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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, June 01, 2002

England is going to pay teens £5 - £40 (about $7 - $58) a week, depending on family income, to stay in school and hopefully go to university instead of dropping out to get a job.

11:10 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Peter Halley talks to Brian Eno about Richard Sennett, why cities are for woman, the benefits of exile and why we need several versions of a book. [sex and sunshine]

10:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Common Courage and the 85 publishers use LPC Group as a distributor for their books. LPC had a loan from the bank, with about $2.7 million outstanding. No publisher had signed onto the loan. Most if not all were unaware that LPC had obtained it. The bank acknowledges that LPC was not behind in loan payments. It recalled the loan after deciding LPC was a bad credit risk, essentially asking publishers to pony up for its own bad business choices.

As with every month, on April 1, LPC deposited a $1.2 million payment it received from an independent warehouse for sales of the publishers' books. Bank One, from documents in its possession, knew at the time that the payment was created from the sale of books owned by the publishers that were with LPC on consignment. It also knew that $1 million of the deposit was due to be sent out to publishers. Nonetheless, it seized the money the day it arrived in LPC's account.

Bank One, still owed $1.4 million, wants money from the next sales as well.

[...]

"I'm not even a customer of the bank," expressed Bates in astonishment. "I never borrowed money from it. I demand that Bank One put the money back immediately. They knew the money didn't belong to them when they took it. The bank is relying on forcing small publishers with shallow pockets to surrender rights to the money. This is like being stuck in the financial equivalent of a Franz Kafka novel," [publisher Greg] Bates said.
If you haven't already, go to the Common Courage Press website and email, donate or whatever. Outrageously gangster-like behavior like this demands an answer.

10:03 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Cynthia Nixon (of Sex and the City) and Russell Simmons' HipHop Action Network are taking on the mayor of NYC this Tuesday. They're calling for parents, students and teachers to march on City Hall to oppose Bloomberg's education budget cuts. [last 3 posts via Undernews]

8:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Smile, you're on "Retail Ethnography" There's mock store in Minneapolis that's really a surveillance lab for monitoring consumers' reactions to products for marketing purposes.

8:02 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The EC's Joint Research Centre has determined that GM crops will make organic farming untenable if the two are cultivated in the same region. Officials tried to suppress the report because of its implications. GM foods are widely considered suspect in Europe, while organics are in ever greater demand.

7:38 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Kathryn Harris book will "debunk myths" about 2000 FLA fiasco.

Oh yeahhhh... Place your order now.

3:26 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

It's hot and dry here in the Southwest. In fact, the forests are mostly closed. Coconino Forest nearby is closed except in the Sedona environs (natch).

2:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Both lie detectors and the new facial recognition technology are questionable surveillance methods at best. Yet there's a concerted effort on the government's part to employ them.

1:28 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The south London borough which is piloting a scheme to treat cannabis offenders more leniently has seen a dramatic drop in the level of street crimes.

The number of robberies and muggings in Lambeth has halved in the last six months, and the latest figures for this month show the trend is continuing. [link]
Can't have that here in the US, now can we?

1:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Heavy manners at the OK bridge collapse site.
"Certainly, the officials in Webbers Falls do not want to create the impression that they don't respect the Constitution or they have created a police state. However, that's what it looks like when they arrest reporters and threaten to arrest members of the news media." [link]

12:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"America has no empire to extend, no utopia to establish."
Bush gave an update on the campaign against terrorism and made a case for taking the fight beyond Afghanistan.

He said those who attacked at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 are waiting to strike again. Such threats must be met aggressively and proactively, and with great force, the president said.

"If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long," Bush said. "America has no empire to extend, no utopia to establish. In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent.

"We know the terrorists have more money, more men and more planes. ... This war will take many turns we cannot predict. But I am sure wherever we carry it, the American flag will stand not only for power, but for freedom."
So I have decided to declare myself Emperor Of All That Is, til Evil Is Banished From The World. Eternal War is Eternal Peace.

The Dark Age Has Begun, and I Am Its Minion.

12:07 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sports are more than just the vestigial remains of militancy among tribes. Soccer has political ramifications in places like Korea and Argentina. [Mother Jones]

11:49 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Bangladesh -- usually known for its devastating floods and sweatshop conditions -- also has a burgeoning middle class, and thus theme parks, Thai disco instructors, supermarkets and Italian restaurants.

But for most Bangladeshis these wonders are beyond their reach. The 10% at the top of the pyramid control nearly 40% of the wealth and half of the country is below the poverty line.

11:44 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Amnesty says US human rights record on par with Cuba's.

11:34 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Two-thirds of Americans are at high risk of cancer because of toxic chemicals in their environment.

4:29 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Office memos as social history.
2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff? (Programming intern, Microsoft IIS development team)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)

10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Long Lines Division)

4:22 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fire-breathing bibles.

See, I just can't tell if this is real or not... because I know it might be, just like with the gay Afghan farmers.

4:20 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Quoting senior government officials, the Times said that an secret internal assessment, "the Director's Report on Terrorism", found that nearly every major FBI field office lacked the staff needed to evaluate and deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda, which Washington now blames for the hijacking attacks that killed more than 3,000 people last year.

But spending increases called for in the document were rejected by the Justice Department. On Sept. 10, Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was not given a copy of the classified report, rejected an FBI request for an additional $58 million for counter-terrorism. [link]
Hmmmm.

4:17 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, May 31, 2002

How your country stands in the Developing Nations Bribery Index compiled by Transparency Int'l.

Australia, Sweden and Canada are among the best. Russia, China, and South Korea among the worst. The US is right in the middle.

5:19 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

freebooknotes.com -- "Cliff Notes" online for 250 classics.

I never used Cliff Notes, being a strange lad who liked to read.

2:30 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Weather modification was and is big business -- and a big weapon, if the miltary has anything to say about it.
In March 1997, Arnold A. Barnes Jr., of John Hopkins University and Phillips Laboratory, described a key element of Full Spectrum Dominance at the U.S. Army's Tecom Test Technology Symposium. In his address, Barnes, a consultant on the Air Force study, calmly outlined the history of the U.S. military's weather modification programs and what would be needed for future "integrated weather modification capabilities."

The good doctor referred to the document "Spacecast 2020," later updated in "Weather As A Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025," which noted, "Atmospheric scientists have pursued terrestrial weather modification in earnest since the 1940s... Space presents us with a new arena, technology provides new opportunities."

[...]

Moreover, Barnes insisted that the weaponization of space is the key to warfare in the 21st century. The U.S. government would later produce a document named "Joint Vision for 2020" under the auspices of the U.S. Space Command outlining plan for "Full Spectrum Dominance." In the years following Barnes' presentation on fully integrating high-tech weather modification into the U.S. military, so-called "chemtrail" sightings have occurred throughout the United States and its Western allies.

Brzezinski predicted: "Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised... Technology of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm."

Meanwhile, the commercial applications of the technology are apparently paying off. Weather Modification Inc. signed a contract with Thailand in 1996 to help "the southeast Asian country get a better grip on its weather" through "cloud modification." In 1997, the Wall Street Journal reported that the government of Malaysia signed a contract with a Russian-owned company to create cyclones to blow pollution out to sea.
Maybe they're farther along than they admit, despite a 1976 UN treaty banning "Hostile Use of Environmental Modification".

2:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

My girlfriend was treated for pre-eclampsia during her pregnancy 26 years ago with magsulf, and it's the only reason she survived. Hard to believe it's just now been proven effective.

12:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Maybe some kids are smart enough to de-school.
But you can't quit, right? I mean, everybody goes to school. Only losers drop out.

Not according to a growing group of teens who choose to educate themselves outside the school system.They call themselves unschoolers, deschoolers and dropouts, among other things. And for different reasons, they drop out of school, despite statistics that suggest that dropping out of school can lead to a financially hard life.

Compared to high school graduates, dropouts are likely to earn less money, collect unemployment, and receive public assistance and be single parents, according to a 1999 report by the U.S. Department of Education?s National Center for Education Statistics.

What these stats don't measure, however, are the teens who thrive when they ditch the school system to take control of their learning process.

[...]

And rest assured, unschooling does not take you out of the running for even the most prestigious universities. Portfolios filled with fascinating experiences are wooing admissions officers away from the diplomas brandished by traditional students.

Homeschoolers and unschoolers tend to score higher on SAT and ACT testing than traditional students, according a 1996 survey by the National Center for Home Education. Ninety percent of colleges, including Harvard, accept portfolios from homeschoolers and unschoolers.

5:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

If you're not pro-Big Pharma, forget heading the FDA, as J J Wood was the latest to find out.
His medical credentials were unchallenged. Equally important, the Vanderbilt University pharmacologist was being pushed strongly by Senator William Frist, the Tennessee Republican who is perhaps Bush's most important medical adviser.

Then, just as word leaked that Wood had won the job to head the 8,000 scientists and other employees who regulate one-fourth of US consumer spending, the pharmaceutical industry and its allies struck back. If Wood became commissioner, one influential industry ally wrote in a conservative online magazine, the FDA's message to patients wanting life-saving drugs would be: ''Drop dead.''

The article said Wood was obsessed with drug-safety review and, applying the coup de grace, announced that he was ''a buddy of Senator Ted Kennedy'' - even though Wood had never met or spoken to the Massachusetts Democrat.

Within days, the White House dumped Wood. ''There was a great deal of concern that he put too much emphasis on the safety,'' Frist said in an interview, bluntly explaining why his friend was jettisoned.
Safety -- whoa there fella. What are you, anti-American?

5:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Gay Afghan farmers "terrorize" British marines on patrol

No, this appears to be for real.
An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village."

[...]

"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

At one stage, troops were invited into a house and asked to dance. Citing the need to keep momentum in their search and destroy mission, the marines made their excuses and left. "They put some music on and ask us to dance. I told them where to go," said Cpl Richard. "Some of the guys turned tail and fled. It was hideous."
So sex scares Brits more than violence, just like Americans.

. . .

5:07 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Punch is gone again.

Never read it, though it was an institution in its time. It was founded in 1841.

Maybe that's the problem(?).

3:05 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

There's a weird thing that happens when enough people do similar work or use similar tools in some area of art or music. It gets a name, becomes a movement, a compilation, a gallery show. Reading about lowercase sound makes me go through all these reflex emotions, because I listen to music along these lines (interesting phrase), and think of it in a new way. A new excitement makes you hear the music in a new way, in a more complex way. Or not.

1:22 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

US gives military aid to both India & Pakistan, making money for US companies, instead of defusing tensions by imposing a moratorium on weapons sales.

11:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

How Cold War insecurities, India's neutrality and US aid to Pakistan contributed to the current threat of nuclear conflict.
Ambassador Thompson says that security assurances may be a major factor in determining whether India develops nuclear weapons, but adds that India?s neutrality would preclude a formal U.S. guarantee. He suggests a statement from India indicating that it is confident that the major nuclear powers would react if it were the target of nuclear attack. It would also declare its intent not to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. would retain the freedom to determine how it would respond if there were an actual crisis. [Item 6]
India never trusted the US's assurance of protection if China or Russia attacked, and the US seemed to limit it's criticism of India's nuke program to warnings of how expensive it would be.
(During the 1980s, the U.S. was criticized for providing massive levels of aid to Pakistan, its military ally, despite laws barring assistance to any country that imported certain technology related to nuclear weapons. President Ronald Reagan waived the legislation, arguing that cutting off aid would harm U.S. national interests.) [Item 22]

11:29 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

New FBI surveillance guidelines roll back the limits put on agents after the Hoover era of political blackmail. Decentralizing the FBI may be a good thing, but the potential for abuse is obvious and bears close watch. [NYT username: aflakete password: europhilia]
"These new guidelines say to the American people that you no longer have to be doing something wrong in order to get that F.B.I. knock at your door," Laura W. Murphy, director of the national office of the A.C.L.U., said. "The government is rewarding failure. It seems when the F.B.I. fails, the response by the Bush administration is to give the bureau new powers, as opposed to seriously look at why the intelligence and law enforcement failures occurred."

11:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Did 2 FBI agents who are accused of passing on insider information to a notorious Wall Street whistleblower, know about 9/11 ahead of time?
The indictment accused the defendants of running an insider trading conspiracy in which Royer allegedly leaked confidential FBI information to Elgindy who then would make trades based on the data. The indictment also charges that when Royer left the FBI, he continued to access confidential FBI files through Wingate, 34.

Elgindy, 34, was being held without bail. During a hearing in San Diego last week, Breen said that Elgindy's attempt to liquidate the trust accounts of his children on Sept. 10 might "perhaps" mean he had "pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks, and, rather than report it, he was attempting to profit from that information." [link]

10:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Hikikomori Young Japanese men can shut themselves in their rooms for years, because their parents can afford it -- and they're not always interested in a lifetime of overtime, even if the economy were doing well, which it isn't. For all the ritualized communality of Japanese culture, it seems like isolation is common.

Why this doesn't happen as much to girls isn't mentioned.

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

Not for the faint of heart. The nether reaches of libertarian thought.

Why it's good to pay attention when investors rush to precious metals, and the legality of tax laws.

10:11 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

I know it means something... A 78' obelisk stolen from Ethiopia by Mussolini in the 30s -- and which Ethiopia has demanded the return of -- was seriously damaged by a lightning strike last night.

9:31 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

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Zhang Xiaoli's porcelain skin, rosy cheeks and cover-girl features

9:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Big Science starts listenng to the Inuit's "anecdotal evidence" about climate change.
And so it has come to be, the elders say, a time when icebergs are melting, tides have changed, polar bears have thinned and there is no meaning left in a ring around the moon. Scattered clouds blowing in a wind no longer speak to elders and hunters. Daily weather markers are becoming less predictable in the fragile Arctic as its climate changes.

Inuit elders and hunters who depend on the land say they are disturbed by what they are seeing swept in by the changes: deformed fish, caribou with bad livers, baby seals left by their mothers to starve. Just the other year, a robin appeared where no robin had been seen before. There is no word for robin in Inuktitut, the Inuit language.

[...]

While scientists debate the causes of climate change and politicians debate whether to ratify the Kyoto accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists believe cause global warming, the Inuit who live in Canada's Far North say they are watching their world melt before their eyes.

4:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Forest fires burn in Alberta Canada and New Mexico.

3:55 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Human viral agents spread corporate memes through normal human contact.
While, in the past, companies have created fake citizens' groups to campaign in favour of trashing forests or polluting rivers, now they create fake citizens. Messages purporting to come from disinterested punters are planted on listservers at critical moments, disseminating misleading information in the hope of recruiting real people to the cause. Detective work by the campaigner Jonathan Matthews and the freelance journalist Andy Rowell shows how a PR firm contracted to the biotech company Monsanto appears to have played a crucial but invisible role in shaping scientific discourse. [disinfo]

2:06 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, May 27, 2002

Columbus Alive review of Into the Buzzsaw.

11:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Questionable Advances In Gender Parity File: Carloads of female gangsters shoot it out in Naples.

11:20 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The credit rating of our phone company, Qwest, has been downgraded to junk bond status.

Well, the service couldn't get much worse (if they're bought out); though we haven't had much trouble, Qwest is regularly fined for its poor service record.

2:52 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

New random search powers of the Australian police have inspired a website which will warn you of an impending search by mobile phone. The site is down due to high usage as I post this. [Zem's]

2:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fear breeds fear. An excellent editorial by James Carroll.
The war on terrorism is not the only manifestation of heightened levels of our national fear. This week Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin will sign an arms reduction treaty that includes a US-sponsored provision allowing for the indefinite mothballing of thousands of disarmed nuclear weapons. Notice this: The United States, breaking with the primordial assumption of nuclear arms control, is now saying that the overkill supply of warheads must be preserved against future threats - as yet entirely unimagined. This marks the end of the hope, long shared by conservatives and liberals alike, that human beings might eventually wean themselves of these terrible weapons altogether.

In one stroke, Bush has taken us from ''reduction'' to ''storage.'' He has reversed the most positive foreign policy track of our lifetimes, and he has done it out of fear.

Here is the irony: The surest way to make the world an even more dangerous place is to posit danger as the most important thing about it. This week's treaty is the clearest case in point. America's determination to preserve thousands of excess nuclear warheads means that now Russia, despite its firm preference for elimination, will certainly preserve them as well. [also not found]

2:18 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The sound quality on my dialup sucks, but here's a link to 2 RealVideos of Brian Eno & J Peter Schwalm performing in Cagliari, Italy (click on "guarda"). [Thanks, Gennaro!]

Not really crazy about Eno's material since Shutov Assembly.

11:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Aussie doctors want to ban junk food ads on TV during peak kidwatching hours, because obesity is skyrocketing.

Oddly, the Food Mobsters are "claiming the causes of obesity are complex and the ban would have no effect."

2:44 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Greg Palast disses the Justice Dept. suit against county officials in FLA as "a sham". He moved back to the US this weekend.
After reviewing the Justice Department's information, Palast stated today, "The US Justice Department's suit is a sham - the beneficiaries of the voting disaster, Bush's agencies, have figured out a way to do the least possible political damage to candidates Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush. They have aimed their fire at blameless county officials when the disaster was created in Tallahassee - a disaster for Black voters, though a blessing to the highly partisan Secretary of State's office. I fear this is an attempt to undercut the suit by the NAACP against Harris and others more directly responsible."

2:28 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Google has a translator now, though I haven't tried it yet. [aberrant news]

2:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The most enjoyable and important book I've read in quite a while: Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press edited by Kristina Borjesson. It's a series of essays by journalists who've experienced censorship and the various kinds of pressure brought to bear on investigative journalists who report on subjects embarrassing to the government or corporations. Particularly interesting if you:

don't think TWA's Flight 800 got shot down, most likely by friendly fire.

think books in the US aren't censored.

think the Drug War is anything other than a fraud.

think the CIA's interventions have been legal (at least before Clinton and shrub gave them what they've always sought: carte blanche to kill and do whatever they want without fear of prosecution).

think you're getting anything but PR and spin control and pure fiction in the mass media.
The writing varies form piece to piece, but all in all, an essential and eye-opening book.

It's interesting how my readings in conspiracy theory and investigative reporting are dovetailing.

12:53 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, May 26, 2002

The Other Demo dark horse: Dennis Kucinich. Though he's anti-abortion, having grown up a Catholic and representing a largely Catholic district in Ohio. His notorious speech -- back when the Anti-Terror juggernaut was going full steam -- questioning the squelching of civil liberties and the bombing of Afghanistan was a light in the darkness.

4:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The Rise and Fall of Martha -- who "kickstarted 'domesticity as a site for feminist reclamation'", or so says Debbie Stoller of Bust magazine.

I just always wanted to slap her, and not because she's a powerful woman. She just needs it. Anyone with a perfection fetish does. She creeps me out.

So I guess now she's getting it, in a way.

4:31 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

How blogs are re-defining the news.

11:27 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

After the recent conglomeration of the publishing industry, now the surviving small publishers are being marginalized by megastores and robbed outright by The Money Mobsters.

11:22 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Ron Charles' review of the latest of 3 humorous critiques of self-help books, Happiness� by Will Ferguson makes an essential point about these writers -- after nodding approvingly at their "Apocalypse Nice" satirical prose.
There's a surprisingly old-fashioned Puritanism in these witty modern novels by Hornby, Shields, and Ferguson. Each betrays a deep anxiety about the pursuit of happiness, suggesting that it's necessarily humorless, simpleminded, or fanatical. They take a kind of Calvinistic offense at any radical devotion to self-improvement, as though it violated their faith in Original Sin.
He recommends Leif Enger's Peace Like a River as a corrective, which I've heard good things about. [That should be a "TM" instead of a �, but couldn't find the code.]

10:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

News Flash: Injecting Vaseline into your dick to make it bigger isn't a good idea.

10:04 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Vermont Governor Howard Dean -- Democratic dark horse?

12:42 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

The Link Section