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Michael Parker's Journal
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Saturday, January 31, 2004 |
Two points of interest from the Center for American Progress regarding the economy:
CONSERVATIVES IGNORE THE UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS: A new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reveals that, because conservatives in Congress refused to extend federal assistance, 375,000 people will lose their unemployment benefits at the end of January. Never before have so many people lost benefits in a single month without being eligible for additional aid. Over the next six months, CBPP predicts, nearly two million workers will run out of benefits before finding a job – which is also a record. Nonetheless, Congress refused to extend unemployment benefits late last year, as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) said he saw "no reason" to help people through the tough economic time. For more see American Progress's chart showing the surge in long-term unemployment.
BREAKING PROMISES, PLAYING POLITICS: The White House and Congress have failed to act even after the economy produced 1,615,000 fewer jobs in the last six months than the White House Council of Economic Advisors predicted after the most recent tax cut. Since President Bush took office in January 2001, the economy has lost 2.3 million jobs. While extending unemployment benefits costs $1 billion a month – there is a $20 billion trust fund that has been set aside to extend benefits while the job market is weak. A CBO study found that "unemployment benefits are essential to prevent long-term unemployed from falling into poverty." The NYT suggests that the President and conservatives in Congress are reluctant to extend benefits in an election year because it would mar the message of a recovery.
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Thursday, January 29, 2004 |
Like Howard Dean’s yell in the aftermath of Kerry’s victory in Iowa, the State of the Union address, used to launch Bush on a positive and successful re-election campaign, just might have been Bush’s last "YEAAAAAAAAAAAARGH." Since then, nothing has gone right and signs along that highway of life aren’t pointing to prettier destinations.
After Kerry’s win in Iowa, and the day after the State of the Union, Newsweek’s poll showed Bush would lose to Kerry by 3 percentage points.
The Head of the US Weapons Inspections Team to Iraq not only resigned but leveled the Admininstration’s continuing claims that there are WMD’s hiding somewhere in the land we invaded, saying: "It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment, and that is most disturbing."
Kay’s replacement, Charles Duelfer, in an interview on January 9th, said of the likelihood of finding WMDs: "[T]he prospect of finding chemical weapons, biological weapons is close to nil at this point." Inspectors have debriefed many knowledgeable Iraqi scientists, who "have every incentive to show them where the WMD are, and they have come up with nothing." (From the article "Nothing to Preempt" by Ray McGovern, )
The Democrats are calling for an independent investigation into why the intelligence failed.
In Australia, the Australian Senate has formally censured Prime Minister John Howard for misleading the country on Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). In New Hampshire, voter turnout was the highest in history, indicating a determination to oust Bush. (McGovern)
US troops have been dying nearly on a daily basis from a wave of violence, from bombings, attacks, or helicopter crashes. The total US casualties now exceed 530.
Suicide bombings still plague Israel, the latest today which killed 10 and injured 50.
US troops have been charged for abuse in Iraq.
The Human Rights Report was released on the 26th and the report concluded that the US invasion of Iraq was not "humanitarian."
On the economical front, days after the State of the Union address which touted an upswing in jobs and the economy, Kodak announced that it was laying off over 15, 000 employees.
And as I noted yesterday, even though many conservatives feel Blair (and thus Bush) are totally vindicated because of Hutton’s report, they are assuming wrong. Britain is crying "whitewash." Citizens and the leaders that represent them in Britain, America, and Australia, to name the majority, are calling for independent investigations.
More pointedly, as Seumas Milne wrote in his Guardian column "The Shadow of Iraq,"
[W]hatever the mixture of motives, Hutton's unqualified endorsement of the government's behaviour is bound, in the current climate, to be widely regarded in the country as a cover-up. It will have no credibility for millions who opposed the war on Iraq; it will merely add to the sense that the political system is unable to deal with the crisis triggered by Britain's participation in the illegal invasion and occupation.
Indeed, as Bush travels the country pushing his vision for another term, the vision he has created the past few years lie about him like the shackles on Marley’s Ghost. He (and his administration and Blair) have been urging us to move on, look past the events that allowed him to take us to war against Iraq. This might be easy for him, I guess. But how do we do that when the blood of our soldiers is still being spilt there?
I leave you with Milne’s closing paragraphs, a poignant reply to why it is important we don’t move on.
[T]he misery of the occupation of Iraq grows, as US and British claims to have liberated the country are exposed as a fraud. While the resistance continues to inflict daily casualties on the occupation forces in the centre and north of Iraq - regardless of the capture of Saddam Hussein - the Shia religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has put himself at the head of a mass popular movement for democracy, opposed by the very US occupiers who insisted they were invading to trigger a democratic revolution across the Middle East.
There are now around 13,000 Iraqis imprisoned without trial; evidence of torture and brutality by US and British occupation forces is growing; and the CIA has warned that Iraq is at risk of slipping into a three-way civil war. For most Iraqis, life has got worse under the occupation and even on the crudest calculus, many more have been killed since Saddam Hussein was overthrown than in his last period in power: as the US-based Human Rights Watch pointed out this week, Saddam's worst atrocities date from the days when he was backed by the west.
This is the legacy of the decision by Tony Blair and George Bush to invade a country that posed no threat either to Britain or to the US. There is no way in which the Iraq war can somehow be put behind us. That is not only because of what is now happening on the ground in Iraq, but because of the increased threat of terror attacks it has brought about, the precedent of pre-emptive war it has created, and the poison released in the British political system by a war launched on a false prospectus. Nor is it enough for the prime minister to say he believed there was a threat at the time. If that is the case, he is guilty of reckless incompetence.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 |
Yesterday, John Kerry won the New Hampshire Democratic Election. Lord Hutton cleared Tony Blair of being responsible for the Kelly suicide. Conservatives will probably take this a step further and say it vindicates Blair’s and Bush’s reasons to go to war in Iraq. They would be wrong in this assumption.
Just the fact that WMD have not been found, compounded with Kay’s resignation and acknowledgment that there was no evidence of WMD found by the Iraq Survey Group, lend credibility to theory that both America and Britain were fooled into war. It doesn’t help that Cheney, in a public interview this past Sunday while attempting to rally international allies about the mission in Iraq, ignored the question posed on Iraqi weapons.
Joe Conason (from Joe Conason’s Journal, January 27th) summed up Kay’s resignation and comments by saying:
What neither Blair nor Bush nor Cheney has answered is Kay's admission that the U.N. inspections regime after the first Gulf War had disarmed Iraq. The implication is that continued inspections would have prevented Saddam from resuming production of chemical and biological weapons -- as well as the nuclear weapons that he never had and probably could never have built -- without hundreds of American and thousands of Iraqi lives lost. Kay's parting comments offer a clue to the final gambit that will be employed the White House and Downing Street. Having spun the cautious findings of professional analysts to accommodate their war agenda, the Bush and Blair governments will try to blame "bad intelligence." Just don't expect the intelligence agencies to accept that damning verdict without a response that could damage those dishonest politicians.
Daniel Ellsberg, the author of Secrets: a Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, wrote a scathing piece for The Guardian and TomPaine, titled "The Next ‘Pentagon Papers.’"
In the article, Ellsberg retells his experience observing "pacification efforts" in Vietnam for 17 months and compares the sudden violent attacks he experienced, some by very young boys, with what is currently happening in Iraq.
Ellsberg writes:
[These attackers] were local boys. They had the advantage of knowing every ditch and dyke, every tree and blade of rice and piece of cover, like it was their own backyard. Because it was their backyard. No doubt (I thought later) that was why they had the nerve to pop up in the midst of a reinforced battalion and fire away with American troops on all sides. They thought they were shooting at trespassers, occupiers, that they had a right to be there and we didn't. This would have been a good moment to ask myself if they were wrong, and if we had a good enough reason to be in their backyard to be fired at.
I can't help but remember [my experience] as I read about U.S. and British patrols meeting rockets and mines without warning in the cities of Iraq. As we faced ambush after ambush in the countryside, we passed villagers who could have told us we were about to be attacked. Why didn't they? First, there was a good chance their friends and family members were the ones doing the attacking. Second, we were widely seen by the local population not as allies or protectors——as we preferred to imagine——but as foreign occupiers. Helping us would have been seen as collaboration, unpatriotic. Third, they knew that to collaborate was to be in danger from the resistance, and that the foreigners' ability to protect them was negligible.
There could not be a more exact parallel between this situation and Iraq. Our troops in Iraq keep walking into attacks in the course of patrols apparently designed to provide "security" for civilians who, mysteriously, do not appear the slightest bit inclined to warn us of these attacks. This situation——as in Vietnam——is a harbinger of endless bloodletting. I believe American and British soldiers will be dying, and killing, in that country as long as they remain there.
As more and more U.S. and British families lose loved ones in Iraq——killed while ostensibly protecting a population that does not appear to want them there——they will begin to ask: "How did we get into this mess, and why are we still in it?" And the answers they find will be disturbingly similar to those the American public found for Vietnam.
Moreover, Ellsberg sees a sickening degree of familiarity between how Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon sold the war to America and how Bush and Blair sold this war. "I served three US presidents," Ellsberg writes, "—who lied repeatedly and blatantly about our reasons for entering Vietnam, and the risks in our staying there. For the past year, I have found myself in the horrifying position of watching history repeat itself. I believe that George Bush and Tony Blair lied——and continue to lie——as blatantly about their reasons for entering Iraq and the prospects for the invasion and occupation as the presidents I served did about Vietnam."
In the closing paragraphs of his article, he alludes to documentation yet to see the light of day, that are waiting, like the infamous Pentagon Papers, for courageous individuals to reveal them.
I have no doubt that there are thousands of pages of documents in safes in London and Washington right now——the Pentagon Papers of Iraq——whose unauthorized revelation would drastically alter the public discourse on whether we should continue sending our children to die in Iraq. That's clear from what has already come out through unauthorized disclosures from many anonymous sources and from officials and former officials such as David Kelly and U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed the falsity of reports that Iraq had pursued uranium from Niger, which President Bush none the less cited as endorsed by British intelligence in his state of the union address before the war. Both Downing Street and the White House organized covert pressure to punish these leakers and to deter others, in Dr. Kelly's case with tragic results.
Exposing governmental lies carries a heavy personal risk, even in our democracies. But that risk can be worthwhile when a war's-worth of lives is at stake.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004 |
Keisha Castle-Hughes was awakened by her mom this morning at 3 AM New Zealand time. "You've just been nominated."
Keisha thought she was still sleeping. "I'll be happy in the morning," she thought. But soon afterword she received a call from the film's US distributor. It was at this moment that reality hit. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, becoming the youngest star to win such an honor in this category.
She sensed her life would forever change.
Keisha is nominated for her role as Paikea in Whale Rider, a girl who fights tradition to become the leader of her Maori tribe. One aspect of playing Paikea is not well known. Keisha had to do her own stunts, which included riding a life-sized replica of a whale 12 miles off the shore of Auckland; she had to hang onto the whale even while it was being pulled under by the tow boat it was attached to, despite the fact that she was terrified for her life.
This nomination surprised most everyone: 1) Even though she has won kudos from a few of the critic awards, she wasn't nominated for a Golden Globe; and 2) her US Distributers who were pushing her for a supporting actress nomination. This nomination, from these aspects, is a fitting and worthy awknowledgement for truly one of the best, heart-warming performances this year.
Some critics are saying her chances are slim because of Charlize Theron's incredible performance as the real-life prostitute serial-killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
They may be right. However, I like to think that Keisha's presence in this list is backed by supporters who have fallen in love with a performance that captivated the hearts of hundreds of critics and film festival goers at Sundance and Toronto (where it won the Audience Awards). Once your heart is won over, it is hard to vote against it. This might just be her winning ticket Oscar night. Don't count this battle over until the envelope is open.
But forget that. Keisha is just thrilled being in the same company as Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, and Renee Zellwegger. "It's amazing."
Notes:
Excerpts taken from the New Zealand Stuff article "Castle-Hughes Stunned by Best Actress Nominee." Read the article here.
Another New Zealand actress, Anna Paquin, won the supporting actress award for Jane Campion's 1992 film The Piano. Anna was also 11 years old.
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Monday, January 26, 2004 |
The AP reported today that a federal judge ruled in favor of David Cole (who argued the case) and his client, the plaintiffs, the Humanitarian Law Project, stating that part of the US Patriot Act is unconstituational. In question was the part of the act that declares that individuals or groups cannot offer expert advice or assistance to designated terrorist organizations.
In the case of the Humanitarian Law Project, they (five groups and two US citizens) were "seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey" by advising them to seek peaceful resolution through a Kurdish campaign for self-determination in Turkey."
For this, the plaintiffs were being threatened with 15 years in prison, if convicted.
The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between permissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.
"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.
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I know that Eschaton and Absit Invidia have posted regarding this topic but what a surprise. Newsweek's Poll on the 24th reveals that if the vote were held today, Kerry would beat Bush 49% to 46% and Clark would lose to Bush by only 1% at 48% to 47%. Rove, Bush, and Company can't be happy about that poll, to say the least. Just 45 or so days after the US pulled Saddam from a spider hole. And not even a full week had gone by from the State of the Union Address.
I found a good article on the latest polls, written by Ruy Teixeira and published at TomPaine.com. It is called "State of Opinion." In the article, Teixeira talks about the latest polls by the Public Opinion Watch and discusses the latest poll results and the spin being placed on them, especially in regards to the CBS News/New York Times polls. Though the op-ed article in The New York Times yesterday "All the President's Numbers" states that Bush's numbers indicate that "Bush is in good shape politically relative to many of his predecessors, " Ruy explains, the actual results are to the contrary. Consider these paragraphs:
Bush's overall approval rating in the new CBS News poll is down to 50 percent, which is lower than he was before Saddam's capture (52 percent)--in fact, it matches the lowest figure recorded for Bush during his presidency.
His approval rating on the economy, which went up from a net -7 (44 percent
approval/51 percent disapproval) to a net +6 (49 percent approval/43 percent disapproval) practically overnight with Saddam's capture has now returned to exactly where it was before: 44/51. His approval rating on Iraq, which skied from 45 percent to 59 percent with Saddam's capture has now dropped back to 48 percent. Similarly, his approval rating on foreign policy, which had bounced from 45 percent to 52 percent, is now back down to 47 percent.
...Pretty much every public poll for the last month, including the Pew Research Center poll which Kohut runs and from which he got the 56 percent approval rating used in the graphic, shows Bush's approval rating falling steadily from the levels attained right after Saddam's capture.
It's bad enough that the press overplays it whenever Bush gets a bounce. But couldn't they please just report the facts--instead of asserting the exact opposite--when the data unequivocally show his approval ratings are falling? It doesn't seem like too much to ask.
Especially since the new Gallup poll has Bush's approval rating down to 53 percent, a six-point drop from their last poll and two points below where he was in this poll before Saddam was captured.
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Saturday, January 24, 2004 |
I am a member of MoveOn. Because of this, I get emailed about upcoming events or bills I can petition for or against. I am concerned over the last email I received from them. It is about CBS rejecting to show MoveOn’s winning Bush in 30 Seconds ad. Now, a network has the right to say what they will air and what they will not air. But in light of facts that 1) MoveOn members most recently have been lobbying against a bill that would allow CBS and FOX to grow bigger; and 2) CBS is playing a Bush for re-election ad, it appears that CBS is playing politics with the right to free speech.
Let me include some important paragraphs from the e-mail:
[T]his is bigger than just the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) submitted an ad that was also rejected. 1 But this isn't even a progressive-vs.-conservative issue. The airwaves are publicly owned, so we have a fundamental right to hear viewpoints from across the ideological spectrum. That's why we need to let CBS know that this practice of arbitrarily turning down ads that may be "controversial" -- especially if they're controversial simply because they take on the President -- just isn't right.
To watch the ad that CBS won't air and sign our petition to CBS, go to: http://www.moveon.org/cbs/ad/
(If you want to skip the ad and just sign the petition, click here.)
We'll deliver the petition by email directly to CBS headquarters.
You also may want to let your local CBS affiliate know you're unhappy about this decision. We've attached a list of the CBS affiliates in your state at the bottom of this email. Remember, a polite, friendly call will be most effective -- just explain to them why you believe CBS' decision hurts our democracy.
CBS will claim that the ad is too controversial to air. But the message of the ad is a simple statement of fact, supported by the President's own figures. Compared with 2002's White House ad which claimed that drug users are supporting terrorism, 2 it hardly even registers.
CBS will also claim that this decision isn't an indication of political bias. But given the facts, that's hard to believe. CBS overwhelmingly favored Republicans in its political giving, and the company spent millions courting the White House to stop FCC reform. 3 According to a well-respected study, CBS News was second only to Fox in failing to correct common misconceptions about the Iraq war which benefited the Bush Administration -- for example, the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11.4
This is not a partisan issue. It's critical that our media institutions be fair and open to all speakers. CBS is setting a dangerous precedent, and unless we speak up, the pattern may continue. Please call on CBS to air ads which address issues of public importance today.
Sincerely, --Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Laura, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack The MoveOn.org Team January 23rd, 2003
P.S. Our friends at Free Press have put together a page which explains simply how CBS and the FCC rule change are integrally linked. Check it out at: http://www.mediareform.net/media/
Footnotes:
1. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
2. "New Media Campaign Stresses Link between Drugs and Terrorism," U.S. Dept. of State
3. "CBS Television Network Soft Money Donations," Opensecrets.org
4. "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War," PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll
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Thursday, January 22, 2004 |
The world premier for the documentary The Hunting of the President is tomorrow at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary, directed by Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry, was based off the book by Gene Lyons and Salon's very own political analyst Joe Conason.
Of course, since we don't have the ability to travel to Sundance on such short notice, we'll have to wait for its release to the local movie shack. In the meantime, let me leave you with the summary of the film, written by Elizabeth Richardson and Joseph Beyer, from the Sundance directory posted on the movie's website.
There can be no doubt that we live in one of the most tumultuous political climates of the nation's history, a climate where politicians can be toppled on a whim, election results disputed in the country's highest courts, and governors unceremoniously recalled. It's enough to leave even the most cynical voter asking, how did this happen?
Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry's incendiary documentary, based on the best-selling book by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, offers a glimpse at the genesis of these partisan vendettas and explores the myths and truths behind the nearly 10-year campaign to systematically destroy the political legacy of the Clintons.
Using previously unreleased materials, interviews, and shocking revelations from both sides of the beltway, this probing work focuses on the smear campaign against Clinton from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas leading up to and including his impeachment trial. Kenneth Starr fans, beware.
Less of an advocacy film and more of an alarming treatise on the political power of the media and personal interests, The Hunting of the President offers us a gallery of defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics, and die-hard segregationists, all chiming in discord from the tops of their soapboxes.
Check out the website, it has a comprehensive timeline that would make any historian drool.
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With the Golden Globe Awards three days away, the Chicago Film Critics Association awarded their picks for the best in film of 2003 today. The Return of the King was named Best Picture of 2003; Peter Jackson was honored as the Best Director. The Return of the King has now won six best picture awards by film critics associations.
Sophia Copola, the writer and director of the film Lost in Translation, won Best Screenplay.
Bill Murray won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of a boozy actor working in Japan in the film Lost in Translation.
Charlize Theron, who gained thirty pounds to play a serial killer in the film Monster, won Best Actress.
Tim Robbins was awarded Best Supporting Actor for Mystic River.
Patricia Clarkson was awarded Best Supporting Actress for Pieces of April.
Best Documentary was awarded to Errol Morris' film The Fog of War, about the former Secretray of Defense Robert McNamara.
Best Foreign Film was awarded to City of God, from Brazil.
Best Original Score was awarded to Howard Shore for his music for The Return of the King.
The Most Promising Actor was awarded to Keisha Castle-Hughes, the incredible young actress of the film Whale Rider.
The Most Promising Filmmaker was awarded to the directors of American Splendor, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.
9:12:58 PM | |
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004 |
by Shawn Hammond
Editor's Note: Shawn Hammond, besides being a great friend, is a technical writer/journalist who has worked for two of Utah's largest newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Standard-Examiner, and whose articles appear in international publications such as Guitar Player, Guitar World, Bass Player, Guitar World Acoustic, and Bass Guitar magazines.
Planning on voting in the 2004 Presidential election?
Here are a few Bush Administration facts to keep in mind when you’re in the voting booth:
Bush and National Security
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Ignored intelligence from top counter-terrorism experts warning of al Qaeda attacks on American soil—including the possibility of hijacked passenger jets being flown into major U.S. buildings; refused to fund and implement recommended anti-terror measures such as the Department of Homeland Security until after 9/11. (Time magazine, August 4, 2002; The New York Times December 30, 2001)
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Directed the FBI to help bin Laden family members fly out of the country on Saudi-chartered planes before significant 9/11 investigation had begun. (National Review, September 12, 2002; MSNBC, September 7, 2003: msnbc.msn.com/id/3080245/)
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Refused to turn over documents helpful in investigating the 9/11 tragedies. (CNN: August 7, 2003: cnn.com/2003/LAW/07/29/findlaw.analysis.dean.911/index.html)
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After months of resistance, finally relinquished some documents to the 9/11 investigation commission, but redacted 28 pages of the final congressional report because they implicated Saudi royalty—close friends of the Bush family and its oil interests. This, despite the facts that Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudi royalty was known to have contributed financially to al Qaeda. (Salon.com, archive.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/01/baer/)
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Violated the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (signed by 188 nations) by authorizing resumption of nuclear testing, as well as threatening nuclear strikes against non-nuclear states in its 2001 Nuclear Policy Review. (The Guardian, guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,527596,00.html)
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Violated the 1972 treaty against testing of germ weapons (signed by 144 countries) by authorizing resumption of bio-warfare testing. (New York University Global Beat Syndicate, nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/hallinan021003.html)
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Announced plans for withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. (CNN, August 24, 2001, cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/08/23/bush.defense/index.html)
Bush and Iraq
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Planned to remove Saddam Hussein from power since 2001—despite the fact that President Bush’s father helped arm and support the dictator during the Reagan Administration. (The Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com/2004/0114/p03s01-uspo.html)
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Diverted the majority of funds and military resources away from fighting terrorism and apprehending Osama bin Laden, applying them instead to unrelated operations in Iraq.
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Lied to the entire country—and world—about intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and then denied making the bogus claims.
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Squandered worldwide goodwill toward America after 9/11 by bullying nations opposing the Iraqi invasion, and defying the will of the United Nations Security Council—which had only asked for one more month to complete investigations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
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Refers to the invasion of Iraq as the "central front in the war on terror," despite admitting a complete lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations attacking Americans.
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As of mid January, estimates of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq range from 3,000 to 9,000 (the administration refuses to reveal exact figures), while more than 500 had been killed—the majority after President Bush declared an end to major combat aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. Researchers estimate at least 5,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the invasion. (National Public Radio, January 7, 2004, npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1587762; CNN, cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/)
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Continually misleads Americans into believing the attacks on Allied troops in Iraq are carried out by the same terrorist groups responsible for 9/11—despite the fact that letters found on the captured Hussein warned his supporters against aligning with Muslim extremists. (The New York Times, January 14, 2004, nytimes.com/2004/01/14/international/middleeast/14INTE.html)
Bush, Ethics, and Revenge
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Took 74 days to begin investigating which of his White House officials, in apparent political retribution, illegally revealed the identity of an under-cover CIA agent specializing in investigating weapons of mass destruction. The agent, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, who publicly criticized the president for claiming Iraq purchased weapons-grade uranium from Niger and ignoring Wilson’s own government-commissioned investigation that debunked the claim.
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Took one day to order an investigation into whether his former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill—who criticized the administration’s policies and ethics in a highly publicized book—possessed classified documents. The documents were released to O’Neill by the administration’s own Treasury Department personnel.
Bush and Business
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Unethically awards friendly corporations with government contracts worth billions of dollars, completely bypassing well-established fair bidding processes. (Financial Times, January 16, 2004)
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Allows mega-rich corporations undue say, via closed-door consultations, in political, environmental, and economic policy that adversely affects average Americans.
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Consulted with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay—orchestrator of the biggest corporate accounting scandal in recent memory, not to mention George W. Bush’s number-one lifetime campaign contributor—when drafting its energy policy. (The Guardian, January 24, 2003, guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,638645,00.html; Texans for Public Justice, tpj.org/pioneers/kenneth_lay.html)
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Practiced insider trading of Harken Energy stock and was subsequently placed under SEC investigation. Mysteriously, the investigation—which was opened while George W. Bush’s father was president—went nowhere. (Salon.com, archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2002/07/02/bush/index1.html)
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Is heavily influenced by a Vice President currently under investigation for a $180 million bribery scandal during his days as CEO of Halliburton. (The Nation, December 29, 2003, thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040112&s=ireland)
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Contrary to recent claims, Dick Cheney still has a financial stake in Halliburton, which currently enjoys exclusive, highly lucrative government contracts (approximately $9 billion) for the restructuring of Iraq. Halliburton also secretly conducted business in Iran, despite strict U.S. sanctions, and is in the midst of a Pentagon probe into whether its Iraq operations overcharged the U.S. government approximately $61 million. (Financial Times, January 17, 2004; The Washington Times, December 22, 2003, Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2001)
Bush and the Environment
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Spurns the widely accepted expertise of scientific experts because it conflicts with "gut-feeling" ideologies. For instance, the administration rejects the reality of global warming and the greenhouse effect. (Time magazine, June 7, 2001)
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Proposes environmental legislation—such as the "Clean Air Initiative" and the "Clear Skies Initiative"—that legalizes significant increases in pollution.
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Rejects the Kyoto Treaty, though virtually all other industrialized nations recognize its import and have ratified it.
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Appoints to environmental regulatory posts not scientifically adept, well-rounded experts but businessmen concerned more with the prosperity of industry than the health of Americans and preservation of natural resources for future generations. (Salon.com, November 13, 2003, archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/13/slurry_coverup/index_np.html)
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His proposed energy bill would exempt the "hydraulic fracturing" oil and gas drilling process—invented by Dick Cheney’s friends at Halliburton—from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000024.php)
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The federal Superfund account that pays for cleanup of the nation’s most contaminated sites via taxation of polluting industries will be empty by the end of 2004. Bush is the only president since establishment of the Superfund in 1980 to fail to ask Congress to reauthorize taxation of the industries responsible. Henceforth, average Americans will be taxed to fund the cleanup. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000022.php)
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In the 30 years since establishment of the Endangered Species Act, Bush is the first president since Nixon signed the bill into law to refuse to list a new species without a court order. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000018.php)
Bush, Education, and Health Care
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Proposed the grand educational reform, "No Child Left Behind," then cut funding to the already-ailing school system. (National Education Association, nea.org/lac/fy04edfunding/index.html)
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Proposed health care initiatives that decrease benefits to disadvantaged children and elderly, while rewarding enormous financial gains to the pharmaceutical industry. (Detroit News, February 1, 2003; USA Today, December 8, 2003; TomPaine.com, tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9654)
Bush, Jobs, and the Economy
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Against the advice of expert advisers and nonpartisan economists, enacted not one but two tax cuts that benefited the wealthy far more than middle-class and low-income families.
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Despite a struggling economy and escalating unemployment in America, chose to invade Iraq; experts estimate that the total monetary cost for the war will be between $180 and $245 billion. (USA Today, September 7, 2003, usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-07-cover-costs_x.htm)
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Turned the largest national surplus in U.S. history—$230 billion—into a record-setting deficit of $500 billion in the course of three years.
(CNN, September 27, 2000, cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/; CNN, January 20, 2004; cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/sotu.advance/index.html)
Are these the hallmarks of moderation, morality, and "compassionate conservatism" that George W. Bush promised in his 2000 campaign?
9:24:01 PM | |
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004 |
I thought my reasons to not run this race were quite valid: 1) I have been suffering from a re-occurring sinus infection from Christmas. 2) I had not trained to run this half marathon. In fact, the longest miles I had run amounted to a mere six! Granted, I had been running sixes and threes quite consistantly since the St. George Marathon last October and until I was in an automobile accident. I had to take some time off to heal and the holidays only compounded the problem. I easily fell out of the habit. 3) I had put on seven pounds from the holidays--too much fudge.
Long ago, however, I realized that if you make excuses not to run, then you will always be able to convince yourself not to run. "Just get out there and give it your best." I told myself. "If you end up having a bad run, you won't be surprised. At least you will have run and put in the miles."
So I crawled out of the bed at the condo, threw on my running clothes, and had J and kids drive me down to the starting line.
If you have never been to St. George, or Zion National Park for that matter, you might consider it. This area is nature at its most colorful and majestic. We not only came down this past weekend for me to race but to get a break from the frigid winter temperatures of northern Utah and the unhealthy smog resulting from 14+ consecutive days of the inversion.
St. George is surrounded by red buttes and cliffs. Though the course of the St. George Marathon is more beautiful, this course has its highlights--running under steep rock cliffs, running along the edge of the butte on the eastern side of town so you can look out over the sun-drenched city, even in January; and running through beautifully manicured homes (a few which look to cost millions).
But this is not the reason why I am writing this.
I saw the most inspiring thing. Around mile 4, two men passed me. They weren't professional runners. You could tell by their t-shirts, worn shorts, generic white socks, and old running shoes. They reminded me of how my dad used to dress to run when all us kids were still at home and he had little money to spend on himself or his hobbies.
I noticed these runners after they passed me. I was running in a large group and they had a faster gait. They quicly manuevered themselves through the middle of the pack and past me. It was at this point that I realized that they were holding hands, not like lovers, but in the manner in which one was obviously leading the other. It was at this moment, that I realized that one of them was blind.
I had seen blind runners before in the Hood to Coast relay and St. George Marathon. In those races, the blind runner held fast to an elasticized rope held by the lead runner. In the marathon, when the duo would reach a large pack of runners, the lead runner would yell out "Blind runner coming through." This lead runner didn't do that. These runners, I think, were better friends. They seemed that way in the way they talked back and forth and the unique way in which they had trained for this moment. Let me explain.
While I was able to see them, I noticed that whenever they manuevered through large packs of runners, the lead runner would grab hold of the other's hand and lead him through, making sure that there was enough space for both of them to get through. When they would get out in the open, the lead would let go and they would run side by side. During one part of the course, there were curves. These runners ran side by side, their shoulders touching and swinging to the beat of their gait. Running like this would be hard, to say the least.
I don't listen to music while I run. It's always just me and my thoughts or talking with other runners, which is a whole other story for another time.
So I thought about these runners. At first, I thought about how much patience the lead runner must have in order to train with this fellow. But the more I watched them, the more I realized that patience really wasn't what this relationship was about. Rather, the terms friendship, respect, and even lovingkindness seemed to best describe them.
I thought about the blind runner. I thought about being blind. I thought about all of those obstacles he must have conquered to get out to run--courage, self-confidence, and probably most importantly, trust. A couple of times, when the path straightened, the lead runner would say something to his friend and his friend would inch away from him and run unassisted. I got the chills each time he did this.
I used to dream of flying. I used to leap off anything tall, such as a steep grassy hill, hoping to catch the air in my arms, to defy gravity, and hang upon the wind like a bird. On Saturday, I was cognizant of this dream and that of the man ahead of me. The awareness of him and his ability to run unassisted captured my complete attention. I heard the sound of my feet on asphalt and pavement; I caught the whisperings of the air (and the feel of it) as I ran through it; I felt the machine, the workings of my leg muscles; my heart kept the beat and I was running under the rythmn of syncopated breaths. I will never know what it means to fly. But I do know how it feels to run.
This experience never felt so good; this experience never seemed so new.
9:21:03 PM | |
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Thursday, January 15, 2004 |
I don’t know if you have discovered Althea Officinalis: MallowDrama. If not, you may want to venture there and stay awhile. You won’t only learn about the author, Melanie, but you may definitely see in her stories (and life experience) a bit of your own experience.
Most refreshingly, her thoughtful approach to each story, even each character, is like opening the curtains onto a splendid view. She simply explains things in a way that we see both the body and soul of the thing.
I was impressed by a couple of paragraphs from her latest short story "Echo Running," in which she is writing about a young woman who has just walked away from a relationship that has gone sour.
You would never know it from some of my actions, but I have a natural distrust of people as a group. I put myself into the situations that I do because I do not want the bad humans to dictate my choices to me. Also, it would be really nice if humankind would cooperate by proving my cynicism to be unnecessary. I may be distrustful, but I am ripe for convincing. I want to be wrong.
Perhaps that is why the wanderlust is so strong. Perhaps I am looking for a place where things will be different enough that I will know it is worthwhile to try having faith again. New places mean new possibilities, and trust is a possibility like any other. Shark's teeth on a mountaintop in the desert can prove to me that a whole city was once a part of the ocean. Maybe I am hoping that some similar sort of proof will surface along the path, if I wander long enough, that lets me know where the scale balances. Even if it does not, at least I can feel that I have given the search a good try.
There is a beautiful verse by Lucille Clifton on this month’s calendar page that seems to represent Melanie’s gift of writing about life. It reads:
I keep hearing
tree talk
water words
and i keep knowing what they mean
There’s a high level of awareness one obtains when they tune themselves into the things that are happening around them. They know people like the back of their hand; read facial expressions like a book; interpret the tone in someone’s voice like a prophet; and from the sense of all these gifts be able to predict actions and reactions like a seer. In her writing, Melanie seems to have this level of awareness for her stories and the characters that live and breathe within them.
Lastly, Melanie comes across as someone you can trust–she knows people, knows how the world works, and how it should work. With knowledge like this, however, one can easily pick up an attitude and pass judgement. Melanie does not do this. She leaves this to the reader. In her post, New Orleans, 1976, she relates the tragic event in which she was suddenly taken away from her mother by police and given to her father. An unseasoned writer might easily fall into melodrama, spitting out sophomoric condemnations about anyone or everything. But Melanie simply relates how she remembered that horrific day. We are left with a memorable, powerful, and truly disturbing story that allows us to feel how she felt. Most importantly, it allows us, the reader, to pass judgements based off of our experience.
I see Melanie as much more than just a storyteller; she’s an interpreter of the human experience.
11:11:36 PM | |
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Great quote from Arianna Huffington's Salon article "America's Final Wakeup Call" regarding the White House attacks on O'Neill:
And, before I go any further, one word of advice to the White House attack
dogs now unleashed on O'Neill: If you want to belittle his bona fides, you've got to come up with something better than saying, "We didn't listen to him when he was there, why should we now?" Let's get real. Is there anyone more central to developing economic policy than the treasury secretary? One that was picked by, yes, George Bush? To be any more inside, O'Neill would have to have been George Bush's proctologist.
[Empahsis mine.]
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Wednesday, January 14, 2004 |
J and I watched Dr. Strangelove on DVD the other night hoping that it would have commentary on it. No such luck. Well, we greatly enjoyed the movie anyway. It has the greatest lines that seem so fitting at this junction in this Bush Administration.
Consider these lines between the General who has gone mad and Captain Mandrake, played by Peter Sellers:
GENERAL RIPPER: Do you remember what Clemenceau once said about war?
CAPT. MANDRAKE: I don't think so, sir.
RIPPER: He said war was too important a matter to be left to Generals...but today, war is too important to be left to politicians...I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!!!
Just replace "Communist" with "Terrorist" or "Democratic" and you have updated the script to fit today's threat. Maybe at the upcoming State of the Union, we'll hear Bush say: "For the sake of all that is holy, let us save our precious bodily fluids!"
8:19:16 PM | |
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Have you ever played the Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon movie trivia game. The object is to spit out the name of an actor and attempt to connect them to Kevin Bacon within six degrees or less. For example, if the actor is Keanu Reeves, the degrees of familiarity would look like this: Keanu Reeves stars with Jack Nicholson in the film Something's Gotta Give > Jack Nicholson starred with Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men.
It seems you can play this type of game with the current administration. Someone has ties to someone else stretching back decades. Today's new revelation, at least it was for me, was in regards to Rummy's early ties with Cheney. TomPaine published the article "Same Folks, Different Strokes," by Laura Flanders, author of the forthcoming book Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species. In the article, she describes how Rummy and Cheney ended up working together and how they fought to rid the U.S. of it's government-funded projects to fight poverty (and other subversive elements, of course).
According to a 2001 New Yorker article, what impressed Rumsfeld most about the young Dick Cheney was the job he'd been doing for a group of congressman, including George H.W. Bush, who were developing legislation to cut off federal funding to troublesome universities. Cheney sat in on campus meetings and gathered information on faculty involvement in anti-war protests and their relationship to groups like Students for a Democratic Society. At OEO, Rumsfeld and Cheney embraced as their mission not to direct the office, but to discredit its programs and ultimately to dismantle the agency. From a federal funding service, they turned OEO into a tool of federal surveillance.
Federally funded community groups found themselves investigated for alleged misuse of public money and accused of subversive activities. By 1972, the OEO was near death (it was disbanded officially under President Ford) and government-funded community action had became one of the red-hot, hot-button undesirables of LBJ's Great Society. The legacy persists, echoing through every bitter debate over Congressional appropriations for grassroots projects from public broadcasting to the NEA.....
The continuum, however, is not so hard to make out. "Maximum feasible participation" has been anathema to the Bush crew from the start.
Forty years ago, the War on Poverty and its anti-poverty empowerment programs were the dreaded threat. Publicly endowed "community action" just might have empowered poor and marginalized Americans by giving them the means to organize and advocate for themselves.
The very same men who rolled that program back are now pursuing Washington's unchallenged dominance of the world. Same folks, different strokes; the 40th anniversary of the War on Poverty is a good time to consider the many ways in which today's wars for global supremacy began at home.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004 |
Review of Tarantino's Kill Bill, Volume 1
In the Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet, when Laertes returns to Elsinore to find his sister, Ophelia, gone mad and his father, Polonius, murdered by the hands of young Hamlet, King Claudius consoles him with dark ideas: "And where the offense is, let the great axe fall."
Laertes vengeance on Hamlet, plotted by the King to rid himself of Hamlet to ensure that no one discovers he killed the previous King, brings about his own demise and the demise of Hamlet, the Queen, Claudius, and their country. Indeed, revenge is a dangerous and degenerative business. It turns one mad to the point that one is consumed by it.
Click here to read the whole article.
11:41:19 PM | |
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Something Smells of Hypocrisy
On the sixth of January, I commented that I do not think Bush is serious about getting to the bottom of the Plame leak. Now comes the O'Neil leak. There is more to say on this but I was emailed the most clever comment by Josh Micah-Marshall, from Talking Points Memo. (It only works in its entirety.)
Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.
Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.
Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless.
-- Josh Marshall
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Monday, January 12, 2004 |
Update on my Film Page
I have moved all the links to my movie reviews, movie news sites, and other movie databases to the film page. I will begin posting film related content to that page in the near future.
I have added two 1999 movie reviews to the database-- Being John Malcovich and Boys Don't Cry. I hope you like them.
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King So Far the Most Honored of All Films of 2003
The Return of the King has thus far been awarded/named the most Best Picture awards. Four film critic associations have given this honor-- the New York Film Critics, Southeastern Film Critics, Online Film Critics and Broadcast Film Critics Association. Peter Jackson, however, has been awarded/named Best Director by five associations-- Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Toronto Film Critics Association, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, Online Film Critics, and Broadcast Film Critics.
The more telling award shows are yet to be awarded, including the Golden Globe Awards which will air on the 25th of this month. If Return of the King can be King at the Golden Globe, that might greatly influence the nominations which are released days later. (Remember, this year's Academy Awards show marks the first year the show will appear in February rather than March. One less month to see all the movies you need to see.)
Other films awarded Best Picture thus far include: Lost In Translation (Toronto Film Critics Association and San Francisco Film Critics Circle), Mystic River (Boston Society of Film Critics and National Board of Review), and American Splendor (LA Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics).
Other directors awarded Best Director thus far include: Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (Boston Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics), Clint Eastwood for Mystic River (National Society of Film Critics), and Edward Zwick for The Last Samarai (National Board of Review).
The following is a list of award shows yet to air:
Golden Globe Awards (1/25)
Chicago Film Critics (January)
Director’s Guild (2/7)
British Academy Awards (2/15)
Writer’s Guild (2/21)
Screen Actor’s Guild (2/22)
Independent Spirit Awards (2/28)
Academy Awards (2/29)
8:01:57 PM | |
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Keisha Castle-Hughes
For those of you who are following the success of the incredible, young New Zealand actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes of Whale Rider, especially hoping that she will be recognized with a nomination and possible award for a Best Actress Oscar, there is good news. Keisha was just awarded the Best Young Actor Award by the Critic’s Choice Film Awards. She was up against the actress of the films Thirteen and In America. She received 52 votes out of 129. Congratulations Keisha!
Click here to read a list of all winners at that event.
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Sunday, January 11, 2004 |
Film page now has film navigation bar. Now let's see if the the film banner displays.
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