"Kurt is up in Heaven now."

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. It's one of those things that happens when an author dies. Having read so much of his work, a girl feels that she knows an author a little bit when she doesn't know him at all. One respects a talent like his and a point of view like his and anyone with pretensions of authorship like mine wonders if she could have a little of what he had. I have always like books that made a person think and written in a style that was clear concise and yet lyrical. A pessimist, a humanist, a realist-- a voice that we have needed In These Times:

From a Rolling Stone Interview: "I've given up on it ... It won't happen. ... The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, 'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?"

And from that recent tempest in a tea cup in the Australian: "They [suicide bombers] are dying for their own self-respect. It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing ... It is sweet and noble - sweet and honourable I guess it is - to die for what you believe in."

Kurt Vonegut, (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007)

The Simulation has Ended

Jean Baudrillard has died. This author of Simulacra and Simulation has long been one of my favorite postmodernists. But, since I have long found it difficult to remember which of the French postmodernists were alive and which were dead, I may have already included him within the ranks of the dead French guys in my conversations with students. It seems, however, that now with Baudrillard passing and joining the ranks of Bordieu, Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard all the big names are dead, perhaps this will cause relief in the hearts of literature graduate students everywhere. Perhaps not, since their syllabi will still include these names and they will still have ot read all the texts of the dead French guys.

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Is She or Isn't She?

Is it to early to write an obit for the most disfunctional Battlestar Galactica character, Starbuck? With the gender reassignment and the failed romance with her fellow pilot Apollo, Starbuck of the new series has become quite a crack up, and not in a funny way. It seems that Starbuck launched her ship into a planet and shuffled off her mortal coil, and according to the wired blog,

it was possibly the stupidest and most pointless death imaginable for a
kickass pilot and awesome pivotal character. Delving into Starbuck's
childhood abuse and turning it into a flimsy excuse for a sudden mental
breakdown made no sense whatsoever. And what about the whole Leoben
paint-sex scene, coupled with his puppy-eyed sympathy as she remembers
her dead mom? As they say in Australia: yucko.

All true,but I for one am not terribly sorry to see her go. One would like to believe that her absence will bring some dynamic revelation (like she's one of those mysterious other cylons) to the show or some mojo, but it is TV and the TV Gods do manage, to bring those dead characters back when one least expects it. One can only hope that in this case it will not be for a while.

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Anna Nicole Smith (1967-2007)

I had been rooting for Anna Nicole for some time. She seemed to be a woman who realized what her true gifts were and used them to great success. We all should be so wise. I had followed her case as it marched its way into the Supreme Court and was genuinely pleased to see the Court rule in her favor. I was saddened by the sudden death of her son and had truly wished her well. When I first heard of her death yesterday, I experienced the same shock when I read of her son's death. Young, vibrant and seemingly healthy people should not just fall quietly into death.

Jack Williamson, 1908-2006

Jack Williamson, the last man standing of classic science fiction and science fiction grand master has died.

Betty Williamson said her uncle would often say "I have lived a wonderful life, and I will die with no regrets."

We should all be so lucky.

Ed Bradley, 1941-2006

A lot has been said about Ed Bradley in recent days, but I will add a few words. I always thought that Ed Bradley was cool. He had that handsome newscaster look, but he did not seem to slick or manufactured. And on those occasions when he gave a full toothed smile or big laugh, one could see the wide gap between his teeth.He was one of those presences on television that made me believe it when my grandfather told me I could be anything that I wanted.

Election 2006: See Ya, Santorum

Was he the creepiest senator in the senate? I am not sure, but my oh my is it good to see him go! Thanks to Dan Savage, atrios and all the folks in Pennsylvania for sending him back to the rock he climbed out from under.

Election 2006: So Long Jim Ryun

I respected Jim Ryun a lot as a runner,not so much as a congressman. So his defeat in Kansas was both sweet and unexpected. I hope that there are a lot of investigations on the hill this year.

From the Lawrence Journal World:

“A lot of churches in this area aren’t going to be very happy about this,” Weeks said. “Ryun resonated with people with strong church ties. To them, Boyda’s victory will be a slap in the face by the liberals and academics — a case of not sticking to the agenda we need to stick to.”

Death Be Not Proud

Lieutenant Emily J.T. Perez (1983-2006)

Mahmoudiya

I have been thinking about this story for a while. I have nothing new to say about it, but was particularly struck when I discovered that the young victim and I shared a birthday.

The Fish Story

I know that we are all thrilled that the president of the United States still finds time to relax and go fishing, but as reported on Tapped the DCCC puts it in persepctive:

HEH. I'm not much in the habit of regurgitating DCCC press releases, but this quote from Rahm Emanuel is too funny not to pass on:



Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Congressman Rahm Emanuel, today released the following statement on President Bush’s “best moment in office”:
“Five years after President Bush said he would find Osama bin Laden, we’re all glad to hear that all he’s caught is an apparently harmless fish,” said Congressman Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.



An apt point of comparison, considering that bin Laden is still at large.

May Day Virtual Sit In

Join May Day Virtual Sit-In! All Day Long.

Bodies On-line and Bodies in the Street Together.

NO ILLEGAL BORDERS! NO ILLEGAL LAWS!

CLICK HERE*CLIQUEN AQUI

The Electronic Disturbance Theater and the borderlands Hacklab call for a virtual strike in solidarity with the May 1st General Strike /Walkout / Boycott in the US and actions for Freedom of Movement taking place all over Europe on May 1st, 2006.

Information control is a critical part of the control of people's movement and the information dissemination engines such as CNN are used to propagate racist propaganda from the mouths of Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and Sensenbrenner every day. Racists like the Minutemen, with known ties to neo-Nazi groups, have become an everyday fixture in the US media landscape. With this virtual strike, we will join the millions marching in the US, Mexico and Europe in slowing down the economy by slowing down the information systems.

On this day without an immigrant, we will also have a day without Lou Dobbs, Semsenbrenner and the Minutemen in cyberspace. Join us in making this a reality.

This virtual strike is also made in solidarity with La Otra Campana of the Zapatistas, who are marching to the US consulate in Mexico City as part of their campaign to overthrow the evil governments of the world by building community power from below and from the left.

May 1st has been celebrated for more than a century as International Workers Day, commemorating the struggle for the eight hour workday in the US and the state murder of anarchist labor organizers in Chicago in 1887. The militant labor movement in Chicago was largely due to the influence of radical immigrants. Today we reclaim May Day as a day for migrant people everywhere.

Against HR4437 and for amnesty for all! For a world free of deportations and detention centers! For Freedom of Movement and the Right to Stay! For a world free of borders! For a world free of racist immigration controls! For a world free of neo-liberalism and capitalism! For a world where many worlds fit!

Join the Virtual Sit-In, May 1st, 2006 and help make the massive mayday
strike/walkout/boycott be felt throughout cyberspace.

Not Going Away

I admit I have not been much of a fan of Stephen Colbert and the Colbert report, perhaps because his parody cuts too close to the real for me, but after watching the replay of his speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, I may have to take another look. He has provided one of the the most honest crticisms of the current sate of affairs that I have seen in a long time. With the objects of his ridicule as his audience, his jokes received few laughs and have gotten even less mention in the real media. I suppose that what happens now is that we all go back to business as usual, grimacing and trying to pretend that nothing is wrong-- don't worry about the elephant in the room, or the sinking shup that we seem to be on-- at least the fake news continues to stand for something.

Remembering the Nuclear Past

As the founder of Greenpeace argues for the increased use of nuclear energy and the description of plans for possible tactical nuclear strikes in Iran, seem to have fallen off the map, we might reflect on the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, 20 years ago.

Happy Flying

As if airline travel were not onerous enough as it is the airlines have more in store for all of us happy customers. I know that gas prices and operating costs are going up, but this is absurd.

One Day, That Economy Ticket May Buy You a Place to Stand

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only "seats."

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.

Worst President Ever

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history...

History may ultimately hold Bush in the greatest contempt for expanding the powers of the presidency beyond the limits laid down by the U.S. Constitution. There has always been a tension over the constitutional roles of the three branches of the federal government. The Framers intended as much, as part of the system of checks and balances they expected would minimize tyranny.

from Rolling Stone

The New World Order

Freedom of Information

After more than four years we learn the names of some of the individuals disappeared by the United States Government. A freedom of information request from AP convinces the Penagon to relase the first list of names of the Guantanamo detainees.

The Sport of the Future Has Arrived

I wake up to what seems like a normal day and then listening to morning edition I hear about "Chess Boxing." Somehow the combination of a sport that is about landing blows to the head and body of one's oponent and a game that is supposed to be sublimely tactical seems hard to beleive, but yet...

Nothing to Do but Laugh

Should we file this under only in the United States?

A DEA agent who accidentally shot himself in the foot while demonstrating gun safety to school children is suing the agency, saying video of the incident has made him the joke of the Internet.

from SF Gate.

Immigrant Rights are Human Rights

In the Washington Post Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez explains that "latino," "immigrant," and "illegal" are not synonyms.

What Immigrants do for the U.S.

Steve Gilliard has a post about immigrant soldiers who have died in Iraq.

National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice

Non-Violent Protest in Lawrence, KS

One hand knows not the other

It's always great to know just how much the government supports our troops and their families.

A Marine's Mother
Washington Post, Wednesday, April 5, 2006; Page A21

Last August, Danielette James, 58, a federal custodian who cleans congressional offices five nights a week, unsuccessfully pleaded with her bosses for time off to welcome home her son, a Marine who was returning to Camp Lejeune, N.C., after seven months in Iraq.

Holiday in New York

Because my timing is impeccable, I am planning to travel to New York City just a few days after the transit strike begins. I am only hoping that this spectacle will be more vivid than the Paris riots. Despite my presence that the city I saw no sign of unrest. New York is a union town if there are any union towns left so it will be interesting to see where the support and sympathies of New Yorkers go. According to the Gray Lady:

Streets were crowded with workers bundled up against the cold, with a wind chill of as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning hours. Cars were backed up at arteries leading onto the bridges, tunnels and major expressways that feed into Manhattan, as the police peered into cars to enforce the four-passenger rule, turning some away and letting others pass.

Richard Pryor, 1940 - 1965

I was lucky enough to meet Richard Pryor once back in the 1980s. I was about sixteen and we were on the set of the film Brewster's Millions. I was an L.A. kid, not too starstuck, but some where I still have the picture. He was kind and quite the gentleman, and it was after the fire incident so I remember seeing the burns on his skin. One can say that he lived a lot of life, through all types of experiences. And I suppose that that is the best way to live it.

Richard Pryor, comic voice of black America, dies
Richard Pryor, whose genius for turning personal tragedy and social injustice into humour made him one of the most influential American comedians of the last four decades, died yesterday.

Let the Games Begin

Jon Stewart's salvo into the "War on Christmas", priceless.
Jon Stewart 10, "Fat Fundies" 0!

Belgian Bomber

Her passport, which featured a striking image of a European woman, told the security forces that insurgents in Iraq had succeeded in recruiting a new type of suicide bomber...

"Muriel became more Muslim than a Muslim," her mother told Le Parisien newspaper. "When she first converted she wore a simple veil. But with her last husband she wore a [head to toe] chador."

How will we be able to tell who the terrorists are now? The Guardian has the full story.

So Maybe not the Last Word

Boing Boing directs us to an interesting video, The French Democracy, made with gaming technology that tells the story from the POV of the disgruntled youth in the Paris suburbs. Not perfect but worth a watch.

Back from Paris... Let this be the end of the story

Rap 'not cause of French riots'

France
The French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, has dismissed claims by some of his party colleagues that rap music fuelled suburban rioting in France.


Spent a week in Paris, saw no evidence of the unrest. It was sort of like Disneyland in there, totally insulated from whatever reality that was going on outside. By the time I got there most of the action had died down and there was nothing within the center of the city to indicate that there had been any uprising at all. In fact, Paris was wonderful! I sometimes feel a little guilty for enjoying Europe as much as I do, but then I just get over it and have fun.

My 23 Days In Iraq--A War Story From a Kos Diary

Fri Nov 11, 2005 at 06:15:16 PM PDT

Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang...Hell yeah! I think I killed the fucker! Oh fuck. I'm out of ammo. Time for a mag-change. As I changed my magazine, little did I know, a hajji(In this case a Fedayeen Guerilla) had moved out of the bunker in the back yard that I was in. He moved up to where the guy I just wasted was now lying, dead. As I put another magazine in my M-16 A-2 service rifle, he was aiming in on me...from a short 40 ft. away. I racked another round in the chamber, then looked up to see a hajji aimed in at me. And before I could even raise my weapon, I saw an orange muzzle flash. Then I saw black. I slowy opened my eyes and realized I was on the ground and my rifle was about 5 ft away from me. I was sitting kinda on my knees. Then I realized...I was shot. And not only that, I was paralyzed from the neck down. And then I saw the Hajji still shooting in my direction. "Holy shit", I thought. "I'm a fucking gonner".

Fight the Power

Maybe I just have Public Enemy on the mind, but something seems to be going on in France. Gary Younge of the Guardian says:

'If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

By the end of last week it looked as though the fortnight of struggle between minority French youth and the police might actually have yielded some progress.

The Greatist is still the Greatist

As if I didn't have enough reasons to love Muhammad Ali, his response to the current occupant of the White House upon receiving the Medal of Freedom might have been reason enough.

Bush, who appeared almost playful, fastened the heavy medal around Muhammad Ali's neck and whispered something in the heavyweight champion's ear. Then, as if to say "bring it on," the president put up his dukes in a mock challenge. Ali, 63, who has Parkinson's disease and moves slowly, looked the president in the eye -- and, finger to head, did the "crazy" twirl for a couple of seconds.

Paris in Wartime

Having missed '68 it seems that now is the perfect time to go to Paris. At least that's what the Times says.

Indeed, the thing to know about "les émeutes," the riots that have wracked much of France in recent days, is that the Paris of tourists - the kingdom of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, L'Opéra and just about every other famous site - remains largely untouched. So far, no center-city businesses or museums are known to have closed because of the rioting, no Métro subway trains have been stoned or hijacked, and taxis remain as plentiful as ever (or as elusive, depending on your outlook).

One Way Time Travel

We can't travel to the future yet, but now at least one can send her future self a note. At first glance I think that it is a wonderful idea, but then I pause and consider, what would I want to say? I have a list of things I might say to the younger cuter me, but thinking about talking to the older wiser me leaves me with a certain aphasia.

What a Woman Can Do

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., received the Silver Star...

Being the first woman soldier since World War II to receive the medal is significant to Hester. But, she said, she doesn't dwell on the fact. "It really doesn't have anything to do with being a female," she said. "It's about the duties I performed that day as a soldier."

"Your training kicks in and the soldier kicks in," she said. "It's your life or theirs. ... You've got a job to do -- protecting yourself and your fellow comrades."

Déjà Vu

First torture, now chemical weapons. Isn't stopping those types of practices why we invaded Iraq in the first place?

Looking for Wealth in all the Wrong Places

How many of these Nigerian spammers are there?

Democracy, American Style

Election monitors are investigating irregularities in the Iraqi election. Given the long history of electoral fraud in the United States, no surprises here.

Take That, "Mr. President"

Juan Cole's Smackdown:

Mr. Bush, I don't recognize the world you paint. I find your speech a form of sheer propaganda, having almost no relationship to reality. And I am very, very worried that you will allow to happen to the Oil Gulf what you allowed to happen to New Orleans. After watching you for five years I have become convinced that you don't have the slightest idea what you are doing in Iraq, that you are just reacting and playing it by ear. You can't do that, George. This Iraq thing is extremely complex. It needs serious, concerted thought by high-powered people, not just your cronies and yes-men and ideologues of various stripes (from Right to far-Right). You might just need the help of Iran and Syria to get Iraq right. Did you ever think of that? Iraq is the biggest policy failure in US history so far. You need to get a handle on it, the way you do on tax cuts for the billionaires (you've been very effective in making your rich friends richer). Otherwise all that extra treasure you've thrown to your tuxedoed "base" is going to go right down the tubes, drowned in a world of $20 a gallon gasoline.



You can't "stay the course" because you don't have a course. Get one.

If It's Good Enough for FEMA...

Posted by Atrios

It's the American Way

I suppose that it only the supposed expession of surprise that Americans would be absolutely creative intheir attempts to craft schemes to get money they are not entiteld to for hardships that they did not endure is what makes the recent article in the New York Times stand out.

More than a month after the hurricane devastated the Gulf Coast, evidence is mounting that cheaters across the nation are trying to cash in on the catastrophe with a boldness that surprises even some longtime law enforcement officials.

"It is just amazing to me the moral values that seem to exist," said McGregor W. Scott, the United States attorney in Fresno, Calif., where nine area residents have been charged with defrauding the American Red Cross in a case involving false claims submitted to a Red Cross call center in Bakersfield, Calif.

Vonnegut at 82, All That and More

A profile from that liberal news bastion the USAToday:

From his perspective as a former World War II prisoner of war, Vonnegut writes that American soldiers in the Middle East are "being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."

Ten Thousand Men: Nostalgia and Brand Loyalty

As I approach my fifteenth college reunion the power of nostalgia draws me back to those younger if not happier or more carefree times, and when I heard that the endowment of the alma mater had topped 25 billion dollars I whimsically slipped my class ring back on my finger.

Well it seems that I am not the only one pondering the state of the College these days, as Malcolm Gladwell reports on the Ivy League in the New Yorker. I could only smile when he reported the response of a fellow alum when asked where he had gone to college:

There was, first of all, that strange initial reluctance to talk about the matter of college at all—a glance downward, a shuffling of the feet, a mumbled mention of Cambridge. “Did you go to Harvard?” I would ask. I had just moved to the United States. I didn’t know the rules. An uncomfortable nod would follow. Don’t define me by my school, they seemed to be saying, which implied that their school actually could define them. And, of course, it did. Wherever there was one Harvard graduate, another lurked not far behind, ready to swap tales of late nights at the Hasty Pudding, or recount the intricacies of the college-application essay, or wonder out loud about the whereabouts of Prince So-and-So, who lived down the hall and whose family had a place in the South of France that you would not believe. In the novels they were writing, the precocious and sensitive protagonist always went to Harvard; if he was troubled, he dropped out of Harvard; in the end, he returned to Harvard to complete his senior thesis. Once, I attended a wedding of a Harvard alum in his fifties, at which the best man spoke of his college days with the groom as if neither could have accomplished anything of greater importance in the intervening thirty years. By the end, I half expected him to take off his shirt and proudly display the large crimson “H” tattooed on his chest. What is this “Harvard” of which you Americans speak so reverently?

Having just gone to a wedding where my college crew was out in full force, the sentiment seemed particularly vivid. My classmates stand out the most in my memory and whatever formaula that Haravrd used to choose us, it has served me well in life. I have called it the gift that keeps on giving or compared it to Tide. Tide may not be the best detergent, but everyone has heard of it.

Itunes to the Rescue

In an effort to recover from recruting shortfalls the Army National Guard turns to Itunes of all things. I find the juxtaposition of Itunes and the Army National Guard a commentary on something-- society, youth culture, technology, desperation. Or maybe it's just a joke. I can't quite figure it out.

RIP, August Wilson

One of the best American playwrights since Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams has died.

Wilson created an epic ten-play cycle chronicling the experiences of African Americans in the twentieth century. His command of language made his words into music.

No Good Deed

I have always beleived that no one does anything that she doesn't get something out of, and now there's research to support my misanthropic conclusions. The New York Times reports:

The selfishness may just be part of our wiring. Biologists were long stumped by altruism in animals because it didn't seem to make evolutionary sense. Creatures like the altruistic vampire bat, it was theorized, would eventually be wiped out of the gene pool because forgoing consumption to aid a fellow in need would reduce their own chance of survival and reproduction. This would leave only selfish bats.

But biologists have found that this only appears to be a paradox. They observed that altruistic animals tend to be more helpful with their own family or clan, which have a higher chance of sharing these altruistic genes. Researchers also found that altruistic animals engage in tit-for-tat strategies: generous to those who are generous back, but withholding from the selfish.

Declare Victory, and Leave

Seems that a change of rhetoric is in the air:

The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment of the military situation in public comments and sworn testimony this week: The 149,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem.

Don't Go to Disney World

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence begins an advertising assault against Florida's "shoot first" law that goes into effect tomorrow.

Money Can't Buy You...

Of course I would find it absolutely hilarious that British Lotto winner, Michael Carroll, revels in irritating his neighbors with his behavior and maintaining his class pretensions, despite his serenditous wealth. The New York Times reports that he is called the "King of the Chavs."

Chav behavior - outrageous spending sprees, drunken brawls, inappropriate public displays of affection, screaming matches with loved ones in bars, destruction of property, late-night stumbling and/or vomiting - provide celebrity magazines here with much of their material. Among British women, Coleen McLoughlin, the girlfriend of the soccer star Wayne Rooney, is seen as a celebrity chav.

Ha! Take That!

Being called vindictive and partisan by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog. -- Ronnie Earle (John H) (From KOS)

What I Learned in Senegal

"To be a woman in Africa," Dr. Waaldijk said as he stitched her last sutures, "is truly a terrible thing."

The New York Times reports on just one of the hardships that African women endure-- fistulas, that along with polygamy, fgm, poverty, and disease just to start a list. It seems to me that whenever one hears about any part of Africa in the media it is bad news, and having traveled to Senegal this summer I understand why. They say that travel opens one's eyes and changes one's views, perhaps even makes one more compassionate, but I left Senegal something of a social darwinist.

A Matter of Honor

An Army Ian Captain frustrated by the confused standards on treatment of prisoners writes to Senator John McCain:

Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. I and troops under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is a tragedy. I can remember, as a cadet at West Point, resolving to ensure that my men would never commit a dishonorable act; that I would protect them from that type of burden. It absolutely breaks my heart that I have failed some of them in this regard.

That is in the past and there is nothing we can do about it now. But, we can learn from our mistakes and ensure that this does not happen again. Take a major step in that direction; eliminate the confusion.

Lest We Not Forget, "The Army does not tolerate detainee abuse."

Bad Apple, Army Pfc. Lynndie England, received three years for her role in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and despite the claims that there was no official sanction, Human Rights Watch reports new claims of abuse.

According to U.S. Army Captain Ian Fishback who called Human Rights Watch, the army was not holding up its own values.

Central to Fishback's reasoning in pursuing the abuse matter is the "Cadet Honor Code" he studied before graduating from West Point in 2001. It says, "A cadet shall not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

In his personal chronology, he wrote, "Bottom line: I am concerned that the Army is deliberately misleading the American people about detainee treatment within our custody."

Everybody Hates Chris

Yahoo has the entire first episode of the new sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris" on its website.

The Problem with Metaphors

In a radio address back in the lazy hazy days of August, a couple of days before Hurricane Katrina seemed to wipe such hopeful pipe dreams away, George bush told the nation:

Like our own nation's founders over two centuries ago, the Iraqis are grappling with difficult issues, such as the role of the federal government.

Soon after Billmon suggested that if one wanted to make that analogy then one might actually wan to look at the differing circumstances, the occupation being just one issue.

The men who met in Philadelpha in the summer of 1787 were the winners of a protracted revolutionary struggle for national independence -- not the leaders of a collection of squabbling ethnic and religious factions, many of whom spent years in exile and then rode back into their native land on the backs of foreign tanks. The framers of the U.S. constitution expelled an occupying army. The founders of the New Iraq are guarded by one.

And now Retired Marine General Joseph Hoar turns the metaphor on its head:

And the answer was that Ho Chi Minh won as long as he didn’t lose, and these guys are in the same category. They are on an entirely different track than we are. This is the George Washington plan: don’t get decisively engaged, hang in there, sooner or later events are going to change and the foreign invaders are going to lose. (Think Progess)

Beware, the Dolphins Are Coming

Reading a Guardian article about a group of trained attack dolphins who had been liberated from their pens by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina gave me one of those twilight zone moments.

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

No maybe about it as far as I am concerned.

CNN Asks the Essential Question

Operation Yellow Elephant has found supporters in unsuspected places.

Where, when you so desperately need them, are all the youthful neo-cons who thought Mr. Bush's war of choice was so historically peachy-keen? (CNN)

Norman Mailer Sounds Off On Iraq

Even two years later his critique still resonates. The thing about Mailer is that he doesn't pull any punches. His langauge is brutal hisare scathing. He asks, "why did we go to war?" And answers, in terms not like those used to justify the zeal with which young European men joined ht efighting in the First World War:

And there were other factors for using our military skills, minor but significant these reasons return us to the ongoing malaise of the white American male. He had been taking a daily drubbing over the last thirty years. For better or worse, th women's movement has had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white mal ego has withered in the glare. Even the consolation of rooting for his team on TV ha been skewed. For many, there was now measurably less reward in watching sport than there used to be, a clear and declarable loss. The great white stars of yesteryear were for the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and half gone in baseball. Black genius now prevailed in all these sports (and the Hispanics were coming up fast; even the Asians were beginning to make their mark). We white men were now left with half of tennis (at least its male half), and might also point to ice hockey, skiing, soccer, golf (with the notable exception of the Tiger), as well as lacrosse, track, swimming, and the World Wrestling Federation—remnants of a once great and glorious white athletic centrality.

The Video Revolution

For someone who quite clearly remembers the earliest videos on MTV , the home grown remix, provides objects of intense fascination. First the remade song, now the remade vide. Here are two post-Katrina examples, one for Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends, and the other for the Legendary KO's George Bush Doesn't Like Black People.

Phil Donohue v. Bill O'Reilly

In the pre-Oprah days Donohue was the talk show host guy. I have no idea what he has been doing since his show ended, but he has resurfaced as an articulate voice of the left. Donohue hols his own and cuts through O'Reilly's Bluster to get some strong points and some digs of his own.

Americablog gives a nose-on description:

You gotta love how well Donohue handles himself. Calling O'Reilly "Billy." Woosh. It's almost not worth commenting on. O'Reilly pretty much concedes the war was a big mistake, has become a big mess, but then says it's "noble" for our boys to stay over there to ensure that Iraqis have a chance at freedom.

Video at Crooks and Liars

Here We Go Again

The Houston Chronicle has a Hurricane Rita blog with stories from the ground.

Disaster Tourism

I admit that since Katrina I have been meaning to get my disaster kit togther, a sort of bourgeois dread mediated by shopping at Costco...

"Because let's be honest. Disaster preparedness is mostly for the middle and upper classes. It is for the informed and the educated, the credit carded and the disposable incomed, the newspaper subscribers and registered voters and people who keep a spare pair of Timberland boots in the trunk of the Range Rover, just in case." (SFGate)

The Music of New Orleans

At Aurgasm.

I Remember Bobby Sands (1954-1981)

Bobby Sands died on May 1, 1981, in a British prison after a 65-day-long hunger strike to protest the conditions under which Irish political prisoners were held. Nine other IRA prisoners died before the hunger strike ended on October 3, 1981. Just a few weeks earlier the imprisoned Sands had been elected MP in a special election. Bobby Sands became a symbol of the IRA and his death gained media attention through out the world. His funeral drew a hundred thousand mourners.

Sands kept a secret diary for the first 17 days of his hunger strike, he had to hide the paper and the pen in his body cavities.

In his last entry he wrote:

I was thinking today about the hunger-strike. People say a lot about the body, but don't trust it. I consider that there is a kind of fight indeed. Firstly the body doesn't accept the lack of food, and it suffers from the temptation of food, and from other aspects which gnaw at it perpetually.

The body fights back sure enough, but at the end of the day everything returns to the primary consideration, that is, the mind. The mind is the most important.

But then where does this proper mentality stem from? Perhaps from one's desire for freedom. It isn't certain that that's where it comes from.

If they aren't able to destroy the desire for freedom, they won't break you. They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show.

It is then we'll see the rising of the moon.

I was eleven years old when Bobby Sands died. I knew nothing about the IRA, their concerns, their demands or their tactics, but his protest, his steadfastness in the face of death, and his death itself burned into my memory. I was left with a lifelong sympathy for the IRA.

When I read that a large percentage Guantanamo Prisoners have begun a hunger strike, I remember Bobby Sands.

Is FEMA secretly running the war in Iraq?

Billmon on point again:

You may recall that in early August six Marine snipers were ambushed and wiped out in Anbar province, near the insurgent-infested city of Haditha. It was a humiliating blow -- Marine snipers are supposed to hunt, not be hunted -- although it was quickly overshadowed by an even bigger humiliation when 14 Marines riding in an antiquated amphibious vehicle (in the middle of the desert!) were blown up in the same neighborhood.

But the destruction of those Marine sniper teams may have been even more ominous than it appeared at the time. Military analyst William Lind, who has excellent sources inside the Corps, says he's been told that the snipers were attacked and killed by the Iraqi unit they were attached to.

Lind also says he's not been able to confirm that report. But if it's true -- or if other Marines even think its true -- the implications for Iraqification are stark. How do you "stand up" an Army when you can't risk turning your back on the troops once they stand up? As Lind says:

When did irony leave the building?

Now there's a new conservative comic book, with felons as heroes! You just can't make this stuff up.

"LIBERALITY FOR ALL #1 It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City...And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations dominated ultra-liberalism. "

It's all about asking the right questions...

Please stop fetishising integration. Equality is what we really need (The Guardian)

Where race is concerned there are, it seems, some words that just don't go together. No matter how many young drunken white men beat each other up over the weekend, there is no such thing as white-on-white crime. No matter how many non-white people flee inner-city neighbourhoods for better schools and services, there is no such thing as "black flight". And no matter how bitter their ethnic divides, white people never engage in "tribal conflict".

Prince Harry: Leading from the Front

"I hope I would not drag my sorry arse through Sandhurst . . . I would not have joined if they had said I could not be in the front line. The last thing I would want to do is for my soldiers to be sent away to Iraq and have me held back at home twiddling my thumbs, thinking what about David, what about Derek or whatever."

Perhaps he could send a note to Jenna and Barbara.

It's All About the Coffee

When Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice isn't buying shoes, she talks with Bill O'Reilly about Iraq. See the video at Crooks and Liars.

Kanye West, The Remix

Click here to listen to the track.

"The cockroaches come out at night"

Just a quote from Dean Nugent, of the Louisiana State Coroner's Department, speaking about the residents of a predominantly black and poor neighborhood in Louisiana, that he was visiting for the first tiem as part of the governmental efforts to recover dead bodies in New Orleans.

Signs Turned to Wonders

"Fuck Bush They Fucking Left Us Here Them Bitches Flooded Us . . . Them Bitches Killed Our People."

The LA Weekly reports that the slogan above was scrawled on the walls of a Houston shelter where displaced New Orleans residents currently reside. It reveals the anger and the disappointment that those folks feel, but it reveals a darker edge that the article also illuminates, a sense that it was not just neglect but deliberate malice and action that flooded New Orleans. Such conspiracy stories make sense in communities that have suffered official neglect for generation.

It seemed to many of the poorer and darker folks whose lives and homes were destroyed ithe wakeke of the storm that the authorities didn't step in until it was too late to help them, and when they arrived it was with rifles drawn to protect the rubble rather than to aid the needy. The National Guard filed in accompanied by the Blackhawk mercenaries-- the new Team America.

"It had become Bush's Baghdad on the Bayou, except that there were no insurgents to speak of."

Ouch! The Rude Pundit on Barbara Bush

Katrina Proves Liberals Were Right All Along

"She's a vicious old kooz, so calmly, mesmerizingly mean that daisies curl their petals for safety and male dogs cower in the corner for fear of losing their balls whenever she walks the streets."

A Headline to Remember

How Bush Blew It
Newsweek, Sept. 19, 2005 issue

Embarrassed!

The parallels bewteen Katrina and Iraq continue:

If anything I`m kind of embarrassed,' said an officer. 'We`re supposed to be telling the Iraqis how to act and this is what`s happening at home?'

And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short

When the social contract fails:

But nothing, in the plethora of grim tales of disaster, compares with a terrible incident recounted to me as the week drew to a close. There was a 380-pound man stranded on the seventh floor of a New Orleans hospital. Unable to get him down five flights of stairs to the second-floor exit, through which other patients were being evacuated onto rescue boats to escape the rising floodwater, a female manager took a shocking decision. She ordered that he be given euthanasia.

A bearded, middle-aged doctor, who is still wearing his green hospital garb, tells me the sad story as he and his colleagues sit at the muddy, squalid refugee-receiving post on New Orleans' I10 Highway. He does not want to give me his name and will not identify the patient out of respect.

But he wants people to know what happened in there. His lower jaw quivers as he recalls the events of Wednesday night.

"We had minutes to get out, and I asked, 'What are we going to do about this guy, because he's a big man. It was going to be tough getting him down those stairs - the elevators weren't working. That woman turned to me and said straight out, 'We're going to help him to heaven'. It makes me want to break down, how that man's life was taken away."

My Two Cents

Just reading about all that has gone on in the past week has been exhausting, I cannot imagine the horror of living through it and surviving. We know that there was lawlessness, but it seems to me that most of the folks in New Orleans just wanted to get out alive, and a few people are not an excuse for blaming the victim or callousness.

While I don't doubt that the lacksidaisical and incompetent way that this crisis was handled by the Federal Government had to do with the value placed on the lives of those who are black poor (and who give neither money nor votes to the Republican party), the response of the Nation, from the governors and states who opened their borders, their coffers and their resources to those displaced, to those individuals who have been donating money and crying out against the indifference of the Cheney administration, show that the United States has come a long way, and that regardless of separations of race, region or class we can see one another in each other and that our government's actions withstanding we do care.

We have to keep up the pressure on those in power and we have to drown out the neo-cons, and racists and apologists for Federal Government incompetence. It was the shame of that outrage that forced the Bush puppet show into action and got something started. But we must not forget New Orleans and never let them forget New Orleans either.

An open letter to the President (from the New Orleans Times Picayune):

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Give Us Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Hungry...

Why they didn't all just leave when the evacuation order came down? Poverty limits options, especially in the worst of times. The Washington Post reports:

Living Paycheck to Paycheck Makes Leaving Impossible

"These people look at us and wonder why we stayed behind," said Carmita Stephens. "Well, would they leave their grandparents and children behind? Look around and say, 'See you later'?" She gave a roll of the eyes behind the raised voice.

We have been abandoned by our own country.

Jefferson Parish President, Aaron Broussard, speaks out on Meet the Press:

"The guy who runs this building I´m in, emergency management, he´s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody´s coming to get you. Somebody´s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody´s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody´s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody´s coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night."

Let the Games Begin

With the impending Roberts confirmation and the destruction on New Orleans, the Cheney Administration gets another chance to show what it's made of.

Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies at His Home

Survival

'It reminds me of Baghdad in the worst of times' (The Guardian)

A man walked past the bodies dragging a pallet loaded with big bottles of ginger ale, some plates and a frying pan. To the rest of America watching the tragedy unfold on their televisions, he was one of the looters, denounced by President Bush.

But to the people inside the convention centre, he was one of a band of heroes keeping them alive. "The people who were going into the stores would give us water and food, said Edna Harris, Henry Carr's aunt. "There would be ladies with babies and they had no milk, and these guys would break in and bring them milk."

Leadership, Again

Putting aside a long history of differences, Fidel offered a ship load of 1100 medical doctors to help out in New Orleans.

Whose Reality Is It?

FEMA Director Brown seems to have flown in from another planet. CNN reports:

The big disconnect on New Orleans
The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

Follow the Money

Sooner or later with the Cheney Administration, all roads lead to Halliburton. And by the way where is Dick?

Leadership

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans has been on the front lines of the storm. He speaks plainly and clearly. Transcript at CNN.

Finally, Let's talk about the Elephant

The New York Times and The Washington Post point our what should have been obvious from the beginning.

From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy

If Sept. 11 showed the power of a nation united in response to a devastating attack, Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions."


'To Me, It Just Seems Like Black People Are Marked'

In the South, the issue of race -- black, white -- always seems as ready to come rolling off the tongue as a summer whistle. A black Guard unit, passing them by. Something Carter won't soon forget.

The Face of the Enemy

The End of the World as We Know It?

Just one disater and it all begins to come apart at the seams. Now we have the "Iraqification" of New Orleans. One can only be frightened and horrified to read:

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Compassion

Billmon provides a list of Charitable Organizations.

Intelligent Design?

Since it seems that anything can pass for science these days we need to ask:
But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There?

We've Got Guns, but No Butter

Knowing that New Orleans was built on a flood plain, one can't help but wonder why hadn't the city been better prepared. But it seems that the federal government has had other priorities.

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

Where's Waldo?

Beauty emerges in so many places, and in the simplest of sights. There is nothing like a run while gazing on the rising sun.

Why We Need Military Recruiters on Campus

It's easy to support a war with someone else's life, much harder to do it when your own is on the line. So given the facts, how is it that the Republican Party has gotten the reputation that they are the party that supports the military? They are cheerleaders. Democrats have put it on the line. Here's a list.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The Pentagon employee who spoke out against crony contracts for Halliburton & company, geets demoted. Hmmm...

Army Contract Official Critical of Halliburton Pact is Demoted

Branding

Troops' Gravestones Have Pentagon Slogans

Family Reunion

Back when my family still went to the zoo, they always told me that the monkeys were my cousins. So, I always wondered, why we weren't in cages too. The London zoo gets the family back together.

At London Zoo, Homo Sapiens Is Just Another Primate Species

The Truth Hurts

So this is what happens when you call a spade a spade.

Woman files complaint over doctor's advice to lose weight.

Gold Star Mother

Cindy Sheehan, Back at Camp Casey.

Because Women Can Do Anything

Love My Rifle More than You
Young and Female in the U.S. Army
by Kayla Williams

Can't wait to get started on this one!