Very Moving This American Life

Ira Glass & team knocks one out of the park. Visit the site where you can buy it now, or stream it next week.

Surprise! FEMA sucks.

From Spenser Hsu at WashPo: "Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience"

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Meanwhile, veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman -- who led FEMA's offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively -- have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials.

No wonder they were so concerned with PR. That's all these guys knew. Might as well have put Karen Hughes in charge.

A question

When did accountability become known as "the blame game"?

Gimme a break. The White House is expending a great deal of energy in redirecting blame elsewhere while patiently and repetitively insisting that this is no time to be "blame-gaming." Hey, it's a noun AND a verb. Handy.

Well, here's a bunch of links on this topic:
Amy Sullivan, WashMonthly
Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Kevin Drum, WashMonthly
E&P on the media HAMMERING poor Scotty
Bruce Reed on the end of compassionate conservatism

For those interested in facts, a timeline is being prepared and updated regularly to understand what happened when, where key admin officials were, and what the various statements and repspones have been.

Katrina timeline

Times-Picayune Calls for Resignation

Via Editor & Publisher

Plus a round up of editorial condemnations.

Locally, the Chicago Tribune has an odd editorial, which concludes, "rebuilding New Orleans as it was "looks to be folly:

The hope here is that the city's residents, and the Americans who will help them recover, craft a master plan that preserves the city's brash spirit while protecting it from another disaster on this scale.

Then New Orleans can reinvent itself--as a devastated Chicago did after 1871.

The facing page reprint of an editorial that followed the 1871 Fire is called Cheer Up.

"My Pet Goat" in the Bayou

Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher gets medieval on BushCo: "Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action."

Bush Fires People for Disloyalty, Not Incompetence

If anything were a better indication of the autocratic, dare I say fascist, inclinations of BushCo, it is their willingness to fire or marginalize competent people who disagree with Dear Leader but keep on incompetent cronies and kiss-asses who have FUBAR, and then added a big pile of FUBAR on top of that.

The latest incompetent? FEMA Chief Mike Brown, who is NOT doing a great job, who is clearly in over his head, and (see link) had a difficult time managing horse shows. He would probably appreciate being relieved of duty. Just show some leadership, Shrub, and FIRE HIM!!!!! Lincoln fired about 5 generals before finding Grant on the western reaches of the country.

Leaders should not just expect loyalty. They should expect competence and accountability.

Football fans show their heart

Previously, in the Deep South, many hotel had warned Katrina escapees that they would have to vacate their hotels for football fans who had booked their rooms months in advance. But CNN reports that many of these fans have opted to stay home, give up their rooms, and some have offered their tickes to evacuees. Menschitude is spreading. Story here.

Relief Shows Up

CNN has the story.

Looks like this Gen. Honore has the right idea:

CNN's Barbara Starr, who is traveling with the three-star general, said Honore is "very determined to keep this looking like a humanitarian relief operation."

"A few moments ago, he stopped a truck full of National Guard troops ... and said, 'Point your weapons down, this is not Iraq,' " Starr reported.

Yes, please don't shoot the starving, thirsty, helpless victims.

Faith-based Leadership Faces the Music

Our administration can no longer pretend that everything is great, that all is well, help is on the way, when the pictures and interviews say the opposite. Finally our beloved media, who fiddled while BushCo sashayed us into Iraq, cannot ignore the lies, deception and incompetence. I guess it's easy to let such things as Swift Boat lies slide--that stuff is all part of the fun and games of politics. But this disaster cannot be spun aside. It's not a game, and it's no longer fun.

The media giant is waking up from a deep slumber, rubbing the Jesus dust out of its eyes, and seeing clearly. Politics ain't beanbag, as the great Mayor Harold Washington famously said. And politics has left a major American city devastated.

CNN documents the lies, so far. They call it the disconnect. More like a chasm, a gulf, a vast expansive wasteland between reality and spin.

Slate's Jack Shafer rounds up the media "rebellion"

Dad Argues with Callous Barber

My dad braved a scissors-wielding barber. I'll let him tell the story (as communicated via email):

I haven't been able to work on anything all week. One minute I'm so angry I want to explode; the next minute my eyes tear up. I can't remember when I've been this distraught. Maybe JFK's assasination, after which the world changed for the worst.

I got into it with ... my barber, today. He's a typical working-class Republican. Also, I think, although I was unsure until today, a racist. We were watching the coverage.

I said, "it's a shame our government cut funds on a levee system that might have saved New Orleans."

He grunted.

I ploughed on, "Well, I have to say, this is the worst performance by the federal government I've ever seen." "

"You can't be everywhere," he said, "anyway, where were the local and state people?"

I exploded: "The local and state people?!! You've got to be kidding. They don't have the money, the manpower, the troops, the ability to do anything. it's a federal responsibility, and they ducked it. And This president, this idiot, is the worst fucking president in the history of the nation. It's a disgrace that we're fighting a ridiculous optional war and can't find the means to deal with disaster right here at home."

"Well," he said a propos of nothing (which sealed my feeling about his racism), "nobody has to live in New Orleans."

"Yeah," I said, "and nobody has to live in Biloxi (where he goes to play golf every winter with his buddies), but they do, don't they? People live in all sorts of dangerous places. Does that mean we abandon them? The next time Chicago floods or gets snowed under, maybe we say, 'Oh, well, they choose to live there.'"

I concluded, "the people get what they vote for, and this time the people got a fucking, Jesus-freak dimwit for a president. Maybe he'll pray us out of this mess."

Do you think I was too subtle? If he hadn't been wielding the scissors, I might have been more direct.

More direct? I think you did good, Dad. God knows what might have happened if you had run into Condi Rice while she was shopping for shoes yesterday.

My Disgust and Anger

I cannot believe what I have seen and heard in these last two days. An unbelievable report from the NO Convention Center showed thousands (2,000, 5,000, 15,000?) stranded with no water, food, medical care, toilets, transportation, and perhaps worst of all information. People are DYING. Babies and older people are dying first, dehydrated and lacking the most basic care. These people aren't criminals, looters, or drug addicts. They are citizens. Families, many many young children and babies, pregnant women. I can barely control myself thinking about it.

The mayor of New Orleans was a voice in the wilderness (download the audio file here) crying out for support. Transcribed here.

Even President Bush has stepped out of his boy-in-the-bubble world to admit that the help has been "not acceptable."

Not acceptable? NOT ACCEPTABLE?!!!!! It's shameful. Disgusting. Just simply staggering. I'm no logistics expert, but where are the air drops?

I woke up this morning hoping to hear that those people at the convention center got help. No indication yet.

Krugman Sez...

It's a "Can't Do Government":

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

Who Dares Question Dear Leader?

Joe Conason says we all should.

Other People Ranting

Wes Clark: It All Comes Back to Leadership
NY Times Editorial: "Waiting for a Leader"
letter writers to the National Review (via Laura Rozen)
Washington Monthly "FEMA Mismanagement"
admitted incompetence
Liberal Oasis summary
Diarist Hunter from the Daily Kos
Anatomy of a Disaster from Salon
If We Had a Real President from Daily Kos Diarist Stirling Newberry
ProgProg on the right.

For hurricane relief donations:
The Red Cross
Other Relief Organizations

Worst.President.Ever: A RANT

Back in my youth I took a class on ecology and energy public policy and crisis management. The instructor made the point that after any disaster, a white paper, report or other document predicting the exact nature of the disaster is found. One might think that "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US" is one of those.

Now there is an entire paper trail of article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune predicting disaster for New Orleans if repairs were not made to the levee system. And if wetland barriers were reduced. Guess BushCo had better things to do with our money than invest in infrastructure and environment.

Blumenthal on Salon has some details. As does Tim Grieve.

The Chicago Tribune reports today in "Flood-control funds short of requests". The article (registration required) quotes Michael Parker, " a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget." Guess he joins a long list of officials (Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Genl. Shinseki, and now Susan F. Wood) who attempted to bring the bright light of rational thought to a fundamentalist regime. The Trib article says:

A corps plan to shore up the levees began in 1965 and was supposed to be finished in 10 years but remains incomplete. "They've never put enough money in to complete it," Parker said. He said the corps' budget has been regularly targeted by the White House because public works projects are perceived as pork and aren't considered "sexy."

"Go talk to the people who are suffering in New Orleans," Parker said. "Ask them do they think it's pork."

I can only hope that historians will dissect the Bush governance and identify not just its mendacity, but its greed and incompetence. Bush makes Warren Harding look like Franklin Roosevelt. He makes his father look like Abraham Lincoln. He is a disaster--a selfish, spoiled, ignorant, callous, vengeful and downright wicked leader. He is remote from the people, acting more like a King than an elected leader. His stage-managed Potemkin-town meetings and speeches are attempts to shut out having to respond to the real voice of the American people.

Bush has hidden himself behind a country-boy Jesus-loving facade while he has dismantled federal support of science, reason, social structure and community. He has waged a war based on a ever-shifting rationale: WMD (none); 9/11 revenge (false premises); democracy/human/rights/peace in the Mid-East (Iraq is the domino? not likely); now it's the security of oil (well, that's getting a little closer).

He is a bad man, bad for this country, bad for the global community. As bad I thought he was in the election cycle, I see he is exponentially worse now. He has blood on his hands. I can only hope that finally, FINALLY, a great wave of citizens and our media representatives will see this man for what he is. Perhaps now people will respond. Ask questions. Demand answers. Vote these evil people OUT.

Me likey that Wesley Clark. He very smart.

Clark acutally tries to articulate a strategy that goes beyond a rapid pullout (leaving a failed state/Islamic fundamentalist government in power), or protracted deployment of troops. He also does a nice job cataloging all the shit Bush/Cheney/Rumsfled have screwed up.

From the Washington Post

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops. If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

Hearting Gary Hart

Gary Hart kicks the Dems in the butt (from the Washington Post via truthout).

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

This Is More Like It

The Gadflyer's Jonathan Weiler writes

As much as Bush talks about freedom, an enduring legacy of his presidency will be violence and blood-lust and the price that countless innocents and people of good will have paid for that cheap talk. Many Americans endure life on a perilous sea of uncertainty and threat. Bush, by contrast, lives on a yacht on a body of water whose tranquility is undisturbed unless he instructs his crew to take the yacht out for a joy ride.

Sacrifice is never his own.

This reminds me of an earlier post "The President Does Not Mourn," quoting from E.L. Doctorow.

Tribune: Huh? Parsing the "Support"

Is the Chicago Tribune for real? By many accounts, Bush's speech last night was a bit of a dud. Nothing new, nothing different, lots of blah blah blah 9/11, blah blah blah, terrorists, blah blah blah, stand firm, blah blah blah.

So the Tribune, which can be reliably counted on to support the Prez in 99.44% of his endeavors, had an editorial of support that left so much out, it might have been printed on swiss cheese. Or a Flashdance shirt. Or something else with a lot of holes:

His message: Iraq, and the brave Americans fighting there, will face continued violence from terrorists determined to keep Iraq destabilized--and to hand the U.S. a devastating defeat. But a second courageous endeavor in that distant war zone, the building by Iraqis of the new government that eventually will secure and run their country, is on schedule and pressing ahead.

Everything is oh-so-courageous. Except for Bush's ability to speak clearly and honestly about what has gone wrong, and how he will address it.

With his citizenry impatient, his poll numbers down and some in his own party growing nervous, Bush needed to explain that the mission in Iraq has great long-term value for this country and that his administration has a strategy to succeed there. The president argued both lines of thought. But he wisely avoided the self-imposed treachery of timetables, he mouthed no empty promise about when peace would be at hand.

Uh-huh. Bush argues real good. Somehow I'm thinking that good rhetoric is not going to get Bush out of this. Good policy might. A change in policy. An admission of missed opportunities. Mistakes were made, that kind of thing. But the Tribune carries on, reliably supportive, predictably indifferent to the reality behind Bush's platitudes and arguments.

Tuesday night's speech was, then, the latest volley in a battle to influence Americans' will to win this war. Zarqawi and the other architects of attacks in Iraq have done a superb job of filling our television screens with images of violence and death. Their successes have stripped the war effort here of some support.

I'd say their successess combined with our failures have stripped the war of massive amounts of support. Only diehards are behind this war now.

Tuesday night, in response, Bush tried to help his countrymen see that orchestrated violence as an effort to intimidate them. "The American people do not falter under threat," he said.

Yes, but we do like to know what we're up against, and how we're going to defeat it. And we do like to know that our leaders understand the threats, analyze them effectively, and respond appropriately. So far, not so much.

Not that Americans watched his speech alone. On the far side of the globe, unsettled Iraqis no doubt measured every word as the leader of the free world pledged to complete their liberation.

Yeah, I bet they are. Especially those many factions aiming to thwart the liberation.

It was just so make my day if at some point the Tribune were to rise up from its torpor and really apply some critical thinking skills to our President's policies. I know wishful thinking.

Cool Flash News Site

Credit to Daily Kos for the link to this flash-based Newseum site, where you can view a map of the U.S. (or select other world regions); when you mouse over the city markers, a front page of that city's newspaper loads next to the map.

Cruis'n' the News

I can't help it. I'm obsessed.

Other Things that Tom Cruise Knows More About Than You.

When Politics Wears You Out...

Just pay attention to celebrity news.

I could totally write a hilarious, snarky posted about Oprah and her civil rights battle. But someone beat me to it. And I was beginning to feel a twinge of sympathy for Oprah, subjected as she was to the Cruiseomatic 9000 on HyperMode.

Perhaps the topic of Oprah's planned show should be "When Celebrities Are Forced to Live in the Real World," rather than her "Crash Moment."

Letter to Senator Durbin

Senator Durbin stood up to the administration, and then backed down. I wrote him a letter (via his website) last week expressing my support for him. Now I have written him expressing my disappointment. Here is what I wrote:

Dear Sen. Durbin:

I wrote to you last week with heartfelt praise and admiration for telling the truth about the illegal and immoral activities going on at Guantanamo Bay. I said then that you should not back down. What you said was absolutely true, and based on an FBI report.

I am very very very disappointed in you that you apologized for your remarks. I guess the national discourse today is such that we cannot tell the truth about what is happening in our country without being attacked. Surely Orwell would recognize this nation, where telling the truth requires apologies and hand-wringing, while the lies and the cruelty continue unquestioned and unexamined.

Unfortunately, now, YOU have become the story rather than what the Administration is perpetrating.

I am sorry that you felt the need to bow to right-wing pressure. I am sorry that our country cannot handle the truth. Actually, I think we CAN handle the truth - I am just not sure our leaders (sadly, yourself included) believe that we can.

I KNOW what you were saying was not that WE (our troops, our country, our government) are Nazis or Stalinists -- but we certainly could be mistaken for that based on the FBI report.

Why is that message so difficult to communicate? Because the Administration and its noise machine on the right will do EVERYTHING in their power to avoid answering, explaining, or opening up. Their tactics are secrecy, stonewalling and misdirection. You became the distraction; you took the blame.

I am not sure if you read my initial email to you last week; probably your office was so inundated with hate mail that it was lost in the shuffle.

I know you are a good man and I hope you remember that there are people out here like myself, my husband, my parents, my friends, and my sister (and our young children) who are residents of this great state who believe in democratic (small "d") values and want representatives who will fight, and fight hard, for those values.

God bless,

Fran Diamond
Skokie, IL

Durbin received a barrage of hate mail from the right wing. If you're a resident of Illinois and would like to express yourself as I have, contact Durbin at his website.

P.S. Eric Zorn agrees with me. Here's his idea of what Durbin's "apology" should have been:

"Hey, I'm sorry I played `the Hitler card.' It always inflames, distracts and confuses, and it never convinces. In this case, it let opportunists ignore my main point and gasbag instead about my unnecessarily overwrought metaphor and the many, obvious ways in which America is not Nazi Germany.

"But if you expect me to come before you and bite my quivering lips as I apologize to those who were spun into a dudgeon by the contemptible effort to draw attention from these infamous allegations, you'll be disappointed.

"I will not babble out a mewling defense of my patriotism to those with the vile audacity to have questioned it.

"A true patriot loves what his country stands for, not necessarily what his country does, and I will not shrink from holding America to her ideals...."

Bush is "For" Life, Except When He's Against It

The President is against abortion and using embryos for stem-cell research. He does not feel one form of life should be sacrificed to save another. OK. Fair point. I disagree that embryos represent "life," but that's my opinion.

The President is also pro-Death Penalty. His justification is that it saves lives.

Anyone else see this as a huge contradiction? William Saletan in Slate does. He lays out the multiple contradiction.

I guess if he said he were in favor of the death penalty because he believes in vengeance or retribution, that (while not quite so moral high ground) is at least a consistent position. But how he can defend embryos right to exist (if they even can be said to exist) but be in favor of killing real live human people?

But the real question is why can't anyone in the media ask the President to address this contradiction? Allowing this obvious craven, cynical hypocrisy to stand is just letting the President get away with it.

Bush - Ack! Ack! Hairball

Gosh, George Bush is deriding Democrats for playing politics with his nomination of John Bolton. I have to let out a hardy Ha! Ha! and cough up a hairball when I hear politicians of his ilk deriding other politicians for being political. As the late great Mayor Washington said, "Politics ain't bean bag." And he might have added, "You twit, get used to it." Bush is polling badly on Iraq, Social Security, his conservative judges, maybe people are even getting down on his squinty flinty smirks. Too little too late, but perhaps by the end of his second term he will be cemented into a leadership role in the Top Ten Worst Presidents list. He's already there in my book, but maybe the general public, confused and deluded in the 2004 election, sees the veil lifted.

Speaking of presidents, and good ones at that, Bush visited our great state of Illinois to dedicate to the new Lincoln library. Now there's a meeting of minds - perhaps the greatest president ever (some may argue for Jefferson, Washington, TR or FDR) being lauded by this mook.

Rude Pundit has a truly delightful blog on the topic, of which I excerpt just a bit:

First off, having George W. Bush dedicate a library to Abraham Lincoln is like having David Duke dedicate a civil rights museum. It's like having James Dobson dedicate a Kinsey collection. It's like having . . . well, shit, you get the idea. It just ain't right. But because you have to dedicate presidential libraries with the President you have, not the President you want, so it was that President Bush spoke at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library yesterday.

...

... Bush spoke about Lincoln's early days, his "humble beginnings," if you will: "Before history took notice, he earned money as a storekeeper, a surveyor and a post master. He taught himself the law." And perhaps the irony was not lost on the gathered crowd, that this son of privilege, who never suffered a day in his life, who had servants hired just to buff his balls after a bath, was allowed to even speak the name of Abraham Lincoln, who, faults and all, sought to keep together a nation that George Bush and the current Republicans are trying to desperately to tear apart.

Knowing the intelligence and keen eye for politics of my fellow Illinoisans, I can assure Rude Pundit that we got it. Yup. Irony, melting into tragedy. Or perhaps just plain sad.

Case in Point Why Our Country Is Screwed Up

I've been fomenting a rant on how incredibly ridiculous our country is that we cannot afford universal education and health care. I mean for gosh sakes Sweden? Norway? Denmark? Canada? Britain? Japan? Germany? France? South Korea? Singapore? They are not as wealthy as the U.S. GNP per capita, not even close. Yet they seem to manage covering many more social benefits for their population than the U.S. Yes, I could actually research this issue, talk about macroeconomics and states' rights and tax models and corporate welfare and deficits all that boring stuff.

I just want to know WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY GOING? Our economy is huge! Gazillions of dollars are changing hands! Why is this country so inefficient or unfair or just generally fucked up that we can't make sure that all schools have Internet and computer labs, and noone has to worry about getting hit by a bus and wracking up huge medical bills, and even poor kids can go to college without having to work 3 jobs? I ask you -- where is the money?

And then today I happened to notice a new site just opened up called Walmart Watch, which is dedicated to monitoring Wal-Mart's abuses and its drain on U.S. taxpayers. "The Wal-Mart Tax" is a brief entry that estimates Wal-Mart COSTS taxpayers at least $1.5 billion per year in assistance to employees who are undercovered by Wal-Mart. And that's just the Federal cost.

Maybe this is where the missing money is. How many tax breaks does Wal-Mart get? Federal? State? Local? And on top of that, Wal-Mart does not even sustain its own employees. So rather than boosting the local economy, it drains it.

Channeling Walt Whittman?

Do they contradict themselves? Indeed, they do. Josh Marshall lays it out here:

Today, however, House Republicans voted overwhelmingly to abolish the inheritance tax, a tax that, by definition, only impacts people who inherit money from extremely wealthy forebearers. If passed by the senate this new legislation, which would come into effect in 2012, will cost the Treasury $745 billion dollars during its first ten years. Figure in associated interest on the added debt and the number comes closer to a trillion dollars.

That is about a trillion fewer dollars in the US Treasury over the course of the same decade in which the Social Security Trustees say the SSA will begin (2017) to start drawing on the Treasury notes in the Trust fund to cover scheduled benefits (2020, if you go by CBO estimates.)

There's no hidden complexity here. It's a zero-sum game. They say Social Security is in trouble because we don't have enough dollars to make good on the Trust Fund (which today holds roughly $1.7 trillion in Treasury notes). And here they are voting to take a trillion more dollars off the table.

I haven't blogged all that much on Social Security (admittedly, I haven't blogged on much of anything of late) only because other people are doing it much better than I could.

My next blog...how stupid is it that this wealthy nation we live in can't afford public transit, education and health care for our citizens? Very stupid, I say.

The Pope Is Still Dead

Yup. Still dead. Having skipped all the TV coverage of the double-header of death of Terry Schiavo and JP2, I'm catching up on the critical reviews.

Frank Rich has this to say in "A Culture of Death, Not Life":

What's disturbing about this spectacle is not so much its tastelessness; America will always have a fatal attraction to sideshows. What's unsettling is the nastier agenda that lies far less than six feet under the surface. Once the culture of death at its most virulent intersects with politicians in power, it starts to inflict damage on the living.

When those leaders, led by the Bush brothers, wallow in this culture, they do a bait-and-switch and claim to be upholding John Paul's vision of a "culture of life." This has to be one of the biggest shams of all time. Yes, these politicians oppose abortion, but the number of abortions has in fact been going down steadily in America under both Republican and Democratic presidents since 1990 - some 40 percent in all. The same cannot be said of American infant fatalities, AIDS cases and war casualties - all up in the George W. Bush years. Meanwhile, potentially lifesaving phenomena like condom-conscious sex education and federally run stem-cell research are in shackles.

Moving on to the ever-caustic James Wolcott, who in Signs of the Crosstakes CNN to task for its inane worship at the shrine of Bob Novak. Hey, Novak's a Catholic now! Apparently one of the Opus Dei guys. At least I don't have to be ashamed to share the same religion as the Prince of Darkness.

And the astute Jeanne at Body and Soul gives a thorough round-up of the differences between many U.S. Catholics and the fundamentalist Protestant Chrisitans who claim the Pope as their own in "The fundie Pope and the whining bishops."

Happy Sunday!

Blog Round-Up

Round em up, raaaaaawhiiiiiiiide!

From Digsby at Hullabaloo, a wake-up call to right-wingers:

See, the right isn't like us. They think that the so called liberal media is irretrievably biased but believe what they see, read and hear on their own media. We on the left, on the other hand, have no faith in any mainstream media, really, or any alternative media either for that matter. We have developed the habit of culling from various sources and analyzing the information ourselves as best we can. Even then we are very skeptical. Nothing that the media could do would particularly shock or disappoint us. No so with the other side. A fair number of them are actually hurt and bewildered by what they saw in the Schiavo matter.

From Maxspeak, on the Pope:

Like scripture, there is something for almost everyone in the Pope's statements. Nobody except prix fixe Catholics -- as opposed to the cafeteria variety -- can really take ownership, though that is something ordinarily attempted with any renowned personage. Progressives could note his criticism of unregulated capitalism. Cultural conservatives point to his unreconstructed opposition to abortion and anything resembling euthanasia. Catholic traditionalists welcomed his opposition to the ordination of women and other possible modernist reforms within the Church. And democratic anti-communists of all stripes hail his role in liberating Poland and bringing down the Soviet Union.

More good stuff there. And, not to be outdone, Attaturk at rising hegemon has the scouting report for the next pontiff.

From our own backyard, Joshua Holland at Gadflyer reports on the crazy pharmacists of conscience who have been refusing to fill Rxs for birth control and morning after contraception. You get 'em Blago. It's been covered widely in the local press, and good to see national bloggers noting it.

And, from Bull Moose (and myself) a belated Happy April Fool's Day with a heartfelt apology from Tom DeLay for all the trouble he's been causing.

Disillusioned Conservative Says Media Ain't Liberal

From Paul Craig Roberts' "End-Timers and Neo-Cons:"

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where noncontroversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.

I don't agree with his contention that liberals went wrong because they trusted government too much. But, I'll welcome any conservative who can pull back the curtain on this sham administration and the sad complict media that has supported it. Even if he's an unrepentant supply-sider.

Not Every Church Hates Sponge Bob

Don't conservatives have better things to do than criticize Sponge Bob Squarepants and PBS kids shows? Well at least some churches have a sense of humor. Stop by the The United Church of Christ for a lesson in tolerance and a good chuckle.

Boxer Stops by Daily Kos

Barbara Boxer, aka "My Hero," posted a really nice message to Daily Kos.

Trib Caves a Little, but Mostly Steady on Doublespeak Directives

As a number of good bloggers (see Talking Points Memo and Eschaton) out there have noted, the President & his White House minions have decided that Social Security terms "privatization" and "private accounts" are not polling well. So they have decreed, after having used this terminology for YEARS, that henceforth and foervermore such things shall be called "personal accounts." And any newspaper not using the term "personal accounts" (which, frankly could be my passbook savings account for all I know) is "editorializing" and is biased against the President.

Shake head in wonder, and insert Orwell reference here.

So, TPM and Eschaton and others have been documenting all the newspapers that have bowed to this pressure.

I'd like to report, thankfully, gratefully, and somewhat astonishingly, that the beloved Chicago Tribune is still (mostly) calling them "private accounts" although some language like "managed investment" and "private retirement" is creeping into the debate.

In a January 26 article, "Black caucus, Bush to discuss key issues" (from Newsday): One issue likely to come up is Bush's plan to divert part of their Social Security taxes to privately managed investment accounts. Supporters of privatization say African-Americans could benefit from the change.

From the lede to a January 26 feature article, "High stakes: As President Bush seeks to reform the Social Security program, economists argue the pros and cons of switching to private accounts" by Nancy Traver: Joan Staples invested her money well during the years she worked as a Chicago Public Schools teacher. Now that she is retired, she's enjoying a comfortable income from her investments. Still, President George W. Bush's proposals to privatize Social Security make her uneasy.

This article does mention "personal accounts" 4 times, in the context of what Bush and his supporters call them. But "privatize" is used three times and "private accounts" is used 6 times, and that seems to be what the economists and "regular folks" are calling them. Even a letter-writing supporter of "private accounts" calls them..."private accounts!"

Note that all Tribune links are free for one week from the published data, and registration is required to view them.

Johnny Carson

I am sad that Johnny Carson has died - 79 seems much too young for someone these days. I have fond memories of watching Johnny as a very young person - the first time I saw his show was staying up late to babysit on New Year's Eve. Johnny and Ed dressed in tuxedos and gamely shephered in the New Year in a 90-minute special. As I grew older, I appreciated his monologue, his quick wit on the couch, and his eclectic interest in a wide variety of entertainment, news and regular quirky people. He may have lost his cache moving into the late 80s, but he could still get more out of lame joke (or a lame guest) than any other host then, now or ever.

I happened on his "official" web site, johnnycarson.com, where you can search on any guest. I thought of Joe Williams, one of my favorite all time singers, and there he was (many many shows), on July 31, 1980 alongside Bruce Dern, June Carter Cash and Jeff Greenfield.

Tom Shales has a lovely obituary--one of the better ones, and I've read most of them today.

Without devolving too deeply in politics, as Carson was notoriously private and seemed apolitical and equal-opportunity when mocking politicians of all stripes, one wonders what he would think about the current police state. His tribute to democracy from 1991 (after the fall of Soviet Communism) gives a little hint:

Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties. ... Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money. ... Democracy means free television, not good television, but free. ... And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head -- this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle. I thank you.

Last, but not least, Carson loved the standards. Here are the lyrics to "Here's that Rainy Day" (Johnny Burke & Jimmy Van Heusen), which Better Midler sung to him on one his last shows. It's definitely a little rainy around here.

I should have saved
Those leftover dreams
Funny
But here's that rainy day
Here's that rainy day
They told me about
And i laughed at the thought
That it might turn out this way
Where is that worn out wish
That i threw aside
After it brought my love so near
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here
It's funny
How love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here

Catholic Church Defends the Indefensible

At one point, I was planning to write a novel about stolen Jewish art, a Vatican conspiracy, and Holocaust survivors. I haven't written it yet, only because, well, I'm lazy. Writing is hard, especially lots or writing. And writing that requires research.

But stories like this one in the New Republic (subscribtion required), "QUESTIONS FOR THE VATICAN. Hide and Seek" by Daniel Goldhagen, make me want to revisit the topic all over agin. The article discusses whether the Vatican endorsed kidnapping Jewish children after the end World War 2. Parents and relatives and Jewish charities who came to reclaim children left in the care of Catholic schools were thwarted in their efforts. Some were told children had died.

Pope Pius XII, who was also behind the Vatican's tacit support of Naziism (or to be kind, an unwillingness to speak out against the Nazis as an institution or thwart them in any way) as well as the rounding up of Roman Jews, still gets a rousing hoo-ray from the current powers that be, and it seems there's no low that can't be defended or explained away by his supporters. After all he was infallible and is heading for sainthood.

Freedom Is on the March -- Look Out World

The president's inauguration speech makes it obvious our president really really likes freedom (mentioned 27 times) and liberty (mentioned 15 times). Or, if I were going to be cynical, I'd say he thinks that WE, the Amuric'n Public, really like hearing about "freedom" and "liberty" and won't think too much about what it means.

The most striking (and a leetle beet scary, kids) is this metaphor:

By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well -- a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

Look out world, it's the untamed fire of freedom and it's coming to get YOU! Iran! North Korea! Cuba! AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYY! (Pakistan? Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Are they in trouble, too? Doubtful.)

There are lot of intelligent people out there taking apart the speech bit by bit. I could not stomach to listen to it, so I've breezed through the transcript and caught snippets here and there on the radio. For more studious analysis, I strongly recommend Juan Cole's pictorial commentary and Max Speak's "Liberventionism," a term that is the best one-word summary of this new policy as one could ever hope for.

This Man-Date is OVAH

Not that you could tell from the coronation activities going on. The WP reports on a recent poll:

Bush said in an interview last week with The Washington Post that the 2004 election was a moment of accountability for the decisions he has made in Iraq, but the poll found that 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the situation to 40 percent who approve, and 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.
...
The president's overall job approval rating stands at 52 percent, up slightly in the past month. Of all presidents in the postwar era who won reelection, only Richard M. Nixon had a lower job approval rating at the start of his second term. The other chief executives began their second term with job ratings of 60 percent or higher.

Can we stop the mandate talk now? Oh, didn't think so.

My new hero: Barbara Boxer!

I'll admit it. For a long time, I've confused Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). Now that Sen. Boxer has had a metric ton of media coverage, I can honestly say there is absolutely no resemblance. Boxer: attractive, sleek salt-and-pepper hair, expensive glasses. Mikulski: cabbage patch doll.

Anyhoo, I think Sen. Boxer is living up to her name, and throwing a few smart jabs at the administration. First there was her effort (visciously maligned by the Repubs) to support a challenge to the Ohio vote. And now, she dares to question the SLOTUS (that's Second Lady of the U.S.), aka Dr. Rice.

So follow the various links. Considering that 58% of the U.S. population disapproves of Bush's performance in Iraq (40% approve), a courageous voice challenging the administration is welcome. More, please.

Sen. Boxer's Day 2 Questions (requires registration)
Salon interview (premium content)
Daily Kos interview

For Family & Friends Not Familiar with Fafblog

Fafnir, Medium Lobster & Giblets are the most funniest writers in Blogoland. See fer yersef:

what fool's errand?
So there's gonna be a whole lotta whining and bitching about "oh the Iraq War was a sham" all because the US military gave up looking for weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks ago. Well, that's a whole lotta crap! By invading Iraq the US headed off a grave and gathering threat, like a mushroom cloud made of terrorists! Oh, you hear a lotta talk about "chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons" that never turned up. But does the "Mainstream Media" ever talk about the OTHER weapons of mass destruction that the US has disarmed in Operation Iraqi Freedom? No!

SAND! It is well-known in the "blogosphere" that Saddam was mastering the creation of unstoppable Sand Golems capable of crushing whole cities in monster rampages! Only by siezing control of deadly Iraqi sand could we protect decent Americans from this menace. But the threat of high-sand-content nations isn't over! Giblets hears that Syria may already have a sand processing plant up and running!

ARABS! Saddam had hidden thousands of potentially deadly "dual-use" Arabs that could have been weaponized at any moment! Fortunately the US military has been rounding up and destroying these civilians of mass destruction. But did Saddam hide any of these CMDs to other countries such as Iran and Syria? Giblets says there's only one way to find out!

OIL! Ever tried to drink oil? Oh, it tastes pretty good, but after a while you can get reeeeeaaal sick. So what was Saddam doing with all this black Giblets-sickening stuff in his country anyway!
posted by Giblets at 11:45 AM Comments (10)

Thanks Gibs my friend for clearing this up.

In other No WMD news, a clever fellow called The Poor Man created a nice chart to compare the fallout from media failings/lies of "Rathergate" to that of the WMD. As we used to be told in our AP English class essays, "Compare and contrast...".

And in case anyone has forgotten how shamelessly the Bush Administration flogged this issue, Daily Kos diarist Macabbee published What They Said. Staggering and shameful.

TV Musings for the "Second" Season

Yes, with a lack of politics to pay attention to, and a cranky back, I've spent an inordinate amount of time with TiVo and some new and returning shows.

Lost
I missed out on this show's first half because I was strangely fascinated with the train wreck known as America's Next Top Model. ANTM was like eating spun caramel corn - the first few bites were sweet and crunchy, soon it began to stick in my mouth, and ultimately, I felt a little sick. I was spoiled on the winner - or I guessed it, maybe - so I wasn't surprised at all. But damn, it was silly and boring.

So Lost started showing up in a few reruns here and there, and I caught up on all (OK, most) of the synopses on Television Without Pity, and now I'm in on the fun. And it is fun. I could do without the multiple flashback back story, where each main character thinks back to How I Got Here, but doesn't really relate any of their back story to any other character, so basically they're a bunch of ciphers running around trying to get rescued, build a viable society, and protect themselves from strange goings-on. Jeez, given the backstory I get from people just waiting for the train, these are the most close-mouthed 21st centurians I've ever seen. Oh well, keeps that mysterious feeling going - cause all we the viewers do is watch and wait for everyone else to find out stuff we already know. Hee. Kind of like Hitchcock, but about 10% as good but 100% more jungle-y.

24
Oh. My. God. I'm back, Jack. I'm sorry I left you midway into Season 2. I couldn't stand your Spawn, and I lost the storyline (that was pre-TiVo) and I just didn't have the patience to figure it out all over again.

This season, 24 has given up the pretense of "foreign" terrorists (I'm looking at you, Dennis Hopper, Season 1) and committed to offending the Arab Defense League (or whoever they are) with real Islamic Jihadist Terrorists as the bad guys. Well, if the Sopranos can go balls-out and offend Italian Americans, network TV should be able to do the same.

The terrorists include a sleeper cell family, who apparently have been in the U.S. for four years as part of the nefarious plan. The most arresting of the terror family is the strikingly beautiful but evil Dina Araz, played by the beautiful but probably very nice Iranian actor Shohreh Aghdashloo. Her dark eyes are so arresting that you feel she could hypmotize you with a 10-second stare. She has an amazing way of smiling with her face but not her eyes.

Other promising characters include Aisha Taylor as a sneaky independent contractor trying to trade her way into CTU's power base; William Devane as the bad-ass Secretary of Defense, whose kidnapping started off the fun; and Lukas Haas as a hapless computer programmer who stumbled into someone hacking "the Internet." Uh-huh.

Despite the ridiculous plot twists (too many to name, even after only 4 epi-hours), the show is still engrossing and even unsettling. It leaves you with a feeling of "yeah, that could happen," when you see a train blown up by plastic explosives, or the hopeless scrambling go on at the intelligence agency to figure out what's going on. Ouch.

MI-5
This British import, called "Spooks" in the U.K., is showing up in its third season on A&E. Unfortunately, MI-5's season is only 6 episodes. Stingy Brits.

Where "24" goes for over-the-top effects, suspicious "good guy" characters, implausible "whatever" technology that works or doesn't in the service of the plot, and unbelievable heroics from Jack Bauer, MI-5 concentrates more on the Crazy Business We Call Spy - what it does to personal lives, the subtle office, national and international politics, the erosion of trust and faith, and, oh yeah, some really rip-roaring good stories.

Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares
Gordon is my new TV boyfriend. Yeah, Jack Bauer can save the world, but can he clean out a nasty kitchen, re-train chefs, rip a lazy stubborn owner a new one, revise a menu, and prepare delicious meals all in a single week? I think not.

Gordon first caught my eye on the goofy show "Faking It," where a burger chef was made into a real chef, and he was one of the coaches.

He is horribly potty-mouthed and arrogant, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot. On my ever popular and easy-to-learn scale of Nice/Mean and Smart/Stupid, he would fall into the "Mean/Smart" quadrant, although probably he's not all that mean - just tough. But tough isn't in my quadrant. Oh well, I digress.

The point of this show (again, only four episodes? What is up, Stingy Brits?! Make more, please.) is for Gordon to go into a failing restaurant for a week to get it back on its feet. The problems originate with clueless restaurant owners who don't seem to consider decent food at decent prices a priority. One owner has run a fancy restaurant into the ground by trying to cook himself; another has let a 20-year-old kid run a "fine dining" place - meanwhile the "chef" has let food go horribly off, and he has a particularly bad palate and no real knowledge of basic cooking techniques. And so on.

Gordon's dedication to the business of food service makes for compelling viewing - especially when he threatens to shove a microwave up a useless "executive" chef's arse. I just love watching Gordon dropping his f-bombs liberally, along with some "bollocks" and "bloody hells," in his never-ending quest to serve .... the customer! He is devoted to providing the customer with a pleasant dining experience (he offers redecorating tips), and good, simple food for a good value. He is also big on food cost and time savings - he is apopleptic when he sees food going to waste. This devotion often takes the employees and owners by surprise - wow! our food sucks! wow, people around here don't WANT fancy food! Wow! We have competitors who are better than us!