how to start? how about thank you to Betty for the wonderful post she did here last night.
and?
did you see i know what you did last summer? jennifer love hewitt's character's name was something like julie james. and at 1 point, she runs out in this yard or street and throws her arms out to the side while screaming something like, 'what do you want?'
flyboy and i have both checked the e-mails repeatedly today (and responded to regular readers) but i'm not seeing any e-mail to me about the post that originally ran here monday. where's that e-mail?
your reasons for running to c.i. on me, for acting like a little snitch saying, 'teacher! teacher! i'm telling on somebody!' was that you didn't know my e-mail. well, jess wrote the reply to you yesterday and included my e-mail. and i've checked off the new feature so my e-mail address is on my profile again.
and, of course, as mike noted in 'Pissed,' all you had to was google me to find it. you didn't even have to click on a link, it shows up right in the search. (the only change since mike wrote about that is i've moved up from number 8 to number 1 on the google search.)
so where's my e-mail?
do you really think it's your place to dump a disagreement you have with me over something i wrote onto c.i.? i don't think it is.
so come on, big boy, send that e-mail already.
or is that it's easier to tattle and go whining to c.i. about how mean i am than it is to e-mail me directly?
this isn't the 1st time this has happened as long time readers know. it first happened with the idiot centrist whose right leaning centrist group wants to privatize social security. i called out that b.s. think tank and him as well. i even noted his hideous hair cut and said it was embarrassing for a grown man and looked as though mommy had placed a bowl on it and cut his hair.
to which, this 40 plus year old man writes - not to me, he goes whining to c.i. - my mommy is dead!
well golly gee are you accusing me of killing her?
i really don't see what that has to do anything. you're a 40 plus year old man posing for a professional photograph. get a grown up hair cut.
that was probably a 60-plus line post and in 1 line, i mention that ridiculous hair cut and, rightly, note that it looks like a little boy's hair cut, a chili bowl haircut and he wants to whine how unfair that is because his mommy died several years ago.
guess what. that happens as we get older. it's a tragedy when it happens to some 1 young, as it did for elaine who lost both of her parents at an early age, but the rest of us, the 1s who are supposed to be grown ups, we're all going to lose our parents unless we die 1st.
and then there are the people who will never know their parents because of death while they were still tiny children or babies or because they were given up for adoption.
you had a mother for 45 years? you're 1 of the lucky 1s. and as we get older, our parents die off. i'm not making light of that fact. i'm not saying you don't have the right to cry. i am saying, outside your friends and family, no 1 really needs to hear about it.
but he wrote about how mean i was for that 1 comment, wrote about that for nine paragraphs in an e-mail not sent to me but sent to c.i. when my e-mail address was posted on my profile. this was the 2nd or 3rd month of posting. probably march of 2005.
and it's probably 60 other people that have gone whining to c.i. since. centrist was the 1st but i'm getting damn sick of it.
i write this blog, no 1 else. i write what i want the way i want.
if you have a problem you take it up with me or you deal with it on your own. you do not go running to my best friend with an e-mail about how mean i am.
that's chicken shit and it's nothing but tattling.
c.i.'s busy enough and shouldn't have to deal with your chicken shit e-mails.
that's like madonna writing something that makes me mad and me e-mailing gweneth and saying, 'this is so unfair.'
if you've got a problem with something up here, you e-mail me. don't you drag my friends into it. i have no respect for that shit.
i don't 'approve' my posts with c.i. c.i. doesn't sign off on them. betty will read her chapters to c.i. and kat and wally will read his posts to c.i. but that's to make sure they're funny (betty and wally both do comedy writing - so does cedric, he does joint-posts with wally but wally started reading those to c.i. the minute wally's site became a humorous 1). now with mike and i especially, we sometimes have very different opinions than c.i. on some topics. and we certainly word things very differently than c.i. would.
so it is bullshit for you to try to put c.i. into the middle by whining to c.i. when you've got a problem with something i wrote.
what chicken shit babies so many grown men are. and, excuse me, but i thought we all learned that no 1 like a snitch in grade school. apparently, some never learned that lesson.
c.i. was martha stewart today. 'i'm cutting my salad' or whatever she said on the cbs morning show when she was asked - pre-prison - about the charges. c.i. just kept the head down and went about the common ills business.
and that's all c.i. should have to do on any given day. c.i. did not cross post my post, did not link to it, did not say 'i applaud this' or anything else. so the notion that you're going go whining about me to c.i. is just bullshit.
when i was pregnant and headed to texas on the long road trip c.i. did e-mail me many, many articles to make it easier for me to post. but even there, i was writing my own comments.
i think you negate your hurt feelings and any opinion you may have when you are willing to run and tattle to my friend but you don't have the guts to e-mail me directly - even after you are provided with my e-mail address.
goldie and marlene both weighed in that i shouldn't have rewritten my monday post (i rewrote it tuesday). goldie & marlene, you are the coolest and i love you both. i want to be clear that c.i. didn't ask that. if i had run it by c.i. (i didn't - i felt the little whining baby had already bothered c.i. enough with my site), i would've been told not to. that's standard. we're all told don't change something that's up. if you feel differently, do another post and say so.
but the thing is c.i.'s tired and c.i. doesn't have time to deal with this sort of crap so the easiest thing for my friend was to rewrite the post. if i'd asked, i would have been told, 'don't you do that, becky.' and c.i. would've meant that. but i know how much pressure c.i. already has.
what's really funny, what these men never get, is that they cannot now or ever come between c.i., elaine and me. our friendship was forged years ago in college. they had my back then, i had their backs. we have been through everything together, divorces, the death of spouses, you name it. and certainly, until the last pregnancy, they were there everytime to help me pick up the pieces after each miscarriage. we have never gone after the same type. c.i.'s not obsessed with looks. sadly, i am. elaine likes tall men. that's why the mike hook up made so much sense and i still cannot believe i didn't not see that those 2 were falling in love. c.i. saw and when we talked, it all made sense. they are the perfect couple, elaine and mike. but i mean, we have been through everything. we have seen each other at our bests and at our worsts.
no man has ever come between our friendship and no man ever will.
so these little tattle tale boys who go running to c.i. aren't just stupid, they are pathetic.
now the man e-mailing got what he wanted so you'd think at the very least i would get a 'thank you' e-mail. i don't even get that.
some men are apparently intended to be little boys all their lives.
my 1st marriage cured me of the need to play mommy to a little boy. (my 1st husband will read that and laugh. he'll also agree.)
and i mean, look at it this way. i've got a child and i've got a man i love. elaine's got a wonderful relationship with mike. what does c.i. have?
c.i. ended a relationship because the world was getting serious and what needed to be done couldn't be done with a relationship. i mean, i can list a hundred, no a million things, that c.i. has sacrificed to do everything possible to end this illegal war and some little whiney ass wants to go running and e-mail 'rebecca's mean'?
i mean grow the hell up. seriously, grow the hell up.
if we all did 1 thing to end the war each day, the world would be a better place but c.i.'s doing more than 1 thing a day and never rests, is run ragged. and it really pisses me off that some 1 who has a problem with me, instead of addressing it with me, wants to run to c.i. whose plate is more than full presently.
i think that pisses me off more than anything else. knowing what all c.i.'s doing, how limited c.i.'s time is and that some little boy wants to go whining.
now i was ticked off about this yesterday. but was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and say, 'okay, the guy wasn't able to find my e-mail address.' seems pretty lazy, but, hey. however, since no e-mail has arrived, since no e-mail has still to arrive, i think the guy is a tiny little boy who can't deal with a woman directly so he runs to her friend.
if there's shit between you and me, don't shove it over to c.i. be a grown up and take it up with me.
and if that pisses you off:
what's the matter with the truth
did i offend your ears?
that's from aimee mann's 'that's just what you are.' and what i think you just are is a little boy who needs to grow up.
in the monday post, i stated my conclusions and noted i could be wrong and it could all be a coincidence. but he didn't want to make that case to me. he didn't want to deal with me directly then or now.
that's a little boy whose got some issues with women, if you ask me.
and there's no need to dash off an e-mail to c.i. saying 'rebecca called me a wittle boy!'
i wrote that. i wrote it all by myself. if you don't like it, you know how to reach me.
and really, what is it with you? does every 1 in the world need to love you?
i mean come on, i'm surely not the 1st person whose ever had a complaint about you.
did you run to every 1 else's best friend too?
yesterday saw some amazing posts in the community and i would strongly recommend that you read elaine's 'Indymedia, bad hair and bad manners' which is hilarious. you really have to piss elaine off to get her writing or talking like that. she has the longest fuse. (i have the shortest.)
it's hysterical. and betty's 'I've lost my faith in independent media (Betty)' which i found both beautiful and heart breaking. (betty's only comment is she has 'rewrotes' - she was dealing with her oldest who thinks summer means a much later bedtime than she did and also writing that post at the same time. i said, 'betty, it's brilliant, let it go.' she's such a perfectionist.) i already noted mike's so let me move on to kat's 'Wow' which i love and think kat has a natural ability to open and grab you with the opening. i don't. kat does. and i was so glad she shared that story. we wanted to write a thing on that at the third estate sunday review but c.i. nixed it. kat's right that only she or elaine could get away with telling that story. i would get a heavy sigh from c.i. and of course there is wally & cedric's 's joint post of 'THIS JUST IN! YOU DON'T MEAN SH*T TO A TREE, INDYMEDIA!' and 'The ungrateful' which is amazing for what's written as well as for being written. as betty noted here yesterday, wally has a really strong sense of right & wrong and a slow fuse but when some 1 does wrong, wally gets mad, if they do really wrong, wally gets very quiet and just shuts down. i wasn't expecting to hear from those 2. not on this topic or a joke. i know how wally is. (and by the way centrist whiner, if you still lurk around here, wally has talked about losing his father at a very early age. and how hard that was. so go whine elsewhere about the fact that as a middle aged adult you lost your parent.) i also suspected (and cedric confirmed it) that this was a post that didn't go by c.i. that was because it was so late and because they didn't want to put c.i. in the middle. something that little whiners might try emulating.
c.i. writes wonderfully all the time of course so i'll just link to the common ills.
that's it for me tonight. if you missed the point, this post is about valuing your friends and not letting any 1 try to destroy that. even if they don't stand a chance of doing so. they will try. and you'll be surprised because you'll think all this crap ended in high school but some grown ups never even make it to the high school mentally, they're stuck in grade school.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, June 13, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military annouonces the deaths of more service members, the US military and government play The Al-Maliki Squeeze while the puppet babbles incoherently, the mosque bombed in Samarra in February of 2006 is bombed again, and more.
Starting with news of war resistance, Kim Johnson, Duluth's WDIO, reports on Luke Kamunen who, like his two twin brothers Leo and Leif, self-checked out of the US military on the Christmas break and notes, "The brothers' story is not an isolated one. In fact, the Department of Defense reports desertions have risen 35 percent in the past two years -- from more than 2,400 in 2004 to about 3,300 in 2006" and notes that Luke Kamunen "was surprised" to encounter many others who had done the same "when he was detained by the military". (As noted here before, Luke is now discharged, his brothers state they will turn themselves into the US military at some point.)
The movement of resistance within the US military grows and includes Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty 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, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Resistance to the illegal war isn't limited to one segment of the population. Amy Goodman (writing at Truthdig) reports on the off broadway production Voices in Conflict -- a high school production that Wilton High School (in Connecticut) decided wasn't fit for the school's theater. As disturbing as the attempted censorship of the play was, Goodman reports on equally alarming detail -- in the high schol clases, these students are not allowed to discuss Iraq even in US history whether they each have "to bring in a current-event news item" -- Jimmy Presson explains, "We are not allowed to talk about the war while discussing current events." Who teaches that class? And do they also work at The Nation? (Democracy Now!, by the way, spends the hour today with Vanessa Redgrave discussing art, politics and more.)
Turning to Iraq . . .
This morning Damien Cave (New York Times) reported on the latest ravings of the madman installed by the US as puppet of the occupation -- al-Maliki declaring that, "We have eliminated the danger of sectarian war." Sounds like someone needs to check their Desoxyn dosage. But reality can sometimes break through even the thickest drug induced fog even if it can be processed correctely. Look at Nouri al-Maliki's statements today. AP reports he's now likening events into Iraq to the American Civil War which would seem indicate that Iraq has not "elimated the danger of sectarian war" as al-Maliki claimed yesterday.
What semi-snapped out of his drugged stupor? A bombing in Samara. BBC calls the site "one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari shrine in Samarra." The Scotsman notes that bombing "was a repeat of last year's bombing that shattered the Askariya shrine's dome" while Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) explains that bombing "destroyed the minarets of the Askariya shrine." Minarets? Those are the two towers or columns that previously stod on either side of the mosque. Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports, "It wasn't clear how the attackers evaded the shrine's guards to mount the stunning operation, detonating the blasts aound 9 a.m., and bringing down the two slender golden minarets that flanked the dome's ruins at the century-old mosque." Sam Knight (Times of London) notes two reactions -- the puppet "declared a curfew in Baghdad and asked for American reinforcements to be sent to the mainly Sunni town, which has been under a military blockade in recent weeks, to contain any violence" and Moqtadr al-Sadr "called for restraint, declaring three days of mourning and peacful demonstrations." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes the reaction of some Iraqis in Baghdad -- shop keeper Shiras Assem decalres, "We are preparing for any attack by the Mahdi Army. We closed the street and we expect to be attacked. Maybe they will hit the local Sunni mosque. We have set up a night watch until this morning. We will not sleep tonight."; and broker Marwan Faled who declares, "We have gather together the young me[n] in our street, each one has a weapon. We told them to be ready if anyone attacks us we will all open fire. We expect an attack during the curfew because we don't trust the checkpoint at end of our road. I plan to stay at home over the next few days because I believe more people will be killed." Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) notes that the Iraqi police have stated the columns were brought down by "mortar rounds fired by unknown fighters" while "witnesses said the explosions seems to have come from inside the church" and that despite appeals "for calm" already "five Sunni mosques in the southern port city of Basra were attacked, apparently in reprisal, and Sunni mosques were also struck in Zaiyuna and south of Baghdad." AFP reports that yesterday "there had been a row between the security forces" with two different groups (one from Baghdad, the other from Tikrit) present and saying they were in charge of security as well "some exchange of [gun] fire too" before the Baghdad contingent assumed security responsibilities and they quote an eye witness who states, "I was near the shrine when I heard big explosions that sent a thick cloud of dust in the sky covering the entire area. I quickly ran to the street from where I could see the shrine clearly. I saw one of the minarets was down. Seven minutes later as I was watching the shrine, another explosion occured and the second minaret came crumbling down." Al Jazeera notes that al-Maliki announced that the security team guarding the mosque (that would be the forces sent from Baghdad) would be arrested. Along with the curfew, ban on public demonstrations and driving in Samarra that has been imposed, Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times and the link also contains an AP Television clip) adds that Moqtada al-Sadr's 30 member parliament bloc has walked out in protest and this "could present a major challenge to Maliki, who is under intense pressure to deliver political and economic reforms aimed at appeasing the Sunni Arab minority". In addition to the Samarra curfew and bans, Mariam Karouny (Reuters) details the "three-day curfew in Baghdad" that has resulted from the Samarra attack though how a capital under crackdown for over a year can be further 'cracked down' may be open to question. Since Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for public, peaceful demonstrations, al-Maliki's "three-day curfew" may be an attempt to circumvent al-Sadr.
Zavis noted the "intense pressure" al-Maliki was facing from non-Iraqis. War Pornographer Michael Gordon (New York Times) noted yesterday that he accompanied US ambassador Ryan Crocker and Admiral William J. Fallon to a face-to-face with puppet Nouri al-Maliki and the point of the meeting was to pressure on the 'benchmark' of getting the oil legislation privatized (turning over as much as 70% of the profits to foreign corporations) passed in July.
Today, Damien Cave (New York Times) reported that the deputy US Secretary of State John D. Negroponte showed up out of the blue in Baghdad yesterday to pressure al-Maliki who released a statement following the meeting attesting that he would use all of his limited power "to persuade Parliament to approve several proposals that the Americans had identified as benchmarks, including an oil law". The law, like 'liberation' has always been just around the corner and you can drop back a year ago when al-Maliki was first 'rolling up the sleeves' to push through the US written oil law that would then be imposed upon the allegedly soveign nation of Iraq. Andy Rowell (Oil Change) observes that the privatization "seems to be in real trouble" and notes Tariq Shaif telling "a news conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank" some unpleasant realities while Rowell notes that al-Maliki's cabinet's Happy Talk of 'give us one month' is vaguely familiar: "If my memory serves me right, that's what he said about three months ago." Which is true and, again, al-Maliki was installed claiming the theft of Iraqi oil was top of his list but he's still 'trying', all this time later.
Bombings?
Reuters reports a Baghdad mortar attack that claimed 4 lives (10 more wounded), a Taji bombing that killed an Iraqi soldier (4 more wounded), a Mandili bombing that killed three (five more wounded), and a Ramadi car bombing that killed 4 Iraqi police officers (11 more wounded).
Shootings?
Reuters reports one college student shot dead
Meanwhile, on the heels of yesterday's news from IRIN that Iraqi children are having to work to support families comes Tina Susman and Zeena Kareem (Los Angeles Times) report on the rise of cholera in Iraqi children with five reported case "in the last three weeks, a worrying sign as summer sets in and the war leaves sewage and sanitation systems a shambles. All of the cases were among children younger than 12 in the southern city of Najaf and were reported by medical officials on alert for signs of the potentially lethal ailment, Claire Hajaj of the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, said Tuesday."
In addition, the US military announced today: "One Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed when a roadside bomb detonated during combat operations in an eastern section of Baghdad June 11." And they announced: "One Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed when a roadside bomb detonated during combat operations in an easter section of Baghdad June 11." And they announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed June 12 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." ICCC's current count for the total number of US service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is 3513.
In media news, as independent media continues to be under attack, News Dissector Danny Schechter's "Special Blog: Can Our Media Channel Survive?" announces the potential fate of
Mediachannel.org which may shut down: "If we can get 1500 of our readers (that means you) to give $25, we can keep going for another quarter. [PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION ONLINE]"
Finally, independent journalist John Pilger is on a speaking tour with his new book Freedom Next Time and his documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (which looks at DC, Afghanistan and Iraq). June 13th finds him in San Francisco showing his film and discussing his book at Yerba Beuna Center for Arts (beginning at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 pm) and the price of admission is $15 general and $5 for students. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, and KPFA, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. For ticket information, call 415-978-2787 or order online at http://www.ybca.org/. In person tickets at YBCA Box office located inside the Galleries and Forum Building, 701 Mission Street at Third. (Hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun: noon - 5 pm; Thu: noon - 8 pm.) For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org For more information, email pilgersf@gmail.com." From San Francisco, he moves on to Chicago for the 2007 Socialism conference. At 11:30 am Saturday June 16th, he and Anthony Arnove will participate in a conversation, audience dialogue and book signing (Arnove is the author most recently of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) and that evening (still June 16th) at 7:30 Pilger will be at Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare (5440 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018) as part of a panel of international activists. To attend the conference, the fee is $85. For Saturday and Sunday only, the price is $70. To attend only one session, the cost is ten dollars. "Presented by The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, The Nation Institute, with support from the Wallace Global Fund. Co-sponsors: Obrera Socialista, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and Haymarket Books. For ticket information, call 773-583-8665 or e-mail info@socialismconference.org For media inquiries, contact (212) 209-5407 or ruth@nationbooks.org. For more information, email info@socialismconference.org." The Socialism 2007 conference will take place in Chicago from June 14-17. Along with Pilger and Arnove, others participating will include Laura Flanders, Kelly Dougherty, Joshua Frank, Amy Goodman, Sharon Smith, Dave Zirin, Camilo Mejia, Jeremy Scahill, Jeffrey St. Clair and many others.
