AMY GOODMAN: As we come to the end of this conversation, very much the tone of your book, of One Woman's Army," is that your were scapegoated. You feel, especially because you’re a woman, the only woman put in charge of a combat operation from the United States, and now you have been demoted. Do you feel that if others were demoted, if others were punished, who do you feel should be punished? What would be your list of names?
JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, we have to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation -- harsher interrogation techniques and the departure from the Geneva Conventions starts at -- Alberto Gonzales was one of the people who made the recommendations to the President. I don't know if he talked about each detail of that departure or what that may imply, but I do know that the Secretary of Defense signed a very lengthy memorandum authorizing harsher techniques to be used in Afghanistan and specifically at Guantanamo Bay. This was the global war on terrorism. This was a prisoner of a different kind. You needed to get down at the same level as they were to be effective.
And those techniques migrated from Guantanamo Bay, with General Miller, to Iraq and were implemented at Abu Ghraib. So clearly, the Secretary of Defense; Secretary Cambone, his assistant who sent General Miller to Iraq with very specific instructions on how to work with the military intelligence people; General Fast, who was directing interrogation operations and giving instructions to Colonel Pappas on how to proceed and how to be more effective; General Sanchez, because this was his command, and he knew what General Fast was doing, and he knew what Colonel Pappas was doing, to the point that Colonel Pappas made a comment one time that he thought maybe he had a bruise on his chest because Colonel -- General Sanchez had repeatedly poked him in the chest telling him to “Get Saddam! Get Saddam!” and use whatever he needed to use to get the information.
AMY GOODMAN: If all of these people were punished, do you think it's fair that you are punished?
JANIS KARPINSKI: I would say that these soldiers, they were certainly assigned to a subordinate unit, and they are my responsibility, ultimately, yes. I think that they have been fair -- unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Lynndie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash. And that's unfair, and that's a tragedy in all of this. Should they be punished for doing what they did, for agreeing to do what they did? Absolutely, but singled out? No.
this is the interview i blogged about earlier today. the one that stunned my ex-husband, c.i. and myself. they did a partial translation earlier today but i'm too lazy to transcribe (c.i. did transcribe the section at democracy now. janis kaprinski is the guest for the hour and the topics include abu ghraib, guantanamo bay, torture, rumsfeld and much more.
this is an interview that should be required viewing, listening or reading for anyone concerned about what's going on in iraq. in fact, i'd go further, i'd argue that it should be required reading especially for those who don't bother to think about what's going on there.
who got blamed? lynddie england a few other enlisted. where did the orders come from? the top.
when is torture czar alberto gonazles going to be charged?
this is news and you won't hear about it from the online dylan who daily jerk off went up so late today that c.i. made a joke about it. the daily jerk off has ignored torture and prisoner abuse except to lecture katrina vanden heuvel, excuse me, to scold and ridicule her. because our online latter day dylan knows everything about ... nothing.
the daily jerk off has squirted substance from 1999 throughout the last few years when not trying to slime joe wilson. our big brave dylan wanna be couldn't inform you about anything that matters because he was so busy performing his greatest hits over and over. he stopped getting hits somewhere around feb. 2001 so in the years since, the daily jerk off has issued best ofs and remixes.
maybe before the daily scold attacks another person who's trying to speak out about something that truly matters today, he might want to ask himself if he shouldn't have shut down shop after all? it certainly would have saved him the embarrassment of selling out his integrity in the joe wilson case.
in the real world, things have been happening for the last four years, hideous things and he hasn't been there to tell the people. he's jerked off to 'al gore was slimed' over and over. and when a real issue came up, prison abuse or any thing else, he's trashed the people who dared leave his favorite narrative.
a list of those unfairly trashed would include: katrina vanden heuvuel, amy goodman, janeane garofalo and basically any woman.
today, while real news is all around, he's jerking off again to answer an e-mail and grab another chance at sliming joe wilson.
c.i.'s been holding the tongue waiting for the long promised change (and hoping it included a self-confession by the daily scold) but i'll tell you right now, reading the daily scold trash wilson yet again (with republican talking points, does any 1 else notice that?), i can't promise i'll hold my tongue.
but tonight's let's talk about the fact that justice is applied differently. those ordered to do the dirty business go to prison, those who give the orders are given a pass. that's very different from nuremberg where those handing out the orders were held accountable.
and maybe america's okay with it? maybe we're just wanting to rush home and watch lost and tune out to all news except for who got stabbed somewhere or shot somewhere and cluck our tongues over the violence?
while we can't afford to fund our schools or to help those in need, we can spend billions fighting this immoral war.
i was reading an interviews with studs terkel & howard zinn the other day (c.i. passed on the print version because they are not available online) and at 1 point (this is clamor magazine, by the way) the point is made that with the military buildup after wwii we turned away from
a chance to fund the people and increase our knowledge and opportunities. we continue to do that.
we always have money for the weapons and the military (though not for the the troops on the ground or their families) but give a tiny sliver to head start or another program that actually helps people and you get republicans screaming 'communism' or some other nonsense.
but our tax dollars can go towards killing and destruction and we're apparently all okay with that.
i'm on the phone with elaine and mike (and be sure to check their sites tonight) and elaine brought up tal afar and how there was a tendency to focus on hurricane katrina while people, innocent civilians, were being bombed in tal afar. we covered that in the third estate sunday review news reviews. that was an editorial decision. elaine, c.i., ava, dona and jess wouldn't have stood for it not being covered (and the rest of us agreed whole heartedly) but tal afar didn't get a lot of play in a lot of places. so is it that we're not concerned that we can fund slaughter?
we're all hitting in a different way tonight. elaine's focusing on those who make themselves useless. mike's focusing on how granting a pass to some reporters rewards the system of lies and deceit. i'm focusing on the fact that killing is going on.
i know my readers agree with me and are outraged. but what would really help is when you discuss this in your classes tomorrow, if you're in high school (or junior high, stacy is in 8th grade), or at work, or on campus at a college, or where ever, if you would hit hard on the interview amy goodman did with janis karpinski.
there is so much truth in that interview. and sadly it's truth that a lot of people have been able to avoid.
so please share that interview. talk it up. if someone's interested, show it to them. don't say, 'oh i'll send you the link' if they're next to you, pull it up on the computer right then and show it to them.
the only way this war ends is if we all get honest, all of us who care. a lot of people don't care. they're saying 'send more troops.' we need to counter those voices by getting the truth out there.
last thing (elaine got off the phone some time ago but mike and i could talk all night!), please read cedric's post from yesterday. i think he did a wonderful job. i know c.i.'s going to touch on that tonight and may have already. (it was in the long version of the mid-day post that would not post, c.i. and i both had trouble with our sites today.) inclusion means inclusion. there's no way around it. i know cedric wishes he had found another thing to say and isn't pleased with the post but i think it's great and it's from the heart - you can't ask for more.
janis karpinski
democracy now
the daily jot
iraq
janice karpinski
abu ghraib
guantanamo bay
like maria said paz
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
the common ills
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
10/26/2005
do not miss democracy now today
just a heads up and you know i don't usually blog during the day.
but c.i. called and asked, 'rebecca, did you see democracy now?' i did. i'll watch it again on link tv later today. my ex and i were watching while we drank our coffee. i saw who the guest was on the common ills this morning (thanks rod), janice karpinski and we were both curious about this interview.
'did you hear that?' and 'oh my god' were the two most repeated comments during the broadcast.
c.i. called about the interview (and to make sure that i knew i had gotten the name of robert parry's lost history wrong so i could correct it) and you have to watch this interview.
it's not up yet at democracy now but it will be later.
if you can't watch it, you can listen to it or read it online. you can also check to see if there's a station in your are that broadcasts democracy now either on radio or tv or you can watch it on dish network or direct tv.
you get the doors 'unknown soldier' and sara thomsen during the breaks. i'm putting that in so that people are curious hopefully but also because i always mean to get the cd for sara thomsen when they play the 'and prove to me america that you care' but i never write down the artist's name when amy goodman gives it out. it's sara thomsen (and sherry, if you can remember, e-mail in a few days and ask me if i got it). we're taking the ferry in later today but if i can't find it, i'll order it online.
so here's the point, it's an important democracy now and you need to watch it or listen to it or read it. if there's no station in your area broadcasting democracy now, radio or tv, and you don't have a satellite, you can go to the website online
this was actually a long, long post.
why isn't it?
the whole damn thing got lost.
i click on 'publish post' and it looks like it's publishing but instead i'm taken to a screen to sign in.
my ex husband points out i worked an hour on a post and now it's lost and asks why i'm not screaming?
because the blogger program sucks and every 1 who uses it is getting pretty sick of it.
he asked why i still used it and says to pay for a site. i could do that. c.i.'s considered it, especially with the third estate sunday review problems when publishing, but dyi, do it yourself, is the attitude here.
the common ills has resulted in 9 official spin offs (there are also unofficials 1s, usually focused solely on the visual arts) and that's because it inspires people. moving to a for pay site might make some people think 'i can't do it.' the whole point is that you can do it.
so for now, we all grit our teeth when the blogger program destroys our work.
a lost entry is a pain in the ass but the chance that it might inspire some 1 makes it worth it.
as c.i. always says 'we need more voices, not less.'
back to democracy now, the interview is explosive.
you have to watch.
corporate media doesn't serve you.
so if you're not sure if democracy now is broadcast in your area click here. that's a list of tv stations and radio stations broadcasting the program. in addition, you can watch or listen or read transcripts online.
community member charlie has his own computer now. however, before that happened, as he shared at the common ills, i'm not telling secrets, he was dependent upon his library and there was a time limit (15 or 20 minutes i think) for how long you could be on. he couldn't watch or listen. but he could read the transcripts. so if you're in a situation like charlie was, go to the site and read the transcripts.
democracy now makes it's headlines each day available in spanish and english, in audio and text so get the word out on that. maria, miguel and franciso make a point to run down those headlines each weekend, choosing ten or eleven, to help get the word out.
spanish speaking corporate media is still corporate media. we need to get the word out.
if you've ever wondered about democracy now but never checked it out, today is the day to check it out.
this was a longer post before but i don't have another hour to spend on it.
i will be blogging later today. check out democracy now.
democracy now
iraq
janice karpinski
abu ghraib
the common ills
but c.i. called and asked, 'rebecca, did you see democracy now?' i did. i'll watch it again on link tv later today. my ex and i were watching while we drank our coffee. i saw who the guest was on the common ills this morning (thanks rod), janice karpinski and we were both curious about this interview.
'did you hear that?' and 'oh my god' were the two most repeated comments during the broadcast.
c.i. called about the interview (and to make sure that i knew i had gotten the name of robert parry's lost history wrong so i could correct it) and you have to watch this interview.
it's not up yet at democracy now but it will be later.
if you can't watch it, you can listen to it or read it online. you can also check to see if there's a station in your are that broadcasts democracy now either on radio or tv or you can watch it on dish network or direct tv.
you get the doors 'unknown soldier' and sara thomsen during the breaks. i'm putting that in so that people are curious hopefully but also because i always mean to get the cd for sara thomsen when they play the 'and prove to me america that you care' but i never write down the artist's name when amy goodman gives it out. it's sara thomsen (and sherry, if you can remember, e-mail in a few days and ask me if i got it). we're taking the ferry in later today but if i can't find it, i'll order it online.
so here's the point, it's an important democracy now and you need to watch it or listen to it or read it. if there's no station in your area broadcasting democracy now, radio or tv, and you don't have a satellite, you can go to the website online
this was actually a long, long post.
why isn't it?
the whole damn thing got lost.
i click on 'publish post' and it looks like it's publishing but instead i'm taken to a screen to sign in.
my ex husband points out i worked an hour on a post and now it's lost and asks why i'm not screaming?
because the blogger program sucks and every 1 who uses it is getting pretty sick of it.
he asked why i still used it and says to pay for a site. i could do that. c.i.'s considered it, especially with the third estate sunday review problems when publishing, but dyi, do it yourself, is the attitude here.
the common ills has resulted in 9 official spin offs (there are also unofficials 1s, usually focused solely on the visual arts) and that's because it inspires people. moving to a for pay site might make some people think 'i can't do it.' the whole point is that you can do it.
so for now, we all grit our teeth when the blogger program destroys our work.
a lost entry is a pain in the ass but the chance that it might inspire some 1 makes it worth it.
as c.i. always says 'we need more voices, not less.'
back to democracy now, the interview is explosive.
you have to watch.
corporate media doesn't serve you.
so if you're not sure if democracy now is broadcast in your area click here. that's a list of tv stations and radio stations broadcasting the program. in addition, you can watch or listen or read transcripts online.
community member charlie has his own computer now. however, before that happened, as he shared at the common ills, i'm not telling secrets, he was dependent upon his library and there was a time limit (15 or 20 minutes i think) for how long you could be on. he couldn't watch or listen. but he could read the transcripts. so if you're in a situation like charlie was, go to the site and read the transcripts.
democracy now makes it's headlines each day available in spanish and english, in audio and text so get the word out on that. maria, miguel and franciso make a point to run down those headlines each weekend, choosing ten or eleven, to help get the word out.
spanish speaking corporate media is still corporate media. we need to get the word out.
if you've ever wondered about democracy now but never checked it out, today is the day to check it out.
this was a longer post before but i don't have another hour to spend on it.
i will be blogging later today. check out democracy now.
democracy now
iraq
janice karpinski
abu ghraib
the common ills
10/25/2005
rosa parks and thoughts on death
i hate noting deaths. but this one is important and needs to be noted. i've seen a lot online and on tv, i'll go with this from democracy now:
Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks 1913-2005
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died at the age of 92. It was 50 years ago this December that she refused to relinquish her seat to a white man aboard a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and convicted of violating the state's segregation laws. Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would spark the civil rights movement. The boycott would also help transform a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Junior to national prominence. In 1958 King wrote "no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.''' Parks had been involved in the fight for freedom since the 1940s. She was active in the NAACP, helped raise money to defend the Scottsboro rape case and attended trainings at the Highlander Folk School of Tennessee. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said yesterday ''She sat down in order that we might stand up. Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors for our long journey to freedom.'' Henry Louis Gates Jr called her "the Harriet Tubman of our time." After he was freed from jail Nelson Mandela recalled how Parks had inspired him and others in the South African struggle against apartheid. We'll have more on Rosa Parks in a few minutes.
why do i hate noting deaths? why should this 1 be noted?
let's deal with the second question 1st. this is a big deal. rosa parks is historically important and signficant. and i think we say who we are by what we choose to note at our sites. i can't imagine that any site on the left would not note this death but i've gotten e-mails on it and spoken with cedric who also got e-mails about this.
i can't fathom why a so-called left site would feel this wasn't news.
did the death have to happen in february (black history month) to get noticed? that's what t asked me when she called today. she also asked if i was going to note rosa park's passing? of course. it was never a question.
she's a symbol of so much: civil rights, activism, the struggle for equality, the power of taking a stand, just go down the list.
t told me that she was surfing the net this morning and was shocked by how many were taking a pass on rosa parks' death. i asked her what time she went into the salon and she didn't have to be in until noon. she said she spent hours searching and 'largely in vain.'
was it news at the salon? yeah. t said all the women were talking about it, regardless of race.
i asked t what 1 thing she would want to say about rosa parks was?
'that she held up a light that showed a problem and let us follow her out of the darkness.'
i told t i thought that was beautiful but t said it was nothing any 1 who thought about it wouldn't say.
so what's the next rosa parks going to be illuminating?
t said she hopes it's the issue of sexuality because it's still 'something hidden. you guys got will & grace but we really don't have anything like that. there are plenty of gay and lesbian african-americans but it's like we don't exist in ads and tv. maybe every 1 thinks the guy on spin city should tide us over for the next decade?'
t feels that the slice of time given to african-americans is already tiny and when it comes to sexuality 'or disabilities' there's even less time.
we shared stories about learning about rosa parks in school and t said she thought 1 reason kids liked rosa parks before they even knew much about her was due to her name. 'rosa parks.' 'every 1 likes parks and roses are beautiful flowers. the name captured the peaceful nature of parks we learned about and the beauty.'
t said 1 woman's whose hair she did had been crying. it was a white woman. she shared with t that she was in high school when rosa parks took her stand and that it made her think a lot about whether or not the american dream was really a dream for all.
t and i talked about how the awakening effect rosa parks had on the country crossed racial lines and t offered that if bill clinton were in office there wouldn't have been hesitation or delay in clinton making a statement the way bully boy drug his feet most of the day. she also thinks the media would have taken their cue from clinton and done the kind of coverage that democracy now did today. this wasn't just a headline on democracy now, amy goodman & co dug into the archives to find an interview from 1956 to let you hear rosa parks talk about her experiences in something more than a brief sound byte. and then john conyers jr. was a guest and he spoke of rosa parks who helped with his 1st campaign for congress and then went on to work on his congressional staff.
t said she saw the news at the common ills last night because she doesn't own a tv. her tv blew out in 2002 and the fact that the big networks seemed stuck in the sitcom mode when it came to african-americans made her decide there were other ways to spend her money. she listens to democracy now on the radio and otherwise surfs the web and listens to music.
i asked her what she listened to today? she said the soundtrack to lady sings the blues because the news brought her down and the soundtrack seemed to reflect her mood. she said when she saw the thing at the common ills, she started hitting the links sure that c.i. had to have the facts wrong. when she read the 2nd link, she put on lady sings the blues and except for the hour she listened to democracy now, that's all she played nonstop. she even took it to the salon and popped it in there.
i could relate because i've been in an otis blue mood myself. but i pointed out that there were upbeat songs on lady sings the blues too. like 't'ain't nobody's bizness if i do' and 'what a little moonlight can do.' t said those were the songs that kept her from nonstop tears.
of the sites, by white bloggers, that didn't feel rosa parks' deaths was important, t asked me if i thought the people even had african-american friends? i don't know those people so i said i didn't know. she said that it's bad enough that they couldn't relate to the accomplishments of rosa parks but it was really shocking that, if they had any nonwhite friends, they wouldn't even toss out something, a line even, just to note it for them.
cedric is furious. i urge every 1 to check his site for a post he's going to work on as soon as he's 'calm.'
here's the reason i don't like to note deaths, or reasons. i'm never sure what to say. i always feel awkward and worry i'll say the wrong thing. that's 1 reason.
then there's the fact that with each rosa parks or susan sontag, we lose another brave voice. rosa parks last few years weren't 1s of good health but she was alive and she stood for something even if her health limited her. i start thinking about how people like howard zinn, gloria steinem, studs terkel, julian bond, and other brave voices are getting on up in the years. these days, these bully boy days, we really need all the inspiration and all the leadership we can get. we don't get it from congress.
c.i. will point to people like naomi klein, dahr jamail, susan faludi, nancy chang, rebecca walker and a host of others. (truly, it's a long list.) and those people do exist. but each voice lost is all the more painful to me because these are days when we need every 1.
i'll talk about robert parry for a 2nd because e-mails have come in on him since c.i. noted that i had met robert parry.
i did. i was married at the time so don't expect to hear 'and then we hit the sack and he was amazing!' (though i'm sure he's amazing.) robert parry was some 1 i heard much of and when some 1 said he was at the hotel and offered to point him out and introduce my then husband and i, my husband was all for it. i was already nervous.
now i can meet an actor or singer or anyone and rarely get tongue tied. (i would get very tongue tied if i met gloria steinem.) i can tell you stories about u2 that i'm purposely tying my tongue on (though i've shared them with kat). (personally, i can take adam clayton. the rest of them? like i said, i can take adam clayton.)
so we were walking over and i was already nervous. then, as we got closer, i realized he looks exactly like my father in some older photographs. i couldn't go through with it. i just stood at a distance and watched. my ex-husband got to say hello and he reported that robert parry seemed really nice. i'm sure he was really nice.
but even then, and this was a few years back, i was aware that robert parry wasn't 28 and aware that no 1 had come along in the mainstream media with his kind of fire for the truth. my father, and i'm not saying robert parry is old enough to be my father, had just had surgery and i was already intimidated because it was robert parry, seeing his resemblence to my father only freaked me out more.
robert parry's probably got many, many decades left (he's not old) but the fact that you can look around and see no 1 in the mainstream doing what he did at newsweek or associated press makes him even more important to me. (1 summer, i lived on his lost history book. that summer alone, i read it too many times to count.) (when ava told me she had written him, i was in awe of her. i'm not joking.) (my ex-husband still says that if i hadn't been married and hadn't been with him, i could have talked to robert parry and more - figure that out on your own - but with my 'sexual powers' on hold, his words, i was at a loss.)
when you start following events in the world, you start realizing how few people even try to tell the truth. that's why robert parry ranks so highly in my book. in the independent media world, which he is in now, amy goodman ranks highly as well.
i don't know if the corporate media got so strong and entrenched that no new robert parry can come out of it or if people just don't feel the need to battle for the truth now? but robert parry battled a time when people were taking huge passes. i have a lot of respect and admiration for him. (and if i met him today, i'm sure i would still be tongue tied.)
fyi, i'll be posting later for a period of time. i don't know how long. but i'm having sex with my ex currently and we're spending a great deal of time together. don't read that as announcement that we're getting back together. as i see it, we fell back into an old pattern, if there's something new that can be built there, great but i'm not going to act 15, no offense to my teenage readers, and act like 'oh we're in love again!' (we never stopped caring for each other but the marriage broke up for a reason, i've noted that here, if we're able to deal with 1 another honestly, great. if not, he was always a great lover and a great guy so it's worth my time for those reasons alone.)
he knows he'll pop up here and says his parents can get over it and i can write anything, good or bad, about him. but for those who've wondered why the sex talk has been less of late it's because i didn't want to post on that for fear that some would say 'oh happy ending!' or some such thing.
so here's another reason and i really don't want to type it, on why i don't like noting deaths, when c.i. had the cancer scare it really screwed up my world. i can't imagine a day when i don't call c.i. at least once to gripe or laugh about something. i feel the same way about elaine, we've all been friends for years. but, knock wood, elaine hasn't had any health problems thus far other than a root canal which she put off forever so if you ever e-mail her about that tell her that i told her that was what she needed when she kept making excuses not to go see a dentist.
there are people who are your touchstones and you know that just checking in with them is going to make the world a little better. c.i. loathes talking on the phone in long conversations but it's a testament to our friendship that i can tie c.i. up on the phone for an hour before getting the 'this conversation has been a long 1' hint.
i couldn't stand to lose c.i. or elaine. we go back so far. there are times, confession here, when i meet some 1 and, if i get along with them, after i think how wonderful they are, and this is true of when jim and i first started becoming friends, i'll start preparing myself for the possibility that death could come. elaine tells me i'm goldie hawn in best friends because goldie's always picturing her parents death in that film to deal with what will come.
i just don't handle death well. and we'll leave the analysis of that to elaine (who's given me plenty of psycho-analyzing on this subject over the years).
so let's find something bright to go out on. did you know elaine and i hate each other?
i didn't. elaine didn't either. but she had an e-mail where some guy claimed that he had figured us out and we hated each other.
why?
because we're not always plugging each other on our sites.
i actually asked elaine, and every 1 else, not to note my site if they could note some 1 else in the community instead. i do pretty good with my readership and there are so many members who've just started up sites.
as for elaine, i probably haven't mentioned her that much. when i got back from my vacation, john roberts got confirmed and i went into a depression over that. so elaine didn't get the kind of build up that i honestly would have liked to have given her.
but readers here had 6 weeks to see how wonderful she was and i think they all know how close elaine and i are. i'm less prone to reveal her secrets than i am c.i.'s but that's because elaine's shy. c.i.'s just private. with elaine, i will stop to think, 'is this something she would want discussed?' with c.i. i just throw it up here and know if it pisses c.i. off, i'll hear about it and then it will be over.
that really is the key with c.i. and i think i've noted that before. c.i. is 1 of those people who will get out and then let it go. (which is why each day there can be hope for the new york times even though the previous day the new york times proved itself worthless yet again.) ge it out and it's over.
2 weeks ago, c.i. asked me to note something here and i did and noted that c.i. asked for it to be noted. but the conversation started with, 'can i ask you something' and i thought 'oh crap what did i write this time?'
with elaine, she lost both her parents not long after we became friends and that's part of the reason she's shy, my opinion and i'm not the psychologist so take that for what it's worth, but she is shy and i probably register those months after her parents die to this day when i think of her. with c.i. it's another story.
i've known c.i. to be depressed, really deeply depressed, only twice. 1 time was a death and elaine and i have both noted that, the other time was a party. it was this wonderful party or would have been but warring factions put an end to that and c.i. called it off. the night of the party that wasn't was the most depressed i've ever known c.i. 'took the bed' comes to mind. and the party was actually symbolic of more than 'let's all have fun' but i won't say more because i don't need the call that begins, 'can i ask you something?'
but otherwise, c.i. never gets down. c.i. gets tired but even then, c.i.'s the 1 talking you up or finding the silver lining. there's a mutual friend that we have, who doesn't blog, and we were both at the hospital five years ago when her daughter needed surgery. i'll call her x. it wasn't a good time for x. her daughter was having surgery and the cat died the day before. c.i. can take on anyone's problems and did. empathy to the extreme but even so we were all laughing after 20 minutes and c.i. made that transition happen.
which is another reason i'm always on the phone with c.i. unlike x, i'm not asking, 'what's our position on this?' (x really does call whenever she hears something on the news to find out what 'the position' is.) but if things get a little too tough to handle, i always know i can get a quick fix from a quick call to c.i.
thinking about all of this, i never think before i start writing as i'm sure most of my readers can tell, i really think elaine and her brother's reaction to their parents death registered strongly. as it should. but i think seeing the pain they were in, and elaine was still in high school, made me even more wary of death. or scared of it. let's call it what it is, scared of it.
i'm glad wally's safe and i'll note that i need to add corrente to my blogroll. i'm sorry but until sherry pointed it out an e-mail today i didn't know that they linked to me. i'll put them on the blogroll tomorrow. i would do it tonight but i have ... plans.
rosa parks
the common ills
like maria said paz
cedrics big mix
democracy now
the daily jot
robert parry
amy goodman
the third estate sunday review
thanks to c.i. for catching the title of parry's book. i had it wrong. it was lost history. let me do a disclaimer because i don't think c.i. knew i'd be mentioning: c.i.'s pointing out a flaw in a book title does not in any shape or form mean that c.i. feels my recollections are correct in other areas. you should laugh now.
Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks 1913-2005
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died at the age of 92. It was 50 years ago this December that she refused to relinquish her seat to a white man aboard a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and convicted of violating the state's segregation laws. Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would spark the civil rights movement. The boycott would also help transform a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Junior to national prominence. In 1958 King wrote "no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.''' Parks had been involved in the fight for freedom since the 1940s. She was active in the NAACP, helped raise money to defend the Scottsboro rape case and attended trainings at the Highlander Folk School of Tennessee. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said yesterday ''She sat down in order that we might stand up. Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors for our long journey to freedom.'' Henry Louis Gates Jr called her "the Harriet Tubman of our time." After he was freed from jail Nelson Mandela recalled how Parks had inspired him and others in the South African struggle against apartheid. We'll have more on Rosa Parks in a few minutes.
why do i hate noting deaths? why should this 1 be noted?
let's deal with the second question 1st. this is a big deal. rosa parks is historically important and signficant. and i think we say who we are by what we choose to note at our sites. i can't imagine that any site on the left would not note this death but i've gotten e-mails on it and spoken with cedric who also got e-mails about this.
i can't fathom why a so-called left site would feel this wasn't news.
did the death have to happen in february (black history month) to get noticed? that's what t asked me when she called today. she also asked if i was going to note rosa park's passing? of course. it was never a question.
she's a symbol of so much: civil rights, activism, the struggle for equality, the power of taking a stand, just go down the list.
t told me that she was surfing the net this morning and was shocked by how many were taking a pass on rosa parks' death. i asked her what time she went into the salon and she didn't have to be in until noon. she said she spent hours searching and 'largely in vain.'
was it news at the salon? yeah. t said all the women were talking about it, regardless of race.
i asked t what 1 thing she would want to say about rosa parks was?
'that she held up a light that showed a problem and let us follow her out of the darkness.'
i told t i thought that was beautiful but t said it was nothing any 1 who thought about it wouldn't say.
so what's the next rosa parks going to be illuminating?
t said she hopes it's the issue of sexuality because it's still 'something hidden. you guys got will & grace but we really don't have anything like that. there are plenty of gay and lesbian african-americans but it's like we don't exist in ads and tv. maybe every 1 thinks the guy on spin city should tide us over for the next decade?'
t feels that the slice of time given to african-americans is already tiny and when it comes to sexuality 'or disabilities' there's even less time.
we shared stories about learning about rosa parks in school and t said she thought 1 reason kids liked rosa parks before they even knew much about her was due to her name. 'rosa parks.' 'every 1 likes parks and roses are beautiful flowers. the name captured the peaceful nature of parks we learned about and the beauty.'
t said 1 woman's whose hair she did had been crying. it was a white woman. she shared with t that she was in high school when rosa parks took her stand and that it made her think a lot about whether or not the american dream was really a dream for all.
t and i talked about how the awakening effect rosa parks had on the country crossed racial lines and t offered that if bill clinton were in office there wouldn't have been hesitation or delay in clinton making a statement the way bully boy drug his feet most of the day. she also thinks the media would have taken their cue from clinton and done the kind of coverage that democracy now did today. this wasn't just a headline on democracy now, amy goodman & co dug into the archives to find an interview from 1956 to let you hear rosa parks talk about her experiences in something more than a brief sound byte. and then john conyers jr. was a guest and he spoke of rosa parks who helped with his 1st campaign for congress and then went on to work on his congressional staff.
t said she saw the news at the common ills last night because she doesn't own a tv. her tv blew out in 2002 and the fact that the big networks seemed stuck in the sitcom mode when it came to african-americans made her decide there were other ways to spend her money. she listens to democracy now on the radio and otherwise surfs the web and listens to music.
i asked her what she listened to today? she said the soundtrack to lady sings the blues because the news brought her down and the soundtrack seemed to reflect her mood. she said when she saw the thing at the common ills, she started hitting the links sure that c.i. had to have the facts wrong. when she read the 2nd link, she put on lady sings the blues and except for the hour she listened to democracy now, that's all she played nonstop. she even took it to the salon and popped it in there.
i could relate because i've been in an otis blue mood myself. but i pointed out that there were upbeat songs on lady sings the blues too. like 't'ain't nobody's bizness if i do' and 'what a little moonlight can do.' t said those were the songs that kept her from nonstop tears.
of the sites, by white bloggers, that didn't feel rosa parks' deaths was important, t asked me if i thought the people even had african-american friends? i don't know those people so i said i didn't know. she said that it's bad enough that they couldn't relate to the accomplishments of rosa parks but it was really shocking that, if they had any nonwhite friends, they wouldn't even toss out something, a line even, just to note it for them.
cedric is furious. i urge every 1 to check his site for a post he's going to work on as soon as he's 'calm.'
here's the reason i don't like to note deaths, or reasons. i'm never sure what to say. i always feel awkward and worry i'll say the wrong thing. that's 1 reason.
then there's the fact that with each rosa parks or susan sontag, we lose another brave voice. rosa parks last few years weren't 1s of good health but she was alive and she stood for something even if her health limited her. i start thinking about how people like howard zinn, gloria steinem, studs terkel, julian bond, and other brave voices are getting on up in the years. these days, these bully boy days, we really need all the inspiration and all the leadership we can get. we don't get it from congress.
c.i. will point to people like naomi klein, dahr jamail, susan faludi, nancy chang, rebecca walker and a host of others. (truly, it's a long list.) and those people do exist. but each voice lost is all the more painful to me because these are days when we need every 1.
i'll talk about robert parry for a 2nd because e-mails have come in on him since c.i. noted that i had met robert parry.
i did. i was married at the time so don't expect to hear 'and then we hit the sack and he was amazing!' (though i'm sure he's amazing.) robert parry was some 1 i heard much of and when some 1 said he was at the hotel and offered to point him out and introduce my then husband and i, my husband was all for it. i was already nervous.
now i can meet an actor or singer or anyone and rarely get tongue tied. (i would get very tongue tied if i met gloria steinem.) i can tell you stories about u2 that i'm purposely tying my tongue on (though i've shared them with kat). (personally, i can take adam clayton. the rest of them? like i said, i can take adam clayton.)
so we were walking over and i was already nervous. then, as we got closer, i realized he looks exactly like my father in some older photographs. i couldn't go through with it. i just stood at a distance and watched. my ex-husband got to say hello and he reported that robert parry seemed really nice. i'm sure he was really nice.
but even then, and this was a few years back, i was aware that robert parry wasn't 28 and aware that no 1 had come along in the mainstream media with his kind of fire for the truth. my father, and i'm not saying robert parry is old enough to be my father, had just had surgery and i was already intimidated because it was robert parry, seeing his resemblence to my father only freaked me out more.
robert parry's probably got many, many decades left (he's not old) but the fact that you can look around and see no 1 in the mainstream doing what he did at newsweek or associated press makes him even more important to me. (1 summer, i lived on his lost history book. that summer alone, i read it too many times to count.) (when ava told me she had written him, i was in awe of her. i'm not joking.) (my ex-husband still says that if i hadn't been married and hadn't been with him, i could have talked to robert parry and more - figure that out on your own - but with my 'sexual powers' on hold, his words, i was at a loss.)
when you start following events in the world, you start realizing how few people even try to tell the truth. that's why robert parry ranks so highly in my book. in the independent media world, which he is in now, amy goodman ranks highly as well.
i don't know if the corporate media got so strong and entrenched that no new robert parry can come out of it or if people just don't feel the need to battle for the truth now? but robert parry battled a time when people were taking huge passes. i have a lot of respect and admiration for him. (and if i met him today, i'm sure i would still be tongue tied.)
fyi, i'll be posting later for a period of time. i don't know how long. but i'm having sex with my ex currently and we're spending a great deal of time together. don't read that as announcement that we're getting back together. as i see it, we fell back into an old pattern, if there's something new that can be built there, great but i'm not going to act 15, no offense to my teenage readers, and act like 'oh we're in love again!' (we never stopped caring for each other but the marriage broke up for a reason, i've noted that here, if we're able to deal with 1 another honestly, great. if not, he was always a great lover and a great guy so it's worth my time for those reasons alone.)
he knows he'll pop up here and says his parents can get over it and i can write anything, good or bad, about him. but for those who've wondered why the sex talk has been less of late it's because i didn't want to post on that for fear that some would say 'oh happy ending!' or some such thing.
so here's another reason and i really don't want to type it, on why i don't like noting deaths, when c.i. had the cancer scare it really screwed up my world. i can't imagine a day when i don't call c.i. at least once to gripe or laugh about something. i feel the same way about elaine, we've all been friends for years. but, knock wood, elaine hasn't had any health problems thus far other than a root canal which she put off forever so if you ever e-mail her about that tell her that i told her that was what she needed when she kept making excuses not to go see a dentist.
there are people who are your touchstones and you know that just checking in with them is going to make the world a little better. c.i. loathes talking on the phone in long conversations but it's a testament to our friendship that i can tie c.i. up on the phone for an hour before getting the 'this conversation has been a long 1' hint.
i couldn't stand to lose c.i. or elaine. we go back so far. there are times, confession here, when i meet some 1 and, if i get along with them, after i think how wonderful they are, and this is true of when jim and i first started becoming friends, i'll start preparing myself for the possibility that death could come. elaine tells me i'm goldie hawn in best friends because goldie's always picturing her parents death in that film to deal with what will come.
i just don't handle death well. and we'll leave the analysis of that to elaine (who's given me plenty of psycho-analyzing on this subject over the years).
so let's find something bright to go out on. did you know elaine and i hate each other?
i didn't. elaine didn't either. but she had an e-mail where some guy claimed that he had figured us out and we hated each other.
why?
because we're not always plugging each other on our sites.
i actually asked elaine, and every 1 else, not to note my site if they could note some 1 else in the community instead. i do pretty good with my readership and there are so many members who've just started up sites.
as for elaine, i probably haven't mentioned her that much. when i got back from my vacation, john roberts got confirmed and i went into a depression over that. so elaine didn't get the kind of build up that i honestly would have liked to have given her.
but readers here had 6 weeks to see how wonderful she was and i think they all know how close elaine and i are. i'm less prone to reveal her secrets than i am c.i.'s but that's because elaine's shy. c.i.'s just private. with elaine, i will stop to think, 'is this something she would want discussed?' with c.i. i just throw it up here and know if it pisses c.i. off, i'll hear about it and then it will be over.
that really is the key with c.i. and i think i've noted that before. c.i. is 1 of those people who will get out and then let it go. (which is why each day there can be hope for the new york times even though the previous day the new york times proved itself worthless yet again.) ge it out and it's over.
2 weeks ago, c.i. asked me to note something here and i did and noted that c.i. asked for it to be noted. but the conversation started with, 'can i ask you something' and i thought 'oh crap what did i write this time?'
with elaine, she lost both her parents not long after we became friends and that's part of the reason she's shy, my opinion and i'm not the psychologist so take that for what it's worth, but she is shy and i probably register those months after her parents die to this day when i think of her. with c.i. it's another story.
i've known c.i. to be depressed, really deeply depressed, only twice. 1 time was a death and elaine and i have both noted that, the other time was a party. it was this wonderful party or would have been but warring factions put an end to that and c.i. called it off. the night of the party that wasn't was the most depressed i've ever known c.i. 'took the bed' comes to mind. and the party was actually symbolic of more than 'let's all have fun' but i won't say more because i don't need the call that begins, 'can i ask you something?'
but otherwise, c.i. never gets down. c.i. gets tired but even then, c.i.'s the 1 talking you up or finding the silver lining. there's a mutual friend that we have, who doesn't blog, and we were both at the hospital five years ago when her daughter needed surgery. i'll call her x. it wasn't a good time for x. her daughter was having surgery and the cat died the day before. c.i. can take on anyone's problems and did. empathy to the extreme but even so we were all laughing after 20 minutes and c.i. made that transition happen.
which is another reason i'm always on the phone with c.i. unlike x, i'm not asking, 'what's our position on this?' (x really does call whenever she hears something on the news to find out what 'the position' is.) but if things get a little too tough to handle, i always know i can get a quick fix from a quick call to c.i.
thinking about all of this, i never think before i start writing as i'm sure most of my readers can tell, i really think elaine and her brother's reaction to their parents death registered strongly. as it should. but i think seeing the pain they were in, and elaine was still in high school, made me even more wary of death. or scared of it. let's call it what it is, scared of it.
i'm glad wally's safe and i'll note that i need to add corrente to my blogroll. i'm sorry but until sherry pointed it out an e-mail today i didn't know that they linked to me. i'll put them on the blogroll tomorrow. i would do it tonight but i have ... plans.
rosa parks
the common ills
like maria said paz
cedrics big mix
democracy now
the daily jot
robert parry
amy goodman
the third estate sunday review
thanks to c.i. for catching the title of parry's book. i had it wrong. it was lost history. let me do a disclaimer because i don't think c.i. knew i'd be mentioning: c.i.'s pointing out a flaw in a book title does not in any shape or form mean that c.i. feels my recollections are correct in other areas. you should laugh now.
10/24/2005
watchdog daily and behind the scenes on it
sherry e-mails asking me why i haven't made a comment on 'our latter day, online dylan.' sherry, what makes you think i haven't?
elaine has made a public comment as has wally and wally and mike were very public in their interview. however, if you think this is just about what went up at that site, you're mistaken. c.i. is biting the tongue on this as am i, for now. if you're in the dark, look to elaine. she knows from conversations with c.i. and i. that's not to put down mike or wally and they raise valid issues about the content dylan posts; however, there's a backstory. it goes back a bit. and that's all i'll say for now because we really did think that, as c.i. has put up at the common ills, dylan would get honest. that hasn't happened.
so what i'll do instead is repost the watchdog and talk to you about that. this is from the third estate sunday review. in the note to the readers, jim noted this:
A piece we did get up that we worked many hours on (seriously, we debated and argued over each and every word, pretty much) is another humorous look at the watchdog you all know. We think Watchdog Daily stands with our earlier parody and that you'll laugh when you read it.
i say jim because although they all toss out things, and usually ava and c.i. are the parentheticals, jim's chiefly responsible for the note. he decides what goes in and what doesn't.
and we did fight over every word. which chiefly means running to ava and c.i. and betty to ask, 'is this funny?' they can write funny. i make no claim to be able to. sometimes i'll have something funny up here but that's the exception and not the rule.
so say, this didn't happen, ty says 'make suzy q. choke on a vegetable!' then everyone's tossing around ideas and if we get a funny 1 on our own, we then shoot it over to the laugh trio and they'll work it.
c.i. can punch up lines and make them hysterical and has had that gift forever and a day. so, and this is a real example, jim came up with a line about little debbie snack cakes but the snack cakes were at the front of the line. and they were funnier at the end of the line. jim wasn't convinced and read both versions aloud before he agreed with the little debbie snack cakes coming at the end.
i remember a stand up comic, this is many years back, trying to work in a joke about ireland and c.i. kept telling him that 'dublin' was a laugh getter but 'belfast' wasn't due to the way 'dublin' sounds. the advice was asked for but not used in the first performance and the line fell flat. he was up there grinning at the audience that was just sitting there in silence. they had been laughing along until that line. for the 2nd performance, he took c.i.'s advice and changed it to dublin and this time the laughs didn't stop.
i don't pretend to understand why some words are funny and why they aren't.
when we were working on it ava and c.i. both said '4 items.' there was a desire to do many items and at an earlier time, that was done. but they felt we should commit to 4 items and work on them. we did. we worked on that longer than we've ever worked on anything before. wally and mike had the idea to do a blog report on cat blogs (read their interview and you'll understand why) because they thought that was indicative how useless the blog report by the watchdog often is.
so that required a bit of research and it was ava or c.i. who came up with wheaton. i think c.i. came up with the 'aren't we all, will, aren't we all?' line.
but you would not believe how much time went into that. of the things we've worked on lately, that's probably the best. s.l. gets an exemption because c.i. knows s.l. and wanted that in there or no participating.
so that's part of the back story. here's another part, the thing that will explain why we decided on the parody in the first place:
"Other Items"
Eli suggests that Eddie check out Stephen Labaton's "A Bill Advancing Digital TV Is Approved by Senate Panel." Here's the most important sentence in the article:
More than half of homes now have no digital signal and no intention to get one, according to Stewart Wolpin, an analyst at Points North Group, a research and consulting firm.
Why do I say it's the most important? Because no one wants to comment on it, let alone mention it. That includes a "brave" watchdog that's pissed Eddie off -- we don't link to it -- because they did a rah-rah, "New World Coming" report that forgot to mention that for a significant portion of Americans, the new world isn't coming.
The article is a typical Times' article meaning it sucks up to big business (and doesn't discuss the Times' own interest in the legislation -- maybe Labaton is unaware of the Times' TV division?). But buried deep in the article is a fact that "brave" watchdog took a pass on.
This is going to be a big issue to people in some areas, to the poor and the working poor in all areas. Right now you want to watch Desperate Housewives (I wouldn't recommend it, but to each their own), you turn on the TV. You don't need cable, you don't need satellite. You turn on the TV and watch for free.
As the industry abandons analog and moves to digital, it will be a huge issue for a significant portion of Americans. But no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to acknowledge that even if we had a good economy (we don't, we have a Bully Boy economy) a lot of people would be left out of "the revolution."
(Again, we do not link to them. Members know whom I'm referring to. It's been addressed in the round-robin and in an editorial two or three Sundays ago at The Third Estate Sunday Review. But for any visitor that gets easily lost, on our permalinks, you'll find the watchdog groups FAIR -- including the radio program CounterSpin -- and Media Matters. I'm not referring to either.)
hopefully that brings everyone up to speed. now here's the piece:
"Watchdog Daily"
We felt it was time for another parody of the watchdog.
Joys of the Digital Age!
by Village Idiot
Well there's a revolution 'a coming people!!! Coming for to carry you home (got to pick up those 'vangical voters!!!!), coming for to carry you home!
As digital replaces analog, the most important question of the day is: How big a flat screen TV should I buy?
I was at the JVC trade show (cool people, they set you up "pretty") this weekend and the guy with the clip-on tie, Roy, who steered me to a flat screen he sold me at 40% off told me that the digital revolution will be "totally cool." Well he's the expert, right?
It will be totally cool. I can watch Basic Instinct for the fortieth time but it will be like brand new since I'll be able to really check out Sharon Stone's boobs and Michael Douglas' butt!
Well not Douglas' butt. I never look at a guy's butt. Sharon Stone's boobs. Yeah, that's what I'm into. I'm a boob. A boob man, I mean.
And Roy told me that the flat screen he sold me is a "total sex magnet." He said I'll have to beat them with off a stick which is what I have. But I'm not sure how everyone will know I have the flat screen TV?
I'm thinking of taking a photo of it and then making the photo a transfer and then ironing it on t-shirt and then wearing the t-shirt to the clubs so that everyone can see it and appreciate the kind of manly man I am. But just writing the previous sentence was a lot of work! To actually do what I wrote about might strain my gentle sensibilities or at least prevent me from catching and enjoying the Alf marathon.
I'll close by noting what a wonderful country we live in when everyone will soon have digital TVs, everyone who matters. As for the rest of you, piss off.
______________________________________
The Ice Cream Truck
by Suzy Q
PBS's Generically Bland Spokesperson spoke with me today about the pressing issues of today and you know it is current because I've already used "today" twice in this sentence! Woops!Three times!
the third estate sunday review
like maria said paz
the new york times
the daily jot
the common ills
mikey likes it
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
elaine has made a public comment as has wally and wally and mike were very public in their interview. however, if you think this is just about what went up at that site, you're mistaken. c.i. is biting the tongue on this as am i, for now. if you're in the dark, look to elaine. she knows from conversations with c.i. and i. that's not to put down mike or wally and they raise valid issues about the content dylan posts; however, there's a backstory. it goes back a bit. and that's all i'll say for now because we really did think that, as c.i. has put up at the common ills, dylan would get honest. that hasn't happened.
so what i'll do instead is repost the watchdog and talk to you about that. this is from the third estate sunday review. in the note to the readers, jim noted this:
A piece we did get up that we worked many hours on (seriously, we debated and argued over each and every word, pretty much) is another humorous look at the watchdog you all know. We think Watchdog Daily stands with our earlier parody and that you'll laugh when you read it.
i say jim because although they all toss out things, and usually ava and c.i. are the parentheticals, jim's chiefly responsible for the note. he decides what goes in and what doesn't.
and we did fight over every word. which chiefly means running to ava and c.i. and betty to ask, 'is this funny?' they can write funny. i make no claim to be able to. sometimes i'll have something funny up here but that's the exception and not the rule.
so say, this didn't happen, ty says 'make suzy q. choke on a vegetable!' then everyone's tossing around ideas and if we get a funny 1 on our own, we then shoot it over to the laugh trio and they'll work it.
c.i. can punch up lines and make them hysterical and has had that gift forever and a day. so, and this is a real example, jim came up with a line about little debbie snack cakes but the snack cakes were at the front of the line. and they were funnier at the end of the line. jim wasn't convinced and read both versions aloud before he agreed with the little debbie snack cakes coming at the end.
i remember a stand up comic, this is many years back, trying to work in a joke about ireland and c.i. kept telling him that 'dublin' was a laugh getter but 'belfast' wasn't due to the way 'dublin' sounds. the advice was asked for but not used in the first performance and the line fell flat. he was up there grinning at the audience that was just sitting there in silence. they had been laughing along until that line. for the 2nd performance, he took c.i.'s advice and changed it to dublin and this time the laughs didn't stop.
i don't pretend to understand why some words are funny and why they aren't.
when we were working on it ava and c.i. both said '4 items.' there was a desire to do many items and at an earlier time, that was done. but they felt we should commit to 4 items and work on them. we did. we worked on that longer than we've ever worked on anything before. wally and mike had the idea to do a blog report on cat blogs (read their interview and you'll understand why) because they thought that was indicative how useless the blog report by the watchdog often is.
so that required a bit of research and it was ava or c.i. who came up with wheaton. i think c.i. came up with the 'aren't we all, will, aren't we all?' line.
but you would not believe how much time went into that. of the things we've worked on lately, that's probably the best. s.l. gets an exemption because c.i. knows s.l. and wanted that in there or no participating.
so that's part of the back story. here's another part, the thing that will explain why we decided on the parody in the first place:
"Other Items"
Eli suggests that Eddie check out Stephen Labaton's "A Bill Advancing Digital TV Is Approved by Senate Panel." Here's the most important sentence in the article:
More than half of homes now have no digital signal and no intention to get one, according to Stewart Wolpin, an analyst at Points North Group, a research and consulting firm.
Why do I say it's the most important? Because no one wants to comment on it, let alone mention it. That includes a "brave" watchdog that's pissed Eddie off -- we don't link to it -- because they did a rah-rah, "New World Coming" report that forgot to mention that for a significant portion of Americans, the new world isn't coming.
The article is a typical Times' article meaning it sucks up to big business (and doesn't discuss the Times' own interest in the legislation -- maybe Labaton is unaware of the Times' TV division?). But buried deep in the article is a fact that "brave" watchdog took a pass on.
This is going to be a big issue to people in some areas, to the poor and the working poor in all areas. Right now you want to watch Desperate Housewives (I wouldn't recommend it, but to each their own), you turn on the TV. You don't need cable, you don't need satellite. You turn on the TV and watch for free.
As the industry abandons analog and moves to digital, it will be a huge issue for a significant portion of Americans. But no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to acknowledge that even if we had a good economy (we don't, we have a Bully Boy economy) a lot of people would be left out of "the revolution."
(Again, we do not link to them. Members know whom I'm referring to. It's been addressed in the round-robin and in an editorial two or three Sundays ago at The Third Estate Sunday Review. But for any visitor that gets easily lost, on our permalinks, you'll find the watchdog groups FAIR -- including the radio program CounterSpin -- and Media Matters. I'm not referring to either.)
hopefully that brings everyone up to speed. now here's the piece:
"Watchdog Daily"
We felt it was time for another parody of the watchdog.
WATCHDOG DAILY
Stroking ourselves, so you don't have to
Joys of the Digital Age!
by Village Idiot
Well there's a revolution 'a coming people!!! Coming for to carry you home (got to pick up those 'vangical voters!!!!), coming for to carry you home!
As digital replaces analog, the most important question of the day is: How big a flat screen TV should I buy?
I was at the JVC trade show (cool people, they set you up "pretty") this weekend and the guy with the clip-on tie, Roy, who steered me to a flat screen he sold me at 40% off told me that the digital revolution will be "totally cool." Well he's the expert, right?
It will be totally cool. I can watch Basic Instinct for the fortieth time but it will be like brand new since I'll be able to really check out Sharon Stone's boobs and Michael Douglas' butt!
Well not Douglas' butt. I never look at a guy's butt. Sharon Stone's boobs. Yeah, that's what I'm into. I'm a boob. A boob man, I mean.
And Roy told me that the flat screen he sold me is a "total sex magnet." He said I'll have to beat them with off a stick which is what I have. But I'm not sure how everyone will know I have the flat screen TV?
I'm thinking of taking a photo of it and then making the photo a transfer and then ironing it on t-shirt and then wearing the t-shirt to the clubs so that everyone can see it and appreciate the kind of manly man I am. But just writing the previous sentence was a lot of work! To actually do what I wrote about might strain my gentle sensibilities or at least prevent me from catching and enjoying the Alf marathon.
I'll close by noting what a wonderful country we live in when everyone will soon have digital TVs, everyone who matters. As for the rest of you, piss off.
______________________________________
The Ice Cream Truck
by Suzy Q
PBS's Generically Bland Spokesperson spoke with me today about the pressing issues of today and you know it is current because I've already used "today" twice in this sentence! Woops!Three times!
Suze: There is a feeling that PBS has tilted rightward. How do you respond to that?
GBS: We need money, lots and lots of money. For a pledge of $300, on our easy checks plan, we can get you a mug with PBS on it.
Suze: Oh I love mugs! I'm dieting so I've started putting my ice cream in mugs instead of bowls or just eating it straight out of the carton. Isn't $300 a lot for one mug.
GBS: Not when you consider the quality program we provide you with year in and year out. You have seen our Suze Ormis specials, right?
Suze: No. I got burned by informericals back in the days of Susan Powder. Everytime she'd scream, "Stop the madness!" I'd drop my Ho-Hos and burst into tears because I thought she was speaking to me. Mommy would say, "Suze, she is on the TV, she can't get you." But I was a big girl with buck teeth, bad breath and acne that frequently sprouted strands of hair so my active imaginary life was all that I had.
GBS: For $500 we can get you a mug and a paper napking featuring Maya & Miguel.
Suze: About that. My Spanish isn't too good but I've learned a few things from my years of ordering off the Taco Bell menu. Shouldn't the title be: Maya y Miguel?
GBS: For $600 Gwen Ifill will call you on the phone to wish you happy birthday. For $700, you can block all calls from Gwen Ifill.
Suze: I think I prefer the $700 option. So what's with all the cooking shows? I watch those sometimes but they make me so hungry. Not everyone cooks. You should have eating shows.Everyone eats!
GBS: Did you want to pay the $700 in one lump sum or sign up for our easy-checks plan?
Suze: You know what else I wonder? Why doesn't PBS have any programs I care about? Like there's the Dancing Baby. He was real popular on Ally McBeal and now the show's gone so why can't PBS give him a special? I'd watch.
GBS: This is a dancing baby?
Suze: Damn skippy. Best dancing baby in the world.
GSB: Could we make it a dancing fetus? If we could make it a dancing fetus we could probably get money from James Dobson to underwrite the program.
Suze: Could it still wear a diaper?
GSB: Provided it had an umbilical cord attaching it to the mother, yes.
Suze: That is so cool! I'm like a PBS programmer or something. Hey dig me, everybody! And the Manny thought he was so damn all that for leaving. I'm a part of the PBS family --
GSB: When you honor your pledge of $700 dollars.
Suze: And that's the home of The Sopranos! I'm big time!
GSB: HBO has The Sopranos.
Suze: Oh. Well I'm still big time!
GSB: Yes, for $700, you are. Would you like to put your pledge on a credit card? We accept Visa and Master Card.
_______________________________
Blog Report
by New Guy
Blog Reports are hard. Everyone told me that. They said, "Everyone's going to pissed at you so just accept it. Your job is to find the most pressing issues of the day that people are blogging about."
Inspired, I went searching and damned if things aren't 'a heating up like a raw egg on a Texas sidewalk in July, siz-ZLE! The hot topic in the blogsphere this week?
That Wil Wheaton is a "cat man!" Aren't we all, Wil, aren't we all? Wheaton writes passionately of the joy of cleaning 5/8ths of his garage in "not quite five by five, but getting there." Beats the Viper Club, I guess. But this post, from September, still hasn't generated any comments! Come on people, Wil's a star. Sure Jerry was the fat one in Stand By Me, but Wil was the geek. Show some love, show some love! He even alluded to Faith from Buffy in the title of his post and you just know she could so kick his geeky ass, so show some love and leave a comment for Wil.
Forget whether or not Karl Rove outed Valerie Plame, Miss Maddle has serious problems at I Crap in a Box (me too, just FYI):
I don't know who's dumber -- Kadi for throwing all her toys off the balcony this morning or Mommy for actually thinking she'd KEEP them from going flying onto our downstairs neighbor's porch!
I wonder if Miss Maddle can help me get one of those "I Love 2 Poop" license plates displayed at her site? I'd love to hang it right over the john in my bathroom!
biljounc of My Growing Cat Family assures us all that, "The adventures of cat ownership never end." However, I'm less than convinced.
Over at Abbie The Cat Has A Posse, they're taking donations like the pledge drive Suzy got caught in at The Ice Cream Truck. Apparently Abbie is as shameless as Jerry Lewis when trying to drum up money, which would explain this:
first off she was sick and dshe didnt tell anybody she was sick
GBS: We need money, lots and lots of money. For a pledge of $300, on our easy checks plan, we can get you a mug with PBS on it.
Suze: Oh I love mugs! I'm dieting so I've started putting my ice cream in mugs instead of bowls or just eating it straight out of the carton. Isn't $300 a lot for one mug.
GBS: Not when you consider the quality program we provide you with year in and year out. You have seen our Suze Ormis specials, right?
Suze: No. I got burned by informericals back in the days of Susan Powder. Everytime she'd scream, "Stop the madness!" I'd drop my Ho-Hos and burst into tears because I thought she was speaking to me. Mommy would say, "Suze, she is on the TV, she can't get you." But I was a big girl with buck teeth, bad breath and acne that frequently sprouted strands of hair so my active imaginary life was all that I had.
GBS: For $500 we can get you a mug and a paper napking featuring Maya & Miguel.
Suze: About that. My Spanish isn't too good but I've learned a few things from my years of ordering off the Taco Bell menu. Shouldn't the title be: Maya y Miguel?
GBS: For $600 Gwen Ifill will call you on the phone to wish you happy birthday. For $700, you can block all calls from Gwen Ifill.
Suze: I think I prefer the $700 option. So what's with all the cooking shows? I watch those sometimes but they make me so hungry. Not everyone cooks. You should have eating shows.Everyone eats!
GBS: Did you want to pay the $700 in one lump sum or sign up for our easy-checks plan?
Suze: You know what else I wonder? Why doesn't PBS have any programs I care about? Like there's the Dancing Baby. He was real popular on Ally McBeal and now the show's gone so why can't PBS give him a special? I'd watch.
GBS: This is a dancing baby?
Suze: Damn skippy. Best dancing baby in the world.
GSB: Could we make it a dancing fetus? If we could make it a dancing fetus we could probably get money from James Dobson to underwrite the program.
Suze: Could it still wear a diaper?
GSB: Provided it had an umbilical cord attaching it to the mother, yes.
Suze: That is so cool! I'm like a PBS programmer or something. Hey dig me, everybody! And the Manny thought he was so damn all that for leaving. I'm a part of the PBS family --
GSB: When you honor your pledge of $700 dollars.
Suze: And that's the home of The Sopranos! I'm big time!
GSB: HBO has The Sopranos.
Suze: Oh. Well I'm still big time!
GSB: Yes, for $700, you are. Would you like to put your pledge on a credit card? We accept Visa and Master Card.
_______________________________
Blog Report
by New Guy
Blog Reports are hard. Everyone told me that. They said, "Everyone's going to pissed at you so just accept it. Your job is to find the most pressing issues of the day that people are blogging about."
Inspired, I went searching and damned if things aren't 'a heating up like a raw egg on a Texas sidewalk in July, siz-ZLE! The hot topic in the blogsphere this week?
That Wil Wheaton is a "cat man!" Aren't we all, Wil, aren't we all? Wheaton writes passionately of the joy of cleaning 5/8ths of his garage in "not quite five by five, but getting there." Beats the Viper Club, I guess. But this post, from September, still hasn't generated any comments! Come on people, Wil's a star. Sure Jerry was the fat one in Stand By Me, but Wil was the geek. Show some love, show some love! He even alluded to Faith from Buffy in the title of his post and you just know she could so kick his geeky ass, so show some love and leave a comment for Wil.
Forget whether or not Karl Rove outed Valerie Plame, Miss Maddle has serious problems at I Crap in a Box (me too, just FYI):
I don't know who's dumber -- Kadi for throwing all her toys off the balcony this morning or Mommy for actually thinking she'd KEEP them from going flying onto our downstairs neighbor's porch!
I wonder if Miss Maddle can help me get one of those "I Love 2 Poop" license plates displayed at her site? I'd love to hang it right over the john in my bathroom!
biljounc of My Growing Cat Family assures us all that, "The adventures of cat ownership never end." However, I'm less than convinced.
Over at Abbie The Cat Has A Posse, they're taking donations like the pledge drive Suzy got caught in at The Ice Cream Truck. Apparently Abbie is as shameless as Jerry Lewis when trying to drum up money, which would explain this:
first off she was sick and dshe didnt tell anybody she was sick
not even me
i said why are you so skinny and she said i dunno let me sleep
i said why do you sleep so much and she said because i am tired okay let me sleep
and when I said you are not eating my food anymore why are you not eating my food anymore she just licked her paw and went to sleep
Reading it, I also felt sleepy. I wondered if I was dying too?
Fortunaly, Avram (New Cat City) put my fears to rest by explaining: "Cats: Better Than a Sleeping Pill." I know reading it put me to sleep!
_____________________________
Magazine Report
by Suzy Q
S.L. is breathing down all our necks about how he's doing serious work and we're just slacking off and bringing not just Watchdog Daily down but the whole Watchdog enterprise including the college program! Well excuse the hell out of me. It's not like my life's going all that great these days. I thought my new boyfriend was only gay but it turns out he's also a drug addict and a cross dresser who recently took all my American Girl dolls to a swap meet to score some cash to buy more stash. Not only that, he put a runner in my good hose!
And I'd already made the mistake this summer of taking Dell home to meet the family. Now that's all I hear, "How's Dell?" and "Are you and Dell still together?" and "Suze, honey, honest, Mommy needs to know if Dell swiped her bra." It gets real old, people, real old!
One day you're thirteen, lying on the carpet in front of the TV, watching a Molly Ringwald movie, dreaming about when your teeth will be perfect and they'll take the head gear off, the next you're marching towards middle age and so desperate not to be alone that you're perfectly willing to settle for a man who looks more girlish in your Prada panties than you do.
It's just not fair!
Here's another thing that's not fair: is Highlights trying to be like The New York Times? I figured I'd scan Highlights for Children for some insight into the hot topics like Harriet Miers' nomination and try to solve one of the Hidden Pictures (don't scoff, they are hard!) but all the content is apparently unavailable to the average computer user like me. Well if The Times would put up a firewall between the readers and Thomas Friedman & David Brooks, I guess it's not all that surprising that Highlights would mirror that move by refusing to make either Goofus or Gallant available online to nonsubscribers.
Now what am I supposed to write about?
God. S.L. is staring at me with that cross look he gets when he thinks I'm online looking for the Dancing Baby. Things used to be way, way cooler around here. I'm hitting the head. Back in 10.
Good news! In the men's room (I just prefer the men's room), I found the new oversize TV Guide. That's a magazine. See, you start thinking it's not going to work out, that you're going to get fired which means losing your boyfriend because if you're not buying the Revlon make up, then he's not staying, and losing your apartment, which means moving back with your parents (again!) and having to hear every other day, "What ever happened to that nice Dell? He seemed so nice?" while also having to hear about your younger sister who is married, with three kids, a lovely home with a pool and three car garage and it's all just enough to make you go running in search of Zingers or Little Debbie Snack Cakes, when boom! you spot the TV Guide on the floor.
I'm glad that they made TV Guide bigger because, like the ad's used to say, TV is more complicated now. Ian Birch looks a lot like my boyfriend Dell. He's the editor and he promises "Big, colorful photos." Praise Jesus! I am so not into reading these days.
That Mary Murphy is smart and lucky! Lucky because she gets to interview Julian McMahon's whose wealth of chest hair makes up for the hairline that continues to recede up top. She asks all the important questions. Like this one: "Because the show gets heavy, huh?"
Man, to be a real journalist like Mary Murphy and to ask deep, penetrating questions. A girl can dream. I really enjoy the Movie Guide. Looking through the 42 films reviewed, I'm thrilled to know that all get three or four stars. Must not be a dog among them. I guess TV has finally learned that people don't like to watch bad movies, huh? We can thank the deep, probing film criticism of TV Guide for that, I tell you.
And in Cheers & Jeers, I love how they applaud Kitchen Confidential for a show that hasn't aired. Even though it was known weeks ago that Fox was taking Kitchen Confidential off the air. I think it's important to applaud things you haven't seen and may never see, not just the things you've seen, but the things you haven't seen too. Like take this Magazine Report, okay? I think S.L. should come over here and applaud me for it without reading it. I think I deserve that. Don't you? Cheers to me! Jeers to S.L.
And I love how they call Prison Break a hit! Mr. Negativity, S.L., might get all hung up in something (he would call them "facts") like ratings and ask dopey questions like, "Is it even in the top 20?" No, and why does that matter? Why all the sudden do you need to be high rated to be called a "hit"? Seems to me like you should be able to call something a "hit" just because you want to and obviously the retooled TV Guide agrees with me. So there to all that dopey stuff like "facts."
Not everything has to be Judy Miller, Judy Miller, Judy Miler, okay? And it doesn't all have to be this nasty little attitude either. I enjoyed reading the hard hitting "George Clooney: 'Good Luck' follows the ex-ER doc" by Mike Flaherty. What's wrong with feel-good reporting, huh?I call it, and the new oversize look of TV Guide, a "hit!"
Reading it, I also felt sleepy. I wondered if I was dying too?
Fortunaly, Avram (New Cat City) put my fears to rest by explaining: "Cats: Better Than a Sleeping Pill." I know reading it put me to sleep!
_____________________________
Magazine Report
by Suzy Q
S.L. is breathing down all our necks about how he's doing serious work and we're just slacking off and bringing not just Watchdog Daily down but the whole Watchdog enterprise including the college program! Well excuse the hell out of me. It's not like my life's going all that great these days. I thought my new boyfriend was only gay but it turns out he's also a drug addict and a cross dresser who recently took all my American Girl dolls to a swap meet to score some cash to buy more stash. Not only that, he put a runner in my good hose!
And I'd already made the mistake this summer of taking Dell home to meet the family. Now that's all I hear, "How's Dell?" and "Are you and Dell still together?" and "Suze, honey, honest, Mommy needs to know if Dell swiped her bra." It gets real old, people, real old!
One day you're thirteen, lying on the carpet in front of the TV, watching a Molly Ringwald movie, dreaming about when your teeth will be perfect and they'll take the head gear off, the next you're marching towards middle age and so desperate not to be alone that you're perfectly willing to settle for a man who looks more girlish in your Prada panties than you do.
It's just not fair!
Here's another thing that's not fair: is Highlights trying to be like The New York Times? I figured I'd scan Highlights for Children for some insight into the hot topics like Harriet Miers' nomination and try to solve one of the Hidden Pictures (don't scoff, they are hard!) but all the content is apparently unavailable to the average computer user like me. Well if The Times would put up a firewall between the readers and Thomas Friedman & David Brooks, I guess it's not all that surprising that Highlights would mirror that move by refusing to make either Goofus or Gallant available online to nonsubscribers.
Now what am I supposed to write about?
God. S.L. is staring at me with that cross look he gets when he thinks I'm online looking for the Dancing Baby. Things used to be way, way cooler around here. I'm hitting the head. Back in 10.
Good news! In the men's room (I just prefer the men's room), I found the new oversize TV Guide. That's a magazine. See, you start thinking it's not going to work out, that you're going to get fired which means losing your boyfriend because if you're not buying the Revlon make up, then he's not staying, and losing your apartment, which means moving back with your parents (again!) and having to hear every other day, "What ever happened to that nice Dell? He seemed so nice?" while also having to hear about your younger sister who is married, with three kids, a lovely home with a pool and three car garage and it's all just enough to make you go running in search of Zingers or Little Debbie Snack Cakes, when boom! you spot the TV Guide on the floor.
I'm glad that they made TV Guide bigger because, like the ad's used to say, TV is more complicated now. Ian Birch looks a lot like my boyfriend Dell. He's the editor and he promises "Big, colorful photos." Praise Jesus! I am so not into reading these days.
That Mary Murphy is smart and lucky! Lucky because she gets to interview Julian McMahon's whose wealth of chest hair makes up for the hairline that continues to recede up top. She asks all the important questions. Like this one: "Because the show gets heavy, huh?"
Man, to be a real journalist like Mary Murphy and to ask deep, penetrating questions. A girl can dream. I really enjoy the Movie Guide. Looking through the 42 films reviewed, I'm thrilled to know that all get three or four stars. Must not be a dog among them. I guess TV has finally learned that people don't like to watch bad movies, huh? We can thank the deep, probing film criticism of TV Guide for that, I tell you.
And in Cheers & Jeers, I love how they applaud Kitchen Confidential for a show that hasn't aired. Even though it was known weeks ago that Fox was taking Kitchen Confidential off the air. I think it's important to applaud things you haven't seen and may never see, not just the things you've seen, but the things you haven't seen too. Like take this Magazine Report, okay? I think S.L. should come over here and applaud me for it without reading it. I think I deserve that. Don't you? Cheers to me! Jeers to S.L.
And I love how they call Prison Break a hit! Mr. Negativity, S.L., might get all hung up in something (he would call them "facts") like ratings and ask dopey questions like, "Is it even in the top 20?" No, and why does that matter? Why all the sudden do you need to be high rated to be called a "hit"? Seems to me like you should be able to call something a "hit" just because you want to and obviously the retooled TV Guide agrees with me. So there to all that dopey stuff like "facts."
Not everything has to be Judy Miller, Judy Miller, Judy Miler, okay? And it doesn't all have to be this nasty little attitude either. I enjoyed reading the hard hitting "George Clooney: 'Good Luck' follows the ex-ER doc" by Mike Flaherty. What's wrong with feel-good reporting, huh?I call it, and the new oversize look of TV Guide, a "hit!"
the third estate sunday review
like maria said paz
the new york times
the daily jot
the common ills
mikey likes it
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
10/21/2005
harriet miers - no mystery there
harriet miers.
the woman who would be judge.
the woman who needs to bone up on constitutional law.
the woman who can say no one knows how she'd rule on reproductive rights but signed a pledge in 1989 to do everything in her power to destroy abortion rights.
she's a mystery.
she's a riddle.
harry reid loves her.
some reports have him suggesting her to bully boy.
more likely he just said she was some 1 he could live with.
and why not?
1) he's not a woman.
it's not his rights that could be curtailed.
why should he care?
the empathy that was once a hallmark of the democratic party left a long time ago.
we're left with self-contained dopes who can't see past themeselves and have no spine.
where have all the flowers gone?
long time passing.
where have all the real democrats gone?
long time passing.
long time ago.
when will we ever learn?
when will we ever learn?
where have all the real democrats gone?
where have all the real democrats gone?
long time passing.
long time ago.
when will we ever learn?
when will we ever learn?
harriet miers is a croney.
that alone should be enough to worry people.
with all the cases winding through the courts questioning bully boy's right to be king and declare law by royal decree, her being a bully boy croney should worry people.
her inexperience with constitutional law (and lack of awareness of it) is only more frightening when you realize that she thinks bully boy is like totally groovy! or whatever dopey things she wrote him repeatedly in her private mash notes when she was supposed to be heading the lotto commision and not sucking up to the governor.
this is a woman with a really bad haircut who dresses badly. that's not a problem with a judge if you're talking about someone who's spent their lives studying the law and focusing on that. it could show dedication. but she hasn't done that.
so we're left with a fashion disaster who's a fundamentalist and probably skirting the guady with her inept choices.
bully boy sold her on her religion, and her 'heart' which he can peer into like he did with his buddy 'pooty' (putin). so is her religion effecting her clothing choices? probably. bully boy probably knows that as it effects her 'fashion' choices, it will effect other areas as well.
which brings us back to the issue of choice.
her answers in the 1989 survey shouldn't disturb, they should frighten.
while the right worries that she may be a souter, the left hangs on to the hope that she is.
despite all the indications that she isn't.
have we forgotten that the right thought we were entering a 'winnable war'? why do we place so much importance on their judgement of harrie?
the enemy of my enemy does not necessarily become my friend.
but a lot of people want to act that way. a lot of people want to pin their hopes (and the court's future) on the fact that some right-wingers are outraged by mier's nomination.
the left would be better served by examing the known details.
harriet miers
supreme court
the common ills
the woman who would be judge.
the woman who needs to bone up on constitutional law.
the woman who can say no one knows how she'd rule on reproductive rights but signed a pledge in 1989 to do everything in her power to destroy abortion rights.
she's a mystery.
she's a riddle.
harry reid loves her.
some reports have him suggesting her to bully boy.
more likely he just said she was some 1 he could live with.
and why not?
1) he's not a woman.
it's not his rights that could be curtailed.
why should he care?
the empathy that was once a hallmark of the democratic party left a long time ago.
we're left with self-contained dopes who can't see past themeselves and have no spine.
where have all the flowers gone?
long time passing.
where have all the real democrats gone?
long time passing.
long time ago.
when will we ever learn?
when will we ever learn?
where have all the real democrats gone?
where have all the real democrats gone?
long time passing.
long time ago.
when will we ever learn?
when will we ever learn?
harriet miers is a croney.
that alone should be enough to worry people.
with all the cases winding through the courts questioning bully boy's right to be king and declare law by royal decree, her being a bully boy croney should worry people.
her inexperience with constitutional law (and lack of awareness of it) is only more frightening when you realize that she thinks bully boy is like totally groovy! or whatever dopey things she wrote him repeatedly in her private mash notes when she was supposed to be heading the lotto commision and not sucking up to the governor.
this is a woman with a really bad haircut who dresses badly. that's not a problem with a judge if you're talking about someone who's spent their lives studying the law and focusing on that. it could show dedication. but she hasn't done that.
so we're left with a fashion disaster who's a fundamentalist and probably skirting the guady with her inept choices.
bully boy sold her on her religion, and her 'heart' which he can peer into like he did with his buddy 'pooty' (putin). so is her religion effecting her clothing choices? probably. bully boy probably knows that as it effects her 'fashion' choices, it will effect other areas as well.
which brings us back to the issue of choice.
her answers in the 1989 survey shouldn't disturb, they should frighten.
while the right worries that she may be a souter, the left hangs on to the hope that she is.
despite all the indications that she isn't.
have we forgotten that the right thought we were entering a 'winnable war'? why do we place so much importance on their judgement of harrie?
the enemy of my enemy does not necessarily become my friend.
but a lot of people want to act that way. a lot of people want to pin their hopes (and the court's future) on the fact that some right-wingers are outraged by mier's nomination.
the left would be better served by examing the known details.
harriet miers
supreme court
the common ills
10/20/2005
harriet miers unqualified now, still & always
the cartoon is from isaiah's "celibacy in the city" (the world today just nuts) and i'll get to harriet miers in a minute.
but first, i was on the phone with mike this evening and we'll both end up getting a late start. but c.i. gave a heads up to the interview mike did with wally. last night, i was on the phone with kat and we were both checking and checking for it. i'm glad i finally gave up because it didn't go up until late this morning.
it's up now and it's wonderful. i had to call mike to tell him congrats because it is a really strong interview with humor and a lot more. wally is someone i got to know when he praised my site at the common ills and then started e-mailing me. he's funny and he's deep and he's only 19. he can veer into silliness 1 moment and then make the wisest comment in the world the next. i hope he never loses either quality.
i knew he lost his father because that came up during an e-mail exchange early on but i did not know it was when he was 8 years old or how. c.i. will ask those questions and always tries to encourage me to do the same. (c.i.'s been encouraging me to do the same for years.) but i just go tongue tied on those things.
am i prying? am i bringing up an unpleasant memory? will i say something that i mean to sound helpful but will end up sounding hurtful?
so i don't usually ask questions regarding death and illness and wait for someone to share their feelings instead. that's not a good way to handle it.
but if you want to know wally's story, read the interview mike did. warning, it may make you cry. i was crying so hard by the time wally was talking about the nurses, that i had to take a minute before continuing to read. there are things you read that touch you and you carry them with you and mike's interview with wally is 1 of those things.
so please make time to read it.
and don't forget to check out wally's site, the daily jot.
sherry likes it a lot and the interview as well, as she noted in her latest e-mail. but she does not like the idea that some strangers thought they could write to c.i. and try to get my phone number.
sherry says if that happened to her, if some guy she'd never met or seen, was contacting her friends for her phone number, she'd be worried. i agree that it crosses a line.
the guy's defense would be, 'well i wrote and she didn't write back.' because i was on vacation and if the guy really read my site like he claimed, he would have known that. instead he's off to c.i. with another e-mail, like centrist ed's, where i'm spoken of in the 3rd person.
sherry asked if that was the only thing pissing me off these days? no.
i'm pretty pissed about the nonsense that harriet miers is supposedly being criticized in a sexist manner. now i don't watch fox news, i don't read a right wing magazine or columnist.
so maybe i'm missing it. but i know timid democrats and i know when someone starts saying 'sexism' then spineless ones get afraid to speak out.
criticizing harriet miers as unqualified is not sexism. she is unqualified.
but ever since diane finestein goes on the chat and chews and says 'sexism' all the sudden people can't criticize. i called 1 of my reps today and the assistant says 'well he feels that miers isn't the right person either but needs to say that carefully.'
biggest bunch of crap i ever heard.
miers isn't qualified. she'll never be qualified. not because she's a woman and with 2 women on the court right now, i don't know any 1 who'd be stupid enough to make the lame argument that women can't be judges.
she's not qualified because she's never done a damn thing with her law degree but suck up. she sucked up to bully boy, she sucked up to corporations. she's not very smart and that has nothing to do with being a woman, she's not very smart because she's stupid and doesn't care that she is stupid.
is she a lesbian? i got an e-mail asking about that. i don't know, i don't care. we've already got 1 life long bachelor on the court so having 2 wouldn't be earth shattering.
but pointing out that the press nonsense about her and that male judge supposedly being romantic is a bunch of crap isn't homophobia. she's had over 40 years as an adult to have a relationship if she wanted. she didn't want it. and like isaiah pointed out in the wonderful celibacy in the city, those right wing christians who preach no sex before marriage have to live with what they preach.
so she may be a lesbian, she may be a virgin, she may be a hyporcrite who tells every 1 else not to have sex while getting it herself.
she needs to be scrutinized. john roberts should be scrutinized.
in case anyone missed isaiah's the world today cartoons on john roberts, you'll see the charlie brown stripe across his chest even when he's shirtless. why? because the point isaiah was making in those cartoons was every 1 was acting like he was good old charlie brown and not pressing him for answers.
that includes diane feinnstein who embarrassed herself during his confirmation hearings.
so i'm not in the damn mood to hear diane feinstein talk about sexism. my attitude there is 'go see how much your husband made off the war today, diane.'
she was useless during the confirmation hearings.
i think most of the dems on the committee were. i think ted kennedy distinguished himself. i don't see much else to be impressed with.
and they better get off their lazy asses this time.
with clarence thomas he himself had to make the claim that he was being lynched. with harriet miers, all it took was laura bush to whine 'sexism' and suddenly fools like diane feinstein (and she's not the only fool) are rushing in and saying 'sexism.'
the only sexism involved is thinking she's above criticism because she's a woman.
she's not above criticism.
and she doesn't deserve to sit on the bench.
she's unable to answer a straight question. she is a cronie. she has no history.
she's not qualified.
tomorrow, i intend to start letting it rip on harriet miers. i will knock anything and everything about her. that includes her hair style which looks like someone who couldn't get hired at super cuts cut it.
how come?
because she's not qualified.
and i won't hold my tongue or watch my words.
we just put 1 enemy of roe on the court.
i will use any critique to prevent the 2nd 1 from making it.
i will mock her. i will insult her.
and if diane or any other woman wants to have a problem with that, i say screw you all. i say diane sat on her war mongering ass during roberts confirmation. i say she needs the heat turned on. and if some 1 doesn't like it, too damn bad.
it's not sexism.
but watch miers hide behind that the same way clarence thomas hid behind the charge of racism.
people need to grow the hell up. roe is too damn important and must be preserved.
harriet miers
the world today just nuts
the common ills
mikey likes it
the daily jot
10/19/2005
go away little boys
i was on the phone with kat and we were waiting to see if mike's interview with wally would go up at mikey likes it but it must be a long 1. i want to thank kat for calling and even though she denied c.i. asked her to call, thank you to c.i. i was really depressed yesterday and poor c.i. had to hear about it for 2 hours.
it's the harriet myers nonsense.
she's not qualified. she's anti-choice. her legal experience is less than mine.
i'm serious. i rarely get tickets for speeding, even though i speed all the time, but on those times when i can't talk my way out of it, i take it to traffic court. unlike harrie, i always win my case.
i can't believe that a right so many worked so hard for, that so many died for, hangs by a thread and the general attitude among the press and our elected officials is to shrug.
by the way, let me toss this out here. on a good day, i don't need junk in the e-mail. i've got three guys (yes, all men) who've written me. i'm not reading their crap. their names have never gone up here and i can't imagine that they have anything to say that i care to read so just go away boys. i'm glad you're packing, but i don't date little boys.
that especially goes to the idiot who kept writing me while i was on vacation and attempted to get my phone number from c.i. (c.i. didn't give it out.) you need to learn how to read. you're raving over how 'smart' and 'intelligent' i am (or were in your earlier e-mails) and, big dope, you're actually praising something c.i. thought up. that's noted here in the thing you read that you just felt made us 'kindred souls.' c.i. is too modest. c.i. should have told you, the big dope wrote c.i. after i didn't respond, 'uh, that's my idea you're praising.'
i have no idea why you think i'd want to date you but i don't. so go away.
that's for every 1 who writes with their nonsense.
if you're a reader, i love to hear from you. but i'm getting real tired of opening up e-mails from bloggers and others asking me my measurements and swearing that they get me, they really get me.
do i come off like sally field here? do i really sound like i care what some stranger thinks of me?
i'll note that when elaine noted, at the third estate sunday review, that my breasts were the largest (of any of the women doing sites in the community), e-mails started coming in from blogging fellows and their friends. so since the majority couldn't read well enough to tell when i wrote something or when i linked to something, i'll guess it was the breast citation from elaine.
yes, boys, i have big breasts. yes, boys, they are real. no, boys, i have no interest in meeting you.
you don't even attempt courtship before asking my measurements. not even what might pass for online courtship, 'rebecca i really like you and your mind and especially your big breasts. as my gift to you, i've linked to you.'
these boys are all about the slap and tickle. go away and play with your blow up dolls, you have nothing to offer a woman.
my readers know that i had an abortion last year. they know that i had 1 because of a disorder the child would have been born with which would have required the child to have multiple operations and even after all of that the life expectancy would have been short.
i take roe v. wade very seriously. and it's very hard for me not to be depressed when i think of women losing our right to make the decisions we decide are needed.
i'll keep putting something up every day and hopefully i'll be out of the funk shortly but i'm really upset and bothered by the lack of outrage on the part of our elected dems regarding harriet myers' survey.
in case anyone's asking 'what survey?':
Harriet Miers Openly Opposed Abortion in 1989
This news on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers: A document submitted to the Senate yesterday shows Miers previously expressed support for banning abortion. In 1989, when Miers was running for Dallas city council, she filled out a questionnaire that shows she advocated banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Miers also said she would support legislation to ban abortions if the Supreme Court ruled states could do so, and would participate in "pro-life rallies and special events." The questionnaire was written by the group Texans United for Life. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein responded to the revelation by saying: "The answers clearly reflect that Harriet Miers is opposed to Roe v. Wade."
it's the harriet myers nonsense.
she's not qualified. she's anti-choice. her legal experience is less than mine.
i'm serious. i rarely get tickets for speeding, even though i speed all the time, but on those times when i can't talk my way out of it, i take it to traffic court. unlike harrie, i always win my case.
i can't believe that a right so many worked so hard for, that so many died for, hangs by a thread and the general attitude among the press and our elected officials is to shrug.
by the way, let me toss this out here. on a good day, i don't need junk in the e-mail. i've got three guys (yes, all men) who've written me. i'm not reading their crap. their names have never gone up here and i can't imagine that they have anything to say that i care to read so just go away boys. i'm glad you're packing, but i don't date little boys.
that especially goes to the idiot who kept writing me while i was on vacation and attempted to get my phone number from c.i. (c.i. didn't give it out.) you need to learn how to read. you're raving over how 'smart' and 'intelligent' i am (or were in your earlier e-mails) and, big dope, you're actually praising something c.i. thought up. that's noted here in the thing you read that you just felt made us 'kindred souls.' c.i. is too modest. c.i. should have told you, the big dope wrote c.i. after i didn't respond, 'uh, that's my idea you're praising.'
i have no idea why you think i'd want to date you but i don't. so go away.
that's for every 1 who writes with their nonsense.
if you're a reader, i love to hear from you. but i'm getting real tired of opening up e-mails from bloggers and others asking me my measurements and swearing that they get me, they really get me.
do i come off like sally field here? do i really sound like i care what some stranger thinks of me?
i'll note that when elaine noted, at the third estate sunday review, that my breasts were the largest (of any of the women doing sites in the community), e-mails started coming in from blogging fellows and their friends. so since the majority couldn't read well enough to tell when i wrote something or when i linked to something, i'll guess it was the breast citation from elaine.
yes, boys, i have big breasts. yes, boys, they are real. no, boys, i have no interest in meeting you.
you don't even attempt courtship before asking my measurements. not even what might pass for online courtship, 'rebecca i really like you and your mind and especially your big breasts. as my gift to you, i've linked to you.'
these boys are all about the slap and tickle. go away and play with your blow up dolls, you have nothing to offer a woman.
my readers know that i had an abortion last year. they know that i had 1 because of a disorder the child would have been born with which would have required the child to have multiple operations and even after all of that the life expectancy would have been short.
i take roe v. wade very seriously. and it's very hard for me not to be depressed when i think of women losing our right to make the decisions we decide are needed.
i'll keep putting something up every day and hopefully i'll be out of the funk shortly but i'm really upset and bothered by the lack of outrage on the part of our elected dems regarding harriet myers' survey.
in case anyone's asking 'what survey?':
Harriet Miers Openly Opposed Abortion in 1989
This news on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers: A document submitted to the Senate yesterday shows Miers previously expressed support for banning abortion. In 1989, when Miers was running for Dallas city council, she filled out a questionnaire that shows she advocated banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Miers also said she would support legislation to ban abortions if the Supreme Court ruled states could do so, and would participate in "pro-life rallies and special events." The questionnaire was written by the group Texans United for Life. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein responded to the revelation by saying: "The answers clearly reflect that Harriet Miers is opposed to Roe v. Wade."
10/18/2005
harry, harry, harry
so it turns out harriet miers is anti-choice.
shocked!
simply shocked!
who would have known?
who could have known?
anyone not in a coma.
isn't it about time harry reid started finding something to say other than, 'you go, girl!' everytime harriet miers comes around?
he does realize that he's a democrat, doesn't he?
he does realize that it is his job to oppose anti-choice nominees, doesn't he?
of did the fact that the party made a huge mistake and picked an anti-choice democrat as a leader translate to him as 'screw reproductive rights, they want me for my anti-choice stance?"
it's sickening.
bendy buddy harry reid is no democrat's buddy if he can't find his spine. the drawing is by isaiah. one of his the world today just nuts comics.
hope everybody checked out beth's column at the common ills last night.
the common ills
harry reid
the world today just nuts
10/17/2005
torture
i hope everyone's checking out wally's site the daily jot. i love wally and not just because he's written me some of the nicest, most encouraging e-mails. he's a common ills member who got active and helped suggest links and other things. he's one of the active members who really help shape the community. so please check out his site.
sherry asked me which cd i liked better of the 2 we reviewed for 3rd estate sunday review?
it's hard because they're both beautiful cds, dolly parton's those were the days and the cowboy junkies early 21st century blues. but the 1 i've listened to repeatedly today was dolly's so that's my pick for today. on another day, it might be different. but that's my choice for today and i've included the picture of dolly's latest cd in this post.
i don't have much to say tonight but i do want to note a thing c.i. did:
The Sunday Herald (Scotland) had news and Ava was intending to report on it in "The Third Estate Sunday Review News Review" but everything came to a halt. (Another reason to focus on what's important, my opinion.) We'll cover it here.
Neil Mackay's "Britain sued for 'complicity' in torture:"
One of the world’s leading human rights lawyers is to sue Britain for its 'complicity' in the torture of terror suspects who have never been convicted of a crime.[. . .]
And the former American spy chief who devised a controversial scheme for snatching terror suspects and imprisoning them has criticised its use as a means of delivering them to US-friendly countries for torture.
The developments all focus on "extraordinary rendition flights", which take terror suspects abducted by the US from all over the world to countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Uzbekistan, where they are tortured.
In one case, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi -- a British resident from Ethiopia -- was captured in Pakistan. He claims he was visited in prison by two MI6 officers after he was tortured by Pakistani interrogators, who told him that he was going to be sent to an undisclosed Arab nation for more torture.
Later, Habashi was flown to Morocco on one of the CIA's fleet of Gulfstream jets used in renditions. There he says he was subjected to appalling abuse, the worst of which involved his interrogators cutting his private parts with a scalpel.
[. . .]
Habashi's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, OBE, who is acclaimed in both the USA and UK for his human rights work, is now to sue Britain for breaching the Convention on Torture. Stafford Smith said: "The UK was complicit in this process. What happened to Benyam was morally wrong and stupid. People will say anything when you take a razor blade to their genitals."
That's the overview. Mackay has other articles on this that we're excerpting from. Former American spy chief? That's probably a good place to start. How did America get into the "extraordinary renditions" process? From "These two men are experts on rendition: one invented it, the other has seen its full horrors:"
IF there are two men in the world who know about "extraordinary renditions" then they are Michael Scheuer, the CIA chief who invented the programme, and Craig Murray, the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan who saw first-hand the devastating consequences for British intelligence of using renditions.
In exclusive interviews with the Sunday Herald they blew apart any justification for the rendition system, saying the US government deliberately refused to opt for a legal alternative to renditions which was presented to the President by the CIA and that the programme undermined Western democracy, damaged the prosecution of the war on terror and "contaminated British and US intelligence".Michael Scheuer
CIA officer and special adviser to the chief of the CIA's bin Laden department until November 2004
In 1995, in the wake of the 1993 car-bomb attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, Scheuer was the main CIA officer charged with hunting down Islamic terrorists believed to be posing a threat to the US. He was the "go-to guy" for all things al-Qaeda.
President Clinton's National Security Council had asked the CIA to break up al-Qaeda around the world and to arrest and imprison key operatives. "The Agency is a tool of the President so of course we said "yes"," Scheuer explains at his home near the CIA's HQ in Langley, Virginia. "We asked how we were to do it and where we were to take them, and they said "it's up to you"."
The CIA has no prisons and no powers of arrest, so Scheuer was presented with something of a problem. The programme of renditions he developed was very different to the system which now operates.
Today, anyone suspected of links to terrorism can be snatched anywhere in the world, put on a secret CIA jet and taken to a country, such as Egypt, for "out-sourced" torture.When Scheuer developed his programme he stipulated strictly that only suspects who had been tried in absentia for terrorist offences or had an outstanding arrest warrant were to be targeted. "They had to be part of some legal process," Scheuer says. "We were focusing on a very narrow segment of al-Qaeda. It was very delicate and complicated."
The target also had to be perceived as a direct threat to the US by the CIA and the department of justice and the country in which the person was to be seized had to support the action and carry out the arrest. Today there only has to be the suggestion they are involved in terrorism -- no convictions or warrants are needed, nor is the permission of another country.
Even more crucially, Scheuer's rendition programme stated that snatched suspects would be taken to the US as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Clinton administration, however, says Scheuer, forbade this, insisting instead on sending captives to whatever nation had tried them or had an outstanding warrant for them. "To give them PoW status would have given them credibility, in the eyes of the administration, and they didn't want that," Scheuer says.
Scheuer was in charge of the snatch operations from 1995, when the first target was seized, until June 1999. In that time, some 50 were captured. Since 9/11 there have been 150 to 200 snatches. "The primary intention was to get the guy off the streets so he couldn't carry out any more atrocities against US citizens," he says."Our second goal was to seize documents along with the suspect and exploit them for intelligence. Finally, we never expected to get anything from interrogations. Al-Qaeda are trained to fight the jihad from their jail cells , they are masters of counter-interrogation. They'll give you old information or false information. The CIA never felt it would help to torture these people."
So that's some of the history. (It's an excerpt. Read the full article.) Now let's focus on Mackay's "One victim's story" which gives a human face to the torture:
]
He laughed at them, and the Americans told him that if he didn't start talking, he'd be taken to an Arabic country and tortured. When they left, angry at his refusal to talk, the Pakistanis came into his cell. He was beaten with a belt and had a gun stuck in his chest. In comparison to what he was to go through later, this was nothing.After his beating, two MI6 officers came into the room. In a statement taken by Stafford Smith in Guantanamo Bay, Habashi says: "They gave me a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in it. I initially only took one. 'No, you need a lot more. Where you are going, you need a lot of sugar,' they said.
"I didn't know exactly what [the MI6 officer] meant by this, but I figured he meant some poor country in Arabia. One of them did tell me that I was going to get tortured by the Arabs."
This is the first time evidence has come forward to show British intelligence directly co-operating with torture – in this case the torture of a man claiming political asylum in the UK. Previously, the UK was thought only to have offered logistical support in the torture of terror suspects, allowing planes ferrying captives held by the Americans to regimes such as Egypt and Syria where they would be tortured, to refuel at airports such as Glasgow International.
The Pakistanis then gave al-Habashi to masked American soldiers. A report by Stafford Smith reads: "They stripped him naked, took photos, put fingers up his anus and dressed him in a tracksuit. He was shackled, had earphones put on, and was blindfolded. He was put into a plane." He landed in Morocco eight hours later.The Americans told al-Habashi that they wanted him to give evidence against Jose Padilla, an American who has been in custody awaiting trial for three and a half years, accused of planning to plant a "dirty bomb" in the US. They also wanted him to give evidence against senior al-Qaeda figures in captivity, including Abu Zubaydah, the number three in the terror organisation, and Khalid Sheikh Moh ammed, the mastermind of 9/11. The Americans told him they believed he was al-Qaeda's "ideas man" -- an accusation that Stafford Smith says is "beyond absurd".
Al-Habashi was then confronted with the Moroccan torture team. With a macabre flourish, some even wore bondage-type masks to give the torment an added mediaeval flavour. Stafford Smith says: "The British government was complicit in some of the abuse that took place against Benyam, at least to the extent that the government told the Moroccans information that they would then use against him in the torture sessions." The Moroccans knew about his personal fitness trainer, what grades he got at school, where he studied and where he lived.
Until now, it has never been alleged that British intelligence aided and abetted torture by passing information to interrogators, which was then used to question suspects. Lying in his cell, al-Habashi says in his statement: "I was not of this world. I did not believe this was real, that this was happening to me. It never, never crossed my mind that I'd end up being hauled half-way across the world by the Americans to face torture in a place I had never been -- Morocco."
Finally, (if there's a fifth story, I didn't notice it and neither did Ava), Mackay's "TORTURE FLIGHTS: THE INSIDE STORY:"
THEY could be walking the streets of Sweden, Italy, Albania, Indonesia or Pakistan. They are kidnapped in broad daylight, hooded, drugged, shackled and placed on a jet operated by the CIA. When they wake they find themselves in a country such as Morocco, Egypt or Uzbekistan -- where torture is the currency of the interrogation room. The CIA hand the captive to the local secret police, and the prisoner disappears off the face of the Earth. If they are lucky, they will emerge a few years later in a cage in Guantanamo Bay, broken by beatings, rape and electrocution ... if they are unlucky, they are never seen again.
America's "extraordinary rendition" programme targets suspected Islamic terrorists, captures and delivers them to US-friendly nations which are quite happy to use torture to get the information the US wants for the war on terror.
Neil Mackay's reporting matters. He and his paper (Scotland's Sunday Herald) deserve credit for covering this issue with something more than an occasional piece (the way the New York Times does the reporting of Raymond Bonner on this topic).
I'll add that Jose Padilla is an American citizen. He hasn't been given a trial after three years. We know that. We all know that (in this country). We can pretend we don't and we act like it's not happening but it is happening and, from Mackay's reporting, we know that some of the torture has been used to attempt to get information on Padilla. If after three years they've got no information that allows them to feel they have a winnable case, the government appears to have no case. Padilla should have been granted a trial years ago. The continued refusal to allow him to stand to trial is a shame on the country (United States).
For Bonnie, last evening's entries were "Reporting from outside the US mainstream media" and "Reporting from outside the US mainstream media focused on Iraq."
neil mackay
scotland sunday herald
torture
extraordinary rendition
the common ills
dolly parton
cowboy junkies
10/16/2005
wally's new site, the big rip off and a nature & science report
it's sunday. you're getting an entry. don't you feel lucky.
first off i'll note that wally has started his own site called the daily jot. you love wally, i love wally, check him out.
second, we're still at work on the third estate sunday review. we're about to take an extended break to get out of ava & c.i.'s way so that they can do one of their tv reviews. but we need to finish up a post. we want illustrations for that so we'll post them here and then carry them over to the third estate sunday review.
why are we so behind? the news review was halted before it was done. dona wanted to be sure c.i. was comfortable with continuing. why wouldn't c.i. be comfortable? because it appears c.i. may have been ripped off. (yes, martha, it would be by the person you hate.) (martha was the one who e-mailed third estate about the possible rip off.) c.i. was fine with it.
i know dona was surprised by that but c.i. can handle that junk. i don't doubt that c.i.'s more ticked off than we know but c.i. handles things like this differently. not by stuffing it down, but more along the lines of an edith wharton novel (as ava pointed out). to pull a c.i. 'translation' the rip off artist may find some doors closing in their face. like in a wharton novel, the character will never even see it coming until it's too late. so we took a long break during that because dona was worried.
if it had been me that was ripped off by that person (this would be 3 times now that the rip off has ripped off the common ills), i would be up in arms. but c.i.'s got more control and probably better social graces. the social graces are what will lead to doors closing for baby rip off. baby rip off has often ripped off others and screamed and yelled when called on it. c.i. won't go for a confrontation with baby rip off, c.i. will just ensure, via friends, that baby rip off finds that some of the once welcome homes no longer leave their porch lights on for baby rip off. all baby rip off had to do was say 'while reading the common ills this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that . . .' instead, as usual, baby rip off tries to act as though they invented the wheel.
baby rip off got away with it in the past. in some ways baby rip off will again. but in ways that matter, baby rip off's about to get the cold shoulder.
i had the misfortune of giving the report right after the break. it was so tense because everyone was pissed off except for c.i. and everyone thought c.i. was going to crack or something under the strain. (well, elaine knew better but mike was wondering if we'd even be able to turn out an edition.) dona and jim were saying 'there won't be any questions, c.i. will just go to you and then say thank you and move on to the last report to finish up.' i didn't think that would happen and it didn't. leave the tantrums to baby rip off, c.i.'s cool as a cucumber and can eat baby rip offs for breakfast.
here's my section of the third estate sunday review news review:
C.I.: Noted. That was Ava of The Third Estate Sunday Review. And note that was Ava's statement, so take it up with her or The Third Estate Sunday Review. I can guess who the person was but I haven't read the piece so I've made no statement on it. For myself, I'll state that I didn't do any "reporting," I merely listened to friends at The Times. Let's move on. Rebecca, of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude.
Rebecca: In Japan, they're entertaining a plan to put microchips in "dangerous animals" such as crocodiles. AFP reports that in Australia, plans are in place to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger by using bones and teeth for cloning. The Irish Examiner reports that nine people in Turkey have been tested and released after no sign of bird flu was found in their systems. The nine lived in the area where Turkey's bird flu outbreak occurred. In Jefferson, Texas, almost four hundred people gathered for a conference on Big Foot. Australia's ABC reports that a German team believes that they have found a brain belonging to a Hobbit. United States researchers disagree. The Independent of London, on the same topic, reports that"at least nine more "hobbits" - a miniature species of human discovered two years ago - have been unearthed by scientists excavating the floor of a cave on a remote Indonesian island. "
C.I.: Rebecca, The Independent has a story on the measures England will take if they have a bird flu outbreak.
Rebecca: Right. Let me first note this from Geoffrey Lean and Severin Carrell in The Independent:
The likeliest scenario is that the mutation will take place in China and South-east Asia, and be carried to Britain by a passenger on a commercial flight. Professor Oxford warns it could arrive here just a day after beginning to spread widely in Asia.
No fully effective vaccine will be ready in Britain in time for the first wave. Instead, the Government is relying on building up stocks of anti-virals, like Tamiflu, which may blunt its effects. But Britain dithered last March in ordering the drug, which means that it will not have enough if the pandemic arrives in the next year.
Rebecca (con't): The article you're referring to is also by Geoffrey Lean, "Schools to close and sport banned if bird flu hits." From that article:
The plans allow for: closing schools, theatres and public buildings; cancelling mass gatherings such as sporting fixtures; suspending international flights from infected countries; deploying police to deal with public disorder; setting up special centres to dispense the anti-viral drug Tamiflu; and encouraging people to observe basic hygiene.
Rebecca (con't): Here in the United States, Bully Boy continues to push the "turn it over to the military!" nonsense and we don't appear to be any closer to a plan of response.
C.I.: Thank you, Rebecca. Due to the time we used on The Times, we're running short so Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man and Kat of Kat's Corner will do a joint entertainment report. Betty, why don't you start.
the third estate sunday review
like maria said paz
mikey likes it
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
kats korner
the daily jot
the common ills
first off i'll note that wally has started his own site called the daily jot. you love wally, i love wally, check him out.
second, we're still at work on the third estate sunday review. we're about to take an extended break to get out of ava & c.i.'s way so that they can do one of their tv reviews. but we need to finish up a post. we want illustrations for that so we'll post them here and then carry them over to the third estate sunday review.
why are we so behind? the news review was halted before it was done. dona wanted to be sure c.i. was comfortable with continuing. why wouldn't c.i. be comfortable? because it appears c.i. may have been ripped off. (yes, martha, it would be by the person you hate.) (martha was the one who e-mailed third estate about the possible rip off.) c.i. was fine with it.
i know dona was surprised by that but c.i. can handle that junk. i don't doubt that c.i.'s more ticked off than we know but c.i. handles things like this differently. not by stuffing it down, but more along the lines of an edith wharton novel (as ava pointed out). to pull a c.i. 'translation' the rip off artist may find some doors closing in their face. like in a wharton novel, the character will never even see it coming until it's too late. so we took a long break during that because dona was worried.
if it had been me that was ripped off by that person (this would be 3 times now that the rip off has ripped off the common ills), i would be up in arms. but c.i.'s got more control and probably better social graces. the social graces are what will lead to doors closing for baby rip off. baby rip off has often ripped off others and screamed and yelled when called on it. c.i. won't go for a confrontation with baby rip off, c.i. will just ensure, via friends, that baby rip off finds that some of the once welcome homes no longer leave their porch lights on for baby rip off. all baby rip off had to do was say 'while reading the common ills this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that . . .' instead, as usual, baby rip off tries to act as though they invented the wheel.
baby rip off got away with it in the past. in some ways baby rip off will again. but in ways that matter, baby rip off's about to get the cold shoulder.
i had the misfortune of giving the report right after the break. it was so tense because everyone was pissed off except for c.i. and everyone thought c.i. was going to crack or something under the strain. (well, elaine knew better but mike was wondering if we'd even be able to turn out an edition.) dona and jim were saying 'there won't be any questions, c.i. will just go to you and then say thank you and move on to the last report to finish up.' i didn't think that would happen and it didn't. leave the tantrums to baby rip off, c.i.'s cool as a cucumber and can eat baby rip offs for breakfast.
here's my section of the third estate sunday review news review:
C.I.: Noted. That was Ava of The Third Estate Sunday Review. And note that was Ava's statement, so take it up with her or The Third Estate Sunday Review. I can guess who the person was but I haven't read the piece so I've made no statement on it. For myself, I'll state that I didn't do any "reporting," I merely listened to friends at The Times. Let's move on. Rebecca, of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude.
Rebecca: In Japan, they're entertaining a plan to put microchips in "dangerous animals" such as crocodiles. AFP reports that in Australia, plans are in place to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger by using bones and teeth for cloning. The Irish Examiner reports that nine people in Turkey have been tested and released after no sign of bird flu was found in their systems. The nine lived in the area where Turkey's bird flu outbreak occurred. In Jefferson, Texas, almost four hundred people gathered for a conference on Big Foot. Australia's ABC reports that a German team believes that they have found a brain belonging to a Hobbit. United States researchers disagree. The Independent of London, on the same topic, reports that"at least nine more "hobbits" - a miniature species of human discovered two years ago - have been unearthed by scientists excavating the floor of a cave on a remote Indonesian island. "
C.I.: Rebecca, The Independent has a story on the measures England will take if they have a bird flu outbreak.
Rebecca: Right. Let me first note this from Geoffrey Lean and Severin Carrell in The Independent:
The likeliest scenario is that the mutation will take place in China and South-east Asia, and be carried to Britain by a passenger on a commercial flight. Professor Oxford warns it could arrive here just a day after beginning to spread widely in Asia.
No fully effective vaccine will be ready in Britain in time for the first wave. Instead, the Government is relying on building up stocks of anti-virals, like Tamiflu, which may blunt its effects. But Britain dithered last March in ordering the drug, which means that it will not have enough if the pandemic arrives in the next year.
Rebecca (con't): The article you're referring to is also by Geoffrey Lean, "Schools to close and sport banned if bird flu hits." From that article:
The plans allow for: closing schools, theatres and public buildings; cancelling mass gatherings such as sporting fixtures; suspending international flights from infected countries; deploying police to deal with public disorder; setting up special centres to dispense the anti-viral drug Tamiflu; and encouraging people to observe basic hygiene.
Rebecca (con't): Here in the United States, Bully Boy continues to push the "turn it over to the military!" nonsense and we don't appear to be any closer to a plan of response.
C.I.: Thank you, Rebecca. Due to the time we used on The Times, we're running short so Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man and Kat of Kat's Corner will do a joint entertainment report. Betty, why don't you start.
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