first off, i want to note that the deadline for KPFA's First Voice Apprenticeship Program is this friday at 5 pm PST. ruth and i were listening to andrea lewis interview two of the current apprentices this morning and we both agreed i should note it as well, and my mother-in-law really asked for this, note that the nation's internship program, for summer 2007, has its own deadline approaching.
so, if you're wealthy, spoiled, fond of hopping planes to leave your ivy league campus and head off on a celebrity press junket, if your family is old friends with katrina vanden heuvel and if you have no financial needs that a relative didn't take care of, apply to be a nation intern.
how furious was c.i. to find out that the supposed 'based on need' program was being used to scratch the backs of personal friends and their spoiled children? you'll note that in ava and c.i.'s
'TV: Boys' WB!' katrina vanden heuvel gets mentioned twice. ava really thought that would be pulled (she didn't want it pulled) before it posted and thought it was 1 of the things they include for their own enjoyment or to have a 'beat' in the piece that they'll go back and fix later.
it didn't get pulled.
my mother-in-law calls 'the honoring of the daily star' 1 more indication of how katrina vanden heuvel has destroyed the nation. she really thinks vanden heuvel needs to leave before she does any more damage.
she asked how mad c.i. was?
she knew c.i. was mad and why. c.i. didn't coast through life on family money or by grabbing opportunities that were supposed to go to people in need. and if you sell a program as helping those in need have opportunities and that ends up not being really the case ...
c.i. wrote sunday about being called a 'spoiled brat,' and, yeah, some idiots did say that. but the reality was, c.i. wasn't coasting. coasting would have been going along with the wishes of the parents who were willing to pay for everything in return. c.i. never did that. and i think it's the people who make their own way that really appreciated how much work and luck is involved in that so they are usually even more offended when a program for the needy is used as a personal favors bank. i remember, especially by senior year, the begging and the pleading that went on, 'just meet with him and we'll get you a new car' whenever they'd set up job interviews for c.i. c.i. didn't sell out or play the game. instead of going into the family business or depending upon what family could set up, c.i. blazed uncharted areas and there was no 'spoiled brat' about it.
i'm sure it did look that way from the outside to people who didn't know better. but if they'd taken even a moment they would have asked themselves why any 1 coming from c.i.'s background was working 2 to 3 jobs a semester if they truly were a 'spoiled brat'? the answer was because to have independence meant not taking family money.
ruth and i were discussing that today with my mother-in-law (who found 2 beautiful lamps for the nursery - they are truly amazing and darling and i get a lump in my throat every time i look at them). she was explaining how c.i. wasted a ton of money by donating it to independent media and how she thought ruth's report really got at the heart of that. they promise 1 thing while they're begging for your money and then they go off and do their own thing. that's what air america radio did and it's what the nation is doing. by doing that, they hurt everyone else who tries to raise money.
i used danny schechter as an example because i like his work and i think he's going to call it the way he sees it (and has) regardless of fall out. i think he could pitch his work, and that of media channel's, that way but i think too many people with the money to give have been hyped to the sky by liars already.
with air america radio, they really tried for entertainment industry money and 1 of the big concerns was 'is this going to be left or just a "yea dems!" site?' and air america radio was swearing that it would be left. (if sheldon had remained in sole control, that might have been the case.) when that disappointing nonsense resulted it damaged the chances for any 1 else to raise funds because it was such hype and such big hype that it has done damage for years to come.
and c.i. tries to be fair which is more than i do. in fact, not this last edition, but the week prior, at the third estate sunday review, c.i. tried to include a bit of praise for a piece of writing by christopher hayes but none of the rest of us were having it. so for the nation's internship to be noted (with c.i. even noting something like 'i'm usually the 1 pulling punches when it comes to the nation') was a very big deal.
by the way, sherry asked me about c.i. being sick? c.i. was 'on' during friday's visit so i wouldn't have noticed but while we were all on the phone working on the edition, it was obvious that c.i.'s voice was giving out and when we finished the photo shop stuff (i think that was like 3 o'clock), c.i. was really tired. for some reason it took over 2 hours for that to upload to flickr and by that time, i think the body was just saying 'enough already.' c.i.'s been on the road for the last 4 weeks in a row and just really busting ass. so i really think that was just the body saying, 'you are tired, we're shutting down.'
it is true that if c.i. passes out, you don't turn over. jim did that (and felt awful because he didn't catch c.i.) and then came the things that are like convulsions. jim really thought c.i. was having some form of a seizure and it scared him, jess and ty (ava and dona were already asleep). i have seen that before and it is scary to see. but the thing i pointed out to jim when we talked about it today is that the most important thing is to immediately get a blanket because c.i. will snap out of it before you know it, i mean it will take you by surprise, and when that happens, in a minute c.i.'s going to be raked with tremors from being too cold. i'm assuming it's some sort of a blood sugar drop internally.
when i told jim that, he said that's exactly what happened and jess took off his shirt, gave it to c.i. and ran for a blanket by which point, c.i. had made it to the couch and just collapsed there. jim was so nervous, he ended up sitting on the couch next to c.i. until c.i. got up a few hours later. i told him he should have called me. they were trying to call elaine but there's a section, when you're on the trolly leaving, that you're cell phone's really out of signal. but they didn't want to call me because they were afraid i'd panic.
but that's c.i. and that's why elaine and i have spent untold hours worrying about our best friend. personal needs will always come last on c.i.'s list of things to do. strong, yes, amazing will power, yes, but the ability to say 'i need time for me'? no.
and it's that grinding schedule that c.i.'s been on (for 4 years now) that really makes me pissed when jess tells me about some whiney ass reporter writing into the common ills to say something like 'i am risking my life and all you do is criticize!' well don't risk your life for superficial things, what can i tell you?
but don't assume your 'life risks' could get you through 1 week of c.i.'s grueling schedule. there wasn't any planned speaking this week and i hope that holds. this was supposed to be a down time week and that was before the passing out on sunday. ('down time' does not translate as lazy - though i wish it did. i do know that yesterday morning it translated as getting the hair done - something c.i.'s been unable to do for 3 months due to this schedule. when you don't even have time to get a hair cut in 3 months, that's busy, especially since c.i.'s stylist makes house calls.) (t doesn't make house calls but she made an exception for me due to our friendship and my pregnancy.)
now this is from leonard pitts jr.'s 'The True Face of Homophobia' (common dreams):
Last week, Tim Hardaway declared his hatred of gay people. Gay people should be thankful.
Let me tell you a story. It's about a man named Bull Connor. In 1963, he was the police commissioner of Birmingham, Ala. Back then, Birmingham was pleased to be considered the most segregated city in the South. Then, civil-rights demonstrators under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. came to town. Connor directed the city's response.
When you see those famous images of dogs attacking unarmed marchers and firefighters directing high-pressure hoses at men and women singing freedom songs, you are seeing Connor's work. He was a hateful cuss, but there was a useful purity in his hate: The sheer violence of his response to the civil-rights movement brought international condemnation and irresistible pressure for change.
Segregation was, for many people, still socially respectable in that era. Politicians defended it with honeyed euphemisms like "state's rights," and preachers assured their flocks that it was God's will. So you could be a segregationist and still feel good about yourself, still feel moral.
Connor inadvertently made that impossible. How moral can you feel when a guy is loosing dogs on children in your name? Connor stripped segregation naked. He made people face it for what it was.
Hardaway, a retired jock who once started at guard for the Miami Heat, did the same thing for gay-bashing last week. No, he didn't turn dogs or hoses on anybody. But he surely stripped homophobia naked.
i think wally & cedric's "THIS JUST IN! TIM HARDAWAY TAKES AIM AT MARY CHENEY!" & "Tim Hardaway and Dick Cheney throwdown (humor) " also did a good job tackling that last week.
now this is news from the bbc:
Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.
Mr Blair is set to make a statement about the 7,000 British troops serving in Iraq at the Commons.
The BBC's James Landale said 1,500 troops were expected to return home in months, rising to 3,000 by Christmas.
Downing Street has not confirmed the reports but Whitehall sources have told the BBC the process could be slowed down if the situation in Iraq worsens.
here's reuters covering the same story:
Prime Minister Tony Blair looked set on Wednesday to outline a timetable for British troops to start withdrawing from Iraq, with media reports saying 3,000 soldiers could be home by the end of the year.
Blair will tell parliament the gradual draw down comes as Iraqi forces take over more control of security in the south of the country, according to British newspapers and news channels.
A spokesman at the prime minister's Downing Street office declined to comment on the reports, but said parliament would be updated first on any announcement about Iraq.
Confirmation of a pull-out plan would be symbolic for Blair, who is due to leave office later this year. His decision to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq four years ago was hugely unpopular and has blighted the final years of his premiership.
winding down, here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, February 20, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq as the crackdown (yet again) cracks up, AP examines which US communities are most directly effected by the US death toll, an Iraqi woman states that she was raped and US media carry the puppet's denial but somehow miss the statements about what the hospital examine actually indicated, the efforts to privatize Iraq's oil continue, and Hillary Clinton demonstrates that she is not her husband, that she is not interested in your vote, and that she is not scripted.
Today on Democracy Now! the topic the New York Times runs from was addressed. Amy Goodman noted that, early on in the illegal war, Gallup polling found that 43% of Iraqis thought the illegal war was about robbing Iraq of its oil. This was the introduction for a discussion of the privatization of the Iraqi oil industry that the US administration has attempted to push through repeatedly. Raed Jarrar has obtained a copy of the latest version of the proposed law and translated it. He emphasized three points: 1) Unfair, long-term contracts that can run for "thirty-five years and cause the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars from Iraqis"; 2) Since Iraq will not be allowed to set production limits it "cannot be a part of OPEC anymore" but its production levels would instead by set by "the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have represantives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let's say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts"; 3) By bypassing the centeral government and giving authority to the provinces, it makes possible "splitting Iraq into three regions or even maybe three states in the very near future."
Also participating in the discussion was Antonia Juhasz who noted that "at the very basic level," this law will "turn Iraq's nationalized oil system, the model that 90% of the world's oil is governed by, take its nationalized oil system and turn it into a commercial system fully open to foreign corporate investment on terms as of yet to be decided. . . . And, as Raed said, it introduces this very unique model, which is that ultimate decision making on the contracts rests with a new council to be set up in Iraq, and sitting on that council will be representatives, executives, in fact, of oil companies, both foreign and domestic." Goodman questioned whether the claims that such measures were needed in order "to kick-start" Iraq's oil development and Juhasz responded that, before the start of the illegal war, Iraq was producing "2.5 million barrels of oil a day" and that, since the start of the war, the figure has been roughly "2.2 million barrels of oil a day". The tiny difference can be attributed to the unrest going on in the war torn country and underscores that there is no "kick-start" needed.
Goodman and Juhasz then discussed the three countries with the largest oil reserves, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Juhasz: "Oil is about profit and it's about the money that the oil interests in the United States -- which, of course, also include members of the Bush adminstration -- can get. But controlling the second and third largest oil reserves in the world also has a tremendous amount to do with imperial power and global power that the Bush administration wants. Controlling that oil denies it to other countries that want it, like China and India, countries that the Bush adminsitration now sees itself in rivalry to."
Staying on the topic of Iran, BBC reports that the US administration has plans for air strikes on Iraq and that they "would target Iranian air bases, navel bases, missile facilities and command -and-control centres" which would be triggered by one of two things: 1) Confirmation that a nuclear weapon is being developed or 2) "[A] high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran." The latter may explain the fixation on baseless, undocumented claims that the US administration continues to make about Iran and, should Bully Boy get his own Gulf of Tonkin, you can be sure little Mikey Gordon will be there to rah-rah it from the front page of the New York Times.
Turning to news of war resistance, Agustin Aguayo faces a March 6th court-martial in Germany. As noted Monday on Democracy Now!, Aguayo's civilian court appeal has been rejected. Matt Apuzzo (AP) reported that the US Court of Appeals rejected the request "to overturn the detention" of Aguayo who now faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of all counts (desertion and missing movement) in his court-martial next month. Meanwhile, AP reports, Susana Aguayo, Agustin's mother, is asking the Mexican government to assist her son: "In an open letter to Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, Susan Aguayo
asked for 'consular assistance.' 'It is urgently necessary that the Mesican Ambassador in Berlin, Jorge Castro Valle, provide a lawyer to give him legal aid . . . before it's too late,' the letter said." Agustin Aguayo holds dual citizenship in the US and Mexico.
Meanwhile, Monica Benderman, wife of Kevin Benderman, wonders "America, Where Are You Now?" In Friday's snapshot, while noting Ehren Watada, the following appeared: "John Catalinotto (Socialist Worker) observes: 'Watada's military defense lawyer -- appointed by the Army -- Capt. Mark Kim, said that he agreed with Seitz's interpretation of military law'." That was incorrect. John Catalinotto's article appeared in Workers' World, not Socialist Worker, my apologies. Matthew Cookson (Socialist Worker -- honest) examines war resistance in Canada and focuses on Patrick Hart who self-checked out of the US military after serving in Iraq and went to Canada who states: "If your government is going to put troops in harm's way, you better have a damn good reason. We have already lost too many British and American youth, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, which our government calls 'collateral damage'. Don't be a part of it." Another war resister in Canada is Jeremy Hinzman and Edward C. Corrigan's (Media Monitors Network) explains where his case currently stands: "Jeremy Hinzman lost his 'conscientious objection' refugee case at the IRB. He then applied to the Federal Court for a judicial review of the Immigration and Refugee Board decision rejecting his claim. However, the Federal Court upheld the negative decision but the case has been referred to the Federal Court of Appeal. The key issue is whether or not the legality of the war is a relevant issue to the claim for protection. It will be interesting to see the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal. This legal question may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court of Canada."
Aguayo, Watada, Benderman, Hart and Hinzman are a part of a movement of resistance with the military that includes others such as Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ivan Brobeck, Mark Wilkerson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Joshua Key, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, and Tim Richard. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
In Iraq, the news trickles out slowly but the crackdown that was praised at the end of the last business week is no longer the be-all, end-all so many had pinned their hopes on. In fact, the crackdown has yet again cracked up.
Bombings?
BBC reports that a man killed himself and seven others at a funeral in Baghdad while leaving 20 more people injured while two car bombings in Baghdad killed 8 people and left 31 wounded. Claudia Parson (Reuters) reports: "A bomb destroyed a truck carrying chlorine north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing five people and spewing out toxic fumes that sickened nearly 140 others, Iraqi police said." And Reuters notes: "An oil installation guard was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in the town of Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.
On Monday, a coordinated attack took place. CNN reports: "an attack by three suicide car bombers near a U.S.-Iraqi outpost killed two American soldiers and eight Iraqi police officers, Iraqi officials told CNN. The U.S. military confirmed the American deaths and said 17 U.S. troops were wounded in the "coordinated attack" north of Baghdad, but it did not reveal the strike's exact location. Iraqi officials said the insurgents targeted Iraqi police headquarters in Tarmiya -- about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Baghdad -- which also houses U.S. troops. After a series of three suicide car bombings, 50 gunmen opened fire on the outpost, the Iraqi officials said. Insurgents fired small arms and threw grenades after an initial car bombing, a U.S. military official said."
Today, the US military announced: "On Feb. 19, an MND-B unit was conducting a combat security patrol southwest of the Iraqi capital when an improvised explosive device detonated, killing three Soldiers and wounding two others." And they announced: "A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier died Feb. 18 due to a nonbattle related cause."
Staying on the topic of US service members, "Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility," "The Hotel Aftermath" and "Army Fixing Patients' Housing" make up a three part look at the shambles that is Walter Reed which has been allowed to decay out of the public eye -- Dana Priest and Anne Hull wrote the (now) three-part series for the Washington Post. The series comes as Kimberly Hefling (AP) reports on which communities in America are most directly effected by the US military death toll in Iraq -- almost half of the dead are "from towns . . . where fewer than 25,000 people live" and that "nearly three quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average." Hefling also notes: "While support for the war in rural areas initially was high, there has been a sharp decline in the past three years. AP-Ipsos polls show that those in rural areas who said it was the right decision to go to war dropped from 73 percent in April 2004 to 39 percent now. In urban areas, support declined from 43 percent in 2004 to 30 percent now."
Returning to Iraq, an Iraqi woman (whose real name has not been given in press reports) has stated she was raped by Shia military forces in Baghdad on Sunday. Though promising a full investigation, the puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, quickly backed off that promise and took to issuing an official statement claiming that there was no evidence of rape. The BBC reports: "But an aide of Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni, said the prime minister's office had acted in haste, and doctors had in fact confirmed rape had taken place." As Al Jazeera notes, the stigma attached to rape in Iraq could allow for the rape victim to be killed ("honor killing") by her own (male) relatives (that's noted for those, like al-Maliki, who immediately want to scream that the charges were made up). Al Jazeera quotes Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi parliment, stating of the puppet: "By God, if you don't bring justice to this Muslim Iraqi woman, whom you should view as your sister or daughter . . . history will curse us with eternal disgrace." AFP quotes the woman's statements: "One of them hit me. I fell and my head hit the ground. One of them raped me. Then another came and raped, and a third. I was screaming, crying and begging them, but he held my mouth so no-one could hear. Someone came and said to them, 'Are you done? Can we come and take our turn?' But one of them said, 'No, there's an American patrol coming'." AFP also notes that when US troops did discover the woman, they transferred her to a hospital in the Green Zone and quotes Omar Jaburi ("Vice President Tareq al Hashemi's adviser on human rights") stating: "The initial hospital report confirmed what she has said. A panel of medical experts is reviewing the evidence, we expect them to report tonight."
In other rape news, CBS and AP report: "A soldier from Fort Campbell's 101st Airborne was expected to plead guilty Tuesday to rape and murder charges in the death of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family last year. Sergeant Paul Cortez of Barstow, California reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. The plea means he will no longer face the death penalty." That "14-year-old Iraqi girl" had a name: Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. And she wasn't just raped, she was gang raped. Cortez follows James P. Barker's lead in admitting to his role in it (and both have also fingered Steven D. Green as participating in the gang rape and as being the one who then killed Abeer -- Green has denied charges and faces a trial in a civilian court).
Meanwhile, famine may be the new danger to Iraq. Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) examine the food situation in Iraq and find many problems including the shut-out on local growers, the Bremer laws that allow foreign businesses to make a 'killing' while punishing local producers, John Howard's Australia businesses which 'enhanced' the wheat they sold to Iraq with steel wire, and much more. Jamail and al-Fadhily observe: "The majority of Iraqis still remain dependent on the monthly food ration, a programme set up during the economic sanctions period in the 1990s after the first Gulf war. But a growing number of Iraqis no longer receive their monthly ration due to corruption or sectarian favouritism in the distribution channel." It bears noting that Paul Bremer tried to do away with the ration program but was unable to and that, for almost a year, the malnutrition issue has been ignored. In May of last year, UNICEF found malnutrition to be at "alarming levels" in Iraq noting: "Children are... major victims of food insecurity,"
In US political news, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has underscored that, although politically active for many years, she has held public office for far too few. As Amy Goodman noted on Monday's Democracy Now!, Clinton, speaking in New Hampshire, not only continued to refuse to term her vote supporting the invasion of Iraq "a mistake," she went further by stating: "If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his [or her] vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from." Indeed there are and it takes an arrogance born of campaign stupidity to make such a public declaration. We'll also note that "[or her]" was added here to be inclusive -- something that Hillary Clinton once could have take care of all on her own. But who would have ever guessed she'd waste the opening weeks of her campaign refusing to say something as simple as "I made a mistake"? Probably the same people who would have guessed that a candidate who cannot count on peeling off Republican voters, who may or may not have a hard time with swing voters, would thumb her nose at the Democratic base with one of the most idiotic statements made on the campaign trail. When you are campaigning for a national office, the last thing you need to do is to tell voters "there are others to choose from." Despite rumors to the contrary, Clinton's not scripted but New Hampshire may demonstrate that she needs to be. In one decade, we've gone from Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" to what passes for "Piss off" from Hillary Clinton. (Which may remind many of the health care debacle which went from universal to some managed care option when, as Robin Toner pointed out, Clinton got cozy in the backrooms.)
Finally, Sharon Murphy (The La Crosse Tribune) draws a line between the bravery of Watada and the cowardice of Congress: "Ehren Watada doesn't have the power and clout of the freshest freshman senator or representative. Yet he had the courage to stand up and speak the truth. He knew he was up against the power of the military and faced rejection, prison and professional disgrace. But he stood up. Neither Senate nor House is willing to stand, as Watada did, and speak the truth." For those who missed it, the Senate was unable, this weekend, to pass even a toothless, non-binding, symbolic measure on Iraq.
