From A Table On the Left

Summers of Love

2007-06-30T10:16:00.001-07:00

By Glenn W. Smith
Senior Fellow, Rockridge Institute

On a dark Texas highway in November 1967, a fourteen-year-old boy rides beside his father in an old Chevy pickup. The radio's off; there's a mist on the road through which the headlamps cut tunnels of light. The boy and his father are headed south and west, to the border near Eagle Pass. They'll hunt deer the old way: walking, listening, looking, tracking. The boy's father grew up in the nineteen-teens on the Green River in Kentucky, just north of where John Prine tells us paradise lay. This is different country and a different time. Maybe the quiet old man is thinking about that. In his lap the boy holds a sketchbook. In his hand is a paint brush, dipped in orange day-glo. By the dim halo of the bulb in the open glove box, the boy paints the word, "Love."

Click here for full article.

Arrests of L.A. Crime Family Announced

2007-04-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

By Lee Bray-Rhoade, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2007

In a City Hall press conference held Friday afternoon, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Chief William Bratton and J. Stephen Tidwell, Assistant Director in Charge, FBI-Los Angeles Division, congratulated local, state and federal law enforcement officers after their announcement of sweeping arrests aimed at the 6th St. crime family on charges ranging from weapons and drug violations, to kidnapping, conspiracy and murder.

The first wave of arrests occurred late Thursday morning in Montecito Heights where family boss Robert “Wookie” Waller, consigliore Paul “Slider” Lacques and underboss Shawn “Skins” Nourse were taken into custody at Nourse’s residence. Simultaneously, officers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested underboss Paul “Bullets” Marshall at his heavily armed mountain compound in Tujunga. “This is my happening and it freaks me out,” Marshall was overheard saying as he was being taken from his home.

“The charges against my clients are based on nothing but Botox and light bulbs,” stated Jay Edwards, counsel for the four, at Friday morning’s arraignment. When District Court Judge Allan Mason asked for clarification, Edwards launched into a rambling, profanity laden invective against the LAPD, the FBI and Vice-President Cheney that cannot be printed in this publication but which resulted in Mason assessing a $10,000 contempt of court fine for Edwards. It was at this point that Marshall made a request for separate counsel and attorney Andrew Crane, who had been observing the proceedings, said “yeah, Paul Marshall,” and was immediately hired. When questioned outside the courtroom, Crane deferred comment on whether this development might lead to the filing of a petition for separate trial for Marshall, saying only “right now, my first priority is a meeting with a Paul Marshall…I mean with Paul Marshall.”

The organization came to the attention of law enforcement after the appearance of a story which alleged that Waller was instrumental in numerous terrorist acts, including but not limited to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Although almost immediately recanted, the “confession” provided law enforcement officials with confirmation of other activities for which the gang had been under investigation, in particular the disappearance of Dan “Panjo Man” Janisch, an underboss of a rival Westside family.

Still at large is Brantley “Godfather” Kearns, senior member of the family. “We’ve got him on conspiracy, we’re just not sure who with,” said an unnamed FBI spokesman, who confirmed that Kearns has long been under watch of the FBI, beginning in the late 60’s when he was house fiddler at Black Panther gatherings. The young North Carolinian with “Kill Whitey” painted across his fiddle quickly won the hearts of the Black Panthers and he soon became known as “the man who brought Bluegrass to Oakland.“ It was of Kearns that Bobby Seale once said “that white boy could have made Malcolm dosido.”

In his comments, Police Chief Bratton also credited the tireless work of one undercover member of LAPD’s gang unit who tended bar at the recently closed Cole’s, a 6th street bar in L.A.’s skid row that had once been a watering hole for the likes of Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen. It was from this location that the family took its name and for the past three years Cole's served as a front for mid- and lower level family members to pass on their “tribute” (a percentage of proceeds earned from various illegal enterprises.) Appearing in their cover identity as the country rock band I See Hawks in L.A., leaders would “pass the bucket” at family meetings and authorities announced that Jeremy “Deacon” Rocine was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of extortion and money laundering for his part in these collections.

It was at a January meeting at Cole’s that Waller boasted of the capture and beheading of Janisch, on whose territory the 6th St. family was thought to be expanding. “Just call me Khalid Wook Mohammad,” Waller is heard to say to associates on a recording found in the home of 6th St. lieutenants Randall “Noodler” Stewart and Mona “Garden Girl” Shelton. Police announced that Stewart was arrested on conspiracy charges regarding a marijuana smuggling operation out of Fresno. His partner, an individual known only by the codename “E.V.,” is believed to make use of deep cover to conceal regular smuggling shipments from Central California to Los Angeles, most of which coincided with meetings of the family.

Shelton, on the other hand, faces extradition to North Carolina on outstanding charges of interstate transfer of stolen auto parts, in this case three truckloads of Patty Hurst Shifters.

Also arrested Thursday and charged with crimes ranging from extortion and assault, to kidnapping and murder were Zach "Wizard" Blaue and the infamous Kahn Brothers (Winston, David, and James). Blaue, considered the "enforcer" of the family, is said to have gained his nickname from the prolific use of a "magic wand" (two 16 oz. beer cans duct-taped end to end) to induce compliance from recalcitrant debtors.

The Kahn's on the other hand, were independent contractors operating on the periphery of the organization and are believed to have acted solely on assignments received from Waller via Lacques and only in instances where all other means of inducement had failed. Because of this low profile, they were simply referred to as "the brothers." Among their many "jobs" for the organization were the multiple murders committed in the kitchen of a local restaurant. It is thought that these killings were carried out to end a long-running dispute regarding the origination of the French Dip sandwich, a theory supported by the choice of murder weapon: a brisket of beef. The vicious nature of the Kahn's is exemplified by evidence obtained at the murder scene which indicates that the killers "celebrated" by consuming not only the entire brisket, but sides of macaroni and cheese, steamed vegetables, and three bottles of Belgian ale. Tests performed on trace remains of this meal confirmed that the murder weapon, as well as all other items consumed matched the same items from the kitchen of Cole‘s. Also, contrary to Waller's boast, it is the Kahn's who are believed to have abducted Janisch following a protracted dispute over a percentage of tip jar proceeds at the Cinema Bar in West Los Angeles.

Based on a tip from an unidentified source, Janisch was found Friday morning, bound and gagged, in the hull of a sailboat berthed in King Harbor that is owned by 6th St. lieutenant Greg "Feets" Eilber, whose present location is unknown. However, a neighbor told investigators that Eilber had left the previous afternoon, saying only that "he was hitting the road with Merle." The identity of "Merle" and his connection to the 6th St. family is unknown at this time, but police announced Thursday that a warrant on kidnapping charges has been issued against Eilber and that "Merle" remains a person of interest in the investigation.

Janisch, who had been abducted in January, was unavailable for comment to reporters, although fellow family members are already rumored to be planning retribution against their north-eastside rivals.

Federal officials announced that additional arrests are anticipated and that indictments for violations RICO statutes are pending upon impanelment of a federal grand jury.

“Everytime we bust one of these groups, an angel gets its wings,” a chuckling Tidwell quipped to a reporter after the ceremony. “And you can bet Zuzu’s petals on that.”

Related stories:
Rob Waller Admits to 9/11 Terror Attacks
Waller 9/11 Confession Was Coerced: An Update

Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965)

2007-02-21T07:40:00.001-08:00

It was 38 years ago today....

2007-01-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

"We've all got wheels..."

2007-01-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

I-99 North through Central California
December 23, 2006

Girl from the 'hood

2006-09-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

Holly
1993 - 2006
Just before Christmas 1993 I got a call from my mom, asking if we'd be interested in getting another cat. It seems that a stray had found its way into their garage and had made itself at home. She said they would keep it until we went there at Christmas. A flame tip Siamese, with orange ears and face and blue eyes, it was love at first sight. She was named Holly, partly after Holly Golightly (another stray) and also because it was Christmas. There is a house around the block from my parents where I've seen several cats that look like her and I loved having a cat from the neighborhood where I grew up.

While Holly possessed a quiet determination, she was never stubborn, and even as a kitten showed amazing strength. One day, on arriving home, I found a blanket in the doorway of the bedroom. Holly loved to play with and tug on this blanket, but to this day I still don’t know how the tiny kitten could have dragged the blanket off of the bed and several feet across the room.

She was also intensely loyal and caring. Holly had always been the "baby" and because she was small, looked like a kitten until she was about 4. When Rita joined the family a few years later, an as yet unseen maternal instinct blossomed overnight and she watched carefully and lovingly over the little kitten. Since Rita’s litter had been abandoned at birth, rescued at three or four days old, and raised by hand, Holly was the only maternal figure she ever knew.

A few years back, when my friend Mona became ill during a visit, Holly stayed by her the whole time, earning the nickname "Holly Nightingale."

Last February, I found a growth on her lower abdomen. After testing, it was removed and determined to be a malignant tumor. I planned to go ahead with follow-up treatment, but before she had fully recovered from the surgery, another growth had appeared. This one was removed as well, and in May I consulted with a veterinary oncologist. However, the treatment might have given her a year, maybe 18 months, and it just didn't seem like it was worth putting her through anything more. So I resolved to make what time she had left as pleasant as possible and to enjoy her as much as I could.

Up until the past week, when her condition began to decline, she continued to show the strength and resiliency that led the staff at the veterinarian's office to nickname her "the miracle kitty."

Today, however, I knew that the end was near. She wasn't interested in eating and wouldn't respond when I called her (she'd usually meow back at me). Late this evening, as I was going to bed, I noticed her breathing had become labored and a while later she began to occasionally cry out. Knowing that sleep was impossible, I got up to watch over her, telling myself that the time had come and steeling myself for a visit to the vet in the morning to have her put to sleep.

I found her laying under the dining table and picked her up and carried her to the couch to talk with her and comfort her. Rita sat on the other side, occasionally licking her ear or the top of her head. It was one of those times when it seems like nothing else exists outside of the room you're in.

Around 2:45am, her breath stilled, then she relaxed and quietly passed away. Two of the hardest things about being a pet owner are that you know that you will probably outlive your pet and that (other than in the case of accidents) you will probably have to choose when the end comes.

I had anticipated that this end would come in the vet's office and would be of my choosing, as it had been with my other cats. But it was so like Holly to relieve me of that responsibility, and to depart life in the same way that she lived it: in her own time and with quiet steps.

Holly is survived by her sister Rita (who, as I type this, is sleeping next to her) and now joins her brother Jem and sister Tess.

Failures in justice...failures in mercy...

2006-09-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

I thought the best post for today might be to reexamine commentary from five years ago and I've chosen Michael Ventura's column "The 21st Century Announces Itself" as it was one of the first that I read that seemed to echo the feelings that were only then beginning to coalesce.

After the initial shock had subsided, the waves of consolation from around the globe was more than just comforting, it actually seemed for a time that some good might come from this, that the nations of the world might say “no more.” Now however, we know now that well before Ventura wrote “it remains to be seen, as I write, what America will do,” those in our government had already decided what we would do: We would use this attack by al Qaeda as grounds for imposition of repressive policies at home and a criminally misguided ill-planned policy of regime change in Iraq.

The tragedy of September 11 is not limited to the lives lost or absences created in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, nor even in the deaths that have followed as a result of the “War on Terrorism.”

Another tragedy, one of a greater scope, springs from the fact that on September 12 the concept of “The Ugly American” had been rendered almost non-existent. The goodwill and support which all but a handful of the world’s nations directed towards us was perhaps unequalled in our history. This was a gift, one borne of tragedy, but a gift nonetheless. It was our chance to complete the last step of the Cold War: to transform ourselves from the lone remaining superpower into a superleader. A chance to set the tone for a new age of growth and development. To recognize that poverty, ignorance and repression were the true breeding grounds for al Qaeda and to lead the world in eliminating the potential for future terrorists.

Instead, we chose a course of demonization, racism, tyranny and fear mongering and have now done more for terrorist recruitment than a hundred bin-Laden’s could have accomplised in a hundred years. As Scott Ritter said, al Qaeda was a hornet’s nest and we hit it with a baseball bat. Where our wealth and status might have been used to lead and inspire, we’ve chosen to control by fear, torture, intimidation, and the disregard of the most basic tenets of western law.

2,993 people died in the attacks of September 11, and when mourning them it’s important to consider that not all were Americans. As an economic center, as one of the most ethnically diverse cities on the planet and as home to the U.N. the attack on New York was an attack on the world. Yes, it was a terrible wake up call to America and brought home the reality of terrorism, but we were not unique. In fact, we were one of the last major countries in the world to have been subject to a terrorist attack from outside elements. While 9/11 may have been the day our luck ran out, we didn’t have to make it exclusively about us.

We’d be fooling ourselves to think those who died on 9/11 will be the last victims of al Qaeda within our own borders. More attacks are inevitable. But there is a difference between killing some of us and destroying the principles that our country was founded upon. Only we can do the latter, and in the course of five years we’ve done quite well.

Beyond the loss of life, we have also lost the ability to stand before the nations of the world with any shred of legitimacy as an example and freedom and justice. Instead, we are now among the nations whose governments believe pre-emptive attack is justified, who consider due process a privilege, the Geneva Conventions a matter of convenience, propaganda and fear an acceptible means for gaining public support, and who do not believe government leaders are accountable to the laws they are supposed to uphold. Of course, many will say that these principles fell by the wayside long ago, and they’re partially right. It would be naïve to think that our image has not become tarnished over time. Nevertheless, there has never been an administration which has held these principles (and their adherents) in such disregard and with such contempt.

How we responded to the 21st Century's "announcement of itself" would define our future. Our actions in the subsequent years strongly indicates that al Qaeda doesn’t need to attack us again. We’ve already lost and are no different than those we once considered our worst enemies.

Where once we found strength in knowing that we had nothing to fear but fear itself, we now have nothing to fear but ourselves.

This isn't helping my coulrophobia one damn bit...

2006-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

I found this on the TomPaine.com site today. Whoever it was at McDonald's that thought of (or approved) this needs to have his brain supersized. On the list of all-time idiot PR ideas, this is right up there with Bat Day at Yankee Stadium.

However, try as I might to come up with some appropriately outraged eco-radical slogan, all my depraved mind could think of was Ronald McDonald and something more frequently associated with a White House intern.

As Ray Wylie Hubbard would say: "Uuuggghhhhh......"

Will somebody please get this poor man a drink?

2006-08-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

Bush Urges Nation To Be Quiet For A Minute While He Tries To Think

WASHINGTON, DC—While acknowledging every American's inalienable right to free speech, the president asked citizens to "hold off on it for, say, 60 seconds."

Raised By Hippies

2006-08-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, my friend Mona put a post on her blog in which she referred to the song "Raised By Hippies" by I See Hawks in L.A. This has led to numerous hits to her site from people looking for the lyrics to the song (my favorite search term was "Paul Lacques Hippie Lyrics").

Since the hits increased during The Hawks' recent U.S. tour and because a recently completed tour of England and Scotland might have created an entirely new group of people looking for the lyrics, I thought I'd finally give these diligent folks something to find.

Raised By Hippies

The Year the Levees Broke

2006-08-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Year the Levees Broke
By Greg Palast in New Orleans
August 24, 2006

America went through a terrible year. The levees broke in New Orleans. When bodies floated in the streets, the Republican Congress saw an opportunity for more tax cuts and consolidation of the corporatopia they had created for their moneyed donors. The Democratic Party was clueless, written off, politically at death's door.

The year was 1927.

Back then, when the levees broke, America awoke. Public anger rose in a floodtide, and in that year, the USA entered its most revolutionary period since 1776. The thirty-four-year-old utility commissioner of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, conceived of a plan to rebuild his state based on a radical program of redistributing wealth and power. The ambitious Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, adopted it, and later named it The New Deal. America got rich and licked Hitler. It was our century.

It's 1927 again.

Continue reading here.

An "Okie From Muskogee" for the rest of us!

2006-08-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

OK….1, 2, 3…..Awwwwwwwww!!!!!

2006-08-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

"You are worm dirt..."

2006-07-29T11:46:00.001-07:00

Playing the Atheism Card Against Pat Tillman's Family
By Stan Goff
Truthdig.com

Friday 28 July 2006

Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich has taken Christ into his heart, or so he says. Like my old colleague, Lt. Gen. William G. ("Jerry") Boykin, he has also carried the organically entrapped messiah onto the heathen-infested battlegrounds of Southwest Asia. Kauzlarich is the subject of my exposition today, but Boykin is his context.

You all remember Jerry Boykin-the general who, as part of the Bush 2003 civil relations effort in Iraq, called Muslims idol worshippers.

Back in the Reagan days, Boykin and I were simultaneously assigned to the allegedly super-secret Delta Force. He was a major then, and he would organize prayer breakfasts for the unit, driving many of us out of the building to purchase sausage-biscuits. His evangelical lunacy was already under siege then. Special Operations is a motley fraternity, in which operators are as likely to worship Odin or an oak tree as they are to attend Sunday services.

Boykin's recent rise is symptomatic of War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's fascination with Special Operations-in spite of its generally dismal record. Kauzlarich was on the same career fast track when he was the 75th Ranger Regiment's "cross commander" at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Khoust, Afghanistan, in 2004.

Bishop Boykin, shooting from the lip, asserted in 2003 that the U.S. military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq involved "an Army of God" squaring off against Satan.

Beelzebub himself! Can't say Jerry lacks ambition. Of course, the Satanists in this case were the very Muslims that the administration was trying to recruit as political puppets in the oil patch.

For this subtle bit of international relations, Boykin was punished by promotion to the position of deputy undersecretary of defense for... intelligence. Yes, the pun is nearly unbearable.

And so Boykin ascended. As the Haitian proverb says: The higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ass.

Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, on the other hand, is not exactly being placed center-stage at the Pentagon. More than any other single person below the rank of general, he is probably most responsible for the Pentagon's embarrassment when NFL-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, by his own comrades.

Full article here

Bush Loses the Support of Moronic Voters

2006-07-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

From iFlipFlop:

WASHINGTON, July 7 - President Bush appears to be losing support among a key group of voters who had hitherto stood firmly with the president even as his poll numbers among other groups fell dramatically.

A new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, Bush's approval rating has fallen below 50% among total fucking morons, and now stands at 44%. This represents a dramatic drop compared to a poll taken just last December, when 62% of total fucking morons expressed support for the president and his policies.

The current poll, conducted by phone with 1,409 total fucking morons between May 4 and May 8, reveals that only 44% of those polled believe the president is doing a good job, while 27% believe he is doing a poor job and 29% don't understand the question.

The December poll, conducted by phone with 1,530 total fucking morons, showed 62% approved of the president, 7% disapproved and 31% didn't understand the question.

Faltering approval ratings for the president among a group once thought to be a reliable source of loyal support gives Republicans one more reason to be nervous about the upcoming mid-term elections. "If we can't depend on the support of total fucking morons," says Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), "then we've got a big problem. They're a key factor in our electoral strategy, and an important part of today's Republican coalition." "We've taken the total fucking moron vote for granted," says Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), "and now we're paying for it. We've let the Democrats control the debate lately, and they've dragged discourse back into the realm of complex, nuanced issues. So your average total fucking moron turns on his TV and sees his Republican Congressman arguing about Constitutional law or the complexities of state formation in the Middle East, and he tunes out. He wants to hear comforting, pandering, flattering bromides and he doesn't want to hear a logical argument more complex than what you'd find on a bumper sticker."

For Feeney, the poll is a dire warning that Republicans can ignore only at their peril. "This should send a signal that we have to regain control of the debate if we want the support of our key constituencies in the coming election and beyond. We need to bring public discourse back into the realm of stupidity and vacuity. We should be talking about homosexual illegal immigrants burning flags. We should be talking about the power of pride. We should be talking about freedom fries. These are the issues that resonate with total fucking morons."

But some total fucking morons say it's too late. Bill Snarpel of Enid, Oklahoma is a total fucking moron who voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. But he says he won't be voting for Bush in 2008. "I don't like it that he was going to sell our ports to the Arabs. If the Arabs own the ports then that means they'll let all the Arabs in and then we'll all be riding camels and wearing towels on our heads. I don't want my children singing the Star Spangled Banner in Muslim."

Total fucking moron Kurt Meyer of Turlock, California also says his once solid support for Bush has collapsed. "He invaded Iraq and all those soldiers died, and for what? We destroyed all their WMDs, but now their new president is making fun of us and saying he's going to build nuclear bombs and that we can't stop him. Well, nuclear bombs are even worse than WMDs, so what did we accomplish?"

Laura McDonald, a total fucking moron from Chandler, Arizona, says she is disappointed that the president hasn't been a more forceful advocate of Christian values. "This country was founded on Christian values," she says, "but you'd never know it looking around and seeing all the Mexicans running around. I thought Bush was going to bring Jesus back into the government. Instead, Christians are being persecuted worse than ever before in history, because all these Mexicans come here and tell Christians that we have to respect their religious beliefs. So now it's illegal for children to pray in school. Soon it will be illegal for them to speak English."

Not all total fucking morons have turned their backs on the president. Jeb Larkin of Topeka, Kansas says he still fully supports Bush. "He is doing a great job. He is a great president. He is a great decider. I have a puppy. His tail sticks straight up and you can see his butthole." And not all Republican lawmakers are concerned about the poll. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), for one, does not find it a cause for anxiety. While he agrees that his party should not take total fucking morons for granted, they "really don't have anywhere else to go. They're never going to be able to understand someone like Al Gore or John Kerry or anybody intelligent and articulate who wants to talk about substantive issues. Just try having a conversation with one of them about global warming. They'll say, 'Oh, but Rush says volcanoes consume more ozone than humans do.' I mean, they're morons! Total fucking morons!"

"They've got nowhere else to go," Alexander reaffirms with a smile, "and they always vote."

It's up to you...

2006-07-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

With WWIII on people's minds this morning, here's a good example of why The Clash was known as "the only band that matters."

Then and Now

2006-07-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

Driving north on Figueroa Boulevard (now California 110, a.k.a. the Pasadena Freeway).

Implement (A Found Poem)

2006-06-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

I think it was in Robert Bly’s magazine The Seventies (formerly The Fifties and The Sixties and now The Thousands) that I first happened across the concept of “found poetry.” Found poems can be shopping lists, notes left on the refrigerator, etc., and most often are in a short, almost haiku format. Today, spam e-mail can be a source of found poetry (just be sure you have a good firewall), and the following is one that I received earlier this week.

I have made some minor edits, mostly placing line breaks, removing stray punctuation marks, and adding modifiers in a few places. Otherwise, it remains as “found,” in all its Rabelaisian glory.

implement

cold war scare nor impersonal waters icy, the rhythm
and blues assault overall vindication
to crepe compliance meditation

agitation twinkle is to poodle as dynamics
to underpants, as explorer to startle
and prime minister to tactical culpability

arisen fishy, a gondola intact, skateboarding
the gorgeous pate, recurrent camel as glutton,
misty of vanquished accord, backtracks the chandelier
industrialization maximum and freebie suitable

marquee as horrific wrongdoer, a smug
miscarriage, an unsportsmanlike overcharge
disgracefully flares uninsured

a laughingstock constituted in golf, he'll equip
the loan shark, the spokesman unsung
simple-minded, the glassware of birthrate,
aggregate advertising is meteorological
and hazard cargo an outfit improbable in sewage range

corroborate, capsize
the peacekeeping ditch stinker trombone
as honest rudiment denial, rice the harangue,
Stars and Stripes unleash the smorgasbord
househusband's relaxation whipping

disorganized southwestward, the ecclesiastical
young penthouse is monotonously literate,
a flippant come-on, ventilation terrific by polio,
seeming ignorant as, on elaboration,
an aging shareholder's curtain
woke a faint, methodical instructive

a patronizing giant of detention, who
with impractical stink to caller and mutiny bowel
the equal unbroken border was erroneously unrivaled

a delayed drawback to socialism
that ranching rapport smash hit:
lightweight attainment

"Howl" Turns 50

2006-06-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

I got the following from Greg Palast's mail list today:

News Flash from the Asylum

Today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl".

You know:

"I see the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness."

Just before his death, and into my third or fourth midlife crisis, I decided to become a writer. Couldn't decide between poetry and investigative journalism. Ginsberg read my poetry. He suggested journalism. And then he said, "You know, Greg, I'm an investigative reporter, too."

Yes, he was. In 1956, Ginsberg sat at a kitchen table in San Francisco and wrote that his friends were going crazy. They could still hear the voice of Joe McCarthy ranting and, out the window, count the Pentagon contractors polishing new war heads. In an America gone mad, insanity was the best defense.

"The soul," he reported, "should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse."

And that's still the news.

I realized that Ginsberg wrote "saw the best minds," not "see the best minds," but then after thinking a minute decided that if Ginsburg were still around, he'd probably use the present tense after all.

Read the full poem here.

Birthday Greetings and Restless Farewells

2006-05-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Today is Bob Dylan’s 65th birthday, and as good a reason as any to hoist one for the “Master of the Motherfucking Universal Truth.”

Unfortunately, it is also a day of very mixed emotions as it marks the end of I See Hawks in L.A.’s "Acoustic Wednesdays" residency at Cole’s in downtown Los Angeles. These shows began with a one-time booking in February, 2003 and their unique brand of Subterranean Urban Bluegrass (with a borderline eco-radical edge) quickly became a Wednesday staple. In the past couple of months, the shows have moved to Fridays, but the Hawks are returning this evening for the last send off before hitting the road in support of their phenomenal new CD, "California Country."

Dylan’s one-time fiddler, Freddy Koella, is also slated to perform, but this is not the only Dylan/Cole's/Hawks connection. While living in Los Angeles during the late 30’s, Woody Guthrie (according to “Bound For Glory”) frequented saloons in the skid row area, performing inside them when he could get in and busking outside when he couldn’t. While I’ve never found specific reference to Cole’s, it is extremely likely that Woody once played in the same room where the Hawks will play tonight.

It was hoped that the Hawks could continue their residency through to the 100th anniversary of Cole’s in 2008, but the business has been sold and (from word of mouth) the new management apparently plans to appeal to the new urban chic that is expected to fill the newly refurbished lofts in the area. I can't imagine the funky/bohemian/hippie/barefoot crowd being afforded the welcoming atmosphere that exists now.

In addition to my birthday wishes to Bob, I also want to extend thanks and everlasting gratitude to the Hawks and all the other musicians who have performed at Cole's and brought their magic to this very special place. Thanks to Ali Mazarei, the world's greatest bartender, for bringing us together and to Ali's "backups," Kristen, Laura (you won't be forgotten), Adam and Eric. And finally, thanks to all the friends I’ve made at Cole’s. You have made the past three years extremely special and absolutely unforgettable. Over those many sultry and muggy evenings in the music room, we learned that we were all "raised by hippies" in one way or another and found comfort in the belief that "everytime a glass breaks, an angel gets it's wings."

No a Pascua Lama

2006-05-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning, I received the following e-mail petition from a friend and sadly, a Google search revealed the claims about this project to be accurate.

You can go to the official petition site by clicking here.

Subject: Care for the earth

If you care about our earth, judge for yourself if you want to take action.

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers.

Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.

Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide the second largest source of income for the area.

Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold.

The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior. (now, there's a surprise !)

The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006.

The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution.

If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the two rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process.

Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.

Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from international justice.

The world must know what is happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is from here.

You'd think the religious right would be relieved about this!

2006-05-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today's laugh of the day comes from IMdB News:

McKellen Courts Controversy

English actor Ian McKellen is bemused by the controversy over The Da Vinci Code novel and movie, insisting Christians should be happy with the theory that Jesus Christ married and produced a bloodline. The gay star, who plays Sir Leigh Teabing in the Ron Howard movie, supports the fictional plot that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, because it would prove the prophet wasn't a homosexual. Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival in France on Wednesday, McKellen said, "When I read the book I believed it entirely. I thought that Leigh Teabing argued his case very convincingly indeed, and clever Dan Brown for twisting my mind in the right direction. And when I put the book down, I thought what a load of... and that's still going on in my mind. I'm very happy to believe that Jesus was married. And I know the Catholic church has problems with gay people and so this would be absolute proof that Jesus was not gay."

The story continues......

2006-05-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

From an e-mail sent today by Truthout to its subscribers:

How Accurate Was the 'Rove Indicted' Story?

On Saturday afternoon, we ran a breaking story titled, "Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators." We assumed that we were well ahead of the mainstream media and that we would be subsequently questioned. Right on both counts.

What everyone is asking right now is how accurate is the story? Has Rove in fact been indicted? The story is accurate, and Karl Rove's attorneys have been served with an indictment.

In short, we had two sources close to the Fitzgerald investigation who were explicit about the information that we published, and a former high-ranking state department official who reported communication with a source who had "direct knowledge" of the meeting at Patton Boggs. In both instances, substantial detail was provided and matched.

We had confirmation. We ran the story.

The Latest Example of the Formerly Free Press

2006-05-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

I was just reading an article which appeared in today's Washington Post about the firing of Mary McCarthy and stopped dead when I came to the following statement:She was a contributor in 2004 to the presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), and a former colleague of two Clinton aides - Richard A. Clarke and Rand Beers - who had publicly assailed what they considered President Bush's misguided focus on Iraq.
While her political contributions may or may not be germane to this story, they are nonetheless public information and the claim here is accurate, though incomplete. (According to OpenSecrets, in addition to her March 2004 donation of $2,000 to John Kerry, she also donated $5,000 in October of 2004 to the Democratic Party of Ohio).

What is also incomplete and particularly reprehensible is that, in the attempt to paint McCarthy as a dangerous, disgruntled employee, the Post completely neglected to point out that Clarke and Beers were not only "Clinton aides," but that each man has a resume which includes both National Security and/or State Department service for President Reagan, and both Presidents Bush, in addition to Clinton.

And this is the same Washington Post that is so often derided by the right and held up as a prime example of the “Liberal media.”

Somewhere in Hell, John Mitchell must be laughing his ass off.

Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators

2006-05-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

Kudos to truthout for living up to it's name and getting the word out on this story.

Even though truthout went on the record with this story yesterday, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, and most of the sites that I list on the right side of this blog have (as of this writing) failed to make any mention of it. (To their credit however, Truthdig did report the truthout story.)

So again, congratulations to truthout and Truthdig. To the others, make a note to remind yourselves that the news is a 24/7 business!

Update - May 14, 2006
A search on "Rove" in Google News shows that while a few other outlets (including Bob Cesca on the Huffington Post) are reporting on this, all seem carry a direct reference to the Truthout/Jason Leopold report.

Surely, by this time, the Truthout story is in and of itself worthy of consideration as "news." Are all other papers and news services so fearful of the Administration's wrath that they are not even running a report, or are they just sorely pissed that a non-corporate, online news outlet grabbed what will probably be one of the scoops of the year?

Novogenarians say the darndest things!

2006-05-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

On a day when the blogosphere is awash with speculation that the Porter Goss resignation might be connected with the Watergate Hooker (yes, Watergate AND Hookers, oh my!) scandal, this has got to be the line of the day:

A colleague of mine just told me that a couple of days ago he was visiting his mother in a retirement home. They were sitting in the TV room and Bill Clinton was being interviewed on CNN.

An elderly woman sitting near them sighed, then turned to my colleague and said: “You know, they’re still giving him trouble over that blowjob!”

Why We Die

2006-04-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

I found the following today on a page by Alan Taylor and is his interpretation of a Pacific Northwest Native legend.

Why We Die

Once, many many years ago, before Humans walked in the world, Raven flew through the sky. He looked down upon The Earth that he created, The Seas he had made. Raven was lonely, so he created the animals, Beaver, Fox, and Killer Whale. Eagle, Salmon, and Deer. Soon the entire world was full of animals, and they would dance and sing with Raven. But Raven was still lonely.

He flew around, wondering why, he could dance and sing all the time, why would he feel lonely? He decided that he needed someone to tell his stories to, someone who would laugh when he told them about the days when Caribou had Fangs. Raven Decided to create Human Beings.

Always one for a good game, Raven also decided to make it a contest. He flew out of the skies to a narrow place on the sea. between two hillsides. Waters foamed and rushed back and forth below the hills. On top of one shoreline hill was a huge stone, as big as a Humpback Whale, on the other side was a large group of Elderberry Bushes.

Raven called out "Stone, Elderberry Bush, I have a challenge for you."

Stone and Elderberry Bush looked up at Raven, wary because Raven might be up to some trickery. "What is your challenge, Raven?" they said.

Raven spoke, "I wish for you to create a Human Being for me." He explained what a Human Being was to be, all the qualities and appearances it should have. "Whichever one of you two can create a Human being first, your offspring will live all over the world."

Stone said "I accept." Elderberry Bush also said "I accept."

Raven said "Then it is a game...You will begin tonight as the sun goes beneath the sea." And he flew back home.

The next morning Raven flew back to see how the game was going. He laughed as he heard Stone and Elderberry Bush exchanging insults.

"Your Human Being will be far too small, as your berries are too small!" cried Stone.

"Your Human Being will be dull and heavy, as you are Stone!" yelled Elderberry Bush.

Raven asked "How does the competition go?" landing on a nearby tree.

Both Stone and Elderberry Bush cried out "I am nearly done!" at the same time. Raven could see the top of Stone shake about as he tried to push out a Human Being. Raven could also see as Elderberry Bush wrapped his branches around a budding young Human Being.

"I will return tomorrow." cried Raven, and flew off to his village again. As he flew away, Stone and Elderberry Bush returned to their insults, yelling loudly across the waters. He laughed again, happy with himself for starting the game.

On the next morning, Raven returned and both Stone and Elderberry Bush were silent. He landed in the same tree and noticed they both looked very tired. Elderberry Bush had made a huge hill of branches and was busy building. Stone quivered from top to bottom, and on the top, a Human Being looked as if it were ready to step away from the Stone, only being attached at the ankles. It seemed as if Stone were ready to win.

"Very nice, Stone." said Raven, "Your Human Being Looks almost ready. He shall be a fine Human Being, and shall have your strength. He shall never have sickness, and shall never die. He will be a fine companion."

Just then Elderberry Bush cried out "I am done! I win!" and a Human Being stepped out of the small hill of branches. Raven and Stone looked up at the fine Human Being. He was beautiful to see. He had long hair the color of Raven's feathers and wonderful eyes the color of the sea.

Raven looked back at Stone again. Stone was so exhausted that when Elderberry Bush had finished, He quit creating as well. The Human Being coming out of the top of Stone slowly knelt down on one knee, and became as still and steadfast as the rest of Stone.

Raven flew over to the Human Being in the middle of Elderberry Bush, and landed next to him.

"Elderberry Bush, your Human Being is much more beautiful than Stone's, he has warm skin and a wonderful face. But because he is your offspring, he shall live as you do. He shall be born, grow, sometimes get sick, and die, as you do. It is sad he must die, but he shall be able to make more as you do." Raven clasped his hand to that of the first Human Being.

"I thank you for the challenge Raven." said Elderberry Bush, softly.

Raven flew off to his village to show the animals to the Human Being. It is from this day forth that Humans live and die like the Elderberry Bush, and as a reward to Elderberry Bush, Raven made his berries poisonous, so Bear would not smash him every summer.

Stone's Human can still be seen, kneeling on top of him, looking down on the Waters near Prince Rupert.

The Focus of Our Being, the Fight of Our Lives

2006-02-13T22:33:00.001-08:00

I worked locally in both the Draft Clark movement and in Wes Clark's campaign in '04 and would be the first to admit that I was left with reservations. This was not because I questioned his credentials as a Democrat, but moreso because of his initial hesitancy in declaring his candidacy and then the subsequent gaffes and missteps. For another rookie candidate it would have been explained as part of the learning process, but it did not communicate to me the decisiveness and skill in strategic planning that I'd expect from someone of his experience.

That said, the work he has done since -- both as a promoter of Democratic candidates and of core Democratic issues -- has reinstilled my confidence and has made me even more certain that, in one place or the other, Clark must be on the next Presidential Democratic ticket. The following post by from the Daily Kos only serves to amplify and strengthen that belief. The only change I've made in the post was to include a link to the speech that Al Gore made last month in observance of the Martin Luther King holiday and it is not intended as an endorsement of a Gore/Clark ticket in '08. However, far worse things could happen.

In one sense, Bush is right: There are people who hate us for our freedom and liberty, people who want to destroy us and who will use terror in their attempts to break us down. But these people are not in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. They're right here, in the White House, in control of both houses of Congress and now in control of the Supreme Court (also behind the anchor desks at many national news networks, but that's for another post). While we don't have to resort to the tactics of the right, we do have to learn to fight and I've been waiting 5 years to hear someone articulate this fact with the clarity and intensity of Clark.

Wes Clark: we need to save American democracy!
by Reality Bites Back
Sun Feb 05, 2006 at 01:42:54 PM PDT

If ever the Democratic Party found itself closer to the precipice of nonexistence, there is one sherpa with the instinct to reach deep into the haze of the darkening blizzard and pull us through to a sunlit summit: Wes Clark. Am I biased? Hell yeah! Because he's got the best resume EVER? No. Because he's got Clintonian charisma? No. Because I was fortunate to stand face to face with the General and hear what echoes in the depths of his brilliant mind for 3 solid hours, and let me tell you, with every fiber of my being - this man could be the Cincinnatus of the modern world.

I was invited to a small roundtable meeting with the General, to a subsequent speech, and to an event later that evening where I was able to ask him things that were on my mind. I was direct, and so was he...

I, and Kossacks Hekebolos, Alysheba, and Shockwave who were also there, can say with conviction, that not only is Clark no DLC shill, you will be amazed by how truly progressive his policies are.

Now let me just start by making one thing perfectly clear - General Clark is hell bent on the Democrats winning back at least one house of Congress - at stake he says - American democracy itself. `We all warned,' stated Clark `that if Bush won the presidency we would lose the court. Bush won. We lost the court. But if we lose in 2006, losing the courts will seem insignificant.' Democracy itself, freedom and liberty, our way of life, the very brotherhood that binds America together as a nation, that is what General Clark passionately urged those present to defend. That, he made crystal clear in somber tone, was on the verge of vanishing from the face of this earth; brought to this point by a power-crazed Republican leadership that seeks nothing less than total domination.

Now here's where the General earns his pension. I asked him straight up how the Democrats, prone to reason and debate, could compete with a Republican machine that exploits fear and crafts strategies to manipulate the instincts of our reptilian brain. I made the point that a proportion of the electorate was wired, through conditioning, so that any attack or threat to the nation would default them into the Republicans' hands. His response was quick, and deliberate: 'the Democrats need to get out there and engage the Republicans head to head on national security! We need to take the fight right to them! The Democrats need to make that the focus of their being; that the Republicans, who have so completely sacrificed the security of this nation through incompetence and willful indifference have not only failed to secure America, they have unified our enemies, depleted our resources and stretched our military to the brink. All before the watchful eyes of the world and our enemies. Enemies that will now see America as more vulnerable in the inability of our leadership to succeed.'

His passion was clear and real. `If the Democrats were in power,' he strenuously argued, `we would have gone after Bin Laden, we would never have wasted over $200 billion of the nation's wealth, we would never have ignored the threats of North Korea and Iran, we would never have ignored Putin's power grabs and suppression of Russian Democracy, we would never have completely ignored China's growing economic threat, and we would never have undertaken a policy of such ill repute that it creates more enemies in the world than friends. Only by directly engaging the Republicans on national security,' he stressed, `can the Democratic Party hope to win.'

He also made clear that the Democrats at large do not need to elaborate specific plans of action for specific aspects of the war in Iraq. Why? Because not having control of any part of the government, and facing a Republican Party that keeps all possible knowledge from the Democrats' purview, the Democrats have little or no knowledge of what is actually going on at the front lines of the battle. And with communication of the command structure clearly compromised and top-down only, even many in the Republican leadership are unaware of the details of the conflict. However, we certainly understand the political forces involved, the parties engaged, and the stakes at risk, and with that knowledge, we can and should argue a course of action to maximize the favorability of the outcome. In an evolution from previous statements, the General entertained an exit strategy predicated on `the ability to engage the Sunnis in the new government within a four month time frame'. He explained the necessity to `empower the Sunnis to prevent the fracturing of Iraq, which would precipitate massive ethnic cleansing, a Shia alignment with the militant factions of Iran, and the Peshmerga's withdrawal from Iraqi security forces to defend an independent Kurd movement eliminating the possibility of a unified nation.' The General suggested that an effort to emend the Iraqi constitution to increase the Sunni's role would yield what he deemed "the C- result." Anything less would be "an F" for it would precipitously lead to failure. He was not keen on failure, given that the possibility to avert disaster still existed, but for the immeasurable incompetence of the Bush administration.

Furthermore, he expounded the importance of the Democrats not sinking to the bitter and divisive political vitriol of the Republicans. That `we need to take a step back to a time of civility because any victory won by the Democratic party with such tactics would further poison American society to the point of irreconcilable divisions.' And that in itself `could alter the very nature of America enough to threaten the continuity of our democracy and the hope and prosperity of a stable nation.' The key was in winning on the issues, and there, we needed to extol the strengths our record demonstrates. We cannot back down in the interest of reconciliation or expediency. We must engage in this fight of ideas, illuminate the Republicans' failure of leadership and put forth the Democratic vision for America, a vision complete with the balance of power restored, and the focus of the government returned to the welfare of its people.

Later in the evening, he also personally expressed to me his concern about the integrity of the voting machines, the discrepancies of the optical tabulators, Republican led voter suppression, and complete awareness of county level irregularities. It's on his mind. Believe me. He knows what's at stake and he's not afraid to say it.

Over and over, he stated "country before party" alluding to the Republicans who have so recklessly put their party over America. A party with no low to which they are willing to sink. No vitriol, shame, or mean-spirited, divisive tactic they would be unwilling to employ in pursuit of power. He read from a memo that he surmised as the inner voice of the Republican Party. It delineated a willingness to engage in fear mongering, the discarding of diplomacy, and a preemptive attack on Iran within the next few months. An attack that would serve to rally the nation behind President Bush in time for the 2006 elections and make unnecessary the Congress and courts as a unitary executive rises to take total control of all in the name of security. The Democratic Party would never again see the light of day - it would simply cease to exist. He said this with measure and gravity. 'Fighting for American democracy doesn't start on the streets of Iraq or Iran. Fighting for American democracy starts right here - on Main Street America.'

Now many may understand this as the Republican endgame. Some, who probably prefer watching the Anna Nicole Show to Keith Olberman, might not see the signs - Alito, warrantless wiretaps, the Plame leak, fabricated terror alerts, indefinite detentions, withholding of counsel, Constitutional abandonment in the name of "security"... But never have I seen someone in the political realm articulate it with such clarity and conviction; with the concern of someone who served 34 years in the name of freedom, or the confidence of someone who has walked among the highest corridors of power. I also had the privilege of meeting General Clark a year ago at the California Democratic Convention. He was fresh off the campaign trail, and determined to engage the Republicans in their own back yard. But I have to say, what a difference a year has made! I knew he was intelligent then, though politically green at the time, but the past year has served him well. He has found his voice. He speaks in language with near universal appeal. He speaks as an American above all with ideas as his weapons and facts as his shield. And he now has a new determination, to preserve the very being of the country he loves.

Now there are some who may doubt the General's motivations, his political savvy, or his ability to play with the big boys of the party. I am not one of those. Not any more. I have seen most of the party leaders of the past few campaigns up close and personal. Met and greeted them, heard them talk live, looked into their eyes, and watched from afar on C-SPAN speech after speech after speech. I've seen Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Edwards, and Dean up close and personal - but I've never seen anything like Clark! Is he a politician - yes. But he's an American first, and the things he said today... with the exception of Al Gore's recent speeches, never before have I seen a politician with the guts to so lay it on the line.

It would take dozens of pages to expound on all that he said, idea after idea, from progressive education reform to single payer healthcare reform to empowering American research and innovation, especially American universities, to ways we can help disabled veterans, to countering the threat of Chinese and Indian economic growth through European and Latin American alliances, to South American political movements, to solutions to Middle East conflict in detail and nuance that I was truly amazed by. He expounded in detail the situation in Iran, that the United States must spend the next 30 days engaging the Iranian government in diplomacy, he predicted a possible 14 day bombing strike by the Bush administration and said it would serve only to elevate Ahmadinejad to Bin Laden status for bearing the bullying of what is perceived to be a Muslim hating America. I'm not going into further detail on the dozens of other topics he covered in the time I was there. For that, I suggest reading the diary of Hekebolos (who elaborated on some additional topics of discussion), and visiting http://www.securingamerica.com/ and reading General Clark's January 30th address to the New America Foundation titled "The Real State of the Union 2006."

To those who would argue that this is merely some kind of idol worship, I say this to you - I challenge you to meet General Clark in person and make the same judgment. Until you do this, until you've spent even an hour with this man, you cannot understand how serious he is about preserving America from the mortal threats within, the drive of his mission, and the incredible depth and expanse of his knowledge on all matters foreign and domestic. You cannot comprehend the sincerity of his convictions and genuineness of his character. There was no topic he was unwilling to discuss and he made no attempt to equivocate or evade any question.

Wesley Clark is a one man movement. A modern visionary with the rare capacity to envelop a world of complex issues and synthesize, codify, organize and deliver. His message was so powerful, so well thought out, so precisely articulated, and so heartfelt that even a single drop could tinge a candidate like aniline dye. To which I ask this: What is the point of all this if it should wither away in a vacuum? The point is that General Clark is willing to meet with Democratic candidates and engage them in the issues. He wants to do this! He is willing to spread the wealth of his knowledge and message, and it is a rich wealth to spread. I can guarantee you that any candidate at any level who has the opportunity to spend any time with General Clark, who is open-minded enough to keep their ears clear and their attention focused, will come away with an understanding of issues, framing of language, unity of message, and confidence in the Democratic Party's ability to go head to head on matters of national security like they have never had before.

I would implore anyone with any rapport with any Democratic candidate to reach out to General Clark, to hear his message, to consider his language, and to heed his warnings. In this, I cannot have any more conviction.

Dolores and Joan

2006-02-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, Mona forwarded this amazing photo of Dolores Huerta (mother of the United Farm Workers Union) and Joan Baez backstage at the Operation Ceasefire concert last September in DC. Since she hasn’t posted it on her blog yet, I thought I’d put it up here. (This was from the Women’s Legislator’s Lobby site.

While I thought I knew quite a bit about the UFW, it wasn't until hearing Christina Ortega's song “Corrido de Dolores Huerta #39”, that I learned about Dolores. In reading more about her I found that she was at at one time a UC Regent. As a UC employee, this technically made her my “boss,” something I found extremely cool.

Here’s another great picture of Dolores.

S'been A Long Time Comin'

2006-02-06T09:37:00.002-08:00

A Homecoming
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe | February 6, 2006

AMERICA HAS had a difficult time reckoning with its racist past. Slavery was a defining part of the cultures and economies out of which the nation grew, and for most of its first century the ownership of humans by other humans was taken for granted. A pseudo-Darwinian ranking by ''race" justified that order, which stood on pillars of skin color and ethnic origin. When that blatant structure of denigration was overthrown by the Civil War, implicit assumptions of white supremacy remained so lodged in the national psyche that slavery became a half remembered shadow, with heirs of slave-holders in contented denial about its brutality and descendants of slaves locked in punishing marginality by means of legal insult and economic short shrift.

Failure to reckon with slavery and its consequences is still the American problem, which is manifest not only by the unyielding grip of white racism that impossibly burdens one generation of African-Americans after another, but also in the permanent cultural divide that so curses the nation. An inch below the surface of every political debate, from questions of law-and-order to the proper role of government to tax policy to educational reform, lies the hidden reality of race -- or, one should say, of white racism. North-South, Red State-Blue State, Democrat-Republican, urban-suburban, local-cosmopolitan, state-federal -- these inhibiting dichotomies all split along the primordial fracture of slavery and its aftermath.

As the mixed history of the affirmative action movement shows, even the most well-intentioned attempts to deal with this central conundrum get sidetracked, with the result, for example, that women and various immigrant groups defined as ''minority" have made impressive strides toward equality, while obstacles blocking such advancement for African-Americans, even after 50 years of civil rights, remain largely in place.

This is the heart-rending background to last week's welcome good news. The Smithsonian Institution announced the selection of a site for The National Museum of African American History and Culture. It will stand on one of the most prominent spots in the nation's capital, near the Washington Monument at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 14th Street, the boulevard of entrance to the city.

Most significantly, the museum will be on the National Mall, which is the axis of American memory and moral reckoning. Until now, the Mall itself has epitomized the nation's denial -- by what is absent. A discernible color line in the stone of the Washington Monument marks the halt in its construction during the Civil War, but that terrible conflict is remembered mainly as a white nation's fratricidal tragedy, with blacks included, if at all, in footnotes. Indeed, the Mall takes its sacred line from the link, across Memorial Bridge, between Robert E. Lee in Arlington and Abraham Lincoln in his marble temple -- as if the breach between those two white men were the most grievous wound in need of healing.

Over the years, it was African-Americans who most forthrightly claimed the National Mall as sanctuary for the nation, beginning in 1939 when 75,000 people showed up (the largest Mall gathering ever until then) to hear Marian Anderson sing after she had been barred from Constitution Hall for being black. The radio broadcast of her concert was heard across the country, linking racial justice and that place in the American mind. That was what brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. there in 1963, and it was why he aimed to return in 1968. Even without him that spring, the many thousands of his Poor Peoples' Campaign showed up on the Mall, claiming it as their Resurrection City. But, trekking through the dozens of monuments and museums that line the National Mall today, you would not know any of this. That will change now.

At the edge of the tidal basin, near the memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ground will be broken this year for a stand-alone memorial to King, whose words sacralized what Lincoln's gaze beholds. And across the Mall, at the gate of the city, will rise the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where the full truth of American history and culture can finally be told -- precisely because now it can include its African element. How we remember the past determines the future. The brutality of slavery, bold resistance of slaves, assumptions of white supremacy, triumphs of civil rights, and injustices yet to be reckoned with -- the full story told at last, completing the place that enshrines the national conscience.

Original article here.

The Democratic Response That Should Have Been

2006-01-31T19:26:00.000-08:00

The America We Believe In
John Edwards
January 31, 2006

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk with you about the state of our union on the day of the president’s address to our country. While it is discouraging for all of us to see our country moving in the wrong direction, we need to take this opportunity to offer ideas for how to get the nation back on track.

America is losing the most important element of our national character: We are no longer the land of opportunity for all.

Generations before us came to America for one reason. This is the land where everyone who worked hard would be rewarded, could raise a family and could make a better life for their children. But America has changed. Now, hard work does not guarantee a decent standard of living, and our children do not believe they can achieve the successes of their parents. It should not be that way.

Continue reading here.

"He trusted his crowd"

2005-12-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

I’ll admit it. I'm precisely the kind of person for whom "belated birthday" cards were made, but this time I really, really blew it. A couple of days ago I realized I'd recently let what would have been Robert Kennedy's 80th birthday (November 20) pass unobserved.

My memories from the time of John's death are very spotty, so my first mental image of Robert was a picture in a newspaper or magazine of a man in a suit and tie, sitting on the dirty wooden floor of a shack, and holding a sickly black child in his arms. What struck me was that here was a man obviously out of his element, yet possessed of such concern for this child, that he would sit down in his suit and hold it. And he didn’t just pick it up, he sat down and held it. It wasn’t something a politician would do. It was something a dad would do. When I think of compassion, it’s this image that comes to mind. Although I've never been able to locate that specific photo, the image to the right (taken in Stockton, CA) also captures this feeling. Notice how he is crouched down instead of standing over the child. By putting himself at the child's level he not only puts the child at ease, but also gives the sense that he believes what the child has to say is important, and is truly being heard.

A few years ago, while reading Evan Thomas' biography “Robert Kennedy: His Life,” this image of him and that child in the shack was brought back to me and the details were filled in:

"In April [1966], Kennedy, as a member of the Senate Select Committee’s newly created committee on poverty, traveled to rural Mississippi to hold hearings. Appalled by the testimony, he went out into the fields. Kennedy was hardly new to scenes of want and deprivation, but he was still shocked by the living conditions of poor blacks in the Delta. The stench and vermin in the windowless shacks overwhelmed his senses. He sat down on a dirty floor and held a child who was covered with open sores. He rubbed the child’s stomach, which was distended by starvation. He caressed and murmured and tickled. No response. The child was in a daze.

“Kennedy was highly agitated when he returned to Washington that night. He walked in on his kids at dinner at Hickory Hill, ’ashen faced,’ recalled Kathleen, his eldest daughter. ’In Mississippi a whole family lives in a shack the size of this room,’ he announced to his nine children, ages fifteen to two. ‘The children are covered with sores and their tummies stick out because they have no food. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know how lucky you are? Do something for your country.”

My next strong association of him was in March of 1968 when he went to Delano, CA to visit and take communion with UFW leader Cesar Chavez during Chavez' hunger strike. Because I grew up in Fresno, this was a story which made the local news, and literally brought Kennedy close to home. I've since read that it was Kennedy's admiration of Chavez' courage that provided the final step in his decision to run for President.

Then, less than three months later, came the California primary. When Johnson gave his “I will not seek, nor will I accept” speech a voice in my 9 year old mind said "start paying attention, this stuff is important," so by the time the primary rolled around I had a reasonably good awareness of the participants and was also aware that our primary could determine the Democratic nominee. Besides this, I also sensed the almost Beatlemania-like enthusiasm over the prospect of another Kennedy in the White House. I watched the returns that night with the interest that other kids might’ve shown for a World Series game 7 (much to the apprehension of my conservative parents) and, although it was a school night, stayed up late enough for to hear the projections that Kennedy had pulled off a win.

It wasn’t until I got up the next morning that I found out that he’d been shot. Although he was still alive at the time, the prognosis was that he’d suffered brain damage and I understood that this meant there was little chance of "recovery," even if he lived. As with most people, it seemed incredulous that this could be happening again. Later that day, the word went around school that he had died. As a nation, we’ve experienced many periods of hard times, but I can’t think of a greater example of sheer heartbreak as during those two months when we had to face the dual losses of King and Kennedy. It wasn't so much a matter of what we'd lost, but what we now would never have. We were already at the point of severe division, distrust and hatred, and suddenly our two best chances for finding a way out of it were gone.

In the ensuing years, as things got bad, then worse, I’d often find myself wondering how the country, and the world, might have been different if he’d been President. A friend and I have had this debate and he believes that the swing to the right was already too powerful, that the desire for revenge over the elections of ‘60 and ‘64 almost guaranteed Nixon‘s election. I still disagree. Kennedy’s blend of compassion and pragmatism could have been exactly the thing needed to counteract and prevent our slide towards blind adherence to ideology that is the source of so many of our present problems.

Whenever I hear that question “if you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be?” I immediately think of him. Partly, it would be to learn his impressions of events from his life, but also to hear his thoughts and opinions about what's happened in his absence.

Last September, my friend Mona and I attended the anti-war rally and march in Washington D.C. That Sunday, we wanted a quieter, more private observance, and decided to go to Arlington to visit the graves of Iraq War vets. In a cruel twist to the question "what noble cause?" we found that (unlike other headstones that indicate World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam) the Iraq are inscribed "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Not even the dead are immune to this administration's marketing of this war. Especially sobering was that, in sharp contrast to the sensation you get at Arlington that you are walking through history, three of the graves were very new. Less than a month earlier, these men had been alive. Most heartrending is that if you stand at the back of the three or four rows of Iraqi war graves, you look out at a large, open expanse. "George's punchcard," as Mona said.

Before we left we went to the Kennedy graves. After visiting the graves of John and his family, Mona (who'd wanted to locate the grave of her son-in-law's grandfather, and had done more hiking on the hills of Arlington than me) wanted to rest, so I went alone up the pathway to Robert's grave, which is at the base of the hill in front of the Lee Mansion.

Across from the grave is a shallow, reflecting pool with a panel containing two quotes from his speeches. I’d visited his grave when I went to Arlington during the summer of 2002, but unlike my previous visit, I first went to the panel and read the inscriptions.

The first I practically know by heart. It is from his address at the University of Capetown in South Africa in 1966. It is the “ripples” quote that I have at the top of my blog and if I had to pick a political credo, this would be it.

Then I read the quote on the other two panels. It is the conclusion of a speech given the evening that Martin Luther King was assassinated. That night, Kennedy had a campaign appearance in a predominately African-American section of Indianapolis. Despite of urging of police to cancel the appearance (and without police protection), Kennedy refused to cancel. This was characteristic of him. Fear and bravery were inextricably connected, and when confronted with danger, his response was to step into it, not back away.

Upon learning that the crowd did not yet know about King, he abandoned his campaign speech and broke the news to the crowd, reminding them that he had lost a member of his family to violence and imploring them to overcome their hatred and desire for revenge and to replace it, as King would have, with understanding, compassion and love.

Because I'd heard both a recording and had seen film of this speech, I could hear his voice as I read the words, and felt as if he was standing behind me:

Then I turned and faced his grave. In comparing the two brothers, Arthur Schlesinger is said to have observed that John was "a realist, brilliantly disguised as a romantic," while Robert was "a romantic stubbornly disguised as a realist." If that's accurate, it's a dichotomy which they literally carried to their graves. Despite the grandeur and stateliness of John's grave, it's Robert's that I have always found the most affecting. A plain white wooden cross (the only such grave in all of Arlington) and a white marble marker with his name and dates. The grave of a soldier, of Everyman. Simple, unassuming, and yet stunningly unordinary.

I looked at this grave and with his words and his voice in my mind I thought about the savageness of our time, how we not only still suffer from those old divisions, but how new reasons to hate are created and nurtured. As I thought about the way the words compassion, law, and justice have been warped and perverted, how so much that Robert fought against has now become accepted, tears came to my eyes. I can’t say that I prayed, because I don't, but I did kneel down and implored to whatever part of his spirit is out there that he help us through this terrible time.

I hope I was heard.

Postscript:
The title of this post comes from the song “Sin City” by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman of the Flying Burrito Brothers. Because the song was written in Los Angeles sometime during the late summer of 1968, I've always thought that they had Kennedy in mind when they wrote the following lyrics:

A friend came around
Tried to clean up this town
His ideas made some people mad

But he trusted his crowd
So he spoke right out loud
And they lost the best friend they had

Richard Pryor, 1940-2005

2005-12-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

So long Rich, we're gonna miss you.

It's Not The Cellphones, Rummie

2005-12-10T12:36:00.000-08:00

I usually try to shy away from comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq (except of course when observing the fact that Bush had an extremely successful "exit strategy" with Vietnam), but this is just too poignant to let pass.

This week, Rumsfeld used as one example of our progress toward success in Iraq the "incredible number of cell phones which is an entirely new thing in that country."

I found this painfully ironic, because this week I also received the above photo from a Vietnamese friend who recently returned from a visit to Vietnam. Commenting on the picture, he said "Hanoi’s younger generation, like this one, has no memory of the war and they are the work force and the young entrepeneurs who help rebuild the country by pushing the freemarket economy forward."

That's what I would consider "progress," and it's progress that the Vietnamese people not only made on their own but progress that they couldn't have begun to make with our interference. What's most paradoxical is that this girl looks any one of thousands of girls you might see in any American college town, yet she also represents the end result of our failed policies, a reminder that freedom cannot be imposed. A common slogan among the pro-war crowd is "freedom isn't free." If you add that freedom can only be purchased by those who are seeking it, I'd agree.

I hope one day to see a picture of an Iraqi girl with a cell phone riding a scooter down a street in Baghdad. But it ain't gonna happen while that street is filled with the sound of American boots marching toward freedom.

Call 1-888-EXR-CIST

2005-12-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

This video is from the Fox Network "Trading Spouses" series (the very concept of which is curious, considering Fox News is a so-called champion of family values).

In this scene, Marguerite Perrin returns home, after what was apparently a less than pleasant stay, having encountered such serious "dark side" challenges to her faith as astrology, hydrotherapy, strange noises emanating from the clothes dryer and smelly garbage, not to mention a (gasp!) face-to-face meeting with a hypnotherapist at a solstice party!

The Gaffe That Keeps on Giving

2005-11-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

The last time I can remember a joke being afforded this level of secrecy was in Monty Python's "World's Deadliest Joke" sketch.

So What Have They to Hide?
Official Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about the Assault on Fallujah

By Raymond Whitaker and Marie Woolf
The Independent UK

Sunday 27 November 2005

Original story

The trial of two Whitehall workers this week could reveal Britain's role in one of the Iraq war's darkest episodes.

Nobody outside the Westminster village would recognize the names of David Keogh and Leo O'Connor. One is a former Cabinet Office official, the other a researcher for an MP who lost his seat at the last election. But the crime of which they are accused concerns two men who are firmly in the public eye: Tony Blair and George Bush.

On Tuesday, Mr Keogh, 49, the civil servant, and Mr O'Connor, 42, who worked for the former Labor MP Tony Clarke, will appear at Bow Street magistrates' court in London. Mr Keogh is charged, under the Official Secrets Act, with sending the researcher a transcript of an April 2004 meeting at the White House between the Prime Minister and the President. When the document was shown to Mr Clarke, then MP for Northampton South, he returned it to Downing Street.

All that occurred well over a year ago. Despite the eminence of those taking part in the discussion, the transcript did not carry the highest classification, and the case might have attracted relatively little attention were it not for subsequent events. On Tuesday, the Daily Mirror reported that Mr Bush had told Mr Blair in April last year that he wanted to bomb the studios of al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite channel which has consistently challenged the White House line on Iraq.

With its Arab cameramen and reporters, al-Jazeera, based in the Gulf state of Qatar, has been able to go where embedded Western reporters dare not. At the time of the White House meeting, it was broadcasting bloody footage from within Fallujah, then under assault by US forces. Added to the channel's role as the outlet for statements by Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and its coverage of on-camera executions of Western hostages by al-Qa'ida followers, it was not surprising that Mr Bush might have been angry with al-Jazeera.

According to the Mirror, Mr Blair dissuaded the President from any attack on the TV station. It reported conflicting views on whether Mr Bush might have been joking or not - even if he had been prepared to disregard the international outrage it would have caused, Qatar is a key Middle East base for the Americans - although it is possible that he was suggesting a clandestine bombing.

Even this trumpeted exclusive might not have resonated for long. But in a move unprecedented since Labor came to office in 1997, the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, warned newspapers that they would be breaching the Official Secrets Act (OSA) if they published the contents of the document at the center of the prosecution against Keogh and O'Connor. The Mirror's editor, Richard Wallace, complained: "We made No 10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given 'no comment', officially or unofficially. Suddenly, 24 hours later, we are threatened under section 5 [of the OSA]."

Why did the Government choose this moment to crack down? It had not reacted to many previous leaks, some extremely embarrassing, in particular the revelation that Mr Blair and some of his most senior ministers, aides and military commanders had been discussing detailed plans for war in Iraq in the summer of 2002, while insisting in public that no decisions had been taken. The Mirror's credibility on Iraq also suffered when it published hoax pictures purporting to show British soldiers abusing prisoners, leading to the departure of Piers Morgan as editor.

Al-Jazeera has seized on the report, pointing out that its bureau in Kabul and Baghdad had been hit by US forces, despite the fact that the channel had sent their co-ordinates to the Pentagon. Another of its employees is in indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay. But the Mirror scoop might not have been taken half as seriously in other quarters if Lord Goldsmith had not intervened.

The Attorney-General insisted yesterday that he was acting independently of Downing Street, mainly on the narrow legal grounds of avoiding prejudice to a "live" trial. He was not using the OSA to prevent political embarrassment. But when BBC Radio 4's Today program asked if the issue was one of national security, he avoided the question.

"Some people will think this is heavy-handed," said a senior Whitehall source. "What people are bound to say is that we are being inconsistent in dealing with this case. They are bound to ask why we are pursuing this case, and not others."

In other words: what do they have to hide? The answer to that appears to reflect the degree to which Tony Blair is still haunted by the Iraq war. The attack on Fallujah, which was at its height when he met George Bush, epitomizes many of the most serious concerns about that war.

In response to the lynching of four American security contractors, US forces were ordered to "clean out" Fallujah, over the protests of the Marine commander on the ground, who argued that months of painstaking efforts to win hearts and minds would be destroyed.

"The decision was political, not military," said Toby Dodge of Queen Mary College, London University, who went to Downing Street with other Iraq experts before the war to warn Mr Blair of the perils of an invasion. "It was taken in the Oval Office."

But after three weeks of heavy fighting, and correspondingly high casualties, the White House lost its nerve. The Marines, who lost 600 men, believed they were on the point of seizing the town when they were ordered to hand over to an "Iraqi brigade" commanded by a general from the Saddam era, which promptly yielded control back to the insurgents.

In the midst of this disaster, the Prime Minister was at the White House. That Britain was concerned about the conduct of the fighting was revealed in a leaked Foreign Office memo the following month. This said: "Heavy-handed US military tactics in Fallujah and Najaf, some weeks ago, have fueled both Sunni and Shia opposition to the coalition, and lost us much public support inside Iraq."

Possible options for the deployment of British troops were also discussed in the memo, including the possibility that they might take over the troubled areas of Najaf and Qadisiyah, where Spanish troops had been pulled out by the new Socialist government. That did not materialize, but at this time last year, the Black Watch was sent north to back up US forces being readied for a fresh assault on Fallujah. In 30 days, the 850-strong British force lost five men.

US forces surrounded Fallujah, and the civilian population was ordered out amid warnings that anyone remaining would be treated as an insurgent. Much of the town was flattened, and many of its former inhabitants have never returned. To this day, we have little idea how many people, whether "foreign fighters" or unfortunate civilians, were killed in Fallujah. But disturbing details continue to trickle out.

Only this month, we learned that US troops used white phosphorus, intended to provide smokescreens, as an illegal chemical weapon against fighters in buildings or foxholes. On contact with skin or clothing, it can burn down to the bone. And many of the same tactics are being employed during Operation Steel Curtain, which for the past few weeks has sought to drive insurgents out of towns and villages near Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan.

Some have argued that if the text of the memo at the heart of the present row were published, it would show that Mr Blair, contrary to the claims of Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, had used his influence to restrain American behavior in Iraq. But events in Fallujah and beyond do not give much sign that the US ever heeded any British expression of concern about its methods of dealing with the insurgency.

Not only is the Prime Minister's authority in Washington in question, but Iraq has also eroded his ability to push through his policies at home. It is in this context that the Government's crackdown on leaks is being viewed. With open disagreements growing inside the Government on a host of issues - just in the past week, these have included pensions, nuclear power, education policy and flu jabs - a firmer approach is needed to stop the flow of confidential documents, some believe. "Having these documents is a breach of the OSA, and this is a serious offense," said one official. "It's illegal."

But the strategy is seen as risky, even within the Government, and its execution was less than clinical. Days after the news of Lord Goldsmith's warning, some media organizations were still seeking official notification. It remains to be seen whether the Government seeks to prevent the five-page document becoming public during the OSA trial, but it could not have focused more interest on the case unless it published the whole transcript, as Peter Kilfoyle, a former defense minister, and others are demanding in a parliamentary motion.

The Independent on Sunday has not seen the document, nor discussed its contents with anyone who has, and the Prime Minister can argue that his private discussions with other leaders should remain confidential. But it is clear that the two, previously anonymous, men due in court this week are overshadowed by the legacy of the conflict jointly launched by the PM and the President.

Since when is a joke an "official secret?"

2005-11-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

When setting up this blog, I mulled over the "political correctness" of including a link to the al-Jazeera site, but the news over Bush's "joke" Blair about bombing the Qutar offices (and the subsequent muzzling of the story in Britain) has proven it to be not only a valuable, but apparently powerful enough source of news that it's worthy of silencing.

C'mon, George, if it was so funny, why don't you share the joke with the rest of us? Maybe Tony didn't get it, but you know that weird limey sense of humor. Anyway, things have been pretty serious lately and what's the good of having a class clown for President if we can't get a laugh from him once in awhile? (OK, I admit that the door bit you pulled in Beijing was pretty good.)

Oh, and AJ, in case you know any folks who are interested in playing a similar "joke" on the Fox News offices in NY (1211 Avenue of the Americas), here's a picture you can pass along that might help.

Don't worry Bill, it's just a satiric "rift."

Text of my letter to Ohio State Representative Danny Bubp

2005-11-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

Representative Bubp,

Pardon me if I don't address you by the customary title of "Honorable," but my cynicism just doesn't run that deep.

I'm pleased to say that until I heard of Rep. Jean Schmidt's statement in Congress on Friday, I was unaware of your name. If only I could have remained so blissfully ignorant.

As you know, in her statement she claimed that you had called and asked her "to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

On hearing this I immediately thought this must be some kind of bad-ass MF'er to call Murtha out like that. I was just surprised I'd never heard of you before. With all this swagger, you certainly must've won a war single-handed or something, right? Why aren't there any ships or bases named after you?

Picturing a cross between John Wayne and Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz, I set off in search of your military record and found the following (as it was on your state website I assume it can be considered accurate and free of manipulation by the "Liberal Media" you and your ilk love to deride):

1978 - Commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps
1978-Present - Continues to serve in United States Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel of Marines
1997-Present - Serves on the staff at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C. as Team Leader for the Reserve Component National Security Course
2003 - Graduate of Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
2003 - Served on the J-3 Staff at United States Central Command, Tampa, Florida for General Tommy Franks in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom

I was puzzled. This wasn't at all what I expected to find. Where were the overseas postings in which you must have so admirably displayed your bravery and valor? Where's Beirut, Panama, Gulf War I, Somalia, the Balkans? Hell, you weren't even in Grenada! Not a single mention of an occasion when you responded to the call and put your life on the line. Have your ever even been in a position where you had to decide to stay and fight or "cut and run," or is that just a handy catch phrase thrown around by you and other pathetic excuses for public servants? About the only service related injury it appears you were ever in danger of was getting a blister on your ass from sitting behind a desk all those years.

Let me say that while I have never been a member of the armed services, I have several relatives and friends and associates who have or who are currently serving in various branches of the military. Members of my family served in both World Wars, in Korea, and in Vietnam. Perhaps if I didn't hold their contributions in such deep respect, your actions might not bother me the way they do. As it is, I don't think you could've shown a greater disrespect for Congressman Murtha if you'd been one of those urban-mythical war protesters who spit on GI's as they were returning from Vietnam.

Many are now suggesting that you make a public apology to the Congressman. However, now that I’ve seen your record, I'm not sure it would hold much weight to a man of his character and experience. In any case it wouldn't be enough. Instead, I think it's time to search among whatever tattered shreds you refer to as your "character" and while you're doing it, think about those words that thousands of Marines have lived and died for: honor, courage, commitment. While thinking about that, consider how for nothing more than 15 minutes of fame as part of a cheap political smear, you've insulted not only a fellow Marine, but the Corps and the uniform. Semper Fi is obviously a concept you cannot even grasp, let alone live by.

In past cultures, when a officer brought disgrace upon himself (and, by extension, his fellow officers), he was given a sword or a gun and was left alone to do “the honorable thing.” Because we now live in more enlightened times (perhaps unfortunately), the only honorable thing I can imagine for you to add one item to that military record you seem to take such pride in: "2005 - Resigned commission for conduct unbecoming a Marine."

If this is too much to ask, there is one other alternative: you're still an active member of the Marine Reserve, so maybe it's time you learn to walk like you talk and get your cowardly ass on the next transport to Iraq. They need you there a lot more than we need another cheap hack politician here.

While I seriously doubt that you're still reading this, I do sincerely wish you courage in whatever decision you make. One way or another, you'll need it.

P.S. Next time you're inclined to take a cheap shot at a national hero like Congressman Murtha, be a man and do it to his face, OK? Don't send a woman to do it for you.

What They Could Never Kill

2005-11-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you or me
Said I "but Joe, you're ten years dead,"
"I never died," said he....

In many respects, these words are true: Joe Hill, laborer, union organizer and songwriter, never died. Nevertheless, it was not ten, but rather 90 years ago today that a Utah firing squad ended Hill's mortal journey and set his spirit free. He had been convicted of the murder of a grocer who'd been killed the same night that Hill was shot by a man who thought Hill had insulted his wife. Without a motive, weapon, positive eyewitnesses, or evidence tying Hill to the scene of the murder, he was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. Despite appeals from President Woodrow Wilson, AFL President Samuel Gompers, and the Swedish minister to the United States, the Utah Supreme Court refused to overturn the sentence.

Observing his last wish that he not be left in Utah, his body was taken to Chicago where, after a large funeral it was cremated. His ashes were then placed in envelopes and sent to every state in the Union (except for Utah) as well as countries around the world where they were scattered.

Just as his ashes encompassed the world, the song about him (thanks in large part to Joan Baez) has spread and inspired millions over the years, in concert halls, at festivals, marches, rallies, and most recently at demonstrations in Crawford and Washington DC.

Given his instructions against mourning, I don't know that he'd want any kind of commemoration at this time, so here is a poem that he wrote on the night before his execution. Rather than in dedication to his life, it is offered more in testament to the many -- a list that now includes Casey Sheehan -- whose deaths, while senseless and unnecessary, serve to remind us that the the forces of repression can only extinguish life, but not the spirit's ability to motivate and inspire.

Joe Hill's Last Will

My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide.
My kind don't need to fuss and moan --
"Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."
My body? Ah, If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will.
Good luck to all of you.

Joe Hill's funeral, Chicago, IL

Three little words....

2005-11-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for someone to say this since the early days of the '04 campaign. It's so simple, so obvious. Malcolm would have told them "you've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray." But none of those who cast a vote in favor of the war resolution seemed to get this and instead spent the campaign equivocating their way around the issue.

While Edwards' recognizes a small window for success and charts a solid course toward it, his expression that we can get out "honorably" is close enough to "peace with honor" and "stay the course" to warrant at least some degree of trepidation for now.

Still, he has shown the ability to put himself at the front of the '08 pack with this frank admission of culpability. At the very least, it'll be interesting to see who follows his lead.

The Right Way in Iraq
By John Edwards
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The Washington Post

I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right.

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace.

Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the goodwill our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less.

The urgent question isn't how we got here but what we do now. We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. That means leaving behind a success, not a failure.

What is success? I don't think it is Iraq as a Jeffersonian democracy. I think it is an Iraq that is relatively stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny.

A plan for success needs to focus on three interlocking objectives: reducing the American presence, building Iraq's capacity and getting other countries to meet their responsibilities to help.

First, we need to remove the image of an imperialist America from the landscape of Iraq. American contractors who have taken unfair advantage of the turmoil in Iraq need to leave Iraq. If that means Halliburton subsidiary KBR, then KBR should go. Such departures, and the return of the work to Iraqi businesses, would be a real statement about our hopes for the new nation.

We also need to show Iraq and the world that we will not stay there forever. We've reached the point where the large number of our troops in Iraq hurts, not helps, our goals. Therefore, early next year, after the Iraqi elections, when a new government has been created, we should begin redeployment of a significant number of troops out of Iraq. This should be the beginning of a gradual process to reduce our presence and change the shape of our military's deployment in Iraq. Most of these troops should come from National Guard or Reserve forces.

That will still leave us with enough military capability, combined with better-trained Iraqis, to fight terrorists and continue to help the Iraqis develop a stable country.

Second, this redeployment should work in concert with a more effective training program for Iraqi forces. We should implement a clear plan for training and hard deadlines for certain benchmarks to be met. To increase incentives, we should implement a schedule showing that, as we certify Iraqi troops as trained and equipped, a proportional number of U.S. troops will be withdrawn.

Third, we must launch a serious diplomatic process that brings the world into this effort. We should bring Iraq's neighbors and our key European allies into a diplomatic process to get Iraq on its feet. The president needs to create a unified international front.

Too many mistakes have already been made for this to be easy. Yet we must take these steps to succeed. The American people, the Iraqi people and -- most important -- our troops who have died or been injured there, and those who are fighting there today, deserve nothing less.

America's leaders -- all of us -- need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place. More than 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in this war, and more than 150,000 are fighting there today. They and their families deserve honesty from our country's leaders. And they also deserve a clear plan for a way out.

The writer, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004.

Mr. “Bring ‘em on”

2005-10-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Mr. “Bring ‘em on”
By Dahr Jamail
October 26, 2005

Yesterday while speaking to a group of military wives in Washington, Mr. Bush said, “This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve.”

Of course this speech of pre-emptive consolation to the news of the 2,000th death was not in vain, as the announcement came but a few hours after his speech at the air force base.

I wonder how many of those military wives recall what Mr. Bush said 1,794 dead US soldiers ago when he proudly announced, “Bring ‘em on” back on July 2, 2003?

Continue reading "Mr. “Bring ‘em on”"

Getting the "truthout"

2005-10-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

Libby Targeted Joe Wilson
White House Defense Crumbling in Leak Case
Post-Rove Thinking Underway
Cover-Up Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry
Secrets, Evasions and Classified Reports
Rove Told Jury Libby May Have Been His Source in Leak Case
Schumer: "When Was the President Told?"
Bush Knew about Rove's Involvment in CIA Leak

OK Congressman, say "Astroglide!"

2005-10-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

I admit, the "astroglide" joke isn't mine. I got it from a cousin a couple of years ago while he was taking a Christmas picture of the family. Still, I can't think of a more appropriate caption for this photo.

Who knows, maybe the Smoking Gun will come up with a special "Neo-con" section on their mugshot page! (See the arrest warrant here.)

Let's do the happy dance!

2005-10-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

Bush may have known two years ago about Rove leaking Plame's name to the press….Tom DeLay is booked at the Harris County sheriff’s office…… Miers is told “Thank you, Harriet, but please show your work” by the Judiciary Committee….and O’Reilly’s talking retirement!

I do love the smell of burning Republicans in the morning!

Idea for Democrats: Midterm Convention

2005-10-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

I don't deny that a display of Democratic unity could help swing the momentum towards recapturing Congress, but I think a "midterm convention" (as suggested by Walter Cronkite) could be a suicidal move.

Finally, after almost 12 years, when Congress might be within our grasp, is there anything the GOP would relish more than a nationally broadcast, 15-round slugfest between the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Leadership Council? (For this bout, I'd cast Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton in the roles of Frazier and Foreman.) One of the reasons that the GOP has been able to gain the kind of hold that they have is because they are able to put on the appearance of unity (although taking a "lie, cheat or steal to win" philosophy can't hurt). Yes, we should definitely gather, talk, and come up with a stategy for '06, but the real benefit will come from the results of that process, not in the fact that we made the process public.

There will be no nationwide candidate on the ballot in '06 and there's no reason to act as if there will be. Every day, it's looking more and more like it will be ours to win or lose and the greater wisdom is to fight at the local and state level. That's where the decisions will take place. Everywhere a Republican is running, we should be looking for someone like Paul Hackett, especially against those incumbents who are have tied their futures to the administration. If your Representative or Senator is in a safe position, (as mine are) pick a neighboring district or state where there is an incumbent Republican, and work to defeat them. That's how we can take back Congress.

"Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war"

2005-10-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

The local antiwar group that I work with (South Pasadena Neighbors for Peace and Justice) is having a counter-recruitment committee meeting this Saturday and this is a perfect example of why I'm attending.

18-Year-Old Marine From Pasadena Killed In Iraq
POSTED: 10:27 am PDT October 13, 2005

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. -- An 18-year-old Marine from Pasadena was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near the vehicle he was riding in while conducting combat operations in Ramadi, Iraq.

Lance Corporal Sergio Escobar died Oct. 8. Escober was assigned to India Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division at Twentynine Palms. Escobar was born Dec 31, 1986, and lived in Pasadena, Calif., before joining the Marine Corps. He is survived by his wife, his mother, and his stepfather.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

"Documents Show Supreme Court Nominee's Close Ties to Bush"

2005-10-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

Ralph Blumenthal and Simon Romero
New York Times, October 11, 2005

"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

Ms. Miers, President Bush's personal lawyer and his selection for a Supreme Court seat, emerges as an unabashed fan in more than 2,000 pages of official correspondence and personal notes made public on Monday by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in response to open-records requests.

Mr. Bush returned the admiration, the files show. After Ms. Miers's birthday wishes, he wrote thanks and a "happy 52nd to you." He added, "I appreciate your friendship and candor - never hold back your sage advice."

Full text here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not only does the concept of Bush being considered "cool" make my skin crawl, but it's a testament to the immense arrogance of this man that he could have such a massive cloud of smoke blown up his ass and then call it "candor."

On the other hand, I'm willing to consider that his remark about “sage advice” might have been in reference to some brush-clearing techniques offered by Miers.

Clearin’ that Texas sage is hard work, ya know, it’s hard work!

"Bush's Veil Over History"

2005-10-10T17:34:00.000-07:00

Kitty Kelley
New York Times, October 10, 2005

SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

Full text here.

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It would be nice if someone possessing greater cred (as in credibility AND credentials) than Kitty Kelley was picking up this banner, but these days I suppose you have to take what you can get.

When Bush signed EO 13233, I was almost as alarmed by the lack of interest as the ramifications of the order itself. In the midst of discussions over the PATRIOT Act, this slipped in completely under the radar. Where covered by the media, it was depicted as little more than a potential inconvenience to future historians (and who in this adminstration cares about helping ivory tower eggheads make tenure, right?) Even now, it is primarily academics that are left to carry the weight of dissent and to voice the loudest concern.

At the time, the more conspiracy-minded among us saw it as a means to provide Bush with the opportunity to recruit individuals from Reagan & Bush administrations without having to fear skeletons that would appear as Presidential papers were released (Reagan’s papers were due to be released on January 20, 2001 and GWH Bush’s on January 20 of this year.) However, the order (unless repealed by a future President) could also provide the equivalent of a “blanket pardon” for the current gang of thieves.

What's Roe Got to Do With It?

2005-10-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what’s being said on both the left and right about Bush’s nomination of Miers (and although I despise agreeing with him), I sincerely believe him when he said that she is "the best person I could find" to replace O'Connor on the court. When taking into consideration what I think are his motives, he could not have found a more qualified individual.

The mistake that many have made is in thinking that his assessment of her “qualifications” represent any perception Bush may have of her judicial philosophy, or any interest Bush may have in establishing a court that aligns with the ideologies of the GOP or the religious right. His interest is -- and has always been -- to use his power so that he and those within his “family” can profit financially from his policies. Unlike Nixon’s abuses of power (which were for political reasons) or Clinton’s perjury (which was to conceal personal behavior) Bush’s crimes most resemble those of a mob boss: racketeering, extortion, blackmail, torture, and fostering a climate where others kill for him. They have no interest in forging a conservative legacy, but are simply in it to make as much money as possible and then get out before the roof caves in. It’s a “bustout” on a grand scale and Miers is his wartime consigliere.

While the profits from no-bid contracts stretching from Iraq to New Orleans will provide wealth for years to come, the presence of Miers as the critical “swing vote” position on the court will ensure that (even if charged and convicted by lower courts) he and his cohorts will not be held responsible for their actions.

Consider a few details from her history:
1993 - During his first gubernatorial campaign, Miers was retained to conduct a background check on Bush and clean up any embarrassing details regarding his “service” in the National Guard.
1998 - When gearing up for a White House run, Bush called upon Meirs was once again (this time in her role as chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission) to settle what could have become troubling revelations about preferential treatment he may have received in his Guard appointment. (See In examining Miers's tenure with Texas Lottery Commission, NY Times left out key link to Bush campaign.)
2000 - When Bush & Cheney were charged with violating the 12th amendment to the Constutition (prohibiting candidates on the same ticket from residing in the same state), it was Miers who filed the brief in the case.
2001 - The revelation that it was Miers who briefed Bush on the August 6, 2001 memo detailing bin-Laden’s determination to strike the U.S. using hijacked planes is an indication of the degree of her insider status. Unfortunately, the specifics of this meeting may already be lost under the protection of attorney-client privelege.
2005 - Miers vetted (perhaps even selected) John Roberts in his nomination to the court. In this, Miers might even represent two votes, since she may well have information about Roberts that could be used to dissuade him from possibly voting against Bush.

What is equally important are the sources of her current endorsments. Respected conservatives in the Senate? No, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales…capos who could very well find themselves in the docket alongside Dubya.

The most important question to be asked of Miers during the confirmation process is not one relating to abortion, gay marriage, or any of the other hot button issues. It is “if the case of The United States of America vs. George W. Bush came before the Supreme Court, would you recuse yourself?”

Any response but an unequivocal "yes" must result in a vote of disapproval.

And all Monica got were those kneepads!

2005-10-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

From Where do Democrats stand?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you believe that the president can claim executive privilege?

HOWARD DEAN: Well, certainly the president can claim executive privilege. But in the this case, I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called. He's got to go out there and say something about this woman who's going to a 20 or 30-year appointment, a 20 or 30-year appointment to influence America. We deserve to know something about her.

~~~~~

So.....is Howard trying to imply that Miers got the job from playing hide the salami with Dubya? Thank you for that revelation, Howard, but I think that's WAY more than I ever needed (or wanted) to know!

Of Chickens and Chicken-hawks

2005-10-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

With each new statement and each step forward, I am amazed at the debt we owe this woman.

Taking it to "that Ali level"

2005-09-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Despite sharing the Operation Ceasefire stage with such figures as Joan Baez, Julian Bond, Steve Earle, Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters, Etan Thomas turned in one of the most stirring moments of the afternoon.

The Speech Everyone Is Talking About: Etan Thomas by Dave Zirin (from Common Dreams News Center)

Audio download and streaming video here from Democracy Now.

Is it morning already?

2005-09-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

Another late night at Cole's. Woke up this morning thinking about condors in Highland Park. Not even Stephanie Miller's glee over DeLay's indictment could wake me up. I'm hoping this large French Roast (w/2 shots) will do the trick.

Check back for more about the Peace and Justice rally and concert in DC this past weekend.