BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- DC.
TODAY, WHITE HOUSE FLACK TONY SNOWJOB SPOKE FROM THE HEART AND NOW HE'S A MESS.
ASKED ABOUT LAST SATURDAY'S PROTESTS IN D.C. AT A WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE, TONY SNOWJOB REPLIED, "IT'S NICE TO SEE JANE FONDA IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AGAIN."
THE ASSUMPTION HAS BEEN THAT TONY SNOWJOBS WAS BEING CATTY. ("MEOW" IS HOW ANNE KORNBLUT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES PUT IT AFTER WARDS.) THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED.
TONY SNOWJOBS CONTACTED THESE REPORTERS IN A FRANTIC STATE AND ASKED THAT WE MEET HIM AT THE RHINO BAR AND PUMPHOUSE.
GREETING US LATER, TONY SNOWJOBS LED US TO A TABLE IN THE BACK AND QUICKLY EXPLAINED THIS WASN'T ABOUT HIM LOOKING STUPID.
"I KNOW SHE HAD A HIT MOVIE IN 2005," HE EXPLAINED FRANTICALLY, "I WAS 1ST IN LINE FOR MONSTER-IN-LAW. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE GEORGIA RULE."
KNOCKING BACK A SCOTCH, TONY SNOW DELCARED, "I AM A FONDA-HOLIC."
HE QUICKLY WAVED TO THE BARTENDER FOR ANOTHER DRINK.
"WHEN I WAS 17," HE EXPLAINED NERVOUSLY, "I WAS IN A COVER BAND, WE PLAYED SONGS BY PINK FLOYD AND THE DOORS, I WAS THE DESIGNATED FLU PLAYER AND DID A MEAN SOLO ON 'LIGHT MY FIRE.' WELL, I TOLD EVERYONE MY SHAG WAS BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE LIKE DAVID CASSIDY BUT REALLY I WAS COPYING JANE FONDA'S HAIR. SHE'S BEEN A HUGE INFLUENCE ON MY LIFE."
TONY SNOWJOBS EXPLAINED THAT HE MET HIS WIFE DOING THE JANE FONDA WORKOUT AT THE LOCAL YMCA. HIS WIFE-TO-BE COMPLIMENTED ON HIS HEAD BAND AND LEG WARMERS "AND JUST A FEW YEARS LATER, WE WERE MARRIED."
BUT WHAT HE ALWAYS WANTED, HE SAID, WAS TO MARRY JANE FONDA.
"IF I'D KNOWN SHE'D GET A DIVORCE FROM THAT [TOM] HAYDEN CHARACTER IN THE 90S, I NEVER WOULD HAVE GOTTEN MARRIED!" TONY SNOWJOBS EXCLAIMED.
HE THEN BEGAN SOBBING WITH HIS HEAD ON THE TABLE OF HOW NOW HE'D MESSED EVERYTHING UP AND "JANE FONDA WILL NEVER WANT ME! NOW I'M JUST ANOTHER USELESS LOSER WITH AN INCESSANT CRACK ODOR THAT DIAL SOAP WON'T GET RID OF AND NO CHANCE IN THE WORLD AT EVER HAVING TRUE HAPPINESS!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with news of Ehren Watada, Iraq war resister, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq who now faces a February 5th court-martial in Fort Lewis, Washington. Speaking with Tina Chau (KGMB), Watada explained why he took his stand against the Iraq war: "I believed the justifications. I believed they were true and factual and as we know now, they were grossly negligent and wrong. . . . Just being part of that [war] would be adding more fuel to the fire instead of putting it out." Saturday, columnist Joe Copeland (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) covered Watada and the reasons why he took his stand against the illegal and immoral war: "His views changed as he read up on Iraq in preparation, as he put it, to be a better leader of troops under his command. Instead, the growing knowledge led him to become the only commissioned officer known to refuse Iraq duty, acknowleding from the start that he might have to carry the imprisonment that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other practitioners of civil disobedience felt was their responsibility to accept in calling attention to wrongful government policy. In Watada's case, the prison time could be as much as six years."
Carolyn Jones (San Francisco Chronicle) reports that Sunday Ehren Watada's mother, Carolyn Ho, spoke in Chinatown to at least 200 people urging them to to support her son: "You celebrate the American dream. You live it. And that is what my son is fighting for now." Megan notes that Carolyn Ho was interviewed Saturday by Kris Welch on KPFA's Saturday Morning Talkies. and that Carolyn Ho noted she is starting another speaking tour to raise awareness of her son that will run right up to the February 5th court-martial. In addition actions are being planned around the country for February 5th -- click here for a list of demonstrations. Carolyn Ho's announced speaking dates:
Chicago, IL,
Tuesday January 30,
5:30pm
Tentative Operation Push Chicago event
7:30pm
Japanese American Citizens League5415 N. Clark, Chicago
Wednesday January 313:00 to 5:00pm
The Center for Race, Politics & ReligionUniversity of ChicagoChicago, IL
7:00-9:00pm
St. Xavier University3700 West 103rd St. (103rd & Pulaski)McGuire HallProfessor Peter N. Kirstein (773) 298-3283Kirstein@sxu.edu
Indiana
Thursday February 110:00 to 12:00am
Emerson High School716 East 7th AvenueGary, IndianaCarolyn McCrady (219) 938-1302Jim Spicer (219) 938-9615
12:30 to 2:30pm
Purdue Calumet University2200 169th St.Hammond, IndianaProfessor Kathy Tobin(219) 989-3192tobin@calumet.purdue.eduClassroom Office Building CLO 110
7:00-9:00 pm
Valparaiso UniversityU.S. Hwy 30 & Sturdy RdRoom 234Neils Science CenterValparaiso, IndianaLibby A HearnPartners for Peace (student group)(309) 834-2199Libby.AHearn@valpo.eduLorri CornettNorthwest Indiana Coalition Against the Iraq War(219) 916-0449la_cornett@yahoo.com
Friday February 2
Noon Purdue UniversityWesley Foundation435 West State St.West Lafayette, IndianaSheila Rosenthal (765) 404-5489Lafayette Area Peace Coalition
Watada is a part of a movement of resistance with the military that includes others such as Agustin Aguayo (whose court-martial is currently set to begin on March
6th), Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ivan Brobeck, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Joshua Key, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
On CBS' Sunday Morning, Rita Braver examined the issue of war resisters who go to Canada ("Estimates say there are between 200 and 250 of them") and interviewed Justin Colby and Dean Walcott as well as Vietnam war resister. Colby explained how he signed up after 9--11 only to see his support for the war vanish after a serving a tour in Iraq: "When I realized these people we were killing -- 'cause we killed a lot, I saw a lot of dead people -- when I realized the people we were killing had nothing to do with 9/11, that's when I was, like, 'Okay, this is not for me! This, ya know, I was wrong." Dean Walcott spoke of how he felt there was nothing else he could do but self-check out after serving two tours of duty in Iraq and now focusing on "talking about it, raising the issue, getting it out there for people to debate about it." After his first tour and before his second, Walcott was stationed at a hospital in Germany: "A lot of guys who skin was melted off. A lot of guys who you couldn't recognize literally from their face to their feet. Missing arms, missing legs, couldn't breate on their own, couldn't feed themselves. These kids, literally kids -- 17, 18, 19, 20. And this look in their eyes that -- Oh, I'm never gonna forget it. The look in their eyes when they finally came to understand that they're never gonna walk again. They're never gonna hold their wife and their children again. And having them ask me, 'Why?' Ya know -- a 'big-picture why.' And I couldn't tell them."
Calling for an end to the illegal war, at least 500,000 people demonstrated in DC on Saturday. Speakers included Iraq vets (such as Iraq Veterans Against the War's Garrett Repperhagen), activists (Feminist Majority Foundation's Eleanor Smeal, Kim Gandy. president of NOW, Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice, Jesse Jackson, Noura Erakat, Gold Star Families for Peace's Carlos Arredondo and others), and artists such as Jane Fonda, Eve Ensler, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn. The link goes to today's Democracy Now! which covers the protest -- all but Ensler are included in the segment which can be read (transcript), listened to or watched. The demonstration also included a message from US Senator Russ Feingold -- the closest anyone in the US Senate got to the rally. US House members Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers spoke and US Rep and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich spoke noting that "We are the peacemakers." And it included Bob Watada (click here for Democracy Now!'s report feature Bob Watada, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Lynn Woolsey and Jonathan Hutto). Bob Watada is Ehren Watada's father and while he and his wife Rosa Sakanishi spoke in DC, Ehren spoke in Seattle and his mother Carolyn Ho spoke in the Bay Area.
The most cited speech by participants we spoke to at the demonstration was Bob Watada. As he declared, "We are a civilized nation, we need to bring an end to a war for blood oil" the crowd erupted in chants of "Say it! Say it!" He spoke of the importance of speaking out (and quoted Abraham Lincoln: "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.") and he spoke of his son: "The military commanders want to punish him -- and punish him for saying the emperor has no clothes . . . The truth is a danger to the Bush empire."
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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