"They're not bringing them into school!" he was quoted saying.
He suggested that parents could call the school if there was an emergency, which they would generally do anyway when classes are in session. He did not address those times when city kids are taking public transportation between home and school. A London-style subway bombing during the morning rush could strand tens of thousands of schoolkids, panicked and unable to reach parents who were also in transit.
The attack on the World Trade Center began shortly after classes began, but the schools nearest the twin towers were evacuated. These included the High School for Economics and Finance, where the phones were ringing off the hook with calls from terrified parents. Two secretaries, Kathleen Gilson and Joan Trutneff, courageously volunteered to stay.
"No way," the principal, Patrick Burke, told them.
The secretaries left with the principal and the phones rang unanswered in an empty building as the students and staff fled. A 15-year-old sophomore from Brooklyn named Simone Press took out a cell phone she had brought to school even though it had been confiscated once as contraband. She managed to get through to her mother, Rise Press.
"I could hear her running and screaming down the block," the mother later told Daily News reporter Alison Gendar. "She said, 'Mom, people are jumping out of windows. Mom, there are body parts everywhere.'"
In the immediate aftermath, what was still called the Board of Education considered scrapping the ban on cell phones and simply requiring they be turned off. The matter was referred to a committee for study and the result was that the ban remained in force.
As a result, the renamed Department of Education begins each school day telling itself that it operates with less sway over its students than your basic movie theater exercises over its patrons. No metal detectors are positioned at cinema entrances and most patrons do not even need a prompting to turn off their cell phones.
During the afternoon showing of "United 93" at the Battery Park Stadium 11, nary a cell phone was heard to ring among the audience. The only cell phones in evidence were those being used up on the screen by the ill-fated passengers.
As true as anything else in that movie is the desperate need to connect with your loved ones in the face of terror. A reminder of the very real threat we continue to face came to the patrons departing the Battery Park cinema who gazed across West St. to the pit known as Ground Zero.
The man who ordered that attack is still at large and is no doubt plotting at this very moment to perpetrate a new horror upon us. Our schoolkids need to be able to communicate with their families as they travel through this bull's-eye called the City of New York.
...........................
But, when he adds cell phones to the list, he mars his moral authority with authoritarianism. He should chat with the kids who ride the subway with him each weekday and ask why our school system cannot impress upon them a lesson of simple courtesy taught in every movie theater
This is going to result in tragedy one day. All you need is a school shooting, forget terrorism, even a fire, and you could create panic which could be avoided if kids could use their phones to call home.
The city is headed for litigation over this, when common sense would suffice. Kisd should have access to cells for emergencies.If they answer them in class, then unless someone died, they should lose the right to use them in school.
But without the ability to communicate, and Mike Daly is not exagurating, you could really create needless tension.
Today is a perfect day, cloudless sky, 67 and sunny. You know what we call those days in New York. 9/11 days.
The kids need access to phones, for peace of mind if nothing else.
The Jets were now on the clock after their weak bid to move up for Reggie Bush failed to tempt the Saints. Matt Leinart waited in the green room for his cell phone to ring, wanted his cell phone to ring, but it was D'Brickashaw Ferguson who was soon posing for pictures with Paul Tagliabue.
Leinart didn't have to wait as long as Dan Marino in 1983 or Brett Favre in 1991 or Aaron Rodgers last year, but one call from the Jets to Leinart would have taken care of both their needs: The Jets don't have a franchise quarterback and Leinart craved the big stage of New York.
Leinart's fall to the Cardinals at No. 10 after a career that included one Heisman Trophy, two national championships and nearly a third was humbling. But at least he has a team. The Jets still don't have a quarterback.
"We spent a lot of time with Matt. He's a good person, he's going to be a good player. He's very successful," Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum said. "We just felt as an organization that the best thing to do in the four spot was to take D'Brickashaw."
Ferguson will start at left tackle right away and probably stay there for the next 10 years. But the stubbornness of the Tannenbaum-Eric Mangini regime in sticking to the New England way of doing things - is Bill Belichick running their draft room by remote control? - by refusing to use a high pick on a quarterback made this an uneventful and forgettable day for the Jets.
Chad Pennington is trying to resurrect his career after his second shoulder surgery in eight months. Patrick Ramsey was twice benched by Joe Gibbs for Mark Brunell. Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, doesn't make many mistakes at quarterback. And he gave up on Ramsey. The Jets also had Brooks Bollinger, but hardly made up for skipping Leinart when they took Oregon quarterback Kellen Clemens in the second round.
But the good thing is the Jets can now protect them from the blind side with Ferguson. And they made this a draft with a lot of star power by drafting another offensive lineman, center Nick Mangold, with their second first-round pick. They turned the John Abraham trade into a center.
So why did Leinart fall?
Arm strength. Too Hollywood. Accomplishments tainted because he played with so many great players. Not a great athlete. This, of course, overlooks the fact that he was 37-2 starting for Pete Carroll at Southern Cal. The Jets needed a face for the franchise and Leinart has the charisma.
Neither Bush nor Leinart went as high as they should. Bush has real issues with an agent and extortion and it's a mess Houston wanted no part of.
The Jets pass on a QB when they have the uber-shakey Pennington for a reason. He must have rubbed them the wrong way. Because it's not just the Jets. Green Bay, with Favre near retirement and always QB short Oakland also passed. Why? Leinart went 10th and the question is why. Why didn't Oakland take him? Why wasn't he taken over Vince Young. More than one team saw him and didn't like what they saw.
It may be another Dan Marino, but usually when teams shy away from a known player, there's something going on. There is usually an outside factor. With Bush, it's in the open. But when Oakland passes on a QB, you have to wonder why.
His agent and a GM say it was just football, but who knows. The guy won the Heisman and he goes 10th? Even if it was a red flag, it might be the kind of issue you don't discuss. It just seems off.
YONKERS, N.Y. - A 62-year-old retired schoolteacher is fighting with a cable company over a hefty bill for porn and gangsta rap programming she says she never ordered.
The charges of more than $1,000 appeared on Claudia Lee's February Cablevision bill, shortly after she bundled her cable TV, computer and phone services.
"They are harassing me and trying to make me pay for something I didn't do," said Lee, who lives alone.
She said she has been forced to pay $779 to the company and was told to pay $652 more or face having her services cut off.
"Every time I call, somebody tells me something different. They're not on the same page," she said Thursday. ........................
Lee said the only regular visitor to her house is her 81-year-old mother, "and I don't think she wants to watch porn."
They suspended this once it was all over local TV. The lady didn't look like a Jenna Jameson fan to me. Obviously this is either a billing mistake, internal fraud or someone stole her cable. But I didn't think you could order pay per view with a stolen line and no remote.
Besides, PPV porn is 9.95 here in NY, at $10 a pop, that's 100 pornos. That's a LOT of porn to watch. Maybe they have an installer selling boxes and hooking people up on the side. Because this doesn't make sense otherwise.
THE country's new leaders were only five days into their jobs Thursday morning, when a BMW filled with armed men pulled alongside a van carrying the sister of Iraq's new Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi. The men opened fire, killing Maysoon al-Hashemi, a 61-year-old grandmother.
Just two weeks before, Mr. Hashemi's brother Mahmoud, a father of six, was shot to death in a similar way. At his sister's funeral service Thursday, Mr. Hashemi walked behind her coffin and looked on as his men lifted it into an S.U.V. that then carried her to Martyrs' Cemetery in northern Baghdad. The silver-haired Mr. Hashemi turned and walked away, his head hung low. "Let's go back, guys," he said to his men. Ms. Hashemi's murder offered not just another reminder of the horrible sacrifices made by so many Iraqis who have signed on to the American-backed democratic project here. It also highlighted what has become the single most confounding paradox of Iraq's and America's three-year-old war: that the democratic process, seen as the main hope for ending the violence, has been unable to stop it. Two constitutions, two elections and a referendum later, Iraq is reeling toward more chaos, not less.
The Iraqis who gathered last week around the newly chosen prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said they saw a fresh chance to bind the communities back together and put the country on a path toward normalcy. Indeed, a sense of relief pervaded the offices of Iraqi officials, who had finally broken a deadlock over results of popular elections that took place more than four months ago.
But the question hanging over the parliamentary votes last weekend was whether the elected leaders, most of them now barricaded inside the protected Green Zone, could do anything to stop the slide toward anarchy and civil war. Two years' worth of dealmaking by Iraq's elites has proved largely irrelevant to the realities unfolding on the ground.
In northern Baghdad, Shiite families arrive regularly at the Muamal Sadr refugee camp, fleeing the ethnic cleansing that is transforming the mixed cities around Baghdad. Four months ago, the camp was a vacant lot; today, about 150 families live there, many of them in tents provided by the government.
One of the newly arrived is Kharmut Hanoon, a 40-year-old farmer from Abu Ghraib, who said he abandoned his home and a pair of wheat fields a month ago after gunmen driving Opel sedans started killing Shiites in his neighborhood. "They just drive by and shoot you," he said.
Now, Mr. Hanoon and 14 relatives share a pair of tents at the camp. "Can you imagine that anyone would ever leave his home, for any reason?" sighed Mr. Hanoon, waving a cigarette. "Only bad people and gypsies live in tents."
Mr. Hanoon said the ugliness that forced him to flee was not a passing phenomenon, but the final measure of Iraq's Sunnis. When he packed his belongings and prepared to leave, he said, not a single one of his Sunni neighbors stopped by to say goodbye.
"It's in their genes," he said. "It's a disease. They hate the Shiites. I don't think things will ever go back to normal between Shiites and Sunnis."
According to the Iraqi government, about 14,000 families — probably close to 100,000 people — have been displaced by the violence. More than 80 percent, the government said, are Shiites. About 2,000 Iraqis have been killed since the Askariya Shrine, a holy Shiite mosque in Samarra, was destroyed in a bombing two months ago.
Iraqis are urban people. They live in cities and towns. For them to live in tents is like you living in a tent instead of a house. Something very bad has happened. We can bullshit and pretend and create all kind of fake good news from Iraq, but if this isn't a civil war, what the fuck happened in the Congo when people fled for their lives? An election?
Filkins is way too kind. Elites? Try exiles who now want to play at government while people die in the process. This is about a puppet government in the Green Zone and no government outside it.
Voting only works if the government works. Elections don't mean shit if you can't walk the street without a gun
This is going to come undone really soon. How long can Sadr and SCIRI watch their people live in tents like "bad people".
By Donna St. George Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A18
Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds.
The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield.
Retired Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who lost a leg in a roadside bombing, received a letter in 2004 saying he was in debt to the government and was in jeopardy of being referred to a collection agency.
The problem came to light last year, as soldiers' complaints began to surface and several lawmakers became involved. The GAO had been investigating other pay problems caused by the defense accounting system and was asked by Congress to investigate debts among the battle-wounded.
The new report shows a problem more widespread than previously known.
"We found that hundreds of separated battle-injured soldiers were pursued for collection of military debts incurred through no fault of their own," the report said.
Last fall, the Army said 331 soldiers had been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The latest figures show that a larger group of 900 battle-wounded troops has been tagged with debts.
"It's unconscionable," said Ryan Kelly, 25, a retired staff sergeant who lost a leg to a roadside bomb and then spent more than a year trying to fend off a debt of $2,231. "It's sad that we'd let that happen."
Kelly recalled the day in 2004 when, months after learning to walk on a prosthesis, he opened his mailbox to find a letter saying he was in debt to the government -- and in jeopardy of referral to a collection agency. "It hits you in the gut," he said. "It's like, 'Thanks for your service, and now you owe us.' "
But, but we support the troops.
OH, fuck you. A decent coutry wouldn't let this happen. Unless you can grow back an arm, looking for cash from wounded GI's beggars description. It is the kind of casual cruelty one has learned to expect from the Bush Administation.
If we really supported the troops in this country,after the first few cases, this would have been solved. They don't even investigate these cases, they just send bills and dock pay.
A $243 million program led by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build 150 health care clinics in Iraq has in some cases produced little more than empty shells of crumbling concrete and shattered bricks cemented together into uneven walls, two reports by a federal oversight office have found.
The reports, released yesterday, detail a close inspection of five of the clinics in the northern city of Kirkuk as well as a sweeping audit of the entire program, which began in March 2004 as a heavily promoted effort to improve health care for ordinary Iraqis. The reports say that none of the five clinics in Kirkuk and only 20 of the original 150 across the country will be completed without new financing.
Written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office, the reports cite a wide range of factors, including disputes among Iraqi construction companies and problems with local materials, that have contributed to the program's failures. The American company Parsons, the prime contractor for the work, also comes in for stiff criticism.
But the reports' main finding is that lax oversight by the Army corps is responsible for the failure of the overall program. Cowed by security fears that the reports suggest may have been overblown, the corps sometimes inspected the work only through what it called "windshield surveys" — hasty drive-bys.
Poor cost accounting and a rapid turnover of United States government personnel in Iraq also contributed to the problems, the reports say
You cannot build where you will be killed. Uh, they kill french fry suppliers, running around checking on sites is asking to get killed.
Stephen Colbert just mercilessly slapped down George Bush from ten feet away. Bush had to sit there and smile and pretend he liked it and could do nothing to stop him. Delicious!
Colbert worked in everything--everything! He smacked down the Republicans on:
NSA wiretapping Katrina Global warming capitalist kissing up to China the Republican aversion to facts secret prisons in Eastern Europe bad reporting on WMD intelligence the complicity of the mainstream media retired generals attacking Rumsfeld the 32% approval rating Jeff Gannon Plamegate the relentlessness of Helen Thomas askig tough questions the culture of corruption
selected killer quotes (rough transcription):
I give people the truth unfiltered by factual argument. I call it the No Fact Zone. Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.
The government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.
reality has a well known liberal bias
I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, like aircraft carriers, rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong mesasge that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world!
The greatest thing about this President is you know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday!
Fox News gives you both sides of every story, the President's side and the Vice President's side.
Write that novel you've got kicking around in your head--you know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the Administration--you know, fiction!
[Jesse Jackson] is a very challenging interview... It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor by the way because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.
Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the Chocolate City... Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington D.C., the Chocolate City with a marshmallow center... and a graham cracker crust of corruption.
It may appear that he was bombing because the sheltered Fox News watching conservative crowd is unaccustomed to satire and have never heard themselves so throughly skewered before. Republicans don't know how to laugh at themselves and the scattered Democrats are afraid to laugh heartily under the circumstances, but when they get home and watch it on Tivo they'll have tears in their eyes just like me watching it from the safety of home.
I think Stephen the brilliant, the magnificent, the unparalleled, accomplished what he set out to do:
He threw barbs at Bush and Cheney and selected other targets like McCain, Rove, McClellan, and Rumsfeld. He made rude gestures at Antonin Scalia. He showered rhetorical kisses on Helen Thomas.
Most important, he told them his name and they will never forget who he is. He didn't do what liberals usually do and agree to make fun of liberals too in order to appease the crowd. He was so good that they will never ask him back. At least until the liberals are in control of Washington again.
I just figured out why I'm so happy about this performance.
He said everything I would want to say if I could force George Bush to listen to me as a captive audience for 20 minutes.
Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources.
But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws.
Such an approach would signal a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades. Leaking in Washington is commonplace and typically entails tolerable risks for government officials and, at worst, the possibility of subpoenas to journalists seeking the identities of sources.
But the Bush administration is putting pressure on the press as never before, and it is operating in a judicial climate that seems increasingly receptive to constraints on journalists.
In the last year alone, a reporter for The New York Times was jailed for refusing to testify about a confidential source; her source, a White House aide, was prosecuted on charges that he lied about his contacts with reporters; a C.I.A. analyst was dismissed for unauthorized contacts with reporters; and a raft of subpoenas to reporters were largely upheld by the courts.
It is not easy to gauge whether the administration will move beyond these efforts to criminal prosecutions of reporters. In public statements and court papers, administration officials have said the law allows such prosecutions and that they will use their prosecutorial discretion in this area judiciously. But there is no indication that a decision to begin such a prosecution has been made. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Friday.
Because such prosecutions of reporters are unknown, they are widely thought inconceivable. But legal experts say that existing laws may well allow holding the press to account criminally. Should the administration pursue the matter, these experts say, it could gain a tool that would thoroughly alter the balance of power between the government and the press.
The administration and its allies say that all avenues must be explored to ensure that vital national security information does not fall into the hands of the nation's enemies.
In February, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales whether the government's investigation into The Times's disclosure of a National Security Agency eavesdropping program included "any potential violation for publishing that information."
Mr. Gonzales responded: "Obviously, our prosecutors are going to look to see all the laws that have been violated. And if the evidence is there, they're going to prosecute those violations."
Recent articles in conservative opinion magazines have been even more forceful.
"The press can and should be held to account for publishing military secrets in wartime," Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote in Commentary magazine last month.
That means the right to a full and vigorous defense, including if there were criminal acts committed by the government. The defense would have the right to prove these prisons existed, people were maltreated in them, and any claim of secrecy was really designed to hide violations of federal and international law.
The government would have to prove harm as well.
If the government wants to debate kidnapping and torturing people as neccessary to national security, they can do so. But to expect sympathy for this is a bit much.
The government would be forced to disclose the scale, scope and nature of the NSA program as well. If they want to go to court and lose the press like they lost Hispanics, fine. But even Fox News knows that they could be at risk as well.
Judy Miller was compromised years ago. James Risen is a very different story. They try to indict him on espionage charges, the reaction will be extremely different.
When CBS sued Howard Stern, nearly every broadcaster sided with him quickly.Why? Because they realized that they could be next. This ups the ante 100 fold
But I think this is really about pre-Rove jockeying. Once he's indicted, such a move would be seen as wagging the dog.
Like many men of my age and geography, I will purchase just about anything Bruce Springsteen sells, and that includes his strange and raucous new release, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, nominally a tribute to octogenerian folksinger Pete Seeger, but more broadly another small piece in Springsteen's ongoing reinterpretation of American culture. The record covers traditional folk material - no originals. It sounds entirely live, recorded with a wide-ranging group of musicians, the errant tuba occasionally reminiscent of Springsteen's whirling, precocious early sound.
Being both a careful producer and a careful liberal, Springsteen is always controlling about both his musical releases and his statements. But this record is sloppy, haphazard. So is the message, but the results are less joyful. Because there in lineup is that old folk warhorse, the Ballad of Jesse James - and because of it, the calliope crashes to the ground.
Everybody knows the song, and perhaps in its inherent long-standing myth, there's an innocence that calls for forgiveness to actual history, at least for aging rock musicians:
Jesse James was a man And he killed many men He robbed the Glendale train And he took from the rich And he gave that to the poorer He'd a hand and a heart and a brain
History tells a different tale. Skip the heart - in history, Jesse James had a hand, and a gun, and a brain - that brain belonged to the lost cause of the Confederacy, to race hatred, and to revenge. And the gun belonged to American terrorism.
Jesse James was terrorist who killed without compassion. The record on that is clear. Oh, he wasn't the mastermind of a movement like Osama bin Laden (that honor in the Border Wars belonged to the hate killers Bill Anderson and William Quantrill), but he certainly was of the ilk of killers like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdelkarim Hussein Mohammed al-Nasser, and others on the U.S. most wanted list of international terrorists. And the U.S. government, on behalf of its terrorized civilian population in Kansas and Missouri and the midwest, hunted Jesse and his brother Frank and the rest of their gang with at least the relentless passion we now employ against killer hiding in Pakistani provinces.
Author T.J. Stiles wrote a brilliant revisionist book a few years back that tore the cover off the James myth (created largely in the 20th century, long after his death at the hands of bounty hunter Robert Ford). Jesse James : Last Rebel of the Civil War is a terrific page-turner, but it's also terrifying to those who believe in the ancient values of the American heartland, who go for the Disney view of the Civil War's aftermath, western expansion, and the deadly growth pains of our nation. It's surprising that Springsteen hasn't read it, and that musicians like Seeger and Van Morrison (who also prominently covered the ballad) don't have a clue as to the real story.
Under a greater "lost cause" movement led by Quantrill after the Confederacy to punish pro-Union supporters in Missouri, James and his ilk engaged in ritual torture, murder, scalping, dismemberment, attacks on unarmed civilians, destruction of property, and general violent mayhem. They also lined their own pockets. But James is remembered primarily because of his canny use of the media of the day, mainly pro-Southern newspaper publishers who created in him a Robin Hood figure for the lost cause of the South. "In his political consciousness and close alliance with a propagandist and power broker, in his efforts to win media attention with his crimes," wrote Stiles. "Jesse James was a forerunner of the modern terrorist."
There is nothing but religion and modern munitions technology to seperate the Quantrill/James movement of the midwest from the al-Qaeda of today. Yet, when Stiles' book reached the Amazon best-seller list a few years ago, some reviewers attacked it as "anti-southern." In an instant, you could see the distant, historic connection between the defeat of the Confederacy and its violent aftermath and the successful "Southern Strategy" of Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, which leveraged the chip on the South's historic shoulder to provide stunning electoral success - and reward the very political party that Southerners once believed had ravaged their culture forever. Steve Gillard writes about this quite often, under the banner of not letting the GOP off the hook (and I think, under the hope that the strategy is on its last legs in 2006). He has another good post on the traditional Reagan-based Stars and Bars strategem; here's a piece:
There are two Confederacys, one of history and one of imagination.
The one we deal with today is of imagination.
The one of rebel flags and the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the cult of the dead rebels.
It has little to do with reality.
The real Confederacy was closer to Biafra than Nazi Germany. A poor, break away Republic destined to be crushed by the larger neighbor.
The reason you get people like Jim Webb playing cute and George Allen praising the Confederacy has to do with how the Confederacy was resurrected in the postwar period. It was about race and integration, not history.
He is exactly correct. And it's really not such a Southern Strategy any more - as Steve has said, it's a dissatisfied, disenfranchised whites strategy nowadays, going far beyond the borders of the Southern states. But it's showing its age and fraying at the edges as well, mainly because the economic reality for so many middle class white people is so starkly disadvantaged when compared to the wealth of those who actually run the Republican Party. These days, the civil rights battles of the old South make for good tourism in the new South. I've been the Birmingham and Montgomery recently - civil rights history is bringing the tourists in.
Still, this love of Confederate myth - the glorious lost cause - persists. A few years back, I was in Charleston on business and a friend and I took a walking tour of the old part of the city. Fascinating and beautiful. But in the old church downtown, there's a memorial to the martyred sons of "the nation" - and it's ain't the United States they're talking about. My friend was horrified, and vilified the local guide - who calmly described the pre-Civil War Charleston as a city in a golden age when African-American slaves had it pretty good. We passed on the Bobby Lee statues in the gift shop and decided on a self-guided tour from that point on.
Bruce Springsteen should know better. This pining away for the Confederate past and its post-war terrorist followers shouldn't make his latest record - no matter how traditional the tune is. The hero myth should die.
In Kearney, Missouri they still hold their Jesse James Festival every year - paid for partly with municipal funds - and the official history of the town on the Web still rails against the cruelty of "the Federals." A group of citizens gives tours at the nonprofit Jesse James Farm Museum, and raises money to preserve the hallowed ground.
Tourism, I guess - maybe someday there'll be a similar set-up in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Los Angeles restaurant worker Jose Mendez says he will risk his job.
The 45-year-old illegal immigrant plans to skip work and march for immigrant rights on Monday for one reason: He hopes someday to become a legal resident of the United States. After six years here, he wants to visit the family he left behind in Mexico — without fear of arrest on his way back.
Lupe Moreno, 48, a Santa Ana social worker, American citizen and advocate for immigration control, will not join in the national boycott of work, school and consumer spending. After she finishes work, she said, she will engage in her own form of activism: purchasing a $1,000 big-screen TV to "support the U.S. economy as a proud Latino American."
And Luis Magana, a worker at the Sara Lee Bakery Group factory in Vernon, is still torn about what to do. "We want to show that our work counts. We pay taxes and help the economy," Magana said, referring to himself and his fellow workers. "But we need our jobs too." .............................
What began as a call for action by a small group of Los Angeles activists three months ago has gained dramatic momentum in recent days — with the boycott even drawing support from the California Senate. Some now see it as a measure of whether the newly energized immigrant rights movement will crest to new heights, stumble or provoke anger that hurts the cause.
The outcome is difficult to predict.
As of Friday, marches, rallies and other events were scheduled in at least 68 cities across 23 states, with hundreds of thousands expected to turn out in Chicago and 50,000 in Seattle. While turnout in Eastern cities such as Washington was expected to be light, demonstrations are expected in at least 25 California cities.
In Los Angeles, police are preparing for two major marches, estimating the combined turnout at about 500,000. One, sponsored by the March 25 Coalition of mostly Latino grass-roots organizations, is scheduled to begin at noon and move from Olympic Boulevard and Broadway to City Hall.
The other, sponsored by the We Are America coalition of labor, religious and community groups, is set to begin at 4 p.m. in MacArthur Park and proceed along Wilshire Boulevard to La Brea Avenue.
The two events represent somewhat of a split in opinion, with the Olympic march organizers supporting the worker and consumer boycott, and the MacArthur park activists taking a neutral stance. Some behind this march — including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony — oppose the boycott as counterproductive.
Locally and nationally, organizers expect to draw more diverse crowds into the streets.
In Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and members of his Rainbow Coalition have pledged to participate. And in Los Angeles, some African American community leaders, Korean American churches and businesses, Filipino workers, South Asian immigrants, Jews and Muslims have all announced their intent to march.
Organizers are urging peaceful rallies, but reports of possible walkouts by students and strikes by truckers and cab drivers, meatpackers and hotel workers, grocers and gardeners have raised concerns of havoc.
"It is going to be devastating to us because we are going to be 30,000 containers behind" if truckers don't show up to transport cargo at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Stephanie Williams, senior vice president of the California Trucking Assn.
................
A recent survey by Garcia Research, a Burbank firm specializing in Latino market research, found overwhelming support in Los Angeles for a boycott of work and consumer spending.
"After so many years of working so hard, people feel they don't have voice," said Carlos Rojas, the firm's political analyst. "They see it as a way of showing the rest of society the power and dignity of the Latinos."
Feelings are running so high in some heavily Latino areas that many employers don't feel comfortable not closing for the day.
In Maywood, where 78% of the city's 30,000 residents are Latino, "they don't want to deal with the headache of showing up for work and having fingers pointed at them," said City Councilman Sam Peña.
For some workers, the decision of what to do — to boycott or not, even to march or not — fills them with fear. But many also are excited, infused with a sense of historical destiny.
"This is so we can all walk free," said food vendor Maria Aguilar, "those of us who have papers and those who don't."
The atmosphere in other U.S. cities, such as Atlanta and Houston, appeared to be different. Organizers of boycotts and demonstrations there said recent immigration raids probably would intimidate many workers into staying on the job.
Enrique Lopez, 39, owner of Carniceria Durango in the Atlanta area, said he and his five employees would take the day off. But a large rally, he said, was out of the question. ...............................
Like many workers, small businesses owned and heavily patronized by immigrants faced tough decisions.
In the bustling produce district south of downtown Los Angeles, John Rusconi wrestled with whether to close down his Santa Maura Spice and Garlic Co. on Central Avenue. He had announced earlier that the fragrant warehouse would operate as usual on Monday but was having second thoughts.
"The customers are asking if we're sure we want to be open when no one else will be," he said.
Black activists have wanted to do this for decades and never found a single cause to rally around. Civil rights has always been about local conditions with a national cause. The civil rights bills of the 60's required national attention for local action. And local boycotts have failed miserably. There was Black Solidarity Day in the 70's, but it was unfocused towards any single goal.
I mean, they weren't going to ship us back to Africa. So progress has always been more individualized.
But talk about waking a sleeping giant, jesus. Of course, Bush tossed more logs on the fire by complaining about the National Anthem being sung in Spanish. So what? Sing it in Portuguese, Russian, German, I could care less. There is no official langauge in the US and never has been. English is merely the lingua franca, not mandated by law. You need to speak English to get ahead, but we don't have scenes like a Canadian judge speaking in French to a room full of Anglophones because it's the law.
I mean, all this blather about Mexican flags and the National Anthem is thinly disguised race baiting anyway. I mean no one complains when Dixie is played and the Stars and Bars waved. No one calls that unamerican.
Which has driven the national boycott to an amazing level. I think a lot of people are in for a shock when shit can't get done on Monday.
This is an absolutely radical step, and if even half the number of people they predict pull it off, the GOP is fucked. Josh Bolten can talk about the Border Patrol and Bush riding an ATV all he wants, he won't be getting back the Hispanic vote any time soon. Why? Because this is the kind of thing which has driven working people, people who don't take days off unless a kid is puking all night, to skip work and take to the streets.
This has gotten personal Every two-bit peckerwood who hates anyone with brown skin has been insulting these people since this mess started. Hispanics take personal dignity seriously, and Lou Dobbs and friends have been trampling on it like a rug.
I wonder when Ms. Moreno gets hard looks from her neighbors, she'll feel comfortable about buying that TV. These folks seem to be heart attack serious about this, the only debate being can they afford not to show to work. And with people willing to risk their jobs and school over this, especially in SoCal and the Southwest, this feels like something big.
I haven't seen polling on this, but of all the mistakes the GOP made, of all the dumb things they did, this could be the undoing of the party's national ambitions.
Why?
Because this sends a horrible signal to minorities, that their interests are fungiable, that they can toss them aside to appease the base, even if that could cost them support. They have worked on hispanic voters for over a decade. Bush was popular with them.
Not any more.
The base isn't large enough to counter the anger here. And the naked racism on display has been amazing, Pure hatred contenanced as political opinion. The problem for people like Ms. Moreno is that ALL hispanics have been deemed unworthy, not just illegals. And we are far away from a rational discussion on immigration and border control. We like secure borders just fine, but we can't secure them by alienating Mexico and Canada.
This could have been handled so much better, with compassion for people, especially those who turned 18 while appplying for legal status. Instead, it's time to sing the Johnny Rebel and whip out the sheets for the "base". Which means nothing will change until people stop the race baiting and name calling and look at this as a law enforcement and social issue. Not a plan to ship all the brown people back.
In response to media and other inquiries, Roy Black, Rush Limbaugh’s attorney, released the following statement today concerning a settlement agreement with the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office to end the investigation of Mr. Limbaugh:
"I am pleased to announce that the State Attorney’s Office and Mr. Limbaugh have reached an agreement whereby a single count charge of doctor shopping filed today by the State Attorney will be dismissed in 18 months. As a primary condition of the dismissal, Mr. Limbaugh must continue to seek treatment from the doctor he has seen for the past two and one half years. This is the same doctor under whose care Mr. Limbaugh has remained free of his addiction without relapse.
"Mr. Limbaugh and I have maintained from the start that there was no doctor shopping, and we continue to hold this position. Accordingly, we filed today with the Court a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ to the charge filed by the State.
"As part of this agreement, Mr. Limbaugh also has agreed to make a $30,000 payment to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation. The agreement also provides that he must refrain from violating the law during this 18 months, must pay $30 per month for the cost of "supervision" and comply with other similar provisions of the agreement.
"Mr. Limbaugh had intended to remain in treatment. Thus, we believe the outcome for him personally will be much as if he had fought the charge and won."
The actions taken today are as follows:
— The State Attorney has filed a single charge of doctor shopping with the Court. The charge is being held in abeyance under the terms of an agreement between the State and Mr. Limbaugh.
— Mr. Limbaugh has filed a plea of "Not Guilty" with the Court.
The formal agreement between Mr. Limbaugh and the State Attorney will be filed with the Court on Monday. The terms of the agreement are substantively as follows:
— Mr. Limbaugh will continue in treatment with the doctor he has seen for the past two and one half years.
— After Mr. Limbaugh completes an additional 18 months of treatment, the State Attorney has agreed to drop the charge.
— Mr. Limbaugh has agreed to make a $30,000 payment to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation.
There are two Confederacys, one of history and one of imagination.
The one we deal with today is of imagination.
The one of rebel flags and the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the cult of the dead rebels.
It has little to do with reality.
The real Confederacy was closer to Biafra than Nazi Germany. A poor, break away Republic destined to be crushed by the larger neighbor.
The reason you get people like Jim Webb playing cute and George Allen praising the Confederacy has to do with how the Confederacy was ressurected in the postwar period.It was about race and integration, not history.
But then, like the Wehrmacht, way too much has been made of the Confederacy's military prowess, and far too little of the Union's.
For now, we're gonna talk about the historical Confederacy.
Jesse James got his start in crime as a member of Bloody Bill Anderson's guerrilla band. They murdered people and called it war. Anderson and Quantrill were war criminals by any modern standard.
The confederacy had tremendous desertion rates in the last two years of the war
The Conferderate government often hindered the war effort.
The myth of the Confederacy came about because of the generals who led their larger units, Lee, Jackson, Longstreet. Like the Wehrmacht, there is a cult of competency which is hardly deserved.
It took Bruce Catton, on the Civil War's centenial, and James McPherson 20 years later, to explain what an incredible instrument of war it was. The cult of the "lost cause" was used to cover up tragic mistakes.
Few people describe Pickett's Charge as a tragic mistake of arrogance, which it was. Grant is criticized for Cold Harbor, but Pickett's Charge was pure arrogance. But George Pickett never forgave Lee.
The Union Army adapted to their circumstances and created a modern Army from scratch. It promoted on merit and even chose to break the color bar, coming up with 179,000 black troops which the South could never reach. It's commanders changed the rules of war and were tactically superior after Gettysburg.
The cult of the Confederacy serves to deny some brutal realities. Such as the large and active guerrilla movement in the Appalachians. The hoarding of supplies, the increasing desertion rate as the war went on.
When people talk about Lee or Longstreet, they never tell you how the Union eventually out thought and outfought them. The "bravery" of Confederate troops is always highlighted, despite the desperate battles the union fought.
No one wants to discuss how the South invented the war criminal. Henry Wirtz, the commander of Andersonville was executed. He should have been joined by Nathan Bedford Forrest and Bloody Bill Anderson and Quantrill.
In short,the myth of the Confederacy allowed people to explain away how the North crushed them using far fewer of it's resources than it had. The raging incompetence of the Southern high command and the pettiness of Jefferson Davis was glossed over for years. Because the myth of a noble South was valuable for many reasons.
Even today, the numbers of Southerners who fought for the Union is still downplayed.
They myth of nobility plays into how the Confederacy is seen today
As some of you might be aware, I have a blog dedicated to the immigration issue and progressive immigration reform. It was started a little over six months ago as a place where a few others and I could write and discuss the issue and hopefully supply others with some information and insight. Since then it's been growing nicely and apparently we have now appeared on the radar of some of our more racists neighbors.
I thought I would pass on an e-mail message I received today from someone who would only call himself "John Doe" (although he was stupid enough to use a real e-mail address). I figured you would enjoy seeing what some of are fellow countrymen think about immigration reform and immigrants. Perhaps those of you who were thinking about going to a rally or march this coming Monday, but weren't quite sure if you wanted to ... reading this e-mail might help you make up your mind.
Hola,
I just wanted to say what the majority of our Rightful American Legal Citizenry thinks about your asinine, offensive, and illegal movement.
As all of your traitors and seditionists march in our streets waving your toilet papier-mache Mexican, oh pardon me: American flags, keep this in your pea-brained minds-
You must cease to exist.
You have no civil or legal rights in my country; no business to suck our social services, schools and hospitals dry, no honor in your methods,no courage in your cause, no intelligence in your leadership, and no more reasons to be here. We want you gone, and we want you to keep marching on May 1st right back to the sewage littered border you crawled out from, back to the open arms of your El Presidente, Mr. Fox.
If you can Habla Ingles, which I doubt; maybe you and all of yours can Strap those inner-tubes back together that you and your swine ancestors floated across the Rio Grande on and get out of here before we really get angry.
Hey, what's ten miles long and has an IQ of 70? The immigration rally protestor parade.
Get out of our nation you traitors, anarchists, seditionists, and lowlife scum.
Viva La USA! Wetbacks.
Love,
Your Independent American Party Activist.
nice Huh?
( I won't put up a link to that Independent American Party as I have no way of knowing if the author of this e-mail is actually a member or speaks for them .... but from the looks of the site, I bet he is )
Oh, but if you want to die in Iraq, go right ahead
Given the recent link to Prostitution between lobbyists and GOP Congressman, outreach to a new community is probably going to be essential
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Federal prosecutors are reviewing records of two Washington, D.C., hotels where Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes rented suites as part of their investigation into whether prostitutes were involved as he tried to curry favor with lawmakers and CIA officials.
Wilkes, whom federal prosecutors have identified as a co-conspirator in the bribery case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, rented hospitality suites in the capital on behalf of his flagship company, ADCS Inc.
As The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in December, the suites – first at the Watergate Hotel and then at the Westin Grand Hotel – had several bedrooms where lawmakers and other guests could relax.
Federal investigators are trying to determine whether Cunningham and other legislators brought prostitutes to the hotels or prostitutes were provided for them there, according to a report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the Union-Tribune.
A source close to the bribery case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, told the Union-Tribune that Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty in February to bribing Cunningham, told federal prosecutors that he periodically helped arrange for a prostitute for the then-congressman.
I want whores. I want money. I want power. And I want it now.
I want to be entrusted with making people's lives better. Then I want to use that power to make things better for myself.
I want to call my wife, tell her I have a meeting with some lobbyists, and then go fuck my brains out with some hooker.
When I come home at night I want to lie to my wife, tell her I had a boring evening, roll over and go to sleep.
More in extended...
* jgkojak's diary :: :: *
I want to take money, any money anyone can give me for a campaign contribution. I'll vote how they want me to on this issue or that. Because that means I don't have to raise money from from or be accountable to oridinary people.
Even better, if I can scare away my competition, I can remain in office, and keep fucking the whores in the hotel room.
And the trips. Screw my family. Instead of "going home" to spend time with them, or God forbid my constituents, I'll be going to Aruba to play some golf. Maybe fuck some whores.
All the while I will living a daily lie to my wife and kids. But I'm a man. I can take it. Heck. I'm a REAL MAN. I can fuck whores whenever I want.
I can spend valuable time with staffer covering my tracks, both professional and personal, to make sure I'm not caught trading money for votes, or trading votes for sex. Or having sex with whores. What would my family say?
I want money. I want to live like almost no one in the world lives.
I want power. I want to know I hold the key to people's dreams in my hand, and I can use that key to extort money and favors from whoever I want.
I want whores. I want to have sex. All the time. Its relaxing and gets my mind off all the stress.
You gotta love the cosmopolitan parochialism of New Yorkers, so smug in their Steinbergian view of the world.
Preaching the inevitability of the New American Century, the neo-cons forgot the warning of Yogi Berra, the great Yankees philosopher, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
The last time Bill Kristol was on Comedy Central, he was doing victory laps. He even went slumming and appeared on The Daily Show. Taunting Jon Stewart, he smirked, "It's not too late to join us."
Then the wheels came off...
The war went into extra innings and the peripatetic cheerleader of the triumphalist march to the Tigris hunkered down on FOX. As time passed, he gamely tried to explain with increasing discomfort to an ever-shrinking audience of true believers how the best laid plans of mice and men oft gangly go awry. You could tell his heart wasn't in it.
Things went from bad to worse. The magic number of 3 dollars hit people in the face with more force than 300 Billion dollars. The mood of the crowd started to get ugly. Knowing a good offense was the best defense, Kristol decided to take the fight to the opposition's lair. One thing was certain; Kristol really should have had a few warm up fights before getting into the ring with Colbert.
The Fight: Colbert entered the ring pumped with the enthusiasm he gleans from his audience. Kristol grinned gamely, but his eyes betrayed the glint of a deer searching for the source of that manly fragrance called "Scorn." He hugged the table like a girl who needed to go potty and wrapping himself in a defensive ball that screamed, "Don't hurt me!"
Colbert settled in and sized him up. Kristol came out strong trying to deflect any attack by preemptively taking credit for what will likely be a great performance by Stephen this Saturday night. Stephen stopped him dead in his tracks with a straight to the face.
Kristol rocked back on his heels a bit dazed at how badly his joke had backfired. Colbert laid into him..."How's that New American Century," he asked with all the sadistic glee of Edward G. Robinson asking, "Where's your God now, Moses?"
Unprepared for the frontal assault, Kristol stumbled, fumbled, and clutched the table to keep from sliding into oblivion. You could hear the little voice in his head screaming, "Help meeeeeee!" He took a standing eight count and wobbled back to the fray, realizing that he had sadly misread the situation, confusing his opponent for a friend.
In his confusion he blurted out "We can't let dictators kill their own people." The crowd waited for Colbert's response. Would he go nuts and suggest we demand dictators only kill people outside their country? Instead he hit him with a vicious flurry of probing questions ending with a hefty jab, "Where do we invade next?" He leaned back out of range and watched Kristol swing at air and lose his balance. Colbert put him in a head lock and made Kristol inhale the musky scent of Scorn, simply saying "I'm going to hold you to that," before letting him go.
Kristol fell to the mat. As he got up, Stephen pummeled him with a blurry flurry of jabs. What about boots on the ground? Who do we invade next? What about Iran? What about nuking someone?
Kristol went to one knee and cried "No mas!" Stephen clocked him with a right hook, "The best possible way to show them nuclear weapons are not what they want is to give them one." Kristol tried to absorb the double entendre but fell over. Stephen smirked and went to a neutral corner.
Realizing he had this fight won, Colbert started to toy with Kristol. He leaned against the ropes and let Kristol throw all the standard punches, "Iraq will be better", "poor execution but right strategy", "we will prevail", whoosh...Kristol was hitting nothing but thought he was scoring. Stephen peeked out from behind his gloves and taunted him like Ali taunted Frazier with "You're preaching to the choir." Kristol thought it was an opening and took the bait. He replied, "That's the best kind of audience." BOOM...Colbert unleashed a vicious inside uppercut. "Don't turn your back on them, they're likely to put a shiv in ya," he chortled.
A few more jabs and then Colbert hit Kristol with a combo that first confused him into treating Rumsfeld like senators treat Abramoff. Colbert answered with a stinging jab "That's like ratting out a frat brother!" Stephen circled to the right and caught Kristol stunned and flat-footed with a right hook to the body. "Why is everyone turning on the president?" he asked. Pressing the advantage, he got Kristol to open up and admit he had called Bush incompetent. Stephen finished the combo with a strong right cross to the head, hitting him full in the face with "Do you support the president?"
Kristol blindly responded in the affirmative and Stephen hit him with a straight right to the midsection. "That's like saying, `Honey I hit you cause I love you...'" The crowd went wild!!! Dazed and confused, Kristol reached for the ropes and threw a low blow, "Sometimes that's true..." The crowd boooed... Kristol sheepishly admitted he doesn't really beat his wife. But the red in his face betrayed his thoughts. Hope you picked up some flowers on the way home, pal.
Stephen danced around a bit and started working the body. "Where are you going to get the troops?" "Do you favor a draft?" Kristol slipped the first few punches and says he doesn't. Stephen slipped inside...got Kristol to admit he was draft age in 1972,was in the lottery for a year, but after Nixon got rid of the draft he didn't volunteer. Stephen does a quick head fake, and tags Kristol while he is backing up! "Great Man." Kristol doesn't even realize what hit him , but the crowd sees it and loves it.
Having shown complete mastery over his opponent, Stephen settled back and just kept putting a glove out ...testing his range but not really swinging. "How do we turn public perceptions around?" Kristol replied with a bunch of half-hearted lines, but didn't even try to defend himself when Stephen said, "Winning in Iraq is easy...what else?"
Realizing that Kristol was about to fall over, he tossed an obvious setup, "How many seats will the Republicans win in 2006?" Kristol said Democrats will take the House and the crowd went wild! He stumbled forward trying to tie Stephen up with the notion that Democrats in control of the House in 2007 will be great for Republicans in 2008, but Stephen decided to run out the clock and invite him back for another round.
Stephen's no fool. Everyone knows the real money is in the re-match.
NEW YORK Democrats may feel they are riding high, heading into the midterm elections with President Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low, but Peter Beinart offers a warning, and a new direction, for the party in a feature piece upcoming this Sunday in The New York Times Magazine. It’s titled provocatively, “The Rehabilitation of the Cold-War Liberal.”
The article is adapted from his forthcoming book, “The Good Fight.” Beinart is currently editor-at-large for The New Republic.
Beinart warns that it is not enough for the Democrats to simply run on “competence” this year, rather than telling Americans “what their vision is.” For better or worse, the Republicans have such a vision, which voters understand: “America represents good in an epic struggle against evil.”
Democrats have some good foreign-policy minds and even some worthy foreign-policy proposals but no “coherent story about the post-9/11 world....Before Democrats can conquer their ideological weakness, they must first conquer their ideological amnesia,” he declares.
Dear Mr. Beinart.
You sir, are a coward, recommending the deaths of others while you spout nonsense about national toughness. You have no idea that if you believe that Iraq is a righteous cause, that you should serve in Iraq, and not sit in some Washington apartment telling 19 year olds to die for your fantasy of empire.
The Liberals you talk about served their country in time of war, they weren't loud talking fops, spouting couch side courage.
I think www.goarmy.com will help you develop the character you so sadly lack.
A sign on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City done up in Monopoly-game style. Hasbro is planning a new version of the game that does not use the city's streets, but local officials are campaigning against the idea. Atlantic City May Lose Out in a New Version of Monopoly
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI Published: April 28, 2006
ATLANTIC CITY, April 27 — It has been a long time since anyone could try to buy a hotel on Ventnor Avenue for $400.
But news that the toy maker Hasbro is planning to drop Atlantic City from its flagship version of Monopoly has left people on the streets of this gambling resort startled and local officials protesting.
Since the game made its debut in 1930, it has sold 250 million copies, making famous the names of Atlantic City's byways, like Baltic Avenue, Park Place and the Boardwalk. And while the game has spawned 200 spinoffs — including Hawaii-opoly, Star Wars Monopoly and even a SpongeBob SquarePants edition, set in the fictional town of Bikini Bottom — Atlantic City has remained the locale for the standard edition, which is by far the most popular.
Now, however, Hasbro has announced plans to update the game to a "here and now" version, raising rents and letting the public vote on streets, neighborhoods and national monuments to fill the 22 properties on the board. And Atlantic City is not among the choices.
The company will still produce the Atlantic City-based, "classic" version of the game, but the "here and now" version is projected to be their best sellers.
In Atlantic City, where many residents consider their connection with Monopoly a point of civic pride, Hasbro's decision makes about as much sense as Scrabble without vowels, and has spurred officials to organize a lobbying campaign to pressure Hasbro into reconsidering.
"Sure, put in the Statue of Liberty and Disney World and other places," said Jeffrey Vassar, executive director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has a "Help Keep Atlantic City on the Board" petition on the city's Web site, www.atlanticcitynj.com. "But it's a slight to not have the Atlantic City Boardwalk as one of the stops," he added.
It's the latest bad news for a struggling city still trying to cope with the loss of the Miss America pageant, a smoking ban in bars and restaurants, and gambling competition from Delaware and, soon, Pennsylvania. But there have been bright spots, too. During the past year, the city's 12 casinos have been buoyed by development along the waterfront and posted record revenues.
Some residents fear, however, that the town is fading into irrelevance. Carmine Covino, a waiter at a restaurant on Pacific Avenue, said that until recently, when he heard people compare Atlantic City unfavorably to Las Vegas, he would defend his hometown by saying: "They don't have a board game, do they? They don't have Miss America."
"Well, I guess we don't have that anymore either," Mr. Covino, 19, said on Thursday.
When Monopoly was devised in the 1930's, Atlantic City was chosen because it epitomized the kind of glittering tourist destination that many Depression-era Americans could only fantasize about visiting.
Charles B. Darrow, an unemployed salesman, sketched the prototype board game on a tablecloth at his home in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, using 21 street names from Atlantic City. (The final space, Marvin Gardens, was a name taken from the neighboring community of Margate City, where it is spelled Marvyn.)
The Parker Brothers game company rejected Mr. Darrow's proposal, so he went to a printer and began selling it himself. It caught on so quickly that Parker Brothers eventually reversed itself. It began mass-marketing Monopoly in 1935, and that year it became the world's best-selling board game. Pat Riso, a Hasbro spokeswoman, said it decided last year to poll fans to see how they might recast the game if it were to be developed today. So the "here and now" version will replace railroads with airlines. Utilities will be updated (Ms. Riso would not say with what, but allowed that Internet providers is a good guess.) Rents will rise, along with the cost of bail and the $200 payment for passing "Go."
In one uncharacteristic bow to the past, free parking will remain free. The company says it would not be swayed by Atlantic City's campaign to be included in the updated version.
"We love their passion, we think that's fabulous," Ms. Riso said. "But at this time, we are not planning on changing the online vote."
Ezra points to this fascinating profile of George Allen in the New Republic by Ryan Lizza. You really have to read it to believe it.
I know little about Allen except that he sounds even dumber than George W. Bush every time I see him speak on television. Yesterday he was blathering on about something and I was struck by how his rosy cheeks and strange purplish hair made him look a little like Reagan. So he has Reagan's looks and Bush's brains. Oh Jesus.
What I didn't know was that he was a racist, sadistic prick. I now understand why he is such a Republican favorite. I had heard that he kept a confederate flag around and that he had a cute little "noose" hanging from a ficus tree. I didn't know that he had been a neoconfederate since he went to Palos Verdes High, right here in LA. (He didn't live in the south until he was a sophomore in college.)
George saw himself as disconnected from the culture in which he lived. He hated California and, while there, became obsessed with the supposed authenticity of rural life--or at least what he imagined it to be from episodes of "Hee Haw," his favorite TV show, or family vacations in Mexico, where he rode horses. Perhaps because of his peripatetic childhood, the South's deeply rooted culture attracted him. Or perhaps it was a romance with the masculinity and violence of that culture; his father, who was not one to spare the rod, once broke his son Gregory's nose in a fight. Whatever it was, Allen got his first pair of those now-iconic cowboy boots from one of his father's players on the Rams who received them as a promotional freebie. He also learned to dip from his dad's players. At school, he started to wear an Australian bush hat, complete with a dangling chin strap and the left brim snapped up. He wore the hat for a yearbook photo of the falconry club. His favorite record was Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison. Writing of her brother's love for the "big, slow-witted Junior" on "Hee Haw," Jennifer reports, "[t]here was also something mildly country-thuggish about Junior that I think George felt akin to."
In high school, Allen's "Hee Haw" persona made him a polarizing figure. "He rode a little red Mustang around with a Confederate flag plate on the front," says Patrick Campbell, an old classmate, who now works for the Public Works Department in Manhattan Beach, California. "I mean, it was absurd-looking in our neighborhood." Hurt Germany, who now lives in Paso Robles, California, explodes with anger at the mention of Allen's name. "The guy is horrible," she complains. "He drove around with a Confederate flag on his Mustang. I can't believe he's going to run for president." Another classmate, who asks that I not use her name, also remembers Allen's obsession with Dixie: "My impression is that he was a rebel. He plastered the school with Confederate flags."
Politically, Allen's years in Palos Verdes were dominated by the lingering racial tensions from the riots in nearby Watts in 1965--when that neighborhood was practically burned to the ground--and the nationwide riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which left other parts of Southern California in flames. It is with that context in mind that four former classmates and one former administrator at Allen's high school described to me an event for which Allen is most remembered--and the first glimpse that the château-raised Californian might grow up to become a defender of the South's heritage.
It was the night before a major basketball game with Morningside High. The mostly black inner-city school adjacent to Watts was coming to the almost entirely white Palos Verdes High to play. When students arrived at school on game day, they found graffiti spray-painted on the school library and other places. All five people who described the incident say the graffiti was racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students. But it was actually put there by Allen and some of his friends. "It was something like die whitey," says Campbell. The school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would "seriously consider" voting for Allen for president, says the graffiti said, "burn, baby, burn," a reference to the race riots.
Karl Rove and Lee Atwater would no doubt high five such smart thinking. What a fine preparation for southern GOP politics. But then, Allen always played hardball:
...when his father was on the road, young George often acted as a surrogate dad to his siblings. According to his sister Jennifer, he was particularly strict about bedtimes. One night, his brother Bruce stayed up past his bedtime. George threw him through a sliding glass door. For the same offense, on a different occasion, George tackled his brother Gregory and broke his collarbone. When Jennifer broke her bedtime curfew, George dragged her upstairs by her hair.
George tormented Jennifer enough that, when she grew up, she wrote a memoir of what it was like living in the Allen family. In one sense, the book, Fifth Quarter, from which these details are culled, is unprecedented. No modern presidential candidate has ever had such a harsh and personal account of his life delivered to the public by a close family member. The book paints Allen as a cartoonishly sadistic older brother who holds Jennifer by her feet over Niagara Falls on a family trip (instilling in her a lifelong fear of heights) and slams a pool cue into her new boyfriend's head. "George hoped someday to become a dentist," she writes. "George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession--getting paid to make people suffer."
According to Lizza, Allen explains "It's the perspective of the youngest child, who is a girl."
I am tempted to make a big deal out of Allen's phoniness, as Lizza does. After all, from the non-Virginian cowboy boots to the tobacco spitting, he has self-consciously adopted these neo-confederate affectations. He's not a real son of the south. But as a good friend explained to me some time ago, it would do no good to attack him on that basis. Despite Joe Klein's fantasy about "authenticity" being the lodestar of winning politics, George W. Bush has proven that being a phony southerner is better than not being a southerner at all. Indeed, a phony southerner can be better than a real one as long as they put their whole heart and soul into it as George W. Bush and George Allen do. It shows respect.
In Mudcat Saunders' new book about how the Democrats can win the south, he and his co-author go to great lengths to explain that politicians must have southern cultural tastes in order to win the presidency. Presumably a guy like Allen (who during his teen-age years in Southern California had a confederate flag on his mustang and wore a rebel flag pin in his graduation picture) is a man who has lived his bona fides even better than the the Yale fratboy, Junior Bush. Nobody can assail his good ole boy pretentions. Allen truly loves southern culture even if he has no blood ties to the south and his mother is (gasp!) French.
If winning the presidency in the country really rests on relative good ole boy-ness, then it's hard to see how anyone can beat Allen. Aside from his total immersion in southern culture, the article is full of examples of his youthful (and not so youthful) racism and I can only assume that this will help him when he goes up against John McCain in the south. The racist voters of the GOP will catch all his winks and nods with no problem.
The only question is whether the big money boys will get behind him. He is, after all, even dumber than George W. Bush and they may be having some second thoughts about running another empty suit:
...although Allen is undoubtedly the hot new thing within the Beltway's conservative establishment, some denizens of K Street and right-wing newsrooms have begun doubting whether he represents their best hope to snuff out the burgeoning campaign of their enemy, McCain. "If my choice is, 'Who do I want to go out with to a fun dinner to drink our brains out,'" says one of the party's top fund-raisers who has met with Allen many times, "there's no question, it'd be Allen. He's a guy's guy, but he didn't blow me away in terms of substance."
It's hard to believe that they can't find a southern Republican who isn't a sadistic idiot to run for president, but I'm beginning to think that's the real problem. Guys like Bush and Allen are the best they can do. Clearly, all the smart southerners are Democrats.
Yes, the smart Southerns are Dems for a reason: no one gave them shit. Edwards, Clinton, all these guys came from middle class backgrounds and worked their way through college and law school.
I think that people are sick of stupid. Stupid has consequences. Down home is fine, but you ever hear Tim McGraw or Garth Brooks interviewed? Do they sound like idiots? No? Because they're not. Toby Keith ain't too bright, but there's always an exception. Ever listen to a NASCAR driver talk, he may have an accent, but he's no idiot. Those guys reek of competence.
Southern cultural tastes? Ok, to a degree, but Bush isn't a fake Southerner. He's a fake Texan. Big difference once you leave East Texas. His fakeness is all Western. The pig farm, the fear of horses, cowboy boots, the crudeness in speech.
Real Southerners mock that crudeness, a southern gentleman is supposed to be cultured and erudite, not crude. Bush's drunken antics would have drawn great scorn in the South. Trailer trash is an insult there for a reason. Bush's nicknaming and claims like he's the "decider" aren't Southern.
Think about Ted Turner. Nuts, right? Can be vulgar? But he's also smart and lets you know it. He doesn't fuck up his words. And he's turned out in bespoke suits. He can be crude, but the man has a certain sort of elegance about him.
Bush? He's always trying to show he doesn't have a yellow streak even when it's evident to everyone. He's internalized the worst machismo of Texas with the prissy snobbiness of Conneticut. A mean, crude, drunk who belies his education. If he was a Southerner, he wouldn't be so cavalier about that.
The Black Commentator has a nice piece on Booker, but it seems to miss the special way they do things in North Jersey
Cory Booker is back – like a recurring disease. The former one-term city councilman whose wholly unproductive career has been artificially sustained by Black America’s worst enemies has amassed bundles of rightwing cash for his second assault on Newark city hall. Booker’s stealth mission on behalf of the far-right Bradley and Walton Family (Wal-Mart) Foundations, under the tutelage of the hyper-racist Manhattan Institute, once again threatens to provide the Right with a long-coveted showcase for privatization and capitalism in-the-raw in urban America.
Booker is a unique danger to African American interests, well beyond the boundaries of New Jersey’s largest city. As in the Verizon television commercial in which a vast “network” is arrayed behind the actor playing the cell phone service subscriber, Booker is tightly wired into the interlocking political networks of the Right. He is the darling and point man for the corporate campaign to create a cadre of “New Black Leaders” who will provide “authenticity” to reactionary social policies hatched by the think tank servants of the super-rich.
May 9 is no ordinary Election Day – and it is anything but a local affair.
Indeed, the upscale suburb-bred, Yale and Stanford educated lawyer may be the purest specimen of the Black Trojan Horse Democrat yet foisted on the African American public by the likes of the Manhattan Institute – the outfit that nurtured Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, the infamous blood-libel book that attempted to prove Blacks are intellectually inferior to whites – and at whose “power luncheon” Booker made his national debut, in 2000.
The 36-year-old Booker is the Right’s Young Black Frankenstein, powered, as in his first mayoral run in 2002, by constant infusions of corporate cash and free media. Or, as his current opponent State Senator and Newark Deputy Mayor Ron Rice puts it, Booker is the “Six Million Dollar Man” – a reference to his campaign war chest, a fantastic sum for a mayor’s race in a city of just 275,000, and far exceeding the corporate largess showered on the upstart candidate four years ago. The $6 million figure is also by now out of date
Sen. Rice’s underfunded organization finds it difficult to even keep track of Booker’s capital accumulation. Rice’s last campaign ad put Booker’s contributions at $4.1 million – still far exceeding declared contributions in the 2002 race, when Booker significantly outspent but still lost to incumbent Sharpe James. In both campaigns, Booker’s large contributors’ hailed from across the nation, and their names looked nothing like a Newark telephone book. That’s the rightwing network’s fine-tuned money machine in motion.
Sen. Rice – and the city of Newark, itself – is like an Indian surrounded by cowboys summoned from all points of the map, eager to plant their alien flag. Rice is further disadvantaged by the inexplicable behavior of Mayor Sharpe James, who waited until March 27 to announce that he would not seek a sixth term, leaving Rice just a little over six weeks to stop Booker’s Right-financed juggernaut.
A Pact With the Devil
The Black Commentator is proud of the role we played in exposing Cory Booker’s true political and financial backers, in 2002. The Cover Story of our inaugural issue, “Fruit of the Poisoned Tree,” April 5, 2002, was the first published revelation anywhere of Booker's political genesis in the bowels of Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation – George Bush’s favorite foundation, the outfit that birthed a fully financed Black school voucher “movement” out of thin air and hard cash. As an original board member of the Bradley-created (and now Bush-financed) Black Alliance for Educational Options, and a co-founder of the Newark voucher outfit Excellent Education for Everyone (E-3), Booker worked his way ever deeper into the Right labyrinth of mega-money, media manipulation, and raw corporate power.
So enthused with Booker was the Right in 2002, one of their most esteemed members let the cat out of the bag. Syndicated columnist George F. Will, whose politics would correctly be called fascist in any part of Europe, traveled to Newark to observe the campaign up close and gushed like a schoolgirl at Booker’s rightwing credentials:
"Booker's plans for Newark's renaissance," Will's March 17 [2002] column informs us, "are drawn from thinkers at the Democratic Leadership Council and the Manhattan Institute think tank, and from the experiences of others such as Stephen Goldsmith, former Republican mayor of Indianapolis, a pioneer of privatization and faith-based delivery of some government services, and John Norquist, current Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, which has one of the nation's most successful school-choice programs."
– from BC “Fruit of the Poisoned Tree,” April 5, 2002.
Despite his narrow loss to Mayor James, Booker’s rich rightwing patrons were pleased; they had come within reach of their goal to capture a large, majority Black city in the shadow of New York, the nation’s media and financial capital. Through their sophisticated propaganda network – euphemistically called public relations or public information offices – the Right network kept Booker’s name in the media during the four years in which he held no public office. With eerie uniformity of content and style, articles and personality profiles regularly appeared in various media grouping Booker with luminaries like Barack Obama and Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., the “New Black Leaders.” Yet the totality of Booker’s public life experience amounted to only four years as a city councilman who produced no meaningful legislation.
In November 2004, the out-of-office Booker remained a corporate media star. An article in the influential Washington Monthly spent almost as much time on Booker as its purported subject, Barack Obama. Titled “The Great Black Hope,” the piece began with Cory Booker’s name (“Cory Booker was feeling good… .”) and catalogued the media’s central role in the 2002 campaign:
A fever was building. Time profiled Booker; “CBS Evening News” did, too. Though Booker was still only a councilman in America's 63rd largest city, Democratic fundraisers and operatives were also talking about a future White House bid; The New York Times said he was “regularly referred to as someone who will end up the first black President of the United States.”
Of course, the Washington Monthly was itself contributing to the media “fever” over Booker.
Booker was defeated because, in the last weeks of the race, Mayor James finally found ways to express what BC had been saying all along: that Booker is a wholly-owned property of the Right, a walking, breathing political lie who masquerades as an urban reformer while serving masters in corporate suites; a total cynic who relies on his youth to promise a fresh breeze in African American politics, but is in reality in league with Black folks’ oldest and most implacable foes.
The corporate media were alerted to Booker’s connections. Just two-and-half weeks after BC began operations, the New York Times quoted Co-Publisher Glen Ford’s indictment of the candidate in a front page profile of Booker, April 24, 2002:
[Ford] says Mr. Booker is allied with conservatives seeking to dismantle public education, destroy affirmative action and gain an urban foothold for their views. He points to a speech Mr. Booker gave to the conservative Manhattan Institute two years ago and a recent column by conservative writer George F. Will that ridiculed Mr. James and lionized Mr. Booker. “He’s totally cynical, careerist and mercenary,” Mr. Ford said. “They’re backing him so they can claim a black elected official from a black city.”
It’s the same game, this time around, with only the slightest alterations. Although the New York Times quoted Glen Ford in 2002, the paper never brought its reportorial powers to bear on the specific connections revealed in BC’s investigative work. The rest of the corporate media – print, TV and radio – pretended that BC’s and the Mayor’s charges were silly or, in most instances, ignored them altogether.
But the people of Newark got the word, despite most of the media’s performance as extensions of Booker’s campaign. Sen. Ron Rice is fighting furiously to resist Booker’s anointment, on May 9 – to ward off a tragedy of enormous national as well as local proportions for the Black polity. Rice has smoked Booker out on his support for private school vouchers – the Right’s main wedge issue to woo Black America – finally catching the attention of the New York Times, April 27:
In a recent interview, Mr. Rice called Mr. Booker a proxy for "ultra-white, ultra-conservative" outsiders seeking to privatize the schools in a Democratic city that is more than 80 percent African-American and Hispanic. He charged that Mr. Booker was seeking to turn Newark into another Milwaukee, where a voucher program has been in place since 1990, with mixed results in terms of student achievement… .
Booker tried to wiggle, as usual, but he was caught. “My determination is to reform the public school system, but I will never oppose programs that help children," Mr. Booker said in a recent interview in his 21st-story law office downtown. "And if it doesn't hurt my main goal, my principal goal of empowering public schools, I support that."
Booker’s benefactors, the Walton Family and Bradley Foundations and the rest of the rightwing constellation in which he travels, are unalterably committed to wholesale privatization of education and everything else in the public sector they can lay their hands on. That’s what Booker doesn’t want the Black public to know.
It’s hard to fight the white ruling class, even on ghetto turf – especially when it puts on blackface. But we have entered a new and perilous era. Cory Booker personifies the danger: the Black Trojan Horse, more likely a nominal Democrat than a Republican, to better subvert from within the Historical Black Consensus that has made African Americans the soul and backbone of progressivism in the United States.
It is true that Booker is part of a new breed – a crop of stealthy Black political assassins in the service of rich gangsters. The hit on Black Newark is scheduled for May 9. Everyplace else, is next.
BC Co-Publishers Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are writing a book to be titled, Barack Obama and the Crisis in Black Leadership.
If it were that simple, Richard Parsons would be running for Senate against Hillary Clinton. But Booker's problem is the problem of North Jersey politics. He may have his white backers, but how many are in Trenton? Because if they aren't, he won't be doing much.
We are in the land of North Jersey politics, where Machiavelli could have learned a few lessons. Now it may seem "inexplicable" and "counter-inutative" that James got all goofy in running and then dropping out, unless you know North Jersey politics, intimately.
The reason Booker can win is simple: corruption. People are tired of a government which does nothing for them and makes their leaders rich. It's easy to snipe at Booker until you actually spend time in Newark. The place needs more change than a hockey arena.
People desperately want a change from the corrupt machine politics of North Jersey and he is clean and neat.
But like many things, politics in North Jersey are deceiving. There's a reason that Sharpe James had a seat in Trenton. There's a reason he's keeping that seat. And it's about fucking with Cory Booker.
The thing is that Booker was going to win at some point. But this is the point and why no one is beating the bushes for Rice, who could raise a shitload of money if the machine turned on. In fact, James could have run one more time and then resigned. But he didn't.
Why? Because they're gonna give Booker his chance, and then help him fail. All those right wing think tanks can't do shit in Democratic-controlled Trenton. And Corzine isn't going to piss off his North Jersey backers.
The South Jersey folks hate Newark, and won't do shit to help it. So exactly, who are Cory Booker's friends and how can they help him? With newspaper articles? The Mahattan Institute isn't going to the State House to lobby for vouchers and the teacher's union is almost as powerful there as it is in New York. I can see Booker and his friends marching up to the state house, a nice place, and getting swallowed up whole.
Wisconsin and the GOP who ran it in 1990 and New Jersey in 2006 could not be more different. Booker has enemies afoot in Trenton and not too many friends. But notice the absence of race baiting so far in this election. That's no accident. The machine wants a Booker victory. They want him to win, and then they will unleash hell. And after four years of no cooperation, and open hostility, he will go off to be a lobbyist.
Why now? Because there is no better time to have Booker elected, with virtually no friends in Trenton, the GOP at low ebb in the state, and him on the hook for Newark's problems. Unlike James, who has a machine and friends in Essex and Trenton, Booker has friend with money and no pull and the NJGOP is not going to spend a dime to alienate their suburban voters to help Newark.
When X doesn't happen, you can bet the community will be outside city hall. The voucher plan? George Will has no pull inside the Statehouse. The bet is that the teachers will block it, because they have votes, and Booker will be left impotent.
If Booker had more of a base in the community, he might be able to fight, but the fact that James virtually stepped aside and left Rice to fend for himself is no accident. They're gonna squeeze him between the unions and the black nationalists, who still have a big voice in Newark. Just because he can win, doesn't mean he can run things.
They'll let him sit in the big chair, but if he doesn't go along with James and the rest of the Caucus in the statehouse, nothing much will happen.
His friends have money, but they don't have pull or much of a voice in North Jersey.
Cleric Calls for End to Militias Sistani advocates regime of technocrats, not sectarian loyalists. His remarks signal the Shiite clergy's new role in Iraqi politics and policy. By Borzou Daragahi and Bruce Wallace, Times Staff Writers April 28, 2006
BAGHDAD — Iraq's senior Shiite Muslim religious figure Thursday called on the country's controversial militias to disarm, marking one of the most overt forays into matters of politics and policy by the influential cleric.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, regarded as the moral voice of Iraq's Shiite majority, called for a government of technocrats rather than political loyalists or sectarian interests and said that only government forces should be permitted to carry weapons on the streets.
"Weapons must be in the hands of government security forces that should not be tied to political parties but to the nation," said the Iranian-born Sistani in a statement released by his office in Najaf after he met with the newly designated prime minister. "The first task for the government is fighting insecurity and putting an end to the terrorist acts that threaten innocents with death and kidnapping."
Sistani's views, representative of the clerical leadership based in the seminary city of Najaf, seemed to echo the statements of U.S. leaders who are eager to stem the cycle of sectarian violence and chaos so that they can begin withdrawing American-led military forces. But Sistani's statement alarmed many secular and Sunni Iraqis who fear increased involvement of powerful Shiite clerics in matters of state.
"I'm so worried about the fact the marjaiyah [top Shiite clergy] is given so much power," said Hatem Mukhlis, a secular Sunni Arab politician. "The Americans should be really aware of what's happening. It's giving a lot of power to Sistani that he shouldn't have."
He's not talking about ending the militias, but the militias joining the Army en masse. The Sunnis have every right to be worried.
Jane has a great Karl Rove Plamegate primer up tonight in case you've forgotten all the minutia of the case and want to get back up to speed.
Karl has now testified before the grand jury five times, which most lawyers say would never happen in a normal case. Karl, however, believes he can wiggle out of this so he keeps volunteering to go back to the grand jury and explain himself.
He has always thought he was very, very good at this kind of thing:
Rove was no lawyer but he carried a kind of preturnatural confidence in court cases. Like in his high school debates, he always felt better than anybody in the room. He could beat anybody with the strength of his argument or the weight of his will. When a team of blue-chip lawyers in a tobacco case grilled Rove for a deposition some years earlier, he was not just confident, but arrogant, fending off their questions with playful insults. On the stand in the Kay Bailey Hutchison trial, he was masterful in frustrating the prosecution. Now he had a former U.S. Attorney General in his cross hairs, and as Rove sat at the table in the federal courthouse, he turned his head slowly and looked over at the defense table with the thin sliver of a smile. It was a dark smile, determined, and there was not mistaking the message: You are my enemy and you will pay.(Bush's Brain p. 190)
Waddaya think? Does the recently demoted Karl still have that kind of mojo? Or was it his "preturnatural confidence" that led him to think he could lie his ass off to the FBI and the Grand Jury and nothing would happen?
He doesn't seem quite so formidable these days does he? A 32% approval rating and massive policy failure will do that to you.
Update: According to the Washington Post, Rove is using the "it would have been stupid to lie so it's ludicrous that I would have done so" defense. It sounds like he's as arrogant as ever.er.
First, that grand jury has far more black people on than most Texas juries, and if Rove is fucking with Fitzgerald, trying to game him, he's gonna be very unhappy as to how this plays out.
Norah O'Donnell said this wouldn't be that big a deal if Rove was indicted.
Is she drunk? The president's top aide indicted for an act of state? Shit. If this happens, Bush will have to fire Rummy and think about dumping Cheney. His presidency will have two engines burning and the English Channel below. He will have to dump cargo.
I think Fitzgerald has waited to build an ironclad case against Rove, he's in no hurry, but if he wasn't going to indict, this would have been over.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 By Mary Niederberger and Nikki Schwab, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Mt. Lebanon School District and Mt. Lebanon police are investigating the distribution of an anonymous document that features sexually explicit descriptions of 25 girls at the high school.
The document, titled "Top 25 in 2006," ranks the girls in order from one to 25. It includes their names, grade levels and photos.
Each girl is assigned a letter grade for her breasts, buttocks and face, followed by a brief description of each girl in crude and vulgar terms.
There are references to girls performing oral sex and comments about their height and weight.
One girl, an entry said, "seemed to be a very consistent candidate among the ballots of the males, her consistency allowed her to achieve top 10 status."
There is one instance where a description ridicules a girl's ethnic heritage. All of the girls in the "top 25" are sophomores, juniors and seniors.
"I think that it's outrageous, the equivalent of a written rape on our daughter," said the father of one girl, who didn't want his name published to protect his daughter's identity.
He and another parent said they are frustrated that the district hasn't disciplined the students who created the publication.
The parents might have a defamation action,but the school district would proabably lose a lawsuit if they punished people for actions taken off school grounds. Schools cannot punish people for what they do in their spare time off school grounds, especially when it's printed material. The law is very clear on this.
WASHINGTON, April 27 — A public relations firm has apologized to General Motors after acknowledging that it may have offered money to former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in exchange for public comments supporting the automaker's employee buyout program. The offer would violate General Motors's policy against payments to opinion makers.
The firm's president, Richard Strauss of Strauss Radio Strategies in Washington, would not say if other commentators were offered payment for public support of the troubled automaker's buyout plan, which is intended to reduce sharply its work force of 113,000 hourly employees.
Mr. Reich, who was labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, had complained publicly about the incident, which he said occurred three weeks ago. He described the offer of payment as a new instance of how "corporate America is paying pundits to shill for them."
Neither Mr. Strauss nor Mr. Reich would respond to questions about how much money might have been offered. A spokesman for General Motors said the company had a strict policy barring payment to outside commentators to promote its interests.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Strauss said, "I may have mentioned the possibility of an honorarium" to Mr. Reich "out of deference and respect to him and his position."
While Mr. Strauss insisted that he did not "recall making an offer of money," he said that he had apologized to General Motors "for any misinterpretation that resulted from my conversations with Secretary Reich," adding that he was "fully aware that G.M. does not pay money or any other compensation for opinions." His statement was prepared in response to a reporter's questions.
In recent months, the practice by companies of hiring supposedly independent outside commentators to promote their interests has come under scrutiny in Washington.
Freshly returned from the midterm campaign trail, a smiling Rudy Giuliani was welcomed into the friendly confines of Cipriani’s on the evening of April 25. As waiters in white coats scurried about the main dining room, Mr. Giuliani made an entrance worthy of a Presidential contender.
“I’ve spent a lot of time down in the South,” he told The Observer as he walked in with his wife Judith on his arm. “I just got back from New Orleans. It was devastating, but I’m back in New York. I love New York. I’m from New York.”
The black-tie affair, thrown by the Manhattan Institute, Mr. Giuliani’s old cheering section, marked a homecoming of sorts for the 61-year-old former Mayor. During the last several months, he has spent a lot of time under the radar and below the Mason-Dixon Line, quietly building coalitions with conservative Republicans as he prepares for a potential 2008 Presidential bid.
Despite Mr. Giuliani’s absence from the national stage, Tuesday night’s hobnobbing with Tom Wolfe, David Brooks and Mortimer Zuckerman served as a reminder that the former Mayor is a genuine celebrity. He enjoys enormous national name recognition and is widely seen as a strong leader because of the resolve he showed during the Sept. 11 attacks.
But there is also a serious question of how long Mr. Giuliani can remain at the top of national Republican polls (along with his friend, Senator John McCain) while holding starkly unconservative positions on abortion and gay rights. Moderation may work here in New York, but it doesn’t necessarily fly in the red states.
Perhaps for that reason, Mr. Giuliani has been skipping straw polls and lying low to keep those issues—plus his two divorces—buried below the headlines.
But some Republican strategists see in Mr. Giuliani’s recent and conspicuous support of conservative candidates an effort to quell opposition from the Republican right wing should he eventually run.
“It gives him an opportunity to campaign for candidates and neutralize the opposition,” said Arnold Steinberg, a Republican strategist. “Because there will be people who may not be for him, but they won’t be passionately against him.”
And so Mr. Giuliani has dropped in on the Global Pastors of Florida, campaigned with pro-life Senator Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, and signed on for a fund-raiser for Ralph Reed, the co-founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia. This weekend, he is holding a cocktail party for a more like-minded Republican, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
The busy schedule also allows Mr. Giuliani to stay in the thick of Presidential politics without overexposing himself in the national limelight. By conquering new constituencies with tough talk about national security, Mr. Giuliani is showing conservative America that he is a candidate they can live with, if not love. And that could just be enough if the Republican Party needs a New Yorker to stand up to Mr. Giuliani’s old foe, Senator Hillary Clinton, in a general election.
And so Mr. Giuliani is dusting off some old Hillary barbs.
“We’re both Yankee fans,” Mr. Giuliani said of Mrs. Clinton while campaigning this month with Senator Santorum in the home state of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I became a Yankee fan growing up in New York. She became a Yankee fan growing up in Chicago.”
But Anthony V. Carbonetti, a top executive at Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm, and a close advisor to Mr. Giuliani, warned that it was too early to determine who would stand “at the other end of the ring,” meaning that it is unclear who will emerge as the Democratic Party’s nominee. He also emphasized that Mr. Giuliani hasn’t decided whether to run or not. He added, however, that if Mr. Giuliani does run, he would find common ground with many in the Republican Party.
Notice McCain making nice with the fundies. Why? Because they play tough. Giuliani is just the less mean version of Mario Cuomo. Yes, less mean.
He's unlikely to run, because the fundies have their traps all laid out for him, and Bush doesn't have much use for him, especially after mobbed up cop Bernie Kerik. He'll dither and bullshit, but he doesn't have the guts to answer hard questions about his character, his adultery and mob associate dad.
A twice married Catholic adulterer who is gay friendly can't hide behind 9/11 forever. Other questions will come up. And one of the fundy ministers is lying in wait to hammer him, if their rival backs them.
TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND Developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive for Xbox 360 ($60), Windows XP ($40) PlayStation 2 and Xbox ($50); for ages 13 and up. ...................
NOTHING can kill Lara Croft. The protagonist of the Tomb Raider games has been impaled, sliced, shot, crushed and burned alive. She has endured cookie-cutter sequels, an ill-conceived makeover and two mediocre Angelina Jolie movies. But she’s back, and she’s looking good.
For a while, it was not looking good. While the Tomb Raider mix of exploration, puzzle-solving, action and cheesecake was always fun, the games failed to evolve and gamers got bored. A 2003 attempt to revamp the series, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, just made things worse, with a collection of poorly executed ideas pulled from popular games that pushed Lara to the edge of irrelevance.
But the buxom heroine has returned in Tomb Raider: Legend, a game from Crystal Dynamics that fulfills all the promises broken by Angel of Darkness.
Once again, Lara seeks out adventure, this time exploring a series of ruins in search of an ancient artifact that may be connected to her mother’s strange death. It is a search that takes her around the world, a journey made more difficult by armed men who are after the same thing.
The ancient ruins Lara explores are dangerous; columns have collapsed and passageways have crumbled, although surprisingly every booby trap is in perfect working order.
Lara must swing from vines, shimmy along ledges, jump chasms and shoot the occasional savage beast. Tombs are large environmental puzzles that Lara must navigate by shoving stone blocks into position or using a magnetic grappling hook to move a platform.
This is not substantially different from all the other Tomb Raider games. In fact, the designers’ goal was not to reinvent the series but simply to refine the original formula. Lara moves with a fluidity and ease the other games never managed, and her gun battles have been supplemented with melee moves that include a sliding tackle and a flying kick. Legend has smartly modeled itself after games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which was itself strongly influenced by the Tomb Raider games.
While it has modernized the gameplay mechanics, Legend feels like a walk down memory lane, recreating the feel of the original games. This is somehow comforting; no matter how many times Lara misses a ledge, is crushed by a boulder or dies in a hail of bullets, you feel she will always be there for you.
NRO columnist Cathy Seipp has cancer. Someone on Daily Kos wrote something sympathetic about this and this is her incredibly graceless response. It's very sad that she has to turn on sympathetic people to make her points, but that's what some people do. Being ill is a test of character and for some people, it doesn't make them a better person. Cancer stricken NRO columnist slams Kos--you, me, all of us by nyceve [Subscribe]
Earlier this week I wrote a diary about Catherine Seipp.
Ms. Seipp is a columinst for the National Review Online.
You can read the diary, Extremist NRO columnist battling cancer & Blue Cross here: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ms. Seipp was not pleased to be profiled in Daily Kos. She referred to us as "Kos's Krazy Korner".
I pray for the health of Ms. Seipp.
I also pray for all the Blue Cross of California enrollees who are being denied treatment and cancelled by Blue Cross and it's parent company Wellpoint.
You can read everything she has to say about Daily Kos here:
I may have been too harsh on the Washington Monthly commenters the other day. They're actually geniuses compared to these Daily Kos commenters, who imagine, among other things, that I'm an "extremist NRO columnist;" that I'm "for single-payer insurance NOW" but argued strongly against it before; that I'm a doctor and therefore part of the problem because I colluded with the evil insurance companies; that I wasn't allowed to write the L.A. Times op-ed about my problems with Blue Cross for National Review, or that I was just afraid; and that "conservatives never worry about the well-being of others. It just never occurs to them that they might get sick." One silly person even added that she was a "two-time cancer survivor," and therefore (presumably) her thoughts have special weight.
Here's what I say to Ms. Seipp. Not so fast.
Take a look at the compensation of Wellpoint Chairman, Larry Glasscock.
Larry Glasscock is the chairman of Wellpoint. Larry made the Business Week 50
The Business Week 50 is a list of the 50 highest paid executives in the U.S.
Larry C. Glasscock WellPoint Inc. $1.3 MILLION $46.2 MILLION [the first number is Total Value of Options (Latest Fiscal Year), the second number is Total Compensation (Latest Fiscal Year)]
Well of course medical costs are lower if treatment is retroactively denied.
Of course medical costs are lower if patients like Catherine Seipp face increased deductibles and suspended coverage for life saving medication.
Here's what she wrote about her battle with Blue Cross of california.
Or so I thought -- until I began getting letters from Blue Cross in February announcing that it was retroactively disallowing the anti-cancer drug Avastin treatments it had been paying for since October, at $5,000 a pop every other week. It seems Blue Cross decided this new and expensive targeted therapy is experimental. (It looks as if Blue Cross is not asking to be repaid for my relatively unexperimental chemo, which had been costing about $2,500 every single week, but who knows?)
You can read her sad story in the L.A. Times here:
Ms. Seipp, don't you recognize that you are a victim of this utterly failed, utterly broken health care system? Doesn't the report in the L.A. Times of soaring Wellpoint profits deeply outrage you?
WellPoint Inc., the nation's largest health insurer with more than 7 million members in California, saw first-quarter profit rise 20% on the heels of acquisitions and growing membership, the company said Wednesday.
The report, however, gave more fodder to consumer and doctor groups who say the industry's rising profitability is due to a consolidation trend that is pushing up premiums and lowering compensation for physicians.
Ms. Seipp, with all due respect, what you write about single payer is not accurate. If you remove for-profit insurance companies from the equation, you will not face corporate bean counters tasked with maintaining a robust bottom line, making medical decisions.
I doubt that single-payer health insurance would work in this country, although perhaps it might -- in which case cancer patients would probably face the same arguments with government bureaucrats that I've had with Blue Cross, because no system is perfect. But that wasn't what my piece was about.
Ms. Seipp, we're not crazy at Daily Kos. We're deeply worried about the broken system and 47 million of our fellow citizens who lack health insurance and access to health care.
Ms. Seipp, we believe you should not have to battle your insurance company for life saving medications.
Ms. Seipp, we believe in the United States of America in 2006, health care should be a basic human right.
I would say two things: one, in her post she says there are no cancer survivors. That's a lie, because my father is one.
Two, the people at Daily Kos wished her no harm. Sure, they may have wondered if she changed her opinions, but her response is a sad one. She seems not to understand that a government run program can be appealed whereas private companies have to be sued and embarassed into treatment.
Her insults towards people who are actually on her side make her seem small and petty when she might not want to be.
I want to know how many of her conservative thought about her illness enough to write about it. My bet, few, if any.
OK, about six years ago, NYLUG, the local Linux user group would spend the odd weekend wiring schools with Linux because if they didn't, no one would. A lot of New York's school buildings are psuhing 100 years and can't handle the wiring.
Now, I bring this up because while the debate on Net Neutrality may seem like another cause for liberal bloggers, everyone needs to understand what this means:
I know how much you enjoy getting campaign contributions from telecommunications interests, and I hope that you find yourself swimming in contributions. I mean, you've earned it, since voting against freedom on the internet isn't going to get you many fans. I'm also glad you're so accessible to your constituents, and I've taken the liberty to list the amount of money you received from cable and telephone interests, as well as your office's phone number.
Ed Towns (NY-10) received $22,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I'm glad I can you reach you at (202) 225-5936.
Al Wynn (MD-04) received $19,100 from cable and telecom company interests. I'm glad I can you reach you at (202) 225-8699.
Charlie Gonzales: (TX-20) received $16,500 from cable and telecom company interests. I'm glad I can you reach you at (202) 225-3236.
Bobby Rush: (IL-01) received $21,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I'm glad I can you reach you at (202) 225-4372.
Gene Green: (TX-29) received $12,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I'm glad I can you reach you at (202) 225-1688 tel.
It's hard work to make hundreds of thousands of internet users really really mad. But you persevered, and in all likelihood your reelection campaigns will be that much richer. Congrats, guys, you made Santa's naughty list.
Oh yeah, and incidentally Blogpac is making a list of people to primary and people to make nice with in 2008. You know, the PAC for the internets, which is raising money here.
love,
The Internets
PS. And as an aside, we didn't include Eliot Engel (NY-17) and Bart Stupak (MI-01) on this list, because they changed their votes and decided to protect freedom on the internet. The other Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Republican Heather Wilson of New Mexico, voted to protect the internet as well. Thanks. They can be thanked and should be thanked here.
So what should you say to these Congress members when you contact them?
I'd say something like this:
DearCongressmember,
Why are you trying to take away the internet from your consitutents? Do the working class families you represent, trying to ensure their kids have a relevant education, have, in a time or rising gas prices, the money to pay extra fees for the Internet? Many of them are now locked into usurious deals with pay by the week companies just to have acccess to computers in their homes.
How can they afford to fully participate in an internet which charges tolls for things like streaming video, downloading music, posting up blogs and using search engines. There is talk about a digital divide now, and how it's been declining. This would create a digital Berlin Wall, forever closing off access to the internet for millions, and especially the people you serve.
Your support for this bill, could, while making some of the richest companies in America richer, condemn your consitituents to a permanent second class citizenship, where they are unable to access the full internet. Which will mean a permanent loss of opportunity. Their schools could not afford the fees, their libraries would have to cut book purchases to increase the profits of AT&T and Verizon, leaving the poorest and hardest working Americans without the ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a ditigally segregated America.
After fighting to end Jim Crow in the real world, why would you let a corporation reimpose it in the digital world, by creating an economic system online which would leave your consitutents in a permanent second class.
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and SIMON ROMERO Published: April 27, 2006
HOUSTON, April 26 — After waiting 13 weeks to respond to his accusers, Kenneth L. Lay lost his legendary cool on the witness stand Wednesday.
The trial of two former Enron executives has taken some unexpected twists and turns.
Just minutes into his cross-examination by a prosecutor, John Hueston, Mr. Lay, Enron's founder and former chief executive, testily accused Mr. Hueston of personally preventing him from repaying a company credit line Mr. Lay had used to shore up his personal finances.
"Mr. Hueston, you know you blocked it," Mr. Lay said, his voice booming. "It's a simple answer."
Mr. Lay also struggled Wednesday to restrain his agitation when Mr. Hueston suggested that Mr. Lay had tried to tamper with potential government witnesses.
Before he took the stand, a number of legal experts had predicted that Mr. Lay would use the same folksy charm he employed during his heyday as the public face of Enron to seek to win over the 12 jurors deciding his fate in the criminal fraud trial here. But during his three days so far as a witness, Mr. Lay has found it harder and harder to maintain a kindly grandfatherly image.
Instead, Mr. Lay, 64, has become increasingly agitated, at times reacting impatiently even to his own lawyer, George McCall Secrest Jr., and lashing out at what Mr. Lay portrayed as a cabal of former Enron executives, investors and journalists whom he repeatedly blamed for the company's downfall in late 2001.
The contrast to his fellow defendant, Jeffrey K. Skilling, was particularly striking. Despite a much harsher reputation for arrogance, Mr. Skilling, in his two weeks on the stand, generally maintained his composure with only a few exceptions.
In the first 90 minutes of a cross-examination that is expected to continue at least to Monday, Mr. Lay also found himself on the defensive over a matter that tripped up Mr. Skilling as well. Mr. Lay acknowledged that he had violated Enron's code of ethics by investing $120,000 in Photofête, the same photo-sharing company that Mr. Skilling had supported, in part because it was run by Mr. Skilling's girlfriend at the time.
In testimony critical to his defense, Mr. Lay also insisted on Wednesday that he borrowed $77.5 million from Enron in the months before it collapsed to pay personal bank debts, not because he knew that the company was about to implode. Mr. Lay was under pressure to repay the loans from banks, which were issuing margin calls because of Enron's falling stock price. The margin calls required Mr. Lay to pay his debt in cash or face the prospect that the banks would sell the Enron shares he was using as collateral. He was seeking to counter government suggestions that his stock sales showed he knew Enron had serious problems.
Mr. Lay said Wednesday that he was "fighting off bankruptcy myself" at the time.
Mr. Lay boiled over even before Mr. Hueston began his cross-examination Wednesday. In a long discussion of his deteriorating personal financial situation, Mr. Lay lashed out when questioned by Mr. Secrest about efforts Mr. Lay said he had made to repay several million dollars owed on an Enron credit line.
Mr. Lay testified that he used the final $1 million he borrowed from the line, which was backed by his Enron shares, to pay the mortgage on his $4 million Houston condominium. At the time plaintiffs' lawyers were seeking to freeze the assets of Enron executives and, Mr. Lay said, he was concerned that he would be "left without a place to live." Mr. Lay said he tried to work out a deal with Enron's creditors after the company declared bankruptcy. When asked by Mr. Secrest why a deal was not consummated, Mr. Lay nearly jumped out of the witness box.
"It was not finished because John Hueston blocked that deal," he said loudly as he pointed with an outstretched arm at Mr. Hueston.
When Mr. Hueston took over, he challenged Mr. Lay over whether he had ever repaid the last $7.5 million he owed on the Enron credit line, evoking a response that it was the prosecutor himself who had prevented him from paying the debt.
When Mr. Hueston pressed, Mr. Lay retorted: "Mr. Hueston, when I was sworn in here it was to tell the whole truth, not just in part."
Mr. Hueston then drew Mr. Lay's ire by asking him about efforts to reach out to potential government witnesses and what the prosecutor described as "character assassination" of government witnesses.
Mr. Lay, his voice rising, responded, "Are you considering yourself?"
Mr. Hueston questioned Mr. Lay about comments by Mr. Lay's lawyers, who described the former Enron treasurer, Ben F. Glisan Jr., as a "monkey" and a "liar" to reporters after Mr. Glisan testified last month about fraudulent activities at Enron. "I can't take full responsibility for what my attorneys do," Mr. Lay said.
Mr. Lay acknowledged that he had tried to meet with some of the witnesses against him, including Vincent J. Kaminski, the former Enron risk management specialist. Under questioning, Mr. Lay said he sought Mr. Kaminski out in a bid to arrange a private chat over coffee just nine days before he testified in the government's case.
He stole the futures of millions of people. He's scum. People lost their pensions. Fuck him. Let him live in the street.
HOUSTON, April 21 — Thousands of hurricane evacuees who counted on a year of free housing and utilities are being told by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that they are no longer eligible for such help and must either pay the rent themselves or leave.
Of about 55,000 families who were given long-term housing vouchers, nearly a third are receiving notices that they no longer qualify, FEMA officials said. For the rest, benefits are also being cut: they will have to sign new leases, pay their own gas and electric bills and requalify for rental assistance every three months.
The process has been marked by sharp disagreements between the agency and local officials, and conflicting information given to evacuees about their futures. Although agency officials say they never promised a full year of free housing, many local officials around the country say yearlong vouchers were exactly what FEMA agreed to provide.
[The agency was sharply criticized in draft bipartisan recommendations to be released Thursday by a Senate committee, which said the agency functioned so poorly during Hurricane Katrina that Congress should abolish it and rebuild a more powerful agency.]
In the desperate weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the vouchers helped stabilize the lives of evacuees who had bounced from place to place while trying to find missing family members and deal with mysterious skin rashes, shellshocked children and reams of red tape. At least, the vouchers promised, they would not have to worry about shelter.
Now, eight months later, the notices have panicked evacuees and raised the ire of local officials and landlords, who say FEMA is reneging on a promise and dismantling a program that is helping more people and is far less expensive than other housing solutions like trailers.
To make matters worse, advocates and local officials say, many evacuees either do not know why they have been found ineligible or have been given spurious reasons. Many notices do not even give a deadline, saying only, "You will not be asked to leave before April 30."
"We believe that many of the people who received notice that they're ineligible are eligible," said Mayor Bill White of Houston, where more than 9,000 of the 35,000 families on vouchers have been determined to be unqualified, raising fears of mass homelessness.
In an effort to persuade FEMA to reconsider, Mr. White has gone so far as to send teams of building inspectors to New Orleans to photograph evacuees' destroyed homes.
I don't know why these guys can't stop these ragheads. I don't think they want to win enough
The author is about to deploy to our forgotten war in Afghanistan, where four Canadians got killed by the Taliban we defeated in 2001 last week , but this is from a Kos diary a year ago and still amusing
And I'm not talking about the guy with the Darth Vader suit and helmet.
I went to the 12:21 AM showing of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith last night. I got there about 11:00 PM and stood in a long line with people of varying ages and walks of life. I met up with a friend who is on mid-tour leave from Iraq, and we hung out together while waiting for the film to begin. The movie was mostly excellent. There were some uneven moments, but I did enjoy it. To my story, then. I was wearing one of my unit t-shirts for the simple reason that I had slept in it earlier and I didn't care to change--it smelled clean enough anyway.
While waiting in line with my fellow moviegoers, We listened absentmindedly to snippets of some of the conversations taking place around me in the three lines for the various showings as we shot the shit ourselves. The conversations were mostly centered around Star Wars, of course, but also current events and occasionally various personal issues.
One conversation in particular caught our attention, and we listened to it intently. A gentleman of about mid-twenties or so was holding forth on the 'war on terror,' democrats, Jane Fonda, and so on. His listeners appeared to be the same age range as he. "We need to kick these raghead murderers out of the country...kill them wherever we find them...expand Israel all the way to the persian gulf and make Saudi Arabia a subsidiary of Exxon..."
His listeners, two of whom were wearing 'OU Young Republicans' t-shirts, were nodding their heads and making generally approving comments.
My friend just shook his head and muttered, loud enough for them to hear "fucking ignorant assholes."
About my friend, Richard--he volunteered to join a unit from another state because he couldn't find work with he shiny new college degree for almost a year. He accepted a direct commission as a 2nd Liutenant of Infantry as part of the mission. He and I had been together as NCOs during the ground offensive into Iraq, and he's as good a man and a combat leader as they come.
The guy turned to us and said "I suppose you 'liberals' think we ought to just let the Arabs take over our country and kill all the adults and convert our children to muslim (sic) huh?"
Richie--"Not likely in any event, but we don't have an army worth the name anymore, thanks your lord Bush. I'm halfway through a tour over there and I don't see any way we can prevent a civil war, let alone win anything but what do I know? Back here in the land of SUVs and roses, you have a clearer picture don't you?" (I had always thought Richie was a republican--what's up with this?)
One of the others said something to the effect that Richie was full of shit, which he countered by producing his leave form and ID card from his wallet.
"We're winning. Why else would the insurgents do these large attacks that they know they can't win? It's frustration, or make sure they stay in the news. Things are getting better there all the time, but you probably can't see it at your level."
"If we're winning, how come the insurgents are even able to stage these large attacks? If we had that level of control, they wouldn't have any safe assembly areas from which to attack us in any numbers. All we can do is react to them, which means they have the initiative. That's bad," I said.
"They're attacking mainly Iraqis now," said one. "They're afraid to come out and fight us" she said.
"Three things," said Richie, "one, attacking Iraqis is a great way to start a civil war-that's a lovely thought-a three-way civil war with us in the middle, and two," he said, "they're attacking us more than enough as it is, thank you, and three," he asked, "are you in the military?"
"No, but I support the troops and our Commander in Chief," she replied.
"Then what's this 'WE' shit? It's not your ass over there getting IED'ed and RPG'ed and shot at and mortared, so who the fuck are you to talk about 'we'?"
"Come on, I'm sure the young republicans here all have yellow ribbon magnets on the SUVs their daddies bought them-go easy, man. They support us," I said. (One could, in fact, hear the italics in my voice.)
"He's been there, and got the t-shirt," Richie said, making a twirling motion with his finger to me. I turned around so they could see the image on the back of my shirt.
"Well, with attitudes like yours, we won't win," one of them said.
"Then why don't you join up so you can go over there and show us how it's done?" asked Richie. They looked away. "That's what I thought," he said, "so why don't you all shut your fucking yaps since you don't even believe in your own shit enough to stand up for it?"
Jen here. I'm rather tired and think I may be getting a mild head cold, so I'm tucking in to a cask-stregnth 10-year Laphroaig and thinking about a hot bath, with a big chunk of this thrown into it. Having said that, I am finally remembering to put up a thread I thought of a while ago.
Does anyone else remember MadLibs? I loved them as a kid. Well, here's a sort of very brief grown-up version. Just copy and paste your completed paragraph into comments.
And now...here is....
"My Best Celebrity Brag Story"
Well, I was walking around ______ one night, and I decided to stop into ______ for a quick nightcap before bed. I pull up a chair at the bar, and ordered a ________. Just as the bartender was putting down the napkin, I look over to my right, and there was _______, just sitting there alone, drinking a _______. They were on their way out, but while I started my drink, I actually screwed up the courage to say "hi." I told them __________________, and then we talked for a few minutes about _________________ while they paid up. I had another drink, but I was psyched for the rest of the night and couldn't sleep. I wish I had had my camera with me!
Now, this is meant to be fictional and cool, or it can be true if you have a real story to tell.
My quick off the top of my head version:
Well, I was walking around Mitte one night, and I decided to stop into this little kneipp for a quick nightcap before bed. I pull up a chair at the bar, and ordered an absinthe and a pack of nasty unfiltered Marlboros. Just as the bartender was putting down the napkin, I look over to my right, and there was Gorbachev, just sitting there alone, drinking an Irish Coffee. They were on their way out, but while I started my drink, I actually screwed up the courage to say "hi." I told them that I was shocked to see him there, and then we talked for a few minutes about the weather and Putin's bad taste in suits while they paid up. I had another drink, but I was psyched for the rest of the night and couldn't sleep. I wish I had had my camera with me!
So that's my mental diversion tonight. Have fun; be snarky.
Uh, Messrs Barzani and Talibani, we have a slight problem with you running Kirkuk. We will be sending 200,000 negotiators to solve this dispute-The Turkish Army
By Jonathan Finer Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 25, 2006; Page A16
KIRKUK, Iraq -- Hundreds of Shiite Muslim militiamen have deployed in recent weeks to this restive city -- widely considered the most likely flash point for an Iraqi civil war -- vowing to fight any attempt to shift control over Kirkuk to the Kurdish-governed north, according to U.S. commanders and diplomats, local police and politicians.
Until recently, the presence of the militias here was minimal. U.S. officials have called the Shiite armed groups the deadliest threat to security in much of the country. They have been blamed for hundreds of killings during mounting sectarian violence in central and southern Iraq since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in February.
The Mahdi Army, led by firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has sent at least two companies, each with about 120 fighters, according to Thomas Wise, political counselor for the U.S. Embassy's Kirkuk regional office, which has been tracking militia activity. The Badr Organization, the armed wing of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, has also boosted its presence and opened several offices across the region, military officers here said.
Although still in its early stages, the militia buildup "is something that definitely concerns us, and something that we are watching very carefully," said Col. David R. Gray, 48, of Herscher, Ill., commander of the 101st Airborne's 1st Brigade Combat Team, based in Kirkuk. "So far they haven't been that violent, but does it add to the tension, putting them into this maelstrom? Absolutely."
The fate of oil-rich Kirkuk -- Iraq's third-largest city with about a million residents and sizable ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen communities -- has been a pivotal and divisive issue since long before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq's constitution, endorsed in nationwide balloting in October, calls for a referendum on the future of the region by the end of 2007, but many key details are in dispute, such as who will be permitted to vote.
Kurdish leaders speak openly of their intention to use force if necessary to gain control of the city, which they consider the historical capital of a vast Kurdish nation also extending into Iran and Turkey. During the rule of President Saddam Hussein, Arabs brought in from elsewhere in Iraq displaced thousands of Kurds. As many as 300,000 Kurds who were pushed out have returned to the area, according to U.S. estimates, establishing vast settlements on the outskirts of the city and making them its largest ethnic community. Kurds also occupy most of the top provincial political and security jobs.
Peter Galbraith, the Kurds factorum, may want to divide Iraq. Sadr doesn't and he's got an army to stop it.
Don't be fooled, if the Kurds fight for Kirkuk, the Turks may join the Arabs in trying to stop them. The Kurds may want to use force, but if they try to take it, all hell breaks loose,which is why Sadr is there. And why he has Sunni support.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; Posted: 10:02 a.m. EDT (14:02 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Each time the 3-year-old gets in the bathtub, she thinks she's going to drown. Monica whimpers when her grandmother turns on the faucet, sobbing softly at first, then wailing as the tub begins to fill.
"She cries and cries. 'Don't be crying,' I tell her. 'I gotta wash your hair,"' says her exasperated grandmother, Ruth May Smith.
There's no use telling her she won't drown; the word isn't yet part of the toddler's vocabulary. And it won't do much good to tell her that grandma will take care of her, either; Monica learned the hard way that those she loves can't always protect her.
There were seven children inside the family's Gulf Coast home on August 29 when the 30-foot wave, unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, crashed down upon it. As the walls began to crumble, the older children swam out. Monica, the littlest, was still inside with her grandmother and two aunts. None could swim.
The toddler went under. She would have drowned if not for a family friend who dove in, fished her out and placed her inside a floating cooler.
In her plastic ark, the girl bobbed to safety -- but the storm's high water mark is still imprinted inside her, as it is in thousands of others who survived the storm. .......................
During the London blitz in World War II, Anna Freud, the daughter of the famed psychoanalyst, observed that children sent to safe homes in the countryside fared worse than those who waited out the bombings in shelters alongside their mothers.
It was the separation, rather than the exposure to the war, that proved more traumatic.
....................
When her father takes a nap, 8-year-old Gabrielle Riley circles the bedroom, on edge. Eventually, she quietly turns the doorknob. "I just go in his room and see if he's OK. But sometimes he don't answer me so I just scream loud, 'Daddy are you OK?"' she explains.
Gabrielle's mother caught pneumonia during the family's evacuation to Houston and died in her sleep. Ever since, Gabrielle has been unable to fall asleep by herself, curling up with her grandmother, instead. It's a recurring pattern, say child psychologists, as children retreat into what is most familiar.
More than 60 years ago, Anna Freud had a second observation: While children who hunkered down in London's bomb shelters with their guardian fared better emotionally than those sent out of harm's way, the children who did best of all were those whose mothers stayed calm. If the mother showed fear, the child sensed the threat implicitly -- and symptoms of trauma surfaced later.
Like youngsters in London, many child victims of the story sensed the threat in their parents' reaction and, in Katrina's aftermath, in TV footage.
.........................
Some kids -- like 6-year-old Michael Watts, Jasmine's next-door neighbor -- are taking matters into their own hands. As the storm approached, he did what his parents told him: Pack a single bag. Don't take more than a few day's worth of clothes.
He returned to find his toys caked in mud.
That's when he asked his parents for a suitcase, one with wheels and a handle. In it, he began storing every new toy he was given since the storm.
Now, he doesn't let the suitcase out of his sight, lugging it behind him on errands, to the store, to restaurants and to sleep-overs. Inside are his treasures: Sponge Bob and Batman. A Game Boy. A growing collection of plastic, Hulk-like men. ...................
Many kids aren't getting help
"Make no mistake: This is a crisis and it should be dealt with as an emergency," says Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Washington-based Children's Defense Fund, which in a recently released report called for immediate emergency mental health services in the Gulf states.
Overwhelmed, child psychologists in New Orleans say case loads have doubled, both because of the heightened need and because so many doctors have not returned. "I used to be able to book a new child within two weeks. Now, I'm booking appointments two months out," says child psychologist Carlos Reinoso, author of the book "Little Ducky Jr. and the Whirlwind Storm," which tries to explain the hurricane to children.
What mental health professionals fear most is the impact down the road.
Tracking more than 200 children who were victims of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia that killed 25,000 people over five years, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles' Trauma Psychiatry Program found that those who were given professional help early on fared better and showed fewer symptoms at the end of the study. Those who got no help did not improve. .............
Some may already be beyond help.
No one noticed that a 14-year-old girl in Pass Christian -- once a straight-A student -- had stopped reading since Katrina.
The girl, who asked that she not be identified because she felt embarrassed, used to lose herself in books. "I would picture myself as the main character in whatever I was reading. I read so much that I would lose track of time," she says.
Now, she has a hard time concentrating. Horrible images intrude as she reads.
She remembers the drowned man, impaled on his plywood fence. She pictures her favorite skirt high up in the branches of a tree.
Last month, she locked herself inside the bathroom of her family's FEMA trailer and lifted a bottle of Lysol to her lips. Her mother found her passed out on the toilet seat, her head leaning against the trailer's plastic wall, the floor slick with the disinfectant.
The girl recovered from the suicide attempt, but her family doesn't have the resources to get her professional help, relying instead on teachers and school counselors.
To this girl, the world is a tunnel of darkness. She sees no way out.
"It's like I can't see my future anymore," she says.
Jen
You know it's bad when the kids are compared to the survivors of the London Blitz. Of course, none of these kids will ever get the followup care they need--hell, they can't even get guaranteed housing at this point.
What's a poor partisan hack like Drudge to do with his idols running the country and Iraq into the ground? Aha! Claim that some book isn't doing so hot.
Left-leaning new media has hit turbulence at the marketplace, newly released stats show.
A book hyped by major media as documenting a progressive revolution of "blogs" and political power, DAILY KOS 'CRASHING THE GATE,' has sold only 3,630 copies since its release last month, according to NIELSEN's BOOKSCAN.
[NIELSEN claims only 2,062 copies of DAILY KOS have been purchased at the retail level; the rest coming through 'discount' outlets.]
Bookscan just surveys a sampling of big box retailers, so it's not a complete market analysis. Merely a snapshot of major retailers (and not even all of them). And it absolutely fails to capture online sales.
So let's see. The book has been out three weeks. It has sold 5,100 copies of the special edition and 3,630 according to Drudge (if he can be trusted) in a sampling of the big box bookstores.
That's 8,730 right there. Now throw in the indy bookstores (we've probably sold close to 1,000 just in the book signing events I've attended), and we're getting close to 10,000.
Then there's the online retailers. Currently, CTG is ranked #25 on Amazon.com, and is ranked #5 in the politics category. Through the links at the top of the this page alone I've sold 700 copies of CTG.
So to recap -- top ranking on Amazon, over 10,000 copies sold in three weeks the book has been out. Distributors have ordered 50,000 copies of the book, which has gone through three printings already (our small publisher can't afford to do large first printings). And we're just halfway through our book tour.
And this is somehow supposed to be a failure?
Like I said, pity poor Drudge. He has really resorted to grasping at straws. The Right has so little going for it, that it's been reduced to desperately wishing this book fails.
Funny, actually.
(p.s. Notice how Drudge doesn't give stats for Glenn Reynold's or Hugh Hewitt's books?)
Unfortunately for Markos, I have not read Crashing the Gate, yet, because I had 500 pages of Cobra II to get through, and the new Godfather PC game is captivating. But it will get read . No matter.
Drudge, as usual, is just being a jealous bitch when whining about this. For a book by two guys unknown to the national media, remember, nearly every book on politics is written by someone in the MSM or national politics. Then there is no buyback program for liberal books, like Regnery can shove out all those hateful Republican screeds like they were interesting.
So any success they have is pretty amazing. Unlike Drudge, who even had a TV show.
(Below is a longer explanation of what transpired over the past five days. But I wanted to mention this now, since Atrios had posted that Gannon/Guckert and I were going to be on a panel next week.)
We WERE going to be on a panel, but the panel moderator, who works at the Annenberg School, isn't interested in the Gannon issue being one of the main topics we discuss on the panel - i.e., she wants to have Gannon on the panel as an actual expert blogger and gay rights savant! the moderator literally told me that rather than have the panel devolve into a discussion about the Gannon issue, she'd rather have Gannon and me talk about ex-gay conversion therapy. And what pray tell is Gannon's expertise on ex-gay conversion? That he may have once charged an ex-gay $200 an hour?
Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend (see the link for Pam's explanation of what transpired) and I simply could not lend our names to helping giving Gannon credibility as an authentic gay journalist and civil rights pundit - as though somehow Gannon is the respectable conservative counterpart to our blogs and our voices - so we both pulled off the panel last night after five days of begging the moderator and the conference organizers to give the people what they want - a panel discussion about the Gannon affair from last year, or at least making the Gannon issue one of the main issues the panel would discuss. The response we got from the panel moderator was that we could certainly mention Gannon in our introduction or our responses to any question. Gee, that's swell of you.
It's the National Press Club all over again. Somehow the fact that Gannon was exposed as a $200/hour hooker while writing homophobic articles for some far-right religious-right suck-up rag now establishes him as a credible journalist when he wasn't before. He's been accused repeatedly of plagiarism and has yet to prove otherwise. Why not put the Washington Post ex-blogger, the one who had to quit because of his serial plagiarism, on a panel and get his expert advice on journalistic research and ethics?
Pam and I agreed to be on this panel knowing full well that Gannon was going to be on it. Some of you, and some of my friends privately, didn't like that fact. Still, I defended the decision because I "knew" - ha! - that a panel about gay blogging with me and Gannon on it was going to clearly address the Gannon affair as one of the key issues to be discussed, and that would permit me to call Jeff/James on his bull. In my wildest dreams I never imagined anyone with an once of journalist blood in them could ever consider Gannon a serious blogger, journalist, or gay rights sage. That is simply sick, and neither Pam nor I will have any part of it.
(Note: I'm not speaking for Pam, she can explain her own view on her own blog, but we have been in touch and I know Pam shares my concerns and that's why she too has withdrawn from the panel.)
Finally, I really need to address one thing. The man running the entire show in Philly next week just sent Pam and me an email suggesting that we were "hiding behind our computers" by canceling our appearance on the panel, as if Pam and I are afraid of Jeff Gannon.
Putting aside the fact that Pam and I had agreed months ago to appear with Gannon, so there obviously wasn't any fear on our parts, I do have to admit I was nervous about one thing.
Whether Jeff would sock me with a bill for $200 after the debate was over.
(PS Pam dropped a couple of hundred bucks on her plane ticket to Philly. She tells me she's gonna go to Philly anyway, even though she's not speaking on the panel anymore. Perhaps some of you could donate a little love to Pam to thank her for her courageous stand.)
I was scheduled to appear next Wednesday at the National Media Panel on Blogs during Equality Forum. I'm still going to Philly, but I won't be on the panel. John Aravosis of AmericaBlog has declined to participate as well.
What happened?
When I received the email from panel moderator about the final agenda of the panel discussion last week, I was surprised to see that the Gannongate dustup was not going to be the centerpiece of the agenda, in fact it wasn't mentioned at all. Quite frankly, a discussion of journalism, ethics, and the intersection of sexuality, politics and impact of blogging puts the Gannon story front and center -- it should be the focus of the panel, not a sideline.
John's blogging on the White House Press Whore/Talon "News" cub reporter Gannon/Guckert is a landmark in LGBT and mainstream political blogging. No matter what anyone along the political spectrum may think of John's views on some issues, this is the elephant in the room that people are coming to see a discussion about.
In my response, I made it clear that most regular readers of my blog have zero respect for Gannon as a representative or voice of the LGBT community in the blogosphere, regardless of politics. He's a homophobe and a serial plagiarist. He has little to add to the discussion about LGBT media and blogging, since his blog has no impact or influence in the community in terms blogger journalism; he's a joke.
There have been many rounds of correspondence over this, up until last night, when I finally tired of trying to get clarity and resolution on this -- the issue is principle. This panel is planning to give Gannon legitimacy as a blogger/journalist while refusing to focus on his scandal, the only thing he's legitimately able to speak about on this front. It's unfortunate - and a repeat of what happened at the National Press Club when Gannon was given a forum. John elaborates more here.
If the goal was meant to politically balance the panel in a discussion of the responsibilities of bloggers writing about LGBT issues, there are certainly right-leaning gay bloggers of influence who could have been invited. Gannon can't even represent this; he rarely writes about LGBT matters at all.
So, unless these organizers have a come-to-Jeebus moment at the 11th hour, I've deep-sixed my first panel appearance. It was something I had looked forward to; since we already bought the plane tickets we'll still be there to attend events, meet up with Philly bloggers, see the city and celebrate Kate's birthday.
Many thanks to those at Equality Forum for extending the gracious invitation to appear.
Yeah, kick Pam and John a couple of bucks for their efforts.
Me, I would have read up and relished kicking the shit out of that fake Marine. I hate people who lie about their service. But to be compared to the lying little shit is a bit much. So I see why they walked away.
The organizer needs to understand, credible people do not appear with frauds. Deborah Lipstadt doesn't debate Holocaust deniers, and gay journalists and bloggers shouldn't have to share the stage with a manwhore to discuss gay issues online.
Expatriate Games Travelers Are Heading to Buenos Aires for the Culture -- and Staying for the $250 Rent
By Allen Salkin Special to The Washington Post Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page P01
Meghan Curry starts her day with a walk to the river. The former real estate agent from Denver, who is 26, holds hands with her fiance, Patricio de Vasconcellos, 31, a wavy-haired Argentine with dark eyes, as they gaze over the coffee-colored waters of the Rio de la Plata. Around midday, when de Vasconcellos heads to work at the wine shop where the two met a year ago, Curry settles into her two-bedroom apartment to work on her travel memoir and a collection of poetry. Then she might nap or head downtown for café con leche with friends at one of the city's thousands of outdoor cafes. Later, much later, it's time for a slow dinner on Buenos Aires time, where many restaurants don't open until 10 p.m.
"This," said Curry, "I could never do if I had to earn more than $6,000 a year."
Her apartment rents for $250 a month. An espresso costs about 65 cents. A restaurant dinner -- appetizers, thick steaks and wine -- costs about $25 for two. Stylish leather handbags from designer boutiques go for $20. Tickets for first-run American movies are about $3.50.
Sound good? It did to Curry, who came to the city known as B.A. in February 2005, intending to stay for a few months and learn Spanish. Once in Argentina, she fell in love with the low-stress lifestyle and with de Vasconcellos, and now plans to stay indefinitely.
Curry is one of thousands of Americans and others who have given up lives in places like Washington, Los Angeles and London in the last three years -- some permanently, some temporarily. Lured by B.A.'s high culture at low prices, this new crop of expatriates aims to pursue dream versions of themselves in the Argentine capital.
"Prague was the place in the early 1990s," said Margaret Malewski, author of the 2005 guide "GenXpat: The Young Professional's Guide to Making a Successful Life Abroad." "B.A. is the hot spot now
I wonder how people feel about these people. In New York, we call them Eurotrash and hate them.
Argentina isn't cheap because it's fun for young Americans. It's cheap because the country's economy bottomed out so badly that people played on a game show for a job. I know the way that the Eurotrash played at life was extremely irritating while people were begging for jobs.
Eurotrash, btw, is slang for Europeans who come from rich families and seem to live without working.
The Irish and Australians usually work, so they were cool to hang out with. Most of the Brits I knew had jobs as well. Maybe it's me, but there's a certain sort of high handedness with these people which sets off badly against the other immigrants, the people working their asses off all day long.
FWIW, I met a ton of similar American "permanent tourists" in Berlin as well. Most of them had no visible source of income, lived in cheap shares (cost of living in Berlin is relativley lower than NYC, for instance), flouted all labor and immigration laws (ie worked off the books in bars or just did nothing, and never registered with the authorities), never learned much German beyond enough for buying weed and a beer, etc. This was in sharp contrast to the Americans who actually had jobs there.
And once again, because I spoke (crappy) German, knew something about the culture, and didn't make an ass of myself, I had Germans ask me if I had been born in Europe, etc.
However, Americans reap their own punishment for this boorish behavior by NOT being able to get rid of the trustafarians in most of our own cultural centers.
A small, troubled high school in East Harlem seemed an unlikely place to find students for a nationwide robot-building contest, but when a neighborhood after-school program started a team last winter, 19 students signed up. One was Amadou Ly, a senior who had been fending for himself since he was 14.
Kristian Breton held a meeting with his team of robot-builders before they were to leave for Atlanta.
The project had only one computer and no real work space. Engineering advice came from an elevator mechanic and a machinist's son without a college degree. But in an upset that astonished its sponsors, the rookie team from East Harlem won the regional competition last month, beating rivals from elite schools like Stuyvesant in Manhattan and the Bronx High School of Science for a chance to compete in the national robotics finals in Atlanta that begins tomorrow.
Yet for Amadou, who helps operate the robot the team built, success has come at a price. As the group prepared for the flight to Atlanta today, he was forced to reveal his secret: He is an illegal immigrant from Senegal, with no ID to allow him to board a plane. Left here long ago by his mother, he has no way to attend the college that has accepted him, and only a slim chance to win his two-year court battle against deportation.
In the end, his fate could hinge on immigration legislation now being debated in Congress. Several Senate bills include a pathway for successful high school graduates to earn legal status. But a measure passed by the House of Representatives would make his presence in the United States a felony, and both House and Senate bills would curtail the judicial review that allows exceptions to deportation.
Meanwhile, the team's sponsors scrambled to put him on a train yesterday afternoon for a separate 18-hour journey to join his teammates from Central Park East High School at the Georgia Dome. There, more than 8,500 high school students will participate in the competition, called FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) by its sponsor, a nonprofit organization that aims to make applied sciences as exciting to children as sports.
"I didn't want other people to know," Amadou, 18, said, referring to his illegal status. "They're all U.S. citizens but me."
Most team members learned of his problem only yesterday at a meeting with Kristian Breton, 27, the staff member at the East Harlem Tutorial program who started the team, inspired by his own experience in the competition when he was a high school student in rural Mountain Home, Ark.
Alan Hodge, 18, echoed the general dismay. "We can't really celebrate all the way because it's not going to feel whole as a team without Amadou," he said.
Amadou's teammates have struggled with obstacles of their own. When Mr. Breton called a meeting of parents to collect permission slips last week, only five showed up. One boy's mother had a terminal illness, Mr. Breton learned. Another mother lived in the Dominican Republic, leaving an older sibling to manage the household. One of the six girls on the team said her divorced parents disagreed about letting her go, and her mother, who was willing to approve the trip, lacked the $4 subway fare to get to the meeting.
But Amadou's case stands out. As he tells it, with corroboration from immigration records and other documents, he was 13 and spoke no English when his mother brought him to New York from Dakar on Sept. 10, 2001. He was 14 when she went back, leaving him behind in the hope that he could continue his American education. ...................................
Taking shelter with a taxi driver, a friend of the family who could sign his report cards, Amadou enrolled in 11th grade at Central Park East. Under Supreme Court decisions dating to 1982, children have a right to a public education regardless of their immigration status, and in New York, as in many other cities, a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to legal status has prevailed for years.
But after the 9/11 attacks, practices around the country changed. On a rainy highway in Pennsylvania on Nov. 7, 2004, Amadou met a very different attitude when he had the bad luck to be a passenger in a car rear-ended by a truck. The state trooper who responded questioned his passport and school ID, and summoned federal immigration officers, who began deportation proceedings.
There is no right to a court-appointed lawyer in immigration court, and though Amadou's friends hired one for him at first, records show that the lawyer soon withdrew. "We really couldn't afford to pay," Amadou explained.
Faculty members and administrators at Nova Southeastern University, in Davie, Fla., got more than they bargained for when they invited author Salman Rushdie to give this year’s commencement speech at the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences on May 7. They got controversy. Some student members of the International Muslim Association are protesting the invitation, presumably because they agree with those who regard Mr. Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” as a blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. (It’s the Danish cartoons all over again, only this time with an additional twist provided by the literary quality of the offending document.)
Graduating senior Farheen Parvez is planning not to attend. “I was looking forward to my graduation,” she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, but “when I found out that Salman Rushdie would be the speaker, I was appalled.”
Apparently taken aback by the protest, university officials have defended themselves by denying any malign intention. Dean Don Rosenblum told the Sun-Sentinel that choosing Mr. Rushdie was not meant to insult anyone. Mr. Rosenblum also pointed out that the faculty chose Mr. Rushdie as a fitting climax to the university’s yearlong study of good and evil. It seems neither Mr. Rosenblum nor anyone else saw the tension between these two defenses: if good and evil is the theme, Mr. Rushdie must represent the former (you’re not going to invite evil to be your speaker) and those who condemned him (and issued a fatwa against him) the latter. And if, as the protest indicates, there are graduating seniors who would align themselves with the Ayatollah Khomeini (who issued the fatwa) and against Mr. Rushdie, they are sure to be insulted.
It doesn’t help to declare, as Mr. Rosenblum did, that Mr. Rushdie is “an outspoken advocate of freedom of expression, which is a critical core value of the university.” To invoke freedom of expression as a core value is to elevate it above any and all of the sentiments that might be expressed; expression itself, rather than its content, becomes the cornerstone of your theology. But it is not, one would think, the cornerstone of the Muslim students’ theology. What they are likely to hear when the mantra of free speech is preached at them is another statement by the university they attend that their beliefs—especially those that would lead to labeling some expressions blasphemous—are wrong.
This isn't the same as the Danish cartoons for a couple of reasons. The first was that Rushie's "crime" was offending the Iranians, who had no possible justification to punish the British subject.
The cartoons was a direct insult from Danes to other Danes of another religion. It was designed to denigrate them. Most American papers treated them a culturally offensive and wouldn't run them, as they wouldn't for any other religion
Rushdie was not denigrating Islam. Also, no one sent hit teams to kill the cartoonists, most people simply protested, some rioted and died. Rushie's life was in real, verifiable danger and most importantly, state sanctioned. That is a world of difference than some ginned up mobs. The Iranian state wanted him dead, a person they had no control or contact over. It's called terrorism.
To think in 2006, people could be offended by him speaking is sad. But so what. Don't fucking go.
It's one thing to be insulted by people meaning to insult you. It's another thing entirely to stand cheek and jowl with a repressive goverment calling for assassination.
Gilly, you have it wrong. The SAME sorts of people with the SAME interests and SAME insane sense of intolerance called for (and where necessary fabricated the materials) for both the Danish riots and the fatwah against Rushdie.
You can't pander to extremists, period.
And you know what? Libraries are full of books that insult various precepts of pretty much every religion.
I'll say it again: If your religion preaches the destruction of nonbelievers and nontheocratic systems of government, please stay the fuck out of Western civilization. Strawmen to the contrary be damned.
When someone with something to say--Muslim or not--can dare to criticize some aspect of Islam or heaven forfend tell a joke without some mullah somewhere sparking cross-nation state-sponsored riots, fatwahs, boycotts, protests, etc--and the world stoping to watch the collective temper tantrum--then it will be the first baby-step in the right direction.
When those university students protest Rushdie speaking, they're saying "I'm just here for show; I have no intention of thinking for myself--AND I think that I have a divine right to do the non-thinking for others also."
Fuck extremists.
Except the Danes were chortling about their insults to Islam until people got pissed. Thewere gleeful at bringing Muslims to "heel," and the insult was felt widely among ALL Muslims, not just extremists. It is no different than Jack Cafferty and Lou Dobbs racist, anti-immigrant paranoia.
When Muslims refused to stand for being insulted in the name of "free speech", when the same paper refused to mock Jesus Christ, the Danes were confused by the reaction. It isn't extreme to reject a racial insult and call it that. Those cartoons weren't just meant to be offensive, they were meant to degrade Muslims and their beliefs, despite the Danes not allowing Muslims to integrate into the wider society.
The same kind of racial paranoia CNN hosts are upbraided for, are part of Danish parlimentary politics, they even have a political party based on it.
The Danes thought they had a free shot at Muslims and they got any thing but.
Rushie, being a Muslim, was a target of state terror because the Iranians wanted to play politics. He was being punished for his ideas on Islam, not because he mocked Islam to diminish the humanity of others, which is what the Danes did and then expressed shock that muslims worldwide were deeply offended and boycotted their goods. Did they issue a fatwa to kill the Danish PM? No. Extremists played on this, but this wasn't just due to them.
Rushdie's fate was due entirely to extremists and anyone who boycotts his speech is an idiot.
They'll block his favorite website: HGTV.com He loves Get Color.
A lot of people have been discussing "net neutrality" this week . You can hit this site to get the details.
But like a lot of political wonks, they're talking about bills and lobbying, and it all may make your eyes glaze over.
But it's really simple.
Remember the old AOL? How you were restricted to what they offered, and couldn't reach the internet. And when you could, you were stuck with their browser?
Do you want that back?
No?
Also, there's been a lot of talk about blocking and slowing sites.
Think that's a small deal? Try reaching WebMD and not get it, when your kid is sick. Or being blocked from paying your Time Warner bill on a Verizon DSL line. Or being fired because your company is now paying millions to send interdepartmental e-mail and they have to make cuts.
The Telcos want to not only change the internet, they want to change your life. All of the things you now take for granted, like sending a text message via e-mail, or checking your mail on any computer, or seeing your kids homework assignment from pre-k to college course syllibuses. or that nanny cam or home security you set up.
This is not just about laws and computers, but your life.
Think about how we use the internet for the daily functions of our lives, banking, keeping in touch, dealing with distant workmates, ordering hard to find items.
Here's a simple example: when I was in Target one day, Jen called me, and she suggested that I buy Motion laundry detergent. Why? Well, she grew up in the burbs, and likes Target. I grew up using Tide, but I figured what the fuck, why not. So I bought a bottle. It worked great, like a fair amount of her advice
Only problem, Target is a 45 minute train ride from my house. A pain in the ass for laundry detergent.
Oddly enough, Drugstore.com has this detergent and can ship it to me, tax free, shipping free in two days.
Now, that's a small thing, but it's the small things which make life happen. And that is what the telcos want to take from you. Everyone is worried about political speech and using Google. and those are real concerns.
But this will change the way you use the net to make your life better. It will limit your choices and the ability to have the life you want, the way you want. It will limit what bank you use, what shows you follow, what make up you use and how you wash your clothes. It may even limit your ability to protect your home from robbers and your child from abuse.
If they can charge for services online, they can limit your ability to live the life you choose. That cam in the Pre-K you check in on your kids with, may cost too much for the school if you have to pay to get live video. You may find the cost of checking on your house with streaming video too much.
When my 10 year old nephew needed ties for school, real ties, not clip-ons, it took me two hours to find some at a reasonable price, but I found them. My sisters couldn't find them in stores, but I found them online. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have access to the Internet. Within a week, he had ties for every day of school. Is that a big deal? No. But it made a difference.
Their quest for profits isn't just about limiting your speech, although it will have that effect. It will limit your life. All the little things you do, from order silicone bakeware to planning your Vegas vacation, will now be subject to the whims of the people who own the pipes.
When you write to your Congressmember, remind them how easy the Net has made their lives, their personal lives, and how the Telcos want to limit that, based on the spurious idea that they need to make a profit from the Internet. Call it Google envy.
The problem is that the internet is now the main highway for life in the west. It makes real life that much better. We're no longer limited to local shortages and catalog ordering. Small companies can make their livings from customers around the world. And the telcos want to end this in the illusory search for profits.
The telcos want to go back to the past, and ruin your life in the process.
Producer claims affair with star; porn, booze rife on set of show
BY ADAM LISBERG DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A lawsuit teeming with tawdry details you definitely won't be seeing on the next "Maury" accuses talk-show host Maury Povich of cheating on his TV newswoman wife Connie Chung with an underling.
The bombshell legal filing claims Povich, 67, has been tangled in a "long time, intimate and sexual relationship" with 47-year-old producer Donna Ingber - and calls the talk show set a "Peyton Place" rife with porn and booze.
The alleged affair "was common knowledge to all," and Ingber was known as "Maury's girl," claims the $100 million suit, filed yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Bianca Nardi, a 28-year-old producer who has been with the show since 2000, slammed her bosses with the legal action - charging she was subject to humiliating and exploitative treatment behind the scenes.
The suit charges "Maury" was a classic hostile work environment "where hostility, intimidation, humiliation, ridicule, sexual harassment, as well as alcohol use, was explicit, rampant, pervasive and was condoned."
Povich is not accused of any harassing behavior himself - but the suit claims he, his production company and NBC should have known about the alleged problems and stopped them.
The most damaging details in the suit for Povich focus on his alleged affair with Ingber, a married mother of 12-year-old twins who supposedly made drunken late-night phone calls to Nardi about her sex life with the talk-show host and other men, the suit alleges.
The accusations threatened to tarnish the golden couple image of Povich and Chung, who wed in 1984, have a 10-year-old son and live in luxury in the Dakota apartment building on the upper West Side.
Reached at home, Chung, 59, declined comment yesterday.
Povich was taping shows yesterday at his Hotel Pennsylvania studios, including a segment with transsexual socialite Amanda Lepore. He ducked the Daily News' attempts to get his comments on the lawsuit.
Ingber's husband, Jeffrey, told The News that the allegations about his wife and Povich were lies.
"I think it's absurd," he said from their Philadelphia home. "He's been a gentleman. Absolutely not. Not even close."
A spokesman for the show ridiculed the harassment claims in Nardi's lawsuit - but refused to address the allegation that Povich was having an affair.
"We have done a complete and thorough investigation of her allegations of harassment and we are satisfied that there is no merit to them," the spokesman Gary Rosen said in a statement. "We stand behind our experienced and dedicated staff fully."
Nardi is a beautiful blond graduate of Syracuse University who had bit parts in some small independent films. She comes from a politically prominent family in New Hampshire, but was last in the news when her mother, Robin Miller, died of a rare flesh-eating bacteria in Connecticut in 2003.
Now living in Fort Lee, N.J., Nardi still works for the show but is taking medical leave, her lawyer said.
If you think Jerry Springer is the sleaziest show on TV, you'd be wrong. At least on Springer, the guests are adults and can keep some dignity. Maury, well, Maury runs a freak show with desperate women, deformed people, transgender beauty shows, video tape, and course, the most humiliating of them all, the baby daddy show. In this show, young women have the alleged fathers of their children take a DNA paternity test.
Maury: Tanisha, you say Davon is the father of Maury Jr.
Tanisha: That's right Maury, he look just like him. He got his nose, his eyebrows and his penis and it's small just like Davon.
Davon (behind the stage): Maury, that baby could be anybody, the milkman, the mailman, yours, because it sure ain't mine. The baby don't look nothing like me. Hell, it looks like you.
Then Davon will come out to a chorus of boos to a screaming woman
Tanisha: When are you going to be a man, when are you going to take care of your baby
Davon: He don't look nothing like me. He look like Maury.
Tanisha: You know I didn't sleep with no one else.
Davon: Please.
Maury will have them sit down. Then he will read the results:
Maury: Davon, you are NOT the baby's father.
Then Tanisha will make the run. She'll leap up and flee, embarassed and waddling, off stage and collapse in a pile of tears
Tanisha: Maury, the test has to be wrong. It has to be his baby
Maury: It isn't. He's out of your life. We'll help you find Maury Jr's father.if you want.
Tanisha: Yes, I do.
The problem is that they often have up to 10 men to test. As wild as Springer gets, everyone is more or less on equal terms. Not with Maury.
The stripper who charges she was raped by Duke University lacrosse players is so traumatized she sometimes screams at the sight of white men in the street, a new report says.
The accuser is staying with friends and only occasionally calls relatives, amid threats from Duke supporters and white supremacists, Essence magazine reported.
"I know she feels alone," the woman's ex-husband told Essence. "She doesn't know who to trust. That's why she's running."
Meanwhile, a lawyer for one of two Duke lacrosse players charged in the rape demanded that prosecutors turn over the accuser's medical, legal and education records for use in attacking her credibility.
When the woman does call family members, she sounds frightened and refuses to let them contact her, relatives said.
"Nobody has seen her. She needs some help," the woman's aunt told the magazine. "That girl needs some professional help.
And now we get the nuts and sluts defense. She's crazy, she's lying, it didn't happen. Typical rape defense.
Oddly enough, that cab driver who said he picked up the guys at the house, none of the dispatch records add up or show him taking a call at that location at that time, and his oddly precise memory about their activity.
One would hope this is just about discrepencies in memory and not someone passing money around for a lie. Because if that's the case, they've condemned their friends to jail, regardless of guilt. A jury would look dimmly upon false procured testimony.
But what I don't get is why they waited until an indictment to offer up all this evidence that their clients were elsewhere. My bet is that the DA has been over those cab records in detail and the other "evidence".
The best thing the defense could do is shut up. Running to the media isn't helping them in Durham or anywhere in North Carolina. They may have the suburban friends of these guys swearing to their character, but it just looks like slick Yankee manuvering down there. Saying how nice your clients is will not help them if the evidence turns against them. It will only make them look more depraved. Having them described as gentlemen may backfire on them.
The problem for the defense is simple: this isn't some lonely freshman far away from home. They can't initmidate her the way they can someone who was a Duke student. For a woman people desperately want to believe is lying, she's sure acting like a rape victim, has the physical evidence of a rape victim, and was allegedly in a situation where women are gang raped in college, according to DOJ.
But the thing I would worry about most is an old girlfriend accusing these guys of rape. Even if it's not allowed in court, it could not only poison the jury pool, but turn the media against them in a major way. They have a chance as things stand now, but if some other girl claims rape by the lacrosse team, their public defense will have a real problem, even if it's not about the two accused.
The fact that Essence already has a story up should indicate the kind of support this woman will get as this goes on. This is not anything like Tawana Brawley, with that case's manuvering and non-cooperation with the DA.
The defense is desperate to make this go away. Which is why they want her records, to discredit her. Ok, let's grant that she's made some bad choices, so how did the rape kit come back positive and who choked her? Unless physical evidence lies. It amazes me that people act like this case hangs on her word.
Officer sent to jail in choke-hold death case now has grip on martial arts biz
BY RICH SCHAPIRO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A disgraced ex-cop whose illegal choke hold led to a Bronx man's death has found a new career - training students in the art of self-defense.
Francis Livoti, who spent seven years in federal prison for the 1994 choking death of Anthony Baez, 29, is now helping teach martial arts as the CEO of Genesis Diversified Services- boasting he fought crime with his "bare hands."
"He shouldn't be out here giving classes," raged Baez's mother, Iris. "He should be locked up in a cell somewhere. If he didn't know what he was doing when he murdered my son than how could he teach anybody else?"
On Dec. 22, 1994, Livoti choked Baez, an asthmatic, to death after a football the man was tossing around with his brothers outside their University Heights home accidentally hit the officer's police car.
Livoti was cleared of criminally negligent homicide in a 1996 trial, but the volatile cop was found guilty of violating Baez's civil rights in a 1998 federal trial.
The city awarded the Baez family $3 million in a wrongful death settlement.
After being released from prison last year, Livoti began his new business.
"Don't have time for formalized Martial Arts Training?" its Web site reads. "We have the solution. We will teach you quick, clean, easy to learn and retain combat moves that will give you an edge when your safety is at risk."
Wow, I can learn how to choke a Puerto Rican to death as well.
Some days, you read the news and you just shake your head
SACRAMENTO, April 24, 2006 - L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, both Hispanic Democrats, have received death threats amid a national debate over immigration policy, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday.
Schwarzenegger told reporters about the threats against Villaraigosa and Bustamante during a news conference in his office Monday.
Other elected officials of Mexican heritage have also received threats, Schwarzenegger said, but he did not name them.
Bustamante spokesman Steve Green said the lieutenant governor appeared at some immigration rallies with Villaraigosa in March and received "nasty e-mails" afterward. The death threat - "The only good Mexican is a dead Mexican" - came about three weeks ago on a postcard, he said.
The California Highway Patrol, which investigates threats against public officials, declined to comment.
Janelle Erickson, a spokeswoman for Villaraigosa, said she didn't know whether the mayor had received threats related to the immigration debate.
Bustamante and Villaraigosa have opposed the criminalization of illegal immigrants and have said they support legal pathways to helping undocumented workers become citizens.
Schwarzenegger said he also was disturbed that vandals had spray-painted ethnic insults on and torched a Mexican-owned restaurant in San Diego County this month. Officials ruled the April 10th attack a hate crime.
Can someone explain to me why American politicians are being threatened with death over immigration issues. Oddly enough, it seems to only affect Mexican-Americans. No one is threatening Chuck Schumer over his pro-immigration stands.The fact that Ken Salazaar's family has been in the US for over 400 years, seems to be irrelevant.
You cannot play with this issue. Instead of talking about real issues on immigration, this is about brown people. I know some liberals like to deny this, but look at the debate and the hostility. Once you open the doors to this, the racists appear like mice in a corn field. We aren't talking about jobs or security, but brown people. If you doubt this, why are Americans like Salazaar and Villaraigosa being attacked, why are people burning down Mexican restaurants? What does this have to do with illegals? Not much.
You can talk about Ceasar Chavez opposing illegal immigration all day long , but this debate has been seized by the Know Nothing bigots, from CNN to Congress. When you don't discuss how they've seized this debate, you play right into their hands.
This isn't about jobs. It should be, but it isn't. Liberals who fall into the job trap are lending aid and comfort to the Know Nothing base of the GOP. It should be about jobs, but for many people, it's about excluding immigrants from the wider society. A wall is just part of that Know Nothing response, and every time you blather on about jobs and Chavez, you miss the point.
The people who are driving this debate do not want to protect jobs, they do not want to raise wages. They want to drive brown people from the US. If they didn't, they wouldn't say things like people's green cards should be checked at protests and worry about the Mexican flag. They wouldn't recycle right wing talking points about the reconquista.
Most importantly, Latino politicians wouldn't be getting racist hate mail.
But they are, and if you have to wonder why, then you need to pay closer attention.
FAIR has noted how CNN has slanted this debate towards Know Nothing racism
CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has been a high-profile voice in the immigration debate, using his show to rail against the country's "broken borders" virtually every evening on Lou Dobbs Tonight. His openly crusading advocacy journalism has raised eyebrows and put CNN president Jonathan Klein on the defensive; as Klein told the New York Times (3/29/06), "Lou's show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN. He is sui generis, one of a kind." But a closer look at CNN programming indicates that Dobbs' slanted journalism is not as unusual at the network as Klein suggests.
As FAIR has noted in the past, Dobbs' tone on immigration is consistently alarmist; he warns his viewers (3/31/06) of Mexican immigrants who see themselves as an "army of invaders" intent upon reannexing parts of the Southwestern U.S. to Mexico, announces (11/19/03) that "illegal alien smugglers and drug traffickers are on the verge of ruining some of our national treasures," and declares (4/14/05) that "the invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans" through "deadly imports" of diseases like leprosy and malaria. And Dobbs makes no effort to provide a nuanced or balanced picture of the issue; as he told CNN Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz (4/2/06): "I'm not interested—are you interested in six or seven views, or are you interested in the truth? Because that's what I'm interested in; that's what my viewers are interested in."
But Dobbs isn't the only CNN personality uninterested in nuance or immigrants' rights perspectives. Longtime CNN anchor Jack Cafferty provides daily commentary on the afternoon show The Situation Room, where he has attacked and belittled immigrants' rights protesters while ignoring or dismissing their concerns several times in recent weeks. The day of the massive immigrants' rights rallies across the country, he launched into a scornful tirade that seemed to even threaten violence against the peaceful protesters (4/10/06):
"Once again, the streets of our country were taken over today by people who don't belong here…. Taxpayers who have surrendered highways, parks, sidewalks and a lot of television news time on all these cable news networks to mobs of illegal aliens are not happy about it…. America's illegal aliens are becoming ever bolder. March through our streets and demand your rights. Excuse me? You have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets. At some point this could all turn very violent as Americans become fed up with the failure of their government to address the most pressing domestic issue of our time."
Cafferty went on to suggest that the government "pull the buses up and start asking these people to show their green cards.... And the ones that don't have them, put them on the buses and send them home." It's troubling that Cafferty seems entirely ignorant of the fact that under the U.S. Constitution, everyone in this country, whether documented or not, does indeed have rights—or that illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes each year. (When the Wall Street Journal—4/13/06—surveyed economists on whether illegal immigration provided a net gain to the U.S. economy, 44 of 46 said that it did.)
In another commentary on immigration (3/31/06), Cafferty chastised students who missed school to attend a pro-immigrant protest: "Maybe it would be a good idea if they went back into the classrooms and tried to get that diploma instead of, you know, spending their day out and marching around, jumping up and down and being silly." He similarly ridiculed (4/10/06) a D.C.-area school district's policy of giving students community service credit for attending rallies: "What service are you doing for your community by running around through the streets carrying Mexican flags and advocating on behalf of people who are breaking this nation's laws?"
Recent CNN Headline News hire Glenn Beck promises to add another xenophobic voice to the CNN family's chorus when he begins hosting his own program in May. As Media Matters for America documented (3/27/06), Beck recently slurred Mexican immigrants on his radio show (3/27/06), saying Mexico "is a country that has been overtaken by lawbreakers from the bottom to the top. And now, what you're protesting for is to have lawbreakers come here."
So are we debating jobs or race? It doesn't seem like this is about jobs to me.
Gilly--very quick note before running off to work...used more of your rub last night...one more time, i know you sent me an approximate recipe but it's buried on my Micron box somewhere...so...making sure it gets into my Gmail account...can you please repeat for the braindead? I remember something about seasoned salt and garlic powder and I forget the rest... I ask because thanks in part to your rub and the Chicken Man, I made the most surreally good and FAST chicken breasts ever. I used a glass baking pan and poured in enough oil to slosh around to coat the bottom well (no paper towel action--you'll see why in a minute). Then I washed and very well dried four defrosted skinless chx breast halves. Put them cut side UP on the oil pan, and rubbed/sprinkled on rub. Then flipped them over and rubbed the oily noncut side with rub with extra sprinkled on. Then I did what chicken man suggested, which I thought was nuts: Put them, covered with foil, into a 450 degree oven (fucking smoke alarm went off when the oven hit about 400) for only half an hour max. WOW. The oil kept stuff moist and gave a matrix for the chx juices to slosh in so that they didn't dry and stick to the pan, and everything came out....perfectly. Will have one tonight with nuked veggies of some sort and the brown rice with chick peas that I set up in the Rice Spaceship. So...in order to ensure future sucess stories...can I please have the skinny on the rub again? :) Thanks, ---Jen
OK, I decided to post this up because it is spice rub time again. She got some for Christmas, but I think she wants to make her own.
My favorite use for the rub is beer can chichken, which we all know how to make
Use a Weber kettle, with the coals pushed into equal piles on the sides, on the bottom grate, using the indirect cooking method.
Also on the bottom grate, set a disposable aluminum pan between the two piles of coals. The pan will separate the coal piles, and catch the drippings from the chickens placed above.
(Or you could use a gas grill, with the center burner off, using only the two side burners, and let it drip away.)
Start the fire. Wait until the coals are white. Meanwhile, take a fryer--never a roaster--because fryers are tender.
Rinse the chicken with water and remove the nasty parts. Pat dry, and squeeze a lemon over each chicken, rub it in. Then rub Cavender's all over the chicken, liberally.
Or you can use your own oregano and thyme, salt and pepper, and a little garlic. First, though, when your hands are dry, rub the oregano and thyme vigorously in your palms, to release the oil in the herbs.
Take a handful of seasoning and rub it into the cavity. Add some more down the neck, about a tablespoon.
Open a can of beer and drink off a quarter of the beer. Punch two small holes in the top. Take a teaspoon of the seasoning, and pour it into the beer, which will foam up and over.
Now here's the weird part--insert the beer can all the way into the chicken cavity. Place the bird-- sitting up--directly on the grill, using the legs to complete the tripod.
A standard Weber kettle can accommodate three birds set in a row on the grate above the drip pan.
Then put on the grill cover, and leave them alone for an hour or so, to roast until they're done. If the breasts get too dark, cover them lightly, with a sheet of aluminum foil.
Remove the birds, let them sit for a while to cool, then use tongs to remove the steaming cans.
Drizzle more fresh lemon before you serve.......
On to the rub:
Dearest Jen,
There is no recipe. No measurements, nothing of the sort.
What I do is look in my pantry, see what spices I have, and mix them. I like to have powered onion, garlic, paprika, chili powder, black pepper, salt, then mixed Italian seasoning, and then fresh herbs if I have them. I dry the fresh herbs in a frying pan, and then added the dried spices. I toast the spices, which releases their oils.
I tend to use roughly equal parts, but you could make a spicy garlic rub, a sweet paprika rub or any number of variations.
I then store them in a old spice container. Although I did buy a shaker bottle for Jen, since it was a gift, any bottle will do.
If was to use this for barbecue, I would add some sugar, but for seasoning, I'd leave it out.
And you can use this on meat, fish, eggs, garlic toast, potatoes. It's super versitile
You've heard from us. Now, we want to hear from you.
As we formulate our strategy to win in November, we need your opinion. Enclosed in this e-mail is your official Republican Grassroots Voices Survey. Please take a moment to share your opinion on...
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Needless to say, I have my own version of this.
1.) Which issues will be most important in determining your vote this November? (select up to three)
Impeaching the President Seeing Rumsfeld retire Watching Karl Rove go to jail Getting out of Iraq Stopping the war on Brown people Rebuilding New Orleans Stopping oil profits Making sure we don't have a theocracy
2.) What is the most important reason for maintaining and expanding our Republican majorities in 2006? (select one)
I like corruption Watching Bush crack up is fun Maybe Deadeye Dick will cap another old lawyer I want to see the GOP impeach Bush Condi is so hot when she goes on the Hill Theocracy is my goal Laws, laws are for Democrats and brown people
3.) If the Democrats win control of the Congress in 2006, what is the one thing you would be most worried would happen?
Bush would go to jail for treason and take Rummy and Cheney with him Karl Rove decides to talk We would leave Iraq We might actually capture Osama People might actually have a working health care system Veterans might be treated like humans
4.) As you know, President Bush has announced a bold reform agenda for 2006. Which of his initiatives is most important to you? (select one)
Spending more time on his ranch Getting Jenna to marry a rich man, who will pay for her drying out Ignoring New Orleans Watching US troops surrender to the Mahdi Army in their retreat to Kuwait Letting old people die because they can't get their drugs
5.) From which sources do you receive most of your news and political information? (select multiple) ABC News CBS News NBC News Fox News Channel CNN MSNBC Stormfront.org Free Republic. org Michael Savage Rush Limbaugh Glenn Beck Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty All them other immigrant haters James Dobson Rod Parsley Illinois Nazis News websites Blogs Daily Newspaper Radio E-mail News/Opinion Magazines Friends and Family Other
6.) On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend voting Republican in the next election to a friend or a colleague?
Would they hit me?
7.) As an online activist, what features would you like to see on GOP.com? (select multiple) More ways to connect with fellow Republicans Volunteer opportunities in my area Web videos & podcasts with key newsmakers Online polls The latest breaking news Information on the issues important to me Information on GOP candidates and elected officials Places to post my racist and homophobic rantings Online Diaries from GOP political leaders Other ways to keep in touch with the immigration know nothings and theocrats in my area
8.) In what year were you born? In what year did you realize you were better than other people
9.) Did you vote in the year 2004? Yes No They took the polling machines away Diebold expresses my opinions perfectly
10.) Please share any additional comments below
So when will you government pussies let the Minutemen loose so we can hunt them damn Mexkins.
Yes, I would like to sign up for the Grassroots Voices Initiative to be the online pulse of the Republican Party! 12.) Got a new e-mail address? Update it here:
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Soccer's international governing body was told by arbitrators yesterday that its rules did not comply with World Anti-Doping Agency requirements. It is the latest step in a feud that could endanger soccer's status as an Olympic sport.
FIFA, which governs soccer worldwide, had said that its anti-doping rules matched the anti-doping agency's code, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, had rejected that claim. .................................
"With this legal opinion, which FIFA itself sought, C.A.S. has laid the foundations for resolving any differences that exist with regard to the World Anti-Doping Code," Joseph S. Blatter, the soccer federation's president, said in a statement.
Although soccer is not required to change its rules — the anti-doping agency has no power to impose sanctions — adherence to the world anti-doping code is required by the International Olympic Committee as a condition of being an Olympic sport. ......................
The two organizations had asked the arbitration panel to resolve the issue. Soccer's federation has resisted adopting an automatic two-year ban because it supports determining the level of an athlete's guilt instead of using the zero-tolerance standard. Some of soccer's sanctions for doping violations have been as short as six months.
An automatic two-year ban would affect club play as well.'
But the IOC needs soccer in the summer Olympics to draw audiences in much of the world. It's become a mini-World Cup, But FIFA needs to get it's anti-doping rules in order.
This is a fight they don't need. With real issues like racism in Europeans soccer, they couldlive without this fight.
FIFA already has real problems with clubs. Two year bans could ruin European clubs chances for lucrative championship play. Which is why FIFA has flexible rules. The IOC wants a ban basically for other sports., but needs soccer to conform.
The IOC will go far to keep soccer, and FIFA will go far to avoid the stigma of being booted over doping rules
The Daily News has two very interesting articles about the Transit Union today. It amused me, because in December, they considered Toussaint little better than Nat Turner was in the South. Today, not so much.
Forget about riding the subway — MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow just got a customized, one-of-a-kind Ferrari to add to his collection.
The dark-blue Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, with a 540-horsepower V-12 engine under its custom-made hood, went on display last weekend at a Ferrari festival in Como, Italy, where fans of the high-performance car could see Kalikow's baby in person.
The car is big news among Ferrari fanatics, because it is one of the first that the car company has allowed to be modified by outside designers while still retaining the famed Ferrari name and its prancing-horse logo. ..............
It's a world apart from the crowded subways and buses that New York's transit riders have to take for $2 a ride.
The sneering tone about Kalikow's pimped out Ferrari is just the start in the change of tone.
Next comes the sympathetic profile of TWU leader of Roger Toussaint
Prison doesn't scare me, but how do I tell my young son?
By PETE DONOHUE and ADAM LISBERG DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Transit union chief Roger Toussaint says he's not scared of what awaits him when he marches off to jail today — he just worries that his 10 days behind bars will mean 10 days of fear for his family.
"That would be my biggest concern — that my loved ones would worry about me more than they should, more than they need to," Toussaint told the Daily News yesterday.
As president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, Toussaint led the illegal three-day December strike that crippled the city and brought massive financial penalties for the union.
Now he's getting ready to pay a personal price — one that he says will take its greatest toll on his family, especially the youngest of his five children, 10-year-old Tano.
"He asked me whether I'll be okay. I gave him assurances that I'll be fine, that his father will not be at risk. But he is a 10-year-old boy," said Toussaint, 49. "He's very aware of what's going on."
"I understand," the boy told his father last night.
Before leaving for jail, Toussaint said he will talk with all of his children, including a son who is serving in the Navy. He'll say goodbye to his wife, Donna, and spend his final moments with Tano, named for an African river.
Then Toussaint will walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to the lower Manhattan jailhouse known as the Tombs this afternoon, cheered on by what he hopes will be a crowd of thousands of union members.
Which just happened on the news. A several thousand person march, a rally with both the heads of the PBA and UFT pledging allegiance, and Toussaint headed for the Tombs and an all-night vigil planned by Al Sharpton.
Funny how Toussaint comes off as a working class hero while Kalikow comes off as a rich asshole. In the Daily News no less.
Juan Cole this morning, in his close reading of the Arabic-language press, may have caught the most revealing tidbit about the United Iraqi Alliance's naming of Jawad al-Maliki as the new prospective prime minister:
Informed sources in Baghdad told al-Zaman that the decision was taken quickly in an atmosphere of American pressure, as part of a deal among Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (head of the UIA), Jalal Talabani of the Kurdistan Alliance and Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party.
Among their goals was to deny a prominent role in the new government to Iyad Allawi (ex-Baathist leader of the Iraqi National List) and Salih Mutlak (Sunni ex-Baathist and leader of the National Dialogue Council).
Sure enough, neither Allawi nor Mutlak's factions were represented in the group of top officials and deputies named today, and Agence France Presse has their reaction:
Sunni MP Salah Mutlak, whose coalition holds 11 parliament seats, criticised the proceedings. "This is not a team for national unity, this is a sectarian arrangement," he warned.
. . . Former premier Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqi National List of 25 seats were among those who did not vote for any post.
But what of the religious Sunni parties, their erstwhile partners (along with the Kurds) in the anti-Shiite coalition?
"We welcome the choice of Mr Maliki and believe that we can now form a national unity government in Iraq which will be non-sectarian," said Zhafer al-Ani, spokesman of the National Concord Front, the main bloc representing Iraq's Sunni Arab former elite.
Ooooops, looks like somebody got cut in on the deal, and some other folks didn't.
A result like this is not entirely a surprise; the religious Sunnis were always seen as the most likely third faction to join the Shiite and Kurdish parties in a governing coalition. The point is that the exclusion of the Baathist-friendly parties would prove the failure of the overall U.S. political strategy, which was to force Allawi into a prominent role in the new government.
But wait -- didn't the U.S. scheme implemented by ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad succeed in forcing out Jaafari? Well, yes, but that's all it accomplished, as the Los Angeles Times explained this morning:
In terms of ideology and personal history, Maliki and Jafari appear to be carbon copies. Both men are in their 50s and hail from the Shiite shrine city of Karbala. Both were idealistic and devout Shiite opponents of Iraq's Sunni Arab rulers and the Baath Party. They became underground members of the Islamic Dawa Party. Both fled into exile in Iran after Hussein came to power.
. . . Jafari, a physician and theologian, agreed to step down only after he was confronted with intense domestic and international pressure. Among several preconditions, he demanded that his successor be a member of the Dawa Party.
"Jafari's agreement wasn't without a price," said the aide to one high-level Shiite legislator. "Otherwise the floor might have been opened and another candidate might have been chosen."
. . . After a U.S.-backed raid last month on a Shiite house of worship allegedly used to torture and hold kidnapping victims in northern Baghdad, Maliki condemned the U.S. and called for an investigation. In an interview with The Times in February, he accused those who opposed Jafari of acting as dupes for Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador.
Keep that in mind as you read the feigned gloating from Dubya, Khalilzad, Condoliezza Rice, et al. about political progress and the coming "government of national unity."
The real proof either way, though, will come in the next stage of the obstacle course, as the LA Times story also notes:
Relieved U.S. and Iraqi officials, exhausted after weeks of negotiations over the government, hailed Maliki's expected elevation as a significant breakthrough, even though fractious discussions over the leadership of the security services remained.
"A major step has been taken with regard to the formation of a government of national unity, which already has a program agreement on a process for decision-making and new institutions," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview. "It's a significant step … in the right direction, but there will be difficult days ahead."
What Zalmay is referring to is a complicated oversight mechanism intended to give all parties a voice in running the army and police, rather than just the ruling Shiite alliance. (Diluting Team Shiite's control of the defense and interior ministries has been the central goal of the U.S. in the post-election jockeying.) It's not clear yet, though, whether this so-called security council will actually have decision-making authority or be powerless merely advisory -- the latter being the Shiites' preference, and perhaps how they'll interpret the "program agreement" regardless of its actual language.
A true unity government would give the Allawi and Mutlak factions an opportunity to partially re-Baathify the Iraqi security institutions, opposition to which I've repeatedly proclaimed as the defining wedge that kept Allawi out of the previous government... so I suppose I'd have to eat my Swopadamus hat if that happened. Based on the developments of the past few days, though, I may not have much to worry about.
Team US is on crack if they think the Wolf Brigade won't continue to kill Sunni. I wonder if CENTCOM has a loyalty chart of the Iraqi Army. I wonder how many battalions the Madhi Army owns. They certainly own most of the police of the South.
The Iraqis are not stupid. They will let the Americans serve their delusions as long as it serves them. Allawi is lucky to be among the living, a situtation the guerrillas may solve sooner rather than later.
We get all kinds of things via e-mail, no somuch penis enlargers these days, but plenty of offers to aid deposed African dictators and help elect Congressional candidates.
In the upper Midwest, we called these "denver sandwiches" and they are served in the diners there to this day under the same title. When you need lunch in a hurry, this fills the bill and better bread makes them nice (I grew up on the same white bread you did and the squish down factor for these sandwiches was nice. A crusty sourdough for adults is good, however. This is the only thing I eat ketchup with, and then it has to be on the side for dipping.)
For one
GARDEN FRITTATA ON GRILLED COUNTRY BREAD
Ingredients
* 2 Large eggs * 1 Tbsp basil, fresh chopped * 1 Tbsp green onions, chopped * 1 Tbsp tarragon, chopped * 2 Tbsp Romano cheese, freshly grated * 1 clove garlic, minced * 2 slices Italian country bread, buttered and grilled 1 serving
Preparation Method
Mix eggs with all ingredients except garlic and bread. Place garlic in buttered omelet pan and cook for 30 seconds. Add egg mixture and cook until bottom sets. Place under broiler to set top. Fold in half and place and between buttered, grilled bread slices. Cut in half diagonally.
This is a gussied up version of what my mom made for us when the house was out of time and money, end of the month food, plain egg sandwiches. It's hot and filling when there isn't much else around. I lived on these in college. No, I haven't had my cholesterol checked lately, why do you ask?
I eat eggs and my cholersterol is fine.
If this doesn't cure you, you really need to go to the doctor. For most of us, this will knock the socks off most of the bugs that ail ya. And this is so good that you just might start feeling better because it will knock the crap off your tongue and smeller. That works for me.
This recipe reflects the humble and ancient culinary roots so apparent in the Basque Country. In frugal kitchens, it was considered wasteful to discard even a handful of breadcrumbs.
1/2 cup olive oil 6 garlic cloves, sliced thin 1/2 slightly stale baguette, sliced thin 1 tablespoon paprika 4 cups water or home-made or commercial chicken broth Salt 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (necessary to clear the sinuses) 6 large eggs
In a clay or other flameproof casserole or skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, and fry it, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 2 to 3 minutes, until it is golden. Take care the garlic does not burn.
Add the bread, and turn it several times so that it absorbs the oil. Sprinkle it with the paprika, and toss well. Add the water or broth, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring, until the soup is heated through and well blended and the bread has absorbed much of the liquid. Season to taste with salt and, if you like, the pepper flakes.
Just before serving the soup, crack the eggs, and slide them onto the surface of the soup, taking care not to break the yolks. Let the eggs cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until they are set. Serve the soup by spooning it gently into shallow bowls, allowing 1 egg per serving.
Note: Use a slender, European-style baguette. A half baguette is 10 to 12 inches long. Traditionally, the baguette should be a day old. (serves 6)
This may not cure you, but you'll go back to bed feeling much less awful. Add a half tablespoon of lemon juice and it just might cure you. A good nights sleep might do that, too.
Oneof my favorite eggrecipies is pressed french toast.
Cook french toast as you normally would, but using challah bread or thick slices. You then place a heavy pan on them.
You should get fairly compact, but flavor intensive french toast.
WASHINGTON, April 23 — In the late 1960's, an anguished President Lyndon B. Johnson sought advice from a respected elder statesman on the Vietnam quagmire. In part because of the private counsel of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a onetime hawk turned skeptic on the war, Johnson shifted course in 1968, halting the bombing of North Vietnam and announcing that he would not run for re-election.
The analogy is far from perfect, but Republicans and Democrats are seeing parallels between the quiet designation last month of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to head up a Congressionally mandated effort to generate new ideas on Iraq and the role of Acheson, who served under President Harry S. Truman.
Mr. Baker, a longtime confidant of the first President Bush who has maintained a close but complicated relationship with the current president, plans to travel to Baghdad and the region to meet with heads of state on a fact-finding mission that officials say was encouraged by both father and son and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"If you had a health problem, you'd want somebody to give you a second opinion," said Representative Frank R. Wolf, an influential Virginia Republican who helped recruit Mr. Baker for the job. "What the United States needs on Iraq is some fresh ideas from people able to speak out, and no one is more qualified to do that than Jim Baker."
Wolf is delusional if he didn't think Poppy and Bar went to Jim Baker and told him to do this. This is another sign that Rove may be on the way out. Baker is going to be told that the US has to leave Iraq to save it. That the US presence is fueling the insurgency and hositlities with Iran will send it over the edge. He will also find out from the Turks that the are sick of the PUK and KDP turning a blind eye or even helping the PKK in Turkey.
This is the last ditch effort to tell Bush it's time to go before the next Congress says we go.
It's time for Bush to face his failure and Jim Baker is the agent of that.
By SEANNA ADCOX The Associated Press April 21, 2006
COLUMBIA — Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys.
But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.
The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.
"That would be the most terrible thing in the world," said Ms. Gillespie, an employee the Anderson shop. "That is just flabbergasting to me. We are supposed to be in a free country, and we’re supposed to be adults who can decide what want to do and don’t want to do in the privacy of our own homes."
Ms. Gillespie, 49, said she has worked in the store for nearly 20 years and has seen people from every walk of life, including "every Sunday churchgoers."
"I know of multiple marriages that sex toys have sold because some people need that. The people who are riding us (the adult novelty industry) so hard are probably at home buying it (sex toys and novelties) on the Internet. It’s ridiculous." The measure would add sex toys to the state’s obscenity laws, which already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials.
People convicted under obscenity laws face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
South Carolina law borrows from a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to define obscene as something "contemporary community standards" determine as "patently offensive" sexual conduct, which "lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
Sugar ‘N Spice manager Pat Irons says a proposal to outlaw the sale of sex toys in South Carolina is outrageous.
While Davenport’s proposal is probably aimed at shutting down X-rated adult bookstores, Ms. Irons said, it hurts customers of "couples-oriented" stores such as her West Columbia shop, which sells everything from lingerie to bridal shower novelties to lotions.
At Sugar ‘N Spice, sex toys are displayed in a separate room. Buyers include men and women who "need a little help" because surgery or medical problems are affecting their marriage, Ms. Irons said.
"We’ve been selling these sex toys for 27 years," she said Friday. "Even pastors shop in here. They send couples in here they counsel for marriage problems. It’s probably going to hit people like that harder than people realize." .............................
The ACLU got involved in the case, he said, to "keep the government out of the bedroom."
Though the laws don’t punish people for owning sex toys, banning their sale is a backdoor attempt to discourage their use, Mr. Lopez said.
"People have a fundamental right to engage in lawful sexual practices in the privacy of their home," Mr. Lopez said. "It’s not like this stuff is available in Macy’s. Kids aren’t allowed in. You or I wouldn’t accidentally walk into one."
But they can keep the inflatible sheep, right?
Talk about intrusive government. I guess all those "back massagers" are going to be banned for sale as well,
Who cares about this except the American taliban and their friends? You don't like dildos, don't buy them.
In the easy and anonymous world of cyberspace communication, angry partisans on both sides of the anti-war movement can volley threatening barbs at the click of a button. UC Santa Cruz students and conservative pundits alike have seen such messages filing up their in-boxes in the wake of last week's campus protest.
After nationally syndicated columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin posted the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of three members of Students Against War, they received a flood of obscene and harassing messages from around the country, including death threats. When a liberal Web site, in retaliation, published Malkin's cell phone number and home address, a full-blown blog war ensued.
"I am now forced to remove one of my children from school and move my family," Malkin wrote Thursday in an e-mail to the Sentinel.
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"I woke up in the morning and my cell had 14 new messages, 25 missed calls and it kept going on," said SAW member David Zlutnick, estimating the group's three media contacts have already sifted through 500 e-mails, more than 100 with death threats.
When students called Malkin to request she remove the student information, Malkin reposted the names and numbers several more times. She defended the decision, blaming SAW for posting a link to the news release on its Web site.
To Zlutnick, the retaliation Malkin got was simply "a taste of her own medicine."
"But to put all our energy into a cyber war with this crazy right-wing lady takes away from our larger mission to end the war," he said.
While I I'm tempted to write Malkin off as a clueless drama queen, I do realize how truly frightening this can be.
Which is why it was one of the first rules of conduct online, predating the web.Do notdisclose personal information online.
Why? Because there are some truly sick, desperate people.
Now, because she decided to be petulant, she is now spending thousands of dollars, if she's moving. All because she did something every sane person knows is wrong and harmful, not just to others, but yourself. One day of bad judgment forces her to uproot her kids and sell her home.
No matter how much you dislike her, that's a pretty hefty penalty to pay, if she's serious. The people who dug up her info are no better than she is. If they think they did something heroic, they should be under no illusions about that. They are as sad and pathetic as she is.
Stuck in the Hot Zone Don't dream about full exits. The military is in Iraq for the long haul.
By Michael Hirsh Newsweek
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If you want an image of what America's long-term plans for Iraq look like, it's right here at Balad. Tucked away in a rural no man's land 43 miles north of Baghdad, this 15-square-mile mini-city of thousands of trailers and vehicle depots is one of four "superbases" where the Pentagon plans to consolidate U.S. forces, taking them gradually from the front lines of the Iraq war. (Two other bases are slated for the British and Iraqi military.) The shift is part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to draw down U.S. ground forces in Iraq significantly by the end of 2006. Pentagon planners hope that this partial withdrawal will, in turn, help take the edge off rising opposition to the war at home—long enough to secure Iraq's nascent democracy.
But the vast base being built up at Balad is also hard evidence that, despite all the political debate in Washington about a quick U.S. pullout, the Pentagon is planning to stay in Iraq for a long time—at least a decade or so, according to military strategists. Sovereignty issues still need to be worked out by mutual, legal agreement. But even as Iraqi politicians settle on a new government after four months of stalemate—on Saturday, they agreed on a new prime minister, Jawad al-Maliki—they also are welcoming the long-term U.S. presence. Sectarian conflict here has worsened in recent months, outstripping the anti-American insurgency in significance, and many Iraqis know there is no alternative to U.S. troops for the foreseeable future. "I think the presence of the American forces can be seen as an insurance policy for the unity of Iraq," says national-security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie. .......................... True, most Iraqis don't like the U.S. occupation today any better than they did a year ago, or two, or three. But with the exception of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, no major politician is calling for U.S. withdrawal. "Even guys who want Americans to leave, they know it will be civil war if they do," says Ahmed al-Jobory, an unemployed chemical engineer working at Balad. What is emerging is a sense of psychological dependency. Even the new Iraqi Army, on which Washington is spending billions, is designed to be weak. The Army just received its first armor from the United States: light-skinned Humvees. But the Pentagon won't be giving up any tanks. "The goal is to have them equipped to fight a counterinsurgency, not to defend against external threats," says Lt. Col. Michael Negard, public-affairs officer for the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq. (The military says it needs to help the Iraqi Army win the fight it's in now, not the battles of the future.)
U.S. officials routinely deny that America intends to put down permanent bases. "A key planning factor in our basing strategy is that there will be no bases in Iraq following Operation Iraqi Freedom," says Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for CENTCOM in Baghdad. "What we have in Iraq are 'contingency bases,' intended to support our operations in Iraq on a temporary basis until OIF is complete." But according to the Congressional Research Service, the Bush administration has asked for more than $1.1 billion for new military construction in Iraq, roughly double what it plans to spend in Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates combined. Of that, the single biggest share is intended for Balad ($231 million).
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In fact, the plans for Balad fit in with Rumsfeld's larger designs for a dramatic reconfiguring of U.S. forces overseas. Big cold-war bases, with tens of thousands of permanently garrisoned troops, are on the way out. On the way in: giant "lily pads" for expeditionary U.S. forces to use only when needed, with ready equipment warehoused there. Balad, with its huge offramps and aprons, is a testing ground for that concept, according to several Pentagon officials. Major Morgan, for one, describes the deployment of Predators that are piloted from the United States as a "perfect example of being expeditionary."
One big question is whether a reduced but long-term U.S. presence in Iraq can be effective. Counterinsurgency experts say that sectarian conflict and insurgencies simply can't be fought from the air. And the Air Force officers at Balad say that, at long last, they're getting that message. The result is that, rather than dropping bombs, F-16s in Iraq today are doing police work from 15,000 feet, using brand-new advanced targeting pods, which can pick up activity on the ground day or night. Since January, says F-16 squadron commander Pete (Guns) Gersten, he has been feeding the info to his Army "brothers" rather than bombing the targets. "The Army said, 'Every time you blow stuff up, we get it back five times [in reprisals]'," he says. "So now we just do a lot of surveillance for the Army. They say it's time to start building. It's time to quit blowing things up."
But Gersten adds that, when it comes to preventing all-out civil war, control of the skies is crucial. "When I show up at a firefight, it stops," he says. "We're the big brother." Bristle-headed and lean in his tan flight suit, Gersten looks very much like a character out of "Top Gun." Is he a tad overconfident? Perhaps. But he fairly well sums up how Washington sees its role in Iraq today—and for a long time to come
No matter how we build bases in Iraq, no Iraqi government can survive a continual US occupation. My bet is that Sadr pushes the issue this summer. At the behest of his Iranian friends.
Maybe it was just an over-the-top e-mail, a trash-talking empty threat. Then again, maybe not.
Scare tactics have become so common as the immigration debate rages, it's hard to know what to fear and what to dismiss as merely the ravings of the ignorant.
After Rep. Terrance Carroll joked that Colorado should build a wall to keep the Minutemen out, he received a barrage of angry e-mails from Minuteman supporters. But one anonymous message warning him that he was "SOOOO lucky lynching and firing squad for treason aren't available punishments anymore" was creepy enough to spur an investigation by the State Patrol last week.
Similarly, Denver's Mexican Consul General Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez regularly receives profane, hateful voice mails and e-mails from anti-immigrant activists. But a caller threatening to stalk him and his family went too far.
"We alerted the proper authorities," Gutierrez-Gonzalez said.
Protection was provided, but the effort to intimidate continues.
Sen. Ken Salazar's office notified the police when a white supremacist website rallied anti-immigrant activists to attack lawmakers who support any path toward citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Among the tactics suggested: "Fire-bomb their district offices as a warning, then their private homes if they go ahead with the plan;" "park several Timothy McVeigh-type truck bombs next to the House and Senate office buildings and detonate them;" and "pull a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol and machine gun them to death as they evacuate."
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Neo-Nazi radio talk-show host Hal Turner posted this message on his website recently: "I advocate using extreme violence against illegal aliens. Clean your guns. Have plenty of ammunition. ... Go to the area well in advance, scope out several places to position yourself and then do what has to be done."
On the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network, one nutjob admitted to being sexually aroused by his delusions. "The bad news is many whites will die." But "if you have a good defense line and lots of ammo, the carnage will be orgasmic."
These sickos are so bad that Rep. Tom Tancredo, who has attracted support from a wide range of viewpoints for his proposals to deport all illegal immigrants, has tried to distance himself from them.
"Any time he gives a speech in a room where he has a suspicion people are there for the wrong reasons, he says the same thing," said spokesman Will Adams. "He says, 'If for you this debate has anything to do with skin color, country of origin or how a last name sounds, get out of the room. You don't help me."'
Tancredo calls them "racists and bigots who pose as patriots."
Still, the slurs and the threats keep coming, and many in the immigrant-rights movement wonder how long it will be before violence erupts.
"We really need to watch our backs," said Donna Lipinski, an immigration lawyer and activist. "We need to remember never to take anything for granted when we are speaking, traveling in rural communities or going anyplace alone. ........
Tancredo is full of shit. The White House came up with the plan to criminalize illegal immigration,he signed on, and he wasn't too shy in using racial code words to make his point., But the idiocy doesn't stop there.
(CBS) LOS ANGELES Several black activists plan to join members of the Minutemen Project to protest illegal immigration, which organizer Ted Hayes touted as the "biggest threat to blacks in America since slavery"
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"While all Americans are suffering from this invasion, we blacks are suffering the most," Hayes said. "We feel like the leaders promoting this issue are being insensitive. This country wasn't built on the backs of immigrants like (Villaraigosa) says. It was built on the back of West African slaves."
Immigrant activist Nativo Lopez believes Hayes is out of step with most black leaders and that both blacks and Hispanics face the same problems.
"Unfortunately, (Hayes) thinks that way," Lopez said. "He has a right to express his opinion, but I don't agree with him. Many and most African American leaders think otherwise and we're appreciative of their support. I'm not interested in Latinos being pitted against African Americans," he said. "We are all in the same boat. We will pull ourselves up together." ............... "I've been down to the border with them. They're not racist," Hayes said. "They don't care what color you are."
Hayes is an idiot. He thinks he's better than Mexicans? Please. You don't help black people while working with racists and know nothings. So he shows up with five black guys. Maybe they'll give him a confederate flag to wave.
One of the founders quit because of the attraction of white supremacists.
Sure,the East was built on slavery, but California wasn't.
Besides, who does he think is gonna pick crops. We did that. The only thing he did by joining with these people is lose his credibility.
This has brought racists out like roaches into a lightand if Hayes wants to join them, that's fine.
Administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed. A far more audacious makeover is needed — one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement.
Second terms are notoriously difficult for presidents. For President Bush, it has been disastrous. His swaggering November 2004 news conference — at which he bragged "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it" — seems from another era. Whatever political capital existed he has squandered with the Iraq war, the Valerie Plame leak inquiry and his ill-advised plan to partly privatize Social Security. His one victory — getting two reliable conservative jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court — is no doubt an enduring one. But there's nothing else.
Hence the yearning for a fresh start, the illusion of a third term. Ronald Reagan, another president hobbled by a second-term scandal, did manage to jump-start his presidency in its last years by bringing new players into his inner circle and engaging in ambitious arms-reduction talks with the Soviets.
Alas, Bush doesn't seem inclined to be that bold. The president has named a new chief of staff and budget director, but this is a merely a case of old loyalists getting new titles. The White House also sent much-pummeled press secretary Scott McClellan packing and, in what seems more like truth in packaging than a real change, relieved arch-political operator Karl Rove of his responsibilities for domestic policy.
It's expected that other heads will soon roll from the Cabinet Room — but not that of seemingly fireproof Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The ax is rumored to fall on Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, considered a lackluster evangelist for the president's economic policies.
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Yes, that means dismissing Rumsfeld. The secretary should go not because he has been criticized by a group of retired generals but because he embodies the smugness and inability to acknowledge error that has characterized both the Iraq war and the wider war on terrorism. Rumsfeld has been the pinched public face of an administration that has cut legal and humanitarian corners in dealing with people — including U.S. citizens — suspected of involvement with terrorists.
Suppose Bush didn't stop there. Suppose he also asked Cheney, his mentor and friend but an even more polarizing figure than Rumsfeld, to step down.
We know the objections. The vice president is not a mere presidential appointee but an elected constitutional officer. In choosing a replacement, Bush might be pressured to predetermine the outcome of the 2008 Republican presidential race by anointing one would-be successor over another. Throwing Cheney overboard would be an implicit repudiation of the excessively hawkish foreign policy with which the vice president, even more than Rumsfeld, has been associated.
Unlike most vice presidents, Cheney does not aspire to be president, and he is the consummate Bush loyalist. He would not be giving up a political birthright by agreeing to retire (citing health reasons or a concern about the publicity surrounding the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby). And the problem of taking sides in the 2008 election is easily solved. Bush could nominate as Cheney's successor an elder party statesman — Bob Dole, anyone? — with no interest in the 2008 nomination.
We even have an answer to the complaint that in jettisoning Cheney, Bush would be repudiating his own record. The truth is that the president, however grudgingly, has recognized that he and the administration made mistakes in the run-up to the war in Iraq and in its aftermath. He has not confessed that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but he has acknowledged with increasing explicitness that he was wrong to believe that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction..
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Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps — big time, as Dick Cheney would say.
And in more wishful thinking.....................
Cheney is Bush's albatross. He hangs from his neck and Bush, in need of daddy and mommy figures, keeps these people around, even when they ensure his legacy willbe between Grant and Buchanan.
I believe two things: one, Cheney's health is worse than we think. That whole quail hunting incident hung on Cheney's poor physical health. His inappropriate dress at Auschwitz, his use of a cane, Cheney is not a well man.
two: Bush is mentally fragile. He lives in a bubble because he cannot confront unpleasant facts. If pushed hard enough by events, he's going to crack. While I wouldn't bet on impeachment, which I think is certain if the GOP loses as badly as predicted in November, I don't see him lasting the year, much less his full term. Why? I don't think he can handle the mental stress of overt failure. If Iraq falls apart,Congress stops acting like a rubber stamp, Bush, who has been shielded from failure and it's consequences, his entire life, cannot handle it. Which is why he has his mommies. I think Josh Bolten is going to get a rather nasty surprise when he tries to dump Harriet Miers.
Bush came in shady and will go out ugly and it won't be in January,2009 unless he's luckier than he's ever been in his life. Bush has never finished anything he started. He either walked away, got bailed out or just stop showing up. Why should this be any different
Daily News Exclusive Also backs legalization, but immig forces angry
BY LESLIE CASIMIR and LEO STANDORA DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Taking her hardest line yet against illegal immigrants, Sen. Hillary Clinton told the Daily News she wants U.S. borders secured with a wall or fence, possibly surveillance drones and infrared cameras.
Clinton's proposal - which came just weeks after she blasted Republican crackdowns on illegal immigrants as un-Christian - raised the ire of activists.
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"A physical structure is obviously important," the New York Democrat and possible presidential contender told Goodwin. "A wall in certain areas would be appropriate," she said, endorsing a high-tech "smart fence" that could spot people approaching from 200 or 300 yards. .................................
At a planning meeting yesterday for a human chain demonstration in the five boroughs that day, immigrant advocates booed Clinton's get-tough stance.
"To see the senator from New York, which is clearly an immigrant state, take a position that harsh is not the real solution," said Gouri Sadhwani, executive director of the New York Civic Participation Project and La Fuente. "The flow of undocumented immigrants into our country will not be stopped by putting up a fence along the Mexican border."
Saul Campoverde, 35, a construction worker from Bushwick, Brooklyn, who came to the U.S. illegally from Ecuador 10 years ago, also ripped the fence plan.
"That would be like clipping the wings off a bird - that would kill many people's dreams of having a better opportunity, future for their families," he said.
Unlike her other mistakes, this could really hurt Clinton here. Not only don't the know nothing republicans not believe her, they want to get rid of the brown people. She can never get their votes. But it can piss the hell out of millions ofNew Yorkers. It can make her campaign for reelection a lot harder than it should be.
Immigration is popular in New York, and she may have really misread this issue.
Again, Hillary Clinton picks an issue which cannot convice those who don't trust her and alienate those who like her.
Breathe easy, city workers - a judge says you have the right to surf the Web at work.
The ruling by Administrative Law Judge John Spooner deemed that on-the-job Internet use is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone - which flies in the face of Mayor Bloomberg's quick firing of an Albany clerk playing solitaire this year.
"If using the Internet doesn't interfere with work, then this is a very reasonable ruling," said lawyer Martin Druyan, who is representing the Department of Education employee whose case Spooner handled.
That employee - Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran at the DOE - was brought up on charges by his supervisors for browsing the Internet while at work, Druyan said.
Choudhri's bosses checked his computer over two days and discovered he had viewed several news and travel sites, but Spooner gave him the lightest possible punishment, a mere reprimand ............................. Druyan also said that the decision may strengthen the case of Edward Greenwood, a clerk in the city's Albany lobbying office, who was summarily fired by the mayor in February for having solitaire on his computer.
"[The ruling] is not binding authority," he said. "But, if he was to go to court to get his old job back, this could help his case."
It is more than likely he will now sue the city for his job and damages.
Time has the plan for Bush's recovery in the polls.
Here is the Bolten plan:
1. Deploy Guns and Badges.
This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an atv." Bush has long insisted he wants a guest-worker program paired with stricter border enforcement, but House Republicans have balked at temporary legalization for immigrants, so the President's ambition of using the issue to make the party more welcoming to Hispanics may have to wait.
And the Chicanos will have images of the President hunting down their cousins to take into the voting booth. Uh, Time, they've already alienated hispanics, it only matters to the degree of alienation. Right now, it's at the GOP are genocidal monsters, it may go down to the GOP is racist, even the GOP works against our interests, but not now.
2. Make Wall Street Happy.
In an effort to curry favor with dispirited Bush backers in the investment world, the Administration will focus on two tax measures already in the legislative pipeline—extensions of the rate cuts for stock dividends and capital gains. "We need all these financial TV shows to be talking about how great the economy is, and that only happens when their guests from Wall Street talk about it," said a presidential adviser. "This is very popular with investors, and a lot of Republicans are investors."
Two words=gas prices. If they remain high, all the talk is bullshit
3. Brag More.
White House officials who track coverage of Bush in media markets around the country said he garnered his best publicity in months from a tour to promote enrollment in Medicare's new prescription-drug plan. So they are planning a more focused and consistent effort to talk about the program's successes after months of press reports on start-up difficulties. Bolten's plan also calls for more happy talk about the economy. With gas prices a heavy drain on Bush's popularity, his aides want to trumpet the lofty stock market and stable inflation and interest rates. They also plan to highlight any glimmer of success in Iraq, especially the formation of a new government, in an effort to balance the negative impression voters get from continued signs of an incubating civil war.
Success in Iraq. Yeah, that will happen. The President may have been involved in Jill Caroll's kidnapping. Yeah. The PM hates Americans and is backed by Sadr. Yep, success is around the corner.
4. Reclaim Security Credibility.
This is the riskiest, and potentially most consequential, element of the plan, keyed to the vow by Iran to continue its nuclear program despite the opposition of several major world powers. Presidential advisers believe that by putting pressure on Iran, Bush may be able to rehabilitate himself on national security, a core strength that has been compromised by a discouraging outlook in Iraq. "In the face of the Iranian menace, the Democrats will lose," said a Republican frequently consulted by the White House. However, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this April 8-11, found that 54% of respondents did not trust Bush to "make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran."
What Iranian menace? This is poised to blow up in Bush's face. Iran can turn Iraq's semi-civil war to full-blown civil war. These people seem to have no clue as to the coming , Presidency-ending disaster in Iran. If the US attacks Iran and fails, which is more likely than not, Bush's resignation or impeachment will be the price. Even the GOP will realize if any of them want to keep their jobs, Bush must go. 5. Court The Press.
Bolten is extremely guarded around reporters, but he knows them and, unlike some of his colleagues, is not scared of them. Administration officials said he believes the White House can work more astutely with journalists to make its case to the public, and he recognizes that the President has paid a price for the inclination of some on his staff to treat them dismissively or high-handedly. His first move, working with counselor Dan Bartlett, was to offer the press secretary job to Tony Snow of Fox News radio and television, a former newspaper editorial writer and onetime host of Fox News Sunday who served George H.W. Bush as speechwriting director. Snow, a father of three and a sax player, is the bona fide outsider that Republican allies have long prescribed for Bushworld and would bring irreverence to a place that hasn't seen a lot of fun lately. "White Houses are weird places," he told a 2004 panel on White House speechwriting. Snow had his colon removed after he was found to have cancer last year, but his doctors have approved the possibility of his taking the grueling post.
What is he going to do, make Bush smart? Snow can only do so much with the people in the White House. He can't exactly spin a Rove indictment, can he?
The problems the WH has is more than anything but honesty can fix. Until they admit mistakes and then fire people and fix them, they're done. Iran is not Iraq. It can meet and defeat the US on neutral ground long before we attack.
Prince Harry has threatened to quit the Army if commanders refuse to send him to the front line.
He told senior officers before recently passing out of Sandhurst as a Second Lieutenant: ‘If I am not allowed to join my unit in a war zone, I will hand in my uniform.’
Harry, 21, and third in line to the throne, has previously talked of his desire to see action with his comrades and the prospect of him walking out on the Army if he is not allowed on to the front line has turned a theoretical problem into a nightmare for the Palace and Ministry of Defence.
The embarrassment for the Army caused by him quitting would be matched by uproar at the notion that while ordinary citizens are allowed to that their main problem is not whether Harry can take the pressure of coming under fire in action – but whether the lives of the men fighting alongside him will be more at risk because he is regarded as a ‘trophy target’ by insurgents.
One experienced commander said: "Second Lt Wales will, as far as is possible, be treated like any other officer but there has to be a line drawn as to whether the men he leads might experience extra danger due to his presence. Decisions will be taken by commanding officers based on an accurate risk assessment at the time."
In talks between the MoD and Clarence House, it has been suggested that if Harry is deployed to the front line he should be given a safe role, acting as a liaison officer at a military HQ well away from the action.
But sources close to Harry said last night: "He will go bananas if he is given special treatment. He doesn’t want to let the rest of the lads and lasses down by opting out. He was always the first to volunteer on exercises."
In the final weeks of his Sandhurst training, Harry took part in an exercise in which he acted as commanding officer and sources say that his performance was ‘outstanding’.
The mobility of the Blues and Royals’ light Scimitar reconnaissance vehicles will be a great value in Afghanistan and senior commanders say the Cavalry unit could be sent to Helmand province to support Paras in what is regarded as one of the most dangerous parts of the world.
Harry would command a troop of 11 men who would drive into the front line in their Scimitars.
He would lead his men in searching possibly booby-trapped buildings, hunting down insurgents and providing escorts and combat support to infantry operations.
Harry would be required to command his Scimitar team and remain on the ground, although all troop commanders are expected to do their stint in the operations room, which involves logging events, co-ordinating patrols and directing support where needed .................... Harry will be only the second Royal since the Second World War to be posted to a battle zone.
The other was Prince Andrew, who flew Sea King helicopters in the Falklands War. A Clarence House die for their country, members of the Royal Family are considered too important to risk. It would also reopen the debate about Britain’s role in engagements such as Iraq which are widely unpopular and considered by many to be illegal.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last year that the Palace and MoD were holding crisis talks about how to handle Harry’s future military role.
However, his ultimatum has now raised the stakes. It will also increase the urgency of deciding how to treat Prince William who is due to leave Sandhurst in December, presenting Royal and defence officials with the same dilemma about how near the front line he should be allowed.
Harry’s unit, the Blues and Royals, will deploy to Afghanistan this year and he is likely to join them there next year.
The Bush family is confused as to why this is a debate. Combat? The rich do not serve in combat. Not when there are $250 bottles of vodka to drink in clubs.
Prince Harry will have 11 men under his command, for him not to lead them in combat, after a year of training, would be a personal betrayal and something he could never quite live down. He wants a career as an officer, that is not a low risk job. He could have chosen another kind of job, but he didn't and that is what they have to live with.
In fact, his grandfather served on a ship, and his uncle and father were in the Fleet Air Arm. Not safe, but safer than ground combat. In fact, the family has traditionally chosen the Navy to serve in for active duty.
His brother was planning a career as a Para at one point, and that would increase the danger substantially.
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT Published: April 23, 2006
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The discussions often flare with anger, particularly among many midlevel officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and face the prospect of additional tours of duty.
"This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly," said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. "I can only hope that my generation does better someday."
An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: "The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, 'We cannot do this mission.' They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers" who might otherwise have stayed in uniform.
One Army colonel enrolled in a Defense Department university said an informal poll among his classmates indicated that about 25 percent believed that Mr. Rumsfeld should resign, and 75 percent believed that he should remain. But of the second group, two-thirds thought he should acknowledge errors that were made and "show that he is not the intolerant and inflexible person some paint him to be," the colonel said.
Many officers who blame Mr. Rumsfeld are not faulting President Bush — in contrast to the situation in the 1960's, when both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara drew criticism over Vietnam from the officer corps. (Mr. McNamara, like Mr. Rumsfeld, was also resented from the outset for his attempts to reshape the military itself.)
But some are furiously criticizing both, along with the military leadership, like the Army major in the Special Forces. "I believe that a large number of officers hate Rumsfeld as much as I do, and would like to see him go," he said.
"The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word," he added, summarizing conversations with other officers. "For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn't Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld's resignation to mean much.
"But this is all academic. Most officers would acknowledge that we cannot leave Iraq, regardless of their thoughts on the invasion. We destroyed the internal security of that state, so now we have to restore it. Otherwise, we will just return later, when it is even more terrible."
The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.
"We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels."
I'll have nore to say on this in my review of Cobra II, but the fact is that the Us is fighting tactical engagements it may "win", but what is killing 2 and wounding 22? Or blowing up an Amtrac and killing nearly everyone inside. Or losing police stations?
Just because you can shoot your way out of a mess does not make it a victory. In some messes, the enemy had the iniative. Do you want to wait for the day that they drag 15 captured Americans on the internet? Because that day will come. Then talk of victories will seem silly and short sighted.
We cannot police Iraq forever. At some point, the US Army will not be able to take another tour and we will have to leave. The only question is when?
The Iraqis spent four months picking the next PM, Four months. There is no government, only interest groups with guns.
We are building a house of cards on sand in Iraq. One stiff Iranian breeze and it all comes down.
WWII bombing crew lost in Pacific storm finally honored in Arlington rites
BY ADAMS NICHOLS DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
For nearly 60 years, 1st Lt. Frank Giugliano's remains lay in the shattered shell of a World War II bomber, lost deep in a sweltering South Pacific jungle.
The wreckage was seen only by local villagers too terrified of evil spirits to go near, so the New York bombardier and his crew members remained missing in action, presumed dead.
But the doomed bomber's crew of 11 men was never forgotten by Giugliano's family. And yesterday, they brought them home.
The Army Air Force man's cousins Saverio Giugliano, now 82, and Joe Cassese, 84, were at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday for the goodbye they had waited their lives to say.
"We grew up together, we were close," said Saverio, who refused to give up hope his cousin, who died aged 24, would be found.
"It was good to see this happen. It's good to know we brought him home."
.............................
"They would have liked that," Saverio said. "Losing Frank was tough on them, particularly his mother. She never accepted he'd gone."
Frank Giugliano, from Ozone Park, Queens, died in the April 16, 1944, bombing mission that resulted in the biggest noncombat aviation loss of the war.
As it returned with more than 300 other planes from successfully pounding Japanese airfields in Hollandia - now Jayapura in Indonesia - the bomber, dubbed Royal Flush, ran into a ferocious storm.
Flying in formation with five other Red Raider 408th Squadron Liberators and armed with maps that inaccurately judged the height of surrounding mountains, the Royal Flush entered dark clouds - and disappeared.
............................
They found the cockpit caught in trees, a playing cards logo painted on its nose still visible. Human remains were where the airmen would have been seated.
Close to the bomb racks, Frank Giugliano's remains were found, still clad in a bomber jacket, his smashed sunglasses in a case in his pocket.
The young man, who went to school at Queens' Public School 63 and worked as a printer before enlisting, still had his dog tags around his neck.
Haugen said she read them and said, "Frank Giugliano, you're going home."
People, especially those who talk about war glibly, should take this to heart.
It never ends.
The men in this story are in their 80's, they survived WWII. Yet, their cousin's death remained an issue in their lives until it was resolved. There are people who cry to this day because they lost someone in Normandy or the Pacific.
When people talk about toughness and other nonsense, there is a family behind them. Always. When someone dies in combat, that is a loss to a family, not a statistic.
KATMANDU, Nepal, April 22 — Neither a curfew and tear gas nor King Gyanendra's offer to give up control of the state stemmed the fury of his subjects on Saturday, as protesters, for the first time in 17 days of demonstrations, broke through police lines to pierce the ancient heart of the city, reaching within a few blocks of Narayanhiti Palace.
An injured protester is helped near the palace in Katmandu on Saturday. The police let people move into the heart of the city before clamping down.
Riot police beat demonstrators near Katmandu's royal palace Saturday. The clampdown began after marchers reached the heart of the old city.
Police officers pushed the pro-democracy protesters back through the warren of narrow, sunless alleys, firing tear gas, whipping with cane batons and infuriating them even more. "Dogs!" they screamed, eyes red from the tear gas, as paramedics rushed in to pick up the injured.
A boy who looked no older than 15 lay bleeding from the head. A young woman stumbled blankly into an ambulance, blood streaming down the side of her face. One alley was strewn with hundreds of sandals left by demonstrators trying to flee the police charge.
For the second day in a row, more than 100,000 protesters flooded the streets as police officers, backed by the Royal Nepalese Army, for the most part stood by and let them pass through what was, even a day before, the heavily fortified Ring Road encircling the city center. Only around the palace did the police say that they were under strict orders to keep protesters at bay.
By midafternoon, the coalition of Nepal's seven largest political parties, which began the demonstrations more than two weeks ago, formally rejected the king's offer, made in a televised address on Friday night, to return control of the government to a prime minister of the parties' choosing. In a statement, the seven-party alliance vowed to carry on with the agitation.
"It has undermined the sentiments of the people," the statement said of the king's proposal.
The king addressed neither of the coalitions' two principal demands: the restoration of the elected Parliament, suspended nearly four years ago, and a referendum to rewrite the Constitution and allow Nepalese citizens to decide on the future of the monarchy once and for all. Nor did the king say a word about the protesters still in detention, including doctors, lawyers and writers, nor the stream of laws that his royal government has imposed since his takeover 14 months ago.
In rejecting the king's offer, the seven-party alliance flouted the advice of two of its most important backers, India and the United States. Party leaders may not have had much choice, for they found themselves literally corralled by the protests in the streets on Saturday morning. As senior politicians huddled inside the home of Girija Prasad Koirala, a former prime minister and head of the Nepali Congress Party, protesters jammed the lanes leading to the house with a message meant to both boost and bully.
"Don't get weak in the knees!" they yelled. "Don't ditch the people!"
"We don't give a damn about anything else," another group of protesters shouted nearby. "We don't want the monarchy."
What Was Behind the Big Raid An informant triggered the nationwide sweep. Investigators say a plant in New York flaunted the law and mistreated its illegal workers. By Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writer April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — When Peter Smith, a senior immigration enforcement agent in upstate New York, led the raid on a cavernous IFCO Systems wood products plant just outside of Albany this week, he was taken aback by what he saw.
"There was a lot of drilling, cutting, dismantling of old pallets, pneumatic nail guns, power saws. Most of these guys were working in jeans, tennis shoes, short-sleeve shirts; some had sawdust in their hair," he said. "No legal facility would let workers work in those conditions."
Wednesday's raid at the plant in Guilderland was one of about 40 at IFCO facilities in 26 states. The operation offered a look into the shadowy world of businesses that the government says do more than turn a blind eye to hiring illegal immigrants: They make such workers part of the basic business plan.
In IFCO's case, the government says, managers systematically recruited illegal immigrants — helping them procure false identification, assisting with transportation beyond the border, even coaching them on how to avoid trouble with the police. Then, the workers allegedly were given jobs in substandard conditions.
Officials at IFCO's Houston headquarters did not respond to calls for comment, but in a news release Friday the company said it was cooperating with authorities and had begun an internal investigation.
"We are now working to understand the facts and implement any additional changes necessary to further improve current procedures," the statement said.
Smith said he had never seen illegal hiring on such a large scale. About 1,200 workers were arrested on suspicion of being illegal immigrants, and seven IFCO managers were charged with immigration-related crimes. The raids set a record for federal workplace-enforcement arrests in a single day.
Tina Sciocchetti, assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, whose office is overseeing the case because the investigation began in New York, called the numbers "eye-popping." As many as 53% of IFCO's 3,500 workers nationwide were using invalid Social Security numbers, she said.
At most sizable companies, Sciocchetti said, fewer than 1% of workers would have irregularities in their Social Security numbers.
In announcing the arrests Thursday, Glenn T. Suddaby, U.S. attorney for the district, said that "being able to hire that cheap labor" gave a company a competitive advantage. Whereas workers in similar plants make $9 to $14 an hour, according to industry reports, IFCO employees in Houston were reportedly making about $6.50 an hour. And immigration authorities said a former IFCO bookkeeper had told them "Mexican workers" were underpaid for overtime.
Last year, IFCO Systems North America generated revenue of $576 million, according to the company, which is part of a Dutch conglomerate.
CONGRATULATIONS: Angela Chao Roberson gets a hug from best friend Christie Naberman in January after being named third princess in the 2006 Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Pageant.
Tiaras, Sashes, Diversity For Angela Chao Roberson, who's black and Chinese, vying for Miss Chinatown isn't about breaking barriers. It's about winning. By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer April 22, 2006
Angela Chao Roberson, 22, knew she did not exactly look Chinese, with her cocoa-colored skin, her bushels of curly hair and her curvy figure. But she had no doubt she belonged in the same room with 17 other young women vying for the title Miss Los Angeles Chinatown.
Sure, she ate soul food when her father's African American relatives came to visit her family in Victorville, but her family was much more likely to eat rice and stir-fried tilapia with garlic and soy sauce. And she loved Chinese New Year.
Angela scanned the young women sitting around the circle at the orientation session. There was one other girl whose complexion was close to her own. But the other girls resembled more closely the Miss Chinatowns of the past — slender, fine-featured young ladies with pale skin and silky straight hair.
"I'm kind of brave if you think about it," she said, flashing an unassuming smile. "But I've always accepted odd challenges."
The Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Pageant, organized by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, aims to pick an ambassador for the largest Chinese American community in the U.S.
And for most of its 40-year history, despite changing outfits, hairstyles and makeup, the contestants have looked remarkably the same: willowy Chinese American girls with flowing black hair.
But as Chinese intermarry, the contest is attracting more girls of mixed race. It started with girls whose backgrounds were white and Chinese. A couple had Hispanic last names.
This year, Angela became the first contestant with an African American father.
Most of the 18 girls chosen as contestants after a preliminary interview, including Angela, could speak at least a few phrases of Chinese. They hailed from such communities as El Sereno, Monterey Park, Hacienda Heights and Anaheim, the daughters of packaging company owners, restaurateurs and seamstresses.
Almost all of them had parents who were both ethnic Chinese. There were two of mixed races: Angela and Kaye Ponnusamy, whose father was an ethnic Indian who had grown up in Malaysia and whose mother was from Taiwan.
That first day of orientation marked the beginning of weeks of preparation.
Angela's father, Harry Roberson, a wiry 60-year-old electronics technician at Ft. Irwin Army base, worried how she would be treated. But Angela didn't see herself as making history or knocking down barriers. She thought she could win.
"I'm not scared to walk into an all-Chinese place," she said. "They might be surprised that I'm there, but I'm not surprised I'm there."
Competing in the pageant was her mother's idea.
One day in October, Nancy Chao Roberson was listening to KWRM-AM (1370), the only Mandarin language radio station she gets in Victorville. A call for contestants for hua fu xiao jie — Miss Chinatown — came on.
She thought about one of her Chinese friends who had married a white man and whose children would refuse to claim her as their mother when they were at school because she was Chinese.
"Since they were young, I taught my kids, it doesn't matter what color you are," Nancy Roberson said in Mandarin.
She continued in English: "You don't want to be hiding or embarrassed because your mom is Chinese and your daddy's black."
She encouraged Angela to enter the pageant and said she didn't care if she won or not. While other Chinese pageants around the country require that the father be Chinese or that contestants speak either Mandarin or Cantonese, Los Angeles' event is considered one of the most inclusive, requiring only 25% Chinese heritage.
To Eric Moore and Devin Platts, Northeastern University isn't just a college campus. It's a concrete jungle gym.
On a recent Saturday morning, the pair sprinted toward Snell Library, swung over two sets of handrails at the library, hit the ground, scurried up the side of a stairwell, and skipped over another rail. Then they charged down a walkway outside Kariotis Hall, leaped at a wall about 8 feet high, grabbed the ledge, and hoisted themselves up and over it.
Bostonians may be new to the term ''parkourist," but the fledgling breed of urban acrobats can be seen training around Northeastern, at Government Center, and outside the MBTA Alewife stop in Cambridge.
Parkour started in Lisses, France, 15 years ago, when friends Sebastien Foucan and David Belle came up with the sport, which combines running with gymnastics and martial arts moves to scale walls, fences, and roofs. On his website, parkour.com, Foucan describes the sport as a metaphor for life: ''Life is made of obstacles and challenges. To overcome them is to progress."
The name ''parkour" comes from ''parcours d'obstacles," or obstacle course. The idea is to get from point A to point B quickly, by using physical and mental strength to overcome obstacles with uninterrupted, graceful motion. There is no equipment, and the courses are improvised: Parkourists look at everyday things such as stairs, walls, and benches and see opportunities for climbing, jumping, and running. It is not about competition; parkour, like skateboarding or rock climbing, is about challenging yourself.
''A lot of parkour is delving into the philosophy and training your body into doing something that it can't do," says Moore, 25, who began parkouring in his hometown of Rockville, Md., three years ago and now lives in the Symphony Hall neighborhood. ''It's learning what your body can do and [taking] what you do to heart."
Documentary films such as ''Jump London," which showed parkourists performing on London landmarks, have helped fuel the buzz, as have commercials from Toyota and Nike that show people, including one of the sport's founders, performing moves. Sites such as urbanfreeflow.com have become resources for information about the sport.
Parkour even figures in the new James Bond movie, ''Casino Royale" -- Foucan plays a villain in the film, and actor Daniel Craig, who plays 007, has been training with him for the parkour scenes.
While the number of parkourists in the United States is still small, interest has been growing among teens and 20-somethings, particularly in big cities. Because parkourists can practice their sport whenever and wherever they want, alone or with their friends, the scene tends to be fragmented, though enthusiasts meet up via the Internet.
They come from the wealthiest of suburbs and attend prep schools dripping with privilege and status.
The Duke University lacrosse players arrived at the elite college as princes of the campus - a status that was burnished when the team rolled to a No. 3 national ranking.
For the chosen few, it was a rarefied world of wild parties, drinking and gorgeous co-eds - an atmosphere that critics say paved the way to the alleged rape of a stripper last month.
"It's a culture of entitlement," said Kathy Redmond of the Coalition Against Violent Athletes. "This happens to be a bunch of white, upper-class boys who have the world on a string."
Top college athletes have long led a charmed life on campuses, especially football and basketball players, some of whom are fully expected to be future pro sports millionaires.
But unlike other college sports, lacrosse is an unusually insular and homogenous world, overwhelmingly white and dominated by players from a small collection of prep schools.
That makes the alleged rape of the stripper, who is black, all the more explosive, especially since the attackers allegedly spewed racial abuse.
"She was beneath them, that was their perception," Redmond said. ..................................... Others insist the preppie image of lacrosse is a myth, especially since the sport has exploded in popularity and is now widely played in middle-class suburbs nationwide.
John Danowski, who coaches Hofstra University's nationally ranked lacrosse team and whose son was on the now-disbanded Duke team, said most of his son's teammates come from solid, middle-class backgrounds.
"I've never known lacrosse as anything but a blue-collar, hardworking guy's sport," said Danowski. "The kids come from all over, from all backgrounds."
Danowski's smoking crack. Lacrosse isn't football, there's a taint of the elite about the sport.
But middle class means different things. I have no doubt that most of Duke's players were middle class, in the sense that they didn't come from inherited wealth. But to compare them to the average American is silly. Unless they were scholarship boys, middle class people don't pay $20K year for prep school.
Upper middle class, not upper class, is the phrase I would use. The real rich don't play team sports unless it's crew. You're not going to see too many DuPonts or Vanderbilts being coached with scholarship kids. But these kids come from relative affleunce. Their parents have enough money to make minor mistakes go away, not to set them up in their own business.
We tend to confuse the two because we are uncomfortable with class. Because rich kids, real rich kids, don't hang out in houses and drink beer and watch strippers. They go to Vail for the week on daddy's corporate jet. These kids don't have that kind of money. But they live in nice houses and their parents have good jobs.
One point about the ethnic makeup of lacrosse. Even hockey is more integrated. Soccer, which used to be a white, suburban sport, is now played by immigrants from around the world on the college level. So most squads have an ethnic mix. So this is probabloy the most socially and ethnically isolated group of athletes on a campus like Duke.
From around the world, people come to New York and stare into the pit at Ground Zero and wonder why nothing has been built in almost five years where the World Trade Center stood. Heck, most New Yorkers are as baffled - and plenty mad because they've lived with endless haggling that has reduced the future of hallowed ground to a grubby real estate deal.
This disgrace must end. And there is only one way to chart a fresh course: Developer Larry Silverstein has to go. The city and the nation will be the better for his departure, and so will he. In fact, he can walk away $300 million richer. Have a nice windfall, Larry. Just go.
Silverstein earned the boot from Ground Zero by telling the governors of New York and New Jersey and the mayor he couldn't simply accept the terms of a deal that represents the last best hope for building without, you guessed it, further negotiations. Squeeze, he must.
It is an accident of history that Silverstein leased the WTC from the Port Authority just before 9/11 and maintains control of the site. He portrays himself as a gung-ho-to-build, can-do guy held back by government bumbling. This is half a helping of horse hockey.
The politicians - Gov. Pataki, front and center - have made a hash of things with a development plan built on economic fantasies. But Silverstein played along with the charade, risking none of his own money while standing to rake in a half-billion dollars before the project inevitably went bust. Then, Mayor Bloomberg exposed the Pataki-Silverstein house of cards, forcing all to confront the issue of putting the development on the soundest possible financial footing.
In the ensuing negotiations, Silverstein pushed for no risk and all return, while exploiting Pataki's failure to coordinate with Bloomberg, the Port Authority - which saw the train wreck coming - and Jersey's Gov. Jon Corzine, who shares control of the PA. Finally, the public officials spoke with one voice in proposing a new deal to Silverstein.
The terms aren't pretty. They sock taxpayers for $350 million, devoting $250 million in state money held by the Port Authority to building Pataki's prized Freedom Tower and $100 million from the agency to help pay for the struggling 9/11 memorial. They also envision an office complex heavily occupied by government agencies rather than by businesses in a dynamic new financial center. But there's no choice. You put the money in, or nothing gets built.
The remainder of the provisions divide responsibility for construction. Silverstein would get the three most attractive office towers, while the PA would take over the Freedom Tower and sell off a fifth building for residential development. The package represents the best thinking for getting something done with this most valuable public space. But for Silverstein, it was one more chance to bargain.
And tomorrow, he'll find another, and the day after that and the day after that, he'll find more. Which is why the officials offered him an office tower, valued at roughly $250 million, plus $50 million in cash, if he would just go away. That's an offer you can't refuse, Larry. We'll see to it. Nothing personal, just the public good.
Nothing has gone right over Ground ZSero. Nearly five years later, they're still debating over what to build there and Larry Silverstein has been a major, but not the only reason. Mike Bloomberg walked away for the better part of two years more concerned with subsidizing the Jets instead of rebuilding downtown.
Finally,he's stepped in. Late.
The reason they're doing this is not altruism, but a Democratic governor and state government on the horizon. You can bet Spitzer and Corzine will come up with a plan very different than what Pataki has done. Which is stand around with a thumb up his ass since 9/11
By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE Published: April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 21 — The Central Intelligence Agency has dismissed a senior career officer for disclosing classified information to reporters, including material for Pulitzer Prize-winning articles in The Washington Post about the agency's secret overseas prisons for terror suspects, intelligence officials said Friday.
The C.I.A. would not identify the officer, but several government officials said it was Mary O. McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, where she served under President Bill Clinton and into the Bush administration.
At the time of her dismissal, Ms. McCarthy was working in the agency's inspector general's office, after a stint at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an organization in Washington that examines global security issues.
The dismissal of Ms. McCarthy provided fresh evidence of the Bush administration's determined efforts to stanch leaks of classified information. The Justice Department has separately opened preliminary investigations into the disclosure of information to The Post, for its articles about secret prisons, as well as to The New York Times, for articles last fall that disclosed the existence of a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants supervised by the National Security Agency. Those articles were also recognized this week with a Pulitzer Prize.
Several former veteran C.I.A. officials said the dismissal of an agency employee over a leak was rare and perhaps unprecedented. One official recalled the firing of a small number of agency contractors, including retirees, for leaking several years ago.
The dismissal was announced Thursday at the C.I.A. in an e-mail message sent by Porter J. Goss, the agency's director, who has made the effort to stop unauthorized disclosure of secrets a priority. News of the dismissal was first reported Friday by MSNBC.
Ms. McCarthy's departure followed an internal investigation by the C.I.A.'s Security Center, as part of an intensified effort that began in January to scrutinize employees who had access to particularly classified information. She was given a polygraph examination, confronted about answers given to the polygraph examiner and confessed, the government officials said. On Thursday, she was stripped of her security clearance and escorted out of C.I.A. headquarters. Ms. McCarthy did not reply Friday evening to messages left by e-mail and telephone.
"A C.I.A. officer has been fired for unauthorized contact with the media and for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," said a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano. "This is a violation of the secrecy agreement that is the condition of employment with C.I.A. The officer has acknowledged the contact and the disclosures.
This woman is going to be a hero and Bush is going to look like a fool. This is Plame times five, unless we like secret prisons and torture. I only hope they try to bring her to court so thry can explain the extent of their gulag system.
What is it about Julia Roberts that reduces grown men to such goops? The reviews for her impersonation of an upright ironing board in Three Days of Rain acknowledge that even as a stationary object she might have tried putting a little more oomph into it. But the same reviewers use the occasion of her Broadway debut to pay slave tribute to her plebian-royal majesty, swooning as if no pair of goggles devised by science is strong enough to shield the eyes from the solar radiance of her beauty whenever she parts those lush lips and gives us one of her heehaw grins. Ben Brantley in the Times confesses to being a "Juliaholic," and David Edelstein in this week's New York magazine cover story is so besotted that he actually writes, reviewing the highs and lows of her movie career, "And, oh, what a joy it was to see her get her mojo back in My Best Friend’s Wedding"--that piece of dreck.
I liked Roberts in Mystic Pizza back when, but liked Annabeth Gish just as much (Lili Taylor too), and was completely immune to her girly charms in Pretty Woman, a movie I've always found fatuous and engineered to appeal to the dumbest quadrant of romantic fantasy. Perhaps the reason I don't find Roberts the enchantment to the senses that others do is because ever since she's achieved stardom she's struck me as singularly charmless and ungiving a presence. In private, she may be joy supreme, I'm just going by public display. When I lived in the Gramercy Park area, I used to see her here and there on the streets, and there was nothing awestriking about her appearance, in part because she dressed so drably and always had this guarded, sulky, sour expression on her face. Her boyfriend at the time was equally guarded but more aggressive about it, poised to play bodyguard if anyone bothered her. Nobody ever did, in my passing glimpses, the reason being that Gramercy Park had enough celebrities in the vicinity not to behave like autograph hounds at the sight of those trademark lips. I once saw Roberts strolling arm in arm with her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt, and he looked like a normal person out for a stroll; she had her pout on. Supermodel Paulina Portizkova lived across the street, and she didn't skulk around as if anticipating an opportunity to be exasperated.
I only cite Roberts' disposition/demeanor back then because it's accurately reflected in her cover shot for New York. Look at that face, devoid of light and lightness, with nothing going on behind her expressionless expression. Inside, Edelstein (who also recognizes her performance is a dud) enthuses, "Even if she stank up the stage (which she doesn’t remotely), those of us lucky (and wealthy) enough to score tickets have the privilege of saying we were in the same space, at the same time, breathing the same air as America’s favorite movie star." I don't find it any great privilege watching somebody famous take up space for two hours, nor do I find it the stuff of which memories are made. I saw Madonna in Speed-the-Plow and don't recall savoring the rarefied air she, I, and the rest of the audience shared; all I can remember of her performance was how small, dim, and vague she was on stage, unable to project her voice or inject any color into it. I saw Burton and Taylor coyly slumming through Private Lives, and it was like gazing from a distance at the bride and groom on a moldy wedding cake. I give Roberts credit for braving the Broadway stage, but couldn't she have picked a play in which she was actually required to do something and then proceed to do it?
Grey Gardens, which I caught last night (its run ends April 30th), isn't much of a play or musical, never rising to the gothic possibilities of its Miss Havisham premise and saddled with a first act afflicted with an outbreak of dimples. But when Christine Ebersole comes out in act two (set in 1973, the time of the Maysles documentary that made Big Edie and Little Edie famous), futzing with the tight fabric of her outfit--she's like a shabby-chic sausage--and sing-songing the daffiest number you've ever heard called "The Revolutionary Costume for Today," the chemistry in the theater instantly changed from polite tedium to crackling hilarity. The dotty conversations between her and her mother (Mary Louise Wilson, whose song "Jerry Likes My Corn" was another screwy treat) were models of eccentrics talking past each other until their sentences finally meet at an intersection. They're not so much talking to each other as thinking aloud until their mutual monologues get tangled up like blouse sleeves. Based upon the reviews, I expected Grey Gardens to be campier--more Charles Ludlum--but campiness is often the easy way out, and Ebersole doesn't need to go the full Norma Desmond to sell Little Edie. The tiniest adjustment of her head scarf does the trick.
I wish I could enlighten Jim as to Ms. Roberts charms, but I couldn't do that if I tried. Because I've always thought it was more hype than reality.
HILDALE, Utah, April 19 — Thousands of polygamists are engaged in a highly unusual standoff here over property taxes that could ultimately cost them their houses or thrust them into a mainstream America they fear and despise.
A fence was recently put up around this house in Hildale, Utah. Some residents involved in the tax dispute have been putting up barriers. George Grey for The New York Times
Bruce R. Wisan, center, spoke with Don Timpson, a member of the trust advisory board, at a meeting this week with residents of Hildale, Utah.
In one corner is a group of 8,000 or so adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon Church that had long paid the property taxes of its members, sometimes even rolling a wheelbarrow through meetings to collect the needed cash.
At the other corner is a stocky accountant from Salt Lake City, Bruce R. Wisan, who says he is determined to help the church members even if they do not want it.
The church hierarchy is in chaos. Its former leader is on the run, facing criminal charges of arranging sex between a minor and an adult in a polygamous marriage, leaving the old tax-collection system in shambles. Now the property taxes for hundreds of houses — around $1.3 million — are overdue and mounting.
The church's remaining leaders have told people living in the houses not to pay. Mr. Wisan has promised to make them do so. A state judge appointed him last year to oversee the land on which most church members live. A trust the church established generations ago controls the land.
Mr. Wisan says he has been frustrated at every step, including efforts to communicate with residents. Mass mailings to residents seeking tax payment have gone unanswered, and some were found strewn across the floor of the post office, unopened, Mr. Wisan said. His representatives sent to knock on doors here in town and in the twin border community of Colorado City, Ariz., have invariably encountered people not home. Some holdouts have even started building walls around their houses.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Wisan took the extraordinary step of convening a town hall meeting to wheedle, threaten and beg residents to break with tradition and pay their individual tax bills — and thus, in a very real way, enter the American mainstream.
If they refuse, he said, they risk losing their houses when the courts settle the issues of law and faith. He also threatened to evict them personally.
"It's a basic obligation," Mr. Wisan told the meeting of more than 40 people. "My position is that people have to pay to live on trust property."
This is creepy. I don't know why people find the HBO show Big Love cute. I think it's the darkest show on cable, making Six Feet Under look like a variety show. It's got the kind of dark undercurrents seen in movies like the Hills Have Eyes and Wolf Creek without the blood.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER Friday, April 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Kevin Ray Underwood, the repressed Oklahoma cannibal, kept an Internet "blog" of his compulsions for years before kidnapping and killing a 10-year-old neighbor last week. On his blog, Kevin wrote a lot about Kevin: "The reason for my lackluster social life is a severe case of social anxiety and depression. I'm on medication now, which helps a lot. Well, in ways."
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A libertarian would say, quite correctly, that most of this is their problem, so who cares? But there is one more personality trait common to the blogosphere that, like crabgrass, may be spreading to touch and cover everything. It's called disinhibition. Briefly, disinhibition is what the world would look like if everyone behaved like Jerry Lewis or Paris Hilton or we all lived in South Park.
Disinhibited vocabulary is now the normal way people talk on cable TV, such as on "The Sopranos" or in stand-up comedy. On the Web and on the street, more people than not talk like this now. What once was isolated is covering everything. No wonder the major non-cable networks are suing to overturn the FCC's decency rulings; they, too, want the full benefits of normalized disinhibition. Hip-hop, currently our most popular music form, is a well-defined world of disinhibition.
Then there's politics. On the Huffington Post yesterday, there were more than 600 "comments" on Karl Rove and the White House staff shake-up. "Demoted my --- the snake is still in the grass." "He should be demoted to Leavenworth." "Rove is Bush's Brain, and without him, our Decider-in-Chief wouldn't know how to wipe his own ----."
From a primary post on the same subject on the Daily Kos, widely regarded as one of the most influential blogging sites in Democratic politics now: "I don't give a ----. Karl Rove belongs in shackles." "A group of village whores have taken a day off to do laundry."
Intense language like this used to be confined to construction sites and corner bars. Now it is normal discourse on Web sites, the most popular forums for political discussion. Much of this is new. Politics is a social endeavor. The Web is nothing if not "social." But the blogosphere is also the product not of people meeting, but venting alone at a keyboard with all the uninhibited, bat-out-of-hell hyperbole of thinking, suggestion and expression that this new technology seems to release
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At the risk of enabling, does the Internet mean that all the rest of us are being made unwitting participants in the personal and political life of, um, crazy people? As populist psychiatry, maybe this is a good thing; the Web allows large numbers of people to contribute to others' therapy. It takes a village.
But researchers note that the isolation of Web life results in many missed social cues. It is similar to the experience of riding an indoor roller coaster, what is known in that industry as a "dark ride." This dark ride could be a very long one.
So I guess he's never read The Naked and the Dead.
While it was the first great American novel, it wasn't noted for it's explorations of anti-semitism, class or the effects of combat on men, based on Norman Mailer's service in the Philippines during WWII. It was noted for the copious use of the word fuck.
When the publisher saw this, he replaced it with the "word" fug", mainly to avoid the book being banned in some states. But mass military service and exposure to combat had left America with very different attitudes towards profanity.
The reality is that there has been a large transference between English spoken in public and the written word. While little Mr. Prissy Pollypants compares Daily Kos to a suspected cannibal he misses the point. Americans use far less vulgarity than oh, the working class English. When Ozzy Osbourne and family were on TV, cursing every other word, Americans were dumbstruck. They couldn't believe people really spoke like that, but they did and do.
The idea that this language was confined to bars and other unsavory places is kinda comical. What it wasn't before blogs was written. But it was and is the way people speak. Wasn't it in All The President's Men when Ben Bradlee, not his movie version Jason Robards, used the phrase ratfucking? The Nixon White House tapes are filled with vulgar language or am I imagining the use of the phrase explitive deleted in Congressional documents. Is the Oval Office a bar?
Mr. Prissy Pollypants wants to denigrate liberal blogs by saying the nasty words are the work of the unhinged? So I wonder what he would have to say about the spate of racism in places like NRO and Red State. What is more vulgar, a few obscentities or mocking the fate of the dead of New Orleans. Calling Coretta Scott King a communist on the day of her funeral.
Let's not be fooled, this is a credibility, not a linguistics argument. If all those liberals are using those bad words, they can't possibly be making any valid points. Even though Ass Clown Media has people defending the internment of Japanese Americans, a far more vulgar statement than the word fuck could ever be, that's part of the accepted discourse, right?
Oh yeah, the picture of Buddy Hackett. People think Richard Pryor was the dirtiest comic ever, he wasn't even close, nor was Lenny Bruce. It was Vegas comics like Buddy Hackett who could "go blue" to a degree which would stun most people, even today.
I once came home at 3 Am with HBO on and Hackett was doing his routine and I was dumbstruck at it's vulgarity. The difference was that they limited where they did their routines. But the idea that such language is a recent invention is comical at best, and in this case being used to discrete legitimate political discussion. Any time you start off a discussion of political blogs with a child murdering cannibal, we're not having an honest discussion.
There are a lot of people who say "I support the troops," put a yellow ribbon on their car, or hang a star in their window. The owners and staff of Fran O'Brien's Steak House have gone WAY beyond the call when it comes to showing their support.
Since October of 2003 Marty O'Brien and Hal Koster have been providing a free "Friday Night out on the Town" at Fran O'Briens Stadium Steak House for thousands of severely injured soldiers and marines who are recuperating nearby at Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Hal, a Vietnam vet, and his partner Marty, have made it a policy to continue continue doing this ... UNTIL THE LAST SOLDIER WOUNDED IN THIS CONFLICT HAS GONE HOME FROM WALTER REED AND BETHESDA.
That is stunning. What is even more stunning is how their landlord, Hilton Hotel Corp., responded. Hilton served Fran O'Brien's with an eviction notice. Why? Hilton doesn't want to spend the money to provide equal access for disabled people.
When I first read about this, I wrote a letter to Thomas Keltner, Vice President of Branding Performance for Hilton Hotel Corp. and Jeff Diskin, Senior Vice President for Brand Management & Marketing. I received a polite, but unresponsive form letter in return. That is when I called Hal Koster to get the facts of the situation. What he told me is outrageous.
This complementary dinner is an elaborate affair with an open bar, accompanied by a full steak dinner with all the trimmings including desert. After dinner comfort packages are provided to each of the soldiers and full steak dinners are provided for other soldiers and family members back at the hospital who couldn't make it that night. All of this at absolutely no cost to the soldiers or their families or invited staff.This has been going on each Friday now for two and a half years!
Soldiers, family members, hospital staff, their doctors and nurses and some of the most senior staff physicians at both hospitals have spoken out about the therapeutic value these nights offer as part of the soldier's recovery. I also spoke with Margaret, the banquet director at Fran O'Brien's, and she told me the staff have all gotten special training to deal with the kind of disabilities they are seeing.
Let's be real frank here. When someone missing part of their jaw orders a steak, you need to prepare it especially for them, or they can't eat it. The chef at Fran O'Brien's knows how to puree it so it tastes great and they can actually enjoy it. Talking with Margaret, the banquet director at Fran's, it was really clear this isn't about free steaks and beer. It's much more than that. It's about treating these men and women with respect. It's about helping them get more than a good meal. It's about helping them get some dignity. "I've been working here for a long time. We're all like family here. When someone missing their lower jaw finally gets to enjoy a steak, we all cry," she explained.
Here's the situation: Fran O'Brien's is downstairs at the Capitol Hilton. That's an important point. We all know there is a Federal law called the Americans with Disabilities Act. The bottom line on that piece of legislation is "equal access" for people with disabilities. That's why we have handicapped parking. That's why we have bathroom stalls with handrails. That is why a lot of things are done. Not because it's nice. They're done because it's the law. If you have a flight of stairs leading to your restaurant, you must have "equal access" available for handicapped patrons. It's not an option.
Here's the outrageous part: There is an escalator that leads down to Fran O'Brien's. IT HAS BEEN BROKEN SINCE 1998! Hal and Marty have been fighting with Hilton to get that repaired for SIX YEARS! Hilton has never done it. Instead, after a few years of promising to do it, sending in engineers, etc. Hilton BOARDED UP THE ESCALATOR. As part of their lease negotiations, the owners asked Hilton to consider putting in a lift for the disabled vets in wheelchairs. That was when they got the eviction notice.
At this point, you are probably wondering how in the world does a disabled person get into the restaurant now? If you need to use a disabled entrance this is how you get to Fran O'Brien's:
1) You have to go to the lobby of the Capitol Hilton. 2) Then you have to go to the security desk. 3) Then you have to be escorted by the security guard on duty to a coat room. 4) The security guard punches in a code on the key pad and escorts you through the coat room. 5) Then he takes you to "the back of the house," as they call the service area in hotels. 6) Then they escort you to the lift and take you down to the basement. 7) When you get to the bottom, someone from the restaurant has to meet you and then escort you to the restaurant at the other end of the building.
Now you can eat.
A) When you finish your meal, someone from the restaurant has to contact the security desk. B) Then they have to escort you to the elevator. C) Then they have to wait until someone from security arrives. D) Then the person from the security desk escorts you back up to the main floor. E) Then they take you back through the coat room, again keying in the security codes.
Now you can leave.
It's clear "equal access" means something radically different to Hilton Hotel Corp than it would to any sane individual. Here's a simple question: What happens if there is a fire?
Here's how you can help:
If we are going to help them continue to help others, we need to generate national awareness so Hilton Hotels feels it in the only place that matters, their wallet. Marty and Hal have not gone public with this earlier because they didn't want to screw up the already complicated lease negotiations. Now that they have an eviction notice, they have nothing left to lose.
Let me be crystal clear here. As a small business owner, I am not in the business of telling other people how to run their business. The only people who do that don't have a business of their own. If Hilton Hotels wants to sully the Hilton brand name the way Paris Hilton has sullied the Hilton family name, that's their choice. However, choices come with consequences.
I know of military groups that have already cancelled events at Hilton properties in Texas and elsewhere. It is time to support our troops and get the word out to a broader audience. It is time to boycott the following hotel chains:
Conrad Hotels Doubletree Embassy Suites Hampton Inn Hampton Inn & Suites Hilton Garden Inn Homewood Suites Scandic
Another way to show support is for people who do travel to pick up the stationary from their hotel room and write a letter to Hilton corporate headquarters, the local newspapers, TV and radio stations saying:
"I'm sending you this note from [non Hilton property] to let you know I think the way Hilton Hotel Corp. is treating the people and patrons at Fran O'Brien's Steak House in Washington DC is wrong. I chose to stay at [non Hilton property] because I support our troops. I simply can't get a good night's sleep at a Hilton property as long as they turn their back on severely wounded soldiers."
Mail it to: Thomas Keltner, Executive Vice President, Hilton Hotel Corporation, 9336 Civic Center Drive Beverly Hills, California 90210
FAX: 310-205-4599
The Mission Statement on the Hilton Web site is: To be the first choice of the world's travelers
Our Mission Statement needs to be equally clear: To show Hilton that bad choices have bad consequences.
No, no, no. The same company which allows Paris Hilton to embarass them on a daily basis refuses to treat vets like humans.
This needs to be all over talk radio, the more right wing the better. This needs to be in letters to the editor and mentioned to the DAV and VFW and let them act as well.
This is vile. We are talking about some kids not 20 years old, and these folks are trying to give them some dignity and hope. What Hilton is doing is just wrong and may well be illegal.
Last night, MSNBC’s David Shuster took a look at recent court filings by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and suggests that Karl Rove is likely to be indicted. Watch it:
Three key points made by Shuster:
1. The latest court documents, for the first time, name Rove as a subject of the investigation.
2. The court documents go out of their way to say that Rove will not be called as a witness in Scooter Libby’s trial, even though Rove is a key part of the narrative. Shuster notes that this is done when prosecutors want to “leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.”
3. Rove is referred in court documents as “Official A.” Shuster says “in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves.”
KEITH OLBERMANN: First off, the base line here. Has the status of the Fitzgerald grand jury changed? Has the status of Mr. Rove in the investigation process itself changed?
DAVID SHUSTER: Well, first on the investigation, defense lawyers say that the grand jury investigation is active again and that the panel has been meeting in recent weeks, although prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was not seen at the grand jury this week, and hasn’t been seen there for some time. Now regarding Karl Rove, according to the latest documents, the first time Rove is now described as a subject in the overall case - a subject being a technical term meaning somebody is under investigation. And the latest prosecution documents also go out of their way to suggest that Rove is not going to be a prosecution witness at the Libby trial even though Rove is part of the narrative against Scooter Libby. And the reason that’s significant is because prosecutors usually don’t put subjects on the witness stand for tactical reasons if they want to leave open the possibility of later charging that particular subject in a separate case.
The other thing that has long been intriguing about Karl Rove, and that is, we’ve known for months that in the Scooter Libby indictment when they refer to Official A, Official A is Karl Rove. And the indictment against Libby says that Official A disclosed to Scooter Libby that he had had a conversation with columnist Robert Novak. The reason prosecutors describe an official as an Official A is when there’s pejorative information about that person, and the person has not yet been indicted and had a chance to defend themselves. But we’ve looked at prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s record as far as designating people as Official A or Official B, and in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves. And that’s why I think with everything coming together there is so much intrigue tonight about Karl Rove.
One advantage of having the extremists in the legislature pass the abortion ban this past session is that we are now getting to see their true colors. We now know what they really think.
First we had Bill Napoli and his simple rape and sodomized religious virgin exception. Now we have Rep. Joel Dykstra (R-Lincoln County) explaining what he thinks about the lack of a rape and incest exception. This appeared in the Two Rivers Times, which unfortunately does not have an online version to which I can link:
“I think ‘rape and incest’ is a buzzword,” said Rep. Joel Dykstra about not including those conditions in the abortion bill. “It’s a bit of a throwaway line and not everybody who says that really understands what that means. How are you going to define that?”
If you want to do anything to get rid of these wackos, a good first step would be to contribute to the Common Sense South Dakota PAC, which is supporting pro-choice Democratic candidates for the legislature
Oddly enough, the state of South Dakota has a clear explaination of what they consider rape
22-22-1. (Text of section effective until July 1, 2006) Rape defined--Degrees--Felony. Rape is an act of sexual penetration accomplished with any person under any of the following circumstances:
(1) If the victim is less than ten years of age; or
(2) Through the use of force, coercion, or threats of immediate and great bodily harm against the victim or other persons within the victim's presence, accompanied by apparent power of execution; or
(3) If the victim is incapable, because of physical or mental incapacity, of giving consent to such act; or
(4) If the victim is incapable of giving consent because of any intoxicating, narcotic, or anesthetic agent or hypnosis; or
(5) If the victim is ten years of age, but less than sixteen years of age, and the perpetrator is at least three years older than the victim; or
(6) If persons who are not legally married and who are within degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are by the laws of this state declared void pursuant to § 25-1-6, which is also defined as incest; or
(7) If the victim is ten years of age but less than eighteen years of age and is the child of a spouse or former spouse of the perpetrator.
A violation of subdivision (1) of this section is rape in the first degree, which is a Class 1 felony. A violation of subdivision (2), (3), or (4) of this section is rape in the second degree, which is a Class 2 felony. A violation of subdivision (5), (6), or (7) of this section is rape in the third degree, which is a Class 3 felony. Notwithstanding § 23A-42-2 a charge brought pursuant to this section may be commenced at any time prior to the time the victim becomes age twenty-five or within seven years of the commission of the crime, whichever is longer.
(Text of section effective July 1, 2006) Rape defined--Degrees--Felony. Rape is an act of sexual penetration accomplished with any person under any of the following circumstances:
(1) If the victim is less than thirteen years of age; or
(2) Through the use of force, coercion, or threats of immediate and great bodily harm against the victim or other persons within the victim's presence, accompanied by apparent power of execution; or
(3) If the victim is incapable, because of physical or mental incapacity, of giving consent to such act; or
(4) If the victim is incapable of giving consent because of any intoxicating, narcotic, or anesthetic agent or hypnosis; or
(5) If the victim is thirteen years of age, but less than sixteen years of age, and the perpetrator is at least three years older than the victim.
A violation of subdivision (1) of this section is rape in the first degree, which is a Class C felony. A violation of subdivision (2) of this section is rape in the second degree which is a Class 1 felony. A violation of subdivision (3) or (4) of this section is rape in the third degree, which is a Class 2 felony. A violation of subdivision (5) of this section is rape in the fourth degree, which is a Class 3 felony. Notwithstanding § 23A-42-2 a charge brought pursuant to this section may be commenced at any time prior to the time the victim becomes age twenty-five or within seven years of the commission of the crime, whichever is longer.
The New York City Housing Authority announced yesterday that it wants to raise the rents paid by tens of thousands of its better-off tenants. The move, the biggest change in housing authority rents since 1989, is intended to help close a budget gap that has widened as costs have shot up and federal financing has not, officials said.
The proposed rent increases, some as high as several hundred dollars a month over the next two years, would affect nearly 47,000 households with annual incomes ranging from $19,800 to as high as $100,000. They make up 27 percent of all authority households. The remaining 128,000 poorer households, whose rent is fixed at one third of their income, would be unaffected.
The housing authority's chairman, Tino Hernandez, said yesterday that the agency "is at a defining moment in its history."
If the authority does not solve the problem of its recurring deficits, Mr. Hernandez and other administrators said, it will exhaust its depleted reserves in less than two years.
The authority, the largest in the country with more than 400,000 tenants, last fixed rent ceilings, beyond which no tenant's rent could climb, in 1989. The aim of those "ceiling rents" was to encourage upwardly mobile families to remain in public housing, cultivating a socioeconomic mix that some say has been crucial to the authority's success.
Under the new proposal, a family with a household income of about $40,000 living in a two-bedroom apartment would see its monthly rent increase to $546 from $495 in two years.
The proposed change, which would be phased in starting in September and requires approval of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees all local housing authorities, comes on the heels of the New York authority's decision to impose increased tenant fees for everything from owning a washing machine and a dishwasher to getting a broken door fixed or a key fished out of an elevator shaft.
Mr. Hernandez announced several other steps being taken in what he called the authority's "seven-point plan to preserve public housing." Those steps include an offer from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration of $100 million to help the authority pay its bills while it continues to look for new ways to raise revenue and cut costs.
The authority also intends to ask for approval to use federal Section 8 housing money to subsidize 8,400 of 21,000 authority-run units that were built by the city and state in the 1950's and 1960's. Because those units no longer receive any state or city subsidy, they are said to account for nearly half of the authority's $168 million operating deficit.
A letter from Mr. Hernandez announcing the proposals was to be distributed to every household yesterday. The authority is planning to hold five town hall meetings next month, one in each borough, and a public hearing in early June.
Victor Bach, a senior housing policy analyst for the Community Service Society, a nonprofit group that works against poverty, said in an interview: "There is clearly a reason to increase the ceiling rents since they haven't been increased in 20 years, at a time when maintenance and operating costs have gone up. The question is whether they're being increased to reasonable levels, whether they will cause any undue hardship for tenants."
He added, "I think it's going to be an issue and a decision that's going to be a hard fight with tenants, who are very sensitive to the rent issue."
That's the understatement of the decade. A normal, 4 percent rent increase is fought over like a boxing match. Rent Stabliziation hearings nearly end in riots.
Nerw York City Housing is unique because it isn't a dumping ground for the poor, but is mostly home to the working class and retirees. But this kind of rent hike is going to be bitterly contested. The tenant's lobby is the second largest in New York State, and with this being an election year, I expect this issue to blow up into a really nasty fight.
Why? This is the last affordable housing in New York, the rents are half that of market rents in some areas. In exchange, projects bring stability to areas where private housing could not. Is some hike coming? Probably, but this is going to not go down easily. Simple fee hikes were bitterly contested. The problem for NYCHA is this is going to spread rumors that they want to disposses black and latino tenants for whites who can pay more. I don't think City Hall has really thought out the implications of what a rent hike of several hundred dollars would mean.
People will absolutely go batshit, guaranteed. There is no more sensitive issue in New York than real estate.
Michael Thelemann, 45, of Bray, OK, has put a sign in his yard offering to pay $1,000 for a virgin bride between the ages of 12 and 24. His neighbors are none too pleased, with at least one saying she feels like she’s “living down the street from a pedophile.” Gee, I can’t imagine why she thinks that. Thelemann, on the other hand, just thinks his neighbors are “wicked.”
"I'm just somebody who is getting up there in years, and I'm looking for a born-again, God-fearing virgin between the ages of 12 and 24 who can bear me children," said Thelemann, who was divorced in 1989. "What's the problem? I just think I have some wicked neighbors."
Someone stole the sign, so Thelemann put up another one, adding he’s also not interested in a “pig-worshipping, heathen, white-supremacist wife.” Good to know.
A Purity Ball might be right up his alley. Or a livestock show.
By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 39 minutes ago
RANGER, Ga. - Scott Crossfield, the hotshot test pilot and aircraft designer who in 1953 became the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, was killed in the crash of his small plane, authorities said Thursday. He was 84.
Crossfield's body was found in the wreckage Thursday in the mountains about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, a day after the single-engine plane he was piloting dropped off radar screens on a flight from Alabama to Virginia. There were thunderstorms in the area at the time.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. Crossfield was believed to be the only person aboard.
During the 1950s, Crossfield embodied what came to be called "the right stuff," dueling the better-known Chuck Yeager for supremacy among America's Cold War test pilots. Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947; only weeks after Crossfield reached Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, Yeager outdid him.
Yeager, reached at his home in California, said he was "sure sorry to hear" about Crossfield's death, but he wondered whether the pilot's penchant for taking risks might have been his undoing.
Crossfield was flying "in very bad weather," Yeager noted.
During their days as test pilots, he said Crossfield "being a civilian, had a lot more freedom than we did, as military guys. ... Sometimes he exceeded his capability and got in trouble."
Asked for an example, the 83-year-old Yeager said: "Flying in weather that he should have never been in."
Yeah, the weather in Atlanta sucked yesterday, Crazy Nancy Grace couldn't get back to New York. That and a security alert.
Yeager wasn't all that sentimental, but then I guess you can only escape the odds for so long.
But history is a funny thing. Before The Right Stuff was written, the feats of Yeager and Crossfield were obscured by the Apollo program. Only Air Force pilots knew who these guys were. They were famous in the late 1940's, but by 1961, what they did was history, long forgotten by the people who went into space.
Ironically, the astronauts were not regarded as good pilots, while people like Yeager, Crossfield, and Yeager's lifelong friend, Bud Anderson, who shot down three ME-109's in one day, were legends for their skill as pilots. Yeager's West Virginia drawl was imitated by generations of pilots. The exception was John Glenn, who was Ted Williams wingman in Korea. But for the most part, the astronauts were chose for their education and suitability as test subjects, not their flying skills.
Yeager and Anderson went back to commanding Air Force squadrons during the height of Apollo while Crossfield kept testing planes. They labored in obscurity while Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
So how did the story change? Two people, Tom Wolfe and Philip Kaufman. Wolfe wrote the book the Right Stuff, and Kaufman, who has a masters in history, directed the movie. When it was released in 1984, people thought it would boost John Glenn into the White House. Except he wasn't the focus of the movie. I like Ed Harris fine, he did a great job in the film playing Glenn, but Sam Shepard, who looks nothing like Chuck Yeager, did a better job. Critics said if Yeager had been running for office, he'd have won.
Why? Because Glenn was a scold in the film and Shepard was a likeable wildman.
But what the movie did was bring alive the era of exploring flight in human terms. It was one of the last movies of that kind to be made with models and not computer aided graphics. It was done before ILM owned Hollywood and computers could make lions and trees talk. But what the movie did was take the shine off of the first astronauts and explained who got them there. The climax of the movie doesn't take place in space, but with Yeager escaping a burning F-104 Starfighter he took up to 100,000 feet and lost control of. At the end of the movie, you have a half burned Yeager walking across the desert with his parachute in his hand. In reality, Yeager didn't walk anywhere, he was hospitalized for a while, but as a cinematic image, you couldn't have a much better one.
History is not a static thing, it changes over the years, and how people perceive it over the years. The story of the test pilots was a footnote until a movie made it more than that.
An elite force has been set up to strengthen counter-terrorism and support special forces, Defence Secretary John Reid has confirmed.
The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) based in Wales, will be drawn from Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment and the RAF Regiment.
Its insignia is a dagger run through by a lightning flash.
Based at St Athan, the SFSG will train with special forces to be deployed around the world at short notice.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Thursday, Defence Secretary John Reid said: "The new Special Forces Support Group will enhance the capability of the UK Special Forces to operate around the world and will provide the UK with an additional counter-terrorist capability.
"I am pleased to be able to inform the House that the new Special Forces unit stood up, as planned, in St Athan, near Cardiff on 3 April."
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said selection courses would involve arduous physical selection and high-quality infantry training.
The personnel will be equipped and provided with additional training to fit their specific specialist role on joining the SFSG.
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One example of the type of work was from 2000 when a company of 1 Para attacked a rebel camp in Sierra Leone as Special Forces units rescued hostages from a separate camp, preventing rebel reinforcements from disrupting the rescue.
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My bet, a Quick Reaction Force designed to deploy with the SAS/SBS, kinda like a US Ranger battalion. Standing units have too many other missions to train for and accomplish. Raiding, landing zone protection and perimeter control. Also, the SAS can train with a standing unit, the way the Rangers work with Special Forces and Delta.
Why do they need this? My bet is that the SAS wanted a unit which could save their asses without negotiating with people who may have issues with special ops. It also serves as a place for people who didn't make selection or want to apply for selection.
