jaded ranting

Bush's Popularity Reaches New Low

2005-11-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

I know I said I was taking a break, but I had to post this:

For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism.

On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.

Bush's approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.

The CIA leak case has apparently contributed to a withering decline in how Americans view Bush personally. The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy -- a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- said they have doubts about Bush's honesty, the first time in his presidency that more than half the country has questioned his personal integrity. [whole article]

hiatus

2005-11-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

i've decided to take a break from the serious blogging i've been doing to focus my energy on a couple of other things i've neglected. it's been incredible fun debating, but it's just too time consuming at a point in my life when i need to get some shit together.

hopefully i'll be able to post here and there and get back to more serious blogging soon.

round 2?

2005-10-31T11:41:00.000-05:00

Bush Selects Alito for Supreme Court:

President Bush today named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito, 55, serves on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where his record on abortion rights and church-state issues has been widely applauded by conservatives and criticized by liberals.

Miers: 3rd and Out

2005-10-27T10:11:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. President:
I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. I have been greatly honored and humbled by the confidence that you have shown in me and have appreciated immensely your support and the support of many others. However, I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country. [entire letter]

I'm not really sure how to read the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination, other than another embarrassment for George Bush. Has he really lost touch even with his base? Because it seemed to me that most of the dissent was coming from the right. I guess James Dobson's insider information and threats from Pat Robertson weren't enough to convince conservatives:

They're going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative president, and they're going to vote against her for confirmation? Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office

Alas, another misstep by our "great" leader. Another manifestation of this country's lack of confidence in this man.

I must say, however, that I do agree with W's persistent protection of his right to privacy with his lawyer. A president should be able to discuss things under executive privilege and not have them revealed to the public, even when it comes to something as important as a Supreme Court nomination. Again from Miers' letter:

I have been informed repeatedly that in lieu of records, I would be expected to testify about my service in the White House to demonstrate my experience and judicial philosophy.

I guess I can also understand her hesitancy to speak honestly and openly about her judicial philosophy in front of the Senate. I mean, when was the last time anyone in the Bush White House said anything that was honest and open? Ouch, maybe that was a bit unfair.

But seriously, criticism from both sides of the isle said that she was unwilling or unable to give any sort of substantive answer to almost any question regarding constitutional law. And when she says "I believe that my lengthy career provides sufficient evidence for consideration of my nomination," this is simply not true. I'm not asking her to say how she would decide future cases, no one should do that, but at least give some idea what your philosophy is. And it didn't seem like W wanted her to say anything either. Sen. Charles Schumer on PBS Newshour 10/18/05:

When she saw me at about 1:30 yesterday, she said that she had no opinion of Griswold or Meyer, two of the seminal cases that established the right to privacy in the Constitution. She then went to Senator Specter and according to him said, yes, she does support those cases. And then three hours later the White House put out some memorandum saying no, she doesn't, and Senator Specter misinterpreted it. Senator Specter is a darned good lawyer; I don't think he did misinterpret it, although I wasn't there.

Well, maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Maybe this is part of a scheme to get the real nomination through the process.

Judith Miller is an Embarrassment, as is the Times

2005-10-26T20:42:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of people hailing Judith Miller as some First Amendment heroine for remaining in jail instead of releasing her sources. A couple points:

First off, she claims that the reason she decided to finally testify and give up her source (Scooter Libby) after he told her it was OK, and that he felt bad for keeping her in jail. However, that doesn't seem to be accurate:

Over the course of the investigation, Libby had freed several other reporters from any obligation to keep their conversations with him secret -- and his lawyer had apparently told Miller's lawyer more than a year ago that she was free to talk, as well. So what was Miller doing in jail? Was it all just a misunderstanding? [whole article]

The truth is that Miller just wanted the publicity, and to turn herself into some superhero.

Secondly, Miller's history is far from a saintly journalist. Her front page article on September 8, 2002 she reported the following:

More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today. In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped. Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war.

The unnamed Bush administration officials she sourced in this article probably never existed, and the conclusions drawn about the potential use of these tubes was were also manufactured. This article was directly referenced by Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld as one of the justifications for going to war.

Later, on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (one of my favorite NPR shows, btw), she had this to say:

"Well, I think they found something more than a smoking gun. What they've found is a silver bullet in the form of a person, an Iraqi individual, a scientist, as we've called him, who really worked on the programs, who knows them, firsthand, and who has led MET Alpha people to some pretty startling conclusions."

This also turned out to be a blatant lie.

Finally, the idea that she's protecting a whistle-blower is inaccurate. Ambassador Joe Wilson was a main critic of the Bush push for war in Iraq. Valerie Plame is Joe Wilson's wife. Plame's name was dropped to punish Wilson for his dissent. "Miller isn’t protecting a whistle blower. She is protecting someone who retaliated against a whistle blower."

It's just frustrating that this woman, who obviously only cares about personal success and her pending million dollar book deal and nothing about journalistic integrity, is being lauded as this heroine. Someone who would say and write anything for just a bit more fame, Miller is a perfect example of how reporters should not get too close to those they are reporting on.

She should return the Pulitzer Prize she was awarded, as she is nothing but an embarrassment to reporters everywhere. She also won an award on October 18 for protecting freedom of the press. The New York Times should also be embarrassed for having such a devious person on their staff for so long and for continued cover-up of her role in the leak.

Condoning Torture

2005-10-26T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody.

The proposal, which two sources said Vice President Cheney handed last Thursday to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the company of CIA Director Porter J. Goss, states that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations conducted by "an element of the United States government" other than the Defense Department.

The provision in question -- which the Senate on Oct. 5 voted 90 to 9 to attach to its version of the pending defense appropriations bill over the administration's opposition -- essentially proscribes harsh treatment of any detainees in U.S. custody or control anywhere in the world. It was specifically drafted to close what its backers say is a loophole in the administration's policy of generally barring torture, namely its legal contention that these constraints do not apply to treatment of foreigners on foreign soil.

Other sources said the vice president is also still fighting a second provision of the Senate-passed legislation, which requires that detainees in Defense Department custody anywhere in the world may be subjected only to interrogation techniques approved and listed in the Army's Field Manual.
[whole article]

Alright, this is just getting ridiculous. Does this White House have any shame at all? With all the reports of human rights abuses by American soldiers, one would think that W and his buddies would try and fix the issue, not legalize it.

For a country that is supposedly spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world, it is just absurd that our leaders are defending torture and abuse as appropriate behavior.

2000

2005-10-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

Military Has Lost 2,000 In Iraq

Goodbye to a Heroine

2005-10-25T12:18:00.000-04:00

Rosa Parks, the dignified African American seamstress whose refusal to surrender a bus seat to a white man launched the modern civil rights movement and inspired generations of activists, died last night at her home in Detroit, the Wayne County medical examiner's office said. She was 92. [whole article]

What Rice Can't See

2005-10-25T11:28:00.000-04:00

An interesting piece on Condi, here are some excerpts:

Like a lot of African Americans, I've long wondered what the deal was with Condoleezza Rice and the issue of race. How does she work so loyally for George W. Bush, whose approval rating among blacks was measured in a recent poll at a negligible 2 percent? How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?

It's as if Rice is still cosseted in her beloved Titusville, the neighborhood of black strivers where she was raised, able to see the very different reality that other African Americans experience but not to reach out of the bubble -- not able to touch that other reality, and thus not able to really understand it.

Rice's parents tried their best to shelter their only daughter from Jim Crow racism, and they succeeded. Forty years later, Rice shows no bitterness when she recalls her childhood in a town whose streets were ruled by the segregationist police chief Bull Connor. "I've always said about Birmingham that because race was everything, race was nothing," she said in an interview on the flight home.

When she reminisces, she talks of piano lessons and her brief attempt at ballet -- not of Connor setting his dogs loose on brave men, women and children marching for freedom, which is the Birmingham that other residents I met still remember. A friend of Rice's, Denise McNair, was one of the four girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. That would have left a deep scar on me, but Rice can speak of that atrocity without visible emotion.

One of the things she somehow missed was that in Titusville and other black middle-class enclaves, a guiding principle was that as you climbed, you were obliged to reach back and bring others along. Rice has been a foreign policy heavyweight for nearly two decades; she spent four years in the White House as the president's national security adviser. In the interview, she mentioned just one black professional she has brought with her from the National Security Council to State.

It's really just tremendously disappointing that someone with her status is so out of touch with these issues. The fact that someone with such intelligence and power has this mindset is depressing. She really is an embarrassment. She could do so much good for women and minorities, but in her mind being inclusive is out of her way.

I wonder if she even cares about the fact that 2 percent of blacks approve of Bush. When she was on meet the press, she questioned the validity of the poll. I'm in social science, and there's no way to mess with poll data or implementation that much. She is in complete denial of the reality clear to the rest of black America, which is, as Kanye so eloquently put it, "George Bush doesn't care about black people". She's content being a puppet for this man who has mesmerized her.

I really hope she doesn't run for president.

Finally, some good news

2005-10-23T22:15:00.000-04:00

Young Democrats Sharpen Tactics Against Old Rivals:

With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.

As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.

Their conversation even veered to religion, a subject many Democrats are afraid to touch. Ryan described the problems of the poor as a moral obligation and asked of Meek: "Where is the Christian Coalition when you are cutting poverty programs? They are fighting over Supreme Court justices."

It's nice to hear this group is taking some leadership , as my faith in the Democratic Party is a bit shaken. I'm also glad that they're offering their own solutions, instead of the same old complaining.

As part of the new approach, House and Senate Democrats are devising an alternative agenda of key policies. Ryan is pushing proposals aimed at drastically reducing the number of abortions over the coming decade by offering support and services to pregnant women. Others are crafting a plan for reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil by using more domestic agricultural products, an approach that would have significant appeal to Midwestern voters.

"We can't be Dr. No to everything Republicans do," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "We have to provide our own positive ideas."

With republican embarrassments becoming more and more common, this is the time for the dems to show people that they have good ideas about how to run the country, which is something they haven't done for the past decade.

More American War Crimes

2005-10-20T17:37:00.000-04:00

Report: U.S. Soldiers Burnt Bodies of Captured Taliban Fighters:

This news on Afghanistan - an Australian TV program has aired footage of U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters. The program also aired footage of a U.S. Army psy-ops unit caught on tape broadcasting news of the burning to local residents. The message read : "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be... You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Taliban but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are." On Wednesday the Pentagon announced it would investigate the incident. [source]

More Guantanamo Bay Disgrace

2005-10-20T17:36:00.000-04:00

Lawyer: Guantánamo Detainees Tortured, Force-Fed, Induced to Vomit:

Meanwhile at Guantanamo Bay, detainees are accusing guards and medical officials of mistreating prisoners taking part in a camp-wide hunger strike. Detainees said large feeding tubes were forcibly shoved up their noses and down into their stomachs, with guards using the same tubes from one patient to another. The force-feedings reportedly resulted in prisoners vomiting up "substantial amounts of blood." The detainees say no sedatives were provided during these procedures, which they allege took place in front of U.S. physicians, including the head of the prison hospital. The accusations were made to New York-based attorney Julia Tarver of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Tarver says one client told her QUOTE: "now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same." [source]

All children left unaffected

2005-10-19T21:27:00.000-04:00

Reading scores among fourth- and eighth-graders showed little improvement over the past two years, and math gains were slower than in previous years, according to a study released yesterday. The disappointing results came despite a new educational testing law championed by the Bush administration as a way to improve the nation's schools.

Though the tests have been taken by fourth- and eighth-grade students about every two years since 1990, the latest NAEP scores were the first tangible testing numbers available since the implementation of No Child Left Behind -- the Bush administration's premier and controversial education initiative requiring all states to test students annually as a prerequisite for receiving federal funds. [whole article]

Iraqi Constituion and Women's Rights

2005-10-18T13:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, on Democracy Now, Yanar Mohammed, Director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, a group that works to stop atrocities against Iraqi women and defend their rights, discussed how the Iraqi Constitution discriminates against women:

In other words, we are not allowed to independence. We are not allowed to decisions in our lives, and we not speaking here about only appearances of wearing veil or not veil, but we are speaking about women having choices in their lives. We have lost those, and it is by constitution now. There is no other way to it, because no article that contradicts with Islamic Sharia will be allowed in the family law, and there isn't much elaboration about following the international conventions of ending the discrimination against women to prioritize them over religion. It says very clearly the priority is that the laws will not contradict with Islamic Sharia. So, there you go, all of the women are second-rate citizens in Iraq.

and has promoted religious and ethnic segregation and civil war:

So, we are speaking about Iraq being divided into bits and pieces, where in the south the Shiites will be prioritized to any other religion, and in the north, the Kurds will have priority to Arabs and to Turkmens. We are speaking about a very serious declaration of a civil war

Out of his way?

2005-10-16T21:23:00.000-04:00

On today's Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked Condoleezza Rice what she thought of the fact that only 2 percent of African Americans think George Bush is doing a good job, while 84 percent don't. Condi's response: "What I do know is that this has been a president who has gone out of his way to be inclusive."

Out of his way?

It's disappointing that the leadership in this country considers it an inconvenience to be inclusive. It's even more disappointing that a black woman considers this an acceptable situation. I mean, I know that all us black folks are running around busting caps in peoples' asses and pimping hoes and shit, but seriously.

I'm really resisting the urge to go into another rant about how divided this country is and how most of the people benefiting from the divide either refuse to or are incapable of acknowledging it. I've been doing that a lot lately, and it's just depressing.

I just can't believe that the leaders in this country find it difficult to be inclusive, one of the most important attributes for a functional society. Where are these people from? Do they have any knowledge of the history of this country? Or the current state of this country?

We need leaders who are inclusive, not those that struggle to be.

Split on Right a Chance, Choice for Democrats

2005-10-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

An interesting article on Miers and Democratic strategy:

The conservatives' noisy split over the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination has largely obscured the fact that Senate Democrats could control her fate in a way that was never possible in the confirmation battle over Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

While the turmoil on the right offers Democrats a tantalizing opportunity, party strategists said, it also will confront them with a difficult choice: Confirm a conservative with close ties to President Bush, or oppose her and join ranks with hard-right activists who historically are their archenemies. [full article]

Credibility? Honesty? Bueller? Bueller?

2005-10-14T16:35:00.000-04:00

W embarrassed himself and our country once again by staring in a television show, I mean candid conversation with freedom fighters yesterday. W wanted to prove to Americans that the troops did in fact support his decision to unjustly go to war, and that they enjoy risking their lives every minute of every day to fight ~~the 9/11 hijackers~~
~~Osama~~
~~weapons of mass destruction~~
~~terrorism~~
for democracy, yeah that works. Apparently, even the Iraqi's are glad we invaded their country too, as Sgt. Maj. Akeel Shaker Nassir, who is in charge of the Iraqi army training facility in Tikrit, had this to say: "Thank very much for everything. I like you." Unfortunately, the video feed also showed the soldiers prepping and rehearsing their lines before the leader of the free world came out of the green room.

At the end of the transmission, he turned to the camera and said "In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night."

I love how the right immediately scurries to defend him, including this tidbit from Right On!:

Big darned fricking deal people. Every President who has ever understood the power of the press has staged photo op’s to make them look good. It works, and that is why they do it.

What they fail to acknowledge is that the White House lied. Again. The fact of the matter is this was scripted and staged propaganda that was marketed by the White House as candid and factual. This was simply a lie. Does this administration care about credibility or honesty at all?

What’s even more ridiculous is when reporters asked W’s press secretary about it, he accused them of being against the broader war on terror. The continuing propagandizing of the media by the White House is insulting and embarrassing.

Burn all the books!

2005-10-12T21:41:00.000-04:00

somewhere in the blogosphere i stumbled upon a link to a list of the American Library Association's 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. "A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." Most of the books on this list really make you think about who would ask to ban them. I realize a bunch have "scary" sex stuff or "pagan" stuff, but many of these are books that deal heavily with issues of race, like Kaffir Boy, The Color Purple, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Even more of these books ask questions about how a society should function, like The Giver and Brave New World. Most of these complaints were made at schools. I guess people don't want their kids to learn. I've listed a bunch here (bold one's I've read).

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright

I need to read more of these...

Black and White America

2005-10-12T20:10:00.000-04:00

Once again, Katrina is being used as an example to illustrate the racial divisions in this country. Spike Lee was on CNN earlier discussing the possibility that the levee protecting the poor, black 9th ward was purposely destroyed to save the richer, whiter areas of the city. The Boondocks comic below makes light of this theory:

While I'm sure this is untrue, it is just another one in a series of differences in perception of this tragedy. Look again at how the reaction to Katrina is split along racial lines. Much of the black community in America feels personally insulted by how this whole mess was treated by those who were supposed to protect us. People are insulted, and rightfully so.

This country is split. What can be done?

SCOTUS and the Great Hypocrisy

2005-10-12T18:00:00.000-04:00

W and his cronies are trying to pull some crazy hypocritical BS in pushing Harriet Miers to the SCUTUS. During the Roberts nomination and approval processes, the public (mostly those of us on the left) were assured over and over again that his religion would not dictate or at all influence his decisions on the bench. With Miers, her religious practices seem to be the only tangible and provable credentials W seems to be willing to market. He has rallied several right wing religious leaders, including James Dobson and Pat Robertson, to convince those republican leaders who might be skeptical of Miers' qualifications and moral standing.

The hypocrisy of this administration knows no bounds.

New Orleans Police Officers Charged with Beating Man

2005-10-10T20:21:00.000-04:00

I just saw the videos of this incident on CNN, and they are absoluelty disgusting. You can see them by checking out this article. What I saw was a man standing up, with his face pinned up against the wall, being punched repeatedly by an officer. The officers continued to kick him while he was lying on the ground, handcuffed, in a pool of his own blood. One of the officers later went after a man working for the AP.

The man was charged with public drunkeness? He was drunk? That's it? A peice of his own flesh was hanging off of his face!

I can't even begin to understand the stress these officers are under, but this is just unacceptable.

Stop Defending Abu Ghraib

2005-10-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

Now I know this is old news, but I still don't understand how people can defend the torture and prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, as OTTMANN does in comments on his post about Bush's speech last week. Also, any criticism of these horrible acts is painted as unpatriotic and a sign that you don't stand with the American troops. As OTTMANN says:

The "tortures" were nothing compared to terrorists cutting off prisioners heads! Those terrorists' being held want nothing less than to kill YOU and me and every single American. How about you go talk to those radial jihadist's and see if they let you leave alive, eh? I'll even buy the plane ticket. Where do you get your priorities?

I just don't think these people get it. First off, most of the prisoners were not terrorists. The unlucky man in the photograph above was charged with carjacking, not terrorism. It's ridiculous for us to invade a country and then label those natives fighting to defend themselves "terrorists." They're enemy combatants, not Jihadists. And even if they were, that's no justification for this abuse.

Secondly, how does it make sense to hold the actions of the United States and those of radical religious groups to the same moral standard? Didn't we commit to Operation Iraqi Freedom to bring democracy and justice to this country and region? America is supposed to be a bastion of hope and fairness, not an embarrassing example of physical, sexual, and emotional torture. Troops also murdered prisoners, according to Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick. While there is no defending the brutal tactics some of the radical groups the United States are fighting commit, an eye for an eye is just not how we do things around here.

"'Do you pray to Allah?' one asked. I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' One of them said, 'You are not getting out of here health[y], you are getting out of here handicapped. And he said to me, 'Are you married?' I said, 'Yes.' They said, 'If your wife saw you like this, she will be disappointed.' One of them said, 'But if I saw her now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.'" [...] "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive." [...] "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, 'But I believe in torture and I will torture you.'" — Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik [full article]

How can you not criticize this behavior? I support our troops and I wish them all a safe trip back home. This does not give them all a free pass to do whatever they want. There are rules, even in times of war. As a civilized society, we have a responsibility to promote justice, not torture.

"We will take the fight to the enemy" -W

2005-10-08T20:31:00.000-04:00

I've borrowed this quote from Bush because it sums up the point of this post pretty well. I also love the spoof below on one of my favorite Norman Rockwell paintings (Norman Rockwell is just amazing by the way) from Project for the Old American Century:

Some of my friends have asked me why I started linking to conservative blogs here. I've decided to, in the words of our president "take the fight to the enemy." So, I've begun to spend much more of my energy commenting on these sites, as opposed to simply preaching to the choir on liberal sites. I also hope to draw some of them to my site, which has already happened a bit.

To those visitors from these sites, I say "Hello!" If you want to me to link to your site, let me know.

To those of you who fall on the left side of the spectrum, I encourage you to join me in this crusade. I've started posting on a couple of the sites I've linked to. A couple of them are a bit scary for me, so I'm building up my courage (I'm referring to the one's I've labeled "exceptionally insane".) But seriously, we're not changing any minds by talking to each other. We need to convert the non-believers.

Let's do some good.

WWJD? Spread some hate!

2005-10-07T16:46:00.000-04:00

I found this site while surfing the conservative blogosphere. On it, I found a link to this book Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which promotes the following points:

You think you know about Islam. But did you know...
Islam teaches that Muslims must wage war to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim states
American Muslim groups are engaged in a huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine and history
Today's jihad terrorists have the same motives and goals as the Muslims who fought the Crusaders
The Crusades were defensive conflicts Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries–and still goes on...
When PC (politically correct) propagandists assure us that jihadist terror doesn't reflect "true," "peaceful" Islam, they're not only wrong, they're dangerous -- because they lull America and the West into letting their guard down against their mortal enemy. And not only do self-appointed "experts" lie elaborately and persistently about Islam -- they have also replaced the truth about Christian Europe and the Crusades with an all-pervasive historical fantasy that is designed to make you ashamed of your own culture and heritage -- and thus less determined to defend it.

I didn't know that all Muslims carried around AK-47s. Not only does this fly in the face of historical fact, but promotes the outright hatred of Muslims. When will the religious right come to grips with reality and stop spewing political propaganda. From American Vision's about us page:

For the past 25 years, American Vision has produced hundreds of educational resources designed to help Christians build a biblical worldview and reclaim the culture for Christ.

Hmm, I'm far from a devout Christian, but I never heard of Jesus professing such hate for others, especially hate based on such obvious and insulting lies. This just sickens me.

High School Project Considered Threat to Bush

2005-10-07T11:41:00.000-04:00

(09/24/05 - CURRITUCK) - A high school student's class project on freedoms in the U.S. attracted Secret Service agents to his school this week. The agents visited Currituck County High School Tuesday after receiving a report that a student had created potentially threatening photographs of President Bush.

Sandy Kinzel, a school spokeswoman, said the Secret Service questioned the student about a photograph he had taken for a class project on freedoms. In the student's photograph, a photograph of Bush is shown fastened to a wall with a thumbtack. Over the picture of Bush is a "thumbs-down" sign. The thumbtack in the photo was apparently placed somewhere on Bush's head, Kinzel said.

Concerned that the thumbtack might represent a potential threat to the president, the company that developed the student's film notified authorities. [whole article]

an NPR story said that the student took his film to WalMart for printing, where someone in the photo processing department reported this high school student to law enforcement agencies.

this is just insanity, when a picture of the president with a thumbtack in his head is considered a threat to the country's security. how are we so quick to judge and report fellow citizens for this? when did criticism of the president turn into treason?

art and free expression is under attack in this country. the thought police are coming.

Do you think he listens to himself when he talks?

2005-10-06T12:17:00.000-04:00

"Countering claims that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is fueling radicalism, Bush noted that American troops were not there on Sept. 11, 2001. He said Russia did not support the military action in Iraq, yet a terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, left more than 300 schoolchildren dead in 2004." [whole article]

Russia? 9/11? and Iraq? They're related? Someone enlighten this guy.

(made a couple posts today, so scroll down to hear more of my wisdom)

Rules of warfare?

2005-10-06T10:56:00.000-04:00

Bush is speaking at the National Endowment for Democracy, and I heard him complain that the insurgents "do not respect the rules of warfare." Is he kidding? What of the Iraqi prisoners we raped, tortured, and murdered in Abu Ghraib? What of the American soldiers who are trading pictures of dead Iraqis and Afghanis for porn? What of the hundreds of prisoners illegally held at Guantanamo Bay?

He now says "All tyrants and would-be tyrants justify murder for the pursuit of their own world view." What the hell does this guy think he's doing? Spreading democracy? Who says democracy is the absolute best thing for these people, or for any people?

If American forces are going to accuse others of acting inappropriately, we have no right to accuse others of doing the same.

He also claims that our forces have disrupted 3 al qaeda attacks in the United States. Hmm, that's 3 more than I've heard of, and I don't really see any way this can be proven. Keeping us under a cloak of secrecy really has worked well for him.

Vote "No" on Bono!

2005-10-06T01:57:00.000-04:00

They're talking on CNN about the possibility of U2 front man Bono winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end hunger. Are you kidding me? How can this guy float to the top of the list for consideration for one of the most prestigious awards a human being can win?

This man is no longer writing songs of social commentary, like Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride (In the Name of Love), Silver and Gold, or Bullet in Blue Sky. He has completely sold out by writing catchy, crappy pop-rock with no meaning at all, let alone a political message. I wonder how much of his salary he donates to his cause. We'd be better off giving this award to Zach De La Rocha of the late Rage Against the Machine.

Sure he's met with plenty of world leaders and spoke at plenty of conferences, but I'm skeptical of what he's really accomplished. I have a feeling that most presidents don't really respect people who wear sunglasses indoors.

Independent George

2005-10-05T11:16:00.000-04:00

I was listening to NPR's great show Roundtable with Ed Gordon, and one of the guests brought up an interesting theory about Bush's nomination of Miers to the Supreme Court. He said that maybe this nomination was a way of "sticking it to the people who convinced him to invade Iraq." What does this statement imply? That the plan to go over there and fuck shit up wasn't George's? Interesting.

Although this isn't the first time I've heard of this theory, it's nice to think that there is some tension in the White House. The guest brought up the point that Cheney didn't even know who was going to be nominated until he was informed by his press secretary - about the same time the rest of America found out.

Apparently George made this decision all by himself. Well I'm sure not completely by himself, but at least without the help of some of those evil folks he hangs out with. I guess we'll never really know who made decisions in your White House, but if this is accurate, I have to say hat's off to you, Independent George. Way to stick it to the man. But wait, I thought you were the man? I hope Cheney doesn't use one of his secret murders on you.

p.s. - I still hate you George.

Down with elephants!

2005-10-03T18:02:00.000-04:00

How long? Not Long
Cause what you reap is what you sow.

So this is pretty much a rant about the state of things, inspired partially by something Raine of Our Lady Peace said last week when I saw them in concert. He said that almost everything you hear and have heard over the past five years [since W has been in office] has just been bad news. I then head about this story while listening to the Democracy Now podcast:

WASHINGTON -- The Army closed the books Friday on one of the leanest recruiting years since it became an all-volunteer service, missing its enlistment target by the widest margin since 1979 and raising questions about its plans for growth.

Officials insist the slump is not a crisis, although they predict that 2006 will as tough as 2005, if not tougher.

The Army has not published official figures yet, but it apparently finished the 12-month counting period with about 73,000 recruits. Its goal was 80,000. A gap of 7,000 enlistees would be the largest _ in absolute number as well as in percentage terms _ since 1979.

The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve, which are smaller than the regular Army, had even worse results.[full article]

I feel like this country has lost so much faith in its "leader", finally. I think it's just crazy that less than 40 percent of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing. What the hell did the majority who voted for him think was going to happen? Congress' approval rating is even lower. Furthermore, people are getting more and more pissed about this whole Iraq thing:

National polls have shown a majority of Americans now believing the war was a mistake. In an AP-Ipsos poll this month, only 37 percent approved or leaned toward approval of how Bush has handled the situation in Iraq; strong disapproval outweighed strong approval by 2-1, 46 percent to 22 percent. [full article]

The republican president W broke the law in using federal funds to assist his campaign.

The republican head of the House is being indicted for money laundering.

The republican head of Senate is being subpoenaed for insider trading.

But I guess it's all a left-wing conspiracy.

I swear to god, if the Democrats can't capitalize in 2006 and 2008, I'm just going to cry.

Impeach them all.

thoughts?

2005-10-03T12:18:00.000-04:00

Bush Names Harriet Miers to Supreme Court

who is this weird looking lady?

Republican leadership breaking the law?

2005-10-01T12:17:00.000-04:00

Say it ain't so!

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."

The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds." [full article]

What a leader we have. It's unfortunate that there's no penalty for this incredibly unethical practice.

the n-word

2005-09-30T15:48:00.000-04:00

i'm here watching Training Day on USA. it's embarassing that we've come to a point where this basic cable station bleeps out the words "shit", "bitch" (certain usages), "fuck", and not "nigger".

congrats to all the idiots (most of who were black) who popularized a word with such a painful history.

New wiretap rules are out

2005-09-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

Via Furdlog, via Tech Policy.

Terrorism and homeland security concerns make such regulations necessary, the FCC said, echoing the arguments of Bush administration officials who have warned of VoIP services becoming a "haven" for terrorists, criminals and spies. "It is clearly not in the public interest to allow terrorists and criminals to avoid lawful surveillance by law enforcement agencies by using broadband Internet access services," the FCC said. [rest of article]

World Values Survey

2005-09-30T11:17:00.000-04:00

[Click to enlarge]

The above is a graphical representation of one of the most prestigious social surveys, the World Values Survey. It's interesting to see how different countries compare.

What's also interesting is to try to take this as a thought experiment and think of how data like these could/should influence foreign policy. For example, given the difference in social values between, say Iran and the United States, how much sense does it make for one country to impose their values on another country and/or region, even if they (read: we) think our values (read: democracy) are the best?

I've definitely heard well thought out arguements for doing just that, like we are in Iraq, and I wonder what right one has to do so. I mean, hypothetically speaking, if one country really was trying to help another (not that I think the US is really trying to help Iraq), should they be allowed to try? What if the larger international community wanted to help a country by forcing them to adopt some political or social structure?

A better example might be child labor laws, or labor laws in general. What right does the international community have to tell an individual nation that their labor practices are in appropriate?

Personally, I think it's kinda creepy for one group of people to impose their will, no matter the intention. But I do think there is room for some interesting debate.

This is my generation, baby

2005-09-30T11:14:00.000-04:00

Note: I decided to take this post down from this site and link to the post on the beef site because it was just a waste of space.

I warn you that this post is more of a frustrated rant than anything else, but I was encouraged to post it anyways.

A new era is upon us

2005-09-29T15:10:00.000-04:00

9.29.05 - Roberts sworn in as chief justice

Abort all the blacks! We must save this country!

2005-09-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down" (full article)

How the hell do 1.25 million people listen to this man's show? By the way, this man was once Reagan's Secretary of Education.

How awesome is this country?

Faking the Katrina Inquiry

2005-09-26T16:18:00.000-04:00

As the nation reels from Rita's devastation along the Gulf Coast, any hope for a thorough investigation of government's gross mismanagement of Katrina is quietly ebbing away behind the political levees of Washington. The White House and Republican-controlled Congress, resisting popular support for an independent, nonpartisan commission, remain determined to run self-serving, bogus investigations.

President Bush has designated his domestic security adviser to deliver the supposedly no-holds-barred investigation he promised after his early embarrassment over Katrina. In a similar retreat, Congressional Republican leaders' ballyhooed promise for a special two-house select committee to fathom government's failures has already been scrapped. Democrats are understandably demanding equal membership and subpoena power - if not a 9/11-type independent commission - for such a task.

It's obvious that any honest inquiry into how the nation was caught unprepared must list administration cronyism as a topic of investigation as much as Katrina's timeline. -New York Times 9/26/05

US soldiers allegedly trading pictures of dead Iraqis & Afghanis for porn

2005-09-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

Check out this horrible story on AMERICAblog. How is this bringing liberty to Iraq?

2005-09-24T21:58:00.000-04:00

An above-ground tomb floated down a street on Saturday in Delcambre, La., after the hurricane pushed water from Vermilion Bay into the city. Lori Waselchuk for The New York Times

Separate but equal all over again

2005-09-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

State-sponsored discrimination against Katrina survivors continues as Texas officials want to waive federal rules that prevent schools from segregating homeless students

"On Monday, [Sen. Kay Bailey] Hutchison [R-Texas] introduced a bill with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to allow school districts across the country to open separate schools for hurricane victims… It would also allow schools to issue "identification cards or other identifying insignia" for students affected by Hurricane Katrina… But advocates for the homeless fear the waiver would relegate evacuated students to second-class status. "It basically allows schools to discriminate pretty broadly against kids who are homeless as a result of the storm," says Barbara Duffield, an advocate for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. The waiver would suspend parents' right to protest their children's placement, while making it easier for students to be moved during the school year or denied transportation." -Salon.com 9/19/05

This behavior is even more surprising/concerning considering an article in the New York Times citing the integration of socio-economic classes as an academic benefit:

"Over the last decade, black and Hispanic students here in Wake County have made such dramatic strides in standardized reading and math tests that it has caught the attention of education experts around the country… the prime reason for the students' dramatic improvement, officials and parents say, is that the district has made a concerted effort to integrate the schools economically. Since 2000, school officials have used income as a prime factor in assigning students to schools, with the goal of limiting the proportion of low-income students in any school to no more than 40 percent. The effort is the most ambitious in the country to create economically diverse public schools, and it is the most successful…" -New York Times 9/25/05

Learn damn it! Why won't this country learn?

Damn Republicans and their bigotry/hatred of the poor.

America = Human Rights?

2005-09-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division say members of their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves... The captain approached the aides after he tried to report the allegations to his superiors for 17 months, the aides said. The aides also said they found the captain's accusations credible enough to warrant investigation. -NYT 9/24/05

clearly American forces are a bastion of hope, democracy, and human rights for the infidels in the Middle East. hey, i guess American troops need to amuse themselves somehow, right?

Baby steps towards an Orwellian State

2005-09-23T14:55:00.000-04:00

Buying a keg of beer? An upcoming regulation will require Boston’s breweries and liquor stores to immediately report your name and address to the Boston police… The police will use the new, real-time purchase records to identify “problem houses,” said William B. Evans, a Boston police captain, in remarks to The Boston Herald.

This article in my crappy school newspaper really disturbs me. I feel like the founders of this country would flip out if they couldn't throw a party without the police being notified.

First, let's look at the privacy issues:

Does the new reporting requirement raise privacy concerns? No, says [BLB Chairman Daniel] Pokaski, since individual stores are already required to keep records of their keg sales — records already available to the police.

Mr. Pokaski seems to be missing a small, yet crucial point, which is that this new legislation is a replacement of police work, rather than an augmentation. I take this interpretation from
Washington State v. Jackson, where Washington State police attached a GPS device to a murder suspect’s vehicle in 1999. In the opinion, the court described this difference, and determined that the use of technology in the place of police work is not the same as police work.

This flies in the face of the personal privacy interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. This precedent here is scary as well. What's next?

You have to register with the police whenever you buy two cases of beer?
Or two handles of hard alcohol?
Or one case?
Or a six pack?
Or a 40?
Or every time you enter a bar?

Next, let's look at my implementation fears:

What are these "problem houses"? How are they defined? How is this arbitrary list used? I see this legislation and the resulting list as a license to discriminate against young, poor, and minority communities.

Let's look at a hypothetical example: Say two houses throw parties. One of these houses is in the well to do Beacon Hill and the other is in the much poorer and minorityer (cool word, eh?) Roxbury. Both of these houses buy kegs and presumably go on this list of "problem houses". Now, I bet you that the average bored Boston Police officer, with the incentive of promotion to find and bust crime, will make a visit to the Roxbury house, rather than the house in John Kerry's neighborhood. I guess that's justice in America.

Let's say you live in a house with a bunch of your friends. Like many normal, law-abiding people, you folks like to have friends over and drink a couple drinks once in a while, so you buy a kegerator. Bam! Your name's on the list! Now, 10 years later you're looking for a job or running for public office and the fact that you were once on this list of "problem houses" comes out. Bam! You're jobless and scandalized!

Privacy is slowly eroded in baby steps, not in huge chunks.

Bam!

Rita makes Category 5

2005-09-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

Rita has just become a Category5 storm. let's hope that those in the affected areas stay safe and if necessary, the recovery effort is better than that for Katrina.

welcome to new oraq

2005-09-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

from freewayblogger nation

diplomacy does work

2005-09-20T19:01:00.000-04:00

for all those hawks out there:

For the cause of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia at large, the six parties held in a spirit of mutual respect and equality serious and practical talks concerning the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula... [full text]

see? shock and awe isn't the only solution. and all those lives and dollars wasted in iraq...

Tragedy In Black And White

2005-09-20T15:32:00.000-04:00

Because of New York Times Select, i've elected to post this column in its entirety.

Tragedy In Black And White
By PAUL KRUGMAN, 19 September 2005
The New York Times

By three to one, African-Americans believe that federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans in part because the city was poor and black. By an equally large margin, whites disagree.

The truth is that there's no way to know. Maybe President Bush would have been mugging with a guitar the day after the levees broke even if New Orleans had been a mostly white city. Maybe Palm Beach would also have had to wait five days after a hurricane hit before key military units received orders to join rescue operations.

But in a larger sense, the administration's lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with race. For race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need.

Race, after all, was central to the emergence of a Republican majority: essentially, the South switched sides after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Today, states that had slavery in 1860 are much more likely to vote Republican than states that didn't.

And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, ''There but for the grace of God go I.'' A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, ''Why should I be taxed to support those people?''

Above all, race-based hostility to the idea of helping the poor created an environment in which a political movement hostile to government aid in general could flourish.

By all accounts Ronald Reagan, who declared in his Inaugural Address that ''government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,'' wasn't personally racist. But he repeatedly used a bogus tale about a Cadillac-driving Chicago ''welfare queen'' to bash big government. And he launched his 1980 campaign with a pro-states'-rights speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a small town whose only claim to fame was the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers.

Under George W. Bush -- who, like Mr. Reagan, isn't personally racist but relies on the support of racists -- the anti-government right has reached a new pinnacle of power. And the incompetent response to Katrina was the direct result of his political philosophy. When an administration doesn't believe in an agency's mission, the agency quickly loses its ability to perform that mission.

By now everyone knows that the Bush administration treated the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a dumping ground for cronies and political hacks, leaving the agency incapable of dealing with disasters. But FEMA's degradation isn't unique. It reflects a more general decline in the competence of government agencies whose job is to help people in need.

For example, housing for Katrina refugees is one of the most urgent problems now facing the nation. The FEMAvilles springing up across the gulf region could all too easily turn into squalid symbols of national failure. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which should be a source of expertise in tackling this problem, has been reduced to a hollow shell, with eight of its principal staff positions vacant.

But let me not blame the Bush administration for everything. The sad truth is that the only exceptional thing about the neglect of our fellow citizens we saw after Katrina struck is that for once the consequences of that neglect were visible on national TV.

Consider this: in the United States, unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can't afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined.

But the health care crisis hasn't had much effect on politics. And one reason is that it isn't yet a crisis among middle-class, white Americans (although it's getting there). Instead, the worst effects are falling on the poor and black, who have third-world levels of infant mortality and life expectancy.

I'd like to believe that Katrina will change everything -- that we'll all now realize how important it is to have a government committed to helping those in need, whatever the color of their skin. But I wouldn't bet on it.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

pssshhh, and they say the government wastes money!

2005-09-20T14:21:00.000-04:00

maybe brownie was doing a good job after all. i mean, check out this cool spokescrab! am i too old to be a disaster action kid?

why is this plane on fire? is FEMA not doing well?

kerry on katrina

2005-09-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

i'm not a huge john kerry fan, but i like this exceprt from a speech he's giving tonight at Brown:

Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do. Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the President so famously thanked him for doing a heck of a job -- Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to "Mission Accomplished" and "Wanted Dead or Alive." The bottom line is simple: the "we'll do whatever it takes" administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

This is the Katrina administration.

amen.

lack of compassion for the sick and elderly

2005-09-19T08:44:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times 9/19/05

Of the dead collected so far in the New Orleans area, more than a quarter of them, or at least 154, were patients, mostly elderly, who died in hospitals or nursing homes, according to interviews with officials from 8 area hospitals and 26 nursing homes. By the scores, people without choice of whether to leave or stay perished in New Orleans, trapped in health care facilities and in many cases abandoned by their would-be government rescuers.

Heroic efforts by doctors and nurses across the city prevented the toll from being vastly higher. Yet the breadth of the collapse of one of society's most basic covenants - to care for the helpless - suggests that the elderly and critically ill plummeted to the bottom of priority lists as calamity engulfed New Orleans.

At least 91 patients died in hospitals and 63 in nursing homes not fully evacuated until five days after the storm, according to the interviews, although those numbers are believed to be incomplete.

...when private companies dispatched helicopters, trucks and buses to evacuate hospitals and nursing homes, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency commandeered some of them for other uses, hospital and nursing home officials said. The rescue of those who had remained in their homes, or were sheltered in an increasingly chaotic Superdome, became the priority.

Thought Police v1.0

2005-09-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

From the Boston Globe:

Governor Mitt Romney raised the prospect of wiretapping mosques and conducting surveillance of foreign students in Massachusetts, as he issued a broad call yesterday for the federal government to devote far more money and attention to domestic intelligence gathering.

''How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who have come from terrorist-sponsored states?" he said, referring to foreign students who attend universities in Massachusetts. ''Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?"

''How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror," Romney continued. ''Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on?"

More racism is just what our country needs. I guess I forgot that abandoning the freedoms this country was founded on and pissing off more people is the best solution to the problem.

Romney in 2008 - be afraid. Be very afraid.

It's as clear as black and white

2005-09-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

It's as clear as black and white - a post I made on the beef site that's geting some interesting discussion.

Cornel West on Katrina

2005-09-14T17:38:00.000-04:00

Cornel West, co-chair of The Tikkun Community and professor of African American Studies, recently spoke out about the larger meaning of Katrina from the standpoint of African Americans.

Summarizing an interview with Professor Cornel West

It takes something as big as Hurricane Katrina and the misery we saw among the poor black people of New Orleans to get America to focus on race and poverty. It happens about once every 30 or 40 years.

What we saw unfold in the days after the hurricane was the most naked manifestation of conservative social policy towards the poor, where the message for decades has been: 'You are on your own'. Well, they really were on their own for five days in that Superdome, and it was Darwinism in action - the survival of the fittest.

People said: 'It looks like something out of the Third World.' Well, New Orleans was Third World long before the hurricane.

It's not just Katrina, it's povertina. People were quick to call them refugees because they looked as if they were from another country. They are. Exiles in America. Their humanity had been rendered invisible so they were never given high priority when the well-to-do got out and the helicopters came for the few. Almost everyone stuck on rooftops, in the shelters, and dying by the side of the road was poor black.

In the end George Bush has to take responsibility. When [the rapper] Kanye West said the President does not care about black people, he was right, although the effects of his policies are different from what goes on in his soul. You have to distinguish between a racist intent and the racist consequences of his policies.

Bush is still a 'frat boy', making jokes and trying to please everyone while the Neanderthals behind him push him more to the right.

Poverty has increased for the last four or five years.

A million more Americans became poor last year, even as the super-wealthy became much richer. So where is the trickle-down, the equality of opportunity? Healthcare and education and the social safety net being ripped away - and that flawed structure was nowhere more evident than in a place such as New Orleans, 68 per cent black. The average adult income in some parishes of the city is under $8,000 (£4,350) a year. The average national income is $33,000, though for African- Americans it is about $24,000. It has one of the highest city murder rates in the US. From slave ships to the Superdome was not that big a journey.

New Orleans has always been a city that lived on the edge. The white blues man himself, Tennessee Williams, had it down in A Streetcar Named Desire - with Elysian Fields and cemeteries and the quest for paradise. When you live so close to death, behind the levees, you live more intensely, sexually, gastronomically, psychologically. Louis Armstrong came out of that unbelievable cultural breakthrough unprecedented in the history of American civilization. The rural blues, the urban jazz. It is the tragi-comic lyricism that gives you the courage to get through the darkest storm.

Charlie Parker would have killed somebody if he had not blown his horn. The history of black people in America is one of unbelievable resilience in the face of crushing white supremacist powers.

This kind of dignity in your struggle cuts both ways, though, because it does not mobilize a collective uprising against the elites. That was the Black Panther movement. You probably need both. There would have been no Panthers without jazz. If I had been of Martin Luther King's generation I would never have gone to Harvard or Princeton.

They shot brother Martin dead like a dog in 1968 when the mobilization of the black poor was just getting started. At least one of his surviving legacies was the quadrupling in the size of the black middle class. But Oprah [Winfrey] the billionaire and the black judges and chief executives and movie stars do not mean equality, or even equality of opportunity yet. Black faces in high places does not mean racism is over.

Condoleezza Rice has sold her soul.

Now the black bourgeoisie have an even heavier obligation to fight for the 33 per cent of black children living in poverty - and to alleviate the spiritual crisis of hopelessness among young black men.

Bush talks about God, but he has forgotten the point of prophetic Christianity is compassion and justice for those who have least. Hip-hop has the anger that comes out of post-industrial, free-market America, but it lacks the progressiveness that produces organizations that will threaten the status quo. There has not been a giant since King, someone prepared to die and create an insurgency where many are prepared to die to upset the corporate elite. The Democrats are spineless.

There is the danger of nihilism and in the Superdome around the fourth day, there it was - husbands held at gunpoint while their wives were raped, someone stomped to death, people throwing themselves off the mezzanine floor, dozens of bodies.

It was a war of all against all - 'you're on your own' - in the center of the American empire. But now that the aid is pouring in, vital as it is, do not confuse charity with justice. I'm not asking for a revolution, I am asking for reform. A Marshall Plan for the South could be the first step.

· Dr Cornel West is professor of African American studies and at Princeton University. His great grandfather was a slave. He is a rap artist and appeared as Counsellor West in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.

Interview by Joanna Walters, in Princeton, New Jersey

you are outa here!

2005-09-12T17:48:00.000-04:00

brown resigns. stop killing people and go back to tending horses.

look what else i found:

Katrina: A Holocaust of the Have Nots

2005-09-12T15:42:00.000-04:00

I hope that W enjoyed his tour of decimated New Orleans today. It must be very quiet there now that a significant number of people have finally been evacuated. In response to criticism that the response was bumbled because of racial issues, W made the following remarks:

"The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort… When those Coast Guard choppers -- many of whom were first on the scene -- were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin, they wanted to save lives." -CNN 9/12/05

While there are arguments for and against this case (my personal belief is that race and class were a factor) the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of those who were trapped in New Orleans were poor and/or black. This is also true for those who were unable to evacuate the other affected areas.

Rich whites were able to leave and find safety, while the others were trapped in a Hell on earth for what even the President agrees was/is an inappropriate length of time. Regardless of the motivations of those responsible for the rescue and recovery effort, this tragedy is a very clear illustration of the disparity of wealth in the United States.

The below images (from Inequality.org) explain this inequality statistically:

Wealth distribution:

Source: Edward N. Wolff, "Changes in Household Wealth in the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S.," Jerome Levy Economics Institute, May, 2004.
Among OECD countries, the United States is the worst:

Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, 2002-03 (2003), Table 7.10.
We have a serious problem here, which is just getting worse:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, Table F-1.
If this country does not do something about this, disasters of this scale will continue to discriminate, despite what W says.

we will never forget

2005-09-11T10:03:00.000-04:00

we miss you.

lies and the lying liars that tell them

2005-09-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

Then: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" - President Bush on 9/2 to FEMA Director Michael Brown.

Now: FEMA director Brown recalled to Washington

As the bodies are collected, maybe W will learn a lesson about cronyism and his gross abuse of appointments.

censorship is fun.

2005-09-08T14:13:00.000-04:00

hide the bodies! for the love of god, hide the bodies!

Where are the dems?

2005-09-07T11:30:00.000-04:00

I found these two images while surfing around on conservative news sources and blogs. What I don't understand is why the dems never seem to have their act together as early as the GOP. The right seems to groom and market their candidates so much better.

Let's get our act together people.

Killed by Contempt

2005-09-05T11:12:00.000-04:00

New York Times
September 5, 2005
Killed by Contempt
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.

Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.

But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?

Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.

Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn't just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that's not really a contradiction. Ideological cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?

Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA's effectiveness. Now we know the answer.

Several recent news analyses on FEMA's sorry state have attributed the agency's decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.

For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.

You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.

But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.

Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency's director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.

That contempt, as I've said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.

The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren't caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?

White people find, black people loot

2005-09-04T22:41:00.000-04:00

these photos are from yahoo news. i got them from a forum post.

apparently black people LOOT:

while white people FIND:

apparently yahoo realized that they were being criticized, check out these links:
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530

racism alive and well in amerikkka.

"Bureaucracy has committed murder"

2005-09-04T18:05:00.000-04:00

Today was the best episode of Meet the Press I've ever seen. For those of you who missed it, here are some clips:

Jefferson Parish President Aaron F. Broussard gives an incredibly emotional interview

Russert tears into Chertoff about the craptacular response.

These clips are incredible. I was moved to tears by Broussard. I'm so glad that a prominent media figure is so outraged about this.

Some more clips:
Jebus, here's more outrage from FOX NEWS even. Seeing Geraldo Rivera cry is just insanity. He is freaking out.

Jack Cafferty ripping on Bush

FEMA Director Michael Brown getting mangled on nightline. What a damn liar.

Heads are going to roll. W's lucky as hell that he's not up for re-election.

we're in trouble

2005-09-04T14:11:00.000-04:00

now that this guy has died, this guy is going to strengthen his negative impact on my children's future.

this country is in serious trouble. this truly has become the end of the world.

i love tim russert

2005-09-04T10:45:00.000-04:00

i love Meet the Press. i think this is my new favorite show. right now tim russert is just ripping into Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. i'm so glad that an important media figure is doing this.

Chertoff is such an ass hole. this is such an embarassment. he is so screwed. W too.

career = over

terrible tragedy

2005-09-02T13:14:00.000-04:00

i have never seen a front page of the times like this.

Too little too late

2005-09-01T17:17:00.000-04:00

Why does it seem that our nation's leadership is reacting so slowly to this tragedy?
Some clips:

"This is a desperate S.O.S….Right now, we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently, the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for 15 to 20,000 people." -Mayor C. Ray Nagin

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. -NYT 9/1/05

There was plenty of forewarning for this disaster. New Orleans’ vulnerability was no secret. Katrina was polite enough to telegraph days ahead and tell everyone when and where she was coming. State, local and federal officials have no excuse for being so unprepared. That Gov. Blanco, with all the resources of the state of Lousiana at her command, was shown up by the Red Cross and other charities shows just how slack the state’s preparation was. -The Union Leader 9/1/05

A better leader [than Bush] would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease. -The Union Leader 9/1/05

Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans's emergency operations, bitterly complained about the situation, criticizing the response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "This is a national disgrace," he told the Associated Press. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is not command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans." -Washington Post 9/1/05

This neglect is particularly upsetting considering the quick response from leadership after September 11. Maybe it's because most of the victims are poor and look like this:

And not like this:

Waiting for a Leader

2005-09-01T11:03:00.000-04:00

"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end..." -NYT 9/1/04

sorrow

2005-08-31T22:49:00.000-04:00

my heart goes out to those in the regions damaged by hurricane Katrina. this tragedy is just unimaginable. it is impossible for me to find a parallel through which to understand the extent of the damage.

overnight, you lose your home, all your possesions, your job, any prospectof getting another job, and you're lucky if your family is intact.

buy blue

2005-08-29T13:34:00.000-04:00

a friend showed me Buy Blue, which keeps track of campaign donations. From their site:

"You may have voted blue, but every day you unknowingly help dump millions of dollars into the conservative war chest. By purchasing products and services from companies that donate heavily to conservatives, we have been compromising our own interests as liberals and progressives."

Some notable Blue companies:

Barnes & Noble
Google
Starbucks
Apple Computer
7-Eleven
Harrah's Entertainment
eBay

Some notable Red companies:

Best Buy
California Pizza Kitchen
Krispy Creme
McDonalds
Urban Outfitters
Dell
Hallmark Cards
Amazon.com

Drink beer, not Coors

2005-08-18T11:06:00.000-04:00

The other night at dinner with my aunt and uncle, aside from what I mentioned earlier, there was an interesting exchange between my relatives. We decided to grab a beer while we waited for a table, so we went to the bar, I ordered a beer, and my uncle ordered a beer for himself and his wife. The beers arrived, my aunt asked what was ordered for her, and when my uncle told her Coors Light, she said "You know you're not supposed to drink Coors because of their ties to extreme right wing organizations."

Now I've heard this before, but since I'm on vacation and I have so little to do, I decided to do some research. I also know you guys love this stuff. Here's what I found after just a couple minutes on Google:

Coors and Race:
William Coors, a principal of the Adolph Coors Foundation and head of the Castle Rock Foundation, had this to say to black and Mexican-American businessmen:

if they thought it was "unfair" that their "ancestors were dragged here in chains against their will…I would urge those of you who feel that way to go back to where your ancestors came from, and you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains, and I mean it… They [Africans] lack the intellectual capacity to succeed, and it's taking them down the tubes. You take a country like Rhodesia, where the economy was absolutely booming under white management. Now, black management is in Zimbabwe, and the economy is a disaster, in spite of the fact that there is probably ten times the motivation on the part of the citizens of that country to make it succeed. Lack of intellectual capacity--that has got to be there."

The Coors family has supported a number of groups which work to continue the racist divisions in the U.S., as well as outright racist groups, such as the Patriotic American Youth Group. This group's decidedly racist publications have included on the masthead active participants in groups such as the Citizen's Councils and the KKK. (http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Racism_of_the_RW)

On August 1, 2003 a lawsuit was filed against Berkeley, California's historic voluntary school desegregation plan, the first of its kind in the nation, established in 1968. This suit was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), another Coors-funded right wing law firm/foundation. The PLF has launched this attack as part of a campaign of lawsuits in California, cynically named "Operation End Bias" in an attempt to use the racist Proposition 209 to re-segregate state and local agencies. They also unsuccessfully attempted to end Seattle, Washington's high school integration plan, losing at the state Supreme Court in June 2003. (http://bamn.com/boycott-coors/index.asp)

The Coors family also has a history of support of Apartheid in South Africa.

Coors and LGBT:
While Coors tries to spin a positive image in the LGBT community, Coors family foundation money continues to fund the Heritage Foundation, which supported Colorado's bigoted Amendment 2, attacked federally funded legal aid programs for "advanc[ing] the goals of homosexual activists," and lobbied to keep a complete ban on gays and lesbians in the military. The family foundation also gives money to the ultra-conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, which also argued for keeping the ban in the military. These and many other uses of Coors profits are issues of concern to readers of Out Front Colorado, and it is disturbing that the publication would take the extraordinary measure of rejecting a paid advertisement in order to limit their reader's awareness of Coors' activities. (http://www.nlg.org/programs/lgbt/lgbt_colorado.htm)

[Now I realize there is debate within the gay community about the appropriateness of a continued boycott, but the more compelling information I found was in support of such action.]

Coors and Labor:
Coors is fiercely anti-labor, having broken 19 unions in 20 years and having blocked OSHA inspectors from investigating workplace hazards which led to the death of Coors employees. (http://www.corporations.org/coors/article.html)

Coors and Environment:
Coors is one of the largest dumpers of hazardous waste in Colorado. They’ve been cited many times for water pollution and have been caught covering up known pollution including contamination of multiple underground springs where toxic chemical solvents contributed to irregular heartbeat, unconsciousness, pulmonary edema and death. (http://www.corporations.org/coors/article.html)

Other extreme right groups they support (From "The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism" by Russ Bellant):

Moral Majority, which has called for the imprisonment of gay persons with AIDS

Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Christian Reconstructionists, both of whom have called for the abolition of U.S. democracy and the establishment of a theocratic state

Coors family members have sat on boards of groups with people like a former Indiana KKK leader, apartheid supporters and ultraright Christian Reconstructionists calling for the execution of homosexuals, adulterers and blasphemers.

National Right to Work Committee, an anti-worker group out to destroy unions.

Terrorist activity in many foreign countries, including the Contras in Nicaragua

Parental Music Resource Center, a pro-censorship group with strong ties to the religious right.

Joe Coors started the Heritage Foundation, which in 1996 sent a letter to voters urging them to vote for Bob Dole, who they promised would abolish the federal departments of education, housing, transportation and energy. Coors chose a neo-Nazi author of an Aryan supremacy book as co-editor of their publication, "Policy Review." They have sponsored forums for pro-Nazi groups and have funded the work of a convicted Nazi collaborator.

Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the law firm notorious for the attack on the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs in the two cases Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger

Basically, what I've found is a pretty compelling case against Coors, which also owns Zima, Killian's Irish Red, Keystone, Blue Moon, Extra Gold, Masters Beer, and seveal other brews.

Swastika : Millions of Murdered Jews :: Confederate Flag : ???

2005-08-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

So I went to dinner with my aunt and uncle last night at by far the best pizza place I've ever been to and I have a couple ridiculous things to discuss.

Before we start, let's note that I'm down the shore, which is what Jersey people call the beach, about an hour from New York City. My uncle, a white guy who's lived down here for over two decades, calls this place a redneck hangout that he wouldn't normally go to, but it really is the best pizza you'll ever have. I note that my uncle's white because for some it might be relevant given the comment he made. OK, ready to go.

We were sitting at the bar waiting for our table and enjoying a couple beers when we realized a guy there with a confederate flag bandana wrapped around his head. Now what's the deal with this symbol? Aside from the fact that this guy probably grew up in Jersey, I just find the confederate flag in such poor taste. The argument that this is simply a symbol of heritage is incredibly flawed. What heritage or history is this a symbol of? This discussion is so tired in my mind. Confederate flag is to slavery and the oppression of blacks as the Swastika is to millions of murdered Jews. It really insults me that this manner of expression is protected by the First Amendment. Seriously people, we need to mature past this.

Anyways, this story and my incredibly clever title were only the lead-in to the thing that upset me more:

When we finally sat down for dinner, I noticed the following riddle on the placemat, which features half a dozen puzzles for children titled "Fun While You Wait":

3 settlers traveling with 3 Indians come to a river. The boat will only hold 2 passengers. At no time can there be more Indians on either side of the river than settlers or the Indians will overpower the settler. How can they manage to cross the river safely?

Accompanying this text is the picture above. You can see the three Indians wielding weapons (hatchets and a bow and arrow) and threatening the three obviously innocent, frightened, and white settlers, one of whom has an arrow through his hat. Furthermore, the Indians are shown in clear caricature fashion and two of them seem to have sharp teeth, presumably used to eat white people.

Now we've all seen this riddle before, but usually with chickens and dogs or something other than an incredibly offensive portrayal of Native Americans. Not only is this combination of riddle and drawing absurdly discriminatory, but it flies in the face of historical fact. Everyone who's not an idiot knows that whites were responsible for the all but extinction of Native Americans. I guess the artist had trouble figuring out how to draw all the guns, horses, smallpox, manifest destiny, and bulldozers. The writer also probably forgot that the Americas were settled thousands of years before Europeans came over and started ruining everything.

Now what kind of message is this supposed to send children, who are meant to see this "Fun"? Not that Native Americans aren't caricatured enough, but this kind of depiction just seems so obviously false and offensive. It saddens me when I see these subtly racist messages, especially when they are positioned to do such damage to the next generation. America really needs to grow up and realize that this is simply unacceptable.

A little insight

2005-08-11T12:40:00.000-04:00

So I've often been accused of reading too much into things or being a cynical bastard, especially when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity. So, let me try to explain my perspective as a black male. I'll start with a story:

Late last night, I was out with a couple friends at a fancy bar downtown. At around 2:30, a group of black men entered the bar. One of these men was quite inebriated, and decided to make a ruckus by yelling at everyone and pushing around his friends. He was being incredibly obnoxious, and if the bar was busier, it might have been a significant problem for the owner. When his friends tried to calm him down by telling him the police were going to come, he started yelling "Fuck the police!" in everyone's face. It was also obvious that none of the wait staff was adventurous enough to attempt to quiet him down, and a couple of them huddled fearfully together on the other side of the room. We eventually left.

Now, what does this story have to do with anything? As a black male working hard to find success, this incident upset me a great deal. Why? Well, because of a realization I came to a while ago: this man represents me and the children I hope to raise in the future. What I mean by this can be explained by the fact that most people in the bar probably saw this man and his "homies" and wrote it off as just another crazy black man. I guarantee you that very few people were thinking "Look at that crazy man," and most were thinking "Look at that crazy black man." It's a subtle, but powerful, difference

This is just the reality members of a minority group face. Peggy McIntosh, a feminist from Wellesley wrote about this in "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack". Individual members of minority communities are always called upon to represent their larger community. I can personally attest to this phenomenon, as I've been explicitly asked to do just this in many different situations. This is an incredible burden, and one not easy to accept, and it's true. But I digress…

Here's another example. A couple of weeks ago, I was telling a story to a friend of mine about how the woman at the checkout counter at Star Market was having trouble scanning my credit card, and how I was embarrassed. He (a white male) said he wouldn't of cared. I didn't bring it up, but I felt our difference in opinion was based on a fundamental difference in how we see ourselves in the larger societal context. More specifically, that I see myself as a "black man" while he probably sees himself as a "man." Most of society also probably makes the distinction between "black man" and "man". When my credit card doesn't seem to work, I'm sure there are those around me thinking "Maybe he stole that card."

So, when I witness incidents such as the one last night, I feel just as Terrence Howard's character did in Crash when he told Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges' character "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself." When I see groups of black children on the subway annoying and/or harassing people, all I can think about is how this is going to warp the impressions of blacks held by others on the subway, because it does.

I know this is a long and convoluted post, but I'm about to get to my point, which is as follows: I agree that I am very sensitive to issues of race and ethnic discrimination and insensitivity, but I don't feel like I've been given much of a choice in the matter. I think it is irresponsible of minorities of all types (race, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, geographic origin, etc.) to not be sensitive to these matters. This is especially true nowadays, as a good friend and I wrote a couple years ago:

"We should not be as concerned about the ranting lunatic who burns crosses in backyards as much as we should be concerned about the intelligent college student who has no qualms about “innocently” joking with his or her friends about “ghetto niggas” who drink malt liquor and loot their neighbors, for it is the words of the student and not those of the overt, radically racist lunatic that perpetuate the venomous feelings about many groups in this country. Practically everyone recognizes and rejects the blatantly hateful messages that the lunatic peddles. Thus the ugly rhetoric used, perhaps inadvertently, in this seemingly more innocuous context is most damaging because it is deemed acceptable by popular acclamation of all those who keep quiet when it passes by their ears." The Tech

state-sponsored xenophobia

2005-08-10T09:11:00.000-04:00

Because to be really safe, we need to be scared of everyone who's different and keep tabs on them:

Hoping to block the entry of criminals and terrorists into the United States and to improve the enforcement of immigration laws, government officials have in the past several years created enormous new repositories of digitally recorded biometric data - including fingerprints and facial characteristics - that can be used to identify more than 45 million foreigners.

Because Europeans are our friends, and would never commit terrorist acts:

The screening continues when foreigners come into the country. At domestic security checkpoints, visitors with visas are again fingerprinted and photographed to verify that they are the same people who were given the travel documents. If they are from 27 so-called visa waiver nations - mostly in Europe - they are fingerprinted and photographed for the first time. The federal government uses the data to check against watch lists and to share with law enforcement officials.

This whole culture of fear thing is just expanding without check. Personally, I'm pretty scared of people from the South, so why don't we start gathering biometric information on all those potential clansmen once the cross the Mason-Dixon.

Seriously.

Let's all be like that cool black guy!

2005-08-09T20:50:00.000-04:00

So I just saw a Heineken commercial that kinda irked me. Two Asian men in their mid-20s walk into a convenience store, and it is obvious that they are "trying to be black" or "ghetto" or whatever other stereotype of blacks Heineken wants to portray. They're dressed the part with baggy clothing and hats turned sideways. Apparently, all the English they know they learned from rap music.

Obviously, when they look for something to drink, they go straight to the 40s section, grab two, and celebrate their "coolness". While they're enjoying the fact that they've gotten closer to "blackness", a real black man on his cell phone walks to the refrigerator and grabs a 6-pack of Heineken. He looks at the two Asian men and rolls his eyes, cause he knows they're trying to be cool like him. Suddenly, a beautiful woman walks by and, since he's black, and all black men are players, he says to his friend on the phone "The party's hoppin' in here! For real real!" and follows the woman off the screen, presumably to harass her, cause he's black and that's what black men do.

Later, when the two Asian guys are checking out, one of them is now on the phone with one of his homies. He's not speaking any English, with the exception of his new catch phrase "For real!" His friend then corrects him by saying "For real real!"

Now, it's hard to say why, but this ad pissed me off a little. I think it's the fact that it's portraying this stereotype as something for people to revere and imitate, particularly for less cool races. I'm definitely left a little uncomfortable.

caricature mascots

2005-08-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

The NCAA has decided to ban any school with a nickname or logo considered racially or ethnically "hostile" or "abusive" from postseason events. Below is a list of affected teams:

Alcorn State University (Braves)
Central Michigan University (Chippewas)
Catawba College (Indians)
Florida State University (Seminoles)
Midwestern State University (Indians)
University of Utah (Utes)
Indiana University-Pennsylvania (Indians)
Carthage College (Redmen)
Bradley University (Braves)
Arkansas State University (Indians)
Chowan College (Braves)
University of Illinois-Champaign (Illini)
University of Louisiana-Monroe (Indians)
McMurry University (Indians)
Mississippi College (Choctaws)
Newberry College (Indians)
University of North Dakota (Fighting Sioux)
Southeastern Oklahoma State University (Savages)

These teams can't present their mascots or band costumes, and logos must be covered. The Florida State president T.K. Wetherell makes the following complaint:

"That the NCAA would now label our close bond with the Seminole people as culturally 'hostile and abusive' is both outrageous and insulting." -WP

While the Seminole Tribe of Florida has given the university permission to use the name, other tribes are not supportive. Apparently, Wisconsin and Iowa have already taken a stand on the issue by refusing to schedule games against schools that have American Indian nicknames. Fourteen schools have already made the change to an appropriate name.

I think this is a very interesting, and overdue, decision. Some affected schools are planning to pursue legal action. I always considered these names quite patronizing and offensive. The caricatures never portrayed native people in any manner other than competitive and aggressive. It would be the same as calling a team the Sambos, Negroes, or Blackskins. Native Americans have really been left out of the civil rights movement, and this is just one indication of this disparity.

i hate wolf blitzer

2005-08-05T12:53:00.000-04:00

strange nightmare

2005-08-04T10:08:00.000-04:00

I had a really weird dream last night where I was in the audience of a talk show hosted by someone who was obviously a GOP puppet. She was this ugly young woman, about my age, and every time someone in the audience (which seemed oddly liberal considering the context) would ask her a tough question about things like Iraq, ID, or energy independence, she would totally avoid the question, about as well as all the politicians I see on TV.

Somehow, the topic of racism in America came up; specifically how the GOP was promoting fear and hatred of "others". The hostess was obviously denying it, and things god a little heated. All of a sudden, she called in these security guards who started dragging away all the agitators. It reminded me of the Jerry Springer show, but instead of the security guards breaking up fist fights, they were dragging non-violent participants off the set in an extremely violent manner.

As I was getting dragged off the set by one of these beasts, I remember yelling at the hostess that she was going to hell, which is odd because I don't believe in hell. She responded by saying no, she was safe because the devil and god had been bought off. Then I got dragged into the hallway and got beat up.

Weird huh?

The weirdest part is that I woke up to find a reality not very far from my ~~dream~~ nightmare. Three examples of GOP fear, hatred, and discrimination of "others":

1. In 2003, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY) equated blacks with crime and drug use:

Yesterday's debate suddenly veered from guns to race when Cubin criticized a failed Democratic amendment that would have banned gun sales to drug addicts or people in drug treatment. After noting that her sons, ages 25 and 30, "are blond-haired and blue-eyed," she said: "One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean that if you go into a black community you can't sell any guns to any black person?"

2. This past March, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was quoted as saying the following:

"We don’t do Lincoln Day Dinners in South Carolina, it’s nothing personal, but it takes awhile to get over things."

3. Our president, W, has declined invitations to five NAACP gatherings.

qualities of a good leader

2005-08-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

it's a good thing our president is so skilled in compromise, diplomacy, and consensus building, that he never has to push things through when the dissenters are on vacation.

a true leader and a great role model.

The terrorists are winning

2005-07-31T17:40:00.000-04:00

Terrorism, or more the perceived threat of terrorism, has so defeated us. Since 9/11, we have fallen into this horrible culture of fear that has significantly disrupted our way of life and challenged many of the values this country was founded on. For one, the patriot act requires serious sacrifices of rights such as privacy and free speech.

There's also such a feeling of paranoia everywhere. In New York, they're conducting bag searches in the subways. Here, you see signs all over the place for the MBTA transit watch, which often seems like it's telling people to spy on each other. I hate all the signs that tell us to look for "suspicious" behavior. What does that even mean in a city with a diverse population? Xenophobia?

I remember two news commentators talking about this a couple months after 9/11. They were saying how you used to be able to drive by the White House and honk you horn in support of the president. If you tried something like that now, you'd probably get stopped by the police, if not arrested.

Here's another example. I had a friend who, while in school in Philadelphia, was taking photographs of the Ben Franklin Bridge for a class project. Within 10 minutes, the police were on the scene, scared that he was a potential terrorist.

What scares me is the power this fear has over people, and the way it is manipulated by many in power (no examples should be needed). While terrorism is a real threat, I see no need for the government to teach us to spy on each other. The values this country held so dear centuries ago must be remembered, lest we move toward an Orwellian future.

Little League baseball, killing dreams one minority child at a time

2005-07-29T12:42:00.000-04:00

I was trying to do some research for another post, when I stumbled upon this blatant example of ethnic discrimination. This is so ridiculously offensive and flagrant that it doesn't even qualify as TMR (Third Millennium Racism) in my book.

Basically, an umpire at a little league game said that speaking in Spanish was cheating, and so didn't allow a team of 14-year-old kids to speak to each other in what is probably the primary language for many of them. I guess he thought that speaking a foreign tongue is far more devilish than using secret hand signals the other team couldn't decipher. (Just a quick note that speaking in spanish is not against the rules, as that would obviously be insane.)

The team was winning at the time, but eventually lost. The coach attributes the loss to the ruling, which he said demoralized the children. This may be true, but what I'd be more concerned with is the damage this is going to do to these kids off the field. Being told that your language, and your culture for that matter, is a form of cheating can't be good for their development into adults. Or better yet, that the only way to achieve fairly is to essentially be white or act white.

National Little League spokesman Lance Van Auken said "The umpire simply overstepped his authority, and there was no malicious intent... You're talking about human beings… Human beings do make mistakes," and that the umpire would not be punished. Yeah, I guess ethnic discrimination does qualify as a "mistake". Incredible.

Lesson learned: let's all speak English, be white, and be American. That way we can all be happy and our achievements will be "legitimate" in the eyes of our superiors (e.g. white males).

Oh no, not another boring space launch

2005-07-26T13:26:00.000-04:00

at 10:39am today, Shuttle Discovery blasted into the skies above florida for a 12 day mission.

i don't mean to sound unpatriotic or anything, but i'm not really a big fan of human space exploration. i understand the goal of science for science sake, and how this program developed as an extention of the cold war, but really just see this as a waste of billions of dollars that could be used with much greater benefit. if we want to encourage science and exploration, why not dedicate that money to science and math education in public schools? our country, particularly youngsters, is lagging behing many countries in math and science education.

in the wake of the Columbia disaster, it also seems like such a huge risk, to the astronauts and the environment. i can appreciate the fact that this was a huge disaster, and how these men and women were heros, but i don't remember feeling as miserable as most of the country seemed to feel. seven great human beings died and an american icon was destroyed, and not for much benefit.

i never heard of a kid dying from learning about fractions. pay teachers more and put computers in classrooms.

incredible.

2005-07-24T19:41:00.000-04:00

i feel sorry for boston

2005-07-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

i was home in jersey earlier this week, and i decided to stop at the local bagel place and pick up some bagels to bring back to boston. it is only now that i realize how incredible a decision this was. in contention for "best decisions by a vertabrate ever", honestly. i am sad to admit this, but i had really forgotten what a real bagel tastes like. i still have a couple left in my apartment if you want to try one.

for those of you unfortunate souls who have never had a new york or northern jersey bagel, i pity you. now i understand why boston hates The City so much: because this is their best bagel. it really is terrifying. these bagels are horrible! people say it's the water here that sucks, which is true. maybe it's the lack of jewish folks. whatever it is, it's sad.

this is a very serious post, maybe more serious than my posts about racism, media manipulation, religious influence on government, or how much the DaVinci Code sucks put together! for people who don't think this is a big deal, you have to understand that i don't even know where to go to get a bad bagel back home! wherever i eventually land after MIT, they better have good bagels, because i don't want to have to ship them in.

tragic. just tragic.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2005-07-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

my recent posts have been a little to serious, so i'm happy to report on a children't book. the 6th book in J.K. Rowling's series (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) was really incredible. it always amazes me how great the writing is in these books and how well the characters are designed. this book was obviously written for an older audience, which i think was a good choice of Rowling's.

it has the usual great story with twists and surprises. it also has a lot of cheesy teenage romance, which i enjoyed. the ending is truly devistating and i still can't believe what happened. i'd like to talk more about the book, but i don't want to ruin anything for you fans out there. and if you're not a fan, you're living an unenlightened life.

next on my list is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values.

Third-Millennium Racism, or as my homies call it "TMR"

2005-07-16T22:34:00.000-04:00

Foreman: Well, in my experience –
Senator: Patients lie. Politicians lie more. And black politicians –
Foreman: Whoa, I don’t think black politicians lie more than white politicians.
Senator: We lie less.
Foreman: You figure we’re morally superior?
Senator: No, we, we just can’t get away with it. No one’s gonna give us the benefit of the doubt. No one’s gonna cut us a second chance. And, and when it happens it’s not just a bad politician, it’s a bad role model, it’s a discredit to the race.
[From House M.D. 1X17: ROLE MODEL]

This interesting snippet from House M.D., a show on FOX, brings up an interesting point about contemporary struggles for equity in America. (This post is somewhat a continuation of my thoughts post-Crash.) See, I'm no longer worried that some asshole is going to burn a cross in my front yard or that a mob will attack my kids. Third-Millennium racism in America is much more subtle, cleverly crafted to fly below most radar and completely deniable in most cases.

For example, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. showed that those folks lucky enough to have minority-sounding names have a
significantly harder time finding a job. In fact, these names often bar their owners from even approaching the table, while resumes with white-sounding names were 50% more likely to be called for interviews. 50%?! Damn! How, in 2005 can a resume be thrown away because of a name? Insanity!

Another "subtle" problem is the fact that, while white males are willing to acknowledge the fact that other groups are disadvantaged, many in are unwilling to agree that they are over-privileged. Peggy McIntosh, of Wellesley, has written a fantastic essay about this phenomenon, titled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, which everyone should definitely read (come on, it takes 5 minutes, you can read it during the commercials). She testifies that "[w]hite privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks." She also makes a list of dozens of daily effects of white privilege, my favorites below ("favorites", what a weird word to use:

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

I can particularly relate to those points made about how a member of a minority group is constantly called upon to represent his/her whole group, as this has happened to me many, many times.

Nowadays, the minority has to be on his/her guard for racism. This is a terrifying realization, particularly because of the fact that a minority's credibility is always jeopardized when he/she mentions the "r-word".

50% more? How can I raise kids in this world? Save me Jebus!

read about physics

2005-07-16T12:10:00.000-04:00

i just finished Brian Geene's The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, and man was it good. the writing is just great. while the topics are somewhat difficult, it is a very enjoyable book. i easly recommend it to anyone, even if you haven't taken 8.01 nad 8.02.

my brain needs a break now, so i'm going to go pick up my pre-ordered Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince :) i should have a report in a couple of days.

It's the sense of touch…

2005-07-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen Crash yet, stop everything you're doing and go see it now [trailer]. This is really a fantastic movie, featuring some of the best writing and acting I've ever seen. Don Cheadle is a master. Too bad he's probably not going to win anything for it. Ludacris was also much better than I expected. I think I might actually buy the soundtrack for it as well. Truly an emotional experience. Friend bloggers' comments on it: Guru, Prophet.

The real power of the movie is in how it illustrates racism in the United States. While it may be a little over the top, I really think the stories and people are not that far from reality. Lose the epithets and blatantly racist dialogue, and it's real life. I wonder how people will react to this movie, given its stylized nature. I hope people don't just think "Oh, this isn't real" or "This isn't me".

One thing I especially liked was how the movie highlighted the tensions that arise from language barriers. It's important for us to recognize the conclusions we draw about people when we can't understand them.

This is a movie to learn from. How would I react in each of these terrible situations? I have no freaking idea. This dilemma, as well as the greater context and message of the movie have inspired me to begin a process of reflection. I am aware of, and am embarrassed by, many of my own personal biases. I've known of these flaws of mine for quite some time, and something needs to be done about it.

Step 1: Admitting that you have a problem.

Step 2: ...?

Weapons of Mass Deception

2005-07-10T20:47:00.000-04:00

i just got back from a MoveOn PAC event inspired by the resignation of Sandra Day O’Connor. at a small house in somerville, we watched Weapons of Mass Deception, a film about how the media perverted America's view of the was in Iraq (sometimes called Operation Iraqi Liberation). it was quite a good film, outlining the close and lucrative relationships between the miliraty, the gop, and mainstream media [check out the trailer]. it's written by Danny Schechter, who has worked for CNN and ABC, and seems to be a reputible guy.

aside from the stuff i already knew, mostly from Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, some interesting theories were proposed. the most interesting one is that the US military purposely fired at independent reporters whose beliefs did not align with the US propoganda machine. i'm not sure how much i believe it, but it's interesting none the less. it also notes how many (especially in conservative circles) believe that the media lost the war in Vietnam, which i have heard before, and how the media was mobilized and manipulated with purpose by the military this time around.

one quote that stuck with me was by some alternative journalist: "Hey, if you didn't like the media coverage during this war, you're really going to hate what it's like the next time around." the government, particularly the military, is getting better at manipulating the media infrastructure, and it's scary. fox news, called the "Patriotism Police" in the film, is spreading misperception about the war, and is driving all other media sources to the right on the side. check out this graphic:

it's always sad to see films such as these, that paint such a picture of corruption and deception. well, i guess this reality is what i hope to help change in my tenure on this earth.

don't read the DaVinci Code

2005-06-30T14:33:00.000-04:00

if you haven't yet, don't read the DaVinci Code - it's not nearly as good a book as everyone says, mediocre at best. i should have listened to my parents, who said it wasn't great - they're never wrong about anything, especially when it comes to literature.

although it was action packed and a quick read, that's about all it's got going for it as a piece of literature. i found the ending unsatisfying, and the characters didn't really have any substance.

i bought The Elegant Universe today, and i have high hopes. check back in a week or so.

God bless America

2005-06-28T22:55:00.000-04:00

This is essentially an response to comments made on a previous post. I thought the response needed more space and warranted a more prominent display.

My definition of a secular nation is one in which religion does not dictate public policy, or one in which a particular religion or group of religions does not dictate social norms through the government. It is very clear in my mind that religion, namely Christianity, drives public policy and manipulates social norms. Below are several examples of this.

1. First, let me respond to something you said: "It's not like the religious right is making homosexuality illegal, which would then be imposing religious beliefs." I don't know where you're coming with this, the religious right is actively trying to make homosexual marriage illegal, banning it through the office of the president and 11 states. Furthermore, there is a wide array of examples of homosexual acts made illegal and/or prosecuted at the state level. You can't deny the fact that the basis for these practices is religion, and at the very least it is stigmatizing homosexuality and so driving social norms. The whole "Gays in the military" issue is another huge can of worms.

2. Second, you say "you have to be careful when you say 'religious group'. It wasn't just one religious group, but a conglomerate". This is probably true, I should be more careful. However, it was the religious right that drove his re-election in many states. "According to exit polls, 20% of voters put moral issues at the top of their list - more than any other issue - and 80% of them were Bush supporters." (The Guardian) The article goes on to further quote a leading rightwing campaigner Richard Viguerie:

"We're seeing from the exit polls that conservative Christian voters turned out in record numbers ... so we certainly will be pressing for action on key items of our agenda, and we will not be shy about claiming that our influence was significant in the outcome of the election... Make no mistake - conservative Christians and 'values voters' won this election for George W Bush and Republicans in congress." -The Guardian

The point here is not that since a lot of religious people voted, we live in a non-secular country, but that their power is driving policy. Essentially that they won him the vote and now he owes tham. As much as I dislike the Christian Right, I applaud the fact that they voted so aggressively.

3. The presence of god in Government, or Government promoted, practices is also overwhelming. I mentioned in the previous post the fact that "In God We Trust" is on all our currency. Millions of children are forced to repeat the phrase "One nation, under God" every morning - a policy supported by the highest court in the land. Again, clear and undisputable evidence of religion driving culture. If you happen to be the one 8 year old atheist in your class, I bet anything that you're not going to be seen as "normal" by your peers, and maybe not even by your teachers - a lead in to my next point.

4. Creationism in public schools. Come on! This policy is purely driven by the religious right. How can you defend the thrashing of one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time as a non-secular policy? If you have not yet read it, you should read Okay, We Give Up in Scientific American.

5. How many non-Christian presidents can you name? How many non-Protestant presidents can you name? Do you think a Catholic president could be elected today? What about a Jewish president? Muslim? Atheist? No way.

6. Now think about how religion polarizes congress.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. It is very clear to me that religion is a huge part of this country's political machine, and will continue to drive public policy.

random hendrix

2005-06-28T11:39:00.000-04:00

Anger he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armour
Queen jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted,
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready,
But wonder why the fight is on

But they’re all bold as love, yes, they’re all bold as love
Yeah, they’re all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident that he flashes trophies of war and
Ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring,
But very unsteady for the first go round
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact I’m trying to say it’s frigthened like me
And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from, eh,
Giving my life to a rainbow like you
But, I’m eh , yeah, I’m bold as love

Current Terror Alert Level

2005-06-28T08:59:00.000-04:00

i thought this was pretty clever, as is this, and this.

thank the lord

2005-06-27T11:33:00.000-04:00

so the supreme court decided that it is unconstitutional for courts display the Ten Commandments (washington post article). i don't understand how this was a debate in the first place, but again i gladly find myself on the opposite side of the arguement than the idiots: Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist.

"In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that Ten Commandments displays are a legitimate tribute to the nation's religious and legal history." -WP

i don't understand how this is a legitimate arguement. religious history. religious history. religious history. come on people, this is insanity. well, i guess this is one consequence of living in a non-secular country.

ender's game

2005-06-25T22:13:00.000-04:00

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you."

i just finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and it was fantastic. i can't believe i didn't read this book earlier. it was the third fastest i've read a book for leisure, behind Spalstick by Vonnegut and Anthem by Rand. it really was impossible to put down, and i can't think of another such book.
the best thing about it is i now remember how much i enjoy reading, and early next week i'm going to head over to B&N and pick up some more summer reading. any recommendations?

i also preordered the new Harry Potter, of course. any recommendations?

i hate cnn

2005-06-24T15:18:00.000-04:00

"It's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America." -John Stewart

so i finally gave up on CNN.com, and removed it from my bookmarks. i was so fed up with all the crap that somehow finds its way to the front page of one of the Internet's most read news sources, if not the most read. i can't deal with the fact that every kidnapped or murderd kid from suburbia is considered headline news. i need not concern myself with runaway brides and michael jackson updates.

and their sensationalized, in your face, facny graphics television station makes me sick. stop trying to be like fox news and report real news. what business does a 4 minute segment on blogs have in Inside Politics? that's not news.

from now on, i'm sticking to the New York Times, Washington Post, and BBC News. anyone else have any other sources?

in short: CNN, i hate you. Stop making this country dummmer.

[yes, i realize i got that image from a site called republicangear.com - check out their intensely ignorant splash page]

eminent domain - expansion and abuse

2005-06-23T12:33:00.000-04:00

The supreme court made an interesting ruling today in KELO et al. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON et al., essentially giving local municipalities the power to seize residents' homes, even in non-blighted areas, for the purpose of private development. It's an interesting case, because I think the point is that the supreme court can't be called upon for development decisions - so I think the decision is correct.

However, it is disappointing because local governments should respect property rights. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a very powerful dissent, and she was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. This is another reason I agree with the decision, because I just can't side with Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas - assholes all.

The problem with this decision is clearly described by O'Connor:

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,'' O'Connor wrote. ''The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.'' -NYT (you'll need a free membership)

Although I agree with the decision, I do think it will be abused by "those citizens with disproportionate influence and power". This is an unfortunate reality in which we live, and I can only hope that such abuse is made plain to see in election season.

it's been a good run

2005-06-23T01:25:00.002-04:00

Almost all of my close friends have left Boston or will in the next couple of months (my roommate for the past two years is leaving Saturday). I'm kinda worried about what's going to happen with these relationships. I mean, there will be reunions and such, but those are rare very occurrences.

I've made some great friends these past five years at MIT, and I'm really going to miss these folks. I think about how many people from high school I still talk to, and there aren't that many. I guess that's because I didn't really have many friends in high school, so maybe that's just a bad comparison. But it's still weird saying goodbye to people, because I don't really know what to say.

Keep in touch!

Visit me!

I'll see you around!

They just seem a little false, like they're just social conventions that people use to conclude an uncomfortable conversation and end a relationship. Talking to people who are only semi friends and acquaintances is also uncomfortable. I don't really care what a lot of these people are doing with their lives, and it just bores me so much to ask the same questions over and over again to so many people. I know I'm never going to talk or see many of them again, so why waste my time?

Also, making new friends seems like such a waste of time at this point - I'll only be around for a couple more months anyways. It's so much work...

Anyways, time for sleep...

i was bored...

2005-06-22T13:43:00.000-04:00

...so i decided to search the vast intraweb for cooler templates than those offered by blogger. besides, i stole the one i had before, and then had it stolen from me.

there are some really cool ones at Blogger Templates and noipo.org. this new one is a modification of one i found on Blogger Templates.

And the siren's song that is your madness...

2005-06-20T16:03:00.000-04:00

Summer time and the wind is blowing, outside in lower chelsea.
And I don’t know what I’m doing in this city,
The sun is always in my eyes,
It crashes through the windows, and I’m sleeping on the couch,
When I came to visit you,
That’s when I knew that I could never have you,
I knew that before you did,
Still I’m the one who’s stupid
And there’s this burning, like there’s always been,
I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve never been so alive.

this is just an afterthought to my previous post but Third Eye Blind's self titled album is really amazing. it's a very complete album, with four singles, but it's particularly the last two songs ("Motorcycle Drive By" and "God of Wine") i find to be very powerful. i always get thrown into a weird mood when listening to them, not really sad but close...