11/04/2005

the summer became the fall

this is a friday post. consider yourself lucky. elaine called every 1 today saying she'd gotten about 100 e-mails asking why the community wasn't blogging and everyone's going to try to get something up tonight. anything.

hello, i have been blogging! i don't think i missed a day this week.

but you had people participating in the world can't wait events and that was a midweek thing. i am fully aware that c.i. crawled from the sick bed to the computer day after day at the start of the week but not every 1 has that kind of determination.

people write when they can.

i'll write a little about victim of romance. if you missed it, c.i. reffed a song from michelle phillips' victim of romance this week. it was in 'other items' and i'll grab it and copy it here.

There's a "White House Memo" that Carl e-mails about. He wonders whether it will get the sort of ridicule that it deserves and that a "White House Letter" by Elisabeth Bumiller would? Good question.
It's entitled "Press Secretary on Trial in the Briefing Room" and attempts to provide you with the crashing waves that have threatened the love tunnel that exists between the press and Scott McClellan. Stretch praises him. Elite Fluff Patrol squad member Richard W. Stevenson blows air kisses. See, Scotty said Karl Rove and Scooter Libby weren't involved in the outing of Valerie Plame and now that the "public record" demonstrates that this false, poor Scotty and poor press just aren't sure, as Dionne Warwick once sang, what to do with themselves.
It's a tough time for both sides. All those expectations. All those laughs. Could it all be coming to end? He fed them, they stroked him. It was a mutal love affair born of self-interests on both sides. So Stevenson uses terms like "unwilling or unable" (is he charting on patients?) to attempt to explain the bind Scotty finds himself in (although it applies equally as well to what passes for the press). If Scotty comes out and speaks the truth (highly unlikely considering the administration he serves in), Karl Rove might go ballistic on him.
What's Scotty to do?
Stevenson frets and worries.
It's all so very "Victim of Romance:"
Homeroom studyhall
I knew that I was gonna fall
Late at night I weep
Mumble in my sleep
Yeah knock on wood
Say I never felt so good
Heaven above
It must be love
Victim
Victim
I'm a victim of romance
Sing it, Stevenson, sing it!
("Victim of Romance" is written by John Martin. I'll plug Michelle Phillips' version which is available on the album of the same name and which Hip-O Select released this year on CD.)
"A member of a prominent Texas political family, he was viewed by many reporters when he took the job as genial and straightforward but difficult to knock off the White House's talking points," Stevenson all but sobs into pillow.
Stevenson reassures us that, in all the madness, Scotty's high roaded it and "has instead appealed to the better instincts of his journalistic inquisitors." Yes, he can't stop singing "Victim of Romance:"
Cold blooded felony
Murder in the first degree
It's a crime
What he's done to my spine
It certainly is. It certainly is a crime what Scotty's done to Richie's spine. A victim . . . a victim. . . Stevenson's just a victim of romance.
Hopefully, it will all be worked out in time for home coming. I'd hate to think Richie might miss getting pinned by Scotty.

if you know the song, you were probably laughing hard. i went through the day humming the song. so tonight i've just been listening to the album. relaxing. i'm staying in tonight.

'fly boy' - as mike has nicknamed my ex-husband - will be over later. but i've mainly just listened to michelle phillips and otis today. danced around the place, singing along.

i know a lot of people hate the cold. c.i.'s one. fall rolls around and c.i.'s already singing 'all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray' but i really enjoy the fall and the winter as well.

i usually lag in the heat and stay indoors during the summer unless i'm trying to get a tan. i always tease c.i. because when it gets cold (or c.i.'s idea of cold), it's hibernation time. i think c.i.'s o.d.ed for too many years on vitamin d from the sunlight.

i'm joking but really c.i. loathes fall ('everything's dying') and winter ('everything's dead') and c.i. doesn't experience a real fall or winter for that matter. the temperature drops below 70 and c.i.'s grumbling about the 'cold.'

i love the cold. i love the way it stings your face when the wind blows. i know a lot of people do hate winter but i'm 1 of those people who just really loves the snow.

'it's snowing!' i'll squeal. same way i did when i was a kid.

i'll squeal 'it's snowing!' even if i'm all by myself. then i'll call every 1 i know to tell them it's snowing and usually they aren't as excited as i am. elaine will usually play along but she'll note 'do you realize how many accidents happen in the snow' and i'll have to say, 'talk to me as a friend, not as a medical professional!'

today i was thinking about how it would be snowing soon and went outside to look at the leaves in all their golden beauty. i spent about an hour outside just walking around and taking in all the colors. i was so happy i was singing 'baby as you turn away' to myself.

now. you're gone. this road i walk upon is just another place for me to hide.
still. my man. there's proof of who i am except without your love i'm dead inside.

i think that's a bee gees song. i was never a big fan of bee gees - or a non fan of them - but i really love michelle phillips' version of 'baby as you turn away.'

so is that all you did today? just sit around listening to music and then strolling around outdoors?

no. i did an extensive beauty regime and the women will know that's time consuming. i don't have to worry about my hair too much because t is the best and she always takes care of it when i go into the salon and makes sure i'm using the right products at home. but i did have to get rid of some dead skin and i was also in the mood for some deep pore cleansing and probably over did that actually. then i rotated the clothes in the closet to make sure all the winter stuff was visible because if i can't see it, i don't think to wear it. i cleaned and tidied the house.

the intent was to clean it but i got so caught up in otis and michelle that i kept stopping to sing along and dance around that i lost interest in serious cleaning and just started doing the tidying up. i'm 1 of those clean as you go types so there's usually not a great deal to do.

and of course, i watched democracy now.

there was a discussion of the ohio vote and let me be lazy and go see if c.i. has a link to that at the common ills that i can swipe.

there are 2 links.

1) "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?: A Debate on Ohio One Year After Bush's Victory"
2) "Mark Crispin Miller: "Kerry Told Me He Now Thinks the Election Was Stolen"

so here's the gist, john kerry thinks the election was stolen. he told mark crispin miller that. i'm not surprised by that. he pretty much said that in january (the 18th?) of this year. but when mark crispin miller talked about this, the other guy in the debate who was a 'cautious type' suddenly grew animated and was full of suggestions that john kerry should write an op-ed in the washington post or the new york times.

why?

do you really think they'd print it?

the times? adam cohen has disappeared from the op-ed pages and he was writing a series on the election. i don't think they care.

i'm not saying john kerry shouldn't go public with his feelings. and i understand that an op-ed in the times means a lot. one firm i worked for always celebrated when we placed an op-ed in the times. it's a big deal and it gets attention. nationally.

the washington post doesn't. with the post, you're getting the dc crowd's attention.

if you want to reach the nation with an op-ed, the times is the way to go.

but i'm confused as to why the cautious type feels that the new york times has any interest in running an op-ed by john kerry on this subject?

i'm also confused as to why a similar idea didn't come up re: john edwards. if john edwards feels the election was stolen, shouldn't they also be recommending that he write an op-ed?

or is it that since he's not a senator no 1 really cares what john edwards has to say?

i think the election was stolen. we were in boston election night and we were seeing photos via cell phone of people standing in line still in ohio waiting to vote when the polls were supposed to be closed. as john kerry said back in january, the machines weren't where they needed to be and the long lines . . .

the cautious type writes for mother jones. my ex, fly boy, used to read that magazine all the time. it's a good magazine but they've been dismissive of the election for some time now. probably because they have the timid mouse todd gitlin on their staff.

but they did an editorial ridiculing people for questioning the election totals not all that long ago.
i don't think any 1, after that, is going to look to mother jones for a solid story about the election.

it's a good magazine but when you scorn readers they're not going to look to you for coverage on the issue you mocked.

and watching the debate, it was interesting to see the cautious guy insult people and organizations (like the free press who did a great job covering the election). at 1 point he denies 1 story based upon the fact that he spoke to a guy involved and the guy says he's 'a liberal democrat' as though that would prove anything or even be true.

i also gritted my teeth as he abused the concept of theory because elaine's been very big on 'use hypothesis' due to the assault on science.

the guy was just dismissive of everything and then, like a press whore, the minute mark crispin miller talks about what kerry said to him, the guy is all excited. and suddenly he's offering remarks like 'i didn't say it wasn't possible' and watching i thought, 'you have spent this whole time shooting down mark crispin miller, degrading the free press and now, because of something john kerry said, you're all excited.'

mother jones is alternative media but i don't think the cautious type knows that. if he did, the word of 1 'name' (john kerry) wouldn't be weighted so much.

so that's my friday post. i posted. you have something and you don't need to rag on people to elaine about how there aren't enough posts lately. you heard about my day, music, the seasons and democracy now.












Posted by at

11/03/2005

heads up to a new review by kat

starting late tonight. the reason is i've been on the phone with kat. for 2 hours.

i'm not joking. she turned in a mammoth review of stevie wonder's a time to love and asked c.i. for editing help. c.i. had recommended some cuts and then kat wanted more. then more. she's still not sure enough has been cut. so she wanted to know if it was okay to read it to me over the phone and get my opinion.

a) i was flattered and b) i love her album reviews so of course the answer was 'hell yes!'

she read it and it blew me away. i love her writing.

she says that she feels like it could still be tighter.

she loves stevie wonder but this isn't a "great album, stevie!' review and that's probably why she's so on edge about it.

which isn't to say she's worried about any 1's reaction. kat could truly care less. 'it is what it is' is her motto. but she struggled over whether or not to turn in the review on carole king's the living room tour because she hated that album and she loves carole king. it's the same thing, my opinion, going on here.

after 90 minutes, i asked her if she'd read it to my ex who was over. she agreed and he was laughing out loud several times. he told her it was a great review but she's still got her doubts.

i marvel at people like kat and betty who work and work on 1 thing, debating each clause and word. i know ava and c.i. will put a lot of work, in very little time, into their tv reviews but i also know c.i.'s truly 'it is what it is' when it comes to something at the common ills. ironically, 'it is what it is' is a kat phrase.

jim will say 'why did you include that opening paragraph to the members, the thing would be so much better if you start with the second paragraph' and c.i. will respond, rightly, that the common ills is a resource/review and not some writing show case.

c.i. is a great editor with tremendous skills (much more so than a mutual friend who's an editor at a newspaper i won't name but if you're reading this, you have no editing skills at all). but the common ills takes a lot of time and if c.i. held out for perfection, nothing would go up there. but over at the third estate sunday review, dona, jim and c.i. will go over and over a piece when there's time for it. jim will tell you that c.i. has saved pieces that were crap by restructuring them. when c.i.'s really tired, it will be like barking out orders - 'take the fifth paragraph and make it the lead, drop the sentence in the final paragraph, use the last four words in the mid-section to develop a transition and get jimmy olsen in here on the double!'

but the common ills is a conversation and it's a private conversation between members taking place in a public space. jim hates that argument but gina & krista came up with it and they love it and so does c.i. i think it's the perfect description of the common ills.

kat is consumed with a review sounding right. she wants it to sound like a conversation but like a really good 1. i think it has a lot to do with being creative. i don't have that bent. i can market but i never considered public relations to be creative. i know right now betty is obsessing over a piece that if she posted it, people would laugh and think it's incredible but she's called about 1 phrase twice tonight. i've told her it's perfect but she wants something else in there and feels that the phrase is a betty phrase and not a betinna 1.

so tomorrow morning, unless kat pulls it to work on it some more, look for a review of stevie wonder's a time to love at the common ills. that's my heads up and really all i have time for tonight.






Posted by at

11/02/2005

world can't wait drive out the bully boy regime

world can't wait. i hope every 1 participated that was able to. that was the point c.i. kept making in the gina & krista round-robin, that no one needed to feel guilty if they were at a job where missing work would mean losing it.

mike, elaine and i went to new york to join ava, jim, dona, ty and jess. and yes, my ex-husband went along.

betty wasn't able to participate. as she noted in the round-robin, with her kids and the way sick time works at her job, she can't afford to take off. a lot of people probably had similar problems and none should feel guilty. but those who could participate, i hope you did.

i was really impressed with the turn out, with the level of energy and the level of committment.

if it were up to the people, and not congress, i think bully boy would be impeached right now.

and let's hear it for the young people in america because, despite what gas bag cokie roberts thinks, they do participate.

for me, the thing comes back to the people. taking part in this made me aware of not only how out of touch our elected leaders are with the people on the invasion/occupation of iraq, but also how out of touch they are on the people's feelings about the bully boy.

the media will be silent of course. they're interested in propping up the bully boy. especially now that they think they can 'lead' him since, for the first time, he really needs them. you can hear the gas bags offering advice.

bully boy won't take it. he's an idiot. their olive branch will be dismissed.

but the people don't want an olive branch, they want him out of office.

my grandmother told me yesterday if she was 10 'or even 5 years younger' she'd want to tag along. he's got to be the most disliked occupant of the oval office we've had.

but the media wants further deregulation and there's all that money to be made in the selling of analog so don't expect to read the truth in your paper or hear it on your tv.

there were lots of wonderful signs. some were the green ones, professionally made, that said 'world can't wait' and i grabbed one of those but my favorite was 2 signs that read 'flowers' and 'not bushes.' i think 2 women carried those but i was too far away to tell for sure. (they had the signs mounted on sticks so they were held high.)

i meant to check in with cedric because i knew he wanted to participate in his area but i haven't had a chance and in c.i.'s area, the thing is probably just winding down.

i haven't even checked the e-mail. we got back here and i had to return a few calls that came in today and my ex checked out things online. he says wally has a powerful piece and i intend to read that and read some e-mails tonight.

i hope every 1 who was able participated and if you weren't able to don't beat yourself up. if you were and didn'y, instead of getting lost in could-have, should-haves, remember this feeling the next time you hear about a rally.

i'm more than a little hyper tonight, in case you didn't notice. the people were amazing. d.c. was great in spetember but i just felt like i was surrounded by even more energy today. it's like another step on the path and the summer of activism has lit a fire. cindy sheehan sparked us to more action. she put a face on the body count that bully boy tried to keep hidden and as 1 woman demanding an answer, she exposed the hollow bully boy and his empty posturing for what it was.

my ex reads all the community websites (and of course knows elaine and c.i. and has for years). when he read the 100 voices piece on the d.c. protests, he said he wished he'd gone. he's jazzed as well and singing a song that i don't recognize but was probably performed today. i bring him up because when third started noting the summer of activism, he asked if we were 'reporting' or 'leading.' as if you can't do both.

but i told him that was the mood and if he wasn't getting that, he needed to leave the country club and get out in the real world. he was in it today and saw what the common ills community has been noting. i'm saying the common ills community not just to recognize all the web sites by members but also all the comments by members who don't run websites. you go back and read members comments at the common ills (or go through the gina & krista round-robins) and you'll see that the mood changed. i think cindy sheehan sparked action and give her full credit.

i also give credit to the voices that spoke out often and early on. but if you got your news from nbc nightly news, nightline or the new york times, you may see the mood today and scratch your head. the shift wasn't as sudden as big media likes to pretend. it's been developing.

and it was so exciting today to see that. i think we're seeing serious dissastifaction being voiced strongly and i think the administration may get a pass from the congress but the public isn't going to stand for it. maybe our elected leaders will get the message in the 2006 elections?

let me close by noting democracy now because, before my vacation, i was going to try to note something positive so that the screeds didn't leave one feeling hopeless. if you watched democracy now, you weren't surprised by the events of today or this summer. you were informed. so watch democracy now. or listen to it or read it. real news programs still exist, you just can't find them on the big networks.

i'm updating the blogroll to add brian conley's alive in baghdad as c.i. (and the community) have requested as well as corrente which i meant to add last week.












Posted by at

11/01/2005

ted koppel go away already

The indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak investigation was major news. Libby--who promptly resigned from his position as Dick Cheney's chief of staff--is portrayed in the indictment as repeatedly, and deceptively, claiming he learned about Valerie Plame Wilson's classified status at the CIA from reporters. This explains why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was so adamant about getting reporters to testify.After Friday's announcement of the indictments(10/28/05), however, some journalists seemed to think that the story was not so newsworthy. On ABC's Nightline, Ted Koppel devoted only a few minutes to the indictment before beginning a scheduled town hall meeting on disaster preparedness. Koppel offered the following explanation:
"Scooter Libby's indictment today is indisputably a major story. It was the lead on all the television network news programs earlier this evening. It will be the object of banner headlines in all of your morning newspapers tomorrow. As for its real impact on the lives of most American, though, not much. Not really. That's the strange thing about our business, the news business. Often, what seems so important to us, reporters that is, is of little or no consequence to many of you."
Why Libby's indictment is "of little consequence" is worth some explanation. Valerie Wilson's job at the CIA was preventing the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; if blowing her cover jeopardized that work, then this story certainly does affect all Americans.

the above is from an e-mail fair sent out. (you can sign up to get their alerts. i recommend you do.)

ted koppel's so annoying. henry kissinger's best friend has never been a 'brave journalist.' but since he doesn't do live remotes from aruba, people have mistaken his dullness for 'integrity.'
integrity doesn't lead to be embarrassed this year when your mash notes to henry kissinger are made public.

integrity doesn't allow for bullshit claims of 'we were all wrong.' we weren't all wrong. and if ted koppel had any 'integrity' he'd apologize to the american people.

when he leaves his crappy show we'll see tributes (c.i. and were laughing about this today - i hope that cheered up c.i.) and we'll all be called on to applaud him for his service. but he's been a schill for his friends for years.
1 of the guests who's been on nightline the most is henry kissinger, which tells you a great deal.

if he was a real news person, he would have featured anti-war voices and he would have seriously examined the case for war. he didn't and he didn't.

he was 1 more cheerleader and he can't take responsibilty for his actions.

retired? he should be fired. for journalistic malpractice.

instead, he's headed over to hbo where hopefully no 1 will watch him.

a friend said to me today, 'but becky, when we get the crap that replaces him, you'll feel different.'

no, i won't.

i'd prefer crap to disinformation given an air of dignity.

crap is crap. some people like it, some people don't. but most people know it's crap.

with ted koppel's bullshit, people bought into it.

you can hear them whining 'oh ted's leaving' when they should be applauding.

it's been big business, war machinery and other nonsense at nightline. nightline has not served the people or featured them.

and let's be really clear here, this is a program that devoted not just an episode to the anniversary of the crappy film animal house (a favorite of matt cooper which gives you an idea of what a piece of crap it is), ted also 'probed' madonna over 'justify my love.' this was a hiar above a barbara walters special so let's not kid.

republicans wanted to cripple jimmy carter and ted koppel was there. republicans wanted to smear bill clinton and ted koppel was there. scooter libby is indicted and ted koppel is where?

he's bullshit, he's always been bullshit just like he's always looked like a freak with big ears.

pull his ass of the air already.





Posted by at

10/31/2005

about 'the daily...'

C.I.: That is a very important point. Thank you, Elaine and Mike. Scooter Libby indicted for a number of counts -- perjury, false testimony, etc. -- in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson who went public to expose Bully Boy's 16 word lie in the 2003 State of the Union address regarding "British intelligence has recently learned that Sadaam Hussein sought" yellow cake from Niger. Also, quickly, Eric Schmitt's "An Influential Bush Insider Who Is Used to Challenges" rightly pointed out that Scooter Libby is not just Cheney's chief of staff. Scooter was "assistant to the president, chief of staff to the vice president and Mr. Cheney's national security advisor." Now we go to Rebecca, of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, offers us a look at the news from the world of science. Rebecca?

Rebecca: C.I., Steve Connor notes in the UK's Independent that last week Prince Charles of England declared "climate change was one of the greatest problems" facing the world. As England experiences a surprisingly warm October, Connor reminds that "[t] exceptionally hot, dry summer of 2003 is estimated to have resulted in about 35,000 extra deaths in Western Europe." Are any guys drinking hard this Halloween weekend? If so, you might want to know that a recent study in India found it can effect sperm and increase difficulties in having children as well as in getting erections. Erectile dysfunction? In this day and age of Viagra? The consumer organization Public Citizen is asking the FDA "to add warnings to the labels of Viagra and other impotence drugs, noting that some users have gone blind." Is Tony Blair politically impotent? Marie Woolf reports in "Blair caved in after secret royal memo on badger culling" that a snap of the royal fingers by Prince Charles, or in this case a letter, and Tony Blair goes into lapdog mode, panting with a frenzy he usually reserves solely for the Bully Boy. A leaked memo results in the latest embarrassment for Blair. Prince Charles wrote Blair that a thinning of the badger population would meet with his approval due to his belief that this would reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis from badgers to cattle.

C.I.: Thank you, Rebecca. Now for a report from Flordia, we go to Wally of The Daily Jot.


that's from the third estate sunday review news review.

wally didn't post today so i called him to check up. he's fine but they were low on gas for the generator so he left early and it was a long, long wait. he said about 3 hours. so when he got back, he was hot and tired and just not in the mood for the daily jot. he was going to call c.i. to pass it on but then was reading the common ills and saw that c.i. was feeling really sick so he didn't want to be another phone call c.i. would either have to dodge or put on a happy face for.

i'm amazed by how little is being done to help the people in florida and by how little the national press seems to care.

are we suffering compassion damage? we gave all we had as a nation to the victims of hurricane katrina and now we just don't want to be bothered?

i think it's far more likely that we're suffering from a lack of saturation coverage on this topic. the news media seems to all be gearing up for their own vacations (the senate starts their vacation shortly) and they feel like they covered katrina so now they can be lazy again.

that would explain their shoddy coverage of the scooter libby indictment which they treat like 'oh well.' they should be out digging for information and instead they just wait for it to come to them.

sunday, we worked on 'the daily.' if you haven't read it, you should.

i already had e-mails about the topic so i told everyone going in that i would write about the process on that piece. hope i'm not stepping on any toes.

that took forever. it was supposed to be a parody and we handled that pretty well (ava, c.i. and betty were the comic chefs but wally and mike and jess also had some strong stuff in there as well and ty had some serious contributions that were just amazing). then it was time to add the stuff surrounding the parodies.

most people know c.i. but i don't think they really know . . . by that i mean, if it's a process, and this was a process, anything can get tossed out and because it's people brainstorming, fine. but when it's time for the piece to be finalized, not so.

(c.i. tells a story about ann wilson, or used to, and the process she and nancy wilson - the rock group heart - go through to write a song which is toss it out there and just keep pressing on and then at the end refine.)

some of the commentary around the parodies was rather 'tart' (kat's word) and kat and c.i. were especially concerned about that. c.i. wanted to know if we were doing a parody or an expose?

and i think it's a good question. c.i. likes bob somerby and feels bob somerby has not been as forthcoming as he should be but felt the parodies had addressed that and that the other stuff was belaboring a point and also not as funny.

the 'old man' line was 1 that kat questioned but since it was supposed to be funny, she went along with that.

there was a conclusion to the piece and c.i. said 'take my name off of this if that's in there.'

c.i. felt is was 'lacerating' to somerby and also that it sunk the piece. that was the c.i.'s biggest criticism about the commentary throughout. c.i. said the jokes are structured in such a way that if you do more between them than joke, you're blowing the jokes and turning a sitcom into a dramedy. so the inbetween's were reworked (and elaine got in 2 funny jokes during that!).

jim wanted the introduction and the conclusion in but dona, as we reworked the commentaries, saw c.i.'s point and argued that we didn't need both. so jim went with the opening.

i don't know. on sunday morning, i was agreeing with jim but i called him today and offered that i thought the parodies nailed it and that the commentary at the start kind of made it more difficult to get the laughs rolling in the first parody. jim agreed with me.

he said he was thinking with a 'news man's cap' and what ava and c.i. do is social commentary that's entertaining and makes it easier to swallow. he thinks their might be too much of a 'news' attempt in that piece. i asked if he and dona had talked about it and he said not yet becuase it was obvious to him that dona was right and he'd tell her that tonight but was in no hurry to start the day with 'honey, you were right.'

the piece does work. but jim and i both think it would work more if we'd followed c.i. and ava's suggestions. and probably if betty hadn't had to bail, she goes to church sunday mornings, we would have had another voice that could have persuaded us. (betty participated in the writing, just not in the editing.)


it's funny and the e-mails i've gotten on it demonstrate that people are laughing but when we do the piece for next week (which is already planned) we'll go more for jokes that make you laugh and make a comment and leave it to that.

that's really what we did with 'watchdog daily' and that worked very well. here, it's almost like, 'okay let's explain everything for you so that when the jokes come, you'll get them.'


so those are our thoughts now. jim thinks in terms of news and i just wanted to get it all out, to be honest. i'm tired of it.


as most people have surmised, this isn't a case for c.i. or for me where we disagree with a view that's been expressed at bob somerby's site. we often do. this runs a little deeper than that. (and the parodies convey that judging from the e-mails - in fact sherry and lila have guessed it and they both got it from 1 of the parodies so the commentary at the beginning wasn't needed.)

i want to quote cedric's things on rosa parks but i'll do it tomorrow because i've felt tired all day and probably the smart thing to do is to turn in.









Posted by at

10/27/2005

bye bye harrie

so harri miers is no longer a nominee? celibacy in the city ends it's run and you have to wonder, with the little resistance you saw to harri, if democrats are going to fight next time?

or will they again stand on the sidelines while harry reid vouches for harri miers? he was vouching for her again today. does he not get that america, right & left, felt she was unfit?

the only 1 who did anything was now and kim gandy. i saw a lot of sitting on the sidelines otherwise.

so i'm not real impressed with supposed brave voices.

sherry's not only unimpressed, she's flat out furious and thinks that if this is how the 'opposition party' is going to work we might as well just call off the 2006 elections because it's just a waste of money.

stacy e-mails to say she did talk about amy goodman's interview with janis kaprinski in all of her classes today. she said history and english class were the 1s where she found the most interest from teachers and the class.

stacy requested that i quote from the interview again.


AMY GOODMAN: So, 90% of the people at Abu Ghraib, though, not charged, brought in, just being held indefinitely.
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: And I think it's important to separate the category of detainees that we're talking about. 90% of the security detainees, these so-called terrorists, associates of terrorists or individuals who may have information about terrorism, they are tagged as security detainees, and they're the ones who are being subjected to interrogation.
The other part of the population is the Iraqi criminal population, small – small crimes, non-violent crimes, looting, missing curfew. We had an effective release policy in place with my signature to release these prisoners after they had served an appropriate amount of time. And even in those cases, probably 75% or 80% of those individuals didn't have a piece of evidence in their file that would hold them or convict them in a U.S. court, but the security detainees, there was no release process -- effective release process in place for them.
AMY GOODMAN: The Geneva -- the ghost detainees, is this the only time you believe you broke the Geneva Conventions?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, I will tell you that all of the prison facilities were right on the line, not in terms of how the prisoners were being treated, but the conditions were very austere. We were keeping prisoners in the outside camps only for as long as we needed to because the temperatures were 120 degrees, 140 degrees by noontime, so I would say that we were very close to being in violation of fair treatment and humane treatment of detainees.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever speak directly to Donald Rumsfeld?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: No, I -- Yes, he came to visit, and I expressed my concerns about the conditions in the prisons. I spoke directly to Ambassador Bremer nearly every week. I spoke to General Sanchez at least once every week, reported it in the updates and the night time briefings to General Wojdakowski, who was the deputy at CJTF-7, about the lack of funding, even the basic supplies: a basin for washing, a change of clothing, and the funding that was supposed to come from the prisons department at Ambassador Bremer's headquarters. We never saw one-tenth of the funds that we were supposed to receive. So, we were close to violating, but not for abuse or torture.

over at the daily jerk off he's still trashing joe wilson. does any 1 wonder where the daily jerk off gets its take on the news? i don't.

by the way, has any 1 else noticed that the daily jerk off hasn't mentioned the 2,000 milestone? hasn't discussed the way the press has covered, or not covered, it? besides sliming joe wilson yet again, he's, once again, back on election 2000. does the daily jerk off not grasp that wars are waging? or does he enjoy sitting in his rocker, afghan under the chin, saying, 'gather round, kiddos, and i'll tell you about 5 years ago 1 more time'?

while the daily jerk off self-pleasured yet again, c.i. had a really strong commentary that i wanted to note:

As has been noted on Law & Disorder and Democracy Now!, you're talking about prisoners who've been held for years, with no trial and little hope of getting out. This is their way of protesting and taking action when no other action is left to them. We could do something about it (other than force feeding) but that would mean living by the prinicples our nation's supposed to stand for.
Instead, we lock people away without a trial and no hope of release. Then when they take one of the only stands left for them to take, we further the indignity by force feeding them. (After denying for months that a hunger strike was even going on.) What will future generations think when they look back on this?America, the supposed nation of rule of law, detained, imprisoned people with no trials (including children under the age of eighteen) and left them there. Kept them there with no end in sight.
Threw out the Constitution because, the administration argues, it doesn't apply to Guantanamo.
Nothing applies to Guantanamo, it's not part of the United States. If you buy that argument (I don't), what of the people working at Guantanamo? Are they not part of the United States? Are they not bound by the laws and principles of this country?
[. . .]
Let's note Amy Goodman's interview with Janis Kaprinski from yesterday's Democracy Now!:
JANIS KARPINSKI: The only person that I spoke to individually after General Miller's visit – briefing, his in-brief, that initial briefing, I went to find the JAG officer, the legal officer, lawyer, who was with General Miller, and she was -- I believe she was a major and she had been working down at Guantanamo Bay. So, I asked her, I said, "What are you doing about releasing the prisoners down at Guantanamo Bay?" And she said, "Ma'am, we're not releasing prisoners. Most of those prisoners are going to spend every last day of their lives at Guantanamo Bay. They're terrorists. We're not releasing them." And I said, "Well, what are you going to do? Fly their family members over to visit them?" She said "No, these are terrorists, ma'am. They don't get visits from home." And that was -- that was absolutely shocking, thinking about the fate of these, what we believed was, several hundred prisoners down there, 680 prisoners spending every last day of their lives at Guantanamo Bay, and particularly important because that meant that military police would be guarding them for the foreseeable future.There's a little truth that doesn't make the news, mainstream. "We're not releasing prisoners."
Are we really surprised that after several years with nothing, no trial, no end in sight, that people would decide that a hunger strike that could result in death was the last act open to them?

while the daily jerk off lectures you 1 more time about election 2000 and ignores the actual events of life today, it becomes more and more useless. i'll probably pull the daily jerk off from my links in the next few days. c.i. is always the optimist and keeps thinking that the daily jerker will get honest. i've lost faith in that.

i was just about to post when betty called. she just posted and was wondering if i'd read it and let her know what i thought? never a problem. it's hilarious as always. i want to pull the last paragraphs and quote those but i don't want to spoil something by risking that someone seeing the excerpt might not have already read it. but go read it.











Posted by at

10/26/2005

few bad apples get punished while the tree that bore the fruit still stands

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.












Posted by at

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.





Posted by at

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.











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.
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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.



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
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!"








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