Songs for spring

I first heard the song Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson when it was part of the soundtrack to the film Midnight Cowboy and it immediately struck a chord with me, both the words and music. I came across this performance by Nilsson on the web and thought I would share it with those of you who may have never heard it. Like George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun when he was part of The Beatles, it is a song that I think of when we are emerging from the cold of winter.
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CIA promises not to use fake vaccination campaigns again

The use by the US government of a fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan as part of its efforts to find Osama bin Laden was an outrage. Heroic vaccination workers in that and other countries like Afghanistan and Nigeria were already battling obscurantist anti-vaccination Muslim religious leaders who were frightening people by saying that this was some kind of dark western plot. The revelation that the CIA was using the vaccination program for its own ends has given these people support for their allegations and made the work of public health officials that much harder and has led to many health workers had being murdered and the resurgence of this dreaded disease, just when it seemed like it we were on the verge of eradicating it worldwide.
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Back to religious proselytizing in the Air Force?

There had been many complaints that the US military and the Air Force in particular showed preference for Christianity and even allowed senior officers to openly proselytize and discriminate against non-Christians. In response, a regulation was promulgated that bars senior officers from “the actual or apparent use of their positions to promote their religious convictions to their subordinates.” That seems reasonable, right?
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Unsung civil rights heroes

We have all heard (I hope!) of Rosa Parks and her refusal in 1955 to give up her seat to a white person and move to the back of the bus, triggering the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and strikes and walkouts and other forms of civil disobedience that highlighted the racial discrimination of those times and eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But there were other lesser-known people who also showed courage and determination in expanding the right of everyone to be treated equally and with dignity.
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The New York Times, Jill Abramson, and the NSA

The New York Times has been at the receiving end of much media attention following the unceremonious dumping to Executive Editor Jill Abramson, with all manner of stories being floated as reasons for her canning. Was it due to poor management style? Was it because she complained that she was being paid less than her male predecessors? Was it because those who worked for her were complaining about her? Was it because, as Michelle Goldberg writes, she sent a reporter to London to investigate the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal and the way that the BBC failed to cover it, which might have implicated NYT CEO Mark Thompson who was the head of the BBC at that time? Was it because, as Ken Auletta says, she was planning to bring in a deputy managing editor to work alongside managing editor Dean Baquet, the person who replaced her, and that he was unhappy with this move?
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