fly boy's a little under the weather (i know it's the shell fish) so i went down to the lobby, grabbed some papers. no washington post, but they did have the new york times. so i called c.i. and said 'we're temporarily grounded so i'm thinking about blogging.' we'll go to the beach later today but i'm staying out of the bedroom so fly boy can sleep it off.
he's not drunk, by the way. i love shell fish and had lobster and crab but in very small quantities and with lots of water. there's too much mercury in the sea these days (thanks to our pollution) so i eat very little fish compared to ten years ago. when i do it, i eat it in small quantities. i ordered up a pitcher of ice and bottled water at five this morning, made fly boy drink it (with him protesting the whole time) to flush out his system. he's now back asleep and will probably wake up with a nasty headache but none of the nausea.
so i was talking to c.i. about what stood out in the paper today to me (new york times) and i'll be grabbing that.
david johnston and carl hulse's 'Gonzales Said He Would Quit in Raid Dispute' caught my eye. here's the backstory. william j. jefferson, democrat from louisiana serving in the u.s. house of representatives, had his office raided, congressional office, by the fbi. it's lead to an uproar all week. republicans were outraged and expressed it.
finally, bully boy said whatever the raid produced would be sequestered for 45 days and this has apparently cooled off the talk.
there are rumors, abc reported it mid-week, that house leader, republican dennis hassetert, was also under investigation from the fbi. and you can be sure that played into making the outrage bipartisan.
hulse and johnston report that attorney general alberto gonzales and fbi chief robert mueller were prepared to resign if bully boy returned whatever the fbi seized.
so here's my take on it: so what?
really.
you've had the fbi and others busting into people's homes and destroying everything in searches. boo-hoo for congress that they got brought into the real world. now, as far as we know, nothing in jefferson's office was broken. and, unlike with some fbi searches, no one got shot. (gore vidal wrote of a woman being shot for asking the fbi to not hurt her children. she died in front of her children. no weapon on her.)
the fbi is out of control and has been for years.
so now congress finds out just how out of control and all bully boy does is have to sequester whatever was taken from jefferson's office and congress is suddenly not interested in publicly debating the issue?
too bad. i honestly was hoping they all would have been raided - democrat and republican. who knows what would have turned up? more importantly, they would have grasped how invasive the fbi has become in the average person's life.
wonderful opportunity missed, if you ask me.
eric pfanner's 'Times of London to Print Daily U.S. Edition' tells you that rupert murdoch's going to be bringing his times of london to the united states (at least to nyc and dc) and using his new york post distribution system to defray costs. it's too bad the guardian never got its much hyped daily american paper beyond the talking stage. this will sell to some just because it has 'london' in the title and they'll think they're getting an alternate take. they're getting the murdoch take with the occassional story that matters.
forget the guardian, what america needs is a daily version of the indepent of london.
on the time of london, it's amazing that we can get more of the same but no new voices. that's the way the crooked system is set up.
c.i. and i are both noting something zach e-mailed to the common ills, robert parry's 'Bush's Enron Lies:'
Four years ago, when the taboo against calling George W. Bush a liar was even stronger than it is today, the national news media bought into the Bush administration's spin that the President did nothing to bail out his Enron benefactors, including Kenneth Lay.
Bush supposedly refused to intervene, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Enron had poured into his political coffers. That refusal purportedly showed the high ethical standards that set Bush apart from lesser politicians.
Bush's defenders will probably reprise that storyline now that former Enron Chairman Lay and former Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling stand convicted of conspiracy and fraud in the plundering of the onetime energy-trading giant. But the reality is that the Bush-can't-be-bought spin was never true.
For instance, the documentary evidence is now clear that in summer 2001 -- at the same time Bush's National Security Council was ignoring warnings about an impending al-Qaeda terrorist attack -- NSC adviser Condoleezza Rice was personally overseeing a government-wide task force to pressure India to give Enron as much as $2.3 billion.
Then, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when India's cooperation in the "war on terror" was crucial, the Bush administration kept up its full-court press to get India to pay Enron for a white-elephant power plant that the company had built in Dabhol, India.
The pressure on India went up the chain of command to Vice President Dick Cheney, who personally pushed Enron's case, and to Bush himself, who planned to lodge a complaint with India's prime minister. Post-9/11, one senior U.S. bureaucrat warned India that failure to give in to Enron's demands would put into doubt the future functioning of American agencies in India.
The NSC-led Dabhol campaign didn't end until Nov. 8, 2001, when the Securities and Exchange Commission raided Enron's offices -- and protection of Lay's interests stopped being politically tenable. That afternoon, Bush was sent an e-mail advising him not to raise his planned Dabhol protest with India's prime minister who was visiting Washington. [For details on the Dabhol case, see below.]
Contrary to the official story, the Bush administration did almost whatever it could to help Enron as the company desperately sought cash to cover mounting losses from its off-the-books partnerships, a bookkeeping black hole that was sucking Enron toward bankruptcy and scandal.
now please read kat's 'Kat's Korner: Dixie Chicks Taking The Long Way home while NYT gets lost along the way' - it's incredible. and so is the cd!
a question came in tuesday that i never had time to answer in an e-mail. it was about my links and how sometimes they underlined link exceeds the title to include (or surpass) the parenthesis? i have very long fingernails. i try to highlight just the title. usually i try that twice. if i don't get it on the 2nd try, i just highlight what's there.
RadioNation with Laura Flanders has anthony arnove, author of iraq: the logic of withdrawal, on saturday's program so listen.
kpfa this sunday (tomorrow):
Sunday Salon
Sunday, May 28th, 09:00a.m. [pacific time, it's noon eastern time and eleven central]
This week on Sunday Salon...
Hour 1: Conscientious objectors -
Hour 2: Reduce your travel woes
reduce my travel woes? larry benksy, why couldn't you have told me how before i went on this mini-vacation! i'm joking and working in that larry bensky is the host. conscientious objectors. a topic you don't hear about on npr. if forced to cover it as a headline, they will. but an hour devoted to the topic? not while there are still half a dozen white artistes terry gross has yet to profile on not-so-fresh air. if you're a community member, you know that this is an important issue and you know that the coverage of it hasn't been impressive. it's been very small. so when you see or hear something that's going to address the issue, you need to support it.
5/25/2006
flashpoints & ruth
i'm listening to kpfa's flashpoints right now and waiting for dennis bernstein to let it rip.
pledge drive is wrapping up and some 1 told him he didn't need to yell during it. i think he needs to ignore that advice. it's who he is, some 1 who is passionate. last night, and this is not a reflection on the program, i fell asleep in the middle of what seemed to be an interesting documentary on the environment narrated by alanis morrisette and, i think, keanu reeves. i was so wiped out and thought i was just 'resting my eyes' while i was listening but i fell asleep. he woke me back up (thankfully because i had things i needed to do) when he was encouraging people to pledge.
okay, now he's getting vocal. that's dennis bernstein.
tonight he had greg palast on and some 1 who was on already when i started listening. they were talking about ken lay's conviction and about the connections to bully boy. they brought up the fact, greg palast made this point, that alberto gonzales had to recuse himself from the enron matter because of his own conflicts of interests there. but we're supposed to act like there's no connection between bully boy and enron.
it was a wonderful show and i'm sure they all were this week. i only fell asleep once and that had nothing to do with the show, just with keeping up with a tiny child. elijah was so sweet today (he was sweet the whole time). ruth called right before they pulled up to talk to him. she was asking him if he was missing his grandmother. he said 'yes' and she said she had a gift for him. (she hid gifts throughout the house for each day she was gone and she'd call during the day and tell him where the gift of the day was.) she told him this 1 was real big. he told me 'it's real big.'
his eyes were so wide. he was so cute.
she told him where it was and got off the phone. he grabs my hand, he was so excited, and starts tugging on my hand telling me 'it's outside.' so we go to the front door and open it and there's ruth holding a teddy bear for him - a very big teddy bear.
but he didn't even want it. he just grabbed her legs and hugged her like crazy. he was so happy.
when she picked him up, i thought they were both going to cry. (i almost did and i think treva was about to as well.)
we all had lunch and elijah had to sit in ruth's lap and tell her everything that had happened while she was gone. including the frog we saw in the backyard yesterday. that was probably the thing that had him most excited. he was talking so fast he'd have to stop and take a big gulp of air. ruth kept trying to insist on doing dishes after lunch but he wasn't letting go of her and treva and i were happy to handle it.
when i was getting ready to leave, he stopped me and was saying 'don't go.' i'm going to visit next week. i was just a substitute for ruth but i can't believe how close he and i got. i'm going to miss seeing him each day.
so i stopped off on the way home to visit with mike and he's so dark. he and his friend tony had been taking care of tony's parent's yard. apparently he doesn't sunburn, he just goes dark. i stopped to talk to t and catch up, then headed back here and packed while i started listening to
flashpoints. i'm not going to be blogging tomorrow or saturday. i will have something up come monday and i'll be helping some with the third estate sunday review. right now, i'm going to go crash. check out wally's 'THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE?' and please check out cedric's big mix which has posts every day this week. (way to go cedric!)
pledge drive is wrapping up and some 1 told him he didn't need to yell during it. i think he needs to ignore that advice. it's who he is, some 1 who is passionate. last night, and this is not a reflection on the program, i fell asleep in the middle of what seemed to be an interesting documentary on the environment narrated by alanis morrisette and, i think, keanu reeves. i was so wiped out and thought i was just 'resting my eyes' while i was listening but i fell asleep. he woke me back up (thankfully because i had things i needed to do) when he was encouraging people to pledge.
okay, now he's getting vocal. that's dennis bernstein.
tonight he had greg palast on and some 1 who was on already when i started listening. they were talking about ken lay's conviction and about the connections to bully boy. they brought up the fact, greg palast made this point, that alberto gonzales had to recuse himself from the enron matter because of his own conflicts of interests there. but we're supposed to act like there's no connection between bully boy and enron.
it was a wonderful show and i'm sure they all were this week. i only fell asleep once and that had nothing to do with the show, just with keeping up with a tiny child. elijah was so sweet today (he was sweet the whole time). ruth called right before they pulled up to talk to him. she was asking him if he was missing his grandmother. he said 'yes' and she said she had a gift for him. (she hid gifts throughout the house for each day she was gone and she'd call during the day and tell him where the gift of the day was.) she told him this 1 was real big. he told me 'it's real big.'
his eyes were so wide. he was so cute.
she told him where it was and got off the phone. he grabs my hand, he was so excited, and starts tugging on my hand telling me 'it's outside.' so we go to the front door and open it and there's ruth holding a teddy bear for him - a very big teddy bear.
but he didn't even want it. he just grabbed her legs and hugged her like crazy. he was so happy.
when she picked him up, i thought they were both going to cry. (i almost did and i think treva was about to as well.)
we all had lunch and elijah had to sit in ruth's lap and tell her everything that had happened while she was gone. including the frog we saw in the backyard yesterday. that was probably the thing that had him most excited. he was talking so fast he'd have to stop and take a big gulp of air. ruth kept trying to insist on doing dishes after lunch but he wasn't letting go of her and treva and i were happy to handle it.
when i was getting ready to leave, he stopped me and was saying 'don't go.' i'm going to visit next week. i was just a substitute for ruth but i can't believe how close he and i got. i'm going to miss seeing him each day.
so i stopped off on the way home to visit with mike and he's so dark. he and his friend tony had been taking care of tony's parent's yard. apparently he doesn't sunburn, he just goes dark. i stopped to talk to t and catch up, then headed back here and packed while i started listening to
flashpoints. i'm not going to be blogging tomorrow or saturday. i will have something up come monday and i'll be helping some with the third estate sunday review. right now, i'm going to go crash. check out wally's 'THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE?' and please check out cedric's big mix which has posts every day this week. (way to go cedric!)
5/24/2006
short 1
Vice President Dick Cheney could be called to testify in the perjury case against his former chief of staff, a special prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday.
-- toni locy's 'Cheney may be called in CIA leak case ' (associated press)
i've been on the phone with ava and c.i. who are working on an entry but are going to hold it until tomorrow. (they may end up holding it for the third estate sunday review - though they're hoping to avoid that. it builds on something they already reported there - yes, reported. they do reporting. i say that not just because they work the phones as easily as any 'name' for the new york times, but because they report.) i won't spoil it but will note that they're covering something members wanted noted.
i'm tired and if i write anymore, i'll end up writing on their topic. i don't want to do that. they noted it in april. it happened this week. it's their story.
go read elaine's 'Long but is there a topic?' where she covers 100 things including college and sexual identity issues. i've had a wonderful time watching elijah but i'm glad ruth's returning tomorrow. (all went well at his doctor's visit today.) i don't know how ruth does it. (but i'm honored that she and her kids allowed me to watch her grandson - it was fun and probably a huge leap of faith on everyone's part.)
-- toni locy's 'Cheney may be called in CIA leak case ' (associated press)
i've been on the phone with ava and c.i. who are working on an entry but are going to hold it until tomorrow. (they may end up holding it for the third estate sunday review - though they're hoping to avoid that. it builds on something they already reported there - yes, reported. they do reporting. i say that not just because they work the phones as easily as any 'name' for the new york times, but because they report.) i won't spoil it but will note that they're covering something members wanted noted.
i'm tired and if i write anymore, i'll end up writing on their topic. i don't want to do that. they noted it in april. it happened this week. it's their story.
go read elaine's 'Long but is there a topic?' where she covers 100 things including college and sexual identity issues. i've had a wonderful time watching elijah but i'm glad ruth's returning tomorrow. (all went well at his doctor's visit today.) i don't know how ruth does it. (but i'm honored that she and her kids allowed me to watch her grandson - it was fun and probably a huge leap of faith on everyone's part.)
5/23/2006
joke of the day: dscc
joke of the day comes via dscc and they put russ feingold's name to it so he can front their ugly policy:
Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. From Wisconsin to Texas, from California to Alabama, I hear from people who want the Democrats to stand up and speak out.
We hear you loud and clear.
Even though Republicans have total control of the levers of power in Washington, we've had victories preventing some of the worst of this administration's agenda. When they wanted to privatize Social Security, every single Democrat in the Senate stood firm in opposition and we won.
Remember, despite more than 10 attempts to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Democrats lead the efforts to defeat this short-sighted proposal every single time.
Still, it's not nearly enough.
To achieve the vision for America we all share, we simply must take back the Senate in November. I am more confident than ever that we will do just that. The American people know how badly this administration has mismanaged our country. The latest polls that show our Senate candidates can win prove it.
Make no mistake. It won't be easy. Republican incumbents hold significant fundraising advantages over our Democratic challengers. Each of us has to do our part to help the DSCC make up the difference.
You can help elect Democratic Senators who will stand up and speak out by making a contribution today. If you are frustrated with business as usual in Washington, then we need your help to make a change.
Click here to make a secure online contribution of $50, $75, or more. The DSCC needs your help to take back the Senate in November.
click where? somewhere the hell else. we don't collect money for backstabbers here and that's what the dscc and the party leadership is. if there's a candidate you like, give to her or him, but i took a pledge some time ago not to give a cent to the dscc. why? because they turned their back on roe v. wade. they elbowed out a real democratic candidate to run for the senate seat in penn (the 1 that rick santorum currently occupies) so that they could inflict junior on us.
junior's father was a disgrace and junior's twice the disgrace because he's just a pale copy of daddy. daddy's little junior boy, never made it to manhood.
the dscc tells you that 'Democrats have always believed in common sense solutions' which apparently translates as stab your core in the back.
so they can go screw themselves and their laughable e-mails.
they stood strong?
am i mistaken or did they refuse to filibuster alito or roberts?
they don't know what strength is, they couldn't even support feingold's censure motion. they're a cowardly, craven bunch that's disgraced themselves. every 1 up for re-election was in the senate when bully boy wanted his war with iraq. that's something to remember.
every 1 was in the senate when the patriot act passed and when it was reauthorized. and, as matthew rothschild of the progressive has pointed out, nancy pelosi's already pulled impeachment off the table.
call me a dixie chick, but i'm not ready to make nice.
did you get the dixie chicks today? i did. tracey and jayson came over right after school (i'm watching ruth's grandson elijah) and we went out on what we thought would be a quick trip. wrong. every one was sold out. we finally found a music store and they had copies. i also picked up a copy for mike because i knew he was buying a copy for nina and doubted he'd get 1 for himself. it's called taking the long way.
on elijah, sherry asked if his father lived at ruth's? no. i'm sorry, that's my bad writing. when he's giving me a tour and saying 'this is daddy's room,' elijah's showing me what was his father's room when he was growing up. that's his favorite room after the living room. he won't go into ruth's room and ruth said that's probably because she's gone.
she gets back thursday and tonight offered to come back a day early to take care of the doctor's appointment elijah has tomorrow but i told her to enjoy her vacation. we've had a blast, elijah and i. after he warmed up to me the 1st day, there haven't been any real problems. except, if he's really tired before nap time and i'm near by or picking him up, he will try to get a kick in. ruth said to stick out my tongue at him (like some 1, we all think cedric, taught him) and he'll stick out his tongue and not kick but sometimes i forget to do that.
if you haven't already, go read c.i.'s "NYT: A war hawk finds out it's not easy being sleazy (Kate Zezima)" and check out amy goodman's interview with arunhati roy.
Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. From Wisconsin to Texas, from California to Alabama, I hear from people who want the Democrats to stand up and speak out.
We hear you loud and clear.
Even though Republicans have total control of the levers of power in Washington, we've had victories preventing some of the worst of this administration's agenda. When they wanted to privatize Social Security, every single Democrat in the Senate stood firm in opposition and we won.
Remember, despite more than 10 attempts to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Democrats lead the efforts to defeat this short-sighted proposal every single time.
Still, it's not nearly enough.
To achieve the vision for America we all share, we simply must take back the Senate in November. I am more confident than ever that we will do just that. The American people know how badly this administration has mismanaged our country. The latest polls that show our Senate candidates can win prove it.
Make no mistake. It won't be easy. Republican incumbents hold significant fundraising advantages over our Democratic challengers. Each of us has to do our part to help the DSCC make up the difference.
You can help elect Democratic Senators who will stand up and speak out by making a contribution today. If you are frustrated with business as usual in Washington, then we need your help to make a change.
Click here to make a secure online contribution of $50, $75, or more. The DSCC needs your help to take back the Senate in November.
click where? somewhere the hell else. we don't collect money for backstabbers here and that's what the dscc and the party leadership is. if there's a candidate you like, give to her or him, but i took a pledge some time ago not to give a cent to the dscc. why? because they turned their back on roe v. wade. they elbowed out a real democratic candidate to run for the senate seat in penn (the 1 that rick santorum currently occupies) so that they could inflict junior on us.
junior's father was a disgrace and junior's twice the disgrace because he's just a pale copy of daddy. daddy's little junior boy, never made it to manhood.
the dscc tells you that 'Democrats have always believed in common sense solutions' which apparently translates as stab your core in the back.
so they can go screw themselves and their laughable e-mails.
they stood strong?
am i mistaken or did they refuse to filibuster alito or roberts?
they don't know what strength is, they couldn't even support feingold's censure motion. they're a cowardly, craven bunch that's disgraced themselves. every 1 up for re-election was in the senate when bully boy wanted his war with iraq. that's something to remember.
every 1 was in the senate when the patriot act passed and when it was reauthorized. and, as matthew rothschild of the progressive has pointed out, nancy pelosi's already pulled impeachment off the table.
call me a dixie chick, but i'm not ready to make nice.
did you get the dixie chicks today? i did. tracey and jayson came over right after school (i'm watching ruth's grandson elijah) and we went out on what we thought would be a quick trip. wrong. every one was sold out. we finally found a music store and they had copies. i also picked up a copy for mike because i knew he was buying a copy for nina and doubted he'd get 1 for himself. it's called taking the long way.
on elijah, sherry asked if his father lived at ruth's? no. i'm sorry, that's my bad writing. when he's giving me a tour and saying 'this is daddy's room,' elijah's showing me what was his father's room when he was growing up. that's his favorite room after the living room. he won't go into ruth's room and ruth said that's probably because she's gone.
she gets back thursday and tonight offered to come back a day early to take care of the doctor's appointment elijah has tomorrow but i told her to enjoy her vacation. we've had a blast, elijah and i. after he warmed up to me the 1st day, there haven't been any real problems. except, if he's really tired before nap time and i'm near by or picking him up, he will try to get a kick in. ruth said to stick out my tongue at him (like some 1, we all think cedric, taught him) and he'll stick out his tongue and not kick but sometimes i forget to do that.
if you haven't already, go read c.i.'s "NYT: A war hawk finds out it's not easy being sleazy (Kate Zezima)" and check out amy goodman's interview with arunhati roy.
5/22/2006
dixie chicks, flashpoints, attempting to privatize the bbc & more
1st off, the dixie chick's new cd comes out tomorrow so either order online or take a trip to where ever you purchase cds (if you have the money). there's a lot of reasons to buy it. 1) the music sounds strong. 2) they stood up when others were staying silent. 3) a woman who speaks her mind threatens a lot of people - if you're coming to this site, you either respect strong women or you read to roll your eyes. if you respect strong women, get the cd. if you're a sexist pig who enjoys rolling his (or, in some cases, her) eyes, grab the cd so you can roll your eyes while you listen.
on music, let me note 2 things. 1st, elaine's 'KPFA's Radio Chronicles' "John Ono Lennon" special' covers a special you may have missed so check it out. 2nd, "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's Seeger Sessions."
kpfa's flashpoints tonight had a number of items including the use of eminent domain to take property away from people the city doesn't want in the neighborhoods. janis karpinski was also on via a speech she gave to uc berkeley.
karpinski: in april of 2004 when the world saw the pictures from abu ghr for the 1st time, i was shocked, once again, and i was futher shocked because the only name they were linking to them was mine.
want more? listen to the show!
did you read c.i. this morning? if so, did you see this in 'other items:'
Keesha notes an e-mail sent out to people who sign up for alerts at Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches:
Jessie Macbeth, a Former Army Ranger and Iraq War Veteran Tells All
This 20 minute interview will change how you view the U.S. occupation of Iraq forever.
I cannot possibly recommend this more highly. An Iraq war veteran tells of atrocities he and other fellow-soldiers committed reguarly while in Iraq. I have never seen this level of honesty from a U.S. soldier who directly participated in the slaughtering of Iraqis.
Excerpts:
"When we were doing the night raids in the houses, we would pull peopleout and have them all on their knees and zip-tied. We would ask the man of the house questions. If he didn't answer the way we liked, we would shoot his youngest kid in the head. We would keep going, this was our interrogation. He could be innocent. He could be just an average Joe trying to support his family. If he didn't give us a satisfactory answer, we'd start killing off his family until he told us something. If he didn't know anything, I guess he was SOL."
and
"For not speaking out, I feel like I'm betraying my battle-buddies that died."
Watch the video here.
Produced by Pepperspray Productions.
dennis bernstein played some of the clip tonight on flashpoints.
in england, the bbc is being attacked by radio station owners screaming 'not fair' and wanting the bbc to privatize (sell) radio 1 and radio 2. by the way, it's a cute strategy. in this country, the argument for privatizing (people are aware that some pbs stations have been sold in the last few years, right?) is that there's no need for them because they're are so many stations. in england, a former wireless man is arguing that bbc needs to sell radio 1 and radio 2 (both of which focus on music - in public affairs programming and in tunes) because they're hurting commercial stations. they always have something to justify the need to privatize what belongs to the public, don't the?
in florida, there's a new god-talks-to-me-pat-robertson type. his name is o'neal dozier. and 2 years ago, god spoke to him and told that charlie crist would be the next governor of florida. (natch, crist is a republican.) which brings up the old question: is it god? or is it diebold?
are you there wally o'dell, it's me rev. dozier?
a wonderful tale of growing up right-wing and fundy. best part is when a 12 y.o. dozier wakes in the middle of the night and discovers he's had a wet dream. unsure of what's happened, he's sure that the clear substance is blood and he must be very sick or it would be red. hilarity ensues as he learns to adjust to puberty and walks through the halls with his books carried over his lap to cover his pup tent.
of course when they grow up, the jokes are fewer which is why lifey deals with the fate of tom delay - serving hard time in prison.
that's it for tonight. cedric called and asked, 'you want to do short entries tonight?' if so, he said he could probably map out a few minutes to post. be sure to check out cedric's big mix.
on music, let me note 2 things. 1st, elaine's 'KPFA's Radio Chronicles' "John Ono Lennon" special' covers a special you may have missed so check it out. 2nd, "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's Seeger Sessions."
kpfa's flashpoints tonight had a number of items including the use of eminent domain to take property away from people the city doesn't want in the neighborhoods. janis karpinski was also on via a speech she gave to uc berkeley.
karpinski: in april of 2004 when the world saw the pictures from abu ghr for the 1st time, i was shocked, once again, and i was futher shocked because the only name they were linking to them was mine.
want more? listen to the show!
did you read c.i. this morning? if so, did you see this in 'other items:'
Keesha notes an e-mail sent out to people who sign up for alerts at Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches:
Jessie Macbeth, a Former Army Ranger and Iraq War Veteran Tells All
This 20 minute interview will change how you view the U.S. occupation of Iraq forever.
I cannot possibly recommend this more highly. An Iraq war veteran tells of atrocities he and other fellow-soldiers committed reguarly while in Iraq. I have never seen this level of honesty from a U.S. soldier who directly participated in the slaughtering of Iraqis.
Excerpts:
"When we were doing the night raids in the houses, we would pull peopleout and have them all on their knees and zip-tied. We would ask the man of the house questions. If he didn't answer the way we liked, we would shoot his youngest kid in the head. We would keep going, this was our interrogation. He could be innocent. He could be just an average Joe trying to support his family. If he didn't give us a satisfactory answer, we'd start killing off his family until he told us something. If he didn't know anything, I guess he was SOL."
and
"For not speaking out, I feel like I'm betraying my battle-buddies that died."
Watch the video here.
Produced by Pepperspray Productions.
dennis bernstein played some of the clip tonight on flashpoints.
in england, the bbc is being attacked by radio station owners screaming 'not fair' and wanting the bbc to privatize (sell) radio 1 and radio 2. by the way, it's a cute strategy. in this country, the argument for privatizing (people are aware that some pbs stations have been sold in the last few years, right?) is that there's no need for them because they're are so many stations. in england, a former wireless man is arguing that bbc needs to sell radio 1 and radio 2 (both of which focus on music - in public affairs programming and in tunes) because they're hurting commercial stations. they always have something to justify the need to privatize what belongs to the public, don't the?
in florida, there's a new god-talks-to-me-pat-robertson type. his name is o'neal dozier. and 2 years ago, god spoke to him and told that charlie crist would be the next governor of florida. (natch, crist is a republican.) which brings up the old question: is it god? or is it diebold?
are you there wally o'dell, it's me rev. dozier?
a wonderful tale of growing up right-wing and fundy. best part is when a 12 y.o. dozier wakes in the middle of the night and discovers he's had a wet dream. unsure of what's happened, he's sure that the clear substance is blood and he must be very sick or it would be red. hilarity ensues as he learns to adjust to puberty and walks through the halls with his books carried over his lap to cover his pup tent.
of course when they grow up, the jokes are fewer which is why lifey deals with the fate of tom delay - serving hard time in prison.
that's it for tonight. cedric called and asked, 'you want to do short entries tonight?' if so, he said he could probably map out a few minutes to post. be sure to check out cedric's big mix.
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