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Depends on the definition of final solution OK, someone explain this to me. I'm listening to the NBC Nightly News with Brian "Not Tom Brokaw" Williams, and they play a scratchy, barely audible 33 year old recording of Richard Nixon and Bob Haldeman talking in the Oval Office. Haldeman just told his boss that W. Mark Felt, the number two man at the FBI, was leaking damaging information about the Watergate break in to the press. Let's go to the tape: Nixon: Is he Catholic? Haldeman: (unintelligible) Jewish. President Nixon: Christ, put a Jew in there? Haldeman: Well, that could explain it too. Now cut to Williams: "Voices from another era, in the Oval Office, discussing the Watergate break-in." Yeah, real ancient history there, Brian. What does that mean, "from another era"? Do paleontologists speculate about how Richard Nixon might have looked? Or are we talking about a time before Hitler set Europe to fire and turned Jews into cordwood? Of is Williams excusing Nixon, and his Republican spawn, as in "The times made them do it. Everybody else was dissing Jews. How was Nixon to know that anti-Semitism was so uncool?" Those were the days Why are the major daily newspapers all but ignoring real news (Downing Street memo, Bolton intelligence report, etc.)? John Soto has an answer: I guess they ... had to make room for all those nostalgic "Deep Throat" pieces as a testament to a time when we really had an investigative media that paid more attention to important contemporary stories than they did to ones from 8 years ago about sex in the White House.Let the major media cover the identity of Deep Throat, but skip the gauzy nostalgia and give us context. But the media won't go there. Deep Throat in context is as much about legacy media then, and the corporate shills that pass as news departments now. And one thing big news is really bad at is self examination. |
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1.6.05 00:09 |
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Harmful books From our friends at Human Events online, the top ten books for starting a campfire: The Communist ManifestoOh hell, I'm too depressed to finish the list. Go read it yourself. What kills me is that the people who put these lists together are the same folks who tell us guns aren't dangerous, because guns don't kill people, etc. OK, I agree with that. Guns can be used for good or evil, much like chemicals, automobiles, or Rob Schneider movies. So why doesn't the same idea apply to books? Even an odious work like Mein Kampf has value, if only to give us a glimpse of how the fascist mind operates. Chairman Mao told us guerilla fighters are like fish swimming in a sea of peasants, who provide logistical support. Are you listening Donald Rumsfeld? Also, if you can stomach linking to the Human Events site, scroll down to the list of also-rans: books that scare wingnuts, but not enough to push Kinsey aside. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson didn't quite make the cut for top ten dangerous books, but would have made a top 30 list for sure. Carson's book, which was the subject of my master's thesis, relied on scientific facts to argue against indiscriminate use of pesticides, and called for such dangerous practices as integrated pest management. Hat tip to Milwaukee blogger Folkbum. |
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2.6.05 17:10 |
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Book meme From the lovely and talented Harini, a book meme: Number of books in my collection: Maybe a hundred or so. I tend to give them away when I'm finished. Last book bought: Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. Last read: Just finishing up Where the Right Went Wrong by Pat Buchanan. Buchanan holds liberal views on foreign and trade policy, and makes mincemeat of the neo-con taste for Democratizing the Arab world. But he's a mouth-breathing wingnut on social issues. A challenging book for anyone who still thinks in terms of "right" and "left", which makes the title somewhat ironic, don't ya think? Five books that mean a lot to me: A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Howard Miller. Probably because I don't read that much science fiction anymore, and this is such a classic of the genre. More that just a post-apocalyptic tale of human politics, greed, and corruption, Miller's story is planted firmly at the intersection of science and morality, with enough Catholic doctrine to suspend disbelief. A great read. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque. One of our family rituals growing up was to walk to the bookmobile, which appeared magically in the parking lot at the Cork Lane Shopping Center every Monday night. When I was 11 or so, I checked out Remarque's novel, my first "adult" book. The Vietnam was was raging then, and I was just old enough to be hip to the undercurrent of youthful rage against Nixon, the war, and American society in general. This book fueled the rage then, and does the job now. Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. I could go on and on about this little gem. In fact I did, nearly 100 pages worth in my master's thesis at Marquette University. Carson's seminal work signalled a sea change on how the press, and then the public, viewed corporate America's chemical war on nature. But this is far from a tree-hugger's manifesto. There's nothing shrill or unreasonable about this book, and Carson relies more on science, rather than just emotion to make her point. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or anything else by Mark Twain. If you want to understand America, read Twain. I don't mean the gauzy, evangelical George W. Bush America. I mean the America of common sense, and courage, and folk wisdom that pours out of every little town and big city in America. If I was George W. Bush, I'd burn Twain's books. Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. Frankl spent five years in one of Hitler's death camps, and he uses that experience, plus a first rate intellect, to fashion a philosophy of living that optimistic and realistic at the same time. No small feat in the modern world. And now I pass to torch to Blogenlust, Doc Saaron; Folkbum, Dave's Blog, and 201K. |
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3.6.05 23:24 |
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Money changers for Christ Jeff Sharlet's Harpers piece on a mega-church in Colorado Springs, which you can read here, is getting the attention it deserves. Over at Slactivist, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, gets a lesson in scripture: "They're pro-free markets, they're pro-private property. ... That's what evangelical stands for."Good stuff. Bush's base  Update: My brother who lives in N. Carolina says the Baptist minister who put up this sign has apologized |
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4.6.05 04:25 |
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The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind. The First approached the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: ?God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a WALL!? The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, ?Ho, what have we here, So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ?tis mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a SPEAR!? The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: ?I see,? quoth he, ?the Elephant Is very like a SNAKE!? The Fourth reached out an eager hand, And felt about the knee ?What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,? quoth he: ??Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a TREE!? The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: ?E?en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a FAN!? The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, ?I see,? quoth he, ?the Elephant Is very like a ROPE!? And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!  Bush disassembles Can you spot the mistake in this statement, made by President Bush at last week's press conference: In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir.Ok, that's not fair, because the whole statement is chock full of wrongheadedness. But look at the word "disassemble." That doesn't have anything to do with truth. The word Bush needed was "dissemble": dissemble \dih-SEM-buhl\, transitive verb: 1. To hide under a false appearance; to hide the truth or true nature of. 2. To put on the appearance of; to feign. Four years ago, Bush's faux pas would have been fodder for the nightly news and late night comics. Hell, the White House didn't even bother to doctor up the quote to make Dear Leader look smarter than he is. If I know the difference between "disassemble" and "dissemble", then the Ivy Leaguers at the White House must surely know. But we are in Bush's second term, and we've stopped caring. I guess it would have been news if he used the right word. Update: The Chicago Tribune disassembled Bush's quote, and used the correct word, "dissemble", without comment. Because it's the media's job to make the President look good. Hat tip to Orwell's Grave Crying Wolf In case you haven't caught the flap between Tom DeLay and a TV fictional crime drama, here goes: A few weeks ago, Law and Order featured a story (did I mentional fictional story?) about the murder of a judge. One of the fictional detectives on the show, whose dialogue is often used to drive the narrative that tells the fictional story, lamented the lack of leads in the case with this quip: "maybe we should put out an APB for a guy in a Tom DeLay t-shirt." Tom Delay went ballistic, and blasted L&O's producer Dick Wolf for partisan warmongering. Wolf told DeLay to go have intimate, non-procreative relations with himself. Now there's a sequel. A right-wing advocacy group called the Free Enterprise Fund, passed out hundreds of Tom DeLay t-shirts to capital hill staffers last Thursday. The backside read “Who’s Afraid of Dick Wolf?” Here's the punchline:: “The implications of this incident go well beyond the culture wars,” Free Enterprise Fund Vice President Lawrence Hunter said. “NBC has now joined a witch hunt to discredit Tom DeLay and the agenda he represents that already includes partisan prosecutors and judges, dozens of liberal advocacy groups and much of the news media.”Add to that awesome level of support hundreds of hill staffers who now own Tom DeLay t-shirts. Oooooohhh! |
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7.6.05 01:52 |
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Bush's base Billy Ray Johnson, a mentally retarded black man, was lured by four white youths to a Texas cow pasture two years ago. There were other good old boys at the party, and after a while, they got Johnson drunk and had him dancing, to cries of "dance, nigger, dance." Then one of the good old boys punched Johnson in the mouth, knocking him cold. So the four good old boys threw Johnson into the back of a pickup truck, and drove him to the county dump, where they threw his unconscious body on top of a fire ant mound. Wait, wait. It gets better. One of the good old boys, a fellow named Hicks who works as a guard at the county jail, later called the police to report he found Johnson lying by the side of the road. The subsequent police and FBI investigation fingered the four good old boys as the assailants. Last week, the four good old boys were sentenced for their crime. Hicks got 60 days in jail, and this three buddies 30 days each. The mayor is sympathetic: "It was a very unfortunate and senseless thing," said Wilford Penny, 73, who last month completed a 6-year term as Linden's mayor. "But I don't think there was anything racial about it. These guys were drinking, and this guy [Johnson] liked to dance. I'm not surprised when they get to drinking and use the n-word. The black boy was somewhere he shouldn't have been, although they brought him out there." Billy Ray Johnson is 42-years-old. |
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8.6.05 17:44 |
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Mad Dubya disease Here's a disturbing and angry piece by David Shuster at MSNBC.com about mad cow disease, and the Bushies who ignore the problem out of seeming deference to their campaign contributors. Mad cow disease has already laid waste to Britain's cattle industry, and Japan appears to be next. America's cattle industry experts, who apparently don't work for Bush's US Department of Agriculture, are extremely nervous about an outbreak here. Mad Cow Disease, also called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE, is caused by a mutant protein called a prion. Prions are even simpler than viruses, and almost impossible to kill. You can boil them, fry them, or expose them to temperature high enough to melt lead and, just like that creepy Jason guy in the Friday the 13th Movies, prions just keep coming back for more. Unlike Jason, who uses icepicks and garden implements to dispatch his victims, prions attack your brain, but not in a Fox News kind of way. BSE victims experience rapidly escalating dementia and then, mercifully, death. The number one route of transmission for BSE is the delightful beef production practice of feeding slaughterhouse waste to cows. That's right, US beef cattle eat bits of tissue from other beef cattle. Commercially produced calf feed, not all but some, contains slaughterhouse waste. To prevent a BSE outbreak, all the USDA has to do is ban turning American cattle into bovine Hannibal Lecters. That's what the World Health Organization suggests, but the WHO is affiliated with the United Nations, which is about as popluar with the Bushies as veggie burgers at a Texas cattleman's picnic. According to Shuster: The Department of Agriculture refuses to even consider stronger regulations that would put an end to this disgusting practice. But it gets even worse. The department is doing everything it can to assure the public that our food chain ?is safe.? Thus, we have a ridiculous pep rally like the one on Thursday at the University of Minnesota. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns will, as his press release says, ?hold a roundtable discussion regarding the safety of North American beef...? Those invited to participate include USDA officials, producers, packers, and others... Who are the others? Groups that don'?t want more testing and don?t want the government passing regulations that would make calf feed cleaner and thus slightly more expensive. In fact, consumer groups, organic livestock companies, and beef producers who oppose allowing cows to eat cow blood and slaughterhouse waste will not be allowed to participate.The Bushies are disgusting. |
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9.6.05 23:05 |
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