Government

The Rise of the Taliban

|

Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban

9/16/21 by NPR

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/128545712
Episode: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510333/edge1.pod.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/throughline/2021/09/20210916_throughline_final_mix_afghanistan_2_taliban_wads_lw_91521_-_real.mp3

How did a small group of Islamic students go from local vigilantes to one of the most infamous and enigmatic forces in the world? The Taliban is a name that has haunted the American imagination since 2001. The scenes of the group’s brutality repeatedly played in the Western media, while true, perhaps obscure our ability to see the complex origins of the Taliban and how they impact the lives of Afghans. It’s a shadow that reaches across the vast ancient Afghan homeland, the reputation of the modern state, and throughout global politics. At the end of the US war in Afghanistan we go back to the end of the Soviet Occupation and the start of the Afghan civil war to look at the rise of the Taliban. Their story concludes Throughline’s two-episode investigation on the past, present, and future of the country that was once called “the center of the world.”

NPR

|

HUD Sells Flood-Prone Houses To Often Unsuspecting Buyers : NPR

But an NPR investigation finds that the homes HUD sells are disproportionately located in flood-prone places, compared with Zillow records of all homes sold in the United States. The agency does not fully disclose the potential costs and dangers of living in harm's way, and some of these transactions have happened as local governments are buying out properties in the same areas to mitigate flood risk.

Geo Maher’s ‘A World Without Police’ On Abolishing The Police : NPR

|

Book Review: Geo Maher’s ‘A World Without Police’ On Abolishing The Police : NPR

Details that have come into focus after the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 have made clear, Maher writes, just how the police and the violent far-right of this country blur together. Neither Ahmaud Arbery nor Trayvon Martin, among countless others, were killed by active police officers, but they were nonetheless killed by what Maher calls the "pig majority" — which includes not just police but their "volunteer deputies...the judges, the courts, the juries, and the grand juries... the mayors and the district attorneys who demand 'law and order'... the racist media apparatus that bends over backwards to turn victims into aggressors." As Tupac Shakur famously put it, the police is "the biggest gang in America," Maher contends.

The Adirondack Hunter with a gun and butcher knife strapped to his belt 🗡

|

The Adirondack Hunter with a gun and butcher knife strapped to his belt 🗡.

I was out walking along Piseco Powley Road and walked past a hunter with a pistol and a butcher knife strapped to his belt. It’s the wilderness and totally unremarkable, people like to be prepared to survive in the woods as necessary. That or more likely he was looking for coyotes to dispatch. He did mention hearing a lot of ‘yotes recently at night.

I’ve thought about it for years, but I’ve never moved forward on getting my pistol permit. Sure I own several long guns, most small caliber guns for small game – a couple of rifles and shotguns. I’d like to get my pistol permit but I really resent the process and I’m not really willing to go in front of a judge or go down to the police station to fill out a lot of paper work and pay a bunch of money to the government, then have to get recertifed every three years.

I honestly don’t like or trust authority figures. I don’t want to go to a police station or in front of a judge to plea my case. I know the politics game well enough and I know few institution men are completely honest brokers. Plus I feel like having to have a permit to own or carry a gun in remote country is completely violating out rights. If you are not currently in jail or a mental institution, then you should have the right to own and carry whatever firearm you want especially in the woods or on your own land.

Some states are closer to that ideal. Many of the states on my short list for settling down are closer to that ideal, gun rights are a big priority in the red states.

The Afghanistan War had to end

|

The Afghanistan War had to End ☮️

There was no good way to end the war but it seems like a bandage over a wound, this one had to be ripped off and let the Afghanistan people run the government they are want. Best to do in the summer months, three years until the presidental election.

“It is a 20 year war that had to end.” – President Biden

I am not convinced that the Afghan people really don’t want the Taliban as their leadership. It is hard if not impossible to run a government that lacks popular support. It’s rare that a king or a dictator lasts for long unless they provide a level of services that the public demands. Dictators are often good at one level at providing security and decent public services even as they silence the opposition.

I also doubt that it’s all about religious extremism – people probably weren’t happy with the level of services provided by the previous Afghanistan regime, or the corruption that was previously the norm. People where probably tired of a generation of war and ready for the stabilization of an Afghanistan under the Taliban after America leaves.

The ‘Hiroshima Cover-Up’ & The Journalist Who Exposed The Truth

|

The ‘Hiroshima Cover-Up’ & The Journalist Who Exposed The Truth

8/19/20 by NPR

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/111312409
Episode: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-381444908/edge1.pod.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/npr/fa/2020/08/20200819_fa_fapodweds-da549908-b651-4c08-b7ca-210e0f707ca5.mp3?awCollectionId=381444908&awEpisodeId=903895214&orgId=1&d=2853&p=381444908&story=903895214&t=podcast&e=903895214&size=45552537&ft=pod&f=381444908

Historian Lesley M.M. Blume’s new book, ‘Fallout,’ tells the story of John Hersey, the young journalist whose on-the-ground reporting in Hiroshima exposed the world to the devastation of nuclear weapons. “Hersey had seen everything from that point, from combat to concentration camps,” Blume says. “But he later said that nothing prepared him for what he saw in Hiroshima.”

Light and happy 😊 podcast for listening 🎧 on the beach 🏖.