Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush

Here are two of the biggest whoppers.
Just days before Bush ignited the war, Cheney went on Meet the Press to discuss the alleged threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Cheney said: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
And in Bush’s address to the nation on March 17, 2003, he said there was "no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Remember, this was after the U.N. weapons inspectors had been scouring Iraq for evidence of those weapons and had found nothing.In fact, Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, told the Security Council weeks before the remarks of Cheney and Bush that not only did Saddam not have any nuclear weapons, there was no evidence that he had even reconstituted his nuclear weapons program.
Bush and Cheney were engaging in "a conspiracy to commit fraud," as Lewis Lapham points out in his pathbreaking essay, "The Case for Impeachment," in the March issue of Harper's Magazine. Lapham notes that the Supreme Court in Hammerschmidt v. United States said someone engages in a conspiracy to commit fraud against the government when that person obstructs lawful government functions "by deceit, craft, or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest" and when its "legitimate official action and purpose shall be defeated by misrepresentation, chicane, or other overreaching of those charged with carrying out the government intention."
That fits Bush and Cheney to a T.

That's from Matthew Rothschild's "Grounds for Impeachment." So what do you think? Impeachment plausible or not?

I'm half-way through a book put out by the Center for Constitutional Rights entitled Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. It makes a strong, concise case for impeachment. When you see Bully Boy's actions laid out like above or in the book, it becomes obvious that we either do something or accept that no president in the future will ever have to tell the truth.

C.I.'s got a quote from the book in an entry this morning. Read that and see if you're not interested in picking it up. I think you will be. I read about it last week at The Common Ills and was thinking about getting it but C.I. ended up getting it for all of us so we could discuss it at The Third Estate Sunday Review. Mine arrived yesterday and as soon as I'm done with this post tonight, I'm going to get back to the book and finish it.

It's really hard to put down. Even if you think you know all that the Bully Boy did wrong, you may not know all the legal reasons his actions were wrong. The book makes a strong case for impeachment.

If we don't impeach, we're saying that the actions are okay so we better be prepared when future presidents attempt to do the same thing. It's like, "Do you draw a line in the sand or not?"

He's done so much. The illegal detentions at Guantanamo where he's held prisoners for years and years without any trials; the round up of Arabs and/or Muslims after 9/11; lying us into war; the spying on American citizens without warrants; and, most of all, this desire to ignore the other two branches.

I took the book to work with me thinking I could read some of it on break or at lunch but it didn't happen. Everytime I would pull it out, someone would walk over and, nodding to the book's cover, say, "We really need to, you know?"

I think the people do know. I think it's our elected officials that are out of the loop. I hear a lot of talk about how if the Dems take back at least one house in the 2006 elections, things will change but I don't know how you go over night from spineless to leadership.

On the radio, they're saying that the House passed the Patriot Act. That says a great deal about how non-independent our Congress is.


Anyway, I'm going to get back to reading the book. You can order it online, just click on the title:
Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush.

The Oscars

Didn't blog Friday. Got a call from Rebecca and she said she was headed out and wasn't going to be able to blog. She wondered if I'd like to blog Saturday or Sunday (blog here, she wasn't asking me to substitute at her site). Her thing was that a number of members always feel like they are shortchanged with 'new content' on Saturdays. C.I. posts and Trina and Kat but otherwise all the sites are silent.

My argument there is, "Don't read me on Friday, save it until Saturday." But since Rebecca was taking the night off, I decided to do so as well. I didn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep, so I told her I could blog on Saturday. So we're both blogging today.

You'll have Trina tonight, you've got The Common Ills, you'll have Kat and you'll have Rebecca and me. This isn't going to be 'heavy' post so if you're looking for that, move on.

So tomorrow night is the Oscars and we're hearing all about (CNN, go down the list) how "inclusive" the Oscars are. Let me be blunt: I ain't seeing it. This African-American man ain't seeing it.

I'm using Isaiah's "Brokedown Democracy" at the top of this post. Great comic. And Brokeback Mountain would be a good choice for best film. But in terms of the acting nominations, I wasn't impressed with Heath Ledger who seemed to be just standing around throughout the whole movie trying to look sensitive. Jake Gyllenhaal seemed to be playing an actual character and not 'too pure/good for this world.' Maybe I'm missing something in Heath Ledger's portrayal because I'm straight?

I don't think so. And I don't get the hoopla over straight actors playing gay. I don't think it's bad and I agree that there needs to be more gay characters, especially lead characters, but I'm thinking back a few years. Remember Halle and Denzel?

That was an accomplishment because they were African-American and not just White actors playing African-Americans. (Halle's actually biracial.) There was excitement about those nominations because we wanted to see if the Academy was finally mature enough to give awards to non-whites. Not non-whites playing sympathetic portrayals like Sidney did all those years.
I like Sidney, he paved the way for many (as did people before him) but he was always the 'tour guide' who helped you understand that African-Americans were 'people.'

And the 'you' was White movie goers because African-Americans knew they were people. We appreciated having Sidney who played wise and well dressed men. But I look at the nominations for Heath and Jake and think, "Why are people so excited?"

I mean, they're supposed to be straight, right? So how is this a gay backthrough if either man wins? If it were me, I'd give the supporting actor award to Jake because he earned it with strong acting. And I'm glad he was willing to tackle the role and hope more actors and actresses will play those roles. Hopefully, some of them will be out gays and lesbians.

But if Heath or Jake walks home tomorrow night with the award, I'm not seeing it as "One big step for gay America . . ."

Halle's win meant something. If it had been Sharon Stone, giving a similarlly strong performance, in make up to look Black, it would have been a deserved win but it wouldn't have meant anything for African-Americans. In fact, it probably would have been seen as an insult because with all the Black actresses in Hollywood trying to make it, to give the role to a White woman would have been seen as a cheat.

If Brokeback Mountain wins for best picture, I think it should, that might be something worth getting excited about because the picture is about a relationship between two men. But in terms of the two men themselves, they're straight so I don't understand the hoopla.

I talked to Jerry about this last night. I took the night off from blogging, so I went over to my uncle's house. Jerry's a friend from church and we grew up together because he's just a year younger than I am. Jerry's also gay and, good for him, no longer on the 'down low.' So I asked Jerry and his first response was, "You're not going to make me the voice of Gay America are you?" No.

I wasn't even wanting to talk to him about the above stuff. I was just wondering if Heath and Jake were appealing? I'm sure they appeal to some women and some men but I was wondering because Heath, to me, does nothing in the picture and I can't see how someone who just poses is attractive.

Jerry didn't find Heath even remotely attractive. He said that besides the fact that the character is too simple, Heath's not his type because he's not into "the Dockers & Sears set."
This led my aunt to weigh in and she loved the movie but felt like Heath was the weakest part of it. "I'd do that Jake-ster because he seemed up for anything, but the other guy, it was like he was playing a Lana Turner role. And like Lana, he was more 'well maintained' than actually good looking."

That led to a long conversation about African-Americans in movies (Turner did Imitiation of Life and that remains a picture that people I know talk about -- it's soap opera but we get caught up in the young daughter trying to pass for white and what that means and how we'd respond in the same situation). Jerry said what was missing from movies today was a film about a gay man, played by a gay man, trying to pass for straight. He didn't feel that Brokeback Mountain did that. "It's like when they cast Ava Gardner in Showboat."

So where's the inclusion that the TV keeps going on about? The way I see it, out of twenty acting nominations, African-Americans got one (Terrence Howard for best actor for Hustle & Flow -- a really bad movie in my opinion but he gives a great performance).

So let's forget that I'm not seeing the inclusion and just assume that straight actors getting two nominations for pretending to be gay is a huge step foward and one more step on the road to same-sex marriage. (I support same-sex marriage. Just to be clear.) The Oscar's are "inclusive" this year (if you buy the argument) because gays (men) are recognized. And a few years back it was African-Americans.

Is that the only way the Oscars can be inclusive? One group every few years? I don't think they're being inclusive. I think they've got the usual White, Straight nominations, year after year, and every couple of years, to that mix, they add a person of color or a White person playing gay or whatever.

"This year's token" strikes me more as what happens.

So those are my Oscar thoughts. I'll close with my picks. This isn't who will win, I'm not making predicitions. I'm just saying who I would give the award to.

best actor: Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow)
Lousy movie but he's great in it. When you can star in this year's Glitter and come out of it without having to apologize, you've done something amazing.

best actress: Charlize Theron (North Country)
She's really got something. You can't take your eyes off her. Even in her bad films, she's worth watching. North Country wasn't a bad one (The Astronaut's Wife was a bad one) and she's pretty amazing in this. Reese Witherspoon? Barbie strums a guitar. Wooden. Give it up for Theron.

best supporting actor: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain)
The film doesn't work without him. If Heath's onscreen with another do nothing, you're heading for the exits or falling asleep. Heath's like the young guy you see in a small role in a Merchant & Ivory film and then never see again. For good reason. Gyllenhaal gave a strong performance.

best supporting actress: Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain)
I could almost go for Catherine Keener because she is very good in Capote. I could see giving it to her for the body of her work because she's got a lot of strong roles in her career. But in terms of the film they're nominated for, I'd pick Michelle Williams. I'd also give it to her for "karma."
Meaning, I watched Dawson's Creek many years ago (I was a kid once too). Priss-pot Katie Holmes always got on my nerves. I watched the show for two years, when it first came on, maybe two and a half. Michelle Williams was worth watching. Not just because, as a teenage boy, I found her hot but also because she was really doing some strong acting. Katie Holmes seemed to be Katie Holmes. Sometimes she was Katie Holmes mad, sometimes she was Katie Holmes happy (most of the time she was Katie Holmes pouting). But Michelle Williams really made you believe Jen was a real character, someone you might bump into at your high school.
In Brokeback Mountain, it's obvious that wasn't just the case of she could play one role. She's great in the movie and she deserves to win.

best song: no award

When you can't even come up with five nominees, strike the award.

best director: George Clooney or Ang Lee

I thought Brokeback Mountain and Good Night, and Good Luck were good movies. I think Brokeback is the better one. But with the footage mixing (real and performed), I thought Clooney did a little bit of a better job. (The postcards scenes in Brokeback made me wish I was watching at home so I could grab the remote and fastfoward.)

best film: Brokeback Mountain

I'm not sure what I was supposed to feel at the end of the other movies. (I hated Munich. It seemed like a science project done by a pushy kid who kept saying, "I'm going to win! I'm going to win!") Helpless seemed to be the feeling for most of the films. Crash (which I really enjoyed) and Brokeback Mountain were the ones who left me feeling and thinking. And thinking. My pick is Brokeback. If you haven't seen yet, you should. If you're one of those silly people thinking, "It's about gays!" just take comfort in the fact that it's only pretend and that both actors, presumably, finished shooting and went on to the arms of women. It's just pretend. Straight guys won't leave the movie thinking, "Hmm, look at the guy over there. I wouldn't mind letting him brokeback my mountain." But it will make you think. If you've ever been in love and lost someone or if you've ever lost out on something (my guess is we all have), you'll find something in the movie for you.

Finally, an award they didn't have a category for but one that was deserving all the same.

best example of crook plays the victim:

Dick Cheney for shooting a friend and allowing his friend to be blamed for it publicly for days and days until finally coming along with the "I was the guy who pulled the trigger of the gun that shot the bullet that shot my friend" nonsense. I'd call the category "Biggest Disgrace" but then Cheney wouldn't stand a chane of winning because Bully Boy has that category locked up.

Senate passed the Patriot Act

I received an e-mail wondering if I had problems like Betty and Kat Tuesday? No. I just didn't blog.

Tuesday was a birthday of a third of Three Cool Old Guys. I was at the nursing home eating cake and having a good time. (Photos will be in Friday's the gina & krista round-robin.)

There's been so much stuff lately, that it's all I can do to keep up by reading. On the fun side, check out "Kat's Korner: Cat Power's Greatness," "Kat's Korner: Nina Simone -- Golden," and
"Industry Shocker: America's Funniest Videos? Not that American" as well as anything at The Daily Jot.

The Senate passed extensions to the Patriot Act (Mike talks about that). How come? At a time when Bully Boy's been exposed, and then some, as a crook who spies on the American people without warrants, why pass it? Read the thing C.I. wrote about this week's NSA hearing and maybe you'll think, like I do, they rolled over. How come?

The ports issue. It's huge news and it's not going away. (That doesn't mean it won't turn around and bite the Democrats in the butt.) So with Bully Boy's national security bonafides being questioned, the Dems move to strengthen their own appearances. I think that was the thinking there. I don't think it was, "I'm going to listen to my constituents. I'm going to think about all the towns, cities and states that have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act."

I think our liberties took a back seat to "image" and I think that's pretty disgusting.

I got the Nina Simone CDs Kat was talking about. I see, or hear, what she means. The first CD is nice enough but the second CD is really the keeper. My favorite song, that I didn't know before I listened to this set, is probably "Sunday in Savannah." I'd never heard that song before.
I agree with Kat that "Pirate Jenny" isn't Simone clowning. She's singing like she's moving lightly, with her head down, while she goes about the chores and awaits the destruction of the occupiers. I laughed out loud when Kat wrote "Nina Simone seems to revel in exploring this song about, to use today's terms, 'the insurgent.'" That's what makes Kat so good at reviews (or
Ava and C.I.), there's something more going on besides "cool songs, man!" It's reflecting the world around us.

That's really it tonight. I'll probably blog tomorrow and maybe have something to say. But I'm not going to act like the news about the Patriot Act passing the Senate is cause to be happy.

Coretta Scott King

Following Malcolm's assassination, King wired Betty Shabazz, expressing his sadness over "the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband. While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race."
Knowing these facts today, we need to stop viewing Martin and Malcolm as adversaries, between whom we have to choose, and recognize them as allies who complemented one another and who understood that revolutionary leaders need to keep developing.

I wasn't planning on blogging tonight but I saw the link to Grace Lee Boggs' "Malcolm and Martin: Allies, not adversaries" at The Common Ills a little while ago. She's someone that Liang introduced the community to. Liang's a really sweet person so whenever I see that she highlighted something or when someone highlights Grace Lee Boggs, I always pay attention.

I went to the article at the Michigan Citizen and found something on Coretta Scott King that I wanted to put up here.

George E. Curry has a column called "Tarnishing the King Legacy" and I'm going to show it to Three Cool Old Guys. If you get the gina & krista round-robin, you know they were bothered by Coretta Scott King's funeral. Not by the nonsense of "it's too political!" They felt it wasn't political enough and Curry's got some similar points.

Here's some of Curry's column:

Despite their varied contributions to the civil rights movement, none of the aforementioned was allowed to speak at the funeral. Belafonte had been invited but the invitation was withdrawn when Bush decided to attend the funeral. In January, Belafonte called Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" and equated the Department of Homeland Security with Hitler's Gestapo. Evidently, the funeral organizers were more interested in not offending Bush than recognizing the person who had actually supported Dr. King and his work.
Of the 30 speakers who were neither relatives nor participating in musical tributes, only five or six marched regularly with Dr. King. Even more insulting, William Session, a former FBI director, was given time on the program, even though the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, actively sought to discredit Dr. King, taping his private conversations and urging him to commit suicide.


Another thing worth checking out is Phill Wilson's "Coretta Scott King was sensitive to gays and lesbians:"

After her husband's assassination, Mrs. King picked up the pieces, gathered her children to her bosom and assured us that we would get by. And like a good mother, she never played favorites. She was committed to including all of us -- the civil rights one, the peace one, the labor one, the gay and lesbian one, and eventually the HIV/AIDS one. While there were some old guard civil rights leaders who thought "justice" meant "just us," Mrs. King never wavered. When the traditional "civil rights" house defined by the narrow paradigm of racial discrimination became too small, she moved us to a new "human rights" house big enough for all of us.
In 1990, when her son, Martin Luther King III, made disparaging remarks about gay and lesbian people, Mrs. King hosted a Black gay and lesbian summit at the King center. She was also one of the first Black leaders to speak out about HIV/AIDS and the need for Black people to pay attention.
"AIDS is a human crisis, no matter where you live," she said while addressing a gathering of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Anyone who sincerely cares about the future of Black America had better be speaking out about AIDS, calling for preventive measures and increased funding for research and treatment."

Coretta Scott King stood up over and over. She was concerned with the humanity landscape and she helped all of us, regardless of color, gender, orientation.

So go check out The Michigan Citizen. They've got a lot worth reading (and a lot worth thinking about).

Move on when you need to

It's Thursday and Elaine can't blog on Thursday (she runs a group on Thursdays) so I grab Thursdays for her and she grabs Wednesdays (church night) for me. If you've never checked out her site, Like Maria Said Paz, please do so. I got matched with her, Eli, Kara and Brad by C.I. early on when I became a member of The Common Ills. We'd exchange e-mails and it was obvious she should be doing her own site. (So should Eli, Kara and Brad.) When she was filling in for Rebecca this summer while Rebecca was on vacation, she started helping out with The Third Estate Sunday Review and she's really sharp so maybe you know her from there? But check out her site: Like Maria Said Paz.

"How dare they try to end this beauty."

So what's the plan for tonight? An e-mail I wanted to get to awhile back but didn't have time (that'll be on my tombstone: "Didn't have time"). Iwanna e-mailed about her church back then and was kind enough to e-mail again this week or I would've forgotten.

She's got a beef and I'll quote her: "So it's not just donate to the plate that's passed around, we also have a Praise Bucket and they just added another one. I keep waiting to see the Car Note Bucket."

She's got a few beefs actually. She says she goes to church for the message and doesn't know "why we have to cluck like hens for 20 minutes at the start of every service while we're 'getting our praise on.'" Another complaint is that her preacher is always requesting, at the end of the service, that everyone go up to someone and hug. Iwanna goes to church with her adult son and her father and she's fine with hugging them "if I have to hug" but she's getting "real tired" of people coming up to her asking for a hug.

She also told me I could share this story. A year ago, there was a disagreement between two women in the choir at her church during choir practice. The first one wanted the solo and the second one said, "You always get the solo!" When the first one didn't back down, the second one cursed her and said, "I'm going out to my car and getting my gun!" The choir had to hold her back (while she was screaming, "Let me go! Let me go!") and Iwanna told her son they were leaving because it was getting crazy.

She has a ton of stories like that and I'm only sharing the ones she gave me permission to. But she's tired of this church. It was her late mother's church so she's continued to going.

But here's my advice, if your church isn't nourishing you and you've given it time, it's time for a change. I think a church is a long term thing and I expect that there will be bumps and all like any long term relationship. But if it stops working and it gets so bad that, like Iwanna, "all I want to do is go in, hear the sermon, and get out to my car" then it's probably time to consider another church.

When it stops speaking to you, and it continues to not speak to you, you need to move on. I hope that doesn't ever happen with me because I love my church but it does happen and when it does you just need to find another house of the Lord to worship in. That's not saying you failed or the church failed, just that you started out together but ended up taking different paths.

Though I put off writing about this here because I didn't have time, I did tell Iwanna that in an e-mail when she first wrote. Maybe seeing it up here will convince her that I mean it?

If your church isn't working for you, find one that does. I think most preachers or pastors would tell you the same thing -- not in a "get out" kind of way but because the message is more important than one church. Like I said, I hope that day never comes for me because my church means a lot to me and, even if that stopped being the case, I would still have a lot of memories tied up with it. I think that's why Iwanna's reluctant to make the break. But when you're miserable and it goes on and on for years, it's time to find a new house of worship.

Might even mean it was time to take a break and spend some time with yourself. But with Iwanna, she seems to just need to hear that it's okay to switch churches. Her aunt's goes to one that Iwanna's really curious about and she should check it out. Same goes for anyone.

The alternative is to just go through the motions and hate it and that does no one a favor. Doesn't do the congregation a favor, doesn't do your preacher a favor and it doesn't do you a favor.

So we've taken care of old business. Now I want to note something from Democracy Now! because Elaine always does:

Rumsfeld Backtracks on Iraq News Planting Denial
In other news, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has reversed his claim that the Pentagon has stopped planting news stories in the Iraqi media. Rumsfeld had made the claim on two separate occasions Friday. But on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said: "I don't have knowledge as to whether it's been stopped. I do have knowledge it was put under review. I was correctly informed. And I just misstated the facts."

Did you hear about that? Because you should have. This is typical for the administration. They act like a child cornered when caught in a lie -- they just create a new lie to get them out of hot water. To get everyone to back off, they lie and say something's stopped. Then, when things aren't being followed as closely, they turn around and retract their lie while claiming they thought that then.

"I just misstated the facts"? Weasel words for "I lied."

For an administration that can't stop invoking Jesus' name, they don't seem very familiar with the basics of the Bible, do they?

But that's often how it is. The people who make a spectacle of their faith are usually the least likely to actually practice it.

If you think about it, the very fact that they have to make a show of it usually means that they're trying to prove something. Now why does anyone have to prove anything? It's not a competition.

I really wish that politicians would invoke the Constitution more than they do the Lord. I don't look at politicians as the spiritual cheerleaders of the nation. When I hear Bully Boy go on and on about how God stopped his drinking and how God did this or did that, I think, "Well why didn't you go into preaching?" Really, if it's true, why didn't he go into preaching?

I don't think God wants us to kill each other. I don't think God wants to see a people lied into war. So when he speaks about God, it sounds phoney to me. I know some eat it up. I think he's dangerous to the country and think he needs to stop casting his opinions as being based in a faith because there's nothing spiritual about lying a nation into war. There's nothing spiritual about carpet bombing a country. Or bearing false witness.

Wally had a funny thing today that some people may miss. (Maybe not.) He gave me permission to post the whole thing so here it is.

THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY ADDRESSES THE ISSUE OF THE PORTS
BULLY BOY PRESS - DC.

TODAY BULLY BOY HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE TO ADDRESS A CONCERN RAGING THE NATION.

"EVERYONE IS FOCUSED ON THE PORTS. EVERY WHERE I GO IT IS 'THE PORTS' THIS OR 'THE PORTS' THAT. PEOPLE THE PORTS IS ALWAYS WITH US. WHENEVER YOU WANT, YOU CAN DO THEM GOOD. BUT, PAY ATTENTION BILL FRIST, YOU DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE ME."

"LOSING A JOB IS TRAUMATIC," BULLY BOY SAID. "ASK MY FATHER. IT'S DIFFICULT. IT PUTS A STRAIN ON OUR FAMILIES. BUT YOUNGER INDIANS ARE AQUIRING A TASTE FOR PIZZA FROM DOMINO'S. THANK YOU."

"WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS HE TALKING ABOUT?" HELEN THOMAS, DEAN OF THE DC PRESS CORPS, WONDERED.

"SHUT IT, HELEN!" SNAPPED A SOBBING ELIZABETH BUMILLER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, "HE IS INSPIRATIONAL! SIMPLY INSPIRATIONAL!"


Related: "Other Items"

the new york times
elisabeth bumiller
bully boy
the common ills

Wally's put Jesus' words in Bully Boy's mouth and intentionally screwed them us (the way Bully Boy does in real life). The whole section about "the ports" (the poor) always being with us. I always laugh at Wally's stuff but this one made me laugh a little harder because it really did capture the way Bully Boy trots out scripture and screws it up.

For more laughs see Betty's "Thomas Friedman's one moment of public truth."

And that's almost it for me tonight. Almost. Three Cool Old Guys can't stop laughing when they read Ava and C.I.'s "TV Review: Close To Home (and floating in the toilet)." Sunday, when I visited, they were laughing about it. That was day one. They're still laughing about it and keep saying, "You've got to re-read it, it gets funnier each time." I agree it's up there with their best ones and that's a big compliment. So make a point to read it.

By the way, here's the new content from last Sunday's The Third Estate Sunday Review:

A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: No spine on no spying
TV Review: Close To Home (and floating in the toilet)
1 Book, 10 Minutes (Danny Schechter, The Death of Media)
Psst, here come the gatekeepers
Musings on the service economy

Ava and C.I. do the TV reviews themselves. But on the other features the credits are:

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.

I point that out because Betty, Kat and me sometimes hear, "You don't blog enough." We probably don't. But we are doing stuff besides what goes up at our own sites. Let me note one more thing because I haven't given Trina enough shout outs. Saturdays, Trina blogs at Trina's Kitchen. I hope you're checking her out. Iwanna, I guess I've added the Shout Out Bucket to this entry.

the daily jot
thomas friedman is a great man
the third estate sunday review
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
kats korner
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
cedrics big mix
thomas friedman is a great man

MALCOLM X: Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don't hang you because you're a Baptist; they hang you 'cause you're black. They don't attack me because I'm a Muslim; they attack me 'cause I'm black. They attack all of us for the same reason; all of us catch hell from the same enemy. We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation, all of them from the same enemy. The government has failed us; you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, and you walkin' around here singing "We Shall Overcome," the government has failed us.
This is part of what’s wrong with you: You do too much singing. Today, it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can't sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavy-weight champion of the world. Swinging helped him become the heavy-weight champion. This government has failed us; the government itself has failed us, and the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us.
And once we see that all these other sources to which we've turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self-help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it's-already-too- late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with, and the only time -- the only way we are going to solve our problem is with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started, we have to have a self-help philosophy.

That's from Democracy Now! (On the 41st Anniversary of the Assassination of Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet"). If you missed it, you can listen online or watch online or read the transcript. But think about how little has changed in all this time.

That's my thought for tonight.

News

In the United Kingdom today, over 200 people gathered at St Nicholas and Writhington Church, in Radstock, Somerset for the funeral of Corporal Gordon Pritchard who died in Basra on January 31, 2005 becoming the 100th British soldier to die in Iraq. 101 British troops have died in Iraq, official count. Gordon Pritchard, who was 31 years-old, is survived by his wife Julie-Ann and his children Stacey, Harrison and Summer.

Alexander Panetta, of the Associated Press, is reporting that Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay maintains that "latest intelligence" indicates that the four memebers of Christian Peacemaker Teams are still alive. The four members, kidnapped in November, were last seen in a January 29th videotape. The four members are:

James Loney, 41, of Toronto; Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a former Montreal resident; Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., and Norman Kember, 74, of London [. . .]

Sunday's upsurge in violence continued on Monday. Reuters is reporting that bombings in Mosul and Baghdad today killed "at least 19 people." The Associated Press reports that in Karbala one American soldier was killed in a bombing and that in Mosul, a bomber killed himself in a "restaurant packed with policemen eating breakfast, killing at least five people and wounding 21, including 10 policemen". The Department of Defense has identified Capt. Anthony R. Garcia of Fort Worth, Texas as one of the 34 US military fatalities this month. Garcia died of from gunshot wounds after a February 17th shooting that took place on a military base in Tikrit. Garcia is survived by his wife Doris and his children Kelly and Garrick.

Brian Zimmerman, of Gannet News, is reporting that questions still surround the shooting death of Army Reservist David Douglas who died two weeks after returning to the United States from a one-year stint in Iraq. Commenting on the violent deaths of many returning veterans, National Guardsman Alfonso Williams told Zimmerman:

You have a whole lot of built-up anger from being over there. . . . You can't explain (what it's like) to anybody. And to them, what they may think is screaming and hollering to you is a normal tone.

In 2005, the military reports that 136 active duty personnel committed suicide. No figures are kept for those who are inactive. The current number for US military fatalities in Iraq stands at 2276.

As Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker, early warnings were ignored by the administration about the environment created for abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo. Noting that "Human rights are under threat," Amnesty International is calling for the closing of Guantanamo. Tuesday, Amnesty International will host a live online discussion:

Live chat with Moazzam Begg, ex Guantánamo detainee, on 21 February, 6-7pm GMT

Moazzam Begg, British citizen, was held for "nearly three years," as noted on Democracy Now!. Amnesty International's call echoes the call of the UN investigation team as well as the prime ministers of Germany, France, England and Malaysia. U.S. Charm Minister Karen Hughes, speaking to Al Jazeera, rejected calls to close Gitmo and reportedly maintained that not only are the people imprisoned in Guantanamo wanting to kill Americans but that some released "have gone back to fighting and killing Americans." If the report is accurate, it is surprising that such an assertion would be made by the Minister of Charm and not Bully Boy himself.

In this country, the Associated Press is reporting that Republican governors George Pataki (New York) and Robert Ehrlich (Maryland) have joined the chorus of voices objecting by administration plans to turn over control of "six major U.S. ports" to Dubai Ports World. Senators Robert Menendez (New Jersey) and Hillary Clinton (New York) are also objecting to the proposed plan. Speaking out against the plan involving the Arab company, Mendendez stated today, "We wouldn't turn over our customs service or our border patrol to a foreign government. We shouldn't turn over the ports of the United States, either."

Feminist Wire Daily is reporting that CWIG (Center for Women in Government and Civil Society) has conducted a study on "the percentage of women in policy-making positions - such as state legislators, elected officials, high court judges, department heads, and top governor's advisors" for the years 1998 to 2005 and found that the rate of growth for women in those positions increased by only 1.6% -- "from 23.1 percent to 24.7 percent." FWD notes:

Slow progress for women in state government has national implications, says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers. State and local office serve as a "pipeline" to draw women into national politics. Not to mention, adds Walsh, state legislatures themselves are "making a tremendous amount of policy" –- in 2005, 48 state legislatures considered over 500 anti-choice bills.

On the national level, NOW notes, that although "almost nine million more women voted than men" only fourteen women serve in the United States Senate and only sixty-seven in the House, while of the fifty governors in the United States, only eight are women.

As noted on Sunday's KPFA Evening News, Saturday Feb. 25th, a Counter-Recruiting workshop will be held, open to the public, from 2 to 5pm at the Veterans' Memorial Building, Room 219, 401 Van Ness Ave. March 1st is the National Law Student Day Against the Death Penalty (SDADP).

In other news, Philadelphia Indymedia is reporting that Governor Ed Rendell vetoed the Pennsylvania's Voter ID bill. Rendell, who spanked Casey Junior in the 2002 election race, stated, "I see no reason to enact laws that will result in voter confusion and disenfranchise legitimately registered voters." Member of Protect the Vote had successfully fought against the proposed legislation and were on hand for the veto ceremony.

In other civil liberties news, following what BuzzFlash has called "Just Your Average Week of the Bush Administration Betraying America," the ACLU features a snapshot of governmental spying/snooping in the form of Betty Ball who states:

It is true that I have become more motivated to work for justice and social change knowing that the government is abusing its powers like this. But I am worried about how far the government will go to squelch First Amendment rights and silence dissent. Will we all be rounded up and incarcerated? Already so many people have been frightened away from participating in our events, and have asked to have their names removed from our mailing lists, for fear of the consequences of associating with us. I hesitate to call people to discuss plans for rallies or protests because I don’t want them ending up in an FBI file labeled as a "domestic terrorist."

Meanwhile, author and activist Diane Wilson remains in a Victoria County jail in Texas. Wilson was arrested for unfurling a banner that read "Corporate Greed Kills--From Bhopal to Baghdad" at a Dick Cheney attended fundraiser in Houston on December 5, 2005. Wilson's banners are apparently too much for the delicate sensibilities of the foes of democracy. She is currently serving a 150 day sentence for a 2002 action where she climbed a Dow Jones tower and unfurled a banner which read "Justice For Bhopal." CODEPINK is calling for Wilson's release.
In other take action news, MediaChannel.org is asking you to Take Action: Demand Coverage of Able Danger (more info on the Able Danger program can be found at Able Danger Media Monitoring).

Finally, Monday's Democracy Now! featured:

"Readings From Howard Zinn's 'Voices of a People's History of the UnitedStates:'"
Today we spend the hour with readings from a Voices of a People's History of the United States edited by historian Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. It is the companion volume to Zinn's legendary People's History of the United States ­ which has sold over a million copies.We will hear dramatic readings of speeches, letters, poems, songs, petitions, and manifestos. These are the voices of people throughout U.S.history who struggled against slavery, racism, and war, against oppression and exploitation, and who articulated a vision for a better world. Performances include Danny Glover as Frederick Douglass, Marisa Tomei as Cindy Sheehan, Floyd Red Crow Westerman as Tecumseh and Chief Joseph, Sandra Oh as Emma Goldman and Yuri Kochiyama, and Viggo Mortensen as Bartolomeo de Las Casas and Mark Twain.

This entry was compiled by:

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.

democracy now
news
iraq
the common ills
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
kats korner
the third estate sunday review
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
cedrics big mix
thomas friedman is a great man
the daily jot
feminist wire
jane mayer
the new yorker
codepink
diane wilson
guantanamo
national lawyers guild
amnesty international
aclu
counter-recruiting
able danger
buzzflash

Enjoy Isaiah's comic but, warning, I've got a cold and am doped on cold medicine

I started to blog about four hours ago now. I even had this screen up the whole time. But Kat called and I heard Jill Scott in the background: Who Is Jill Scott? We ended up talking about that CD for about an hour. I didn't even know Kat was a huge Jill Scott fan. I really am too, just something about her voice.

I like a wide variety of music but of people who've come out in the last few years, Scott's probably one of my favorites.

So I got off the phone with Kat, forgot I was online, ended up putting on some Jill Scott and trying to clean the place. I sometimes feel like I must be the last person in my area without a dishwasher. I live in an older complex from the sixties and none of us have dish washers. I liked the place when I was looking at it and always had a dish washer before so it didn't even register that there would be work involved. In case anyone wonders, there's no room to have a dishwasher put in my kitchen (about why I don't buy my own and have it put it in).

There tearing down some of the complexes around and putting up condos. I think sometimes that I should move but I really like the place. It's got a lived in feeling and I'll probably stay until it gets sold and torn down.

But no dish washer . . .

I always worries about bugs, specifically ants & roaches. In college, a group of us decided sophomore year to get an apartment together. It was like living with Lenny Kravitz! (That was a joke and I like Lenny's music.) But you had this one guy who would just leave food lying out for days in his room. He'd do it in the living room but one of the three of us would usually toss it out if we saw pizza sitting on the coffee table. We ended up with this swarm of ants and "swarm" probably isn't the right word. Army?

That's the only time in my life I've ever had bug problems but I'm always paranoid. And with work, church, friends and family, I don't always make it home with a lot of energy. I fix something quick in the microwave and then eat it. I'm usually not up to washing it then and just want to get to bed. So I'll put the dishes in the fridge. This was a busy week so when I remembered I needed to do dishes, there was a pile of stuff in the fridge.

So that was my evening. It's cold out and I've got a cold. Valentine's was great, I've started seeing a woman pretty regularly and we had a pretty good time but she didn't dress for the weather. She looked great, don't get me wrong. She was stylish because we were going to her favorite place which has a pretty strict dress code. But she may have been hurrying or she may not have thought she had a coat that matched or I don't know what. But when we finished eating and left, it was even colder than when we went in, so I gave her my jacket to wear. (And would again.) But I ended up with a cold and was just going to stay in tonight and try to get over it because it's one of those sniffles and light sneezes you carry around all week and can't shake -- the kind that if they continue turns into a really nasty cold which it started to do right before lunch today so I'm doped up on cold medicine and feeling lightheaded.

Probably not the best time to blog but I try to blog twice a week. Usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. But with V-Day falling on Tuesday, no offense to anyone, blogging could wait.
Betty had a funny comment. She said that she, Kat and me are kind of like the characters on a soap opera on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The audience likes them and enjoys them but Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they're focused on the heavy hitters. That would be people like Mike, Elaine, Rebecca and Wally. C.I.? Betty goes, "That would be the soap star because C.I.'s got a minimum of three posts a day at The Common Ills." True that.

I wish I had that kind of . . . I can't call it time because I've probably got more time than C.I. does. So I'll call it focus. C.I. can juggle and focus. (And go without sleep.)

And like Elaine pointed out recently at her site:

I always assume every reader who reads this site is coming here via one of the community sites and that we're all on the same page. However, a reader wondered why I take Saturday and Sunday off?I don't know that I truly do. Most Saturday nights/early Sunday mornings, I'm am helping out with The Third Estate Sunday Review. I see that site as an online magazine, if you're new to it.

That's really true. Because we all do work on those things. And we get credit for it. But I think sometimes people just visit our sites and think something like, "Oh Betty didn't do much this week." When the truth is we put in between 10 and 16 hours at The Third Estate Sunday Review.

But maybe we don't do enough to point that out? Betty can't because she has to write in character at her site. But for me, this was supposed to be like Trina's Kitchen in that Trina's doing one entry a week. This was never supposed to be a daily site.

But I'm a member of The Common Ills community and a lot of times members are nervous about sharing -- sometimes for good reasons. Billie e-mailed me to follow up on our phone conversation and asked me if I was aware that Trash had mentioned members at her site?
Nope. I didn't go there really. Like I said, it took too long for that site to load and usually you got an error message when it did try to load.

But like C.I. would always tell me when I was nervous about sharing there, "If you mispell a word, make a typo, leave out a word, whatever, it's not the end of the world. You live. Life goes on." Sometimes I think C.I. makes typos intentionally sometimes just to foster the DYI spirit.
(Rebecca suspects that too.) The whole point of The Common Ills, besides being a resource/review, was to encourage people to use their voices. And C.I.'s fostered that and done a great job of it. Most members won't hesitate to do something for the gina & krista round-robin when Gina, Krista or C.I. ask. But they're still hesitant about doing entries at The Common Ills. If nothing else, I've proved at my site that anyone can put stuff out there.

You live. You may see a name mispelled and think, "How did I get that wrong?" but you live. I'm the only member whose name C.I. has mispelled, by the way. This was like a year ago. C.I. put a "k" at the end of my name and didn't notice it until a member e-mailed on it. I told C.I. to leave it. It's just a typo and correcting it goes against the whole feel, in my opinion.

Plus we'd just gone through the nightmare corrections/additions. Some members were offended by C.I.'s note thinking, "Why talk about members like that?" But C.I. wasn't talking about members. It was an entry on our favorite books. Besides including members, C.I. had also invited some sites that members like to participate. One blogger did a huge list, I found out about this from Rebecca, and the blogger didn't have the titles right. C.I. tried to provide links for every book mentioned and it was a pain in the butt to try to find out these obscure books. But C.I. did it. The list finally goes up. And?

This is where we see the note a day or two later. Where C.I. says, "If you e-mail your choices, that's your choices" or something similar. And if you looked at the entry, you saw that blogger had a huge list of books by the name. That blogger had read the entry when it went up and because one member had given a children's book, the blogger wanted to add seven favorite children's books as well as five other books. A lot of them did get added, though not all. Titles were wrong again.

But that was a headache and a half. I wouldn't have done it. I have little time to blog as it is and I don't need to be going into old entries and fixing typos or adding something someone forgot to pick.

It's weird to think of how large the community is. When I started reading The Common Ills it was right after Thanksgiving of 2004 and it was already starting to grow. I think I started blogging around the time West got attacked and C.I. and Rebecca stood up for West (which cost C.I. a link). [If you're not a community member, West is under 18. He blogged at a site and got nasty e-mails saying he better apologize and take back his criticism or the sites he'd plugged in his link -- two in the community, two outside of it -- would never be mentioned again. In addition, the site was trying to get dirt on him by sending out e-mails asking for dirt.]

Like any other member, I'm impressed with what C.I. does and what the community stands for. The fact that C.I. was willing to give up a big link because it was more important to stand up for a kid was just . . . so C.I. I mean, really, it's just so social justice, so "I will not be silent while someone is attacked." And the kid wasn't even a member of the community. He'd never e-mailed The Common Ills or Rebecca before all this happened. But you know C.I. always sticking up for the underdog/little guy. So I thought, "Damn, that's the kind of thing I should be showing my support for." So I thought, "Okay, I create a site and that replaces the link lost."

So I did that. That was my only point. I figured I'd do a community blog report and show you some stuff from the other sites but not really write about stuff on my own.

But when I started out as a member, there was one site and look how large the community is. You've got ten sites, you've got the weekly round-robin, the biweekly newsletter from the UK Gurus.

That's pretty amazing. And I just remembered Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts so let me put his comic from Sunday up at the top of this post.

Isaiah added another element to the community because he lets all of us use his visuals anytime we want to. He says, "You don't have to ask."

A lot of sites post comics from newspapers and I enjoy seeing that. But if anyone ever wants to crack down, they might use that as a reason. So the community has their own cartoonist. And if you think about it, even with Isaiah taking a vacation and needing time off sometimes, he's easily done 52 illustrations and comics by now. He's really talented. Sometimes he doesn't have time and sometimes he's blocked for something to draw. But hasn't he created some amazing stuff?
I love his work. It has an edge that really makes me laugh. Anytime he does something for the round-robins, he'll do a little write up explaining it, and saying that if anyone else wants to do some illustrations as well, that's cool with him, but we're all kind of awe of him.

He's had some great ones, not just make you laugh ones, but some really great ones. If you ask him, he'll tell you those are the worst because he ends up blocked after out of intimidation and a feeling of, "I can't top that." He marvels at the fact that C.I.'s never taken a day off. (We're all hoping C.I. will take a day off. No one deserves it more.) He says he couldn't do that, day after day, the way C.I. does. But C.I. will say you just accept that everything's not going to be perfect, give it the best that you have at that time and move on to the next day.

The one at the top is one of my favorites. It's hard to chose "the" favorite because they're so many great ones. But that's funny and makes a point about signing statements. I'm going to end this because the cold medicine is really making drowsy but somewhere in this entry I wrote that the community has ten sites now. That's wrong. It's eleven.

the world today just nuts

signing statements

signing statement

bully boy

comic

the common ills

the third estate sunday review

kats korner

like maria said paz

sex and politics and screeds and attitude

cedrics big mix

the daily jot

mikey likes it

thomas friedman is a great man

trinas kitchen

You drop the Trash at the curb and let it go

Do people "get it"? Nope.

I got a number of e-mails on "the Scold." I think, "Good riddance to bad trash." You're talking about someone who has this image of herself as "inclusive" but she's not. Trust me, as an African-American, the few times I've gone to her site I've seen White world, White world, White world.

She's jerking off with lame topics every entry.

It's her loss, not the community.

I avoided talking to C.I. about this because judging from the tone of the e-mails I've received a number of you are calling for some sort of statement. I didn't want C.I. to think I was one more person saying, "So what are you going to write?"

There's no need to write anything. She's a White woman (girl?) living in a White world that wants to get on her soapbox about what people aren't writing about (important stuff) and then can't even follow her own scolding advice the next time she blogs.

She's nothing. She's trash. The first time my grandmother ever said that, I was shocked. I was probably about seven or eight and I said, "Grandma, God made all of us equal." She agreed with me but she said when someone wants to hold back others, they're "trash."

There are a lot of ways to hold back others. The most popular way is silence. She practices silence with regards to race. She won't note an African-American, she won't blog about an issue that has to do with the African-American community.

I'm looking at two forwarded e-mails. The first one basically says, "I felt like you just pulled the welcome mat" and it's to the Scold. Then the Scold writes back, basically, "I didn't pull the welcome mat!" She did exactly that and she did it a long time ago.

Who cares what her problem is? Who cares if she's pissed off that C.I. linked to Joan Mellen's
"HOW THE FAILURE TO IDENTIFY, PROSECUTE AND CONVICT PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINS HAS LED TO TODAY'S CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY"? Who cares if she's pissed off because the sun was shining on on her empty inbox at the start of the week or because she woke up with a boil on her butt?

That's what my grandmother means by "trash." Someone's poor, they're not trash. They're homeless, they're not trash. Someone's trying to hold others back, they are trash. That woman is trash. Forget the rest of the world for a second, in this country things aren't that great. They're not great for African-Americans, they're not great for gays and lesbians, they're not great for single-parent families. They really aren't great for anyone.

Now if someone's sole concern is herself and in whining day after day about herself, that should tell you something. If, in all her whinings or false claims (I especially laughed at her claim to be 'the one' promoting media from outside of the United States -- I think we all know which site dedicates Sundays to that) she can't write about the reality beyond her own comfort zone, she's trash because there are people fighting for survivial, forget their rights, just fighting for survival.
And she's not interested in that. As she promotes herself as some sort of 'progressive' or whatever the popular term is, she's playing the same handbook that always gets played.

At the risk of being rude to the community, this nonsense destroyed a great entry. You've got a taste of it in "Other Items" this morning. If you read the tail end of that entry, you know what we missed out on. I know very well because it actually happened in the book discussion before last. Jim said, "That's too strong to go up here, it belongs at The Common Ills." Because it's C.I.'s point to make and C.I. should get the credit for making it.

So the whole thing got pulled and those of us in the discussion have waited and waited for that to go up. It should have gone up last night. That was the plan last weekend. Instead C.I.'s dealing with "nonsense" (I agree with that word choice) that has nothing to do with The Common Ills. Trash wants to do something "attention-seeking" (as Elaine pointed out) and we're supposed to stop everything to address that?

Mike angry and I understand that and understand why others are too. But I asked Mike to take Nina out, have some fun tonight and then, when he gets back, read my entry before he posts. I'm not angry. The word that describes what I feel is "relief." Why?

I don't think she was worth being linked to and now she's not. Good riddance. Trash was taken to the curb and it no longer pollutes the community.

There was never a welcome mat put out to the community. That was obvious when she attacked C.I. and Ava for highlighting an important front page story from the New York Times.
Now they highlighted it on Sunday, when it ran in the paper. On Monday, the paper's article was the talk of the net. Trash had already trashed Ava and C.I. on Sunday with some distorted reasoning of how it didn't matter (the story). Well the article did matter. But did you see her scream at anyone else that week for noting that story? No. She shut up on that.

The few times I'd read her (which were honestly in copy & paste e-mails, her site had huge troubles loading), she was obviously pulling that nonsense again. Like when she was screaming about the "free speech rights" of military recruiters - after C.I. had written repeatedly that recruiters do not have free speech rights. She was just trying to stir things up all along. She's a bitter person and we're all better off now that we don't have to worry about her.

Elaine told me that C.I.'s biggest concern was Billie and Wally. Billie because she did her Black History Month highlight the night before The Common Ills was pulled. I talked to Billie and she told me, "If my writing's that bad, so sorry, kiss my ass." I agree. If Billie's writing was a problem for the woman, and it more than likely was because she's one of those 'I am color blind!' types, then get gone. Don't let the screen door hit you where the good Lord slit you, but get gone.

I talked to Wally and he said C.I. had spoken to him in the same way Billie's phone call went. 1) Are you okay? 2) Would it help you if I posted something about this or would it make it worse for you? 3) Read _'s writing and think about the lack of quality before you question your own.

We're better off without linking to her. The woman is just evil. She's trash. In one entry a week, Ruth does more than that woman does in a month. Trash drags you down. You can try to make peace with it or to be tolerant but what's the point?

If someone's a racist, they're a racist. You're better off not associating with them.

So we're better off and she never resulted in anyone e-mailing The Common Ills (according to
Jess and Ava). The Common Ills didn't grow because of links. It grew because of the passion of the members. Now that passion is being misdirected. It's being directed to a "You must comment" movement. Why?

Why does C.I. have to comment on everything? Older members will remember we went through nonsense with Frank in Orlando. We'd have to constantly put everything on hold because he'd be ticked off and whining. And people were getting sick of it.

I think the energy is wrongly directed again. Trash is gone, rejoice.

Don't get bogged down in nonsense.

Did you read KeShawn's entry last night? It's funny and it makes some strong points. KeShawn almost pulled it because of this nonsense. He was worried what Trash might write. Guess what, Trash and all her Trashy brothers and sisters, will write whatever. It doesn't have a thing to do with what we're doing or what we're emphasizing.

If past experiences are any indication, C.I. could care less about Trash. But when everyone tries to draw C.I. into something, it is draining. When there's a community issue, C.I. goes through every darn e-mail. A few people who e-mailed today were noting C.I.'s comments in the replies that got sent out last night. Did you not get the point? Trash doesn't matter.

We do what we do in this community and we're not obligated to anyone. If someone delinks, too damn bad for them. It was a different issue when Kat was attacked. That was someone actively sticking their claws out. Trash isn't even a worthy opponent.

Her nonsense was as weak ass as everything else she does. So let's rejoice that we never have to hear anymore of her dithering thoughts about the White race (because that's all she could write about) and stay focused on what's important.

Today, Margaret Kimberly wrote about "Haliburton Detention Centers" and, if you think about it, the only other place you probably remember focusing on that was The Common Ills. That's what the really important voices do. They catch what could fall through the cracks otherwise. But C.I. won't be able to catch anything if everyone's screaming, "You must respond!"

Everyone needs to speak in their own voices online. And if they do, and they're honest, you'll realize quickly whether you're welcome there or not of if the person has anything worth saying.
Trash had a long list of topics that people should be writing about but Trash never wrote about them. Didn't we just go over this on Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review with "Cowardly Journalism Review (Parody)"? Those people make themselves useless.

I mean look at Trash's book reviews and you'll note that her idea of politics is Al Franken. That says a lot about her level. She has to read commentary because she can't handle actual ideas. For all her soap boxing, she can't go beyond Baby's First Political Reader. Ask her who Bayard Rustin was and she'll probably have to do a Google search before she can answer. And she fancies herself an "intellectual" while she reads those dumb-downed books (all by White males).
Where does she steer you? To a newspaper story. You seeing a big suport for indymedia there because I'm not.

She thinks NPR is alternative media obviously. She's another pampered, White woman who thinks she gets the news she needs from NPR's canned programming. A few minutes is about all the attention she can give to an issue and she needs the calming, White voice of NPR to serve her up the news. Her apartment probably smells like patchouli oil and is covered with cat hair. Are you starting to get the picture? She's sipping her latte from Starbucks and headed to the big-box book store where she will relate only with Whites except possibly for some African-American child that she'll feel is cute so she'll smile to the parent of the child, pay for her watered-down books and leave feeling she's really 'progressive.'

The thought of listening to Pacifica probably strikes her as "radical." She's more comfortable looking up her horiscope in Town & Country while NPR drones on in the background with all the voices droning on in that NPR sound as they play the usual lean right coverage.

That's your snapshot of Trash. She's not about promoting anything but what's acceptable to the mainstream. She doesn't challenge and she certainly doesn't support independent voices. (Do you ever see Trash promote RadioNation with Laura Flanders? No, that's too 'out there' for her delicate NPR sensibilities.) If you're lost, read "It's all White" because it addresses more reality than Trash ever could.

the common ills
the daily jot
like maria said paz
mikey likes it
kats korner
the third estate sunday review

Random thoughts

Did the New York Times ever do an editorial or column devoted to Coretta Scott King? Nope. Never. She wasn't "important" enough. Her life wasn't "important" enough. Her actions weren't "important" enough. It would be interesting to know exactly what qualifies for "important" in their limited minds.

Betty's got two great chapters on this at her site. One was up when I wrote last and I meant to note it but there just wasn't time. If you've missed them, please read "The Pig Is Racism, The Pig Is The New York Times" and "Thomas Friedman plays the woman scorned." I really have nothing to add to that. I think that Betty and C.I. have covered it very well. Another thing you may have missed (and I helped with this) is The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Editorial: Does The New York Times editorial board not know that Coretta Scott King died or do they just not care?" which went up last Sunday.

So what can I add? Three Cool Old Guys told me that the paper of record's treatment of Coretta Scott King demonstrated to them that there's nothing an African-American can do to be honored by the paper. They say that if, after all of Coretta Scott King's work, she can't get as much as a playwright most people have never heard of (or know the plays), then that pretty much tells you where we are in terms of civil rights.

They can't believe that the paper of record got away with this nonsense but feel that African-Americans have been losing ground for some time. But no one would have expected that we'd lost so much ground that the New York Times op-ed pages could get away without honoring the life of Coretta Scott King.

And, they also pointed out, that this is during Black History Month.

It goes back to learning who really wants to be inclusive and who doesn't. It's the same as when the Bully Boy speaks in code and signals to his base. The paper signaled to their base not to worry because even a historically important woman can be ignored, they will remain a White paper for a White audience.

It'll be interesting to note which death the paper chooses to editorialize on next. And, it should be remembered, that the paper didn't root for MLK in life, only in death when they could reduce him to "I have a dream" and not focus on his speaking out against the war, speaking out against poverty, speaking out against racism in the north. They were comfortable as long as civil rights meant the south was the focus of the efforts.

60 Minutes, a year or so ago, did a story on African-Americans choosing to move from the north to the south and had a panel of people living in and around Atlanta. It was supposed to be a fish out of water story -- one of those, "How strange" stories. But what was strange about it? Do reporters really think that racism is confined to the south?

That seems to be the impression. It's not reality. Talk to any African-American living in the north and you'll learn that racism isn't absent from that geographic zone.

But it's one of those pleasing tales we tell ourselves. Encouraged to do so by the media.

Did you know I was an identiy-politics type guy? I didn't. I hadn't heard of that until we were working last weekend on The Third Estate Sunday Review's "State of the web: NARAL as the new Ralph Nader." See, according to critics, someone like me focuses too much on race. Now the Whites presenting that "identity-politics" argument are focusing on race as well. They can lie and say they aren't. But when they want to argue that the Democratic Party is too identified with racial minorities, women, etc., who do you think is mainly making that argument?

I know it's not African-Americans who are getting pretty tired of the Democrats showing up every election cycle (at churches) to promise the moon and then failing to deliver even the dirt on the ground.

It's interesting that this "movement," led by White males mainly, isn't called on their nonsense. As the gatekeepers deciding what gets attention and what doesn't, they're awfully lucky that no one else gets to be the bouncer. Otherwise, they might find themselves on the other side of the rope, trying to get in.

But when you're the gatekeeper, you can define what's "important" and what's not. And the fact that groups traditionally discriminated against aren't "important" has nothing to do with racism, sexism or homophobia, to hear them tell it. It has to do with what we can all agree upon. "We" of course is the group that looks like them.

The gatekeepers might want to worry because they could easily become cryptkeepers if they aren't careful. If that happens, what happens to the Democratic Party?

It goes the way of the Whigs Party. Maybe something to think about?

Gail Collins and the New York Times can't have it both ways

I don't usually blog on Wednesday nights because it's a church night and Elaine's kind enough to grab the night for me by blogging at Like Maria Said Paz. (Thank you, Elaine.) But I wanted my last post about the racism of the New York Times' editorial board and Gail Collins up until the day after Coretta Scott King's funeral. I didn't think they'd bother to note her the day after since they've kept their White lips sealed all this time.

If you read C.I.'s "The New York Times and the Coretta Scott King coverage (not a pretty picture)" you know they didn't have a thing to say about her on their editorial pages today. If you read C.I.'s "The New York Times and the Coretta Scott King coverage (not a pretty picture)" and "Democracy Now: Priest Gerad Jean Juste, tributes to Coretta Scott King; Robert Parry, CCR ..." you know that they not only mocked Reverend Joseph Lowery but they took his joke and gave old Poppy Bush credit for it. Imagine that, an African-American does something and a White guy gets the credit for it. Didn't we all think we'd moved past those days?

Well not at the New WHITE Times apparently. Gail Collins can blather on about her friend who passed away and how, busy career gals, they had to schedule time to meet up. Rush, rush, rush.
How very Sex in the City, we're supposed to think. But the thing was the women on that show made time for their friends (even if they worked a "few blocks" away or whatever Collins whined in her supposed editorial on her friend that read "Look how busy I am! I am busy! I am important!"). You also knew that Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha, Miranda and the other one had a life. Get the feeling "I'm Busy!" Gail Collins has a life?

I think she's too busy being "important" to have a life. So I'll say she fell into a racist trap and wasn't herself racist. I'll give her that much credit. She's "Busy!" so she didn't stop to think, "Coretta Scott King might actually mean something to people, might actually be worth noting and editorializing on." But when you are "Busy!" it can be real hard to see anything that's not in your own world. So Gail Collins couldn't see how important Coretta Scott King was because in the "I'm Busy!" world, there's not time to think. There's no time to talk about things that really matter when you're so "Busy!" and trying to convince yourself that you have a life even if you have to pretend like your a character on Sex in the City to do that.

While Collins was so "Busy!" celebrating herself and how "Busy!" she is, she missed the fact that a historic figure died. She missed the fact that she, Collins, wrote a dopey book (on an important topic) about how women deserve a place in history. She was so "Busy!" that she didn't realize that here was a woman, Coretta Scott King, that had a place in history and that if her dopey book meant anything to her, which I assume it did, here was a chance for her to put her money where her is mouth is.

So I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she herself isn't racist, she just fell into a racist trap because she was so "Busy!"

If that's not the case, then there are two more options.

One, she's racist.

Two, she's a first ("First woman to be the editor of the editorial page! I'm busy!") so she's scared to rock the boat. She's scared to actually use the power of her position. And all the other saps on the editorial board reflected years of conditioning from the paper that spit on MLK when he was alive. She didn't want to go out on limb.

Regardless of which of the three it is is, and it may be something else completely, by not covering Coretta Scott King's passing with an editorial or op-ed (not one that mentioned her, one that was about her), Gail Collins made herself the biggest huckster in the world. She wants to write about women in her books, about how they are important. But when it was time to put her money where her mouth was, she had nothing to say. That's pretty sad if you ask me. Gail Collins is pretty sad if you ask me.

So maybe the next time she writes (badly writes) another book about how women have a place in history, an interviewer can ask her, "If you really believe that, why did you fail to note Coretta Scott King when she passed away?" She can't have it both ways.

the new york times
the common ills
coretta scott king
rev. joseph lowery
like maria said paz