Sunday Roundup - August 17, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US corporate mainstream media.  Today we look at Republican economic myths, Ukraine, Gaza, South Sudan, and Robin Williams.

US Economy
298,000 jobs were added in June and another 209,000 in July as the US economy continues its long, slow recovery from the Great Recession.  A few months after Obama's election, I was in an auto collision repair shop and spied a cartoon with Obama dressed like Steve Urkel complete with the goofy eyeglass frames. Obama/Urkel was looking at a downward sloping line and quipping "Did I do that?"  Conservatives and the more ill-informed loved to blame the recession on Obama, regardless of the facts.  Combined with similar misinformation on the Affordable Care Act,  it was enough to give them the House in the 2010 midterms.  Dave Johnson, blogging at Daily Kos has updated "Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Brother-in-Law" based on the latest government data on the economy.  The facts and conclusions easily drawn from the three charts:

• Government spending increased dramatically under President Bush (88%).  It has not increased much under President Obama (3.78%).
• People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" or increased it or anything of the sort are either misled or are trying to mislead. President Obama inherited a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion from President Bush's last budget year and annual budget deficits have gone down dramatically since
• The stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus. We have gone from losing around 850,000 jobs a month to gaining over 200,000 jobs a month.  Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH

There is plenty more good information in the article that puts the lie to other Republican myths about the economy and Obama's handling of it.  Johnson concludes: These things really matter.  We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has.  But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them.  Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse – just as laying off government workers in a recession makes unemployment worse.

Ukraine

The death toll from conflict in eastern Ukraine has doubled in the past fortnight, the UN's human rights office said on Wednesday, as international wrangling continued over a controversial Russian aid convoy to the region.The UN office said its "very conservative estimates" suggested the death toll has risen to 2,086 by the beginning of this week, up from 1129 on 26 July. ...The huge convoy set off from the Moscow region on Tuesday. The Kremlin says its 260 military trucks – hastily repainted white by Russian soldiers – contain humanitarian supplies for residents in the east trapped by fighting. [The Guardian, August 13]

Gaza
Negotiations
A temporary cease-fire has been extended until Monday August 18.  Negotiators are struggling to come up with a more permanent solution before the new five-day ceasefire expires.  Khalil al-Haya, the Palestinian group’s negotiator at the talks in Egypt seeking to stop fighting in Gaza, said on Thursday they were negotiating with a difficult side "versed in procrastination".  "We are keen on having an agreement concluded. It must satisfy the demands of our people," said al-Haya during public address in which he briefed the people of Gaza on the progress of the talks.  Haya said Hamas would continue to demand the end of what he called "unjust incursions" and a permanent lifting of the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza in 2006. [Al Jazeera, Aug 14]

Humanitarian Crisis
According to a UN report of August 8:
- Rescue teams have retrieved additional bodies, bringing the cumulative death toll of Palestinians to 1,922, of whom 1,407 are believed to be civilians, including 448 children; the status of 297 fatalities remains to be determined.  The Israeli death toll remained at 67, including 3 civilians.

- UNRWA was sheltering 166,527 people in 90 schools
- An estimated 10,800 homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair over the course of hostilities, leaving some 65,000 people homeless, in addition to 33,100 others whose homes will require major repairs, and another 185,700 individuals whose homes sustained minor damage. 

The UN report also notes the devastating impact of the strike on the Gaza Power Plant on water and sanitation facilities throughout Gaza, the existence of thousands of explosive remnants of war in civilian areas, and the critical state of reproductive and maternal health in Occupied Gaza (10,000 of 46,000 pregnant women have been displaced).

War Crimes Inquiry

Photo appeared in Al Jazeera

The United Nations has named experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip...The UN statement said the independent team will investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law ... in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014...Navi Pillay, the top UN human rights official, said on July 31 she believed Israel was deliberately defying international law in its military offensive in Gaza and that world powers should hold it accountable for possible war crimes. Israel has attacked homes, schools, hospitals, Gaza's only power plant and UN premises in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions, said Pillay, a former UN war crimes judge. Hamas fighters in Gaza have violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, Pillay said.  [Al Jazeera, Aug 14]  Reaction to the announcement was as expected.  Hamas welcomed the decision. Israel dismissed the inquiry as a "kangaroo court."  This independent investigation must take place and those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable.  Otherwise, there will be no escape from the "cycle of impunity" and the continuing oppression of the people of Gaza.

Related
"Need for Tough Love: Defending the Gaza Assault Hurts Israeli, American Interests" (Gregory Harms, Informed Comment, August 13) - how a knowledge deficit and ideology lead to the media's and people's misperceptions on the conflict

"The Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy" (Stephen M. Walt, The World Post /Huffington Post, July 22) - the role of money and lobbies in influencing political leaders


South Sudan
As many as four million South Sudanese are facing starvation following the civil war that broke out there last year.   America is sending $180m (£107m) in aid to help people in South Sudan, where four million people are at risk of starvation.  More than a third of South Sudan's population has been hit, says the United Nations, calling it "the worst food crisis in the world"...Violence erupted last December when the president accused his deputy leader of trying to take power. [BBC News, Aug 14] The UN Security Council is threatening sanctions.  UN Security Council envoys have warned South Sudan's warring leaders they would face sanctions if a civil war that has pushed the young nation to the brink of famine does not stop."The council has made it very clear: that it is prepared to impose consequences if there continue to be spoilers, if there continue to be people carrying out gross violations of human rights," US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said after meeting with President Salva Kiir.  EU Special Representative to the Horn of Africa, Alex Rondos, also expressed concern "that both sides in South Sudan continue spending their money on arms and fighting for power while South Sudanese citizens are beginning to starve to death". [Al Jazeera, August 14]

Robin Williams
I found a moving news item on Robin Williams after publishing the August 12 post, which mentioned his passing at its conclusion.  It's just one more reminder of what we lost with his untimely death: "Robin Williams Once Secretly Fulfilled A Dying Girl's Wish"  (Eleanor Goldberg, Huffington Post, August 13)

A Vacation in Italy

Montepulciano

About the time Bill DeBlasio was being criticized for not being enough of a workaholic to be mayor of the Big Apple, I too was vacationing in Italy with my family. We did spend several days in Venice but, unlike the DeBlasio's, we spent most of our time in Tuscany. Home to Florence, Siena, medieval hilltop towns, superb cuisine, Roman and Etruscan ruins, vineyards and olive groves, Tuscany is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Florence is the home of the Italian Renaissance - the great burst of knowledge and creativity that led through the Enlightenment to the modern age. Home to the Medici's, one of the world's richest and most powerful families, Tuscany's politics today are firmly to the left with regional elections predictably giving landslide victories to leftist or center-left candidates since 1970 when the first regional election was held.

Tuscan sunrise

Italy's museums and churches are filled with paintings and sculpture, most notably of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Renaissance (in Italian, rinascimento) means "rebirth". The rediscovery and re-appreciation of Greek and Roman texts and sculpture provided the momentum to begin to bring Europe out of the medieval era. That classic, more realistic, more observation-based way of representing the world combined with the fortunate presence of creative geniuses and patrons who supported their work produced the Renaissance.

Titan's Assumption
Licensed under public domain by Wikimedia Commons (1)

During the Renaissance, paintings went from two-dimensional to three-dimensional representations of the world. Linear perspective was developed. Color became more vibrant.  The painting medium changed over the years from fresco and tempera to oil, and artists began to paint on canvas rather than wood panels and plaster. Sculpture turned to Greek and Roman models of the idealized human body and statues of amazing fluidity were created by the hands of master sculptors. New architectural techniques were brought to bear on the building of great churches and cathedrals. Thousands of volumes have been written about the Renaissance and I don't pretend to any great knowledge of the era but here are a couple of works I enjoyed while in Italy.

The painting at the right is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, painted by Titian (Tiziano) between 1516 and 1518.  It's in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosi del Frari in Venice and an example of the revolutionary use of vibrant color for which Titian is noted.  The painting below, The Birth of Venus, is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  Painted by Botticelli between 1482 and 1485, it is one of the most famous paintings in the world and, according to the Uffizi webpage, the first example of painting on canvas in Tuscany. The theme comes from Ovid's Metamporheses.  The painting has "clear references to the 'Stanzas', a...poetic work by Agnolo Poliziano, a contemporary of Botticelli and the greatest Neoplatonic poet of the Medici court. Neoplatonism was a current of thought that tried to connect the Greek and Roman cultural heritage with Christianity.  The Neoplatonic philosophical meaning is then clear: the work would mean the birth of love and... spiritual beauty as a driving force of life."

The Birth of Venus
From the Uffizi website (2)

Creativity and creative genius are much studied by psychologists and neuroscientists. The July/August issue of The Atlantic has several interesting articles on "how genius happens". There are no firm answers yet - and may never be. But one thing is clear to me. Some of the seemingly untractable problems of our generation require a more creative approach if we are ever to solve them. That plus a re-dedication to the common good, an empathic appreciation of our common humanity and a facts-based approach to problem-solving should be fostered everywhere they can be. These may be our best, perhaps only, hope to develop the political will to save the 21st century.

Robin Williams

From the BBC News post

The sudden death of actor Robin Williams yesterday shocked us all.  The beloved actor was a comic genius. For millions, including me, his over-the-top humor and improvisational skills made him the favorite stand-up comic of his generation.   Kind words (BBC News, Aug 12) have been pouring in non-stop since his untimely death.   Mourners visited sites from Williams' movies..., laying flowers and memorabilia to honor the late star. This kind and humorous man will be greatly missed by all of us.

Links to The Atlantic Articles on Creativity

"Secrets of the Creative Brain" by Nancy Andreasen

"The Power of Two" by Joshua Wolf Shenk

"Five Creative Solutions"

Photo Attributions (Renaissance Paintings)

1. "Tizian 041" by Titian - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.

2. Uffizi Gallery Museum Website - home page