We have completed the migration to our new home at discuss.epluribusmedia.net.  

This version no longer allows any posting or commenting and is being maintained strictly for archival purposes.  

We hope you will take time to visit, post and comment on the new community site.  All user accounts have also been migrated from this site to the new one for ease of use.  If you are registered here and you did not receive an email with instructions on how to login to your account, you can go to this page to receive a new password.  

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  Update [2007-12-1 8:57:47 by standingup]: Saturday morning hiccups on the new server. Customer service has advised they had some problems with a major software upgrade but as of this time they are 98% complete with fixes and the entire system should be back online shortly.

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Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. -- Cry, The Beloved Country, Chapter 12

I borrow the title and the above quotation from Alan Paton's magnificent novel because it so perfectly describes what affects so many of us writing on our liberal sites.

There is much to dissuade me from joining in with my own reflective piece on what is happening to our nations and to us. I abhor the rants that simply scream out our anger, the bitterness with which we promote our own saviour candidates that, like all the celebrity gods that we so falsely anoint, we believe will lead us single-handedly to a promised future, and the amount of space which we waste trying to tear down the shock jocks that desecrate our media. Yet, I know that our need to express our anguish comes from the fear that is common to all of us and that comes from what Paton describes as our being too moved when the birds of our land sing. The fear we all feel when we give too much of our heart to our mountains and valleys.

Wednesday is my day to watch the community.  Since August, tho, it's been one thing after another in my household.

Right now, it's flu.

But in the meantime, Roxy's team has been busy getting the new sites ready.  The look is contemporary, and wow! the functionality. There's a new "front door" to all the components of ePluribus Media.

 Community is up and running as is the Journal. The Timelines are still getting some final tweaks to run okay in IE 6.0, but they are looking good in IE 7, Firefox and most other browsers.  The new investigates site still needs its final set of clothes, but the functionality is all there if you want to check it out.  

Go take a look, kick the tires, try posting a commentary, holler for help if you need it, and tell the guys what you think.  They'll add your requests to the list of enhancement considerations for the next go around.

Penny Coleman's book Flashback is reviewed on the ePluribus Journal. Below, Coleman's 11-26 article(cross posted from Alternet and at her own site Flashback.-- cho)

Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.

As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.

with the markets now officially in a "correction" -- worth taking a second look at Spinelli's article from Monday -- originally posted Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 06:00:08 PM EST -- cho

ePluribus Media OhioNews Bureau

OhioNews Bureau: Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray, a Democrat approaching his first year in office, has acknowledged in a published report what others, especially new Gov. Ted Strickland, may be unwilling to say so forcefully in pubic these days, namely, that many Buckeye families are now in a financial crisis.

Cordray, a candidate who surfed into office last year with new governor Strickland and other Democratic candidates atop a wave of dissatisfaction with 16 years of Republican rule, is using the tools of his office, which generally pale in power or popularity with those of governor or attorney general, to set up a first-of-its kind, interactive financial-literacy Website called Your Money Now.

Depending on whether you are hind-sighted or fore-sited will determine whether Cordray's cool, informative and playful plan is defensive or proactive.

Ohio, the nation's 7th most populous state whose rich history of being home to numerous muscle-bound industrial giants is the worse for wear due to years of powerful body blows delivered to it in the new era of globalization and job out-sourcing, now finds itself listed among leaders in various categories of economic ignominy it would rather not be a leader in.

Tho I am still uncommitted candidate-wise, it's very help that cosbo and others are providing information about all candidates...the better informed we are, the better our choices. -- cho

This is a follow up to Nick Bentont's last editorial. Like me and many other American's his grandparents were immigrants. I found this a very moving editorial about values that he and I share. In the final analysis there are no "native Americans." Even the "first Americans" came here from Asia a long while ago.

His editorial appears below the fold, and is posted in full with his permission.