Litbrit

Stop SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T11:41:00.003-05:00

Tell Congress: Don't censor the Internet.

(Get a quick-and-dirty explanation of SOPA and PIPA: Eat your Oatmeal!)

Nationalism

2012-01-11T09:12:00.003-05:00

"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency.

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side ...

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

-- George Orwell

(H/T Lisa Simeone)

Abusing our utilitarianism: Bait-and-switch, and beating the drums of war

2012-01-08T14:05:00.016-05:00

This morning, while reading the various and ongoing will-we-or-won't-we discussions about America and Iran, I thought about the dynamic now and the dynamic of 2002-early 2003 and was struck by their similarity. If it weren't so outrageous, it would be rather funny, really: Fool us once, shame on you; fool us again, shame on...you and the New York Times. And, to be fair, shame on every single newspaper, network, blog, and radio program who aids in the spreading of baldfaced lies that promulgate the casus belli--the case for war. War that leaves hundreds of thousands of human beings--Americans and foreigners alike--dead and wounded; war that propels our national debt further into the stratosphere and plunges our national reputation deeper into the bowels of Hell.

They're doing it again, by the way. Robert Naiman has a post at Truthout entitled Judy Miller Alert! The New York Times Is Lying About Iran's Nuclear Program. An excerpt:

It's deja vu all over again. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is trying to trick America into another catastrophic war with a Middle Eastern country on behalf of the Likud Party's colonial ambitions, and The New York Times is lying about allegations that said country is developing "weapons of mass destruction."
In an article attributed to Steven Erlanger on January 4 ("Europe Takes Bold Step Toward a Ban on Iranian Oil"), this paragraph appeared:
The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear program has a military objective, is becoming an important issue in the American presidential campaign. [my emphasis]
The claim that there is "a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear program has a military objective" is a lie.
As Washington Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton noted on December 9:
But the IAEA report does not say Iran has a bomb, nor does it say it is building one, only that its multiyear effort pursuing nuclear technology is sophisticated and broad enough that it could be consistent with building a bomb.
Indeed, if you try now to find the offending paragraph on The New York Times web site, you can't. They took it down. But there is no note, like there is supposed to be, acknowledging that they changed the article, and that there was something wrong with it before. Sneaky, huh?
But you can still find the original here.
Indeed, at this writing, if you go to The New York Times web site and search on the phrase "military objective," the article pops right up. But if you open the article, the text is gone. But again, there is no explanatory note saying that they changed the text.
This is not an isolated example in the Times' reporting. The very same day - January 4 - The New York Times published anotherarticle, attributed to Clifford Krauss ("Oil Price Would Skyrocket if Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz "), that contained the following paragraph:
Various Iranian officials in recent weeks have said they would blockade the strait, which is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, if the United States and Europe imposed a tight oil embargo on their country in an effort to thwart its development of nuclear weapons [my emphasis].
At this writing, that text is still on The New York Times web site.

I have thought a great deal about our lamentable national gullibility, about how easily we fell, and continue to fall, for for these nefariously concocted casus belli, these distortions and lies and manufactured-out-of-whole-cloth threats that invariably lead to yet another epic conflict, to the draining of blood and treasure--ours and "theirs"--alike. And while I am fully aware that a certain contingency of Americans love a good war--especially if said war fulfills a need for vengeance on the part of the embattled and embittered--I also know that a much larger percentage of Americans would prefer having their tax dollars go toward American interests; would prefer that the minds and bodies of their children remain healthy and whole.

So why do we keep doing it? Why do we keep going along with it?

This had long baffled me. And then I read about a study, carried out by psychologists at Michigan State University, and I had a rather unpleasant epiphany. Read this, and then I'll tell you why I think we keep going along with it (and by "we", I mean, enough Americans so as to provide the White House and Congress the moral and electoral support for their warmongering) (emphasis mine):

At Michigan State University, subjects were placed in a virtual world setting of a railroad switch with the assignment of either pulling a joystick that would send a boxcar careening into a single hiker or choose to do nothing and watch as the same box car kills five hikers.

Out of 147 participants, 130 rerouted the boxcar into the path of the single hiker while 14 did nothing and three changed their minds at the last minute and decided to allow the five hikers to die.

Study researcher Carlos David Navarrete, an MSU evolutionary psychologist, said, "What we found is that the rule of 'Thou shalt not kill' can be overcome by considerations of the greater good."

The majority of the subjects, then, responded in ways that can be described as taking a Utilitarian approach--in short, they believe that the best course of action is the one which results in the greatest amount of good, or brings about the most happiness for the largest number of people. Those of us who took an ethics class or two in college might remember John Stuart Mill as one of the Patron Philosophers of Utilitarianism. Some of us have even quoted Mill from time to time--certainly we've carried the smooth and weather-seasoned stones that are his noble ideas around in our pockets; when faced with ethical quandaries, we've run our fingers over their cool permanence and been reassured.

But consider this: knowing that a significant majority of Americans fall into the "considerations for the greater good" camp--are Utilitarian, in this respect--all that anyone wishing to rally their support (support, in this case, for invading a sovereign nation) would need to do is frame his proposal in such a way--lying, if need be--that it meshes nicely with their desire to serve the greater good.

More aptly put: The psychologists in charge (the U.S. government, via propaganda in the national media) tell the volunteers (the American people) there are five hikers on the track who will be killed if they do nothing (there are nuclear weapons being developed by Iraq, and now Iran, and all kinds of death and epic destruction will occur it they're ever deployed; yellowcake plus metal tubes equals mushroom cloud!); however, they--the volunteers (the American people, its elected leaders, and its media)--can bring about a better outcome by operating the switch (supporting the invasion of Iraq, or Iran) and killing just the one hiker on the other track (destroying select targets and perhaps a town or two by raining some shock-and-awe down on them, and allowing our brave troops to serve their country by getting themselves wounded or killed, but we're only going after military targets and weapons factories--not civilians or anything like that--and there won't be that many wounded or killed. And anyway, we'll be out of there soon, probably within a Friedman Unit.)

The entire argument for utilitarianism, I am compelled to point out, hinges on the veracity of the conditions described. In order for people to be willing to pull the railroad switch and deliberately kill the single hiker, they must be certain that all the other conditions exist, and exist exactly as described. They must be certain the train really will kill the five hikers on the track if they do nothing. They must be certain that five hikers are even there in the first place. They must further be certain that their actions will only kill a singled hiker, too: if it is determined that the single hiker has suddenly morphed into more of them, or that the train, upon smacking into that hiker, will derail, roll down the mountainside, and take out a school full of children, say, I submit the majority of the volunteers--if not all of them--would be largely opposed to pulling that switch at all.

Truth is the first casualty of war, said Aeschylus.

The smoke-filled casus belli for attacking Iran continues to swell before our eyes, suffocating poor Truth yet again. But there is still time: time to drag the victim out into the air and sunlight; time to call out the liars in the press and the liars in Washington.

TransCanada Whistleblower: Keystone XL unsafe, will have catastrophic oil spills

2012-01-02T14:02:00.009-05:00

Cf.

In a bold and timely op-ed, Mike Klink, a civil engineer--and inspector with TransCanda during earlier phases of the Keystone project before his constant pointing-out of dangerous shortcuts, cheap materials and shoddy workmanship, and mind-blowingly poor siting choices got him fired--blows the whistle.

Actually, "whistle-blowing" seems like such a diminutive phrase to describe what he's doing. To my mind, it's more like grabbing a spare LRAD cannon from one of the ~~violent, authoritarian thugs~~ riot policemen at the latest stop-the-XL demonstration in Washington DC, packing it to the brim with weapons-grade truth, and firing it at the sleepy public.

If this doesn't get Americans' attention and make them scream at their government, night and day and all week long, and not stop until the President drives a final stake into the tarry heart of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, nothing will. To wit:

Despite its boosters' advertising, this project is not about jobs or energy security. It is about money. And whenever my former employer Bechtel, working on behalf of TransCanada, had to choose between safety and saving money, they chose to save money.

As an inspector, my job was to monitor the construction of the first Keystone pipeline. I oversaw construction at the pump stations that have been such a problem on that line, which has already spilled more than a dozen times. I am coming forward because my kids encouraged me to tell the truth about what was done and covered up.

When I last raised concerns about corners being cut, I lost my job — but people along the Keystone XL pathway have a lot more to lose if this project moves forward with the same shoddy work.

What did I see? Cheap foreign steel that cracked when workers tried to weld it, foundations for pump stations that you would never consider using in your own home, fudged safety tests, Bechtel staffers explaining away leaks during pressure tests as "not too bad," shortcuts on the steel and rebar that are essential for safe pipeline operation and siting of facilities on completely inappropriate spots like wetlands.

Go and read the whole thing. Then call or e-mail President Obama, as well as your senators and representatives, and get busy with the Twitter and Facebook buttons directly below this post. There isn't much time, and if President Obama's actions to date are anything to go by, his next thumbs-up for a wealthy, powerful interest--with an attendant thumbs-down to our dying hope for a sane energy policy and green future--is likely a foregone conclusion. In fact, I don't doubt that he'd have already signed it if it weren't for all those aforementioned pesky protesters, with their rag-tag signs about pending environmental disasters and their reams and reams of scientific evidence.

Onward to 2012: "We're all in this together, kid!"

2011-12-31T11:30:00.005-05:00

Very well, I'll say it: Terry Gilliam's Brazil is simply my favorite movie of all time. I'll often say things like "Brazil is in my top five favorite films", just to give myself a little wiggle room, because I also adore Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. And a number of other cinematic masterpieces by a number of other brilliant, visionary men and women. Okay, so maybe there are more than five on my list of favorite movies--let's say ten.

Still: Brazil. Good Lord, what an amazing and crystalline metaphor it is, from start to finish; what a chillingly prescient story; what a visually stunning, emotionally affective, and politically damning work of art.

Every time I watch this film, I come away with more to think about. Have you ever seen an actual terrorist?

I absolutely love the scene in the above clip, as it gives face and form (with no small amount of dark humor) to my hope for the coming months and years: that we can join together--and tackle and overcome in ways that are truly fitting and just--the monster that is any society so riven with fear and controlled by bureaucracy, its very fibers and ducts and veins and brains threaten to deliver it to its own doom.

So perhaps I am a dreamer. But I'm not, as Lennon said, the only one.

Never give in, never give in, never give in. Me, I'm not giving in to this fascistic shit, and I'm not going down without a fight. Are you? Didn't think so.

Long may we fight, and dream, together.

The TSA's little child pornography and predator problem: A Twisted, Sick Abomination

2011-12-29T11:34:00.003-05:00

You don't have to be a parent to feel utterly nauseated upon reading stories like this one, the details of which were just posted at The Smoking Gun (charges--two counts of felony child porn--were filed last month in a Maryland circuit court):

As cops raided his Maryland home, a Transportation Security Administration screener confessed to downloading child pornography, acknowledged that it was “not right in a legal and moral sense,” and stated that he has a “problem.”
The admissions by Scott Wilson, 41, came as Baltimore investigators recently searched his home after an undercover agent downloaded child porn from his computer via a file sharing program.

And you don't have to be a Nervous Nellie to make the logical leap to asking the obvious questions:

Is this a serious systemic problem, and are these government employees--who are tasked with screening American travelers by looking at their nude images, physically groping their sex organs, or both--themselves being screened?

Or could this simply be a case where, as in any large organization, one or two bad apples will turn up, and sometimes they'll display an ultra-high degree of rot?

Allow me to settle that for you right now (and I apologize that the truth of the matter is so disturbing): There are far more than a few "bad apples" floating around the TSA barrel. Even as we, the traveling public, are expected to allow strangers to aggressively touch us--and, until recently, our babies and children--on any and every body part (and many parents report being barked at to "stand back", or move to a different location, while this happens), we are clearly not being afforded the kind of protection from child molesters, rapists, and other sexual predators that one would expect. Certainly one would not expect an organization whose job it is to "keep us safe" to be hiring child porn enthusiasts, child molesters, and child rapists.

In Boston:

Andrew W. Cheever, 33, appeared before on a complaint charging him with possession of child pornography. Last December, State Police executed a state search warrant of Cheever's former residence in Lowell. The initial search identified approximately 2,000 images of child pornography and several uniform items bearing the TSA logo.

In Spring Creek, Idaho:

The Elko County Sheriff’s Office was notified in July of possible sexual contact between David Ralph Anderson, 61, and a girl younger than 14.
According to Elko Justice Court records, the victim told investigators that on seven to 10 occasions between 2010 and this year, Anderson allegedly taught the victim about various sexual acts and had sexual contact in the form of touching each other’s genitals. [...] Anderson, who is a TSA employee according to Elko County Jail records, is being held on $250,000 bail.

In Orlando:

Suspects include then-Transportation Security Administration agent Paul David Rains, 62, of Orlando, who no longer works for the agency.
He and the other suspects face charges ranging from child pornography and sex battery to lewd and lascivious assault and sexual performance by a child.

In Philadelphia:

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.
Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

In Nashville:

A TSA agent has been arrested in Rutherford County on charges of statutory rape.
Clifton Lyles was arrested by U.S. Marshals Tuesday night, following a grand jury indictment.

In Londonderry, New Hampshire:

A TSA employee who worked at Manchester Boston Regional Airport has been arrested on five counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, according to police.
Police arrested Dwayne Valerio, 44, at his 192 Rockingham Road home on Friday, March 18, according to Lt. Robert Michaud. Police released few details on what led to his arrest, citing the alleged victim's age.
"The victim is a juvenile," he said.

Again in Orlando:

A TSA agent has been arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a minor after police say he tried to keep a girl as a sex slave. Police arrested 57-year-old Charles Bennett of Winter Garden on Friday. A 15-year-old girl was the one who reported him to police.
According to reports from the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the Orange County Jail, the 15-year-old victim confided in her caregivers that Bennett had touched her inappropriately three years ago when she was 12. She says he also asked the young girl to be his "sex slave," an accusation investigators say Bennett admitted to in a written statement to police.

And again in Boston:

A Transportation Security Administration worker at Logan International Airport is accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Sean Shanahan, 45, of Winthrop is being held on $50,000 cash bail following his arraignment in East Boston District Court. He is charged with statutory rape, enticement of a child and indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older.

-----

And these are just the 2011 incidents! It must be further noted: the vast majority of sex crimes--like enticement, molestation, and rape--are not reported (for example, only about one in six incidents of rape are reported). This is due to a complicated array of cultural and legal factors that includes misplaced shame (where victims, especially young ones, blame themselves), fear of having to relive a horrific incident in a courtroom setting, fear of retribution, fear of the perpetrator himself, and more. Thus, we can fairly conclude that there were even more such crimes committed by TSA employees than those in the hardly-brief list above.

For its part, the TSA repeatedly claims to have thoroughly screened all applicants:

"TSA cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation, however, we can assure travelers every TSA employee is subject to a significant background check, including criminal history, before they are offered a job. Unfortunately, these checks do not predict future behavior. This individual is not working at the airport at the present time."

Translation: Hey, these guys don't work for us any more--what are you worried about? Don't blame us! We aren't fortune-tellers and you can't expect us to be able to tell if someone is going to commit a crime in the future...oh, wait...

(H/T Bill Fisher for the 2011 links)

Steve Martin's Christmas Wish

2011-12-23T13:52:00.002-05:00

I couldn't resist posting this classic SNL Christmas clip. I first experienced Steve Martin's unique wit when I attended a concert of his at the University of Florida, waaaaay back in the day (late 1970's). It was during his arrow-on-the-head period. I remember his hilarious "my cat is a criminal" bit, wherein he confessed to buying cat-cuffs to keep his feline from shoplifting. (You had to be there.)

This SNL spot may or may not be the first of a few classic Christmas clips I post; it all depends on the traffic out there this afternoon!

Anyway, allow me to take this opportunity to wish my readers a truly fabulous holiday. Let's all wish for PEACE in the New Year.

With love and thanks for your friendship,

Deborah
XXXXX

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Homeland Security guy...

2011-12-22T11:04:00.009-05:00

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, and other agencies working within the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) model, want to implement mobile mind-reading units everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean not just at airports (emphasis mine):

The FAST program has now completed its first round of field tests on the public. According to DHS, one of the program’s primary goals is to bring security to “open” areas–such as Metro, Amtrak and mass transit systems other than aviation–where threats could go undetected. The Mobile Module, according to DHS, “could be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions.”

In the field tests, DHS tested the Mobile Module in at least one location in the Northeast. “It is not an airport,” Verrico told Nature magazine, “but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute for an operational setting.” Whether these subjects knew they were participating in a FAST study is unclear.

EPIC claims that DHS documents reveal efforts to “collect, process, or retain information on” members of the public who likely did not give their consent. “We do think this is a program with great privacy risks,” says John Verdi, director of EPIC’s Open Government Project. Back in 2008, the DHS conducted a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), but when FAST moved into its public testing phase, Verdi says, “Our requests have revealed that the agency did not perform a PIA. In our view that is against the federal law.”

"...Large public events such as sporting events or conventions.”

Never mind the Fourth Amendment.

Never mind the fact that some people, i.e. sociopaths (the very people who can commit violent crimes like terrorism without experiencing guilt beforehand or remorse afterwards), don't always present with psychological indicators--with physical or biochemical "tells"--when they deceive, thus rendering these expensive, intrusive, James-Bond-wannabe mind-reading units as good as useless.

Let's be clear-eyed here: this is about three things, and three things alone.

(1) Money. Not for you or me, silly. Money for the security contractor(s) who are selling these ridiculous apparatuses to the DHS (and as flush with tax dollars as that agency is, they are an attractive mark) and, of course, money for the campaign coffers of the various politicians enabling this unconstitutional rubbish. Oh, and for any stray former government official who has the new job title of "consultant".

(2) Fearmongering, because when people are afraid, they will more likely believe what the authorities tell them, and they will (apparently) put up with almost anything.

(3) Conditioning. Fifteen years ago, if you'd told me that law-abiding Americans wanting to fly somewhere in their own country would in the near future be lining up like cattle at the slaughter; taking off their shoes; allowing themselves to be irradiated while someone viewed their unclothed bodies on a screen; allowing themselves to be aggressively groped--and their children to be touched, by someone who is not a parent or doctor, on the parts of their bodies they are otherwise taught are private and personal--I'd have said you were making things up.

It may have taken a little time, but the DHS and TSA have succeeded in conditioning most of the traveling public. They've largely got the media on their side, too--"It's just to keep us safe!"--and they've been slowing ramping up the intrusiveness in the past couple of years, happily allotting billions of our tax dollars to buy all these whiz-bang machines and enrich their well-connected manufacturers, reacting with horror--and even lawsuits--when the occasional civil libertarian cries out after having a stranger grope and penetrate her at the airport: "How dare you call our agents rapists! Even though they raped you!"

(And only Pravda--yes, that Pravda--would publish her account.)

It needs to be repeated, and often: The TSA has not thwarted a SINGLE terrorism attempt. Not a one. The attempts were thwarted by good investigative work on the ground, long before anyone with terrorism in mind got near an airport, and alert, motivated passengers.

Whither our civil liberties?

Also at TSA News

To those who muse about "Spreading Democracy", revisited (Kim Jong-il version)

2011-12-19T11:06:00.005-05:00

During an acute famine in the 1990's, starving North Korean refugees--often accompanied by human traffickers--attempted to cross the Tumen River into China; death by freezing was commonplace

And who, while decrying the dictatorial splinter in the collective cornea of yet another palm-tree-lined nation* doing us no harm, all the while ignoring the beam lodged in their own myopic eye; and who, to this day, and despite mounting evidence to the contrary, tell the citizenry that promoting freedom is what they've been doing all this time, even as the blood and treasure belonging to their own people continue to spill unabated while those occupied but not yet dead face an uncertain (but certainly violent) present and future; and who persist, inexplicably and without remorse or fear of reproof, in sanctioning further curtailment of that selfsame freedom with the suspension of habeas corpus and with every presidentially-approved, unconstitutional wiretap and illegal invasion of citizens' privacy, I offer the words of another notable Latin American:

THE DICTATORS

By Pablo Neruda

An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence.

[* Upon learning that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il had died, my thoughts returned to Pablo Neruda's poem, to its vital and crystalline truths and how they live on. I had a similar reaction to the one shared above when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008. Plus ça change...]

Sunday Frank: Zappa in Czechoslovakia with Václav Havel, 1990

2011-12-18T17:01:00.006-05:00

This is some wonderful footage of Frank Zappa in 1990, when he visited the late Václav Havel in then- Czechoslovakia shortly after it became autonomous. This is Part Three of Four in the collection posted on YouTube (thank you, reldditmot). (Here are the others, which are very much worth watching: Part One, Part Two, Part Four.) It's an interview Zappa did with Czech press, covering various political topics, including what Zappa saw as a sort of institutional stupidity that had taken hold in the States over the past decade or so.

This stupidity condition, Zappa said, has largely been imposed on the citizenry by popular culture and religion, then aided and abetted in its contagion by a leadership with its own nefarious reasons for keeping everything and everyone dumbed-down.

Do watch it. Zappa was, undeniably, a curmudgeon. His opinions can rub liberals the wrong way (I certainly don't agree with everything he ever said, but then, about whom can any of us say that?). But as you'll see, he was right about the consequences of not funding education properly; of allowing the shortages of teachers, especially in critical subjects, to continue; of spreading teachers too thinly and having them teach subjects other than the ones they've trained in. (Zappa points to geography as one overlooked, underfunded subject, and expresses his dismay that many American kids can't identify their own country, much less foreign ones, on a world map). And he points to a dangerous problem--one that has only worsened in the years since--namely, the control of textbooks and their content. Textbooks should of course contain only facts, but instead acquire an overtly theist framing--and thus bias--due to their having to pass muster with Christianist censors (and be edited accordingly) before the public school system can buy and use them.

And finally, oh dear, was Frank Zappa not scarily prescient about what happens when a national complacency pandemic takes hold--usually during strong economies--and people are comfortable and not paying attention to the the goings-on within government, meanwhile politicians begin stealing and pulling tricks that benefit a tiny minority?

RIP Václav Havel
RIP Frank Zappa

How to travel with your rights intact (or, How much time have you got?)

2011-11-26T13:04:00.004-05:00

Air travel in America--at any time of year--carries with it a certain amount of stress and worry no matter how well-prepared we are. During the holidays, however, airports are routinely more crowded and travelers more harried, with weather events causing flight delays and global events often leading to frequent changes in security procedures that are almost impossible to keep up with (and, to be sure, that are inconsistently applied, further adding to the confusion).

Those of us who do not wish to give up our civil liberties in order to get from Point A to Point B might face additional delays. The ACLU offers excellent guidelines for navigating airport security, but even they warn travelers that "opting out" of the notorious scanners, for example, will probably mean you'll have to wait for an appropriate agent to be located (or freed up) in order to perform the also-notorious "enhanced pat-down". And if you decline to answer a question during the so-called SPOT interview, you may well be selected for secondary screening. Meaning, more delay. From their website:

OPTION: Decline to answer
You can decline to answer questions or reply to each question politely with the simple words, “personal business.” However, if the TSA officer does not feel that you are answering his or her questions, they may select you for secondary screening.

Clearly, the vast majority of travelers are interested in getting to their destination (and out of that crowded, hectic airport!) as quickly and smoothly as possible. Thus, the TSA dangles the carrot of convenience over our heads: "Just go through the scanner; it's much quicker!" or else "If you refuse to answer more specifically, we'll have to send you through secondary screening, which is currently backed up and could take...oh, another forty-five minutes to an hour, at least".

Regardless of what your personal boundaries are when it comes to acceptable intrusions into your privacy, if you must travel by air, it makes sense to be as fully-informed about current security conditions as possible, and if you're flying with medical devices, medicine, or breast milk, to print out the TSA's own rules--you have the right to request that an office conduct a "visual inspection"--and carry them with you in case the agent you encounter doesn't appear to be terribly well-versed in them. (Although as observers will note, even doing just that--printing out the TSA's rules for medicines and milk, etc., and carrying a copy with you--will not always prevent your being unfairly detained and seriously delayed, as this unfortunate working mother discovered.)

TSA Newsblogger Sommer Gentry has an excellent post that further details what the TSA can and cannot do. She describes how she avoids the scanner machines in part by choosing her routes (and airports) carefully and provides a link to TSA Status, which is updated frequently (almost in real-time!) and lets travelers know which airports (and terminals) are using the scanners, and to what degree. She further reminds us that:

Every traveler has a right to refuse TSA searches
If the TSA tries to do something to you that you find offensive, you should say no. Although the TSA has threatened travelers with fines and tried to argue that walking away isn’t permitted, in practice the TSA has no power other than the power to deny you access to the boarding gates. The police do have the power to detain you, but that requires individualized suspicion, something that you do not exhibit merely by purchasing an airline ticket.
Since the TSA has steadfastly refused to describe exactly what anyone might be subjected to at a checkpoint, many travelers will find themselves pressured to bow to unpredictable and unreasonable demands. For instance, a handful of flyers report being physically strip searched in private rooms, and some women were coerced to bare their breasts to male screeners in a stairwell – would you comply?
Protecting yourself from invasive searches requires only willingness to abandon your travel plans and make new ones. United Airlines was wonderful and rebooked me for a later flight the same day from Reagan Airport, where there are no scanners in Terminal A. The United employee who helped me even agreed with my stance, telling me that he thought the scanners were “not decent. They shouldn’t do that to people, it’s just not decent.”

To my mind, the best (and perhaps most difficult-to-follow) security-related travel advice of all is this sentence: Protecting yourself from invasive searches requires only willingness to abandon your travel plans and make new ones.

Which means, research other flight options well beforehand, if possible, and plan your day accordingly. If you wish to avoid the scanners for privacy or health reasons (or both), build in plenty of extra time for the agency to locate that elusive special person to do the enhanced pat-down. If you're 100% opposed to being physically searched on certain parts of your body--and plenty of us are, for a number of reasons--understand that you may have to walk from that particular flight and take another one, perhaps from a different terminal or city, even.

As for me, I was thrilled to recently learn that Tampa has a lovely renovated and historic train station which is itself a "tourist destination"--where have I been?!--although I am not so thrilled to learn that the TSA has been conducting passenger searches and pat-downs, as part of the VIPR program, at Amtrak and bus stations too. And John Pistole is pressuring Congress to add 12 more VIPR units to the current 25 in 2012.

That's another post for another day.

Also at TSA News Blog.

La Pepperica

2011-11-21T11:33:00.005-05:00

[Lots of other good ones here.]

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

So which is it, President Obama? Which is it going to be?

This much is certain: No-one in my sons' history books is quoted as having said, "Give me tyranny or give me death."

Visitors will not line up to visit a Statue of Tyranny any time soon.

"With tyranny and justice for all..." is a contradiction in terms.

And good luck trying to convince idealistic young men and women that they're being sent to fight and die in OPEC theatres because it's vitally important to protect Americans'...tyranny.

Methinks a re-write is in order:

My country 'tis of Them--

Sweet tyrants to the end.

For Them, we toil.

Land where our sick ones died,

Banks ruled, and leaders lied;

From ev'ry mountainside:

"Let them eat oil!"

The US government's unconscionable and unconstitutional brutality toward its own peaceful citizens

2011-11-20T10:20:00.006-05:00

Police begin pepper-spraying the faces of peaceful student protesters at UC Davis; shortly thereafter, they beat them and held them down, forcing pepper spray down their throats.

Photo by Louise Macabitas

"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." —President Barack Obama

Oh yeah?

The United States will stand up for them everywhere?

What about right here at home, President Obama? What about refraining from violence against peaceful protesters RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA? Or is it easier to just turn the whole thing over to the jackboots in Homeland Security and let them coordinate these shocking, brutal crackdowns as you distance yourself from the Occupy movement lest you piss off your Wall Street donors?

Where is the leadership?

Not to go all Emoprog here, but really, What the fuck, President Obama?

WHERE IS THE LEADERSHIP?

#ThisIsNotAmerica

Taking it to the belly of the beast: Occupy the Boardroom

2011-10-22T11:33:00.004-04:00

This project--Occupy the Boardroom--is the newborn brainchild of friends, and it is brilliant, having truly taken off, and just in the past week. Even Jamie Dimon has received (and opened) his messages. Limitless greed and malfeasance on the part of Wall Street and the banks have devastated the lives of American families everywhere.

Yes, those are some "1-percenters" in the pic; they're yukking it up while actually drinking Champagne on a balcony over the Wall St. protests.

(I love a glass of good Champers as much as anyone, but I'll never be that, er, classy.)

Here, read just one true story. Then go read the rest and get truly pissed-off. You might even be moved to share your own tale with one of the many "pen pals" OTBR has listed. Or else just share the post itself. Courage!

Tax Breaks Aren't For Offshoring Jobs
From July 1, 2008 until May 18, 2010, I worked for JPMorgan Chase. I was hired through a temp service to do internal IT support over the phone. When hired I was told that if I kept my statistics (first call resolution, and call times) down that I would eventually be hired as an actual employee of Chase. Despite my statistics consistently being in the top 10 of all of the employees in my department, not just the other temps, after two years I was not only not hired, but I was laid off. However during that two years other temps with stats much worse than mine were hired. My reason for not being hired was never explained to me. It could have been the fact that I am in a wheelchair and Chase didn’t want a disabled woman bringing up their insurance rates, or perhaps it is because I am a lesbian and other than myself there was one other homosexual in the department who was actually an employee, but was also laid off at the same time as me.

The whole come work for us and we will eventually give you a great job with awesome benefits was just a scheme. In 2008 Chase received a State tax credit from Ohio and in return they were to create 1200 new jobs within the state. So what did they do? They hired a bunch of temporary employees, got their tax credit, and kept the temporary employees on staff long enough to not only not lose their tax credit, but to also set up their call center in the Philippines. Then two years later they laid off hundreds of people causing the state to lose more jobs than they had gained during that two year period. Other internal IT departments were outsourced to Mexico and the credit card fraud department was exported to India. Though you surely know all of this.

So through a loophole in the system your company caused more people in our state to be unemployed and still took taxpayer money to stuff your own pockets with under the guise of being a company creating more jobs.

-Name Withheld

An exemplar extraordinaire--please join me in saying Brava! Bravissima! for Lisa Simeone

2011-10-21T16:21:00.007-04:00

Greetings from the warm wilds of Florida's Gulf coast, where exhausted mothers can stop talking (or writing) for weeks before someone notices, and of course all hell (and other great stories) will break loose in the meantime, and someone will eventually go, Er, anyone heard from D in a while?

I know, I know. I am a horrible blogger sometimes--my only excuse is that blogging must necessarily come after all the other concerns, and once those are addressed, I am often too wiped-out to scribble out as much as a grocery list (not that I do those, actually--I'm an incorrigible fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants person). So, personal matters, health matters, and a dire lack of energy on my part have occupied my life and consciousness even as real live human beings have occupied our imagination and city squares, demanding that our leaders pay attention to the vast majority of us--and our serious problems, which include (but are not limited to) the ongoing unemployment disaster, the foreclosure crisis, and the dramatically escalating costs of healthcare in the face of an insurance system that simply does not work.

I have of course been keeping up with the efforts of numerous friends who've participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement (and its many offshoots) and the October2011/Stop the Machine protests, particularly the work of friend and former Cogitamus co-blogger Lisa Simeone.

It will come as no surprise that I support Lisa's work and that I admire her. Tremendously. She has done what so few of us are able or willing to do: put her money where her mouth is, so to speak. Like me, Lisa was appalled at the Wikileaks revelations (re: Afghanistan brutalities) and disgusted at the unconstitutional treatment of PFC Bradley Manning, the soldier responsible for sending the government-embarrassing data to Wikileaks and who remains in prison, without formal charges, to this day.

Unlike me, all safe and comfy in my Florida home with my family and computer, Lisa marched at the White House and got arrested for her efforts.

She participated in the DC protests, keeping us up to date on the demonstrations and police activities alike.

Then, a horrible e-mail: Soundprint had fired her.

Simeone said she was fired Wednesday night by Moira Rankin, executive producer of “Soundprint,” a weekly documentary program that Simeone hosts. The program, independently produced, airs on NPR stations around the country.
“It was bewildering,” Simeone said. “She started by quoting all these reports from the Daily Caller, and I didn’t know even what that was. She said, ‘Are you involved with this organization [October 2011]? I said, ‘Yes, I was one of about 50 people who helped put this together.’ She said, ‘That’s a problem because I’m getting all these calls. I think you violated the NPR code of ethics.’”
“I said, ‘Can you explain how?’” Simeone went on. “Scott Simon writes Op-Eds. Cokie Roberts [is paid] tens of thousand of dollars in fees talking to business groups. Mara Liaason* goes on Fox TV to express her opinions. They all report on the issues — which I don’t do. I finally said, ‘Are you firing me?’ She said yes.”

But Lisa--a freelance radio host and writer, it should be noted, not an employee of NPR--was not buying it.

“I’ve never hid my views and my opinions have never leeched into what I do on NPR. People can listen to all my shows. When I was talking about ‘Tosca,’ I could have talked about the relevance today of Cavaradossi, the tenor who is a political prisoner and who is tortured. I didn’t mention it. It’s a show about opera, for God’s sake.”

There were talks. I wish I had been a fly on the wall. All I know is this: Lisa will continue hosting NPR's World of Opera.

And I hope to hell that a big cable channel will see her and hear her and offer her a plum position reporting on the arts, compensation to include unlimited use of the company's private jets.

Because Lisa--multilingual world traveler and connoisseur of beauty Lisa--has completely stopped flying in protest of the TSA's unconstitutional searches and seizures.

(Lisa, let me know if this comes to pass--I'll go with you to Paris or Palermo. Have vintage suits and old-school round hatboxes and hard-sided suitcases; will travel.)

And thanks also to Sir Charles for writing about this at the Cogblog.

Finally, an early Christmas present for Tucker Carlson:

* Edited to properly report Liaason's name, which Salon had misspelled. -- DNT

Chris Hedges speaks at Occupy Wall Street

2011-09-26T15:30:00.003-04:00

Writer and activist Chris Hedges has some powerful things to say about the forces and conditions that have led to the peaceful and many-days-long demonstration currently taking place in New York: Occupy Wall Street (peaceful on the part of protesters, that is; utterly and unforgivably violent on the part of the NYCPD, who are brutalizing and macing non-resisting people left and right, while shouting "Don't resist! I said, STOP RESISTING!" in an obvious attempt to cover their pathetic asses.)

Please watch and share. (And of course, watch the updated videos at Occupy Wall Street and share those, too.)

Book Review: Nassir Ghaemi's A First-Rate Madness is a first-rate read

2011-09-20T11:34:00.012-04:00

As I have written about before, I am more than passingly familiar with the euphoria of creativity-filled up-cycles as well as the darkness of their unfortunate counterparts, those hideous depressive phases during which everything seems boring or bleak; tears and hopelessness are the order of the day; and even simple activities like picking out a shirt or brushing hair turn into loathsome, dreaded, and even inexecutable chores--forget actually doing anything productive. So it was with great interest that I dove into the literary results of Dr. Nassir Ghaemi's intriguing research and analysis, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness.

Mental illness--well, I like to call it being Mentally Interesting, for which descriptor I will thank the writer (and fellow Mentally Interesting Person) Jerod Poore--is not quite the taboo subject it was a few decades ago; it is no longer a hush-hush domain to which mysteriously disappeared classmates are consigned ("Where did she go?" "I don't know, but I heard she had a nervous breakdown"); and--thank the Fates, along with relatively recent advances in neuroscience--it's no longer a complete mystery (although, it must be said, the human mind is inarguably the last great frontier, and modern medicine has only just begun to embark on its journey toward solving the biochemical and behavioral puzzles therein).

The core thesis of A First-Rate Madness: Rational, calm, balanced, agreeable, reasonable, conciliatory, and sane people are lovely to have around. Ahem. But when all Hell breaks loose, you want a leader who can stand at the edge of the abyss, confront the monster within, and stare that horned and tentacled bastard down. For this kind of nation-saving and history-making leadership, only a Mentally Interesting person will do, knowing as he or she does (like the back of the hand, in fact) the precise reach of said monster's limbs and the explicit scope of its awfulness.

At the outset, Ghaemi identifies the parallel nature of a clinician's diagnosis (of a mentally ill patient) and a historian's analysis. Both require a careful study of symptoms, of course, as well as an identification (if possible) of genetic components and an overview of indicated treatments--those sought, those avoided or not yet available, and those which succeeded (or failed).

Invoking the personal and fascinating stories of figures such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and Mahatmas Gandhi, Ghaemi then points to the qualities--conspicuous in their abundance--that variously characterize those leaders who suffer with (and also, to be sure, exalt in) mental illness throughout the course of their lives, those being: Creativity, realism, empathy, and resilience.

In the case of General Sherman, for example, we are shown a leader who wholly transformed warfare from the faltering Napoleonic model of concentrated frontal assault to a bold and creative approach which took into account the economic and moral aspects of rebellion and thus enabled a totality of destruction that was at once brutal and wildly successful. But he was not, despite popular myth, a glorifier of war. Ghaemi explains:

Reconstructing the real Sherman, with his coercion as well as his complexity, means recognizing that he had manic-depressive illness. In fact, of all the leaders in this book, I would say that Sherman is the prototypical mentally ill leader. In different aspects of his bipolar disorder, he displayed many of the powers of mental illness to improve leadership: depressive realism, empathy for the South (before and after the war), resilience beyond measure, and unique military creativity. Yet until recently, no historian had carefully assessed whether Sherman himself suffered from deep, indeed sick emotions. This task was taken up by Michael Fellman, a gregarious American, self-exiled in Canada since the 1960s, where he is professor emeritus of history at Simon Fraser University. A specialist in the American Civil War, Fellman had been taught traditional history: trace the documents of who did what, who said what, and what happened; pull it together for the reader; and let it go. Such history seldom made well-grounded analyses about the abnormal mental states of the people it studied.

Having himself suffered a painful depression, Fellman realized that traditional history was mistaken because such conditions have an enormous impact on people--famous, infamous, and obscure. He became attuned to evidence of abnormal mental states among the Civil War figures he studied. Besides Lincoln's melancholy, Fellman discovered depressive tendencies in Robert E. Lee, and outright mental illness in General Sherman. What followed was a biography--researching and reporting facts based on primary sources--that a century after Sherman's own memoir unmasked the whole man: greater than we thought, in part because he was much sicker than we knew.

Greater than we thought, in part because he was much sicker than we knew.

A First-Rate Madness is suffused throughout with this generosity of spirit, with bittersweet reflections and a profoundly humane sensibility. (In fact, while reading it, one might wonder if the author himself is also a Mentally Interesting human being, so impeccable and accurate are his observations of the afflicted.)

To wit: the layperson, upon reading about the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King, might infer that pacifism and idealism were both central components of his character and dominant forces that controlled his worldview. Not so, asserts Ghaemi, who proceeds to construct a portrait far richer, and more textured and heartbreakingly real, than any study of Dr. King this writer has encountered to date (my emphasis):

The Martin Luther King of popular mythology is a cardboard icon, brought out once a year on a holiday, with little resemblance to the real historical man. The cardboard King was a pacifist idealist; he wanted everyone to make peace and hold hands. The real King was an aggressive, confrontational realist; he believed that all men were evil in part, including himself; he thought that violence was everywhere and unavoidable, including within himself. "Nonviolence" did not mean the absence of violence, but the control of violence so that it was directed inward rather than outward.

And there are many, many more such insights to be appreciated in this fine book, as well as a clear-eyed analysis of those leaders whose personalities might best be described as even-keeled, rational, or else well-balanced, but whose marks on history--if even they made any--are mostly pastel-hued and watery as opposed to fierce, glittering, bloody, or--invoking here the title of another enlightening book by a thoughtful psychologist (Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison)--touched by fire.

A written work may be described as truly successful, I think, when you find yourself quoting it in your head, even weeks and months after having read its final passages. Inasmuch as I have been doing just that--taking in the words and deeds of our current American leadership with new eyes, even--I'd say that A First-Rate Madness is an extraordinary accomplishment. And I highly recommend it.

-------------

Footnote:

Unlike numerous recently-published tomes, Dr. Ghaemi's book--refreshingly, and perhaps intentionally--steers clear of former half-term Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, despite her erratic behavior, propensity to deceive, and general mental instability, all of which are topics of analysis you'd think would be irresistible to any academic psychiatrist, particularly one who's exploring the connection between mental illness and leadership. When I wondered aloud why this might be so, my eldest son's quip provided the obvious answer:

"That's because she's not a leader, Mama."

UPDATE: be sure to check out Dr. Ghaemi's blog, Mood Swings.

It's hard to believe he was a Republican

2011-09-10T09:19:00.007-04:00

“Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

- President Dwight Eisenhower (R)

Break for beauty: the amazing Alina Cojocaru dances Don Quixote with Johan Korborg

2011-09-08T07:59:00.003-04:00

Meet Alina Cojocaru, a stunningly talented Romanian ballerina--now a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet of London--who in my humble opinion may well become the next Margot Fonteyn (and as you can imagine, I would never make such comparisons lightly). I'm not certain of the date of this performance; Cojocaru's Kirti (in Don Quixote) marked her debut ballet with the Kiev school in the mid-nineties, when she was a teen. She's now thirty and is engaged to her partner Johan Korborg, who, as you can see in this clip, is no slouch himself.

But as for Cojocaru...*sigh*...what beautiful lines and what absolutely incredible extension. I watched this three times, with a goosebumps bristling along my limbs and lump wedged in my throat. She's technically near-perfect but is by no means a flawless dancer, not yet: she travels a tiny bit while executing those whiplash fouettes, for one thing. And dancing Kirti requires more fire, at least to my romantic mind. Cojocaru will mature and develop subtleties like emotionality and musicality over time. In this performance, however, she is perhaps too calm and collected.

Nonetheless, I am sure Dame Margot would approve. I know I'll be watching.

Mutinous Memories

2011-09-07T18:36:00.003-04:00

My Mum recently sent me the link to a 2005 article in Miami New Times about the heyday of a certain notorious nightclub in that city, where I lived as a teenager. It was called The Mutiny:

In its time there was nothing like the Mutiny Hotel and today it lives on in hindsight like the afterimage of a hallucination, bright but blurry. The Mississippi Delta is said to begin in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis; likewise the Mutiny in its day defined Miami's psychic boundaries. It was the nerve center of the city's exploding cocaine trade, a favorite hangout of globetrotting spies, and a desperately popular watering hole for Latin America's nouveau riche. It was meant to be elegant, and was, but early on it became infamous and edgy, and reveled in the reputation. Its most decadent highs were a carnival barker's advertisement for the Seventies, and its decline was an early object lesson in America's S&L crisis."I did a movie called life, with actors that were real people," says Burton Goldberg, former owner of the Mutiny. "We had dictators, secret police, drug people, bankers, the international trade, gunrunners, and celebrities: Rod Serling, Senator Kennedy, Cher, Hamilton Jordan, Jacqueline Onassis, George Bush. Mimes and magicians! Naked dancers in very fine taste, not prurient! Music! Chairs with enormous arms!

As it so happens, the Mutiny was where Yours Truly worked as a waitress for several months during a semester-long hiatus from my junior year at UF. A few years ago, I wrote about the experience here at Litbrit, as well for Ezra's eponymously-titled blog. At the time, I changed the names of the club--and certain patrons--to protect the not-so-innocent. But what the hell, the club itself is no more, and my choice of faux names--The Uprising--was a pretty transparent synonym for the club's real name, anyway.

If you like Scarface and spy novels--or perhaps just fancy a break from all the politics and sad, sad 9/11 stuff that's on the tube and in the 'Tubes this week--you might enjoy my little memoir/story about working and living it up Miami-style at the end of the Disco age. I invite you to read Sunshine, Cigar Boxes, and Semi-Automatics:

With Lena's help, I opened and poured bottle after bottle of Dom Pérignon; I served Ceasar salads and filets mignon and enormous Maine lobsters erupting crabmeat and brandied cream; and I brought several glasses of Johnny Walker Black on the rocks from the bar, where I'd already made friends with Sam, an art student at Florida International and a fellow Monty Python wonk.

"Alberto's here again, huh?" he said when I requested the third such cocktail. "Though pretty much everyone drinks this, you'll find. But it's Monday, and there aren't too many people who can put away this much Scotch on a weeknight." He drained the bottle and slipped its nozzle onto a new, full one. "You'll have fun here. You'll make good money."

So I had heard. But thus far, Lena and I had waited on exactly one party.

By three in the morning, though, I'd served a few other tables and opened another half-dozen bottles of Champagne. Alberto and his crew were beginning to look restless, but they hadn't asked for the check. I was certain it would be outrageous, well into the hundreds of dollars; Lena informed me that the two grand Alberto spent that night was nothing compared to some of his weekend expenditures, indeed, nothing compared to the bankrolls through which some of the club's other guests regularly burned. [Continued...]

I know what I did this summer

2011-08-21T14:19:00.006-04:00

[Definitely click to embiggen and read.]

Besides melting, boy-maintaining, reading, drinking iced-tea, eating watermelon, and playing with Photoshop, I was able to get in some high-quality sleeping, although I did have a few nightmares, most of them brought on by daytime musing on the prospect of a right-wing religious ideologue winning the presidency next year.

These nightmares intensified when I learned more about NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation movement, and its far-reaching involvement in American society, culture, and politics. NAR is the force behind newly-announced presidential candidate, Texas Governor Rick Perry. From the Texas Observer (emphasis mine):

Unlike other radical religious groups, the New Apostles believe political activism is part of their divine mission. “Whereas their spiritual forefathers in the Pentecostal movement would have eschewed involvement in politics, the New Apostles believe they have a divine mandate to rescue a decaying American society,” said Margaret Poloma, a practicing Pentecostal and professor of sociology at the University of Akron. “Their apostolic vision is to usher in the Kingdom of God.”

“Where does God stop and they begin?” she asks. “I don't think they know the difference.”

Poloma is one of the few academics who has closely studied the apostolic movement. It’s largely escaped notice, in part, because it lacks the traditional structures of either politics or religion, says Rachel Tabachnick, a researcher who has covered the movement extensively for Talk2Action.org, a left-leaning site that covers the religious right.

“It’s fairly recent and it just doesn’t fit into people’s pre-conceived notions,” she says. “They can’t get their head around something that isn’t denominational.”

The movement operates through a loose but interlocking array of churches, ministries, councils and seminaries—many of them in Texas. But mostly it holds together through the friendships and alliances of its prophets and apostles.

The Response itself seems patterned on TheCall, day-long worship and prayer rallies usually laced with anti-gay and anti-abortion messages. TheCall—also the name of a Kansas City-based organization—is led by Lou Engle, an apostle who looks a bit like Mr. Magoo and has the unnerving habit of rocking back and forth while shouting at his audience in a raspy voice. (Engle is also closely associated with the International House of Prayer—, Mike Bickle’s 24/7 prayer center in Kansas City.) Engle frequently mobilizes his followers in the service of earthly causes, holding raucous prayer events in California to help pass Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, and making an appearance in Uganda last year to lend aid to those trying to pass a law that would have imposed the death penalty on homosexuals. But Engle's larger aim is Christian control of government.

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God,” he has said. “We are called into the very image of the Trinity himself, that we are to be His friends and partners for world dominion.”

“It sounds so fringe but yet it’s not fringe,” Tabachnick says. “They’ve been working with Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, and now Rick Perry. ... They are becoming much more politically noticeable.” [...]

The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms. They refer to the “Seven Mountains” of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.

I plan to keep close tabs on these worrisome gentlefolk. NARWatch makes it easy--bookmarked and done (thanks, Rachel!) (To really stay up-to-the-minute, be sure to like NARWatch on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.)

Sorry, fundies, you may have succeeded in passing anti-women laws like mandatory ultrasounds in Florida, but I'm not ready to change my name to OfRobert and give up reading books. Not just yet.

Friday Frank: Heavenly Bank Account; New York, 1982

2011-07-22T14:53:00.003-04:00

As relevant as ever.

That's right, you ain't got nothing, and they've got it all, and your miserable ass is up against the wall...

Thank you, Maestro; you certainly called it. *Deep sigh.*

And with that--oh hey, it's after three! I'm off to see if there's any rum left over from last weekend's mojitos.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

Allen West is a gentleman

2011-07-21T13:25:00.003-04:00

There are no words.

Memo to Joe Walsh: Taxes are already at a historic low--even lower than they were under Republican presidents

2011-07-20T14:38:00.009-04:00

(H/T Laffy for the video)

I watched the exceedingly rude, arrogant, and condescending Congressman Joe Walsh on Hardball Monday night, and as he interrupted, sidestepped, and over-talked his host, I did a little talking of my own, to my hapless television set (come on, you know you do it, too).

Like virtually all who signed Grover Norquist's No Tax Increase pledge--and then deny that Grover Norquist tells them what to do--Walsh pushes the narrative that even closing loopholes and adjusting definitions of qualified deductions are the same thing as sucking the lifeblood from the job-creators who, he keeps promising, will eventually produce all these magical jobs if we just believe hard enough and stop asking them to pay their fair share.

(Comedian Bill Maher describes this nonsense as regarding "job creators"--aka the wealthy/corporate class--as some sort of delicate and endangered exotic animals at the center of a National Geographic feature: Shhh! Don't upset them! They'll run away!)

And while the deranged House Republicans chug along in their clown car, sometimes spinning in circles, always lurching toward the default cliff they seem to want to take the country right over, too many Democrats are oddly silent about the dire need to increase revenue if we're to ever get within spitting distance of balancing the budget one day, which is what the president wants, even if people like me would suggest that job creation via bold, broad, and inarguably necessary infrastructure spending should be the first priority.

Taxation in America--money coming in--is at a historic low. Expenditures, thanks in large part to those big, expensive wars, are at a historic high. I'm no math fiend, but even I can see the problem here.

But for those who, like Congressman Walsh, would seem to be even more math challenged than I, perhaps a nice graphic would help get the point across:

(Via.)

Alan Grayson running for Congress; vows to fight Washington's culture of "Meanies and Weenies"

2011-07-12T15:08:00.003-04:00

All of this compromise hasn't accomplished anything useful for anybody on our side...the President should be saying to people, "The Republican party is cruel; the Republican party is bigoted; the Republican party cares only about tax breaks for the rich."

-- Congressman-to-once-again-be Alan Grayson, D-FL

YEAH.

Yesterday, Alan Grayson declared his candidacy; my Mum and Dad's lost cat Manuel suddenly showed up at their door after worrying everyone sick for a week (and he seems no worse for wear); and I baked an enormous pan of Georgia peach cobbler which my lads thoroughly enjoyed, hot from the oven, with vanilla Häagen-Dazs melting in rivulets all over it. Not bad for a Monday, and sweltering summer Monday at that!

What's making you happy this week?

Friday Frank: Montana; New York, 1982

2011-07-08T16:12:00.002-04:00

I was just thinking to myself, Wow, I haven't posted a Friday Frank in ages. ( This rainy afternoon has inspired me to spend entirely too much time poking around YouTube for old favorites.)

This one is too good to not share. I only wish it were longer.

Bon Weekend, everyone--and stay dry!

XXX
D.

Fourth thought

2011-07-03T23:00:00.008-04:00

"Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

-- John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty

Freedom From and Freedom To: We're giving away our privacy and liberty, and for what?

2011-06-26T13:18:00.008-04:00

Comedian Lee Camp riffs on the worrisome state of American privacy in one of his great Moments of Clarity.

I have long maintained that the concepts of Freedom From and Freedom To are both vital components of human liberty (and I thank Margaret Atwood for introducing this concept to my young feminist's brain via her masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale).

Indeed, without Freedom From, Freedom To--the necessary foundation upon which any bona fide pursuit of happiness gets built--becomes, itself, an untenable concept.

As our Freedom From is curtailed, so goes our Freedom To. When law-abiding citizens are increasingly prevented from traveling freely about their own country by air, and now by train, bus, and car--as they are searched, x-rayed, groped, and humiliated, absent probable cause, mind you, and even assaulted, and by agents of the We-the-People government that is supposed to be by, for, and of US--these selfsame citizens are also realizing a parallel curtailment of their human potential.

Think of all the opportunities missed, the creativity hampered, the activism delayed, the commerce sacrificed, and the education denied due to the vast reduction of our Freedom From unconstitutional searches and privacy invasions. Every former gypsy and rambling man I know--even people who'd consider themselves apolitical and TSA-agnostic--has drastically reduced his or her travel to a bare minimum these days, if they even leave home at all. And when you ask why, the answer will never be fear of terrorism, but rather, will almost invariably center around an extreme distaste for the overbearing and omnipresent Security State and its concomitant time-sucking nature. It's just not worth it, they say.

It's just not worth it. That sad sentence would break the hearts of our forebears, don't you think? And yet, it perfectly encapsulates the American mindset right now.

Whither Liberty, ca. 2011? Whither Justice For All?

Perhaps we should ask a Constitutional scholar and professor. He might know.

"And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer: Let it be."

2011-06-23T08:28:00.003-04:00

Violinist Michael Province, aged 15, and cellist Nathan Chan, aged 16, do John Lennon proud. What a beautiful, joyful interpretation of a song for our day.

Shine on 'till tomorrow, gentlemen. And bravo!

(H/T Diane S.)

Oil sands, tar sands; tar sands, oil sands--let's call the whole thing awful

2011-06-21T13:57:00.005-04:00

With so many Americans facing a summer characterized by "staycations" (if they're lucky to even have homes in which to stay), job-hunting, and general belt-tightening, it's understandable that they'd be more receptive to something--anything--that promised to keep gas prices from soaring again, even if it meant turning their heads for a while so as to avoid seeing the toxic morass of trouble waiting for them not too far down the road. Few of us enjoy being reminded about the dirty realities attendant to our oil addiction on a good day--and in a good economy. When the chips are down, though, and the clever PR folks have been busily weaving their magic, even the sticky, corrosive stuff from Alberta might start to sound good to us--Hey, it's from Canada, our friends. It will increase the world's oil supply and that will lower the price!

Or something. Gain an understanding of the nature of the beast--the commodities market, that is, and the manner in which speculators can drive prices upward, as well as the way other oil-producing nations open and close the spigots--and you'll be quickly disabused of any Econ 101-style fantasy. But who's got the heart to do even that much, and can we be blamed, really? I mean, what options exist beyond the gasoline-powered internal combustion engines that power the cars we're all currently trying to cut down on driving?

Yes, more and more automakers are offering electric and hybrid-electric cars, and I'm excited about the ones yet to come. But even taking into account any modest tax incentive, these vehicles don't come cheap, and for the millions of Americans who are currently unemployed or underemployed, buying a new car of any kind is simply not feasible.

And yes, there are public transportation options for some, depending on where you live. In the vast majority of Florida, for example, it's extremely difficult to get around without a car. Few areas in this state were built on a model of sustainability, with a mind toward residents being able to walk to work, school, and grocery stores. For the most part, our peninsula is stuffed like a Christmas stocking with huge, ungainly suburbs, all of them laced together by increasingly threadbare ribbons of horrifically crowded roads and interstate highways.

So, then, at this point in time and given the current economic climate, a lot of us are going to be ripe for a good PR nudge by Big Oil. And boy, are the spinmeisters working overtime in their efforts to overcome the facts about the proposed tar sands pipeline, excuse me, oil sands pipeline. (I imagine the phrase tar sands is being phased out due to its propensity to evoke mental images of tar on our sands, fresh in our minds thanks to the catastrophic BP spill last year.)

As I wrote last month, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a project so encumbered by serious threats--to American water tables, to ecosystems, to human lives, and, thanks to the resource-greedy, carbon-spewing process of refining tar sands, to the future of the planet itself--it is almost surreal. It's a horror show that puts the summer theatre lineup to shame; coming soon, only it's dead real.

Forewarned is forearmed, so here's a sampling of information (emphasis mine) about this nightmare of a proposed oil project, and at the bottom, you'll find a link to the House of Representatives along with the address of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I hope you'll take a few moments to write to them. It bears repeating: the United States should to be investing heavily in sustainable and renewable energy resources, not enabling further dependence on a fuel that is slowly killing us--or, as is the case with tar sands oil and the Keystone XL pipeline, that will likely sicken and wipe out unknown numbers of lifeforms, including human beings, on an accelerated schedule.

Tar sands oil--that is, the production and exporting thereof--is undeniably bad for Canada:

Oilsands deposits underlie three main areas in northeastern Alberta, totalling about 140,000 square kilometres.

That's about the size of the state of Florida, a comparison often used by U.S. environmentalists to suggest how much boreal forest would be ripped up. But not quite. About 80 per cent of the oilsands will be mined in-situ, a technique that uses injected steam to soften the bitumen underground and pump it out. The gaping, smoky open pits often equated with oilsands mines will sprawl across about 500 square kilometres.

That doesn't mean the rest of the region will remain pristine. Even in-situ mines require roads, pipelines and other facilities that will chop the forest into smaller and smaller blocks and destroy habitat for animals that require large undisturbed areas. One U.S. scientist has estimated that those effects will reduce songbird populations by 166 million birds over the next 30 to 50 years. [...]

The Alberta Cancer Board has found cancer rates about 30 per cent higher than anticipated in the downstream community of Fort Chipewyan, with blood and lymphatic cancers double the expected rate. The board didn't consider possible causes.

Government air-quality monitoring has found no increases in carbon monoxide, ozone, particulates or sulphur dioxide in Fort McMurray, the largest community in the oilsands area. Nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen sulphide have increased slightly. In some streams, PAHs are already at levels toxic to fish embryos. However, a fish with two jaws caught last spring downstream from the oilsands was later found to be a goldeye showing signs of a natural after-death phenomenon.

What about those tailings ponds?

The oilsands use a lot of water and much of it ends up in vast tailings ponds, which are now the size of the city of Vancouver, and they're growing. The ponds are toxic. About 1,600 ducks tried to land in one last year and most died, covered in oily sludge. The ponds are separated in some places from the Athabasca River only by large earthen dams. One study suggests that up to 11 million litres of tailings leak out every year, although Alberta says any leaks percolate harmlessly into bedrock.

Sediment in the ponds has been very slow to settle and dealing with it is one of the industry's most stubborn problems. Companies have proposed "capping" the ponds with clean water and leaving them, but Alberta's energy regulator recently said mines must start converting to dry tailings by the summer of 2011. Of nine oilsands projects that filed proposals to do that, only two plan to meet the timeline, although the regulator promises the timeline will be enforced.

How significant are greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands?

It depends on the comparison. The oilsands are Alberta's second-largest industrial emitter - coal-fired power plants are bigger. One oft-repeated statistic is that all the greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands account for only five per cent of Canada's total emissions and 0.1 per cent of global emissions.

Environmentalists respond that any one project which shows up on a global scale is significant, period. They also point out that the oilsands are Canada's fastest-rising source of greenhouse gases.

Tar sands oil and the Keystone XL Pipeline would be undeniably bad for the United States, its citizens, and its environment:

[Nebraska cattleman Randy] Thompson apologizes for becoming animated, but says he's about done using politically correct language where the Keystone XL project is concerned.
Though he is a lifelong conservative and registered Republican, Thompson had never written so much as a letter to the editor or contacted a single politician in his life until agents for TransCanada first notified him, three years ago, that his property lay in the path a proposed $7-billion crude oil pipeline.
Now he is at the centre of a high-stakes fight over Keystone XL, which would transport up to 900,000 barrels per day of oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
The long-delayed pipeline project has been under intense scrutiny amid persistent concerns - raised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state legislators and private landowners - about the dangers posed by a possible spill of Canadian crude along its 2,700 kilometre route.
The U.S. State Department has the authority to grant a 'presidential permit' approving construction, and has indicated it will make a decision by the end of 2011 on whether Keystone XL is in America's national interest. [...]
As the project is currently planned, Keystone XL would run directly over the vast Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies Nebraska with 83 per cent of the water used in irrigation and 78 per cent of the state's public water supply.
Moreover, the pipeline would cut a swath through Nebraska's Sand Hills, the largest sand dunes complex in the western hemisphere, where soil disturbances risk massive "blowouts" and erosion that can take decades to repair.
TransCanada has waged an intense campaign - via mass-media advertising campaigns and lobbying in the corridors of the state legislature in Lincoln - to convince Nebraskans the pipeline will be both safe and an economic boon to the state. But public skepticism has grown following a series of leaks on TransCanada's existing Keystone 1 pipeline, which became operational in June 2010.
One rupture in a pipe fitting last month left a 20,000-gallon mess at a TransCanada pumping station in North Dakota.
"I am appreciative we will have jobs and revenue derived from the pipeline, but I really have an issue with the route that it has taken," says Tony Fulton, a Republican state senator.
"There is no other place on the planet like our Sand Hills, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which is precious not just to us but to the country."
The debate over the pipeline in Nebraska has been characterized by charges TransCanada has negotiated in bad faith, using arm-twisting tactics to coax landowners into granting right-of-way easements to build the pipeline.
Thompson says he was warned, in his very first discussions with TransCanada's agents, that rejecting the company's offer of compensation would prompt it to seek an eminent domain order to condemn his land so the pipeline could proceed.

Some U.S. lawmakers are concerned, if not alarmed, and have called for further review of the pipeline's potential for disaster while questioning the currently weak state of regulatory oversight, facts that even an industry-friendly outlet is admitting:

U.S. Congressmen Henry Waxman, the leading Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, is worried that regulatory oversight isn’t keeping up with an increasing amount of diluted bitumen being transported via U.S. pipelines. "I'm concerned that the industry is changing, but the safety regulations are not keeping up with the changes," he said at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. "That could be a recipe for disaster down the road."

Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council said at the hearing, "It is in the public's best interest for our pipeline safety for regulators to evaluate the risks that high volumes of heavy, corrosive and abrasive crudes, such as diluted bitumen, will have on the U.S. pipeline."

A number of pipeline accidents in the U.S. Midwest have some questioning whether diluted bitumen may be to blame. TransCanada's existing Keystone pipeline leaked 10 barrels of oil, due to a faulty fitting at a Kansas pump station last month. That accident followed a 500-barrel spill at a pump station in North Dakota in early May.

The committee last month passed a bill requiring the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to study the impact of diluted bitumen on U.S. pipelines.

Even Republicans think the issue should be investigated. "I think it is something we need to look into," said Republican Representative Joe Barton.

However, President of the Association of Oil Pipelines Andrew Black disputes any claims that diluted bitumen is contributing to pipeline corrosion, saying, “Diluted bitumen has been moved through pipelines for many years.” [Well, then, that settles it!--DNT]

Yet, a large number of the Usual Suspects (aka the House Republicans), are pushing hard for prompt approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline:

House Republicans are attempting to fast-track the controversial pipeline that would carry crude oil from tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada, across the US heartland and down to refineries in Texas.
The House Energy and Power Subcommittee approved a bill that requires President Obama to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline by November 1.

If he were to do so, he would have to over-rule demands for further review by the Environmental Protection Agency and ignore the protests of local communities that would be affected along the 1,700-mile pipeline route.

House Republicans seem bent on upping the nation's consumption of tar sands oil, presumably to reduce oil imports from the MidEast.

The strategy is blind to the environmental consequences of tar sands production, which has an environmental and emissions footprint that is several times larger than traditional crude oil.

The increased impact is due to the large amounts of energy, water and solvents needed to separate the crude oil from sand with which it is mixed in geological deposits.
-----

To find your House reps, click here.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

-----

Also at Dirty Hippies

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

2011-06-20T13:32:00.008-04:00

This exquisite, dreamily chocolate-y flourless torte is one of my go-to grownup desserts for special occasions, and I say that because creating the torte tends to be a relatively labor-intensive and time-consuming endeavor, certainly more so than the throwing together of my (almost) everyday cakes and cookies (not that there's anything wrong with--or non-delicious about--those). Furthermore, Grand Marnier is a bit pricey these days. Trust me, though, this torte is absolutely, positively worth the effort and expense.

This is my adaptation of a recipe I found in Elle, back in the 1980's. (Come on, America, please go metric already!) It's also the first birthday cake I ever made for Robert, in 1988; the following year, we got married. To be clear, I'm not suggesting any connection between the two, although, as readers may remember, I do firmly believe that a fine chocolate experience affords the kind of transcendent bliss and soul-soothing magic that make fine chocolate itself worth defending from the slings and arrows of outrageous corporate takeovers.

Anyway, I'm going to give you my recipe for an 8" torte; the picture above is of the 10" one I made for Robert's birthday this year, reasoning that the lads would be deeply unhappy if they only got a tiny sliver each and there were no remaining torte over which to fight the next day. If you're making this with an eye toward satisfying a large-ish number of chocolate connoisseurs, just multiply the ingredients by 1.5, and when you get to the eggs, substitute 8 whites and 7 yolks for the 5 eggs called for. (Note to my fellow math-o-phobes: use your cell-phone's calculator, as I did! Or, *sigh*, just e-mail me, and I'll send you the quantities for the 10" version.) As for the chocolate itself, I generally use Ghirardelli's bars in my baking--the quality is reliably good and they're widely available in the States. If you're near a Trader Joe's, though, I'm told their chocolate is superb.

You'll want to make this the day before, at least, as the flavors need to blend and develop.

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

For the torte:

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup walnuts
1/3 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
2 oz. finely-grated or chopped semisweet chocolate
zest of one orange, finely grated
5 eggs, which you've taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature, then separated
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (but not pulverized)

For the glaze:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup (this is not the same thing as HFCS, don't worry)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

-----

Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly butter an 8" springform pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, butter that, and then dust very lightly with flour.

Melt the unsweetened chocolate and butter together in a double-boiler or pan with a heavy bottom over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from stove and allow to cool.

In a Cuisinart or other food processor, whirl the walnuts around with 2 tablespoons of the sugar until finely ground, using the on-off pulsing button, and then tip it into a small bowl and add the grated, semisweet chocolate (not the melted stuff, not yet!) and the orange zest, and stir until mixed.

Beat the egg yolks in a mixer until they are foamy; add 4 tablespoons of sugar and keep beating until the mixture is pale yellow. Then stir the cooled, melted chocolate/butter mixture into the egg yolks.

In another, deep bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until you see soft peaks. Reduce the mixer's speed and slowly sprinkle in 1/3 cup sugar, making sure it's incorporated before adding the next sprinkle (patience, patience). Then increase the speed again and beat like mad until the egg whites are stiff.

Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the unsweetened chocolate mixture, then sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top, and fold together gently until barely combined. Repeat this until all is combined and batter is smooth, but do not overmix, or you'll knock all the loft out of your egg whites.

Spread the batter evenly in your prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes. (My oven is a bit temperamental and tends to run high, so I reduce the temperature 10-20 degrees and watch my precious sweetie-projects like a hawk--this torte is no exception.) Remove when a toothpick inserted in the middle of the torte comes out almost clean. Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then run a thin, flat knife around the edges of the cake; remove the springform pan's rim, and invert the cake onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper and re-invert onto another wire rack on which you've put a fresh piece of parchment. Allow to cool completely, then wrap the cake tightly in plastic film (Saran wrap) and put it in the freezer for about an hour, until semifrozen.

Meanwhile, make the filling...

Drain any liquid from your ricotta, and press it through a fine sieve into a small bowl. Stir in the sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of the Grand Marnier; fold in the chocolate bits. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until mixture firms up and can be spread.

Remove the cake from the freezer and carefully, with a very slim and sharp knife, trim off any exceedingly obvious bumps on the crust. Now, the tricky part: with the same knife, slice the semi-frozen cake horizontally in two. I find that if I score it around its perimeter first, finding the halfway-mark between the top and bottom and going in about an inch and giving it a quarter-turn at a time, it's easier to do this in an even way. I also pay attention to my knife, making sure it's parallel to the counter and not sawing away at strange angles. Keep turning and slowly easing the sideways knife blade in until you've got two perfect discs.

Place the bottom-most disc, cut side up, on the serving platter you plan to use. Sprinkle it with at least 1 tablespoon of Grand Marnier. Remove filling from the fridge and spread on top of this, going to within 1/4" of the edge of the torte. Then place the top half of the cake on it, sprinkle that with the remaining Grand Marnier, cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and press down gently and evenly to compact the layers and filling. Refrigerate at least five hours, or overnight.

Now, the glaze. Melt the butter, corn syrup, salt, and 2 teaspoons of water together in a double boiler or small, heavy pan, over low heat. Stir occasionally, turn up the heat to medium, bring to a boil, and allow it to boil for 1 minute, stirring all the while now. Remove from heat and stir in the semisweet chocolate, which will quickly melt. Allow to cool for about five minutes; it will thicken somewhat.

Take the cake out of the fridge and unwrap it. Pour the glaze over it, and with a metal spatula or frosting knife, quickly spread it out over the top and sides. Wait five minutes for it to set, then press the chopped walnuts into the sides and slightly on to the top, as you see in the picture. Refrigerate again for an hour, at least; take it out again about fifteen minutes before serving.

If you like, you can use orange slices and a few curlicues of peel for decoration, as I did.

Fire up the espresso machine, take a bow, and enjoy!

Cock-ups will cost you when you're liberal; otherwise, IOKIYAR*

2011-06-16T11:08:00.009-04:00

Lovely, dear...we've all seen one before, you know.

Let's see...on this hot, sunny June morning in America, we've got families being thrown out onto the streets thanks, ultimately, to the criminals on Wall Street.

We've got how many wars going on, how many people still without work, how many families in the Gulf states still dealing with the double-blow of the economy followed by the BP spill that everyone has forgotten about?

Healthcare crisis? What crisis? (I just learned that my family's monthly health insurance premium is slated to go up $700--that's PER MONTH--because I turned fifty. Awesome!)

But lest anyone think that the Politicians Who Are Not Anthony Weiner haven't been busy, I'm here to tell you that in three weeks, with the help of the tut-tutting church ladies in the "liberal media", a strong voice of the people was silenced--like *that*--and not because he enabled torture, carried on an affair with an aide and then bribed her to keep silent, or sold his votes to the highest-bidding corporate donor.

No, Weiner was drummed out of office due to his having engaged in salacious (and occasionally illustrated) online correspondence with women he'd never been in the same room with, actions that struck me as being the peacock-like display behavior of a charged-up male inspired by the surfeit of female attentions that typically attend the powerful and/or celebrated.

I now demand David Vitter's naughty bits so I can bronze them and hang them from my rear-view mirror. It only seems fair.

*It's O.K. If You're A Republican

On social democracy, that inexplicably unmentionable phrase that truly embodies the spirit of We, the People

2011-06-10T12:05:00.014-04:00

from Andy Warhol's Money series

This is one of those instances where even typing something out does little to make it more believable: Delta charges soldiers returning home from Afghanistan an additional luggage fee of $200 each (they are allowed three checked pieces, but as you'd imagine, members of our armed forces have a lot of bulky belongings that can't be jammed into three bags).

And yet.

I think there is an important larger message here: Delta, as we all know, is a corporation. Supreme Court classifications to the contrary notwithstanding, corporations are simply amoral entities, built from paper and pixels, that do not think or feel one way or another about anything; rather, they just seek maximum profits, period. Think of them like sharks--they don't care who gets hurt, they don't care what standards of decency and propriety they offend (making soldiers pay extra for their baggage? Really??) and they don't care who gets in the way; they only care about feeding, feeding, and more feeding.

For a conscientious human being, then, the question is not "How can Corporation XYZ be so uncaring?" but instead, "How far have we gone--and how much further are we willing to go--in allowing these amoral entities to control all the aspects of our daily existence?"

Right now, when you regard the matter with wide-open eyes, you realize that corporations control our elected leadership--much if not most of it, anyway--as well as our geopolitical posture, our banking system, our education system, our medical decisions, our agriculture and food supply, and, perhaps most worryingly, our very ability to elect candidates for public office who represent us, the people, as opposed to them, the aforementioned entities whose only raison d'être is to turn a profit.

Going by what I learned in high school American history, and what I've since observed about what I'd loosely term "the national character", I'd say Americans tend to recoil at the very notion of being controlled and reflexively put a foot down if they feel that is what someone, or something, is trying to do.

As such, they shy away from--and often will outright demonize--the word "socialist", because they see it as being under the controlling thumb of the state.

Blame the paucity of engaging, thought-provoking debates about political philosophy in our high school social studies classes; blame the shallow nature of the learning that does take place in a teach-to-the-test climate wherein facts are regurgitated and promptly forgotten; the end result is that far too many of us don't seem to realize that we are the state.

Ironically, in a social democracy (which yes, is a form of socialism, albeit one that's rather more grounded in reality than utopian socialism), we would be the ones in control.

As matters currently stand, we're under the control of a plutocracy--and it's an insidious, shadowy, "Aw shucks, we're just like you" kind of plutocracy--with the difference being, the plutocracy is most definitely not us.

And on ever-increasing numbers of issues, we have virtually no say whatsoever, not even within the context of elections, wherein we get the false choice of voting for one beholden-to-corporations candidate over the other beholden-to-corporations candidate, and thanks to their professed differences on a handful of social issues (Roe, marriage equality, guns), we think we've had some say. We "feel" as though we have some measure of control.

We don't.

Whenever I am in a conversation with non-political-junkies--at dinner, say--with people who start complaining about the government this and the state that, and people inevitably head into a discussion about why we are better off not letting the government or the state have so much power, I always chime in: HEY! You are forgetting something! The government is US. The state is US.

When the State-That-Is-Us has control, this is a good thing. Trouble is, that's not what we're seeing. We are not under the control of ourselves--of us--but rather, we're under the control of the wealthy, namely corporations and their interests. That's why our own money, our tax dollars, never seem to get spent the way we want--on excellent public education for all American children, affordable health care, clean air and water initiatives, programs to feed our hungry and provide shelter for our homeless, energy-efficient public transportation that would relieve us of our miserable hours-long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and so on--but instead get spent, one obscene trillion-pile after another, on endless wars, bailouts, subsidies for Big Oil and of course, Big Agribusiness, and money-pit "security" agencies that violate our Constitutional rights and treat law-abiding citizens as guilty until proven innocent. I'm sure you can think of more.

The government is us. And to my mind, the only way to even begin to make leadership behave that way is to completely change the way elections are funded and do away with all forms of campaign "donations" as well as halting altogether the corporate lobbying of sitting leaders.

Campaigns would be publicly-funded; candidates for public office would be given a strict limit as to what they could spend on a campaign.

Imagine what could be accomplished if, instead of spending months and years in "pre-election money-grubbing-and-vote-pandering mode", a leader could actually lead. No more mudslinging attack ads (too expensive!) and no more ridiculous talking-point pageants masquerading as debates. Imagine candidates running for office solely because they are leaders answering a call to duty. Imagine them getting elected based solely on their leadership abilities--their knowledge, their talent, their record of doing good work on our behalf.

Imagine having leaders who are beholden to no-one but us, the we in We, the People.

It would not be impossible for the United States to implement a truly American-people-controlled system of governance--a social democracy--indeed, I would argue that social democracy is the closest thing there is to an actual embodiment of what the Founding Fathers intended for the country, and one only need read the wise and poignantly beautiful writings of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et. al. to confirm this.

But given the range of theatrical talents, the vast and tentacular wealth, and the predators' amorality that characterize the beasts we currently face, it is dispiritingly unlikely that we ever will.

Dear Media: Is that a REAL scandal in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

2011-06-03T12:49:00.004-04:00

Cf.

Litbrit on the Nicole Sandler show

2011-06-02T16:22:00.002-04:00

I had a great time this morning chatting with fellow Floridian Nicole Sandler. We talked about Weinergate, among other things, and wondered why it almost always seems to be male politicians who find themselves entangled in these things.

I come on around the 35:30 mark.

Double, double, oil and trouble

2011-05-21T10:34:00.006-04:00

As usual, the hardly-extreme position of wanting to look after the planet--and protect our ecosystems, not to mention our food and water supplies so as to save our own hides as well as leave our grandchildren a decent place in which to live--is under attack. Make that, undergoing a full-on assault.

It needs to be said, again, that opponents of clean energy policy, responsible climate-change policy--indeed, any and all initiatives to educate Americans about climate change and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, period--are the ones behind a significant amount of the attacking, insulting, and discrediting of President Obama that's been going on for as long as he has been in office. (That much of it is also fueled by racism at the base level means it's that much easier for the oil giants to garner support in their attacks on the president--surely you didn't think it was all about his being a secret Kenyan Muslim usurper?!)

At the top of the list of offenders are the reviled Koch brothers and their monied front groups, like Americans for Prosperity, as well as the libertarian and conservative think-tanks they help fund, like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Despite their open and despicable attacks on the president, the Koch Brothers, who stand to benefit in a big way, would like nothing more than for him to give the Keystone XL Pipeline his blessing. From ClimateProgress:

The Keystone XL pipeline, awaiting a thumbs up or down on a presidential permit, would increase the import of heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day, if it gets built.

Proponents tout it as a boon to national security that would reduce America’s dependence on oil from unfriendly regimes. Opponents say it would magnify an environmental nightmare at great cost and provide only the illusion of national benefit.

What’s been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda.

And yes, in case you were wondering, it's not just a pride thing, not just a matter of holding grudges against people who smeared you--the pipeline's environmental threats are very real and rather jaw-dropping in their enormity.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would cut through six states; its presence and operation would threaten 2,000 miles worth of American homes and farmlands. This is dirty tar sands oil we're talking about, and its ill effects are much worse than those associated with conventional oil. From Friends of the Earth:

Pollution from tar sands oil greatly eclipses that of conventional oil. During tar sands oil production alone, levels of carbon dioxide emissions are three times higher than those of conventional oil, due to more energy-intensive extraction and refining processes. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil into the United States daily, doubling our country's reliance on it and resulting in climate-damaging emissions equal to adding more than six million new cars to U.S. roads.

How risky would it be? Very.

The XL route touted by (Alberta Premier Ed) Stelmach also passes through an active seismic zone that had a 4.3 magnitude earthquake as recently as 2002. In spite of this danger, the proponent TransCanada has applied to the U.S. government to use thinner steel and pump at higher pressures, saving the company as much as a $1 billion.

Furthermore, the Keystone XL pipeline, if permitted, would put many of the native people living in the northern part of the continent at risk, as pipelines have, in the past, poisoned their sources of food and water which in turn led to spikes in certain cancers and other ailments within their populations; moreover, it would threaten a vast swath of the High Plains Water Table, on which nearly 2 million Americans depend for drinking water (er, Homeland Security? Can you put down the blue rubber gloves for a moment and pay attention to some real, documented threats to our safety?) From Futurism Now:

The State Department considers pipelines carrying the world’s dirtiest oil into the United States to be matters of paramount national interest. To this administration, as with the last, pretty much everything can be a matter of national interest or national security when it is about oil. Bombing Libya was also a matter of “national interest” to Hillary Clinton, and so have been other dirty tar sands pipelines, like the Alberta Clipper pipeline that she approved, to be built in my state. These pipelines are also matters of eminent domain, because the government seizes privately owned land and builds the pipelines across them. Homeowners, land owners have no choice in the matter. All for some of the world’s worst oil representing the world’s worst environmental degradation in Canada.

So where do plans for this pipeline stand right now? A bill supporting it, the North American-Made Energy Security Act of 2011, is currently being circulated in draft form and will be aired publicly when the House Energy and Power Subcommittee convenes on Monday. From yesterday's Reuters feed:

WASHINGTON— Environmentalists understand why so many House Republicans are gung-ho about upping imports of oil mined from the tar sands of Western Canada.

What puzzles them is why Michigan Rep. Fred Upton has emerged as one of the cause's lead GOP cheerleaders. [...]

No doubt the former centrist's embrace of fossil fuels has tightened ever since he took charge of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee in January. Even though the Democrat-led Senate is less likely to back such a measure, Upton's grip is alarming to conservationists who know how much power his panel wields on Capitol Hill.

"What this bill is doing is perpetuating myths about the tar sands that the Alberta government, the Canadian government and the oil industry want us to believe," Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, an oil sands specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council told SolveClimate News in an interview. "It's a way for them to promote their own products at the expense and well-being of the American people."

And then, toward the end of the article, one encounters that omnipresent Cerberus of high-ranking power, political campaigns, and lobbyists' influence. Weep along with me for a brief moment, gentle readers, and then waste no time in contacting your Congresscritters:

Upton and his committee, it turns out, aren't the only ones prodding the State Department to meet a specific deadline.

After waiting five months for department officials to release possible communications between TransCanada chief lobbyist Paul Elliott and Clinton, four environmental and ethics organizations sued the State Department Wednesday.

TransCanada hired the native New Yorker as its government relations director more than two and a half years ago. He served as a presidential campaign manager for Clinton in 2008.

Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, is representing Friends of the Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International in the lawsuit.

"This raises important questions of transparency and fairness," said Sarah Burt, an Earthjustice attorney. "If a decision to approve a transcontinental pipeline is made based on relationships and access to Clinton, while completely overlooking the significant environmental and public health dangers posed by the pipeline, the public needs to be aware of it."

To find your House reps, click here.

And please, sign the petition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to deny approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

(H/T--and thanks--to my Mum)

America's Worst Legislature? By a mile of rotting oranges, I'd say.

2011-05-12T08:56:00.000-04:00

I've been having an interesting e-mail conversation with friends around the country, and the consensus so far is that Florida is definitely right up there (or down there, as it were), running neck-and-neck with Arizona for the honor of America's Worst Legislature. I am obviously biased, but I think we win this one. You have to admit, we've got some uniquely awful new stuff coming out of Tallahassee these days (and considering how much fun the tabloids and pundits have always had with Florida's general lunacy over the years, that's really saying something).

So far, in the Florida column, we've got:

Doctors will be prohibited from talking to patients about gun safety. Hey, a patient has the right to not hear about what a gun can do his, er, health and well-being.

BUT, a patient does not have the right to not hear about that which she is already well-aware of: "Hey, you're pregnant!" (or she wouldn't be seeking an abortion in the first place, but these are old white guys making the rules, and this is their sadistic idea of "logic"). In sum, doctors will be required by law to force women to submit to ultrasound imaging (sonograms) before abortions, even very early procedures and terminations induced via oral medication, which before the three month point means the ultrasound wand must be used vaginally. If it isn't clear already, let me point out that for a woman (or girl) who was raped and abused--and indeed may be seeking a termination as a result of said rape--this penetration would subject her to further trauma. Cruel and patently needless trauma. For SHAME, Florida.

AND...people who have the temerity to be poor and in need of access to Florida's miserly and wafer-thin safety net (aka "welfare") will be henceforth required to submit to drug testing via forced urinalysis. And pay for said testing themselves, up front. If your private bodily fluids are not acceptably drug-free for Rick Scott, no soup for you. Or your kids. (Stay away from poppyseed bagels and definitely hope and pray your submitted sample doesn't fall into that category the labs like to call "margin of error".) Oh, and you forfeit the money you spent on the drug test you were forced to take. Let them eat...what, exactly? Lab receipts?

No sex with animals. Hey, they're serious and they mean it.

(Next up: a proposed constitutional amendment to rework the species cladograms so as to give humans a brand new kingdom all our own. Ergo, Floridian biology classes will now teach kids about the three kingdoms: Plant, Animal, and now--brought to you by your friends at BP, Exxon Mobil, and Monsanto--a brand-new kingdom of creatures: Those Life-forms Who've Generally Fucked The Other Two.)

No already-several-years-out-of-fashion showing of the human bottom, or, as one legislator put it back in the day when they were busily banning thong bikinis on our beaches, "we must ban clothing that shows the anal cleft".

Somewhere out there in the cosmos, Charles Darwin is either weeping copiously or completely rethinking the notion of human brains being capable of evolving.

A poem for our day

2011-05-02T14:38:00.000-04:00

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

-- Dylan Thomas

(H/T Minstrel Boy)

On balance

2011-05-02T13:43:00.005-04:00

I am firmly against the death penalty, yet I am also keenly aware that not only could I kill someone in the defense of an innocent--or myself (a sometimes-innocent)--but also, that I would be deeply conflicted if I were to face an actual, flesh-and-bone version of the ethical quandary so often posed as a hypothetical to philosophy students: namely, Could you kill someone if (a) he or she was already shown, in no uncertain terms, to be a murderer AND (b) if it were proven, positively, that killing him or her would save many innocent lives in the future?

If I'm honest, I'll admit I don't know how to answer that. The death-penalty-qua-death-penalty situation affords a comfortable space between the lofty atmosphere of Deborah's ethics and the sometimes gritty concept of justice-not-delayed. However, if I am inserted into the equation in a real-world sense--if I must do the deed, if I am to be the executioner--it is nowhere near as simple.

And once again, I find that Mill smacks into Kant. Meanwhile, the faces of those potential innocents saved? They float before a mother's eyes like pale and disembodied dreams--partly remembered yet surely there.

I believe justice was served yesterday.

DNT
5/2/11

UPDATE: Roger Ebert feels likewise, and on Twitter, he invokes Walt Whitman:

I am against the Death Penalty. I rejoice that Bin Laden was killed. "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself." (Whitman)

"These are the things I know are true": Journey of the Bonesetter's Daughter on PBS May 8

2011-05-01T12:49:00.004-04:00

Watch the full episode. See more PBS Presents.

Congratulations to my friend Amy Tan on the success of an epic project: turning her bestselling novel The Bonesetter's Daughter into an opera.

Posted above is a preview of the "making-of" documentary, to be aired on PBS next Sunday, which promises to tell the story-within-the-story (the operatic within the opera?) I can't wait!

In 2005, I was fortunate to have traveled to New York for my birthday; that weekend, over Mallomars and coffee at Amy's kitchen table, I got to observe Amy and Stewart working on the opera during its early creative phase. The Bonesetter's Daughter, performed by the San Francisco Opera, opened in that city to glowing reviews in 2008.

I didn't make it to San Francisco that fall, alas. But New York is a much quicker hop--perhaps Broadway next year, Amy?!

Florida radio journalist arrested for asking questions at Allen West's townhall meeting

2011-04-28T12:53:00.005-04:00

This is fellow Floridian Nicole Sandler asking a followup question of Congressman Allen West at a townhall in South Florida yesterday.

West was reciting the party line, namely, that the Republicans have this brilliant idea--"Let's bring in the magic of the marketplace to run health care for seniors, because something something competition and lowered prices, oooh, look at the birdie!"

And Nicole had the gall to stand up and call it what it is: "You're PRIVATIZING Medicare!"

So they arrested her.

That is correct: at a townhall meeting, wherein politicians are supposed to engage their constituents in debate and conversation about pressing topics of concern--and, I'd add, right here in the United States of America--a concerned, compassionate citizen and mother is ARRESTED and taken to jail for daring to point out that the dishonest puppet Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

More as details develop.

UPDATE:

Michael at Pushing Rope also has videos of Nicole's arrest, however in the second clip (not posted here) it's obvious the footage is edited. Not by Michael, it must be noted, but rather, by whoever shot that footage. Said cameraperson removed the parts shown in the first one (which *is* posted above)--that is, the part where Nicole stands up and calls West out on his Medicare-killing and asks if this isn't privatizing; she keeps repeating her questions. The footage then jumps straight from Allen's previous comments to Nicole being led out and then handcuffed. Her actual questions to Allen were removed so as to be able to use the smarmy title Allen West heckled; Heckler arrested. *sigh*

UPDATE II:

Nicole Sandler will appear on Cenk's show on MSNBC at 6:15pm this evening.

Frankly Saturday: Frank Zappa's Bogus Pomp; UCLA, 1975

2011-04-23T13:19:00.004-04:00

Frank Zappa and the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra perform Bogus Pomp, from the album Orchestral Favorites. Set to video footage of the Other Famous and Relatively Recent Royal Wedding.

I'm somewhat torn between loving the visual spectacle and gorgeous costume of British tradition and loathing the silly notion of spending obscene amounts of public money on private people simply because they were born to one set of parents as opposed to another.

On balance, I submit that our finest crowns and heartiest accolades should go to the artists, musicians, teachers, and scientists among us--that we should celebrate those who make life on earth a happier, healthier, and more meaningful experience for their fellow humans.

I have a feeling Maestro FZ would agree. As would his famous forefather, Marcus Tullius Cicero:

Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex

(The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.)

What say you?

In honor of the many lives shattered and snuffed out by BP this time last year...

2011-04-19T13:51:00.004-04:00

...I offer this beautiful and provocative video installation, by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

Rist created the work in 1997, and I first saw it in New York's MoMA back in 2000, while touring the latest featured collection with my co-author Linda Lindroth, herself an artist whose works can be seen there as well as the Met and other art museums.

It's a violent, beauty-destroying world out there. As they have since time immemorial, the corporations are acting all corporation-y, and as the saying goes, one can either conform, go crazy, or become an artist.

I took a good whack at the first option for, oh, the first few months of my life. (Or so I'm told. That particular time is immemorial, ha!) As soon as I could form words and choose colors, though, the second and third options seemed both inevitable and a whole lot more appealing.

As Robert gets ever-closer to his goal of running an all-wind-and-solar-powered farm, I hereby pledge that when it comes time to retire my current vehicle, the next one will be a hybrid or, better yet, a slick little electric car that I can plug into my solar-powered outlet.

Pass the sledgehammer.

Let America be America Again

2011-04-16T08:45:00.007-04:00

This is America, yesterday* and today. What will she become?

Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

-- Langston Hughes, American poet

[H/T Rick Santorum, the possible Republican presidential candidate who lifted the theme--Let America be America Again--of Hughes' famous poem and used it in his campaign slogan. And then denied doing so, of course.

And many thanks to Lee Fang of ThinkProgress, who called him on it.]

* New Orleans, September 2005

A Postcard from Quantico

2011-03-21T13:15:00.003-04:00

At the demonstration at Quantico, Virginia yesterday, peaceful protesters and supporters of the imprisoned (but as-yet untried) American citizen PFC Bradley Manning were met by a wide array of heavily-armed personnel.

Lisa Simeone participated in the demonstration and sends along this photo, taken by a fellow protester. It shows riot police arresting Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers, who is 80 years old--and for whom this arrest was his 83rd--and Ann Wright, a gray-haired grandmother and former career military colonel who resigned in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq.

Riot police.

There were also heavily-armed personnel everywhere, automatic rifles, police on horseback, you name it. Because of all those pacifists doing their peaceful, Constitution-respecting First Amendment thing and protesting the unconstitutional treatment of an imprisoned but as-yet untried (and therefore, under the law, still innocent) American citizen, Bradley Manning.

RIOT POLICE.

Peace protesters arrested at White House; Chris Hedges speaks: War promises to give us an identity...as long as we go along with the myth"

2011-03-20T12:18:00.005-04:00

This is award-winning author and war correspondent Chris Hedges, speaking at a peace rally in front of the White House Saturday that marked the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.

I hope you'll take a moment to listen to this beautiful, thought-provoking speech, and that you'll share it, too. Rarely have I heard these clear, obvious truths--about not only war itself, but the culture that continues to fuel its very existence--so eloquently expressed.

And here is footage of the protesters marching and getting arrested yesterday. These included civilians as well as veterans of numerous wars--Americans who have experienced war first-hand and who now work to promote the cause of its opposites: Peace. Life. The building of things as opposed to the tearing down of them. You'll note they are peaceful and respectful, as are the police who begin quietly handcuffing (and arresting) everyone at the White House fence, including my heroic friend, co-blogger, and role model in standing up for what is right, Lisa Simeone (seen at about the 2:27 mark, to the right of the screen and wearing a leopard-print trench coat and sunglasses; when this was filmed, Lisa had not yet been apprehended).

Beauty for a Saturday afternoon: Federico Mompou; Preludio from the Suite Compostelana

2011-03-19T12:16:00.004-04:00

Frederico Mompou is one of my favorite composers. This Preludio is part of the Suite Compostelana, which he created in 1962 for fellow Spaniard Andres Segovia. Guitarist Thomas Rouw's obvious talents, and his faithfulness to Mompou's complex but nonetheless weightless--almost airborne--progressions, really honor this exquisite piece.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

"Ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid": State Dept.'s P.J. Crowley, prior to forced resignation, on Pentagon's treatment of PFC Bradley Manning

2011-03-15T10:27:00.004-04:00

On Sunday, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned, just days after his remarks to a BBC journalist--at an informal lecture--about the abusive treatment of long-detained whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning:

And then, inevitably, one young man said he wanted to address “the elephant in the room”. What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, “torturing a prisoner in a military brig”? Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He paused. “None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place”. And he went on lengthening his answer, explaining why in Washington’s view, “there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made”.

But still, he’d said it. And the fact he felt strongly enough to say it seems to me an extraordinary insight into the tensions within the administration over Wikileaks.

A few minutes later, I had a chance to ask a question. “Are you on the record?” I would not be writing this if he’d said no. There was an uncomfortable pause. “Sure.” So there we are.

The next day, a group of residents and activists, including Code Pink, mounted an impromptu protest march that began at the State Department and concluded outside the White House. They applauded P.J. Crowley's candor and urged President Obama to put a stop to the unconstitutional pre-trial treatment of Manning.

Former C.I.A. analyst and present-day peace activist Ray McGovern--who last month attended a speech by Secretary Clinton and was bound and physically dragged from the room after merely standing and turning his back in silent protest--was among those who gathered peaceably in protest of the Obama administration's amplification of Bush-era detention and torture policies.

And so was Lisa Simeone (between the 1:20 and 1:30 minute mark, in black coat and sunglasses). Lisa reports that the group included both ordinarily-dressed citizens and some prison-garb-wearing activists and that, despite having been organized at the last minute, the mood among (and surrounding) the protesters was upbeat and positive, with onlookers saying things like "God bless you".

-----

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
-- Hermann Goering

I'm back! From my mailbox: Alan Grayson reminds us why unions are vital

2011-03-12T11:48:00.005-05:00

Five years (whoa) (yes, it has been that long) after starting litbrit, it has sort of established itself as a formula: life intervenes; reality contravenes; blogging retrocedes. Yet here I am, back at my digital stomping grounds once again: receiving this note from ex-congressman Alan Grayson this morning inspired me. (And with all that's going on right now, both globally and locally, little has been able to inspire me very much lately.)

Given that it hails from the Committee to Elect Alan Grayson, I assume he is aiming to be elected to something? Because if so, hooray! Anyway, reprinted in its entirety:

On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.

On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.

On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.

Here and around the world, many people have fought and died, so that you and I would have the right to organize.

And so that 250,000 public workers in Wisconsin would have that right, too.

This is not exactly a new idea. Six months after the Ludlow Massacre, President Wilson signed the Clayton Act, prohibiting the prosecution of union members under Antitrust Law. That was almost a century ago.

Two decades later, during the Franklin Roosevelt's first term as President, he signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. It protects the right to organize. That was over 75 years ago.

The right to organize also is a fundamental principle of international law. Over 150 countries have ratified the "Right to Organize" Convention, an international treaty. It was adopted in 1949, over 60 years ago.

So why are we even talking about this, 11 years into the 21st Century?

Because the teabaggers want to "take back America." They want to take it back, all right – take it all the way back to the 19th century. When there was no right to organize. When people worked for a dollar a day. When grown men competed against children for jobs. When women were barred from most jobs entirely. When you worked until you died. Not to mention slavery.

I want to see an America that is healthy and wealthy.

They want an America that provides cheap labor to our corporate overlords. An America where the middle class is chained by debt.

We didn't ask for this fight. But we have no choice except to fight back. For the survival of the middle class in America. For us, for our children, and for our grandchildren. And so that the victims in Haymarket, in Homestead and in Ludlow did not die in vain.

As Cardinal Spellman said 45 years ago, "it is a war thrust upon us, and we cannot yield to tyranny."

I'm ready to fight for what's right. What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

CPAC, where mythmaking is a piece of cake!

2011-02-11T11:30:00.002-05:00

As I said in my e-mail to Blue Gal* a little earlier (and since this is a Republican event, I will issue a Republican apology beforehand and say, I'm sorry if any southerners take this the wrong way):

Check out this CPAC Reagan cake, via Media Matters. Of course they misspelled Berlin. Of course.

Robert said it was probably a case of "Hey, Billy Joe Bob, I'm frostin' the cake--should ah spay-ell that Yoo-ro-peen place lahk Mama spay-ells her name--L-Y-N-N-E--or is it jes' plain ol L-Y-N after the BER. Also, d'ya think ah made his eyebrows too bushy and furriner-lookin'?"

*P.S. Some joyful news on the Professional Left front: Blue Gal and Driftglass--friends of litbrit since, well, forever--are tying the knot. (How's that for burying the lead?!)

Wednesday Frank: Regyptian Strut

2011-02-01T19:56:00.004-05:00

I hold good thoughts for the brave citizens of Egypt. May the world learn from their example.

Frank Zappa was a strong believer in the creative and political power of a free people, as well as an outspoken advocate for freedom of speech and of the press. What's more, he was an Italian-American with Arab blood. I have a feeling he would be applauding the latest developments in the Middle East.

(H/T Rumproast)

A battle lost: Countdown to Plutocracy

2011-01-22T11:33:00.009-05:00

In case you hadn't yet heard, last night's broadcast was Keith Olbermann's last Countdown. It seems, once again, that a strong and passionate liberal voice is muffled (I won't say "silenced", because I have a feeling he'll be back very soon, somewhere, somehow). What's clear, at this point, is that the Comcast takeover has begun in earnest. And that Olbermann won't be the only newly-unemployed MSNBC journalist, although he will be among the wealthier members of that subset. Here's Greg Sargant at the WaPo:

So Keith Olbermann is out. As best as I can tell, none of the news accounts about his departure have gotten to the bottom of what happened here. But Olbermann himself offered enough clues in his final broadcast for us to reasonably speculate that he abruptly got the ax, perhaps even as late as last night.

A "knowledgeable official" at MSNBC told Howard Kurtz that the separation was "mutual." But it's hard to see how that squares with this, from Olbermann's last words on Countdown last night:

"I think the same fantasy has popped into the head of everybody in my business who has ever been told what I have been told, that this is going to be the last edition of your show. You go directly to the scene from the movie 'Network,' complete with the pajamas, and the raincoat, and you go off on an existential, otherworldly journey of profundity and vision...
"When I resigned from ESPN 13 and a half years ago, I was literally given 30 seconds to say goodbye at the very end of my last edition of "Sports Center." As God is my witness, in the commercial break just before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and he said, `uh, can you cut it down to 15 seconds, so we can get in this tennis result from Stuttgart? So I'm grateful that I have a little more time to sign off here."

Between this and the shell-shocked look Olbermann had last night, it seems clear that he may have been abruptly informed that he was history, perhaps even during last night's show. That would also square with the experience of Josh Marshall, who was actually on Olbermann last night and had no sense that anything was amiss.

I am an unabashed Olbermann fan and have been for years. Yes, he's passionate and fiery, but while I'm well aware that plenty of folks prefer a calmer take on politics and current events, I'd argue that Olbermann's tone was exactly what was called for when Countdown hit the air, considering the fresh hell that flowed forth on a seemingly daily basis during those dark Bush II years. Olbermann is an honest man who ran a fact-based operation--albeit one that was sometimes a bit heavy on the hyperbole--but unlike the vast majority of television personalities (and pretty much all conservative public persons), he was not afraid to admit a mistake and sincerely apologize for it. He was fair, and he listened.

I loved his literature-infused take on life in these United States; I loved his wordiness and his long, acrobatic compound sentences; I loved (and related to) his genuine anger; I loved his kind and very soft heart, evident to anyone with a soul.

Keith Olbermann clearly pissed off all the right people.

Good.

"All the perfumes petrodollars of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand..."

2011-01-11T11:30:00.006-05:00

Memo to ex-governor Palin and her ghostwriters and puppetmasters:

History and literature--not that you've ever demonstrated any understanding of, or respect for, either of those things--would suggest that you may as well save your energies, because the scrubbing never works.

Never. Ever.

For those who suffered the unimaginable yesterday

2011-01-09T12:48:00.005-05:00

From this day forward, may they know only the best and most beautiful of things of which humans beings are capable.

May they know amazing grace.

And may they know peace.

DOJ demands records of Wikileaks volunteers' Twitter accounts

2011-01-08T13:21:00.004-05:00

In a disturbing and potentially game-changing development on the Wikileaks front, the United States Department of Justice has served a subpoena on the wildly popular microblogging website Twitter. Specifically, they want all manner of personal information about various Twitter users connected to the online whistleblower organization, Wikileaks, which group of notable activists, writers, and even government figures includes a member of Iceland's parliament.

On Friday, Glenn Greenwald reported (emphasis mine):

Last night, Birgitta Jónsdóttir -- a former WikiLeaks volunteer and current member of the Icelandic Parliament -- announced (on Twitter) that she had been notified by Twitter that the DOJ had served a Subpoena demanding information "about all my tweets and more since November 1st 2009." Several news outlets, including The Guardian, wrote about Jónsdóttir's announcement.
What hasn't been reported is that the Subpoena served on Twitter -- which is actually an Order from a federal court that the DOJ requested -- seeks the same information for numerous other individuals currently or formerly associated with WikiLeaks, including Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp, and Julian Assange. It also seeks the same information for Bradley Manning and for WikiLeaks' Twitter account.

The information demanded by the DOJ is sweeping in scope. It includes all mailing addresses and billing information known for the user, all connection records and session times, all IP addresses used to access Twitter, all known email accounts, as well as the "means and source of payment," including banking records and credit cards. It seeks all of that information for the period beginning November 1, 2009, through the present. A copy of the Order served on Twitter, obtained exclusively by Salon, is here.

The Order was signed by a federal Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, Theresa Buchanan, and served on Twitter by the DOJ division for that district. It states that there is "reasonable ground to believe that the records or other information sought are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation," the language required by the relevant statute. It was issued on December 14 and ordered sealed -- i.e., kept secret from the targets of the Order. It gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order. On January 5, the same judge directed that the Order be unsealed at Twitter's request in order to inform the users and give them 10 days to object; had Twitter not so requested, it would have been compelled to turn over this information without the knowledge of its users. A copy of the unsealing order is here.

Greenwald is in close contact with Jónsdóttir, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee (of Iceland's Parliament) and the NATO parliamentary assembly--if you follow Glenn on Twitter, you can also follow their correspondence, it's all out in the open, ahem. She informed him that she intends to meet with other Iceland leaders and plans to protest the subpoena.

Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson, in the Iceland Review Online, called the matter "very odd and grave", and while he is waiting to speak with Jónsdóttir before going into more detail, he said:

“Of course it is a very serious matter, if a demand has been put forward that she submit personal information to US authrities. She is an Icelandic member of Althingi and furthermore a member of the Foreign Relations committee of Althingi.”

Jónasson continued: “The information from Wikileaks and others have only hurt people who work behind the scenes. I think that if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good.”

Well, yes. Many, many of us share that very sentiment: If we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good.

Yet saying this--and meaning it, and living by it--will earn you all sorts of opprobium. It seems our country is more comfortable with a presidential candidate who repeatedly promises that his leadership will be all about unparalleled transparency but who, unbeknown to us, actually has his fingers crossed behind his back while doing so. (When they take the oath of office, and they swear to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, do you suppose they cross their fingers ever-so-slightly then, too?)

Finally, I'd like to call your attention to one of the comments at the Salon article, by reader Kitty Antonik Wakfer, who points to an excellent way for citizens to protest abuses like this via peaceful, effective means:

Withdraw voluntary association with harm-doers and their enablers/supporters

So there is actually a subpoena - and one that was signed by federal Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan in the Eastern District of Virginia!

Judge Buchanan has been very cooperative since at least early 2002 with the government's "war on terror" by sealing affidavits submitted in support of terrorism-related search warrants. An attempt to challenge her actions met with a US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that "will encourage judges to seal more search-warrant materials and offer fewer reasons for doing so." www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=15658

Judge Buchanan is described in an online account of the trial of Steve Wooford, a local Virginia anti-war activist who was convicted and sentenced by her in March 2003 to 6 months in prison for throwing blood on the Pentagon building's door and walls. Stated in this article to be a relative of conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, she sounds like just the type that the Department of Justice [sic] will continue to make much use of. www.indyweek.com/indyweek/when-war-breaks-out-its-other-peoples-blood-being-spilled/Content?oid=1188929

Only image I find of her online so far www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=118111 Maybe others have found something more identifiable so that voluntary association with her can be withdrawn by those who do not approve of her actions.

But the real key is the enforcers of her subpoena since she would never get out in the field and threaten or actually initiate force on Twitter personnel herself in order to compel them to turn over records. So I urge Twitter staff/mngt to photo/video the enforcers who come to their offices and do the threatening of and/or initiation of actual physical force. Let everyone see who they are and supply names so that the same negative Social Preferencing towards them can take place.

This selective (discriminating) association to exclude those who cause harm - and it is the enforcers who do the harm - is a potentially *very* powerful method of non-violent action, referred to as ostracism by many down through the ages. It is included in Gene Sharp's 2nd volume (of 3), "The Politics of Nonviolent Action", Chapter 4, "The Methods of Social Noncooperation".

Make it undesirable to be a government enforcer or to "support them", which has become mostly support of restrictions on voluntary mutually beneficial exchanges - in this case support of WikiLeaks. When the large numbers of enforcers begin to be uncomfortable with being Socially Preferenced against - avoided, shunned, ostracized - many will cease being government enforcers and the most of the rest will likely stick to arresting physical harm-doers. Additionally, those considering government enforcement "careers" will not see that position as so desirable. And that is the very point!

So many Darrell Issa skeletons; so little time...

2011-01-06T14:15:00.004-05:00

"Mr. Obama could also use a little bit more self-awareness. He should consider how powerful—and inappropriate—a model he sets by his own frequent coarse and uncivil language." -- Über-thug Karl Rove--surely Darrell Issa's idol these days--criticizing the president for using harsh language in describing various Republican obstructionists.

WELL.

It seems the Republican party's newest Head Hatchet Man, one Darrell Issa, is no stranger to thuggery. Originally, I was going to describe, in detail, all these mind-boggling...ah, let's call them episodes in Issa's past and not-so-distant past. But after a bit of research, I quickly realized that sort of raconteurship would turn my blog post into something resembling a doctoral thesis. So let me just throw a few of them on the table, with links, and let readers come to their own conclusions about the man who wants to impeach President Obama while also repealing healthcare reform, "shrinking government", quashing every single good thing--every move in the right (as in, somewhat left) direction that the Dems were miraculously able to get done despite the obstructionism of Issa and his GOP cohorts--and generally set the bar even higher when it comes to being a Grade-A Classic ReThug.

I'd heard about the car-theft thing only recently. The arson, the weapons charges, the Duke Cunningham stuff, and so on and so on, well, to be honest, dear reader, I find myself a little in awe of someone so clearly bereft of even a shred of human conscience, so utterly devoid of self-awareness, and so packed-to-the-eyeballs with hypocrisy it's a wonder he can view himself in the vanity mirror when he does his morning muscle-flexings.

From (appropriately) Crooks and Liars:

In 2003, the former car thief turned car alarm magnate Issa led the effort to recall California Governor Gray Davis. (Davis was undone by the energy crisis which crippled the Golden State thanks in large part to market manipulation by Enron.) But part two of the Issa plan - to capture the Governor's office himself - abruptly ran aground when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to get in the race.

On August 7, 2003, Issa shocked supporters and announced he would not continue his candidacy, comically claiming:

"It had nothing to do with Schwarzenegger's decision."

Issa at times wept uncontrollably as he made his premature withdrawal. His teary laments of "God Almighty" may have had something to do with the $1 million he invested to unseat Davis. This video shows Issa's pathetic performance as he concluded his gubernatorial ambitions had been terminated. The water works start around the 7:30 mark above.)

Okay, so Issa, along with his brother, engaged in felony auto theft and fraud--not once, but apparently three times--then bragged about forming an auto alarm company because, as he joked, "My brother was a car thief"; then, he bankrolled the California recall effort so he could run for the governorship himself and then withdrew in tears when Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped up and, er, terminated his aspirations. What else?

From Perrspectives' Top 10 Darrell Issa Hall of Shame Moments (go read the whole thing, seriously):

5. Issa Drives the Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam

As it turns out, Congressman Issa was also a key player in another major Bush administration scandal, the political purge of U.S. attorneys.

Carol Lam, who successfully prosecuted disgraced San Diego Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, was one of the 8 U.S. prosecutors forced out by Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. But it was Issa who helped create the façade that supposedly lax immigration enforcement by Lam's office was behind her dismissal.

It was Issa, after all, who released an anonymously written 41 page Border Patrol report which claimed "that Lam was giving less attention to human smugglers than she should." As the Voice of San Diego reported in March 2007:

Six days after the Associated Press story broke, Issa's office sent a letter to Lam, in which the congressman called the memo "an embarrassment to your office."
Monica Goodling, a Justice Department spokeswoman, sent the letter to Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff who resigned in the attorney firing scandal's wake, and two other high-ranking officials.

"FYI," she wrote, "the assault continues."

Lam was eventually sacked, as TPM Muckraker concluded, "despite the fact that no one from the Justice Department ever confronted Carol Lam over her performance on immigration prosecutions."

And from San Jose's Mercury News:

Two years after the San Jose charges, Issa came under suspicion again
when the Ohio factory housing his fledgling auto-alarm business went
up in flames.

Issa had wrested control of the small, struggling electronics company
from two brothers in Cleveland.

A few months later, the business was destroyed in a Labor Day weekend
fire.

Arson investigators hired by the state concluded that ``this was not
an accidental fire.''

Suspicion focused on Issa, who had recently more than quadrupled the
building insurance from about $100,000 to $460,000, was inside the
building several times over the weekend and had taken a key computer
from the business a few days earlier.

Arson suspicion

The president of the business at the time, Joe Adkins, told
investigators that he thought that Issa had set the blaze.

Adkins was one of the people from whom Issa had seized control of the
company, and Issa has described him as being disgruntled.

Wednesday, Adkins stood by his statement in a telephone interview.

``Let's put it this way: There was an awful lot of very far-reaching
coincidences,'' he said.

At the time, Adkins said, one of Issa's brothers also aroused
suspicion.

As they were cleaning up the building, Adkins said, some employees
noticed that the brother's hair was burned off one arm.

About those weapons charges:

Issa was arrested twice for weapons charges, once in Ohio and once in Michigan. While Issa was in Ohio, he was given the job of firing a high level executive, Jack Frantz. Frantz recalls that Issa came into his office carrying a box. Issa opened the box and showed Frantz the gun. Frantz knew he was being fired and felt that was Issa's method of intimidating him. Frantz relayed the story to the Los Angeles Times and in response, Issa told the reporter, "No shots were ever fired." He further stated that he doesn't even remember whether he had a gun that day. The bookkeeper backed up Frantz's story, telling the LA Times that day was frightening. In the Michigan case, Issa received probation and paid a fine. Please see: http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201006010007

So please tell me, someone, anyone: how does such a manifestly sociopathic thug rise to power in the United States Congress?

I mean, sure, there are plenty of crooks and liars scurrying about those halls, but wow, this kind of over-the-top, baldfaced criminal behavior from a man around whose neck hangs a past so blatantly checkered, Michelle Malkin might well accuse him of wearing a terrorist scarf? It strikes me as something that even the Bush family would shun as far too grubby and gangsta for their tastes--Bar would never want to besmirch her beautiful mind contemplating such behavior going on within her husband and sons' party. No, better to contract it out to the underlings and go boating or something.

I think I just answered my own question there.

Dogs are beyond awesome

2011-01-04T12:05:00.004-05:00

Readers know how much I adore cats--all cats, all shapes and sizes and species--but in light of the recent addition to the family, one Ruby Lucille Tornello the Magnificent, allow me to show some love to my dear canine friends too. Watch the above Dogs are Awesome video (via Dependable Renegade) and be amazed!

Here she is, by the way, our own little Jack Russell Terrorist, posing with me (in a rare apron-wearing moment) on Christmas Day 2010:

Monday Marley: Burnin' and Lootin'

2011-01-03T14:29:00.002-05:00

Long ago, my eldest son--then just a wee thing with a very grown-up taste when it came to music--had been playing deejay, going through our CDs, and he asked me if he could see Jimi live one day soon.

"Ah, actually no, baby," I said. "He died a long time ago. Before Mama even came to the States."

Okay, well, can we go to see Miles Davis?

"Er, ah, him too, my love. I'm sorry."

How about Bob Marley? Frank Zappa?

I shook my head again. I probably said something Mama-like and encouraging, along the lines of At least we have their music forever, to love and learn from. I don't recall exactly, though I do remember weeping a bit, privately (I hope), as I am wont to do when my children remind me how very fragile we are, to quote yet another musician.

Genius is immortal; human beings are not. We're not even especially tough or adaptive--not when we shove our heads in the seductive sand of convenience and denial and refuse to learn. A surefire recipe for extinction, that is.

Listen, grieve, learn, and look ahead. We've got work to do.

This morning I woke up in a curfew;
O God, I was a prisoner, too - yeah!
Could not recognize the
faces standing over me;
They were all dressed in
uniforms of brutality. Eh!

How many rivers do we have to cross,
Before we can talk to the boss? Eh!
All that we got, it seems we have lost;
We must have really paid the cost.

(That's why we gonna be)
Burnin' and a-lootin' tonight;
(Say we gonna burn and loot)
Burnin' and a-lootin' tonight;
(One more thing)
Burnin' all collusion tonight;
(Oh, yeah, yeah)
Burnin' all illusion tonight.

Oh, stop them!

Give me the food and let me grow;
Let the Roots Man take a blow.
All them drugs gonna make you slow now;
It's not the music of the ghetto. Eh!

Corporate-owned media and government agencies (i.e. the C.I.A.): two close friends working closely together for many, many years

2010-12-30T14:36:00.007-05:00

Following up Sir Charles' recent post about the pathetic state of our mainstream press--who continue to do their masters' bidding while oblivious to pesky concerns like ethics and responsibility to readers, and who see nothing remotely questionable about the cozy relationships they enjoy with government officials--I wanted to call everyone's attention to a fascinating, in-depth, and surprisingly timeless (and depressingly timely) article written in the Rolling Stone by Pulitzer-winning journalist Carl Bernstein, which I found linked in comments at Glenn Greenwald's place.

In this excellent article--written in 1977, mind you--Bernstein discusses the beyond-close friendship of top American journalists and media outlets and the Central Intelligence Agency, specifically with regard to the procuring and sharing of information and sources.

I think you'll find it incredibly illuminating--certainly it goes a long way toward explaining the genesis of that loathsome subset of entrenched, maintain-access-at-all-costs journos whom we in Left Blogistan often call "The Villagers".

Read the whole thing. Plus ça change, as they say... (bolds are mine):

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception for the following principal reasons:

The use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence‑gathering employed by the CIA. Although the Agency has cut back sharply on the use of reporters since 1973 primarily as a result of pressure from the media), some journalist‑operatives are still posted abroad.

Further investigation into the matter, CIA officials say, would inevitably reveal a series of embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism.

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune.

By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.

The CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress.

(Bear in mind, Bernstein wrote this in 1977; today, after 9/11 and with the relatively recent passage of legislation like the Patriot Act, and the attendant erosion of privacy rights and the White House and NSA's widespread use of warrantless wiretapping of the phones of citizens and journalists alike, it is highly likely that this "special relationship" is no less extensive now than it was then, and indeed is probably even more far-reaching and corrosive in its scope and effect.)

These are a few of my favorite things, Part 1: The Nutcracker

2010-12-22T02:17:00.005-05:00

Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing in Tchaikovsky's holiday classic, The Nutcracker.

They're simply brilliant together. Kirkland is a floating doll-child; Baryshnikov, a leaping soldier. He is as explosively powerful as she is delicate, ethereal, weightless.

Now it feels like Christmas.

What does it for you?

Book Review: Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

2010-12-21T10:59:00.006-05:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

-- from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

You'll hear no argument from me that the 2008 presidential election was a game-changer for American electoral politics. Certainly, it was a game-changer in terms of the leading candidates' gender and ethnic identities--for the first time ever, the top contenders for the country's two highest offices included a woman and an African-American man.

It was also a game-changer by default in that Americans, after eight years with George W. Bush in the White House, found themselves in a worse position economically than ever before--real wages had long been stagnant while the cost of living continued to rise, and the national debt had skyrocketed as the government borrowed more and more in order to finance two wars--and all signs were pointing to an impending sea-change. The table had been set.

And it was a game-changer in that a relatively new and exciting medium--the Internet--would now play a vital role in electing our next president.

From a November, 2008 New York Times piece:

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet. [...]

Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign -– which was run by Mr. Trippi –- was groundbreaking in its use of the Internet to raise small amounts of money from hundreds of thousands of people. But by using interactive Web 2.0 tools, Mr. Obama’s campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents.

Mr. Obama used the Internet to organize his supporters in a way that would have in the past required an army of volunteers and paid organizers on the ground, Mr. Trippi said.

My fondness for politics (some might call it a masochistic streak)--and propensity to examine the natures and narratives of the human players involved therewith--added up to my being eager to read Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, which is now out in paperback.

No matter where on the spectrum your politics lie, Game Change is a terrifically absorbing and entertaining read. There is truly something for everyone. For the political novice, Game Change serves as a primer on How Americans Elect Leaders as well as a decent, almost-court-side seat at the Big Game, as it were, where the reader can see the posturing, promising, and bruise-delivering up close; where he can hear the the sotto voce swearing and deal-making with his own ears.

For the political junkie, it's a sustained--if limited and carefully controlled--glimpse of the mindset and methodology our would-be leaders. Yet despite enjoying the fly-on-the-wall perspective that Heilmann and Helperin weave into the stories (tales?), I found myself wanting more.

Numerous analyses of the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and, of course, Barack Obama have hit the blogosphere in the years since the election. I want to focus on two of the book's underdog protagonists, for lack of a better term, namely Senator John McCain and former-governor Sarah Palin. I'd already heard about Senator John McCain's hot temper and fondness for expletives, so reading that he screamed "Fuck you! Fuck, fuck, fuck (10x)" into his wife Cindy's face and made her cry at an early strategy meeting, while disturbing, did not really illuminate anything. What about his constantly-changing positions? Could a fly on the wall have perhaps noted the underlying reasons for McCain's various about-face moments--that he was not quite the "maverick" of yesteryear, but rather, an ambitious politician who'd embrace conventional wisdom and conservative-politics-as-usual (promoting the war machine, cutting taxes, tacitly supporting anti-immigration sentiments in word if not heart) if that's what it took to get himself elected?

I am deeply interested in that: what happens in a man or woman's mind when what one assumed were their core principles seem change so radically before one's eyes. And I remain interested, even as I fully understand the difficulty of getting into someone's head, particularly when that head belongs to John McCain. An omniscient hidden narrator--in this case, Heilemann and Helperin--needs to be bolder and more comprehensive in his filling-in of the motivation blanks. We cannot figure out McCain--he is unlike anyone we know--so given only limited information about his campaign's financial woes and his hot temper and foul mouth, we're going to liken him to a furious, bitter, more-than-a-little-unhinged older relative, or else a perpetually embattled and resentful history teacher we once knew and feared.

In their coverage of former-Governor Sarah Palin, in a chapter entitled "Sarahcuda", the authors famously discuss McCain's Vice Presidential preferences, namely, that he really, truly wanted to have Democratic Senator Joe Liebermann on the ticket. Liebermann had endorsed McCain, and along with Senator Lindsay Graham, the men had apparently become known as The Three Amigos, a group of guys who yukked it up on the trail and amused themselves by watching repeat screenings of John Edwards fixing his hair in a YouTube video. We learn that despite McCain's close friendship with Liebermann and his earnest wish to have him on the ticket--and despite John McCain's advisers being on board with him as the VP pick (at first), having contacted Liebermann and told him as much--the combined efforts and influence of Karl Rove and adviser Charlie Black led to his abandoning the notion of choosing a pro-choice candidate. We then find out that with mere days remaining before the Republican convention, McCain advisers, led by Steve Schmidt, recommended that he consider Alaska's then-governor, Sarah Palin. Quoting the authors as they describe Schmidt's pitch: "She was pro-life, anti-stem-cell research, pro-gun, and pro-states' rights...She was intensely competitive, apparently fearless, and endlessly watchable." We also learn how very little vetting of Palin was actually carried out; less, in fact, than "a potential assistant secretary of agriculture would receive".

Fast-forward to the present, bearing in mind the many skeletons that have fallen from Palin's closet and the ones yet to fall, one is hard-pressed to understand how an experienced politician like John McCain could possibly have chosen a candidate whose presence on the ticket would ultimately prove detrimental. Yes, Palin was pro-life, and that would please the evangelical voters. She was also charismatic and possessed of the kind of confidence and poise exhibited by aspiring beauty queen students with good pageant coaches. And she was attractive--all the better, as far as McCain was concerned.

She was also, as the authors subtly note, "unprepared"; however, inherent in that that term is the implication that with appropriate amounts of work, the subject can be "prepared". This was clearly not the case, we learn. In reading about the intensive efforts to educate and re-make Palin, one can only surmise that the best coaches and stylists money could buy were corralled and sent to her suite, and while the surface results would prove impressive, Palin's apparent lack of knowledge and unwillingness to study the issues would ultimately turn off one of the very voter blocs McCain and his advisers were counting on winning over: women. Particularly women who'd supported Hillary Clinton. She wasn't "unprepared": she was obtuse, and she seemed adamant about remaining so.

I found this passage to be especially shocking:

They sat Palin down at a table in the suite, spread out a map of the world, and proceeded to give her a potted history of foreign policy. They started with the Spanish Civil War, then moved on to World War I, World War II, the cold war, and what Scheunemann liked to call the "three wars of today--Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global war on terror.

That someone with so little knowledge could conceivably have become Vice President of the United States--a 72-year-old cancer-survivor's heartbeat away from the presidency, as they say--is utterly shameful, and after reading Game Change (and after having researched and written about Palin in the time since the election), I am still unclear as to how or why John McCain could make such an irresponsible choice.

Perhaps McCain had truly grown to hate politics, and as the authors imply, had come to despise his own role in it and take a sort of scorched-earth approach to his own career. Or perhaps he wanted to make a big, tantrum-like point to other Republicans--to show them that they were wrong (in counseling him away from choosing Joe Liebermann) and he was right.

Even though many of its revelations have become common knowledge since its first publication, and despite the many questions that the book leaves largely unanswered--questions about McCain's motivations; about Palin's strange and self-contradicting lies about her then-recent alleged pregnancy and her husband's membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party; and about Cindy McCain's inexplicably enduring tolerance for verbal and emotional abuse--Game Change is a thumping good read. In a world where messaging is so tightly controlled as to make one wonder if politicians consult their advisers before wishing their friends a Happy Birthday, it's rather delicious to see and hear our leaders (and would-be leaders) in all their flawed glory--worrying, swearing, sniping, and generally acting much like the rest of us. Only with private jets and nicer suits.

R.I.P. Journalism, part ∞ : Mainstream media completely ignores significant war protest

2010-12-20T10:32:00.005-05:00

What did American journalists based in our nation's capital and elsewhere do when over a hundred U.S. veterans chained themselves to the White House fence--during a snowstorm, mind you--to protest the country's ongoing wars in Afghanistan and other countries?

If your answer is something along the lines of bupkis, nada, or sod-all, give yourself a chocolate reindeer.

Because that's exactly what happened on Thursday and Friday last week. Nothing to see here, folks, let's keep it moving... [bolds mine]

Washington Police arrested 135 of the protesters, in what is being called the largest mass detention in recent years. Among those arrested were Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who used to provide the president’s daily briefings, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the government’s Pentagon Papers during the Nixon administration, and Chris Hedges, former war correspondent for the New York Times.

No major US news media reported on the demonstration or the arrests. It was blacked out of the New York Times, blacked out of the Philadelphia Inquirer, blacked out in the Los Angeles Times, blacked out of the Wall Street Journal, and even blacked out of the capital’s local daily, the Washington Post, which apparently didn't even think it was a local story worth publishing.

Making the media cover-up of the protest all the more outrageous was the fact that most news media did report on Friday, the day after the protest, the results of the latest poll of American attitudes towards the Afghanistan War, an ABC/Washington Post Poll which found that 60% of Americans now feel that war has “not been worth it.” That’s a big increase from the 53% who said they opposed the war in July.

Clearly, any honest and professional journalist and editor would see a news link between such a poll result and an anti-war protest at the White House led, for the first time in recent memory, by a veterans organization, the group Veterans for Peace, in which veterans of the nation’s wars actually put themselves on the line to be arrested to protest a current war.

Friday was also the day that most news organizations were reporting on the much-touted, but also much over-rated Pentagon report on the “progress” of the American war in Afghanistan--a report prepared for the White House that claimed there was progress, but which was immediately contradicted by a CIA report that said the opposite. Again, any honest and professional journalist and editor would immediately see the publication of such a report as an appropriate occasion to mention the unusual opposition to the war by a group of veterans right outside the president’s office.

And yet, the protest event was completely blacked out by the corporate news media. (Maybe the servile and over-paid White House press corps, ensconced in the press room inside the White House, didn't want to go out and brave the elements to cover the protest.)

I wonder if the protesters might have got themselves a bit more (as in, any) news coverage if they'd worn bright red Fight The War on Christmas sweatshirts decorated with tiny plastic made-in-China baby Jesuses and big faux-fur Santa hats festooned with tea bags?

Ah, staying indoors where the message, like the controlled climate, is reliably warm and fuzzy--all in a day's work (where "work" = rubbing shoulders and kissing backsides) for the poseurs who bring us what they call news and I call gossipy, meaningless effluvia.

How transparently bought-and-paid-for of them. How completely irresponsible, craven, and dishonest.

How utterly disgraceful.

The Rational Actor's Libertarian Fête

2010-12-13T09:54:00.006-05:00

In the winter of 2007, I wrote this sonnet sequence in response to some of the worrisome events I'd seen take place that year--specifically, the many ill effects that deregulation and greed had wrought, and the often ghastly (and even fatal) consequences of holding profits and self-interest in greater esteem than such incidental and seemingly trivial matters as the health, safety, and financial well-being of human beings both here and abroad, from whence much of our food and most of our consumer goods are imported.

The FDA and Consumer Product Safety Commission are in marginally better shape under our current White House (though I've yet to hear of any of the shuttered labs being re-staffed and re-opened).

Sadly, however, this poem would seem to be even more on-point now, in late 2010, than it was when I first wrote it. Especially the last two lines.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached.
-- from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Rational Actor's Libertarian Fête

Come now, the ever-bitterer winter wind
Reminding one and all what season nears,
And with it come the needs and wants of friends;
The plight--the suffering!--told of distant spheres.
Ah, what is there to do but shake one's head
And wonder at the choices people make?
They knew what they were doing. He made his bed.
Some people want to live life on the take.
I suffered; there were sacrifices made.
The roads I chose have led me to this place,
And all my efforts now will be repaid;
My just desserts spread forth before my face.
Let this be, then, the year we celebrate
At the Rational Actor's Libertarian Fête!

Come in, have drinks; we've everything to please--
Our own self-interest, you'll be glad to know,
Means cocktails that are light on antifreeze
And bread with just the faintest melamine glow.
We're reasonably sure the Champagne flute
Won't leach a cloud of lead into each bubble--
Or Christmas-colored plastic cups might suit?
No need to thank the Chinese for their trouble.
It's quite a spread, when all is said and done:
There's corn--and beans--with tortured DNA;
The Monkfish, I am told, will surely stun;
There's penicillin in the shrimp souffle.
It's doubtful that the roasted pig will kill you;
Though, even then, the hospital will bill you.

Come now, the ever-bitterer winter wind,
Reminding one and all that all are one;
And so the needs and wants of nearby friends,
And suffering humans under a distant sun,
Become our needs and wants--it's all-impacting.
Each dollar saved becomes a lead-laced train
That sickens those too young for Rational Acting.
Each weakened law begets a poisoned grain.
And so the guests of honor at their Fête
May find their appetites are somewhat numb;
They'll hope the howling coming from the gate
Is not The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,
His corrupted chains of debt stretched through the air,
Borne by toxic winds of laissez-faire.

D.N.T. 11/25/07

Originally published at Ezra Klein, Jon Swift's Best Blog Posts of 2007, and litbrit.

Wikileaks reveals yet more taxpayer-funded mercenary malfeasance in Afghanistan--now with child rape

2010-12-09T13:53:00.007-05:00

So, about the whole Wikileaks matter. You weren't thinking, Well, I've pretty much heard everything, were you? Behold the latest serving of even more everything, and prepare to be horrified (bolds mine):

The Afghanistan cable (dated June 24, 2009) discusses a meeting between Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and US assistant ambassador Joseph Mussomeli. Prime among Atmar's concerns was a party partially thrown by DynCorp for Afghan police recruits in Kunduz Province.

Many of DynCorp's employees are ex-Green Berets and veterans of other elite units, and the company was commissioned by the US government to provide training for the Afghani police. According to most reports, over 95 percent of its $2 billion annual revenue comes from US taxpayers.

And in Kunduz province, according to the leaked cable, that money was flowing to drug dealers and pimps. Pimps of children, to be more precise. (The exact type of drug was never specified.)

Since this is Afghanistan, you probably already knew this wasn't a kegger. Instead, this DynCorp soiree was a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, much like the ones uncovered earlier this year by Frontline.

For those that can't or won't click the link, bacha bazi is a pre-Islamic Afghan tradition that was banned by the Taliban. Bacha boys are eight- to 15-years-old. They put on make-up, tie bells to their feet and slip into scanty women's clothing, and then, to the whine of a harmonium and wailing vocals, they dance seductively to smoky roomfuls of leering older men.

After the show is over, their services are auctioned off to the highest bidder, who will sometimes purchase a boy outright. And by services, we mean anal sex: The State Department has called bacha bazi a "widespread, culturally accepted form of male rape." (While it may be culturally accepted, it violates both Sharia law and Afghan civil code.)

How is the United States caught up in this appalling, outrageous scenario? Well, we--or rather, DynCorp (the American private contractor whom the DOD retained to train the Afghan police) , were busy doing two things the United States seems to do better than anyone else in the world: throwing pallet-loads of tax dollars around the Middle East, and leaning on the press with all our fearsome might whenever a potentially troublesome story looms, bringing to bear whatever pressures are needed in order to get the story spiked altogether or, at the very least, spun and sugarcoated until it becomes more bon-bon than bombshell. DynCorp, or its local representative, used our money to hire the boys and throw the "party". Here's what happened next:

So perhaps in the evil world of Realpolitik, in which there is apparently no moral compass US private contractors won't smash to smithereens, it made sense for DynCorp to drug up some Pashtun police recruits and turn them loose on a bunch of little boys. But according to the leaked document, Atmar, the Afghani interior minister, was terrified this story would catch a reporter's ear.

He urged the US State Department to shut down a reporter he heard was snooping around, and was horrified that a rumored videotape of the party might surface. He predicted that any story about the party would "endanger lives." He said that his government had arrested two Afghan police and nine Afghan civilians on charges of "purchasing a service from a child" in connection with the party, but that he was worried about the image of their "foreign mentors," by which he apparently meant DynCorp. American diplomats told him to chill. They apparently had a better handle on our media than Atmar, because when a report of the party finally did emerge, it was neutered to the point of near-falsehood.

The UK Guardian picks up the tale:

US diplomats cautioned against an "overreaction" and said that approaching the journalist involved would only make the story worse.
"A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish," the cable said.
The strategy appeared to work when an article was published in July by the Washington Post about the incident, which made little of the affair, saying it was an incident of "questionable management oversight" in which foreign DynCorp workers "hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party".

A tribal dance? Could illegal strip clubs stateside possibly try that one out? "Naw, those are not full-contact lap-dances, Mr. Vice Cop. Krystal and Lexxis are just performing an ancient Cherokee fertility dance. See those buck-skin thongs on and those feathers in their hair?"

As we mentioned, this isn't DynCorp's first brush with the sex-slavery game. Back in Bosnia in 1999, US policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac was fired from DynCorp after blowing the whistle on a sex-slave ring operating on one of our bases there. DynCorp's employees were accused of raping and peddling girls as young as 12 from countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. The company was forced to settle lawsuits against Bolkovac (whose story was recently told in the feature film The Whistleblower) and another man who informed authorities about DynCorp's sex ring.

There's your tax dollars at work, Joe Six-Pack. Maybe now you won't get so worked up about the fact that KPFT gets about ten percent of its funding from the government and uses some of it to air Al-Jazeera.

That's right: the same DynCorp whose employees were accused of raping girls as young as twelve--and selling them into sex slavery--during the Bosnian conflict in 1999, was nonetheless, just a few years later during the Bush administration, hired to teach Afghan police recruits how to be good Afghan policemen.

The rape of children, ladies and gentlemen.

In our name. Enabled by our money. Now you know. And now you can let your Congresscrittes know, too.

You're damned right I think Julian Assange is a hero of sorts, not a "terrorist", for crying out loud. A flawed hero, perhaps (aren't they all?) but a hero nonetheless. One who is willing to risk his own freedom--his own life, to put not-too-fine a point on it--in order to do that which our well-funded, well-oiled (pun intended) mainstream press are too craven, too cowed by their paymasters, to do:

merely tell the truth.

Abandon Hope and beware of falling contrapassi*

2010-12-07T09:12:00.011-05:00

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Kant was right (thank you, Driftglass): the flawed and distressingly contorted raw material that is human nature happens to be, for better or worse, all we've got to work with when we members of the species set out to build our lives. And by extension, to build our cultures, our societies, our governments, our world, and our history. Flawed and contorted; bendy and vulnerable in all the wrong places; rigid and unyielding at the most inconvenient of times. That's us.

I bring this up because I've been thinking a good deal about this inherently imperfect nature of ours, as well as the not-small matter of how certain crimes--like torture and murder and lies that cause innocent people to be killed--are what I consider to be Absolute Wrongs, and how all of this pertains to the sea change that has recently taken place with regard to my attitude toward American politics, or, more specifically, American politicians.

Who, after all, are us. Our government is us: We, the People. (For the time being, anyway.)

The opiated trudge toward oligarchy by The Reliably Fleeceable; the widespread indifference to the ongoing dilution (and eventual total dissolution) of civil rights; the childish solipsism that elides (if not outright denies) the destruction surely taking place at the other end of a pelted rock's--or launched Predator Drone's--ruinous trajectory; the willingness of far too many on the so-called Left to assume the position--to dress ourselves in sackcloth and ashes and write on our foreheads the twin legends Please Divide! and Please Conquer!

Us. That's all us.

I have been patient (having had lots of on-the-job training in that respect, trust me). I have looked at everything from thirty thousand feet; I've thought about it all in considerable depth, being my own Devil's advocate as well as allowing my frontal cortices to marinate in a complicated stew comprised, in equal parts, of the wisdom, experience, perspective, historical background, ideology, misguidedness, and even flat-out-wrongheadedness of others as expressed in their writings and speeches and guest appearances.

I kept coming back to the same thought. Kant (again) said it so well:

"Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity."

And there it is, the profoundly cramped and uncomfortable moral corner into which I've painted myself every time I've countered a criticism of President Obama and his administration with some variation on the Be Patient/Grow up and Be Realistic/Look, He's Done An Awful Lot of Good Stuff/Well Tell Me, Would You Prefer A Wingnut President? theme.

Welcome to Deborah's Corner of the Categorical Imperative, wherein I will attempt to reinvigorate my weary, battered moral self by noting the all-encompassing importance of doing that which is right, and doing it for no reason other than its own intrinsic rightness.

I can no longer applaud the actions and policies of President Obama; I can no longer bite my tongue and remain "patient" while the actions and policies carried out by that We the People group we call our government--regardless of their underlying (and lied-about) motivations--continue to wreak havoc, harm, and widespread injustice, on our fellow human beings.

The last straw was not, as I thought most likely, the president's unnecessary caving in to the obstructionist Republican minority in Congress and extending the costly Bushian tax cuts for wealthy Americans. No, it was this nasty Wikileaks revelation--about the current White House administration's despicable sotto voce attempts to strong-arm certain more law-abiding (and probably more morally-upright) foreign governments and thus stymie war crimes investigations abroad--which sparked my own epiphany. I realized that despite my having passionately called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for their war crimes back in 2007 (great comment thread there at Ezra's old place, if you've got time), I was now at a point where I was allowing others--even some fellow lefties--to (nearly) convince me of how politically inexpedient, how inconvenient, and how costly-to-the-national-morale such war crimes investigations would be. And I was also--mistakenly (oh how mistaken I was!)--believing, all along, that President Obama would eventually turn his seemingly robust moral attentions to the ugly task of holding the criminals accountable. I could wait; it would happen. I was wrong. Jonathan Turley sums it up nicely:

Just as many conservatives abandoned their principles in following George Bush blindly, many liberals have chosen to ignore Obama’s concerted efforts to protect individuals accused of war crimes. Under our treaty obligations, the United States has the primary responsibility to prosecute torture by U.S. citizens. That responsibility rests with the Executive Branch – the prosecuting authority of the United States. What is particularly disgraceful is that Obama would refuse to fulfill this responsibility under our treaties and international law and then demand the same hypocrisy from our allies.

I will close with two more quotes. The first is from Numbers 32:23 in the Bible, the book on which our President placed his hand when he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States: Be sure your sin will find you out.

And the second is a Latin phrase: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus, which means "Let justice be done, even if the world should perish". Or, if you prefer (as I do), a translation with a minor adjustment that allows for self-preservation:

Let justice be done, even if the world's evildoers should perish.

* cf.

The terrible price of acquiescence

2010-11-24T09:27:00.005-05:00

Cassandra

I heard one who said: "Verily,
What word have I for children here?
Your Dollar is your only Word,
The wrath of it your only fear.

"You build it altars tall enough
To make you see but you are blind;
You cannot leave it long enough
To look before you or behind.

"When Reason beckons you to pause,
You laugh and say that you know best;
But what it is you know, you keep
As dark as ingots in a chest.

"You laugh and answer, 'We are young;
Oh, leave us now, and let us grow:'
Not asking how much more of this
Will Time endure or Fate bestow.

"Because a few complacent years
Have made your peril of your pride,
Think you that you are to go on
Forever pampered and untried?

"What lost eclipse of history,
What bivouac of the marching stars,
Has given the sign for you to see
Milleniums and last great wars?

"What unrecorded overthrow
Of all the world has ever known,
Or ever been, has made itself
So plain to you, and you alone?

"Your Dollar, Dove, and Eagle make
A Trinity that even you
Rate higher than you rate yourselves;
It pays, it flatters, and it's new.

"And though your very flesh and blood
Be what the Eagle eats and drinks,
You'll praise him for the best of birds,
Not knowing what the eagle thinks.

"The power is yours, but not the sight;
You see not upon what you tread;
You have the ages for your guide,
But not the wisdom to be led.

"Think you to tread forever down
The merciless old verities?
And are you never to have eyes
To see the world for what it is?

"Are you to pay for what you have
With all you are?"--No other word
We caught, but with a laughing crowd
Moved on. None heeded, and few heard.

-- Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet and three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

(H/T and big hugs to Cogitamus reader MR Bill)

Here's to you, Alan Grayson--A liberal turns her lonely eyes to you

2010-11-22T09:08:00.007-05:00

I know I'm not alone in hoping that Florida Congressman Alan Grayson returns to Washington soon. He's been one of the very few Good Guys to ever represent our unique and complicated state, and now he's leaving:

"There's not any doubt about it. The people's business is not being done. There's enormous influence by lobbyists and by special interests," he says. "And the other side has completely sold out to them."

Grayson says he always resisted the influence of those lobbyists.

"A good description of what happened in my case is that they couldn't buy me, so they decided to destroy me with negative ads [during the midterm campaign] that people in my district saw an average of 70 times," he says.

Grayson responded with a controversial ad of his own. It called his opponent "Taliban Dan" and repeated clips in which Webster appeared to say about his wife "she should submit to me." Although the spot was roundly criticized, Grayson says he was justified in running it.

"We had to do it because, in my case, he ducked every debate we were scheduled to have. And the result of that is that we had no way to communicate his record except for the fact that we could run ads that people called negative ads," he says. "And it's unfortunate that the system leaves no other possibility."

Grayson says the ad was a last resort.

"The average voter in Orlando saw that ad twice. The average voter in Orlando saw 70 ads calling me, an incumbent Congressman, a liar, a national embarrassment, a loudmouth, a dog and an evil clown," he says. "So I don't think that my opponents or anyone in the media for that matter — none of whom ever came to my defense — can lecture me on civility in politics."

Let's face it, this whole "civility" argument is a baldfaced joke. It's a silencing technique, really; it's what the entrenched Villagers, aka the White House press corps, call the lefty bloggers--Oooh, they're so foul-mouthed and uncivil!

But why should it be considered uncivilized to speak the plain truth? It should not be thought rude or "conversation-stopping" (ahem, Jon Stewart) to point out that Bush is a war criminal--that's exactly what he, Dick Cheney, and a slew of administration members, not to mention all the unethical (and often thieving, brutal, and/or murderous) independent contractors who profited wildly from the Iraq boondoggle, actually are.

Don't people realize that the lying war criminals who brutalized and murdered others without reproof could, as easily and with as little fear of consequences, harm them?

It's not indelicate to call out the Republicans and Blue ~~Cross Blue Shield~~ Dog Democrats for their pro-insurance-industry stance on health care reform (which is to say, don't reform it at all)--it's dead accurate, and Grayson, in his bold, unflinching, and courageous way, was simply doing his job as one of Florida's elected leaders.

Speaking the truth, and fighting for people instead of plutocrats.

Sadly, those who control the message are, themselves, controlled by corporations--some of which have vast defense industry sectors--who own the majority of media outlets now. It is beyond frightening, and I don't know what we can do to counteract it other than keep speaking out on the fora which remain available to us and informing and encouraging people.

They do eventually come around. Some of them do, anyway.

Minstrel Boy is often writing that democracies are historically short-lived and bloody. I often wonder if human nature, even modern-day human nature, is still not that different from the ethos of our canine brethren in that we fall into packs, each with its leader and attendant hierarchy, as opposed to running governments of the people, by the people.

I wonder if, despite the noble intentions of our more cognitively evolved individual pack members, the group at large will always, inevitably, return to the ways of the wild.

At least wolves don't lie to each other about why they're attacking something or collapse their entire social structure by selling worthless debt instruments en masse and leaving countless numbers of their pack-mates homeless and hungry while they line their own dens with yet more mink and caviar.

TSA "logic" explained: I'm going to need to see you naked before you get on your flight.

2010-11-20T12:19:00.005-05:00

"When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon."
-- Thomas Paine

Greetings readers, and once again--*sigh*--my apologies for the long absence. (I'll spare you the boring details.)

In light of the current outrageous state of affairs with airline security--and our government's wholesale casting aside of Americans' civil rights and privacy, just because we want to go from point A to point B--I'm posting the spot-on (and dreadfully funny) Xtranormal video and strongly recommending the series of excellent TSA posts my co-blogger Lisa Simeone has been putting up at Cogitamus.

In case you're still catching up: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have, in recent months, been spending countless millions of dollars on new, intrusive full-body scanning machines that utilize a type of x-ray radiation in order to see your skin beneath your clothes. So yes, that means they get to see you naked, from top to bottom, if you want to get on board an airplane at most U.S. airports. And it means your skin gets irradiated.

Well, you do have another option, one which, in addition to being shockingly invasive and sadistic, would seem to be punitive and coercive--in other words, aimed at forcing more people to submit to the scanners: you can undergo what is euphemistically called an "enhanced pat-down".

Enhanced as in, they will grope your sexual organs and breasts, sometimes directly on the skin, often without informing you that they're going to do that--in full view of other passengers waiting in line--and ask you to remove any medical devices or prostheses so they can humiliate you by holding them up and examining them, as they did to one flight attendant who was a cancer survivor wearing a breast prosthesis after her mastectomy. Yes, they will offer "private screenings", but you won't be allowed to document their procedures on video, not unless you want to be arrested; for this reason, many passengers who wish to avoid the radiation and thus submit to the gropefest are choosing to have it done out in the open, in front of witnesses.

Have there been abuses? You betcha. Already. Head on over to Cogitamus, and scroll through Lisa's numerous posts and the attendant comment threads. A Christian cookbook author was forced to strap her baby into a stroller and was then sexually assaulted when a TSA agent groped her beneath her clothes (she has wisely retained a lawyer). Numerous women report having their shirts unbuttoned and their underwear exposed to all and sundry; some have even had their underwear pulled away from their bodies while the agent peered in, front and back.

Listen, I'm not a prude. I've gone to nude beaches; I've been dressed, undressed, and re-dressed by fashion-show folk; I've given birth three times; when I was at UF, my friends and I would regularly go skinny-dipping in one of the many lakes and sinkholes near Gainesville. Furthermore, I don't belong to any organized religion, much less one that forbids women to expose their bodies. I respect the worldview of those individuals, of course; I simply don't have a problem, myself, with voluntary nudity in the appropriate context.

No, this is not about my modesty--or the lack thereof, ahem!--or, for that matter, yours.

This is about our Fourth Amendment right to be free from intrusive and unreasonable search and seizure.

This is about our rights to be secure in our person. Our right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent.

This is about our right to refuse to allow our children to have strangers touch parts of their bodies when we have all along been teaching them that only parents and doctors should touch said parts, and if someone else attempts to do that, they should scream loudly and inform a responsible adult.

This is about what it means to live in America, Land of the Free (to travel about the country) and Home of the Brave (as opposed to Home of the Pants-wetting Sheep Who Are Easily Coerced Into Giving Up Our Rights The Moment Someone Invokes The Terrorist Bogeyman).

As numerous security experts, including one responsible for the highly successful procedures at Israel's Ben Gurion airport, have noted, these scanner machines are not effective, and despite dosing you up with potentially cancer-causing radiation, they are not subject to the strict regulatory oversight, maintenance protocols, and calibration rules the way medical x-ray machines and CAT scanners are. They cannot detect some kinds of explosives, and they cannot detect anything that resides in a body cavity. Though the so-called Underwear Bomber is often cited as the reason the TSA needs to see you naked, the aforementioned experts state that these scanners probably would not have detected the type of explosives he attempted to use. It was passengers who thwarted that attack, as he succeeded only in setting his testicles on fire and embarrassing the CIA (again) when reports surfaced indicating that foreign offices had ignored the warning communiques of his own father, thus leaving him free to board an airline without setting off any alarm bells real or metaphorical.

Indeed, they are an enormous and shamefully wasteful expenditure by our government, one that was shot down by the House and somehow still foisted upon the public. A boondoggle and a giveaway to certain ex-Department of Homeland Security heads and their new, Dickensianly-named employers.

Good police work--by the FBI, for example--is what stops terror attacks before the perpetrators even get near an airport. Well-trained air marshals on select flights, metal detectors, responsible behavioral profiling by highly-trained personnel, chemical explosive detectors, and selective, secondary screening of high-risk passengers are what will keep us as safe as can be expected in a world, in a reality, where--let's face it--there are never any guarantees.

Other than this one: you are far more likely to be struck by lightening than to experience an airborne terrorist attack.

Oh, and this one: history tells us that when you give up some of your rights, you shouldn't expect to ever get them back.

Please contact your Senators and House Representatives and let them know you will not stand for these shameful, unconstitutional, and (ironically) terrorizing TSA procedures.

Meet Florida's next governor

2010-11-05T10:20:00.002-04:00

I had not seen this footage, compiled by the Alex Sink campaign, prior to this morning--a full three days after the midterms. And I'm guessing I am a bit more politically active (and aware) than the average bear. Therefore it's a given that a sizable number of Floridians never saw it, either.

So why wasn't this--and other revelatory information about Scott that I understand to be out there--blasting from every television station on every tv set in the state, every day, for the past two weeks?

Because ad time costs a fortune, and Alex Sink did not--could not--go the Buy Yourself A State route, the way Rick Scott did here, the way Meg Whitman tried to in California. And you can be certain that the billions of dollars in anonymous (i.e. corporate and foreign) donations--the Citizens-enabled stuff that fueled the fire that boiled the tea that washed through the electorate and invigorated the frightened, angry, and newly-impoverished Old White Religious Right--were landing, disproportionately, in the rightmost coffers, not in those of struggling Democrats.

From comments at the YouTube site:

We know this video is put together. It is a campaign ad. But the fact remains that there is a very legitimate doubt about this guy. By the way, he owns many urgent care centers here in Florida. He will benefit if a legislation that is currently in the makings in Tallahassee is passed. He will benefit if Medicaid is contracted with the HMOs. If elected Gov. he will have a saying on the Medicaid-HMO contracting.

Coincidence?

Heaven (if there is one) help us. Because all hell is about to break loose.

What all the hot air boiled down to

2010-11-03T08:49:00.011-04:00

Yesterday morning, after I'd taken my two younger sons to school and before I would take my eldest son to the polls to vote in his first-ever election, I realized my car was running low on fuel and pulled into what must be one of the last remaining full-service gas stations in America that still offers niceties like checking one's oil and tire pressure.

The gentleman on duty was an older man, although come to think of it, I am getting old myself these days, so I'd say we were contemporaries, or close to it. He asked if I'd like him to check the oil while the tank was filling.

"Just the tire pressure, please," I said.

"Where you from?" the man asked.

"England, originally. I've been here a while, though," I said.

"Well, we've got to do something about that," he said, pointing to my bumper, where an Obama/Biden sticker remains. "You should be voting conservative."

Oh dear, I thought. As much as I'd love to set him straight, I'm not sure it's a good idea to get into a political argument at this hour, particularly when I don't want to upset the person responsible for my tires being properly inflated.

"Ah...um...well, my husband is a Republican but our family supports Democrats, Republicans, AND Independents. Whomever we think is right for the office, you know?" (Which is true.)

And he said, "Well, that might have been a good strategy in the past, but look what happens to some of the Republicans, even--that Charlie Crist is not a real conservative. He turned around on his values."

At that point, I thought it best to say nothing and quietly hope for a change of subject. But the man seemed determined to make his point to me, an audience of one, captive as I was in my little steel cocoon littered with soccer gear and old detention slips: "He used to be a great pro-life candidate, but he's no better than any of the others, and turned on his values." He jabbed his finger in the air again, gesturing toward my bumper. "The ones that turn on their values need to go."

So there you have it. As if the tea-leaves, as it were, had not already coalesced so legibly, so ominously. What we saw yesterday--particularly in states like mine, among older voters--was a broad display of something I've worried about and written about so many times before, particularly with regard to Sarah Palin and her ilk: the religious fundamentalism and "Handmaid's Tale" mentality that winds through the body politic and all too often chokes off voters' other concerns, even economic ones.

This man working at the service station will not be benefiting from an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He will not benefit when the cost of living continues to rise but his hourly wage remains effectively stagnant, as it has for decades now. He will not benefit from the billions of dollars Big Defense, Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and Big Ag will make thanks to their new friends in government; he will not benefit as small businesses continue to go under, college costs soar out of reach for most middle class Americans, and the only career paths open to his children involve either low-paying service jobs or putting on a uniform and getting sent to the Middle East (again). To "protect our freedom" (again).

No, he will not benefit at all when the cut-out characters lined up on the puppet stage of my mechanic friend's straight-Republican ticket get their sticky little fingers on yet more levers of power.

But like far too many other white, middle-aged men and women, he supported the so-called Values Candidates and in so doing, voted against his own best interests in ways he may not even realize.

Because the wedge-issue-wielding slimebags who preach and pontificate their way into government for the sole purpose of furthering the interests of the United Corporations of America need only do one thing to get these Americans' votes:

Say they are going to Save the Babies.

Which, of course, they are not. Not the way the fundies hope they will--by rescuing Blastocyst Americans and Embryo Americans and Frozen Embryo Americans and Stem Cell Americans via the outlawing of abortion--and not the way one would hope a government would save babies, either, like not letting their city drown or their food supply be poisoned or their basic medical needs go unmet because they didn't choose wealthy parents.

The capital-C Citizens-loving Supremes are not going to mess with settled law. And the babies belonging to families who've lost their homes? The babies born into poverty for whom vital pre-school programs represent hope for an education and a better life? The babies who may never know what fresh spinach or strawberries taste like but whose little bodies will be soon be well-acquainted with the ill effects of polysyllabic food additives largely banned by the rest of the developed world; recombinant bovine growth hormone; and cheap, obesity-and-diabetes-inducing corn-sugar analogs? The babies that wind up having babies themselves, thanks to the success *cough* of abstinence-only programs and the lack of widely-available and affordable birth control? The babies who might, had their bodies and brains been appropriately nourished, have grown up and become business owners, community leaders, artists, writers, musicians, teachers, astronauts, or presidents, but who will instead continue, in ever-greater numbers and in ever-worsening health, to meander through the bleak landscape of service-work serfdom?

Those babies?

They don't get saved. They need to stop relying on government, apparently, and learn to believe in and rely on themselves, those babies. And if they can't, there will be plenty of private security thugs to keep them in line and evangelical-staffed privatized prisons to house them--no worries!

I cannot understand this country. But I do understand what happened yesterday.

Today in poetically synchronous modern fables

2010-10-29T15:58:00.008-04:00

Mural by Bansky; Canal Street, NYC

The New York Times:

Replying to Report, Halliburton Says BP Is to Blame in Gulf

WASHINGTON — Halliburton, whose failed cement job on the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico was identified as a contributing factor to the deadly blowout by a presidential investigative panel on Thursday, is defending its work and assigning the blame for the accident to BP.

In a six-page statement issued late Thursday night, Halliburton questioned tests that showed its cement to be unstable and incapable of holding back the oil and gas in the well, saying they were conducted on different formulas than what was eventually used on BP’s doomed Macondo well. It said that a sample of the cement it planned to use on the well, tested shortly before pumping began on April 19, had produced a positive result.

But Halliburton admitted that no stability test was conducted on the actual recipe for the cement used on the well. The company said that BP had ordered a change in Halliburton’s customary formula for cement by adding a higher proportion of a chemical that slows the hardening of the mixture.

The well blew out on April 20, killing 11 workers and eventually releasing nearly five million barrels of oil into the gulf. Since then, BP, Halliburton, Transocean and other partners in the well have traded accusations of blame as civil and criminal investigations proceed.

Meanwhile. Having been lovingly retrieved from the abandoned moorlands of archived digitalia where they usually float, some reanimated anonymous pixels once again have a question for Y! Answers:

Why did my rats eat each other?

I had a cage of male dumbo eared rats. They always got along and were very tame. They were not starving. They were overweight. To my horror while i was cleaning their cage i noticed the skeletal remains of their father and the smallest male half eaten in the corner. It was disgusting! Why would they turn on each other like that?? ewwww!!!

There was a restrainer below and a stomper above; see--two sides!

2010-10-27T12:27:00.014-04:00

In a statement sent to the Associated Press, [Tim] Profitt (with Rand Paul, above) has admitted placing his shoe firmly on the face of a Lauren Valle outside a Senate debate on Monday night, but insisted that the camera angle of the footage that captured the alteration made the scuffle look worse than it was. The fact that Profitt is an official coordinator of the Rand Paul campaign opens Paul to potential civil liabilities.--SFGate

The kudzu-like proliferation of Both-Sides-ism that has all but choked off any hope of redemption, via committing real journalism (ha!), for just about every pundit, pretty face, and "reporter" these days is why I had to stop watching Morning Joe altogether. Joe Scar and Mica are, I believe, contractually obligated to say "...and we hear rhetoric like this on both sides" or "...this is a problem with both parties" or "extremists on the far right AND the far left", and so on, after any and every story in which wingnuts might conceivably look bad (which is to say, virtually all stories in which the powerful hurt the less-so, and you have to pity the poor Villagers because there's really no way to temper the sheer viciousness and lawlessness of these people other than to make vague allusions to George Soros and the incivility of lefty blogs while counting the hours until your next Georgetown cocktail party).

It matters not how uncompromisingly godawful the wingnuts' behavior might be. It matters not that both the First Amendment and American criminal law--hell, the human brain--can and do recognize a world of difference between the sticks and stones that break bones and the words that never harmed.

Because whenever an episode of violence and thuggery erupts--like the one in Alaska, when ~~security~~ ~~secessionists~~ ~~militia~~ ~~military members~~ hired goons armed with semi-automatic penis-extenders handcuffed and illegally detained a journalist at a public event for daring to do his job and ask questions of Senate hopeful Joe Miller (R-Kochsuckerville), or the one this week at a Kentucky rally, during which a Dickensian villain/Rand Paul campaign coordinator named Tim Profitt quite literally joined forces with other Randians and engaged in a little brownshirt-style aggravated assault and battery (video here, if you can stomach it) against Lauren Valle, a relatively small-framed and pixie-haired protester who had apparently donned a blonde wig, á la the FOX News bots, in order to express her opinion via the deeply threatening vehicle of satirical theatre--in which Conservatives come off as ever more dangerously unhinged and violent, you can be certain our Barbecue Media will dutifully dig through its memory banks and recall a shocking story about some member of the Professional Left who--back in...oh, 2004 it must have been--didn't like the salad dressing choices at a fundraiser dinner and registered his gustatory protest by using a napkin and water glass to moisten the corner of every place-card at the table.

Then there are all those bloggers who say fuck too much. They're so uncivilized, those hippies!

See? Both sides, people. Both sides.

Now hold still and stop getting styling gel all over my new jackboots.

(H/T Barefoot Progressive, via Prup)

Muslims wearing things: A post in which I ease back into blogging

2010-10-23T11:39:00.005-04:00

Greetings and salutations to anyone still reading here at my little corner. I've been dealing with a rather enormous body of...stuff, I suppose I should call it. Personal stuff, work stuff, health stuff. I'll spare you the gory details.

But I'm still here, a bit better rested, and I'm very excited about matters small (the impending put-the-clocks-back-to-normal event, hooray for morning sunlight!) and momentous (the midterms, news of which has me alternately deathly worried and tentatively hopeful).

Via Amanda, check out this Tumblr, Muslims Wearing Things.

As I noted on Facebook:

Oh my goodness, who knew--Muslims wear suits and dresses and army uniforms and surgical scrubs and gowns and tiaras and track suits and swimsuits and jeans and sneakers...how will we ever know when to be afraid? *eyeroll*

What are you up to on this gorgeous fall weekend?

Better than Esther?

2010-09-20T20:35:00.001-04:00

Vanity Fair writer Michael Gross is staying on the Palin beat, having recently published a rather chilling e-mail, sent shortly before the 2008 election, to then-VP candidate Palin by a man named Lou Engle. Gross writes:

The e-mail was written by Lou Engle, a right-wing pastor and political activist who founded a movement known as the Call, which has coordinated widespread prayer and fasting to protest health-care reform and same-sex marriage. Of the latter, he has said, “What happened to California will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam, a spirit of lawlessness and anarchy. And a sexual insanity will be unleashed into the Earth.” Engle’s e-mail was sent to Palin as a last-minute exhortation just before she took the stage for her vice-presidential debate against Joseph Biden on October 2, 2008. It is an extraordinary document, referring to legalized abortions as a “holocaust,” and casting Engle in the role of Mordecai to Palin’s Esther.

The e-mail itself is at the VF link, as is a painting, Esther at Her Toilet (ca. 1684), by the Dutch painter Aert de Gelder. I thought it could use a little updating, so I sent it to the brilliant Blue Gal for treatment, and she happily obliged:

Do big cats like catnip?

2010-08-20T05:38:00.003-04:00

Of course they do.

My favorite moment is when the roly-poly cheetah suddenly pauses and stares at you with this slightly guilty look on his face: I was only holding it for a friend, I swear!

Apologies for the ridiculously light posting of late. The boys have just returned to school, and I've been submerged in Mama Lioness duties, which challenges, I am here to tell you, are considerably rougher, tougher, and more formidable than those faced by Mama Grizzlies (do any little ones of any stripe or spot like getting shots and being prodded and poked?) The cubs do look rather irresistible in their freshly-pressed uniforms, though.

Hopefully I'll be able to dive back in to blogging next week. Until then,

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

(H/T and congratulations to four-time Daddy Lion Dr. Shadowfax)

How to do a great political ad: Dan Gelber for Florida Attorney General

2010-08-14T14:15:00.008-04:00

Rising above--far, far above--the mudslinging and vitriol of the typical ad, this one instead imparts a strong sense of the candidate's humanity, integrity, commitment to service, and overall goodness, and in so doing, underscores Dan Gelber's obvious qualifications for a public office such as that of AG.

Bravo, Dan and bravo, Travis!

(H/T Michael)

Boléro , three ways

2010-08-13T13:21:00.006-04:00

Instead of doing a Friday Frank post, I thought I'd riff on one of FZ's best-known "classical covers": Boléro, by French Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel.

Presented here, then, is the well-loved Boléro as interpreted by three brilliant guitarists: Jeff Beck, Frank Zappa, and someone new to me: an incredibly gifted thirteen-year-old named Sungha Jung. (If you've only got time to listen to one, skip ahead to Sungha's--Jeff and Frank are obviously well-known and frequently listened-to, whereas this young man deserves to be. A well-known and frequently listened-to favorite, I mean.)

Enjoy!

With Jeff Beck at the Fuji Speedway, 2006

With Frank Zappa, in Barcelona, 1988

With Sungha Jung of South Korea, age 13.

Alan Grayson on "Bozo the Spokesman" and Stockholm Syndrome at the White House

2010-08-11T21:50:00.001-04:00

Yes, he's awesome. Yes, he's Floridian. No, we're not interested in swapping him for one of your Congresscritters, thankyouverymuch. Grayson/Franken 2016 (or sooner).

Alpha Dog of the week: Steven Slater

2010-08-11T13:07:00.004-04:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Alpha Dog of the Week - Steven Slater

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Other than a tiny chorus of naysayers ("He lost his temper, and that's just sooo unprofessional", etc. etc.), Americans have for the most part been overwhelmingly supportive of Steven Slater, the Jet Blue flight attendant who embodied the Take-this-job-and-shove-it fantasies that ever more of us are entertaining in our bowed heads these days as stressed-out, underpaid nose meets demanding, understaffed grindstone.

I, for one, have often wondered where the inflatable emergency exit slide was located. Hasn't everyone?

The Obamas are wonderful parents

2010-08-07T11:20:00.004-04:00

La Bella de Marbella: Sasha Obama, Spain; August 6, 2010

Because despite having lived in a fishbowl for the past few years and had her every outfit, gesture, and mood dissected, critiqued, and mined for meaning beyond their simply being the outfits, gestures, and moods that could have belonged to any of us at one point or another; and despite being at an age when far too many girls feel as though the innocent and visceral joy of being alive is draining from their souls faster than cola spills from a tipped-over bottle and disappears into the sand; and despite being followed around all day and all night, by adults who say things about her and aim things at her because she is no longer child, but quarry--despite all that...

...their magnificent daughter Sasha is at once as confident as a room-storming toddler, as graceful as a trained dancer twice her age, and as utterly fearless about taking delight in the elements around her as any porpoise or cat.

I used to do just that, when we lived in the islands and I was a girl. Let the serene waves lift me from the sea floor, and in the weightless moments that followed, tilt my face to the sun and practice second position with my arms, flinging them open to what I imagined was the whole wide world.

I think I need to go to the sea again.

Image via Bauer-Griffin.

From the department of unexpected benefits: It's a jungle out there

2010-08-06T10:44:00.006-04:00

Zoologists at the Bronx Zoo and wildlife conservation biologists working in the Guatemalan rainforest find that cloth soaked in Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men successfully attracts the attentions of various animals--particularly some very large cats.

Attention, elevator-crowding investment bankers of the world: You've been warned.

(H/T Lisa)

I break for beauty: The affirming colors of light, of poetry, and of reason

2010-08-05T09:40:00.006-04:00

Double rainbow over Kīlauea, Hawai`i, the world's most active volcano.
I took this shot from the window of a helicopter in June 2005.

Love Sonnet IX

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

-- Pablo Neruda

-----

"In a stunning decision this afternoon, finding California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative banning gay marriage unconstitutional, Walker trod heavily on the path Kennedy has blazed on gay rights: "[I]t would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse," quotes Walker. "'[M]oral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest,' has never been a rational basis for legislation," cites Walker. "Animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate," Walker notes, with a jerk of the thumb at Kennedy.

Justice Kennedy? Hot sauce to go with those words?

But for all the lofty language about freedom and morality, nobody can fairly accuse Judge Walker of putting together an insubstantial or unsubstantiated opinion today. Indeed, the whole point of this legal exercise—the lengthy trial, the spectacularly detailed finding of facts (80 of them! with subheadings!)—was to pit expert against expert, science against science, and fact against prejudice.

It's hard to read Judge Walker's opinion without sensing that what really won out today was science, methodology, and hard work."

-- Dahlia Lithwick, for Slate

(H/T oddjob for Lithwick's summary)

Truth dispersed and disposed is truth denied: Conflicting stories about BP's oil spill in the Gulf

2010-08-04T19:30:00.005-04:00

"...dolphins whales, seabirds fish are all floating dead on the surface of the water.. see more.. see more.. boats helicopters are scooping them away dead and dying... Whales are being exploded by the military cause they cant be carried. dead bodys as far as the eye can see air smeling of benzene ..weve seen birds fall from the sky."

-- Part of an unconfirmed text message from an anonymous
cleanup worker, at BP's oil spill, to his wife, ca. early June 2010

From today's New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.

A government report finds that about 26 percent of the oil released from BP’s runaway well is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, in principle, cause new problems. But most is light sheen at the ocean surface or in a dispersed form below the surface, and federal scientists believe that it is breaking down rapidly in both places. [...]

She [Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] emphasized, however, that the government remained concerned about the ecological damage that has already occurred and the potential for more, and said it would continue monitoring the gulf.

“I think we don’t know yet the full impact of this spill on the ecosystem or the people of the gulf,” Dr. Lubchenco said.

Among the biggest unanswered questions, she said, is how much damage the oil has done to the eggs and larvae of organisms like fish, crabs and shrimp. That may not become clear for a year or longer, as new generations of those creatures come to maturity.

Thousands of birds and other animals are known to have been damaged or killed by the spill, a relatively modest toll given the scale of some other oil disasters that killed millions of animals. Efforts are still under way in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to clean up more than 600 miles of oiled shoreline. The government and BP collected 35,818 tons of oily debris from shorelines through Sunday.

But Karl Burkhart of the Mother Nature Network describes a far darker and more troubling situation concerning the actual numbers of marine animals the BP oil spill has killed, and he also returns to the issue of the disturbing media blackout and no-fly zones, often enforced by armed individuals such as police officers, about which I'm sure you've already heard. In short, credentialed journalists and scientists alike were routinely barred from entering airspace over the still-gushing Deepwater Horizon well, just as they were banned from going near marshlands and beaches, including public beaches.

There are also unconfirmed reports, from cleanup workers who furtively typed text messages on borrowed cell-phones after having their own devices confiscated (and having to sign reams of confidentiality documents in order to get a much-needed job in the first place), saying that countless thousands of corpses of birds, fish, and large sea mammals were being quietly destroyed--well out of the view of citizens, independent marine biologists and animal welfare and environmental protection groups, and the press--and possibly with the help of the U.S. military. One such text message appears at the link, and while the the post's author has not been able to contact the message sender to confirm the report, he does confirm, as do the journalists themselves, that numerous well-known media figures, including CNN's Anderson Cooper, were indeed repeatedly denied access to many of the areas seriously affected by BP's oil spill (my emphasis).

According to the latest count of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Daily Collection Report (PDF), only about 4,100 birds, 670 turtles, 70 sea mammals, and 1 snake have died in the Gulf since April 20 (assuming 50 percent mortality of live animals).

It's an astonishingly low number, considering that one of the largest pods of sperm whales in the U.S. resided just miles from the site of the BP Macondo well (aka Deepwater Horizon), a region home to one of the most abundant and biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world.

Compare those small numbers with the Exxon Valdez spill ... Best estimates put the toll of the far smaller oil spill in Alaska at more than 200,000 birds (including hundreds of eagles), more than 3,000 sea mammals, more than 20 whales, and billions of fish eggs. The accident permanently wiped out the herring population of this Alaskan Gulf region. And that was an accident 1/10th the size of the Deepwater Horizon.

The final tally of the BP oil spill is almost 5 million barrels of crude, compared to only about 500,000 barrels for Exxon Valdez — a 1:10 ratio. Yes the Alaska spill happened closer inland, but the oil was not fully integrated with the water column as in the BP gusher (a far more pervasive and deadly scenario) and neither were thousands of tons of highly toxic dispersants like Corexit, a chemical that has, ironically, been banned in Britain because of its impacts on wildlife and human health.

One would be forgiven then for assuming there should be a far greater body count than what is currently being reported by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the same government office that famously blocked Anderson Cooper from peering past the 10' high barricades that had been put up to enclose a "bird receiving" area. According to the math, the count should be in the hundreds of thousands of dead birds, tens of thousands of sea mammals, and millions upon millions of fish and shellfish. So where were all the dead bodies? We should be seeing something like the mass dolphin kill off the coast of Zanzibar (left) that resulted from a much smaller offshore oil leak.

Is it possible that a massive cleanup operation in early June was focused on collecting dead animals out at sea in naturally forming "death gyres?" According to marine toxicologist Riki Ott, such gyres of dead and dying animals were common for weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill. And we know that BP was doing everything in its power to keep dead animal photographs out of the press. Kate Sheppard and Mac Mclelland of Mother Jones documented several instances of BP actually barring photography of dead animals on public beaches.

Go and read the whole thing. And stay tuned.

(H/T Queen Mum II)

When the few do not represent the many

2010-08-02T15:38:00.018-04:00

On April 19, 1995, an American terrorist named Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. McVeigh's horrible crime killed 168 people and injured 450; many young children who'd just been dropped off at the on-site daycare center were among the casualties.

The enormous explosion not only destroyed McVeigh's target building, but also damaged many nearby structures. One of them was the St. Joseph Old Cathedral, some of the interiors of which are shown in this video, along with a little history of the building's renovation:

The old cathedral endured tremendous damage during that megaton explosion. Amazingly, the tabernacle candle remained lit throughout the violent blast. And the beautiful old crucifix with its life-size corpus remained unscratched by the flying glass and debris. [...]

After being closed for almost two years, on Dec. 1, 1997, a joyful rededication Mass was celebrated in the newly restored cathedral.

Here's a Google street view picture of the renovated building, which as you can see, is a traditional cathedral, complete with a crucifix atop its centermost spire:

Here's another photograph, taken from the website of St. Joseph Old Cathedral, which shows the restored building overlooking the Oklahoma City National Memorial itself (the rebuilt cathedral is across the street and half a block down from the memorial):

And here's a map view, to give you a better idea of the buildings' locations:

Jesus Wept is a moving and beautiful statue commemorating the tragedy; it's located at St. Joseph's. Jesus is shown turning away from the disaster, his hand covering his face:

Although not an official part of the memorial itself, the statue nonetheless draws many of the same visitors who travel to Oklahoma City to visit the site across the street and bear witness to the horror, destruction, and loss endured there, all at the hands of hatred and violent madness.

They come to reflect; to remember; perhaps, even, to find comfort.

No-one questions the appropriateness of rebuilding a Catholic facility, overlooking the site of the bombing, where the memorial now stands--and rightly so--even though Timothy McVeigh was raised as an Irish Catholic.

Yet right-wing demagogues, with disgraced Newt Gingrich and demented ex-governor Sarah Palin leading the way, are protesting the conversion into a Muslim community center and mosque, of an old Burlington Coat Factory building in southern Manhattan. The center will be located 2-3 blocks away from "Ground Zero", the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack wherein nineteen Al Qaida members flew planes into the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people, including Americans and citizens of some 70 countries.

Quoth Gingrich:

The proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site - where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites.

Despite numerous leaders and journalists having pointed out that the building wherein the community center and mosque will operate does not overlook Ground Zero--and indeed could not do so unless one is claiming its residents and visitors have serious X-ray vision of the sort that would permit them to see through various concrete and steel buildings--as well as the fact that the 3000 figure actually included citizens of 70 different nations, including the United States, Newt Gingrich is still, to this day, spewing his ridiculous, hate-fomenting lies on his own website (which caused my laptop and Robert's desktop computers, both Macs, to freeze and crash, by the way, so consider yourself warned.)

Is this a fair comparison, though? I can almost hear the right wing mosque-protesters whining from my house (which is in St. Petersburg, yes, but nowhere near Russia proper). Their argument, if you insist on calling it that, is bound to be a variant of this:

McVeigh wasn't a real Catholic--be was a violent radical whose behavior reflected neither the teachings of Jesus nor the lessons of the Bible!

Well, according to Muslims around the world as well as in my own sphere--including one of my sons' martial arts teachers, a devout Muslim who organized blood drives in the aftermath of 9/11; who personally drove to New Orleans with food, water, and supplies immediately after Hurricane Katrina; who continues to throw holiday parties for St. Pete's underprivileged kids every year, and who is both an outstanding example of good citizenship as well as an all-around-wonderful, community-devoted human being in my eyes--those 19 hijackers were not true followers of Islam, but rather, were violent radicals whose behavior reflected neither the teachings of the Prophet, nor the lessons of the Qur'an.

In fact, I'd highly recommend that Gingrich, Palin, et. al. familiarize themselves with the history of the religion that renders them so petrified (and that they continue to demonize in an attempt to frighten their ignorant base).

Many rights, freedoms, and moral philosophies that only came into being as underpinnings of our society in the past couple of hundred years have in fact been integral to Islamic ethics for the past millennium.

Newt Gingrich and his ilk throw around terms they believe are loaded, like Shariah law, yet they seem to be dreadfully ignorant about the actual meanings of the words that tumble from their ugly, twisted mouths and are obviously counting on their followers to focus on the horrific examples of punishment meted out by extremist governments and thus view all Muslims, and all Muslim nations, with the same level of suspicion and fear.

They speak as though the eastern philosophers of the ninth century never existed, and they babble about "freedoms" and "rights"--the very things the Party of No have been busily stripping away from Americans for the better part of the 21st century thus far--while conveniently omitting mention of the scholarly origins which gave rise to many of the tenets of modern American jurisprudence:

To many, the word “Shariah” conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed. By contrast, who today remembers that the much-loved English common law called for execution as punishment for hundreds of crimes, including theft of any object worth five shillings or more? How many know that until the 18th century, the laws of most European countries authorized torture as an official component of the criminal-justice system? As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes.
In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world. Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah for a handful of offenses, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation. Before an adultery conviction can typically be obtained, for example, the accused must confess four times or four adult male witnesses of good character must testify that they directly observed the sex act. The extremes of our own legal system — like life sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, in some cases — are routinely ignored. We neglect to mention the recent vintage of our tentative improvements in family law. It sometimes seems as if we need Shariah as Westerners have long needed Islam: as a canvas on which to project our ideas of the horrible, and as a foil to make us look good.

Just as Timothy McVeigh, and his radical beliefs and violent behaviors, did not represent Irish Catholics--or white men, or Americans--the radical extremists who wrought the destruction of the World Trade Center did not represent all Muslims.

And I believe it's worth repeating, for the benefit of the unfortunately hard of head and broken of soul, and in light of the possibility of redemption--slight though it may be--for the deafening demagogues who sing to them:

The extremist few do not represent the human many.

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and other stone-cold bigots, do not represent me; nor do they represent my New York-born husband; nor do they represent my children.

How I go to church on Sunday mornings

2010-08-01T10:55:00.004-04:00

Angel faces

I walk around the house at dawn
with no shoes on
and sometimes yawn
(but softly, though
as if I stepped
through quiet snow
as I did only hours ago
in dreams.)

Color falls through glass and green
and lands upon
a holy mien
and I will join
the wind's refrain
again, again
rejoicing.

-- DNT 8/1/10

Sometimes we'll feast on French toast and cheese grits with hot sauce; sometimes we'll go out for a walk, always looking to see what birds are visiting now (that's one way to tell what season it is in Florida--or at least, what the weather is like at sea, or up north: by noticing which birds are here today, because it's nicer or calmer or safer than it is where they came from.)

And there is, as ever, music--played by one of my guys, or played by someone else (a fellow worshipper, if you like)--because loving art and music, in my family, amounts to how we remind each other about that which is really important. It's how we go to church on Sundays--on any day really. And we give thanks for that, and for each other.

Donny Hathaway, voice for the ages, we're thankful you were here when you were here:

Then and Now: Two sets of journalists who did investigate Sarah Palin's biggest lie

2010-07-31T17:25:00.012-04:00

It's worth noting that during the 2008 presidential election season, not everyone in the media shied away, ran away, or otherwise backed down from reporting on the uncomfortable stories surrounding John McCain's vice-presidential pick, then-governor Sarah Palin. It's impossible to say for certain why virtually all American journalists and bloggers refused to touch the issue. It may have been due to a combination of (1) everyone being gun-shy after so many smear campaigns had already taken flight that year and (2) a pervasive squeamishness among young, childless, and mostly male reporters when it came to asking admittedly personal questions about Palin's oddly inconsistent birth stories and a personal interpretation of Family Values that seemed unconventional, to say the least, coming as it did from a purported Conservative Christian. The Don't Go There attitude was certainly given a shot in the arm of esprit de corps when the Journolist members brought up the strange rumors and were told "Seriously guys...leave it be", which directive was, to their palpable relief, exactly the out most of them seemed to be looking for anyway.

However, a few journalists did think the story was newsworthy and were obviously troubled by the gaping holes and inconsistencies in the vice-presidential nominee's background stories; so much so, in fact, they set about reporting on them: those journalists worked for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Here's a video of their report.

(If anyone knows of the existence of any followup stories run by the CBC, please let me know.)

Between then and now, several blogs did yeoman's investigative work; as we know, one such writer, Audrey, was forced to quit when she was threatened and blackmailed by conservative bloggers. Interestingly, while Palin's attorneys have threatened Alaska blogger Gryphen with defamation suits for publishing rumors about things like an impending Palin divorce, they have never threatened him--nor any other blogger or journlist--for reporting about Sarah Palin's lies in re: being pregnant in 2008, and/or for stating the obvious: that Trig is not her biological son, and she faked the pregnancy for one or more of a number of possible reasons.

Truth is an absolute defense in defamation cases, and if Palin's attorneys were to file such a lawsuit, one of the first things a defendant's attorneys would do is file for discovery. In other words, Palin would have to put up whatever proof she had that the person she was suing was not telling the truth--a birth certificate, medical records, and so forth. As should be evident to anyone who's following along at this point, she cannot and would not do that, because such documents would prove exactly the opposite, and might indeed disclose facts incriminating to either her or one or more of her family members. Claiming the Fifth Amendment ("I refuse to testify on the grounds that I might incriminate myself...") for purposes of ducking or delaying discovery when one is the plaintiff is not possible, either--the defendant in such a case would have a right to a speedy and expeditious trial, as well as the right to effectively defend himself.

Hence, no defamation suit ever gets filed on that count, even as Palin might sic her retained attorney on bloggers for other things: divorce rumors, publishing excerpts of her book, and so on.

Anyway, fast-forward (so to speak) to the present, and Palingates has just posted a new 2-part video report, produced by Lidia, that's extremely well done, and, unless you are someone who's in complete denial of reality as it appears before your eyes, impossible to argue with. I especially like the second part, as it zeroes in on some of the evidence I find to be most compelling--for example, leaning forward and doubling in two while seated when you're seven months pregnant is, quite simply, physically impossible, no matter how tiny you are, no matter how tiny your baby is. (And then, incredibly, hopping up effortlessly, as though no center-of-balance shift has occurred in the past several months!) However, I recommend to everyone who's been following this utterly bizarre story that you have a look at both parts. Here's Part One. And here is Part Two, also embedded:

So, here we are, two years later, and members of the mainstream media's irresponsible, unethical, sexist, and, in my view, unforgivable behavior--in apparent deference to a vice presidential candidate who is on the record as having told baldfaced, self-serving, and bizarre lies as well as having exhibited irrational and mentally unstable behavior during the 2008 campaign--has become the preeminent story.

And one can only wonder if one of them has it in him, at this point, to finally heed the simple request we've been making all along:

The Empress has no clothes. Kindly investigate same.

Welcome to the Tea Party: The contract being taken out on America

2010-07-29T09:32:00.006-04:00