muslims and peace activists. And oh yeah, the ACLU says much of what they do is illegal.

"The idea that the tolerance advocated by the groups being targeted would be treated as a menace to American security demonstrates a disregard for civil liberties and a disdain for democracy itself." 

Sarah Palin's mean-spirited, often-incoherent, $100,000 speech to the Tea Party Nation has inspired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to launch an online contest to remind those who might need reminding, as hard as it is to imagine, how mean-spirited and often-incoherent she is. Tell them what you think she's saying here. 

"They're not knowin' what are we gonna do if we don't have Tea Party support."

Accepting that our good guys are often profoundly flawed, we choose to remember Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, who died today at 77, not for his ethical lapses or hawkish views but for his blistering criticism of the Iraq War - a criticism that meant renouncing much of what he had ever believed in. It must have cost him dearly.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

Citing godly exhortations, which is always tricky, Minnesota's wacko Rep. Michele Bachmann says U.S. support for Israel is handed down from on high, and without it "there is a curse that comes into play." She herself in her "private Bible time" is working through Isaiah, she told the Republican Jewish Coalition, who must number, what, 17 people?

"I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States."

The tabs on your o.j. carton and the stickers on your CDs can all go to art, and helping save the planet, as part of the International Plastic Quilt Project. The Oregon-based Leave No Plastic Behind is seeking people to make quilt squares and, if you can handle it, enter a three-month plastic-free challenge to raise awareness of how much plastic you use but don't see. 

"Oh the places you'll go! Plastic travel has a sickening romantic feel as I imagine the personified plastic bits jet setting around the globe. As for waste reduction - that is ongoing. Once you begin to reduce the unecessary and the convenient, there is still the unavoidable."

After prison, drugs, a long winter in America, Gil Scott-Heron is back with his first album in 16 years, called I'm New Here. Revisit his classic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised here.