It was decades ago, during my first marriage.
We were relaxing on our screened back porch in Hollywood, Fl, with two other couples when my then 12-year-old daughter Karen thudded around the corner screaming, "Mommy, Mommy."
She was cradling the limp body of her two-year-old brother, David, in her arms. There was a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.
"What happened?" my then wife, Z, asked as we both scrambled to our feet and rushed toward the door.
The answer was one to freeze the heart of any parent.
"He got hit by a car!"
`I never heard any brakes,' I thought inanely. Then, more chillingly, and that meant the car hadn't even slowed down.
My wife's thoughts were equally ominous: `Oh, my God. She should never have moved him!'
My heart was pounding painfully in my ears as I strained to see just how badly hurt he was.
All three of us reached the door simultaneously as our guests sat stunned and silent. As my wife reached for David, she asked "How? What car?"
"Stevie threw one of his Matchbox cars and it bounced off the wall and hit David in the mouth," Karen said breathlessly.
We looked down at our toddler who, we now realized, had been limp with bewilderment rather than shock or injury. He tried a tentative sniffle and then began struggling to get down as his 11-year-old brother Steve trudged sheepishly around the corner.
"I didn't mean to hit him," Steve said defensively, holding up the toy car, all two inches of it. "It slipped."
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 933 days
Interesting blog entry about blogs and blogging:
The power of the blogosphere, @ Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald
“In just one day, before it has been released, and with literally nothing more in the way of marketing and publicity than a handful of bloggers discussing it and a very committed and passionate blog readership here, How Would a Patriot Act? went to #1 on the Amazon Top Sellers List last night, and it sits there currently. Both thank you and congratulations are in order for everyone who helped make that happen, especially the regular readers of this blog and the other bloggers who have supported both this blog and the book, and I want to make a few observations about why I think this is so potentially significant:”
See the whole entry:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/
We could make a start on cleaning up the mess in Congress by one simple expedient: make all the senators and congressmen wear patches on their clothes identifying all those who pull their strings.
The good senator from Wherever might be sporting colorful patches from Enron, Disney, Citibank, Halliburton, Barnes & Noble, and Wal-Mart.
The size of patch would be related to the amount of money he gets from different corporations to do their bidding.
It would be quite colorful – and informative.
How little things change over the decades, particularly when you have a Bush in the White House.
I just discovered a few letters to the editor that I wrote to the Palm Beach Post in 1989. One of them was on the occasion of King George the First’s ugly and outrageous invasion of Panamá to take out the CIA asset Manuel Noriega, otherwise known as the leader of the country.
Funny, those who support such an action never seem to ask themselves how they would feel it was the other way round – if Panamá had invaded us, kidnapped our president, and took him away for “trial” in Panamá.
My bief letter to the Post (I was more Deckish then) said:
“While the Soviet Union is freeing its satellite states, we are invading ours. The ugly American is alive and well and living in the White House.”
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 938 days
Bush once said, "If this was a dictatorship, it'd be a heckuva lot easier--so long as I'm the dictator."
It looks like he’s getting his way. There are all those laws he signs, for example, and then claims they don’t apply to him,
And then today, we have this: AP reports that the White House is nearing an agreement with Congress on legislation that would write his warrantless spying program into law.
You know, the warrantless spying program that breaks the law that requires the government to get approval from a secretive federal court before Americans can be monitored?
So, if you break the law, your servants in Congress will just create a new law and make it legal.
You can’t beat that.
My congressman, Rick Larsen of Washington state, wanted to know what I thought about net neutrality. So I told him:
Dear Rick,
The internet will no longer continue to be an “amazingly democratic and empowering to non traditional businesses and individuals” if net neutrality is not given form in the law.
We have the example of radio nearly 100 years ago when it was open to the public – clubs, churches, for example. Then it was taken over by business interests and the public was shut out.
The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 has led to the disastrous consolidation of the media into a half-dozen monstrous corporations whose interests are only in the bottom line and not presentation of the news that the citizens of a democracy need to function.
As just one example, in radio, Clear Channel went from fewer than 50 radio stations to more than 1,200 stations, nearly all giving only one viewpoint. In the case of Iraq, that helped in the stampede to war based on a lie.
Allowing the carriers of the Internet free rein to charge selectively will inevitably lead to their giving a preference to the big content providers – e.g., Disney, etc. – at the expense of smaller ones. And later, requiring all content providers (including very small ones, non-profits, schools and municipalities) to pay additional fees to keep their sites accessible to all Web users.
They make no bones about it. The Washington Post has reported that William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts “that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc."
Far more dangerous, is the censorship that will the inevitably follow. Web sites that espouse points of view that don’t fit into the corporate mindset will be sent to the slow lane, or not made available at all.
SaveTheInternet.com gives some examples from the recent past:
* In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
* In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
* Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.
* In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
If net neutrality is not enforced, these few examples will become legion.
"I have never known the media more vicious, stupid and corrupt than they are now."
Gore Vidal
And as someone who spent more than 20 years as a newsman, I have to say he's got it exactly right.
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 940 days
The town square used to be communal property, The Commons. You could sit around in it, enjoying the summer sunshine. You might even, if you wished, march around it carrying a protest sign.
Then the corporations took over the world.
Now, the town square is likely to be a shopping mall, private property, owned by some corporation. And you check your civil rights at the door.
Take, for example, the story of 10-year-old Lydia Smith who was forced by a security guard to remove her bandanna at the Battlefield Mall in Springfield, MO because it was offensive. It was decorated with smiley faces, flowers, and perhaps most importantly, peace signs.
Apparently, you see, she had violated a new rule at the mall, "failing to be fully clothed or wearing apparel which is likely to provide a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict."
Christine Moses, director of mall marketing, noted that the mall is privately owned and behavior on its premises can be regulated. "The bottom line is we want to have an environment (conducive) to shopping. Offensive apparel does not fit in with that environment," she said, although she could not say how the bandanna was offensive.
With 285 malls in 39 states and Puerto Rico, Simon Property Group is the nation’s largest mall owner. Similar policies are in place at all of them.
Yeah, yeah. I know I’m flirting with Godwin’s law, but this irresistible.
Who said the following, Ann Coulter or Hitler?
1) "Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason...Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy."
2) "We must study this vile liberal technique of emptying garbage pails full of the vilest slanders and defamations from hundreds and hundreds of sources at once, suddenly and as if by magic, on the clean garments of honorable men, if we are fully to appreciate the entire menace represented by these scoundrels of the press."
Take the 14 question quiz and see the answers at:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jac3he/GiveUpQuiz/gradequiz.php
I got 11 right.
The Republican-controlled Senate has rejected a minimum-wage hike – again.
U.S. senators draw salaries of $162,100 a year. The minimum wage is $5.15 hour. If my rusty math is correct, that’s $10,300 a year. Try living on that anywhere outside a cardboard box under a freeway ramp.
In addition to a salary fit for a prince, senators also get endless perks -- health and life insurance, pensions, travel expenses, and office expenses ranging up to $2 million, etc.
The minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 1997. Congress has given itself seven pay raises since than, totaling $28,000 for senators.
The vote was 51 against the hike and 49 for. The 51 voting against were all Republicans. Surprise, surprise.
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 942 days
My wife and her parents took me out for dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday. According to my wife, I am 3 today.
It was three years ago tonight that I had my stroke.
The dinner was very nice, as was the birthday card with the inscription "Wishing a special three-year-old a very special birthday"
I wonder what I'll be when I grow up?
Today is a significant anniversary for us which my wife has blogged about with moving eloquence. I am not the writer she is and will not try to compete. Simply read her blog: http://anghara.livejournal.com/
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 945 days
"Are the Republicans going to steal the election again?" my Martian friend Yyuran asked me the other day.
I choked on my coffee. "What a ridiculous question! Why would you even ask something like that?"
"George Bush and the Republicans stole the elections in 2000 and in 2004. But you let him become president anyhow. Are you going to do that again?"
FULL STORY ON Swans:
http://www.swans.com/library/art12/rdeck064.html
Bush Countdown
We will be free of Bush in 946 days
The Democrats idea of being an opposition party is not to attack George Bush and the Republicans for destroying our democracy, stealing two elections, spying on us, trashing the Bill of Rights, screwing up the environment, and lying us into an immoral outrageous illegal and unconstitutional war.
Nope, the Democrats promise that they can just do everything better – particularly run a better war.
How could you ask for anything more?
Days to Freedom from Bush -- 947
Yesterday I suggested that we send to the war zone all 96 Senators who voted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely and bring home 96 soldiers.
Now we can add to that the 256 representatives in the US House who voted against setting a timetable for pulling American troops out of Iraq.
Just think, we could bring home 352 soldiers, and at the same time get rid of all the moronic war lovers in Congress.
I just had a brainstorm, a really brilliant idea.
Let's send all 96 Senators who voted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely to the war zone and relieve a soldier who wants to come home.
I bet you all feel better now that the Senate has decided 93 to 6 to keep troops in Iraq forever.
Well, they didn’t say, forever exactly. Not by the end of the year anyway, and no timetable for withdrawal.
We’ll just keep them there for... well, who knows? Forever?
A friend just sent me this delightful parody of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I dutifully checked Google to try to find the author and give him or her credit, but I had no luck.
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLICANS
Mine Eyes have seen the bungling of that stumbling moron Bush;
he has blathered all the drivel that the neo-cons can push;
he has lost sight of all reason 'cause his head is up his tush;
The Doofus marches on
I have heard him butcher syntax like a kindergarten fool;
There is warranted suspicion that he never went to school;
Should we fault him for the policies - or is he just their tool?
The lies keep piling on.
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!v
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
His wreckage will live on.
I have seen him cut the taxes of the billionaires' lone heir;
As he spends another zillion on an aircraft carrier;
Let the smokestacks keep polluting - do we really need clean air?
The surplus is now gone.
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Your safety net is gone!
Now he's got a mighty hankerin' to bomb a prostrate state;
Though the whole world knows its crazy - and the U.N. says to wait;
When he doesn't have the evidence, "We must prevaricate."
Diplomacy is done!
Oh, a trumped-up war is excellent; we have no moral bounds;
Should the reasons be disputed, we'll just make up other grounds;
Enraging several billions - to his brainlessness redounds;
The Doofus marches on!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya'!
THIS .... DOOOO .. FUSS .... MAR...CHES....ON!
There is a similar parody, more thoughtful but not quite as good, at:
http://www.topplebush.com/other70.shtml
The AP says that President Bush has prodded Iraq's neighbors to help rebuild the country.
"Iraq's neighbors ought to do more to help," he said.
Let me get this straight:
We spent several hundred billion dollars destroying the country, slaughtered more than 100,000 of its inhabitants, stole much of its oil and other treasures – and now we want other countries to pay for rebuilding it?
Bush is a murderous moral moron, and we are no better, because we let him get away with it.
As someone who has been preaching impeachment ever since George Bush lied us into Iraq, I must admit that I love the following quote from someone I rarely agree with:
"All in all, the framers would probably agree that it's better to impeach too often than too seldom. If presidents can't be virtuous, they should at least be nervous."
- Joseph Sobran
The U. S. proudly displayed the battered face of the Iraqi leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi we killed with bombs.
Of course, we didn’t call him a leader. He objected to our invasion of his country and fought against us, so therefore, obviously, he was a terrorist,
We didn’t, of course, show the faces of the other three people we killed who were with him at the time, including a woman and child. They were just ‘collateral damage.’
But then, we almost never show the faces of the people we murder in Iraq.
"The Republicans are worried about the flag, gay marriage and the terrible burden of the estate tax on the rich. The rest of us are obviously unnecessarily worried about war, peace, the economy, the environment and civilization. Another reason to vote Republican—they have a shorter list."
Molly Ivins
Some reflections on blogging for the online magazine Swans:
(Political blogs) are changing the face of politics. Most have a few dozen or a few hundred readers, others fewer than that. But they talk to each other, they read each other, and most importantly, they link to each other. Cumulatively they are of enormous importance. They are being heard.
There are blogging communities of environmentalists, educators, musicians, artists, writers, journalists, anti-war activists, businessmen. There are bloggers in war zones, whose stories often belie the insipid and lying reporting of corporate media reporters who parrot the official line. There are people who write and worry and argue about global warming. Whatever your passion, you can find a blogging community of like-minded people. ....
There is a lot to be said for big thinkers. Thanks to a few of our founding fathers, we have a brilliant democracy -- if we can keep it.
But much can be said for small thinkers too, those who look at details rather than the wide screen, those who focus on life as it is lived rather than as it would be lived if we were omniscient and omnipotent. There are a lot more of us, and cumulatively we can leave a mark on the world, bring about important changes -- perhaps even save our democracy.
Full article at:
http://www.swans.com/library/art12/rdeck063.html
There’s no end to the inventiveness of the drug pushers. Now the drug industry is pushing statins for kids ‘to fight cholesterol.’
Reuters says children “as young as 10 are taking statin drugs along with their vitamins to stay healthy.”
To "stay healthy"!?! Drugging kids is healthy?
Of course, we could give them good food, instead of McDonald’s hamburgers, and see that they exercise to keep them healthy.
But hey, drugs are easier, and they make corporations much richer.
I was a newspaperman when newspapers were semi legitimate, semi serious. Most of the time they actually covered important news. Infotainment was an oddity, not the only way that “news” was covered.
How times have changed. The worst of the changes came when Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, a giveaway to giant media companies which has resulted in six or seven corporations owning nearly all the media, all the sources we get our news from.
The worst of the lot is Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which serves up propaganda disguised as news. For example:
A recent poll showed that less than 1% of Fox viewers believed that our elections were stolen. That compares to 70% of CNN viewers, 65% of MSNBC; 64% of CBS; 56% of ABC; 56% of Other; and 49% of NBC.
Since our elections were stolen, the ability of Fox to hide the truth is astounding.
“An old cliché declares that if you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; but if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no brain. Maybe so, but if you aren’t a radical by 60, you’re really not living at all.”
Jim Hightower
U.S. troops did not intentionally kill Iraqi civilians in a March 15 raid in a village north of Baghdad. The military investigated itself and said U.S. troops did nothing wrong, they “followed proper procedures.”
Of course, an occupying army always follows “proper procedures” since it determines what “proper procedures” are.
In Iraq, “proper procedures” have killed thousands of civilians. And many thousands more will die before we finally leave Iraq with our tail between our legs.