Today in poetically synchronous modern fables

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!

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"...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

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

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

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

More like this, Democrats. Please.

Sarah Palin chose (B): Ten questions for mothers

Reader Jim (aka Prup), a friend and frequent commenter at Cogitamus--and someone who does have a few differences with me about Sarah Palin's motivations as well as those of the mainstream media journalists who to this day have not investigated the ex-governor's strange, inconsistency and lie-filled stories* surrounding what has come to be known as Babygate--has written a terrific set of questions designed to get Palin supporters thinking.**

Thank you, Jim. Take it away...

Ten Questions for Sarah Palin's supporters who are also mothers:

1. If you were a state governor who was eight months pregnant--and remember, Sarah Palin already knew hers was a high-risk pregnancy because of her age (44) and, according to her book, her baby having been diagnosed via amniocentesis as having Down syndrome--and you were scheduled to fly some 4,000 miles from home to give a speech at a conference, would you (a) give your speech from home via teleconferencing, using modern real-time technology, and explain to your hosts that the high-risk nature and advanced stage of your pregnancy made you reluctant to fly; or, alternatively, send the deputy governor to give your speech or (b) dismiss any staff or security slated to fly with you and insist on flying 4,000 miles to the conference yourself?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

2. If, while attending this conference, you experienced leaking amniotic fluid and felt early contractions on the morning before you were scheduled to speak, would you (a) hand the speech to someone else, ask him or her to give it on your behalf, and go straight to the nearest hospital--one that was equipped for handling high-risk mothers, premature births, and special-needs infants--and get yourself checked out by a doctor or (b) continue with your day and give the speech anyway?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

3. After giving the speech, would you then, immediately afterward, (a) go directly to the nearest suitably-equipped hospital or (b) insist on going to the airport and proceed to get on the first of two several-hours-long commercial flights--airplanes on board which there would be no lifesaving equipment or stored blood should you go into hard labor and experience pre-eclampsia or hemorrhage, no sterile environment, and no high-risk obstetrician attending you--in order to be able to say the baby was born in your home state?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

4. At the conclusion of that first flight, would you then, upon landing and deplaning, (a) go directly to the nearest hospital in the connecting city as fast as possible, even commandeering MediVac transport if necessary or (b) take another flight lasting several hours, in order to continue heading home?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

5. At the conclusion of the second flight, would you (a) go immediately to either of two nearby hospitals with fully equipped NICU's (neonatal intensive care units), or (b) embark on a one-hour drive through dark, snowy, and winding roads in order to get to your hometown regional hospital--a facility that is not equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies, special needs or premature babies, or even twins?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

6. If you were the governor of a state and the mother of two teenage daughters--and you were well-known and widely regarded for your espousing of conservative Christian family values--would you (a) make a special effort to impress upon your daughters the responsibilities they had as members of the state's "First Family" or (b) allow one of your underage daughters to have her boyfriend "practically living in the house", fully aware they were having sexual relations, which fact would eventually be established in no uncertain terms when the two teens conceived a pregnancy?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

7. If, in addition to your to your seventeen-year-old and thirteen-year-old daughters, your household also included a seven-year-old daughter, and both girls would certainly be aware of their older sister's boyfriend's routine overnight stays--the elder one undoubtedly knowing the reason for same--would your answer to the last question (a) change or (b) remain the same.

Sarah Palin chose (b).

8. Upon your return to the office, when your premature infant is three days old, would you (a) keep him at home in the care of a baby nurse, where he can receive UV light treatment for his jaundice along with careful monitoring, should he develop any complications due his congenital heart defect; and as your staff will be excited for you, take some family baby pictures to work, thus avoiding the dangers of exposing such a vulnerable baby to the germ-filled environment of your office or (b) bring him with you to the office so you can show him off for photo opportunities?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

9. If, when your infant with special needs was a few months old, you were to be offered a high-ranking position--say, the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket--which would entail your being away from home for a few months and place you squarely in the limelight of a high-profile campaign; and at approximately the same time as this offer was made, you were to discover that your minor daughter was pregnant, would you (a) politely decline the position, citing 'family reasons', and set about protecting your daughter's privacy as your family worked through the situation and planned the best course of action for your child and future grandchild, doing your best to deflect unwanted press attention all the while or (b) accept the position "without blinking", and then parade your entire family--including your obviouly pregnant minor daughter and her boyfriend--into the bright lights and onto the international stage of the Republican Convention?

Sarah Palin chose (b).

10. Does Sarah Palin embody your definition of "Family Values?"

(a) yes or (b) no. And you choose..?

* All particulars reflect on-the-record occurrences, ages, timelines, and events, and specific details as reported by Sarah Palin herself are taken from her own autobiography and/or interviews.

** You are welcome to copy-paste or otherwise forward the contents of this post.--Ed.

I break for beauty: Ballerina Alessandra Ferri; Giselle, Act 1; Teatro alla Scala, Milano

If you've ever set foot in a pointe class, you'll immediately recognize the intricate choreography from Giselle, a ballet that tells the story of a peasant girl named Giselle whose betrayal by her aristocratic lover causes her to go mad before dying and returning as a ghost. She protects her lover from the vengeance of a group of evil female spirits called the Wilis, Slavonic supernatural creatures who danced so beautifully, they lured young men to their deaths.

A number of extraordinary ballerinas, including Anna Pavlova and Dame Margot Fonteyn, have danced the part of Giselle, widely recognized as one of the most technically difficult roles ever conceived. Watch the brilliant Alessandra Ferri, and you'll see why.

In this scene, Giselle's flirtatious dance includes an incredible series of hops en pointe, diagonally across the stage. As one commenter at this video notes of Ferri, "I can't stop watching her feet! They are too gorgeous to look away."

Apparently, young & (mostly) childless liberal center-left journos know more about pregnancy, labor & delivery than actual mothers do

"And people wonder how this farce of a candidate now controls one major political party and could well be our next president. One reason is that we do not have a functioning adversarial media uncorrupted by partisan loyalty and tactics."
--Andrew Sullivan

Well, I suppose we're starting the week out with one mystery solved. That is, the mystery of why I received only negative respsonses--if indeed I received any responses at all--when I sent e-mail after e-mail to various media people, and writers of blogs far more widely read than this one, asking them if they were going to investigate Sarah Palin's risibly unlikely, riven-by-gaping-inconsistencies birth story (or rather, stories, since they kept changing), given that so much of her very thin political resumé was constructed around her having walked the walk of a pro-life politician. And given that she'd placed her fifth child Trig, a baby with Down syndrome, squarely in the bright lights of the national media along with her other children, it was an important, politically significant story, one worthy of pursuing and elucidating.

I am really, really troubled by this. It's not exaggerating to say I have knots in my stomach.

First of all, I want to say that I have immeasurable admiration for Ezra Klein, the talented journalist and blogger who, during the time the e-mails I want to talk about were written (when the Palin nomination and subsequent Babygate rumors were the topic at hand), was writing at The American Prospect (he's now at the Washington Post).

Back in 2007, when I was just getting started as a wee baby blogger (Ezra is half my age, so I'm kidding, of course), Ezra generously extended to me a regular weekend guest-spot at his eponymous blog (pre-Prospect and pre-WaPo).

I must also say this: while I do not, and did not, personally agree with the concept, I truly believe that in his own mind, Ezra meant to create something useful in Journolist--something that expanded, and served the cause of, free speech, as opposed to shaping and constricting it--by creating a forum for political writers wherein people could turn to one another as sounding boards and learn things, and do so without fear of kicking off the inevitable shitstorm of flaming and thread-derailing that occurs when people bounce ideas around in a fully public forum. Many, many writers (and, for that matter, non-writers) belong to e-mail groups; the authors at Cogitamus, of which I am one, use ours to pass along links, jokes, and exhortations for someone to "Please, please post this; it's so good, but I have to run out and pick up the children."

I know Ezra did not mean for Journolist to become a talking-points machine, or a constrictor and molder of the press, or of free speech. Based on some of the e-mails I've read, though--and I have read a number of them at this point--I am deeply disturbed by the way some of the correspondence appears to be doing exactly that. That is, it aims to constrict and sculpt the discourse no less than if it were an unwieldy, tentacle-sprouting Play-doh beast they wanted to fashion into a tidy, shapely creature more tastefully proportioned for the puppet theatre stage known as Politics in Media. Certainly this was true of some members, when it came to the issue of whether or not to pursue investigating the obviously fraudulent stories then-VP candidate Sarah Palin was telling the national, and international, press.

The obviously fraudulent stories.

Told to, and repeated by, the press.

Repeated by the press, or simply left to stand uncontested, without any apparent independent investigation to verify them or debunk them.

I salute Lindsay Beyerstein for writing this (e-mail via Palingates; emphasis mine):

The story is far-fetched and as yet unsupported by evidence. Kathy’s right: So far, there’s not enough evidence for any responsible commentator to discuss this. Public speculation without proof is cruel and counterproductive.

However, if some reporter thinks this rumor is worth investigating further, and he or she absolutely nails this story, that would be great.

If I had the smoking gun, I’d proudly publish the evidence. (I don’t think the story is plausible enough to bother looking, but that’s a separate question.)

Anyone who decided to raise her granddaughter as her daughter is a liar and a hypocrite, not to mention an abuser of two generations of children. What kind of parent would force her family to live that kind of lie?

What warped values would give rise to such a decision? Lots of grandparents raise their grandkids. That’s admirable and commonplace. Barack Obama spoke movingly before a crowd of 84,000 about how his own grandmother helped raise him.

Why lie about the baby’s origins, except to spare Palin political embarrassment? She’s a self-professed Bible believing Christian whose mommy cred might be diminished by the revelation that she raised an unwed teen mom. That said, I imagine that she would have scored a lot of points for openly raising her daughter’s disabled child–and rightly so. A hoax would suggest extreme selfishness and blind ambition, not to mention vanity and a distinctly irrational preoccupation with keeping up appearances.

I was never a member, so I can only speak to the e-mails that have been made public. I wish I could say reading them makes me feel vindicated for the number of times I've been called crazy, or a conspiracy theorist, or over-the-top regarding matters Palin, when all I wanted was for someone in the media to do his or her bloody job.

Or hell, to pass along my blog--which is packed with examples of my writing--to a managing editor somewhere and hire me. I don't think I'm unqualified. Passionate, yes. But able to be neutral and dispassionate when it's called for, not to mention extremely well-schooled in how the press ought to function in a free society (back in the day, we couldn't even get past Go unless we took ethics, critical thinking, and media law classes in addition to related subjects like literature, philosophy, and foreign languages.)

I do know Ezra to be a man of extraordinary integrity who is possessed of a powerful work ethic. I also know that in the course of being a creative person, we sometimes build things that take on lives of their own, and at that point, those things have the potential to run amok and generally be quite out-of-control. They become tentacle-sprouting beasts themselves. Case in point: Journolist.

Finally, I know this: Ezra, being a man, has never had a baby. And neither, it would seem, have a number of the members of JL.

This, by Maggie Mahar of Politico, is just unforgivably ignorant. Really, the smug assertions here are simply jaw-dropping and remind me of Amanda Marcotte's dreadfully sloppy post, not to mention the fact that virtually every bit of it--from the number of flights Palin took, to the premature nature of the alleged delivery, to Palin's high-risk age--was wrong on its face (my emphasis):

Airlines tell people not to fly becuse they're covering their ass (concerned about liability if, say a stewardess tries to help a woman delivering and something goes wrong.)

If you think about it, going into labor on a plane is not the worst thing–much preferable, say, to going into labor in a subway (too dirty) or a cab (only one person too help you.) or a car (with your husband in a total panic.)

Seriously, on a plane you stand an excellent chance that one or more woman who have had several children can be a big help–not to mention the possibility of a doctor or a midwife.

And if you’re not yet in labor, a six-hour flight is just not that long. You’d probably
have plenty of time. (And if she had actually been in labor at that point, she would not have been able to give a speech.)

I can certainly imagine getting on a plane rather than going to a strange hospital, alone.

Would I get on a plane in my 7th or even 8th month? Absolultely.
Would I get on a plane if my water had broken?

Depends on how badly I wanted to get where I was going, and whether I was actually in labor..

Finally, as far as I know (and I’m not an authority on Downs) a Downs baby is not in special danger during the delivery.

No, Ms. Mahr is clearly not an authority. Not on babies with Down syndrome--no special danger? Does she not consider heart defects, breathing problems, and jaundice to be special dangers?--and not on pregnancy, labor, or delivery. Why say anything if you're this uninformed? Why not say, Let me research this a bit; let me investigate? Yes, it's a list-serv and people are supposedly just being sounding boards for one another. But let's also remember, the core topic at hand appears to be whether or not to pursue an enormous story, and people are discussing the merits of pursuing vs. not pursuing it by declaring as fact things that are in no way, shape, or form factual!

And this is how a significant portion of the blogosphere and media came to give ex-governor Sarah Palin a complete pass instead of pursuing the truth of the matter.

Would everyone have been so blasé about a politician fabricating a military story wherein he heroically performed his duties, leaking body fluids, before getting on two separate flights and endangering other passengers (if an emergency landind had been forced), and finally making it to a small regional hospital, so brave was he? Would they?

So why did our press--not just the aforementioned bloggers and journalists, mind you, but our entire national press--take a pass on investigating this dreadful fraud of a politician, this farce of a would-be leader, this reckless liar, Sarah Palin?

-----

UPDATE:

Today, the Daily Caller applauds Ezra Klein for attempting to head off the message-coordination ethos that sometimes took hold among the Journolist list-serv's 400 members:

Although he now denies that lots of informal — and some formal — coordination took place on Journolist, to his credit listserv founder Ezra Klein was a force for moderation. He stopped others from organizing a weekly message, stopped people from organizing open letters on Journolist (after they did so on one occasion), wouldn’t let those currently working in the government on the list, and seemed more reasonable than many in his remarks.