On Race

I woke up today thinking I'd blog about something that happened in the park yesterday. I really didn't think it was interesting enough last night and then C.I. called me after my post went up and asked why I didn't cover it. Honestly, I didn't know if it was serious enough. C.I. said, "'Go Your Own Way' Cedric is taking a pass on this!" And I had laugh too. (That's a reference to
"Into the e-mails.") Then I spoke to Ty this afternoon and he said, "That would make a great piece for our fiction edition this summer." (At The Third Estate Sunday Review.) I was already excited about the special edition and think it will work there. (It will also probably be better if it has some fiction to it and we can all input.)

Then, today, I read Samantha Power's "Why Can't We?" and thought I could write about that. I phoned Mike and suggested we both grab it. But I get home and go to Mikey Likes It! and read his "Michael Hayden, FCC and spying, and more" and there's nothing left to cover -- he's done a great job. I can't even think of anything to add to it.

So let me talk about a special on KPFA today called "Tim Wise Special" and co-hosted by Andrea Lewis of The Morning Show. What's The Matter With Kansas? Is that the name of Thomas Frank's book? We're all supposed to love it. I read it and didn't love it. I don't know a lot of people who read the book but one (C.I.) who did didn't care for it.

Tim Wise talked about it and put it perfectly. This isn't about teaching people to vote in their own interest (which is pretty "paternalistic" as Wise noted). It's one more thing about "We must bring the White Male back to the Democratic Party!" They're spitting on women already by running these anti-choice candidates. (I'm offended by that and I am pro-choice but I won't pretend that an issue which has to do with women's bodies could offend me more than it could a woman. I'm pro-choice and will say so loudly and clearly. But for women, I think it has another level since it is their bodies.) But it's also about, "Forget you African-Americans." Because African-Americans didn't abandon the party.

They didn't need to "learn" their interests. You can toss Condi on one side of Bully Boy and Colin Powell on the other and it's still just window dressing.

Does Kansas have no African-Americans?

This is another thing about how "We will get the White Males back! No matter how much we have to water down the issues." That was really a great special and you probably could only hear it on Pacifica Radio so if you have the money to donate and you haven't donated already, donate Thursday.

I don't want to pick on someone I've noted before has a White view. I think she means well. But she pushed that book like crazy. And I kept thinking, "Does this magazine have no African-American readers?" Wise made a point about a book and Lewis emphasized that after his speech was over. There was a period of time when Black Like Me was selling second only to the Bible. Why was that?

A white man takes some pills to be Black and suddenly it's worth reading to find out about African-Americans? Were they unaware that African-Americans had been writing about what it was like to be African-American for some time already?

I'd be willing to guess that most African-Americans have a better idea of what it's like to be White than than most Whites have an idea of what it's like to be African-American. Not because African-Americans are more aware by "nature" but because the White culture is the one that's all over the place.

I think Andrea Lewis was talking about something that had happened to her and not something in the speech Wise gave. (If he noted it, I missed it. I was listening at work so it's entirely possible that I missed it.) So she said that this man was just insisting to her that Columbia University had gone Black. 'They' were all over the place. Lewis gave a figure (under twenty-percent) to the friend about how that wasn't the case. But he was White and he sees five African-Americans and it's one of those 'They're taking over!' moments.

They weren't fifty-percent and he wanted to argue with her about her source for the figures (Columbia was her source) because when he looked around, what he saw made him feel like it was at fifty-percent.

I'm not making fun of him. I'm saying that this happens. It has to do with impressions.

I'll mess up (not spoil, mess up) the speech if I try to go into it more but if race matters to you, check it out. Because race does matter. Someone can whine, "Oh, you're playing the race card!"
Am I ABC, NBC or CBS? No. But they play the race card in their programming or maybe people don't notice how few African-Americans are on TV?

What does that say to kids growing up now? They can watch a host of White families, they can watch a ton of White lawyers and investigators. It's like we've dropped back to pre-I Spy and pre-Julia these days.

African-Americans are not in competition with Latinos and any who think they are should correct themselves. But it is true that the dominant society encourages us to think that there will be one lucky break extended so we all better fight for it -- all of us on the bottom, nonWhite rung.

So those are my thoughts for tonight. If I can, I'll blog tomorrow.


KPFA's The Morning Show tomorrow will feature another discussion on race. Make a point to listen if you have the time (and a computer that allows you to hear streaming audio if you aren't in their broadcast area).

Arundhati Roy speaks to truth to power while others stay silent

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush speaking in India. Arundhati Roy, your response?
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, look, let's not forget that this whole call to the free market started in the late 19th century in India. You know, that was what colonialism was all about. They kept using the words "free market." And we know how free the free market is. Today, India has -- I mean, after 15 years of economic liberalization, we have more than half of the world's malnutritioned children. We have an economy where the differences between the rich and the poor, which have always been huge, has increased enormously. We have a feudal society whose feudalism has just been reinforced by all of this.
And, you know, it's amazing. Just in the wake of Bush's visit, you can't imagine what's happening, say, in a city like Delhi. You can't imagine the open aggression of institutions of our democracy. It's really like courts, for instance, who are an old enemy of mine, are rolling up their sleeves and coming after us. You have in Delhi, for example -- I have just come from being on the streets for six weeks, where all kinds of protest are taking place. But you have a city that's been just -- it's just turned into a city of bulldozers and policemen. Overnight, notices go up saying tomorrow or day after tomorrow you're going to be evicted from here. The Supreme Court judges have come out saying things like, "If the poor can't afford to live in the city, why do they come here?"
And basically, behind it all, there are two facades. One is that in 2008, Delhi is going to host the Commonwealth Games. For this, hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of the city. But the real agenda came in the wake of Bush's visit, which is that the city is being prepared for foreign direct investment in retail, which means Wal-Mart and Kmart and all these people are going to come in, which means that this city of millions of pavement dwellers, hawkers, fruit sellers, people who have -- it's a city that's grown up over centuries and centuries. It's just being cleaned out under the guise of sort of legal action. And at the same time, people from villages are being driven out of their villages, because of the corporatization of agriculture, because of these big development projects.
So you have an institution like -- you know, I mean, how do you subvert democracy? We have a parliament, sure. We have elections, sure. But we have a supreme court now that micromanages our lives. It takes every decision: What should be in history books? Should this lamb be cured? Should this road be widened? What gas should we use? Every single decision is now taken by a court. You can't criticize the court. If you do, you will go to jail, like I did. So, you have judges who are -- you have to read those judgments to believe it, you know? Public interest litigation has become a weapon that judges use against us.
So, for example, a former chief justice of India, he gave a decision allowing the Narmada Dam to be built, where 400,000 people will be displaced. The same judge gave a judgment saying slum dwellers are pickpockets of urban land. So you displace people from the villages; they come into the cities; you call them pickpockets. He gave a judgment shutting down all kinds of informal industry in Delhi. Than he gave a judgment asking for all India's rivers to be linked, which is a Stalinist scheme beyond imagination, where millions of people will be displaced. And when he retired, he joined Coca-Cola. You know, it's incredible.

That's Arundhati Roy speaking with Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now! ("Arundhati Roy on India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent"). I hope you already caught it but if you missed it, you can use the link and read it or listen to it or watch it. (I listen to Democracy Now! each day.) And if that part above doesn't make you want to listen, I don't know what will. How often do you get to hear anyone tell the truth? She tried to with Charlie Rose. Amy Goodman brought that up and Arundhati Roy said they taped the show, he just never broadcast it. I don't care for Charlie Rose. He's just too prissy and in love with his own voice. I hate it when he lands on a word and draws it out or when he plays with that coffee mug. When Bully Boy ordered the invasion of Iraq, I thought I should try to watch some news and I turned to PBS. I lasted about three weeks. If I thought I was going to see the cast of Sesame Street or Reading Rainbow, I lost that illusion quickly as one White face after another danced across the screen.

It wasn't worth it to me to have the visuals. So I went back to using the radio as my primary source of news. It's not like I got any strong visuals anyway, just a lot of close ups of White people. If there's footage on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman will usually note it and if she does, I'll usually go to the website later in the day and watch it. Otherwise, I'm a grown adult and I can usually picture something in my head.

I prefer to listen. I know some people love to watch Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez -- like Rebecca and Mike prefer to watch. C.I. prefers to listen, thinking you focus more. I think I agree with that. If I'm watching something, my mind's going to drift off. I'll focus on someone's face or the set or something and then think, "Wait, what did they just say?"

But however you prefer, you can do it with Democracy Now! -- you can watch it online or listen online or read it online. (And they do headlines each day in English and in Spanish.) And if you're lucky, you can listen or watch with your radio or TV. I bet you already know where but if you don't, click here and it will give you options to find out how to watch or listen.

If you need a laugh today, and who doesn't?, check out Wally's "THIS JUST IN! CONDI RICE FINALLY GETS IT!" -- Condi faces that she's not loved.

C.I. noted this from a PDF file ("AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens, 31 December 2005") and if I had time, I'd note something else -- but I know why C.I. put it up and I'm putting it up too (for the same reason):

To mollify critics, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) spokesmen have repeatedly asserted that they are only conducting "research" using "artificial synthetic date" or information from "normal DoD intelligence channels" and hence there are "no U.S. citizen privacy implications" (Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General report on TIA, December 12, 2003). They also changed the name of the program to "Terrorism Information Awareness" to make it more politically palatable. But feeling the heat, Congress made a big show of allegedly cutting off funding for TIA in late 2003, and the political fallout resulted in Admiral Poindexter's abrupt resignation last August. However, the fine print reveals that Congress eliminated funding only for "the majority of the TIA components," allowing several "components" to continue (DoD, ibid). The essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into "real world" telecommunications offices.
In San Francisco the "secret room" is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High speed fiber optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T's WorldNet service, part of the latter's vital "Common Backbone." In order to snoop on these circuits, a special cabinet was installed and cabled to the "secret room" on the 6th floor to monitor the infomration going through the circuits. (The location code of the cabinet is 070177.04 which denotes the 7th floor, aisle 177 and bay 04.) The "secret room" itself is roughly 24-by-48 feet, containing perhaps a dozen cabinets including such equipment as Sun servers and two Juniper routers, plus an industrial-size air conditioner.
The normal workforce of unionized technicians in the office are forbidden to enter the "secret room," which has a special comination lock on the main door. The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room. In practice this has meant that only one management-level technician works in there. Ironically, the one who set up the room was laid off in late 2003 in one of the company's endless "downsizings," but he was quickly replace by another.
Plans for the "secret room" were fully drawn up by December 2002, curiously only four months after DARPA started awarding contracts for TIA.

Check out the following:

"NYT: A war hawk finds out it's not easy being sleazy (Kate Zezima)"
"It's a Monday"
"dixie chicks, flashpoints, attempting to privatize the bbc & more"
"KPFA's Radio Chronicles' 'John Ono Lennon' special""

Questions the administration and others should be asked by Congress

The comic below is Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts and it's Michael Hayden speaking before the Senate.

I really like the comic but in terms of the Senate, I think from now on, when anyone's been sworn in to testify before them that has any connection to the administration, someone should ask the following:

1) Do you know Valerie Plame?
2) Did you know she was CIA before it broke in the press?
3) If so, how did you find out?
4) Did you speak on the record or off the record with any members of the press about Valerie Plame?

If they'd had Alberto Gonzales under oath when he testified before the Senate the last time, that would have been the perfect opportunity. But everybody. Donald Rumsfeld comes in to talk about the military, anyone comes in, ask them about Plamegate.

Get them under oath when possible. But even if you can't get them under oath, ask them.

Condi Rice comes in to talk about the State Department, ask her about Plame.

Let's see if they pull a Michael Hayden and say they can only answer in closed testimony or if they'll give a denial?

That's my thought for today.

I was studying the comic at work today and we were all talking about how Hayden avoided so many questions.

It got us thinking what sort of questions we'd ask him? We agreed that the NSA was an important one and then we started thinking of other things like Hurricane Katrina and the spying on Americans.

When someone said spy, I thought, Valerie Plame.

The point isn't thinking someone will confess at some point to being involved (there are probably a lot of people involved).

The point is to get them on record. Plamegate is going to break at some point and it would be nice to see, for instance, Stephen Hadley on the news telling a senator that he has no knowledge would be an interesting clip for the nightly news programs to have handy if Hadley ended up indicted.

If Rove gets indicted, they better show that clip where Scott McClellan was saying that Rove had nothing to do with it.

Here's new content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Here it comes, here it comes again
TV Review: Will & Grace -- goodbye, good riddance
Senate plays "Don't Spook the Spook" with Michael Hayden
"Can an unindicted co-conspirator remain at the White House? Personally, I don't think so."
Into the e-mails
Laura Flanders spoke with Penny Lang about the importance of music and much more
Radio highlights for Sunday
"We were all wrong!" Not so fast

This is a short entry just to see how they go. Rebecca and I have been talking about doing some of these. I'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll be able to blog more often than just Tuesdays and Thursdays? We'll see.

Dry Drunk Bully Boy

"Senate Votes To Build 370-Mile Border Fence" (Democracy Now):
The Senate has voted to build a fence along parts of the Mexico border to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. In total, 370 miles of triple-layered barriers would be added near San Diego and in the Arizona desert. Senators also approved a provision that would prevent illegal immigrants from petitioning for a guest-worker permit without the sponsorship an employer. And in a unanimous vote, Senate accepted an amendment that would bar granting work permits to undocumented immigrants convicted of either a felony or at least three misdemeanors. The measure would effect even those who ignored a court-deportation order.

I'm sorry to go personal here but this is such a dry drunk moment. Bully Boy's a dry drunk. He dealt with his addiction to alcohol by finding another one (God) and then another one (blood lust). Someone like that can't deal with what's real. They shut it out. And Bully Boy thinks if he acts like something's not there, it not there.

Like if he keeps acting like he didn't lie us into war, we'll all look the other way too. Mike and I are both grabbing the same headlines tonight. Always check out Mikey Likes It! but to get his take on the headlines, be sure to check him out.


"At Least 50 Killed in Afghanistan Clashes" (Democracy Now):
In Afghanistan, more than fifty people were killed in fighting between Taliban members and Afghan and foreign forces in two southern provinces Wednesday. The dead included a dozen police, a Canadian soldier and more than 30 militants.

That's another elephant in the room that we're not supposed to notice. We're supposed to believe that Bully Boy accomplished something by bombing that country to further ruin and doing pretty much nothing to help rebuild it. The country's run by warlords. There's no safety there. But he got to satisfy his blood lust by bombing and destroying and he was ready to move on for another high (Iraq) and now he needs another quick fix (Iran).

I didn't get to note Betty's "Leather Prada pumps and tears" Tuesday. I'm not sure if she's posting tonight or trying for Friday, but it's hilarious and read it. I wanted to put that in early in case I forgot.

Now I'm going to note the latest on Iraq via C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Chaos and violence was the rule on Wednesday and remains so today. Wednesday, as noted by Bassam Sebti and Debbi Wilgoren, car bombs and gun shots resulted in the death of at least 16 people. As noted by Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher, two corpses ("handcuffed . . . shot in the head") were discovered in Baghad and "[f]ifteen members of the Iraqi Olympic Tae Kwon Do team were kidnapped." The BBC notes that $100,000 is what kidnappers have set as the ransom for the release of the atheletes and CNN notes that the kidnapping took place on "a road between Ramadi and Falluja." The AFP reports Peter Pace (general), testifying to Congress yesterday, stating that "No, sir," there is no prospect of American troops being "withdrawn from even Iraq's most stable regions."
Today?
In Baghdad, the BBC reports, at least three police officer are dead and at least four civilians wounded from a roadside bomb. CNN, in a later report, notes that seven have died and four are wounded. Another roadside bomb has killed at least four and CNN identifies them as "4 U.S. soldiers" in the headline but as "Four Multi-National Division" in the text. AFP identifies them as American soldiers -- an Iraqi interpreter died in the bombing as well. CNN reports the death of "six car mechanics" who were attacked by assailants while on their way to work.
The AFP reports that, in Kirkuk, "local leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Nejmeddin Abdullah" is dead from a drive by shooting as he left "his Kirkuk party headquarters" while "a teacher and a student" were also dead as a result of a drive-by.The Associated Press notes the discovery of a corpse ("beheaded"; "woman labor activist affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party").
A high school teacher was killed in Karbala, Reuters notes.
In Baqouba, the Associated Press reports the destruction of "a small Sunni shrine" as a result of bombing.
In Basra, the Associated Press notes that "police chief Gen. Hassan Swadi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit his convoy as he was heading to work." This would be the same Basra that Des Browne, England's new defense minister, visisted yesterday to declare, "Basra is calm, and British forces are working hand in han with their Iraqi and colation partners. Suggestions that the city is, in some way, out of control are ridiculous." Browne made those comments on Wednesday, the same day, as Reuters notes, that Nazar Abdul-Zahra ("former member of Iraq's national soccer team") was killed.
Though the American press apparently doesn't give a damn about the death of troops in Iraq who aren't American, the issue of Jake Kovco's death and what followed is still a big issue in Australia. Kovco's father-in-law said, regarding the latest developments, "Because of the way everything has been bungled, Shelley and her two kids have had to go through this death three times." So what's the latest? The investigation into the events of Jake Kovco's death and the time afterward (when another body, Juso Sinaovic's body, was shipped to Australia instead of Kovco) someow resulted in "[h]ighly sensitive information about the bungled repatriation . . . [being] left in a computer at an airport."
The report "ended up in the hands of broadcaster Derryn Hinch" and has resulted in John Howard (Australia's prime minister) issuing yet another apology to the family (from Chicago, which is where Howard is currently). As a result of all that Shelley Kovco is being put through (not just 'has been,' is being), the Federal Opposition is saying that "extra compensation to the family of Private Jake Kovco" should be paid.
Jake Kovco's body, following the mix up, was finally laid to rest on May 2nd. Kovco died in Iraq on April 21st. The investigation is supposed to help determine the cause of the death and to help determine how his body and Sinaovic's were mixed up.

Now let me talk about that. I think Iraq's covered there but I'd add that when you think about what Shelley Kovco, her children, her late husband's family and everyone has been through, I can't believe it hasn't already been a Dateline special -- "This is Stone Phillips. Jake Kovco died serving in Iraq. What should have followed was a routine and ceremony familiar to far too many families. Instead . . ."

But what I wanted to talk about was something Elaine and I were talking about. I'd just gotten home from church and she called upset and just wanting to talk. By the way, this is what she was upset about:

"UNICEF: 25% of Iraqi Children Suffer Malnutrition" (Democracy Now):
Meanwhile, a survey carried out by the Iraqi government and UNICEF has concluded a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition.

That's something to be upset about. This whole illegal war is something to be upset about. Every paper in the country should be splashing that on the front page and asking why, in the fourth year of the occupation, Bully Boy's done nothing to help the Iraqi children?

He uses "insurgents" as his excuse for everything else. Well, I don't think people will buy that when faced the fact that children, even the children, aren't a concern of his.

But we talked about Iraq and then we started talking about the snapshot. C.I. was in DC today (and last night) so we were wondering if there would be a snapshot? There was a brief summary of the Michael Hayden hearings.

There's this whole slam bloggers (The Common Ills is a resource/review, before I'm accused of calling it a blog) thing where they're supposedly living in a basement, wearing pajamas and have no life at all. That's not anyone I know. You've got college students like Mike, Wally, Jim, Dona, Ty, Ava and Jess. You've got Betty who's a working mother with three young children. You've got Rebecca who is 'retired' because she made her money in the rat race and got out. I think everyone hopes she and Fly Boy are together for good this time. (He's her ex-husband.) Elaine's a doctor. Trina's raised eight children, worked, has a happy marriage and, like Betty and me, is active in her church. Kat's a working artist. Who's hiding out in a basement?

And all of us go to rallies and demonstrations. Elaine said that if anyone's putting anything on hold it's C.I. and I'd agree with that. C.I.'s not hiding out in a basement. But it's obvious why C.I. was the one to bring up (last summer) the idea of shutting down shop. Right now, as announced, the plan is come November of 2008, we shut shop. Some might continue.

But the one that I know worries the community is C.I. I think if we could all (I'm a member of the community too) be happy with one entry a day, C.I. might continue The Common Ills. But it's just too much work. C.I.'s too busy as it is and dictating so many entries these days. Sometimes, and I've said this to C.I., I think The Common Ills is like a new car. You know how when you get a new car or a new old car and you are so careful where you park it? You're so worried that you're going to get a ding or someone will sideswipe it?

That's what I think The Common Ills is like. We all wish C.I. would take off a day and that might be a possibility if there was ever a day C.I. had already missed. It's just too much for one person. We talk sometimes, all of us, about how if Blogger continues to screw up, just using a for pay site. (C.I. worried that it would be less D.Y.I. if that happened.) If that ever did happen, we're all agreed we'd just do one site. On Sundays, it would be Third. And we'd all just post at it during the week.

If that happened, you know, for instance, Mike would cover Democracy Now so that would be one less entry C.I. had to do. And someone could grab a morning entry every now and then. C.I. let Ty and Jess fill in twice on Sunday evening. That's not really a day off. C.I. had to attend functions on those nights. And this was after a marathon session on Third and after doing the morning entry at The Common Ills.

It just seems like that instead of getting easier, things are getting more time consuming. The Iraq snapshot is something that C.I. does because it's, summarizing C.I. here, real easy to gripe, "Where is the Iraq coverage?" But it's harder to note what's going on. That's time consuming. C.I. had already turned the Sunday evening and Thursday evening entries over to Iraq to try to up the awareness and coverage of the war, the peace movement, everything. I don't know that it will get easier ever.

Elaine and I were wondering if today, since C.I. was in DC for the hearing, it would be an entry without the snapshot. But, as Elaine pointed out, that's the kind of challenge that means C.I. works overtime so you got the snapshot, two highlights, DN! and "impressions" of the hearings.

You got two entries this morning, you'll get the "And the war drags on" tonight. It just really amazes me that there's so much being juggled. C.I. will bench Ruth or Isaiah or tell Kat "don't worry about a review, go have some fun." But regardless of where C.I. is, it's entry, entry, entry. It just seems like a lot for one person. Really, too much for one person. Elaine says that if there wasn't the cut off date ("and the return of life after"), C.I. would be nuts but that this whole thing is like working through now to then and just getting through it. She also thinks it will be one week or less of stopping and then it will be back but in a more limited form.

All of that should set you up for the fact that tonight, Mike will be posting an interview with C.I.

And instead of doing links for all the sites above, I'm just noting this:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.

Check out Mike's interview.

Immigration

Let me start out by noting the "new content" at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Could it be true? Rove indicted?
TV Review: When it's time to go -- That 70s Show
Who exactly are the outlaws?
2 Books, many minutes
About that 'fan mail'
Professional Slime Mike McCurry stabs Milano in the back
Laura Flanders spoke with Cindy Sheehan on Saturday's Radio Nation With Laura Flanders
Mark Danner discusses impeachment with Larry Bensky today on KPFA's Sunday Salon

It was a rough weekend because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. We're trying to get on the phone in about a half hour (little less than that, so I need to hurry) to get some ideas for this week so that we're not pulling such a long shift this weekend. (And I bailed as did everyone but Ty, Ava, Jess, Dona, Jim and C.I. They told us to because we'd added input in the stuff that hadn't been written yet. We grabbed that logic because we wanted some sleep and also because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. If you wonder why I keep saying "most," it's because Elaine's mother passed away when she was very young. I'll say "most" at Father's Day because Wally and I both lost our father's when we were kids. And Elaine lost her mother and father both, at the same time. Those are the breaks. Doesn't make it easy, just makes it the way it is.)

Okay, I wanted to talk about the sermon we heard Sunday in my church. Our pastor talked about Heaven and what our religion believes is needed for you to get there: accepting God as your savior. If you're not religious or your religion is something other than Christianity, stay with me a moment because I'm not trying to change your mind here.

His point was that all God requires is belief and acceptance. So, here's the point, if this administration and our Congress is so full of people willing to toss around the name of the Lord, why do they want to put up all these hurdles for people in this country?

He was talking about immigrants who don't have documentation. They're here now. Who cares how? (I'm sure many have stories of bravery and courage. I'm not dismissing that.) They are here now because they believed that coming here could mean something better. So why are we trying to punish them?

Why is the best we can do, "Apply through a new process and after five years of being a 'guest worker,' we'll let you jump through the hoops required to be a citizen"? They obviously wanted to be here very badly. They still want to be here. Shouldn't that matter?

Shouldn't a belief like that count for something?

Instead of making it count for something, we want to put up some new hurdles and station troops on the border. What is that about?

Give us you poor, your huddled masses . . .

Did they never hear that? The people trying to say, "Sure, stay here, take the jobs no one wants and pray your employer doesn't screw you over for five years and then, THEN, you can try to be a citizen."

That's nonsense.

They've already leapt through hurdles to get here and to work here. They are contributing. If the people tossing around the Lord's name know anything about Christian charity, they should be doing their best to help immigrants, not punish them.

We don't need to create new hurdles, we need to find a way to honor the accomplishments of those who really want to be in this country.

Okay, the timer just went off. It's not time to get on the phone, but I was cooking some dinner in the microwave (don't tell Trina!) and I need to eat it now so I'm not smacking in everyone's ear when we're on the phone. Read Wally's "THIS JUST IN! NEDRA PICKLER SEES INSIDE PEOPLE!" and Elaine's "We hold the Iraqi government and the occupiers responsible for this brutal atrocity" is pretty amazing too. There's a lot of stuff worth reading but I'll just note those two things since I'm rushing.

Different stuff

Thursdays, so I'm blogging. (If you're new, I try to blog Tuesdays and Thursdays.)


"Telecom Companies Helped NSA Spy on Millions of US Citizens" (Democracy Now):
Three of the country's largest telecom companies have provided the National Security Agency with the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. This according to a report in USA Today. One source with direct knowledge of the program called it "the largest database ever assembled in the world" whose goal is to collect a record of "every call ever made" within the United States. The Bush administration has insisted its spy program focuses solely on international calls. The companies -- AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth -- have been under contract since after the 9/11 attacks. Only one major telecom company declined to participate in the program. The company, Qwest, reportedly asked the NSA to get FISA-court approval before it would hand over the records. The NSA refused. Although the program does not involve the direct monitoring of phone conservations, it amasses detailed records on who people have called and when they've called them. At least one company had already been implicated in the program. In a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this year, former AT&T technician Mark Klein said AT&T has been working with the National Security Agency to spy on Americans. In addition to raising new questions about the extent of the NSA spy program and the companies involved, the disclosure also raises new questions about CIA Director-nominee Michael Hayden. Hayden headed the National Security Agency at the time the spy program was implemented. He declined USA Today's request for comment.

If you're thinking, "What's going on?" Well, Elaine's off on Thursdays and I called to check on Mike and he suggested that we both cover the same items. I can't turn down my sick friend. (He said the fever's gone and the chicken pox is going down. I kidded him about having a kid's disease.) So remember how Bully Boy keeps covering up? Remember how Alberto Gonzales told the Judiciary Committee in the Senate that he couldn't talk about all the programs that were going on? This is just one more that we didn't know of. Just one more. There's a lot more going on and if more of it starts coming out, you're going to see the Bully Boy (who has a 31% approval rating right now) look more and more like the crook he is.

"UK Attorney General Calls For Guantanamo Closure" (Democracy Now):
Britain's Attorney General has called for the closure of the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a speech in London, Lord Peter Goldsmith said: "The existence of Guantanamo remains unacceptable."

Here's my problem, if we close Guantanamo, where are we going to send the Bush Crime Family after the war crimes tribunal? I'm only half-way joking. I think Bully Boy is in real danger of being tried for war crimes. Not just because he's committed them. But because so many people are outraged by them. I think this is like Anita Hill where people tried to dismiss her and act as though her charges weren't a big deal or weren't true. And that worked during the confirmation hearing for Clarence Thomas, but a year later, there was this huge number of people who believed she told the truth. I think we're going to see something similar when Bully Boy leaves office. All these people who've been silent because they didn't know what they thought or felt that they couldn't think that way about our leader or whatever. When he's out of office, there will be so much disgust expressed openly by people you'd never expect to hear it from.

Go check out Mikey Likes It! to hear Mike's take from his sick bed in the children's ward. (I'm joking with him.)


I listened to KPFA's The Morning Show today and they had an interesting discussion on race issues (they had a great one last week too that C.I., Kat and I were trying to make part of "Where do you get your information?" but everyone was tired. I'm going to push for that topic this weekend. So I'll talk instead about this Canadian documentary they broadcast. It was about the harmful things in the environment -- and the environment is your home. Philip Malderi said in the introduction that it was in a kind of Leave It To Beaver form and it was. I think they named the toddler Sam and I forget the mother, father and older sister's name. But it was a family, and they had a dog, and it addressed the stuff that was in their home without them ever realizing it. Like the dust mites and the dust in the carpet but also things that get tracked in. They used the dog there. He'd been having a blast in the next door neighbor's yard and when he comes back into the house, he's tracking in all the chemicals that they were using in their garden to try to get rid of weeds. And did you know that some of the most pollution you're exposed to is in your car? Sick building disease was talked about too. It was really informative and I'm trying to think of a comment Andrea Lewis made because when I was listening, I thought, "I need to put that in." Now I'm forgetting it. It wasn't about the dust mites. She made some comments on that but it was on something else.

They also talked about how many chemicals children were exposed to. Oh, Andrea Lewis made the point that the air outside was cleaner than the air in many homes. Which also reminds me of Andrea and Philip talking about this one section on air freshners. When people use those, the products usually either just mask the odor or they deaden the nerves (I think it was nerves) in your nose that allow you to smell.

So that was pretty interesting. If you missed it and are interested in hearing it you can go to
KPFA and check out the archives for Thursday or click on The Morning Show and pull up Thursday's show.

Philip almost didn't get mentioned when we were writing "Where do you get your information?" because people were going, "How do you spell it?" (Watch, I'll have mispelled it in this.) "Is it two 'L's?" (C.I. and Kat knew how to spell it.)


Speaking of Kat, I hope everyone's read her four reviews in the last few days:

"Kat's Korner: Pink's not dead or silent"
"Kat's Korner: Neil Young's Living With War -- key word 'Living'"
"Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection"
"Kat's Korner: Need deeper? Check out Josh Ritter's The Animal Years."

She's done that since Saturday. (She'll have a new review this Saturday.) I've always been a been a big fan of Kat's writing. If you go through the old entries at The Common Ills, you'll see that from before I had my own site. As early as December 2004, I'm praising her because she's a really incredible reviewer. She's doing all these reviews lately for two stated reasons. 1) Ruth is on vacation and music reviews can't replace Ruth but they can provide us with some really interesting things to read. 2) There's so much coming out now that so many have stopped playing "War Got Your Tongue?" (I saw a dopey thing about Bob Dylan and how he performed "Masters of War" in concert -- yeah, and he didn't say one word about the current war. He performed a moldy, golden oldy. He does that on all of his tours because no one's coming to hear the new stuff -- and by "new" I mean anything from the 90s, 80s or 70s. It wasn't a "statement." It was more cowardly acts from the King of Cowards.)

I think there's a third reason. Remember when Kat got attacked by the idiot that she hadn't even written about? And how he e-mailed her with what she needed to put up at her site, only to act like she was saying it and not him? I think she's more than over the All Puff No Politics crowd. They really had a lot of nerve attacking Kat. But that's really the sort of thing they can do -- attack people who speak out against the war while they hide in silence. Grown ups, acting like 12 year-olds addicted to their TVs and putting out puff on really bad TV shows while acting like they're a political site.

They're just a joke. (And a nasty two people, there was this idiotic, screaming rant that one of them sent Ava that could best be summed up as the writer needs therapy.)

So while the Puff crowd have made themselves useless, here's Kat still keeping it real, doing her thing, contributing and refusing to be made useless. Two more things to check out are Betty's "The hopping mad Thomas Friedman" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HILLARY CLINTON LOVES THE BOYZ WHO CHEAT ON HER!" That's it for me tonight.

Rove about to be indicted?

"Rove Indictment in Leak Case Remains A Possibility" (Democracy Now):
This update on the CIA leak case -- a reporter from MSNBC has publicly said he is convinced Karl Rove will be indicted in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The reporter, David Shuster, made the comment last night, a week after Rove made his fifth appearance before the grand jury investigating the outing of Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Shuster is the same reporter who revealed on MSNBC that Plame was working undercover investigating Iran’s nuclear program at the time of her outing. On Monday the Washington Post reported that Rove had advised his colleagues at the White House on the importance of defending prewar intelligence and countering Wilson's critique of the war.

Rebecca told me that Mike's sick (chicken pox -- Mike, are you ten-years-old, dude!) so for my sick friend, I'll include something from his favorite show at the top of this post and wish him a speedy recovery.

That'd be great if Rove had to do a perp walk.

On a similar/different note, a new family left our church. They moved to the area and started attending about six Sundays ago. It's a Black Church (mainly African-American but we do have other races). The family was nice enough in many ways but they kept making these offensive remarks about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. With the immigration issue in the news, that might have been part of it. But people were telling them they were offensive and they'd just blow it off. (Comments about how Mexican-Americans couldn't drive, were thieves, etc.)

Our pastor went to talk to them -- for the second time -- and this Sunday, they didn't show up at church. They had really offended Three Cool Old Guys because they felt that after all our race went through to get as far as we have (which still isn't equality), there was no justification for any African-American to "traffic in stereotypes and slurs."

I agree with that. Unless we delude ourselves, we know what is still said about us and it's not as bad as it once was, but it's still bad. There's no reason for us to join in attacks on others.

We have one family that is Mexican-American as well as a woman who comes to church by herself who is Cuban-American. Anybody wanting in the church better realize that everyone who's a member is family and there's no room for new members to bring their hate in.

Three Cool Old Guys are going to make this the topic of their column for Friday's gina and krista round-robin and they've got a lot to say on the topic. Be sure to read it.

What else is going on?

Jim's asked if I would jot some stuff down about the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review? I told him I would but I would note why. He said that was cool.

Why? Ava and C.I. were right. If they wrote the piece he wanted them to write, it would overwhelm everything in the edition -- and it has. But here's what's in the latest edition:

"Radio highlights for Sunday (and one for Monday)" -- if you missed any of the programs highlighted, you can catch archived broadcasts of them (for free) so look at the highlights.

"Why He Took On Rumsfeld: Ray McGovern Talks to Democracy Now!" -- this is about something that really angered a bunch of us. Ray McGovern was on a number of shows, including Democracy Now!, talking about what he did last Thursday -- confronted Donald Rumsfeld -- but if you surfed online, it was all CNN, MSNBC and corporate outlets. If you don't support independent media, who are you helping?

"TV commentary takes a back seat this week to Colbert" -- is the piece everyone's e-mailing about. This is the piece Ava and C.I. didn't want to write but Jim and Ty say it's getting a huge positive reception (and overshadowing everything else in the edition) as well as 20 of the nastiest e-mails (at least half include physical threats) that site's ever received. For the record, I agree with every word in that commentary. I also (and Jim knows this) do not think it was fair or appropriate in what was supposed to be an easy week to tell them the day before, "Oh, we're going to need you to weigh in the whole Colbert thing." They'd already planned their commentary for the week, viewed a show, called friends who worked on it, and roughed out their main points. Ava and C.I. are both hugely involved in about three thousand issues at once and they did all their work for their commentary early in the week in the hopes that they could actually get some sleep. Didn't happen. What did happen, as they suspected, was that they'd end up with the attention getting piece for the edition.

"Book: Anthony Arnove's IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal" -- we were tired but we needed to note this book. It's a great book and one you should read and pass on to your friends.

"Shame of the Week (Musical)" -- three mothers saw a commercial and lobbied us to write about it. It is pretty shameful, this shame of the week. If you haven't read it, go read it to find out what offended three mothers. (And those of us writing were offended by it as well.)

"Where do you get your information?" -- this is getting the word out. KPFA has a show called The Morning Show and this is giving you a rundown of that as well as noting Guantanamo. This was actually the start of two pieces but, due to lack of time, it got blended into one piece.

"Head on Home (a musical in four scenes)" -- this is pretty good. More than pretty good. This is one of the things I'm most proud of and point to and say, "Yes, I helped with that." You expect the extreme right wing to call for military solutions to any problem. You don't expect the same from groups like Working Assets. This is a look at the peace movement and quite a bit more. There were actually melodies to the lyrics. Jess, Kat, Rebecca and C.I. came up with this idea and lobbied for it. It had my support right away and I hope we try something similar again. (It doesn't have to be a musical or a play, but just something out of the norm for what we usually do.) Three Cool Old Guys made me sing it to them tonight because they wanted to hear it. Need more music? Check out Kat's "Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection."

"Darfur" -- is the place that Working Assets and others on the left are calling to be turned over to NATO. With regards to Africa, I get a little bothered anytime the "answer" is to send in troops from the "developed" (read: White) nations. If genocide is going on, what's a way to address that without matching bullets for bullets and turning it even more into a war zone? This proposes one possible means of addressing the conflict and it's one I support strongly. I doubt most people will. Like we say, it's easier to send guns and bullets then to welcome anyone to your country. I think Wally's "THIS JUST IN! IT TAKES A COWARD --- SOMETIMES TWO!"
goes with the piece, so check it out.

"TV: The Urine Stains of David Mamet" -- is the review that Ava and C.I. had roughed out, made calls on, etc. They almost didn't write this. But there were a number of technical problems with posting so they ended up grabbing a few minutes (I think 15) and wrote it up.
It made me laugh. It made my cousin laugh. He's seen the show (because he skips church on Wednesdays) and he said they captured it "to a t."

"Editorial: Bully Boy Thinking?" -- we had another topic for the editorial but no one was in the mood and just wanted to get done. So Dona came up with the idea for this which is pulling together a point that was made in the edition and around the community websites all week: the need for perspective.

"A Note to Our Readers" -- is where Jim gets to offer his thoughts each week.

Except for Ava and C.I.'s two commentaries and Jim's notes, the rest of it was worked on by the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot

So that's about it for me tonight. I'll probably have pleasant dreams tonight, thinking about Karl Rove getting indicted.

Coming up at Third

BC Professors Protest Honoring Condoleeza Rice
In Massachusetts, nearly 100 Boston College professors have added their names to a letter protesting their university's decision to award Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree. Rice has been announced as a commencement speaker for graduation ceremonies later this month. The letters' authors, including theology department chair Rev. Kenneth Himes, wrote: "On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary Rice's approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College's commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university's work."

Above is a headline from Democracy Now! today. Mike asked me to note it.

I went to the e-mails today (that's news, trust me) and read the first five. Everyone was asking about Sunday's edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. I called up Dona and asked her if she knew why? She said I'd dealt with some things, clarified them, here and maybe people are expecting that I could on this as well?

As I know it, this is what's planned. There will be a feature that's the lyrics of a musical. This was going to be the entire edition but Jim got nervous about how well that could be pulled off.
(Ava and C.I. were willing to attempt their TV commentary in lyric manner.) So it's now going to be a feature and a long one. That was actually at risk but Jess and C.I. came up with a diagram and that calmed Jim. (I'm writing this with everyone's permission, by the way.) Jim truly was afraid that it might be difficult to pull it off. Jess and C.I. came up with a diagram that demonstrated how it would move.

Does that mean it will work? Not necessarily. But forget the "you can't tell until you try" -- the important thing is stepping outside of the usual. It does free you up. You learn something from it. This is without any feedback. Just doing it, teaches you to think a little differently or try a new approach. So success or failure, it will be worth it.

I've heard two lyrics and seen the outline and I think it will work. These will not be full songs. Jim's limited it so don't expect full lyrics and don't worry that you won't be able to follow. That's why Jess and C.I. nailed down a diagram that shows how the thing will flow.

What else? There will be a book feature. Some were really hoping to do that in lyric form. It would have been something to try and probably shaked things up a bit. But now that the musical is one feature only, we'll probably do it in the traditional manner (discussion). Ava and C.I. will be doing a TV commentary, there will be an editorial, a radio program highlight and probably some quick items.

Everyone, including Jim, is excited about the musical feature now. (The diagram helped silence worries.) But that's not what the e-mails were about.

The e-mails were about the topic that the community's interested in. (You know the one.) Near the end of last Sunday's work (we were all in NYC together), C.I. tossed out something. For those who don't want to board the Force Wagon, there's no option, that's what we're told by the Force Wagon crew. C.I. went historical. What did we think of that? We hadn't thought of it. It had never popped into anyone's head. We were finishing the editorial and Jim felt we should either do a write up of it right then or C.I. should write something up at The Common Ills. C.I. said it would be better as a group feature and we should hold it for next week which Dona agreed with saying that it would be so nice to know that they had a firm topic for one feature before Saturday rolled around.

All week, the concerns been that the Times would suggest it or someone else. C.I.'s had no qualms about not posting in the evening this week because it's hard (this is from C.I.) to do an entry and not be drawn to the topic. So you should look for that. And I should put in "planned" because between computer problems and other things, you never know what's going to happen during an edition -- we're always on our toes.

Dona thinks we could be able to finish our edition very quickly since we've got so much planned already. There's been that belief before and computer problems and other things have ended making it last longer.

Ty's on vacation so everyone (even me) has been helping with the e-mails to The Third Estate Sunday Review. (Ty's on vacation from the e-mails -- he usually gets stuck with reading the bulk of them.) Jim asked me if I noted the positive feedback on the TV review. I had read e-mails on that as well. Ava and C.I. blow off their reviews and act like they're nothing special but readers love them. (I love them too.) Last Sunday they did "TV review: Without a Point" which was about Without a Trace. It's a must read if you missed it.

Please make a point to read Rebecca's report on how Goldie and her mother Marlene's house party went last weekend. That's it for me, the advance man for The Third Estate Sunday Review. (I was joking.) I promised to read over Three Cool Old Guys column for tomorrow's gina & krista round-robin so I'm headed out to do that now.

Bully Boy and check out Annette Rubenstein on Law and Disorder

Q The flip side of all that was the rescue of Jessica Lynch.
THE PRESIDENT: It was.
Q Did you get advanced notice that that operation was going down?
THE PRESIDENT: I did. I did. Secretary Rumsfeld told me not to get my hopes up, but there was going to be a very sensitive operation into a hospital where he thought that there would be an American POW. And that's all he said. He was very circumspect, as he should be, to a lot of people, because he didn't want any information to get out that might have jeopardized the operation. But he gave me a heads-up. And then when we heard that she had been rescued, it was a joyous moment.
Q Let me ask you about some of the larger policy questions. Before we went to war against Iraq, one of the reasons that you justified this war was that he posed a real threat to the United States. If he couldn't defend his own country -- and we have not yet been able to find the weapons of mass destruction, which were not even launched in defense of Iraq -- was that overstated?
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I think time and investigation will prove a couple of points. One, that he did have terrorist connections. And, secondly, that he had a weapons of mass destruction program -- we know he had a weapons of mass destruction program. We now know he's not going to use them. So we've accomplished one objective, and that is that Saddam Hussein will not hurt the United States or friends or our allies with weapons of mass destruction.
Secondly, we are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. We also know there are hundreds and hundreds of sites available for hiding the weapons, which he did effectively for 10 years from the -- over 10 years from the United Nations. And that we've only looked at about 90 of those sites so far. I mean, literally hundreds of sites.
And so we will find them. But it's going to take time to find them. And the best way to find them is to continue to collect information from the humans, Iraqis who were involved with hiding them.
Q As you know, there's still a lot of skepticism around the world about American motives in Iraq.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
Q Why not fold in some of the U.N. inspectors to this effort, not turn it over to them, but make them a part of it? Would that help with the credibility, do you think?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program. One thing there can't be skepticism about is the fact that this guy was torturous and brutal on the Iraqi people. I mean, he brutalized them, he tortured them, he destroyed them, he cut out their tongues when they dissented. And now the people are beginning to see what freedom means within Iraq. Look at the Shia marches, or the Shia pilgrimages that are taking place.
The world will see that the United States is interested in peace, is interested in security and interested in freedom.
Q But it is important to find the weapons of mass destruction, or the evidence that he had a massive program underway, isn't it?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I think we will. I'm pretty confident we will.

I know. You'd be laughing right now if we hadn't lost over 2406 troops, if countless Iraqis hadn't been killed, their homes destroyed, their land turned into a war zone. That's the Bully Boy speaking to Tom Brokaw in April of 2003. Wally passed that on to me (thank you, Wally). He'd called C.I. about what he wanted to do today ("THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY LAGGING!" read it, it's funny) and C.I. told him, "You know he didn't come out against boycotts when he was asked of the Dixie Chicks by Tom Brokaw." So Wally grabbed that interview online and sent it to me saying I might want some of it. I did. Bully Boy there were no, in fact, WMDs in Iraq. Are you still "pretty confident"? If so, that explains this:

"Bush: Iraq At A Turning Point (Again)" (Democracy Now!):
Meanwhile President Bush announced on Monday that the formation of a new Iraqi government marks a turning point in the war. His comments came three years to the day after he proclaimed that major combat operations were over while standing under a banner that read Mission Accomplished. On Monday he spoke briefly on the White Hose lawn while standing next to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom had just returned from Iraq. "We believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens and it's a new chapter in our partnership," Bush said. "The secretaries began building this new partnership during their trip. In other words, the Iraqi leaders saw that we are committed to helping them succeed." This doesn't mark the first time the president has declared Iraq has reached a turning point. He did so back in June 2004 when the occupying U.S. forces announced they would transfer sovereignty back to the Iraqi people. Bush also said the 2005 election in Iraq would mark a turning point.

Are you "pretty confident" on that too, Bully Boy? What's your fat gut telling you now?

WBAI's Law and Disorder addressed MayDay Monday (so did Democracy Now! with "The Origins of May Day: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America" but I assume everyone in the community heard it, saw it or read it). So the guests were Zayd Dorn, Annette Rubenstein and Julie Ruben -- the last two are with the Brecht Forum. Ms. Rubenstein is 96 years-old and she's lived a wonderful life and seen it all. I really enjoyed her. She said she had some troubles with pinning down dates and that reminded me of Three Cool Old Guys and, I bet, of you and me when we're older. We'll remember really important events but I bet if we're lucky enough to live that long we'll be able to give a general date to some of our memories but not all because those are a lot of years.

She was a really informed person. I enjoyed all of her stories. She and Michael Ratner and Michael Smith talked about how MayDay was demonized and the government tried to weaken it -- which they did. They created a "Law Day" on that day to try to detract from it. But let me back up (as Amy Goodman would say) and start out with what MayDay is and was: a day for the workers. Workers gathered together to fight (and they fought for and won the eight hour work day) and march and celebrate.

You better believe that was as threatening to business then as the immigration rallies are to business today. (For a perfect example of how the organs of business dismiss and trash the immigration rallies, read C.I.'s "NYT: Millions protest so the Times highlights Small Business and the Minutemen.") Ms. Rubenstein could remember so many amazing experiences that she took part in. Someone (Studs Terkel?) should put a tape recorder in front of her if she doesn't want to write her own life story because it's amazing. Michael Smith pointed out that at MayDay events in the thirties, people might meet up, fall in love and marry.

It was these like minded people who cared about the world and weren't going to fool themselves that they or everyone else was getting a fair deal. I think those people still exist (I am one) but I think we've gotten so discouraged. It was really inspiring hearing those stories.

So the government creates Law Day to cut into MayDay. And then they followed that by establishing Labor Day. MayDay got demonized and was basically run out of town. Ms. Rubenstein talked about that happening over a period of many years. There was a funny story she told about how the Catholic kids in parochial school were let out and encouraged to heckle and yell at the people participating in MayDay. They did that at one of her marches and she started a cheer of "No homework" and pools for schools. That shut them up.

Amazing woman, Annette Rubenstein. She lost her job as a principal due to her politics. She's an editor of a magazine, teaches at the Brecht Forum and writes for Monthly Review. I can't find the magazine she edits for (Science Society?) and I'm surprised that she doesn't even have a biography at Wikipedia. But what she does have is a sharp mind, an amazing life that is still underway and a lot of things to share. So listen to the show, if you missed it, at WBAI's archives or at the Law and Disorder site.

Last thing for tonight. There were five e-mails I'd avoided that got answered today. If it's from a community member that I know or recognize their e-mails from the gina & krista round-robin, I'll read it right away. But if I don't know the e-mail, I'll usually let it sit until I'm ready to wade in. There are a lot of racists e-mails. I'm not like Betty (who follows Elaine's advice of waiting and only reading when she feels like) but I will wait if I don't recognize the e-mail address. I answered the five today. I'm sorry for being that way about it but if I don't know the sender (or think I don't), some days it's just not worth it to get that kind of e-mail. With Betty and myself, e-mails that disagree like to go racist. That really doesn't happen at The Third Estate Sunday Review even though Ty's responsible for answering most of the e-mails. (As Ty's pointed out, usually they assume that everyone at Third is White.) Instead they go for foul language aimed at women (which is probably because you get little TV babies wanting to trash Ava and C.I. for saying something "mean" about Nick Lachey or John Stamos or any other guy who really can't act). Rebecca gets that nonsense too. I think they're scared of Elaine because I'll talk to Jess or Ava and they'll say that instead of attacking Elaine in e-mails, they'll attack her in an e-mail to C.I. Wally's gotten the least hate mail. C.I. gets tons. There's always some right winger having a fit and Ava and Jess enjoy it best when it's a "name" right winger. They also enjoy the tantrums from certain reporters. But I think C.I.'s been around so long and posts so often that, except for the TV reviews, they just scream politics in their hate e-mails.

It's interesting, thinking about that. Some time when we need a story idea, some weekend, I'll try to suggest that.

Now who didn't I mention? Mike. Saving him for last because he's writing about WBAI's Law and Disorder too so hop on over there (but remember, he's a slow typer).

Tony Snow and a Law and Disorder guest

Snow: Black Underclass Is "Most Dangerous Thing In Our Lifetime"
Tony Snow is already coming under scrutiny for a series of controversial comments he’s made on his radio program. Just last week, he shared these views: "People like Jesse Jackson who have committed themselves to a view that blacks are constantly victims, have succeeded in creating in the United States the most dangerous thing that we've encountered in our lifetime; which is, an underclass that doesn't seem to be going anywhere." Tony Snow went on to criticize what he described as: "the idiotic culture of hip-hop": "You have people glorifying failure. You have a bunch of gold-toothed hot dogs become millionaires by running around and telling everybody else that they oughtta be miserable failures and if they're really lucky maybe they can get gunned down in a diner sometime, like Eminem's old running mate."

This is the man who would save the Bully Boy administration. (Item from Democracy Now!)

First off, Proof (DC12) wasn't at a "diner" but I know facts don't matter a great deal to the right wingers. But what this is really about is a White man who doesn't want to acknowledge that African-Americans do suffer racism. We suffer it all the time. It's not wallowing in victim-hood but it's also not denying a very real fact of life. I think that Snow should go to FX and ask to be in that show where the people switch races (via make up).

He's a White man who misses the good old days of separate water fountains and lynchings. He probably wets his pants anytime he's walking down a sidewalk and sees a "brother" up ahead.

If you're one of those people, let me continue my series of tips by offering you one. I'm not robbing anyone, I'm not mugging anyone. But if you see Black and think "crime," here's a tip, do not immediately pat your wallet to make sure it's still there.

You're saying to the world (of all races), "I got a wallet and it's right here. Must be something in it because I'm real worried about having it stolen."

For more on the laughable Tony Snow, check out Wally's ""THIS JUST IN! "BROKEBACK EACH OTHER'S MOUNTAINS!" SCREAMS SNOW."

Now let's talk Law and Disorder which aired Monday on WBAI. Heidi Boghosian had a remote (from the streets of NYC -- Brooklyn, I think) interview with Bill Brown about the spy cams going up all over NYC. And there was a lot more worth hearing. But Mike and I both were bothered by the contractor issue. I can feel bad when anyone dies. But I'm not going to work up a great deal of sympathy for the employees of Blackwater USA or any other contractor employee in Iraq. No, they aren't all torturing and killing.

But they went over to make money. On some level, whether they believed in the war or not, they had to grasp they'd be profitting while others suffered. The guy made a point to go over there. People are dying over there. He wanted to make a fast buck. He died in Falluja.

Like Mike, I was raised hearing how there was no such thing as an easy buck. The man had kids. He should have thought about them. You don't say, "Fast buck!" and rush to a war zone.
It was a mistake on his part. He lost his life largely because of what others had done. But to try to profit from a war is wrong and that's if it was Dick Cheney or Joe Blow down the street.

Had everything gone well, had he made it home, he would have made a fast buck off the suffering of others. I don't agree with doing that.

I'm sorry he's dead. I can pray for him. But whether or not contractor employees are screwed over isn't my concern. It's like debating the "strategy" for the war and not noting that the war is illegal. At the root, all the "fix its" that argue we can and should stay in Iraq, don't get to the root: the war was illegal.

Profitting from the suffering of others is wrong too.

That's a lesson he should have known just as surely as he should have known that there was no free ride. That doesn't mean he deserved to die a violent death. It just means that some things aren't all that surprising and I won't spend a lot of time worrying about someone being screwed over by a division of Haliburton when, at the heart of it, that person went to Iraq to make money.

Those are the breaks.

I also don't know that I feel he was targeted for being so smart. If he had conflict with his superior, well no one wants someone in a group that's always saying, "Oh, here's how it should be done." For a trained military person, he seemed to have a really hard time following orders.
If he was, as some of the stories seem to indicate, someone who "always knows best," it's not surprising that he had conflicts with his superior.

If his superior was petty and used that to put him at risk, that's not right either.

But there are some real problems in the world. I'm just not seeing this as one that I'll worry a great deal about. If he'd gone there to witness to people or to aid them or to report on what it was like in Iraq, I'd feel different. But his own mother was talking (on Democracy Now!) about how he needed to make some quick money.

I hear that a lot. Some of the guys I went to school with don't see their kids now because they wanted to make some quick money. They ended up behind bars. When one of them tells me that it's not fair, I tell them that they made choices (stealing mainly, one was armed robbery) without thinking them through. At the most basic, they should have realized that if something goes wrong, they won't see their kids.

Being blinded by dollar sides doesn't excuse your obligation to your children. Kids like things, no question. But ask a kid who has lost a parent and most (if not all) would tell you that they'd rather have a parent around.

We have a hideous economy, no question. And the way things are set up, the rule breakers and law breakers at the top get slaps on the wrists, while on the lower rung, they get sent to prison.
But when you have kids you need to give up the American b.s. fantasy of a "quick buck." That's the sort of nonsense you can hold out for when you're a kid. Growing up means learning that some responsibilites go beyond things and that maybe it's better to be poor and do without if you can be with your kids.

I don't blame him if he was focusing on the big easy because we're conditioned to. But that's as much a part of the story and to hear "Oh, it's awful, he just wanted to go to Iraq and make some fast bucks but he was killed" isn't really the story, not the whole story.

Mike and I agreed immediately when we discussed the show on Monday. I wanted to think about it a little before writing because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say here on this part but I'll share. My father died when I was little. He didn't die in Iraq. He did think he was going to make a quick buck. He worked himself crazy driving this route in really limited time and he had a car accident and he died. The only reason he pushed himself like that was because he thought, "Money for my kids!" We didn't end up with money but if we had, it wouldn't have brought him back or made it okay that he was gone. That influences how I'm seeing this (and may influence how Mike sees it because he knows my life story). My mother never said a word against him. But when I was 10, my grandfather (my dad's father) sat me down and explained the thing in terms of "lust and greed" (for money) and how that will lead you to make choices that are wrong for you and will hurt the people around you. I don't remember what the shoes were that I was whining about but I had been on my mom's case about it and how a real mother who loved me would get me those shoes. My grandfather didn't pull any punches. He told me that kind of thinking was the reason my dad, his son, wasn't with us. He really believed that he had to try to provide us with everything.

Given the choice, I'd go through life shoeless if I could just have my dad for even a year more than I did. So I don't blame the guy for thinking Iraq was a "quick buck" and I know it's conditioned in us. But I'm not going to sit here and act like he didn't have other options or he shouldn't have thought them through before he went over there.

I also don't get the whole, "He was supposed to be a bodyguard for Paul Bremer!" Was that supposed to be safer? Or is it that he didn't get what he signed up for? Talk to the soldiers over there and ask them if they got what their recruiters promised them.

Think about your own work and see if someone who's always arguing with the boss ends up getting the wanted task. There are other details to the story. I don't care for the lawyer representing the guy either. He did this with Amy Goodman (maybe Juan Gonzalez too, I think Juan was in that interview too) and he did it with Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian. It was a, "Oh good question, now instead of answering, let me get my soundbyte in." It's like he has a script whenever he appears. I think going to Iraq for a quick buck was foolilsh (my grandfather would call the guy a fool) and I think it was his choice. The same choice my father made in pursuing that quick buck. Those choices lead down a path and, at the end, there's no point in wondering how you got there.

I also thought if you were going to stress "He was a trainer for Demi Moore" you'd get her name right. If you're throwing out that detail (and it was tossed out over and over), learn the woman's name. It's not "Dem-me." It doesn't rhyme with Emmy. It'd be like saying, "He was a trainer for Cheryl Stone." Who? Sharon Stone isn't Cheryl Stone and Demi Moore isn't Demmy Moore.
(And Mike made me laugh when he noted that was a huge pet peever of C.I.'s. It really is.)

Cell Phone Use Tips

Over the past five-plus years, the American people have gotten a taste of what a triumphant George W. Bush is like, as he basked in high approval ratings and asserted virtually unlimited powers as Commander in Chief. Now, the question is: How will Bush and his inner circle behave when cornered?So far, the answer should send chills through today's weakened American Republic. Bush and his team -- faced with plunging poll numbers and cascading disclosures of wrongdoing -- appear determined to punish and criminalize resistance to their regime.
That is the significance of recent threats from the administration and its supporters who bandy about terms like sedition, espionage and treason when referring to investigative journalists, government whistle-blowers and even retired military generals -- critics who have exposed Executive Branch illegalities, incompetence and deceptions.
CIA Director Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman long regarded as a political partisan, has escalated pressure on intelligence officials suspected of leaking secrets about Bush's warrantless wiretapping of Americans and the torture of detainees held in clandestine prisons in Asia and Eastern Europe.

That's from Robert Parry's "Bush Brandishes Jail Time at Critics" (Consortium News) proving I'm not all talk. (Link takes you to a roundtable where I said Robert Parry was the online version of Seymour Hersh but that he gets far too little links.)

"So what's your beef?" That's what David Letterman used to ask Jay Leno when Leno was a guest on Letterman's show and not a host of The Tonight Show. Leno would go off on some topic. I bring that up because I'm about to go off on a topic.

Do you have a cell phone?

There was a time when a considerate person was someone who turned their ringer down low. (Better yet, put it on the vibrate option.) Those were the good old days.

Now days, something's new is happening and someone needs to note it so leave it to me and "my beefs" to cover it.

Everyone's got to have a tune on their ring tones. Everyone needs a song snippet that goes off every time the phone rings. Fair enough. If you've got a favorite song, go with it.

But here's something to remember -- a cell phone does not come with great speakers.

So when you have that thing up full blast and you think you look so cool, guess what? You don't. You sound like the fool with the tape deck in a Ford Pinto, blasting the music as loud as it will go, while everyone you drive past thinks, "What a crappy set of speakers."

That is reality, guys and gals. Your speakers suck. Unless you're going to hook up a set of speakers to your cell phone, turn the damn ringer down.

It doesn't sound cool. It sounds like crap. It's sound like a busted speaker and with all the crackling, it just makes people think, "You need a new sound system."

Maybe an elevator music version of "Hot in Here" isn't meant to be played full blast from your cell phone. Something to consider.

Let me offer one more tip. This is just for those of you using the walkie-talkie option on your cell phones. We all know you're desparately lonely and fear the world gets that you're a pariah. But hearing your friend, at full blast, respond, "Nothin', what you doing?" over and over does nothing to change our minds. In fact, we not only don't envy you, we wonder how lame you and your friend are that you have to talk, right then, at that moment, while you're on the train or in the grocery store, and yet you have nothing to say. You two don't seem exciting, we're not envious. We're just thinking, "What losers."

The Bully Boy and the NSA not withstanding, a phone conversation is supposed to be at least semi-private. Take that as a guideline.

Things to check out: C.I.'s "NYT: Taking a look at the pipeline, ignoring other things"; Mikes' "Law and Disorder, Iraq and more (including Jane Fonda quote)"; Rebecca's "flashpoints and the threepenny opera" and her "flashpoints (rita moreno) cover to cover with denny smithson (jane fonda)"; Elaine's "It's never up to an administration... It all depends upon what people force them to do."; Wally's "THIS JUST IN! THE DEALER IN CHIEF"; audio interview "Cover to Cover with Denny Smithson (Interviewing Jane Fonda)"; and audio, video or transcript of Amy Goodman interviewing "Antonia Juhasz on The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."