Who Gets Kicked Out of the Trailor Park This Week? Herman Cain For Smoking After Sex?

The hottest new reality show, Who gets Kicked Out of the Trailor Park?, also known as the Republican debates, is taking the U.S. by storm.

Across the country sounds of "Don't tell me what stupid thing Rick Perry said this week, I'm taping it!" and "Michelle Bachmann did go to high school, right?" or "You mean, Mitt Romney changed his mind again?!" fill the air.

Herman Cain, once in the lead, has found himself in a bit of trouble though, and Perry is catching up in the polls.  It started with a bizarre ad campaign, depicting his chief-of-staff Mark Block standing, talking, and smoking a cigarette.  Some called it a brilliant "in your face" response to the "liberal elite".  Others,  "an irresponsible disregard for the health of the people Cain aims to represent."  I just call it creepy.  You be the judge.



The ad is having an impact, both negative and positive, but another story may change the opinion of some of his supporters.

Seems our man Cain was charged with sexual harassment.  Conservative parrots are chirping the usual "media bias" and "witch hunt", but if he was hoping to capture any of Bachmann's religious support, he may be out of luck.

I can't wait for the next episode.  I hear that all of the wives that Newt Gingrich cheated on, will be acting as mediators.  At least those still living.

The "real" reality is, that one of these clowns could be the next president of the United States.  I may have to take up smoking.

Where is Barry Goldwater When we Need Him?

"I think every good Christian ought to kick [Jerry] Falwell right in the ass." Barry Goldwater

Many American Neoconservatives claim to have become politically active, after the trouncing of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. Deemed to be too far right, he lost to Lyndon Johnson, by one of the largest landslides in history.

Ironically, by today's standards, Goldwater would have been a moderate. He supported Gay Rights, and hated the Moral Majority. His call out for a butt kicking, was in response to Jerry Falwell suggesting that Sandra Day O'Connor was not committed enough to ending abortion.

He also once said that "I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone. " and denounced Reagan's "parade of millionaires".   As to the lavish balls that the Reagans held in the White House, he thought them too ostentatious when so many Americans were suffering.

Goldwater was a Libertarian who wanted to dismantle the Welfare State, but he was not completely heartless.  Mind you, he also claimed that in war there no such thing as a civilian, so his humanity was not without its limits.
 
Recently, we have learned that 15.1 percent of Americans now live in poverty; the highest number in the 52 years that the Census Bureau has been tracking it.
 
Yet the Republicans are up in arms because President Obama wants to eliminate $467 billion in tax breaks for wealthier Americans and corporations, and they won't hear of it.
 
Wall Street is again nervous, but as we know, when Wall Street gambles and loses, taxpayers are expected to bail them out.  But when the American people, those same taxpayers, are suffering, that's just too bad.  They're on their own.
 
The corporate funded Tea Party waves their flag, and accusations of being "un-American", are never directed at those hording all the wealth, only at those waiting for the promised "trickle down".
 
Those lazy sinners.

The Republican presidential candidate race is coming down to two men: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Though a devout Mormon, Romney is a moderate. He's for civil rights, Gay Rights, and even supports abortion for victims of rape and incest.

He should be pleasing to both the caring Evangelicals and right leaning Democrats. And he would probably make a pretty good president, though I would prefer that Americans turn down the volume on their right-wing noise machine, and give Obama more of a chance.

But Americans are suffering, and they will always blame that suffering on those in power, forgetting the horrible mess that the man inherited from George Bush.

However, it would appear that the Republicans believe that Rick Perry has a better chance at winning the White House, based partly on the fact that he can fill auditoriums in public prayer.  He's the man to bring God back to government, come hell or high water.

Another contender, Michelle Bachmann, claims that the recent hurricanes are God's wrath for the First Amendment, that separated Church and State.  Perry takes that even further, holding rallies against the Amendment and his state had Thomas Jefferson (the author of it) removed from their school books.

I'm reading a book Just leave God Out of it, by Tim Riter and David Timms of the private Christian University, Hope International  in Fullerton, California.

They open by telling the story of a men's religious retreat in Australia.  After a morning of prayer, they took a break to play a little rugby.  During the game, one of the men suffered an injury, resulting in his ankle being bent an odd angle.

Everyone scrambled, looking for ice and determining the quickest route to the hospital.  But then one of the camp workers came over and asked the group, "Has anyone prayed for him yet?"

"Ouch!  Great and intense teachings on prayer were ignored."  So the men prayed first and then took the suffering individual to the hospital.  According to the authors, this was a wake up call as to how much "cultural creep" was affecting society.  Secularism was clashing with "godly values".

"This challenge is serious. The value of our culture subtly squeezes us into their mold, at the expense of biblical values."

I would have put more value on easing the man's pain and making sure that he got immediate medical attention, but biblical values say that he must suffer while first they pray.  No mention of God-given medical know how.

I'm reminded of a joke I heard several years ago. 

Warnings of a flood had prompted an evacuation, but one man was without transportation to leave, so his neighbours offered him a ride.  He refused saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him.  So instead he prayed.

The inevitable flood took place, and rescuers in a boat found the man in his water logged home praying.  They offered him a ride, but again he refused, saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him.

Finally, as the waters engulfed his home, and the man was standing on his roof, a helicopter hovered overhead offering a life line. But again he refused saying that he was going to put his faith in the Lord, who he felt certain would save him.

The man drowned and when he got to Heaven he asked God why he had forsaken him.  The reply:  "But I sent you a car, a boat and a helicopter.  What more did you want from me?"

Rick Perry would not only be that man on his roof, but the tyrant who would lock the entire community in their homes, so that they could go down with him.

I wonder what Barry Goldwater would want to kick on this guy.  It's obvious that he's already taken a swift kick to the head.

I remember my mom being afraid of Barry Goldwater.  She was an English war bride who had lived through the bombings, and felt that he would lead us into another world war.

I can't believe I'm now looking back to the glory days of the Republicans, when Barry Goldwater was the voice of conservatism, and perhaps their last voice of reason.

A Harper majority and Rick Perry in the White House?  Heaven help us.

The Canadian Manifesto: 1. The Centre of the Universe

In 1933, a small group of religious leaders got together, via the post office, to establish a Humanist doctrine. According to Time Magazine (May 15, 1933):

Humanism used to be a good subject for parlor and dinner table discussions. Few people knew what it actually was or ' where literary Humanism left off and religious Humanism began. Nor did Humanism's expounders get together and codify their beliefs for popular enlightenment.(1)

Key leaders were often at odds over how to define the movement and what its key goals should be.

But that was about to change.

Last week, for the first time, the religious Humanists were on common ground. After discussing many questions (by letter) they had drawn up, signed and circulated a manifesto containing their articles of faith. More & more Humanists are to read the manifesto, sign it, make suggestions which may perhaps be incorporated after due consideration.(1)

Key elements included:

- The universe is self-existing, not created.

- Man is part of nature, product of his culture, his environment, his social heritage. The traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

- Humanism also rejects cosmic and supernatural "guarantees." The Humanist eschews theism, deism, modernism, "new thought'' and instead of feeling religious emotions concentrates on human life—labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation.

- Humanism is for "a socialized and co-operative economic order—a shared life in a shared world."

Its adherents say that it will: "Affirm life rather than deny it ... seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from it ... establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few." (1)

How could you argue against this set of principles?

Yet argue they did. When the Humanist Manifesto, written primarily by Raymond Bragg (shown above) appeared, it created quite a sensation, because it challenged the principle of God being the centre of the universe.

Instead they embraced science, human compassion, and equality in a shared world.

The late Francis Schaeffer, author of A Christian Manifesto, that prompted the creation of the Religious Right/Moral Majority, has built a career challenging, what he refers to as "secular Humanism". He believed that all of our current problems are the result of not embracing God as the center of the universe.

He felt that if all law and governance was based on the Old Testament, all of our problems would disappear. He encouraged Christians to become confrontational, and did not rule out violence as a means to an end.

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate. The Christian is not to take the law into his own hands and become a law unto him­self. But when all avenues to flight and protest have closed, force in the defensive posture is appropriate. This was the situation of the American Revolution. The colonists used force in defending themselves. Great Britain, because of its policy toward the col­onies, was seen as a foreign power invading America. The colonists defended their homeland. As such, the American Revolution was a conservative counter­revolution. The colonists saw the British as the revo­lutionaries trying to overthrow the legitimate colonial governments. (2)

This certainly helps to explain the Tea Party and the Religious Right's obsession with guns.

When Stephen Harper's former Chief of Staff, Darrel Reid, suggested that our laws should be changed to reflect those in the Bible, the story pretty much ended there.

Reid is now with the Manning Centre, but continues his work with several current Harper MPs, toward Reconstructionism.

The media is doing us a grave injustice by not staying on top of this story. In the United States, after learning that Presidential hopeful, Michelle Bachmann, is a follower of Francis Schaeffer, their media is all over it.

Ryan Lizza wrote an in depth article for the New Yorker, under the heading Leap of Faith. In it he refers to Bachmann as "an ideologue of the Christian-conservative movement." A term once used to describe Stephen Harper, before he took the happy pills and became a "Tory".

Lizza reveals how the Bachmanns (Michelle and Marcus), experienced a "life-altering event" after watching Schaeffer's film series “How Should We Then Live?”

Schaeffer’s film series consists of ten episodes tracing the influence of Christianity on Western art and culture, from ancient Rome to Roe v. Wade. In the films, Schaeffer—who has a white goatee and is dressed in a shearling coat and mountain climber’s knickers—condemns the influence of the Italian Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Darwin, secular humanism, and postmodernism. He repeatedly reminds viewers of the “inerrancy” of the Bible and the necessity of a Biblical world view. “There is only one real solution, and that’s right back where the early church was,” Schaeffer tells his audience. “The early church believed that only the Bible was the final authority. What these people really believed and what gave them their whole strength was in the truth of the Bible as the absolute infallible word of God.” (3)

I've been watching the series and reading the book, and was surprised to find that chunks of his speeches have found their way into the vernacular of many members of the Harper government.

Including Harper himself, but I'm getting into that later.

The rise of Michelle Bachmann, has given the Americans an opportunity to discuss this movement and what it could mean to their future. Schaeffer is very clear on what fundamentalist Christians need to do.

And in his Christian Manifesto, he states that the movement must include Canada, Australia and New Zealand (p.24), if it has any hope of succeeding.

We're probably going to hear a lot more as the U.S. election campaign heats up, so I thought this a perfect time to put together an essay on Canada's Religious Right movement, that is being allowed to operate in almost total secrecy, simply because we are too squeamish to talk about religion.

But we have to remember, that this is a political movement, and one that could have a profound affect on who we are as Canadians.

We need to become part of the conversation since clearly we are to play an important role.

Marci McDonald had spent several years as a Washington correspondent, where she covered the rise of the Christian Right.

When she returned to Canada, she was shocked to discover that the same movement had embedded itself here. Like Ronald Reagan, Stephen Harper has moved these fundamentalists into the courts, the civil service and even the foreign service, creating a new office of religious freedom.

From her piece for Walrus Magazine: Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right:

"For Harper, the courtship of the Christian right is unlikely to prove an electoral one-night stand. Three years ago, in a speech to the annual Conservative think-fest, Civitas, he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence.

"Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue, he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same.

"Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ... " (4)

McDonald would turn her piece into her best seller: The Armageddon Factor

However, the Canadian Manifesto, is about more than religion, but is intended to show how the American Neoconservative movement as a whole, is dictating how our country does business.

There are many questions that we need to ask ourselves, including:

Why did top Republican pollster, John Mclaughlin, personally handle Stephen Harper's political career?

Why did the National Citizens Coalition meet with Republican politicians to help draft strategy?

Why did Richard Nixon's magician, Art Finkelstein, work with the NCC for 16 years, guiding Stephen Harper in the art of destroying liberal democracy?

Milton Friedman from the Chicago School, spent a lifetime engineering the takeover of the economies of foreign nations. Why was he so interested in Canada, becoming a regular speaker at the Fraser Institute?

Why was Religious Right leader, Paul Weyrich, so keen to have Stephen Harper on the throne?

Why is a Goldman Sachs' executive, now the head of the Bank of Canada?

It's not hard to see that there is a plan for us, but unfortunately, we are not in the loop.

So maybe if I can create a Canadian Manifesto, as it might look if there is one locked away in the Republican Party HQs, we can at least talk about it.

Is this what we want for Canada?

Sources:

1. Religion: Humanism on Paper, Time Magazine, May 15, 1933

2. A Christian Manifesto, By Francis Schaeffer, Crossway Books, 1981, ISBN: 0-89107-233-0, p. 117

3. Leap of Faith: The making of a Republican front-runner, By Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, August 15, 2011

4. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

Could the Right-Wing Threat Get Any Worse?

High profile Scotland Yard officers have been forced to resign over the Rupert Murdoch scandal and the whistle blower is dead.

An investigation is underway in Canada involving Fox News North/Sun Media and how THEY obtained a police file on Jack Layton and the massage parlour.

Toronto has a redneck mayor, Rob Ford. Harper has a majority and Mike Harris lapdog Tim Hudak is poised to become the premier of Ontario in October.

But this may not be the worst of it.

Michelle Bachmann could become the next president of the United States, serving simultaneously with Canada's weapons of mass destruction.

Heaven help us!

Bachmann's husband, who is handling her campaign, was caught on tape sounding like he was once a Reform Party member, calling homosexuals "barbarians", sharing the views of most of Harper's caucus and staff.



He claimed the tape was doctored, but apparently it wasn't. I could have told him the "tape was doctored" line wouldn't work. Eventually you just sound like a liar on top of everything else.

And remember all the uproar over Obama's Reverend Wright? Bachmann has a Reverend Wrong, who called the Pope the Antichrist.

It's like the world has gone mad.

This is why we need a separation of Church of state, a legitimate media, and non-morons running governments.

It's like a really bad episode of The three Stooges, where Moe is beating the crap out of all of us.

Nyuk, nyuk.

The FAMILY LEADER Drops 'Slavery was Good for Blacks' From Presidential Pledge, But it Changes Nothing

Historian Joseph Crespino has written extensively on Racism and the Religious Right, especially their aversion to the Civil Rights movement.

Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Moral Majority/Religious Right, made it abundantly clear that the movement was not in response to the Roe vs Wade decision, that legalized abortion, but the IRS decision to drop the tax exempt status from Bob Jones university, because of their segregation policies.

Weyrich and several of his cohorts got together and determined that it was time to take their country back. Right back to the 1950's, or more specifically 1954. (Backlash, Susan Faludi, 1992)

Why 1954?

Because on December 1, 1955, the wonderful Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person. This launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Weyrich wanted a clean slate, erasing the years 1955-1968, and the Bob Jones decision gave him the opportunity. By using a reverse discrimination argument, they didn't sound quite so racist to those who might be afraid to show support for the "whites only" college. (Sarah Palin uses the same argument in her book)

In 1978, Robert Grant, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Howard Phillips, and Richard Viguerie found Christian Voice, to recruit, train, and organize Evangelical Christians to participate in elections.

By 1980, the Republicans were pledging to "halt the unconstitutional regulatory vendetta" against the segregation academies, and on April 29, high-profile Christians marched on Washington DC, in an effort to support Ronald Reagan's presidential run.

Citing "Southern alienation" they touted Reagan as the man who would right this wrong, and he did not disappoint.

Addressing students at Bob Jones University, he recycled the theme of 'reverse discrimination', arguing that the IRS policy was tantamount to 'racial quotas' and that: "You do not alter the evil character of racial quotas simply by changing the colour of the beneficiary". The blacks, he affirmed, had the run of the place, and he would do something about it. (In 1982, he restored the school's tax exempt status, but the Supreme Court slapped it down).

At the Neshoba fair in Mississippi (photo above) Reagan championed "states' rights (to deal with their own racist policies) and lauded segregationist Strom Thurmond, a failed 1948 presidential candidate.

Said Reagan: "If we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today". (Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, Chapter Five by Joseph Crespino)

As I've mentioned before, Reagan lost the black vote, but it didn't matter. 90% of African Americans voted Democrat, but only 30% voted at all.

So this week, when it was learned that yet another branch of the Christian Right is working with Republican candidates, exacting pledges to uphold their beliefs, it should not have been a shock that the group, FAMILY LEADER, suggested that slavery was the best time for black families.

... a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

Forget that at any time, mother, father or child could be sold, traded or lost in a poker game.

They never had it so good.

After much public outcry, the group has dropped the slavery comment, but hopefully, the fact that it was there in the first place, will help to open people's eyes to the agenda of the Christian Right/Tea Party/Neoconservative movement.

It was founded on and is grounded in racism, which is now going mainstream.

Not unlike the Conservative Party of Canada and Harper's National Citizens Coalition.

And just as Weyrich's Heritage Foundation became a vanguard of the radical right, Canada's Northern Foundation, helped to draw in groups dedicated to creating a white Christian Canada, complete with rampant homophobia and misogyny.

"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, Trevor Harrison, 1995, p. 121))

Many of the members are now with the Civitas Society, the policy arm of the Harper government.

If we had a legitimate media in Canada, they would be writing this narrative for the movement that will reshape our country and change who we are as Canadians.

But we don't.

Instead they insist on calling Harper's party "Tories" invoking an historic tradition.

Ironically, whenever I remind people that Harper's Reformers have nothing to do with the conservatism of Sir John or John Diefenbaker, I receive a lot of email from Harper supporters. Not to challenge my statement but to suggest that if he did have a link to the old Tory party, they would not be propping him up.

Oh, and the redneck that Reagan invoked as the saviour of American values, Strom Thurmond? Six months after his death, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a black American woman, revealed that she was Strom Thurmond's daughter, born to Carrie "Tunch" Butler, a maid who had worked for Thurmond's parents.

Hypocrisy, thy name is the Christian Right.

Is Slavery Really the Best Thing for Families?

If you think keeping track of the myriad of think tanks and AstroTurf groups that prop up the neoconservative movement, is a challenge; try unravelling their Religious Right infrastructure.

Just when you think you've nailed down the Republican, Conservative, funding connections, dozens of new groups appear on the horizon, so you say a Hail Mary and go for another long shot.

The latest to rear its ugly head, is the FAMILY LEADER, started by a former Mike Huckabee campaign chair, Bob Vander Plaats, and while they focus on the same old, same old: abortion, gay rights and the free market, they have a twist.

FAMILY LEADER (they capitalize it) suggests that slavery was actually good for the black family.

“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

And there it is. The "Roots" of the Religious Right and their problem with Obama. He's black. And apparently, black marriages only began to break up when he was elected president.

Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Religious Right/Moral Majority (and yet another American who has done so much for Stephen Harper's career) laid out their agenda at a Washington conference in 1990. Randall Balmer was there and reported:

In the course of one of the sessions, Weyrich tried to make a point to his Religious Right brethren (no women attended the conference, as I recall). Let's remember, he said animatedly, "that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision." No, Weyrich insisted, "what got us going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies. ”

Bob Jones University had policies that refused black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited interracial dating and marriage between 1975 and 2000.

Weyrich also worked on the campaign of Ronald Reagan, when he campaigned against the Civil Rights movement.

"With [Ronald] Reagan's outspoken opposition to the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Republican strategists knew that they would have to write off the black vote. But although 90 per cent of black voters cast their ballots for the democrats, only 30 percent of eligible black Americans voted. Republican ... strategist Paul Weyrich* stated "I don't want everyone to vote ... our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. We have no moral responsibility to turn out our opposition." (1)

Presidential hopeful Michelle Bachman has signed FAMILY LEADER's pledge to uphold their agenda and Sarah Palin promises to uphold "white" values.

If it's Good Enough for the Republicans

As with everything else, "white" supremacy is beginning to creep into the lingo of Canada's right-wing media.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford is said to represent the "angry white males". Fox News North calls the Caledonia land claim protests, a struggle between "Indians and white people", and Sun media congratulated Stephen Harper for appointing a "white guy" to act as Governor General.

Harper's Reformers were known for their racism, or what former MP Jan Brown called "the rampant racism of the 'God Squad'".

Just because he now keeps his 'God Squad' silenced, doesn't mean that they don't hold the same views. So unable to voice them publicly, they allow Fox News North to do it for them.

When is our media going to wake up?

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 22

Tea Party Served a Tepid Brew in Wisconsin

For all of the hype about the Wisconsin protests being teabagged, the protesters ended up outnumbering the teabaggers 35 to 1. That's what they get for letting Sarah Palin drive the bus. Poor dear is still out there looking for the place, getting directions from Michele Bachmann. They'll never make it.

I wrote yesterday of how the Wisconsin firefighters were standing in solidarity with the public servants, and I love what they said:

"The reason that we are here is because it's important that labor sticks together. There was a message from the governor's office to conquer and divide...collective bargaining is not just for us, police and fire, it's good for all involved. It's a middle-class upbringing."

"When firefighters see an emergency, one thing we do is respond. And we see an emergency in the house of labor, so that's why we're here."

"Every day, if you notice, we lead the AFSCME employees, the SEIU employees, all the public sector employees into the building, because we are here to fight with them."

"Collective bargaining is not about union rights; it's about rights of workers...We ask Gov. Walker to come back and negotiate with the people, negotiate with the state workers' unions, and get things worked out, as opposed to just putting out this bill and we don't hear from him again."

"Us as firefighters, we have been exempted from this bill...There's a 5.8 percent pay into the pension, there's a 12.4 percent pay into the health care premium benefits...For the betterment of the government, for the betterment of the state, we don't mind helping to pay for that. We don't want to price ourselves out of a job. Ever. What we want to do is have a fair and equitable treatment among our members."

And now these protests are spreading to other states, and even China is a little on edge.

Yeah the people.

And another nice thing happened with these protests, perhaps inspired by the firefighters. The two sides put down their (metaphorical) weapons and talked to each other. Can you imagine political discourse without all the yelling? Be still my heart.

When the two sides in Wisconsin's bitter battle over the future of the state's unionized public employees converged on the Capitol on Saturday for dueling rallies, the fear was trouble would break out. Instead, the day was marked by a surprising civility when the shouting stopped and the one-on-one conversations began.

My favourite photo though, was tweeted from Egypt.



And on that note, it's time to get on your feet again and walk like an Egyptian (and a Wisconsin(ite?)