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READING

Silent Coup: The Removal of a President - Len Colodny & Robert Gettlin

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin (free online version/download here)

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STOP TERRORISM

ABBREVIATIONS FOR SITES I OFTEN STEAL NEWS ITEMS FROM:

og = J Orlin Grabbe
u = Progressive Review's Undernews
a = Antiwar

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Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia

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Just consider what current events will sound like two thousand years from now -- the greatest nation on Earth bombing some of the smallest and weakest for no clear reasons, people starving in parts of the world while farmers are paid not to plant crops in others, technophiles sitting at home playing electronic golf rahter than the real thing, and police forces ordered to arrest people who simply desire to ingest a psychoactive weed. People of that era will also likely laugh it all off as fantastic myths...

It is time for those who desire true freedom to exert themselves -- to fight back against the forces who desire domination through fear and disunity.

This does not have to involve violence. It can be done in small, simple ways, like not financing that new Sport Utility Vehicle, cutting up all but one credit card, not opting for a second mortgage, turning off that TV sitcom for a good book, asking questions and speaking out in church or synagogue, attending school board and city council meetings, voting for the candidate who has the least money, learning about the Fully Informed Jury movement and using it when called -- in general, taking responsibility for one's own actions. Despite the omnipresent advertising for the Lotto -- legalized government gambling -- there is no free lunch. Giving up one's individual power for the hope of comfort and security has proven to lead only to tyranny.

from Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs

* * * *

You had to take those pieces of paper with you when you went shopping, though by the time I was nine or ten most people used plastic cards. . .It seems so primitive, totemistic even, like cowry shells. I must have used that kind of money myself, a little, before everything went on the Compubank.

I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been portable money, it would have been more difficult.

It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.

I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.

. . . Things continued on in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual.

from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

* * * *

By the time Oscar reached the outskirts of Washington, DC, The Louisiana air base had benn placed under siege.

The base's electrical power supply had long since been cut off for lack of payment. The aircraft had no fuel. The desperate federal troops were bartering stolen equipment for food and booze. Desertion was rampant. The air base commander had released a sobbing video confession and had shot himself.

Green Huey had lost patience with the long-festering scandal. He was moving in for the kill. Attacking and seizing an federal air base with his loyal state militia would have been entirely too blatant and straightforward. Instead the rogue Governor employed proxy guerrillas.

Huey had won the favor of nomad prole groups by providing them with safe havens. He allowed them to squat in Louisiana's many federally declared contamination zones. These forgotten landscapes were tainted with petrochemical effluent and hormone-warping pesticides, and were hence officially unfit for human settlement. The prole hordes had different opinions on that subject.

Proles cheerfully grouped in any locale where conventional authority had grown weak. Whenever the net-based proles were not constantly harassed by the authorities, they coalesced and grew ambitious. Though easily scattered by focused crackdowns, they regrouped as swiftly as a horde of gnats. With their reaping machines and bio-breweries, they could live off the land at the very base of the food chain. They had no stake in the established order, and they cherished a canny street-level knowledge of society's infrastructural weaknesses. They made expensive enemies. . .

Louisiana's ecologically blighted areas were ideal for proles. The disaster zones were also impromptu wildlife sanctuaries, since wild animals found chemical fouling much easier to survive than the presence of human beings. After decades of wild subtropical growth, Louisiana's toxic dumps were as impenetrable as Sherwood Forest.

from Distraction by Bruce Sterling

and s-integrator

Saturday, May 25, 2002

Music Mobsters sue Audiogalaxy.

5:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Late childbirths mean the "risk of DNA extinction". Is it just me, or does this strike anyone else as being profoundly silly?

5:48 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Oh my...
An attempt to honour a dead baseball fan's last wish went horribly wrong on Friday, forcing the evacuation of Safeco Field, the home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, amid fears of a bio-terror attack.

A small private plane swooped low over the stadium shortly after 1000 (1700 GMT) and was seen dropping a package, which exploded on impact spraying the area with a mystery white powder.

Officials feared a terrorist attack, and evacuated the stadium and nearby streets and offices.

But in reality the package contained the ashes of a devout Mariners fan who had wanted his remains cast over the field.

11:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

pootypootpootypootpootypoot
A small but determined group of anti-U.S. demonstrators followed President Bush around St. Petersburg on Saturday until its leaders were shoved into a van by plainclothes security personnel and driven away.

A few hundred Communists, nationalists and anti-globalization activists protested Bush's visit at rallies in the center of the city. About two dozen people followed Bush to St. Petersburg State University, where some of them broke through a police line and were quickly detained.

The small size of the protests contrasted starkly with the situation in Berlin, where some 20,000 anti-war demonstrators greeted Bush. Anti-U.S. views are widespread in Russia, and the protests' organizers attributed the small turnout to a lack of free-speech traditions.

[...]

The police dragged protesters, including several who had not attempted to cross the line, to an unmarked van, which drove away. A man in plain clothes who identified himself as an anti-organized crime officer said eight people had been detained.

Earlier, about 200 demonstrators, mostly elderly Communists, lined Nevsky Prospekt, the city's main thoroughfare. They held banners reading "U.S. President George Bush is terrorist No. 1 on Planet Earth" and "Bush: Hands off Russia!"

A younger crowd of activists - including those who later were detained at the university - rallied against what they called U.S. ambitions of world domination and against Russia's warm ties with the United States. [link] [emphasis added]

8:19 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, May 24, 2002

It was a small courtroom near the Pyrennees that, in the last few days of 1997, put France's successful new local currency on the map. Three locals, all of them born and bred in the UK -- Sarah Two, Roger Evans and John MacCullough -- were on trial in the local court in Foix, in the rural Ariege departement, for what the prosecutor called "working illegally".

It wasn't that they were illegal immigrants or anything -- these are, after all, the days of the EU Single Market. Their crime was to have been paid for work using a local homegrown do-it-yourself money.

The men had repaired Sarah's roof, but they hadn't been paid in francs -- the "acceptable" currency recognised by the global economy. They had been paid with 2,000 "grains of salt", the local currency organised by a growing movement in France known as SEL, French for salt but also the acronym of the Societe d'Echanges Local.

Maybe it was because Sarah Two was a member of the local vegan collective that she enraged a local farmer -- though she was also a flautist, drum-maker and former postmistress from High Wycombe. Either way, he reported her to the authorities and the three of them were soon facing a tough sentence of up to 248 hours of community service.

"This kind of behaviour upsets traditional structures and institutionalises a parallel economy," said the lawyer representing an angry federation of local builders. "It is destructive to our entire political and social system." [link]
Perhaps we'll soon see alt.currencies in the US too?

12:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

India and Pakistan: water is already an issue worth fighting for -- even with nuclear weapons.

12:03 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

29 year-old Get Your War On's David Rees.
"When I made a strip about people getting blown up trying to retrieve food aid packages, it felt like a wave of relief just swept through me, like I was finally looking at the comic I had been searching for, or like I had summed up all the pain and absurdity I had been feeling using these three little stupid cartoon panels," Rees said. "It was a powerful moment."

[...]

Rees says he started "Get Your War On" when he became agitated by current events and, in the country's criticism-is-unpatriotic climate, he couldn't find anyone willing to joke about how bad the situation was getting.

{...]

In another strip, workers on a coffee break discuss the president's motivations for launching a war. "How psyched is George W. Bush to defeat Saddam Hussein for his dad?" a male worker asks.

A female co-worker, brandishing a donut, responds: "I wish I could do something like that for my dad! George H.W. Bush is gonna be SO damn proud of his son! He'll probably put Saddam's death certificate on the fridge! I was a C student!"

After Sept. 11, as the news became grimmer, readers may have noticed Rees' officeworkers growing progressively more erratic. Allusions to alcohol and drug consumption peppered the strip, limning the depressed, ennui-drenched state of a "nation in crisis." When one officeworker asks another how he's "enduring his freedom," his friend responds: "OK, I guess. I drink myself into a stupor every night. I can't get out of bed because I'm afraid of what I'll hear on the radio. My daughter is still wetting her bed. And I'm supposed to fly to Chicago for a meeting on Thursday."

"That's what I like to hear!" responds his interlocutor, in a Prozac-induced haze.
Along with The Onion's Sept 11th issue, hands down the most trenchant/poignant satire since The Event.

12:02 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Early 19th century painter Samuel Palmer's vibrant and sensual work in Kent presages Van Gogh's work of 50 years later.

12:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sen Russ Feingold interview.
One of the interesting stories in this--and this is one that a lot of progressives don't want to hear, but it's the truth--is that John Ashcroft gave me a call and said, what are your concerns? And I told him my concerns about the computer stuff and sneak and peek searches. He said, you know, I think you might be right. The White House overruled him, which is a fundamental point here. Anyone who wants to focus their fire on Ashcroft is missing the point. This is the Bush Administration. Ashcroft is its instrument.

What happened in the Senate was that even though the Attorney General was going to allow these changes to make it moderately better, the Administration insisted, and Daschle went along with pushing this through. I finally got to offer the amendments late at night, and I got up there and I made my arguments. And a lot of Senators came around to me, who, of course, voted for the bill, and said, you know, I think you're right. Then Daschle comes out and says, I want you to vote against this amendment and all the other Feingold amendments; don't even consider the merits. This was one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation relating to the Bill of Rights in the history of our country! It was a low point for me in terms of being a Democrat and somebody who believes in civil liberties. [link]

12:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

West Chicago, a mostly Hispanic Chicago suburb, has taken up the long, difficult but seemingly effective tool of civil injunctions to combat gangs. It's easy to see how this could be abused, but it seems to be working, and everything depends on the corruptibility of the accusers.

11:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Read this tortured account of Bush and Schroeder greeting each other. The two men so obviously are repelled by each other, and uncomfortable with public contact in general.

11:58 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

...there is a welter of material that points to the Bush Administration's obstruction and neglect of important leads to link bin Laden to operations in the United States. Moreover, in the months and weeks leading up to 9/11 there were warnings and signs that some members of the Administration and its national security apparatus were anticipating something horrendous. In the aftermath of 9/11 the Bush Administration mobilized the war machine and repressive legislation to promote policies that secured its economic and ideological agenda. Thus, a more intriguing and significant question is: in light of what the Bush Administration gained from the fall-out of 9/11, how was that gain embedded in the actions and inactions by the Bush Administration prior to 9/11? To ask the question about the reaping of political advantage from the tragedy of 9/11 need not assume that there was a conspiracy by the Bush Administration; merely that certain players acted out of their personal interests at the expense of the safety and security of the nation. [link]
Fran Shor's brief toward an investigation of negligence and personal interest on the Bush Administration's part re 9/11.

11:55 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, May 23, 2002

Some reprieve for webcasters.

2:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Berlin protesters "out to lunch" and "mostly tame". WTF? shrub the Lion Tamer? This is journalism?

2:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Twenty-nine million gallons of petroleum escapes into North American ocean waters each year because of human activities or carelessness, yet only a tiny fraction of that environmentally devastating pollution is due to pipeline ruptures or massive oil tanker spills.

Instead, nearly 85 percent of those spills of gasoline and oil involve land-based runoffs from cars and trucks, fuel dumping by commercial airplane pilots and emissions from small boats and jet skis, according to a study released today by the National Academies' National Research Council. [link]
Is this a blind for the oil industry, to make spills look less damaging? I can't find much about the National Academies other than they were originally funded by the gov't in 1863.

11:08 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Dell is going to start selling recycled PCs this fall - employing prisoners through Unicor, a government agency. [U]

12:12 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Senate committee finally gets fed up with shrub's indifference, subpoenas Enron contacts info.

shrub whines, "But I'm Fighting A War! I AM! I AM!" *sound of foot stomping repeatedly*

Then again, how many Democrats hands are clean of Enron contacts?

11:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

In poor neighborhoods, things go better if you drink your Coke real fast.

10:21 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

US threatens Canada with trade sanctions if pot laws are liberalized, which is being discussed now in Canadian Parliament. [nd]

11:51 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Cheryl Seal on shrub's 9/11 culpability.
Another action that must be considered in the cold hard light of day is Bush's behavior after 9/ 11. He seized upon national fears, worked at intensifying them, and immediately, without waiting for Congress or serious discussions with other nations, called for an attack on Afghanistan and a global war on terrorism. At the same time, he worked through John Ashcroft with stunning swiftness to dismantle civil liberties. These are not the actions of a leader who wants to keep his nation calm, reassured, and standing tall in its principles in the wake of tragedy. It is the actions of an opportunist who knows, from watching his father's presidency, that the window of opportunity for consolidating his power will be narrow: Bush Sr.'s approval rating high lasted only a few months).

Last, why would Bush admit to having been warned about 9/11 in the first place? In the corporate and political world, this admission is a strategy that has been used over and over by creeps who are guilty of huge crimes and know the heat is on. By confessing to a lesser charge, they try to draw the heat away from the main, more dangerous issue. Ken Lay, the head of Anderson, and every criminal who has ever copped or tried to cop a plea bargain have used this ploy. If Bush were innocent of any complicity in 9/11, why should he make ANY statement? It is always the guilty who feel the need to make statements: "I am not a crook!" "I never had sex with that woman!" Or how about that row of tobacco industry CEO's who all swore that none of them knew their product was harmful or addictive?

11:33 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

This article claims the photographer that died from anthrax in Florida was the one who took the pics of Bush's daughters being drunk. Anyone know? I'm not sure about shrub being behind the bioattacks, which is her conclusion.

11:09 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Jordanian and Moroccan intelligence warned the US about al-Qaeda plans for an attack too.

10:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

New Cronenberg film Spider premieres at Cannes.

6:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Alternet's 4-part series by Stephen Pizzo on Godfather of the House Tom DeLay -- who may soon take over Dick Armey's House Majority Leader position.
Nothing like DeLay's laissez-faire policies have been heard in Congress since the earliest days of America's industrial revolution when robber baron industrialists saw cheap labor as an indispensable ingredient for growth. A financial journalist (who asked that his name not be used in this report) described DeLay's free-market policies this way:

"If there were a capitalist equivalent of the Taliban, Tom DeLay would lead it. He has hijacked a kind of Reaganesque free-market rhetoric to turn back the clock on such laws as those protecting workers and the environment, and those that require transparency in business dealing. His policies have enriched and benefited a handful of powerful corporate and political insiders who in turn, have fueled his political machine."

Millions of words have been written over the last decade detailing Tom DeLay's many controversial friends and policies -- most recently his strong ties to Enron. But even the most shocking of these revelations has failed to stop or even slow his rise to power within his party and Congress.
I remember him particularly from Bill Moyers' show on the influence of lobbyists a few years ago. Very scary individual.

4:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Alternet on strange bedfellows liberals and libertarians.
ACLU president Nadine Strossen once described Cato's creed as, "Turn right at money, turn left at sex, and straight ahead is utopia." The fact that the Left and libertarians share common ground is hardly news to Cato's executive vice-president David Boaz. Hundreds of dyed-in-wool lefties gathered to hear Boaz speak last month at the annual convention of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) -- and no one was booing.

Boaz has been a board member of NORML for years, working closely with progressive icons like Barbara Ehrenreich and Keith Stroup. "We've known about these areas for some time," he says, rattling off a list of other issues, including free speech, the rights of accused and immigration. Their "no borders" position made Cato a natural ally for Latino and immigrant rights groups, which worked together through the 90s to soften INS regulations.

But if Cato turns left on a lot more than just sex, it doesn't make its swings to the right any less alarming. Its blind devotion to the Market puts most religious fanatics to shame. Libertarians have opposed virtually every piece of environmental regulation, mercilessly attacked public welfare, and are every multinational's best friend. "They take a hyper-individualistic position," says Paul Ray, author of the book "Cultural Creatives."
I took that quiz last year testing your political hybrid and turned up left/libertarian like a lot of people online. But like everyone, since 9/11, I'm finding that I have to define my political self more comprehensively than even hybrid labels allow. I'm all for individual responsibility, but I don't think you can call a society civilized if there isn't health care for everyone, a truly livable wage (in the US, $13.50 to start), and unless citizens have more power than -- and oversight of -- corporations.

After that, I'm as libertarian as you please...

4:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Berliners don't like Shrub, but the Local Ringwraiths are corralling everyone from the Cowboys for Peace to the mayor to put on The Happy Face.

12:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The New Cola War US policy re Israel brings new cola to Bahrain, whose government staunchly supports the US.

10:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Counter to US swag about Pim Fortuyn being LePenesque. I'd still like to know more, but the reaction of the Dutch seems to support Mr Curry's view. [via The Boulder Inquisition]

1:41 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

From CSM:
A 10-year, $12 billion project to halt the spread of deserts that threaten China's economic boom was announced by the Beijing government, which called it the largest such effort in history. Officials said 170,000 square miles would be planted in trees. Only 16 percent of China remains forested, although that total includes fruit orchards. Vast areas have been logged to meet the demand for timber to help grow the economy, which has contributed to droughts, flooding, erosion, and other ecological damage.
China's environmental record is horrendous. Hopefully they're finally getting the message -- before Beijing goes the way of the Uighur capital.

1:25 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Lavender, thyme, rosemary and oregano are all members of the mint family.

Didn't know that.

1:20 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

It's perfectly acceptable to introduce people to your blue streak and ironic tie collection after about Week 4 on the job. Image consultants --"a mix of Martha Stewart and Carl Jung" -- will eye your "hue family" and help you "forget about how you look" for $80/hour.

1:11 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

I'm a bit late posting this, but...

The Supreme Court is earning back a little respect after its shameful part in the 2000 côup d'état by curbing the Orwellian excesses of Ashcroft et al post-9/11.
Some of the Justice Department's most aggressive tactics in its legal war against terror are getting knocked down in court. Experts suggest that through recent court decisions, the judiciary is recalibrating the balance between government secrecy and individual rights ? a balance set inthe massive federal investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In recent weeks, judges have ordered the government to release the names of those detained on immigration charges, opened deportation hearings to the public, and ruled that suspects can't be held as material witnesses during grand-jury investigations.

1:01 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, May 20, 2002

For I Seek Access To The PolicyG Reflector, Being Of The Body... These um BPDG guys, Who Are Deciding The Future Of Art, Ownership, And Technology In The Digital Age, sent me this email upon my request to be added to their mailing list. (I got the address from boing boing.) Do you even need to know more?
Dear Mr. Osse,

You have requested to be added to both the bpdg-tech and policyg reflector and we are looking forward to fulfilling your request. As there are many participants representing many companies and or origination it is important that each percipient know who they are corresponding to. To fulfill your request please provide us your name, company name and or origination you represent and what title or job you hold.

This information helps us announce your addition to the reflector.

By participating on this reflector your are agreeing to the following policies and practices:

(M)eetings of CPTWG and its sub-groups are intended to provide for open and frank discussion of technical issues. Engineers and other participants should feel free to bring up ideas, however preliminary, without concern for having statements attributed to them or their companies in the press. This consideration carries more weight than the generally public nature of CPTWG meetings, as CPTWG (and by extension BPDG) is not a formal decision-making body.

Therefore under our established rules and practices, no individual of the press are to be added to the BPDG-Tech reflector. Members of the press can, of course, feel free to directly approach anybody for the purposes of an interview on the subject of CPTWG and its sub-groups (or any other subject that they feel is relevant), and are encouraged
to do so.

As a participant of the BPDG-Tech reflector you agree that you will not publish any information accessed on the reflector and in particular will not publish quotes from anyone posting messages on the reflector. [my emphasis]

Best regards,
Dwayne Hickman
33rd degree Grand Badger of the Blue Cloak
As I am a Reverend of The Powerhouse Church of The Presumptuous Assumption, I'm sure My Credentials are Beyond Reproach and My Purview Comprehensive.

The Spice Must Flow...

I did not say this. I am not here.

11:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Even the pro-Israeli DEBKAfile site says a more open intelligence community in the US is better than the tightly controlled and arrogant position now in effect.
The lax response of which the Bush administration is accused comes under the traditional hands-off attitude of American presidents towards the hot potato of intelligence and its ingrained habit of murkiness and mystification.

This habit, traditionally exploited by internal enemies, including al Qaeda's secret helpers, no longer fits the needs of the hour. A healthier openness is necessary to fight global terror. Terrorism at home, in particular, cannot be fought without public vigilance and the public will not be vigilant if it is uninformed.

4:08 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Lev Grinberg brings up the interesting point: what is the difference between terrorism and state policy?
Suicide bombs killing innocent citizens must be unequivocally condemned; they are immoral acts, and their perpetrators should be sent to jail. But they cannot be compared to State terrorism carried out by the Israeli Government. The former are individual acts of despair of a people that sees no future, vastly ignored by an unfair and distorted international public opinion. The latter are cold and "rational" decisions of a State and a military apparatus of occupation, well equipped, financed and backed by the only superpower
in the world.

Yet in the public debate, State terrorism and individual suicide bombs are not even considered as comparable cases of terrorism. The State terror and war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli Government are legitimized as "self-defense", while Arafat, even under siege, is demanded to arrest "terrorists."

3:48 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Aside from the whole chemtrails thing, now it appears even contrails affect the weather.

12:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

On the ropes after several prosecutions and the deaths of poobahs New York's Italian mafia wants you.

Be part of an old and respected tradition made glamorous by Hollywood. Extend your bloody palm for The Burning Saint today!

12:14 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, May 19, 2002

At least David Lynch is appreciated in France.

10:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Computers can now put words in your mouth.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are scarily good at putting words in your mouth. Really! They've developed technology that can analyze a videotape of someone speaking, "learn" what their mouth looks like when forming certain sounds, and then literally string those sounds together in order to form just about any words you would like the image to say.

Even scarier, they're able to fool the average viewer on a consistent basis, so much so that people are unable to distinguish between the actual person speaking and the animated "copy" speaking. In one demonstration, they were able to take footage of a woman speaking and had her lip-synching to a song in Japanese, a language she does not even speak. [U]

10:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

More evidence that the US is paying a bit more attention beyond its borders: more coursework on world history in schools.

2:02 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

A Papuan independence leader's apparent assassination by the Indonesian military is further alienating this ethnically separate Christian territory from Jakarta, and stressing the relationship between President Sukarnoputri and the army.

Papua has the richest gold mine in the world. Not that that has anything to do with the military's reluctance to allow Papuan independence.

1:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Image downgrade for US business.
Fancy compensation for chief executive officers has come under even heavier fire, forcing a few CEOs to give up a chunk of their pay.

Perhaps most important, many executives are again recognizing at least the practical merits of business integrity. They see the misery the Enron scandal and other scandals have inflicted on bosses ? and employees.

"It's the soul, stupid," Zarb told a group of business students last month.
This is all just so shocking, I think I'm getting The Vapors...

1:33 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Classic Doonesbury: botox. (May 19, if you're catching this late.)

10:34 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

shrub kowtows to Little Havana.
By any normal standards, these moves are perverse. Scarcely any neutral student of Cuba does not believe that US pressure is counterproductive, strengthening Mr Castro as a nationalist who stands up to Yanqui bullying, and diverting attention from his dismal economic and human rights record.

But in US political terms, they make perfect sense. Not only was support from Cuban-Americans crucial for Mr Bush's hair's-breadth victory in Florida, whose 25 (soon to be 27) electoral college votes gave him the presidency in December 2000. It will be no less crucial for younger brother Jeb, Florida's Governor, as he faces a tough re-election battle this autumn.

No matter that, probably thanks to America's very hostility, Mr Castro has been in power longer than any national ruler in the world ? it's more than 43 years since he overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959. The Cuban exile community still cannot stand him, and woe betide anyone who thinks otherwise.

10:28 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The New ~~New York~~ USA.
Listening to these anguished but private complaints suddenly reminded me of the Soviet Union of the Brezhnev era when lower-level officials, journalists and other fringe members of the regime sat around their kitchen tables, expressing their true views only to family and close friends. A far-fetched analogy, of course, until you look at the narrowness of public discussion, not just on Israeli-Palestinian issues, but also on the threatened American attack on Iraq and the administration's war on terrorism in general.

10:22 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Jeez, what a coincidence. Just when shrub is finally beginning to be criticized.

10:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Bush nicknames Russian President "Pooty Poot".

Just the kind of statesman-like move that boosts American prestige the world over. Of course, We Don't Care What the World Thinks anymore.

10:08 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Nice appreciation of The X Files.
"Stylistically, virtually all the dramatic series not on the Big Three [networks] have been influenced by it," says Sidney Sondergard, a professor of English who also specializes in the study of science fiction at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.

"The Sopranos," "Oz," "Six Feet Under," and other shows have "reconceived" the way they tell their stories, Sondergard says. They get into them much faster. "The catalyst often comes even before the titles, a la 'X-Files.' By the time the [opening] credits are over, you have all the backstory you need."

Indeed, one could argue that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Dark Angel," "Alias," "The Agency," and "Roswell," to say nothing of other cult (and occult) shows of the recent past, have been inspired by the mysterious "X-Files," including its dark humor.

[...]

"It was important, too, because it was serialized science fiction - and science fiction had not done very well on networks before it."

But "X-Files" was not the "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" - in which the viewer willingly entered into another "dimension."

"We were always supposed to be dealing with the real world - 'X-Files' took that device from film noir - accept that extraordinary things happen there," says Jim Farrelly, professor of English and media studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

"It gave times and locations. It was the FBI. Then it asked: 'How are you going to explain away these extraordinary things?' 'Twilight Zone' was fantasy. But with 'X-Files,' you were entering 'reality.' "

[...]

When Fox executives demanded closure at the end of episodes, creator Chris Carter's famous response was, "You can't put aliens in handcuffs."

2:34 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

That's one of the great things about living in America: moral superiority is so damned cheap.

-- James Crumley

This country is going so far to the right you won't be able to recognize it.

-- John Mitchell, 1973

Those who think history has left us helpless should recall the abolitionist of 1830, the feminist of 1870, the labor organizer of 1890, or the gay or lesbian writer of 1910. They, like us, did not get to choose their time in history but they, like us, did get to choose what they did with it.

-- Sam Smith

REVIEWS

from Sassafrass (9/23/02)
"Unconventional viewpoints at 'charging the canvas'

Opinions that will ruffle feathers, from someone who clearly knows their way around information and the blogosphere."

Blog of the Day
1/18/02

WEEKLY QUOTE

They tell us it's about race, and we believe them. And they call it a "democracy," and we nod our heads, so pleased with ourselves. We blame the Socias [gangsters], we occasionally sneer at the Paulsons [latest crop of craven pols] but we always vote for the Sterling Mulkerns [good old boys]. And in occasional moments of quasi-lucidity, we wonder why the Mulkerns of this world don't respect us. They don't respect us because we are their molested children. They fuck us morning, noon, and night, but as long as they tuck us in with a kiss, as long as they whisper into our ears, "Daddy loves you, Daddy will take care of you," we close our eyes and go to sleep, trading our bodies, our souls, for the comforting veneers of "civilization" and "security," the false idols of our twentieth century wet dream. And it's our reliance on that dream that the Mulkerns, the Paulsons, the Socias, the Phils, the Heroes of this world depend upon. That's their dark knowledge. That's how they win.

-- Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

In the eyes of posterity it will inevitably seem that, in safeguarding our freedom, we destroyed it; that the vast clandestine apparatus we built up to probe our enemies' resources and intentions only served in the end to confuse our own purposes; that the practice of deceiving others for the good of the state led infallibly to our deceiving ourselves; and that the vast army of intelligence personnel built up to execute these purposes were soon caught up in the web of their own sick fantasies, with disastrous consequences to them and us.

-- Malcolm Muggeridge

NOT IN OUR NAME
(link to list against Iraq War)

charging the canvas

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