Archives for January 2017

If you are a big tree, we are a small axe

January 21, 2017 by Michael Boyle

From my old friend Joe Macdonald, who has been burning it up on Facebook recently with some amazing, insightful and deeply moving writing. He says,

I first heard this deep cut by Bob Marley when I bought a cassette of rarities in a grocery store in northern British Columbia in 1986. If you are a big tree, we are a small axe. Ready to cut you down. Watching the extraordinary turn-outs of these Women’s Marches is the most hopeful thing I have seen in years and years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E28RoPgmsU

The lyrics are apropos:

Why boasteth thyself/Oh, evil men
Playing smart/And not being clever?
I said, you’re working iniquity/To achieve vanity (if a-so a-so)
But the goodness of Jah, Jah/I-dureth forever

So if you are the big tree
We are the small axe

Pictures From Women’s Marches Around the World

January 21, 2017 by Michael Boyle

Crowds in hundreds of cities around the world gathered Saturday in conjunction with the Women’s March on Washington.

Source: Pictures From Women’s Marches Around the World – The New York Times

Including photos from Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver among many other cities both in North America and abroad.

From Montreal:

A woman holds up a sign during a demonstration to protest the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump in Montreal, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. Protests are being held across Canada today in support of the Women’s March on Washington. Organizers say 30 events in all have been organized across Canada, including Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP)
NYTCREDIT: Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

Here’s an article with some great photos from a large march in Ottawa today as well.

Ezra Klein: Trump’s real war isn’t with the media. It’s with facts.

January 21, 2017 by Michael Boyle

[Spicer] said: “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, both in person and around the globe.”

This, along with much else Spicer said, was plainly untrue. But there’s a strategy at work here. The Trump administration is creating a baseline expectation among its loyalists that they can’t trust anything said by the media. The spat over crowd size is a low-stakes, semi-comic dispute, but the groundwork is being laid for much more consequential debates over what is, and isn’t, true.

Source: Trump’s real war isn’t with the media. It’s with facts. – Vox

The Trump Administration is trying to spin the sparse turnout using classic “Big Lie” techniques. Ezra takes a deeper look, complete with links to reliable data sources and further analysis.

Globe editorial: Keep calm and carry on, world

January 21, 2017 by Michael Boyle

Critics should also focus on attacking Mr. Trump’s positions on their merits, not on his rhetoric. Take the threat he poses seriously, but don’t exaggerate it. Each and every Trump pronouncement is not one step closer to the end of the world.Above all, don’t respond intemperately. The President’s shock tactics encourage both followers and opponents to go overboard. But there is no victory in retaliating in a similar fashion, or in becoming enraged by his calculated hypocrisies and lies, which are only meant to provoke.

Source: Globe editorial: Keep calm and carry on, world – The Globe and Mail

Krugman: Donald the Unready

January 21, 2017 by Michael Boyle

Real crises need real solutions. They can’t be resolved with a killer tweet, or by having your friends in the F.B.I. or the Kremlin feed the media stories that take your problems off the front page. What the situation demands are knowledgeable, levelheaded people in positions of authority.

But as far as we know, almost no people meeting that description will be in the new administration, except possibly the nominee for defense secretary — whose nickname just happens to be “Mad Dog.”

Source: Donald the Unready – The New York Times

When the best of the bunch (of Trump’s Cabinet appointments) is named “Mad Dog”… there might be a problem. Just sayin’…