No one understood why a decade or so ago, “Sheba,” not her real name, subsequently herein known as “She,” gladly tossed aside her barely scuffed 27 pairs of second-hand cowgirl boots and tottered away from her vaguely glamorous if sodden dream-job of two decades as a professional, um, mainstream journalist, profiling more than 1.2 thousand of the most famous of American celebrities, Oprah included, in an award-winning nationally syndicated magazine interview column praised by some deluded Podunk media maven for her “ability to go up the aorta and into the ego.”
Only now, nearly but not quite completely recovered from her ensuing dissolute downward spiral of booze, drugs, pretty boys, whips, chains, Ben-Wah Balls, capsicum nipple paint, intermittent hooking, petty theft of rare Fifties flea market finds, compulsive fellatio, Pizza binges, Margarita orgies, filthy public poetry performances, sordid swing and swap scenes, bulimia, rampant hypochondria, fetishizing rejection and abuse as sexual foreplay, stalking, lascivious solo shows at the Fringe Festival, exorbitantly witty phone sex banter, garden-variety exhibitionism, and general self-indulgence and excess in the name of art, can She reclaim the books She wrote during that troubled, dissolute decade and offer them to the world for possible publication.
Hard to believe, but, all her life, or at least up until then, She actually believed She was well-balanced. Silly gurl! How could She be the last to discover She probably suffered from a maladaptive emotional syndrome known as “Hysteroid Dysphoria”? Meaning, someone pathetically obsessed with being the center of attention through any means possible: lurid language, loud clothing, intrusive laughter, exotic jewelry, excessive cleverness, peculiar-looking male companions, bitchy whining, aberrant sexuality, weirdly human pets, spellbound hangers-on, you name it.
Four weeks ago, I figured out something that took Bruce Springsteen months to conclude: it’s a mistake to do business with Wal-Mart.
This week, Springsteen had to do a little “shuffle” of his own to explain his strange consort with the company that puts profits ahead of people.
In this space (Dec. 28th ITunes, Wal-Mart, Springsteen Killing Off the Independents) I wrote: “The Boss has signed on with the Retail Boss, much to the chagrin of his many fans, who saw Springsteen as the voice of the disenfranchised. Now he’s just another Walton commodity. Born in the U.S.A. meets China-Mart.”
It is jarring to see the Greatest Anti-Union Corporation promoting Springsteen’s Greatest Hits CD as a “Wal-Mart exclusive” (for $10–you save $2.98). Now Springsteen is apologizing to his fans for having “dropped the ball on it.” But until he “drops the money” from this deal, Springsteen’s regret doesn’t go far enough.
“It was a mistake,” Springsteen told the New York Times. “Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.” In response, Wal-Mart went right to the heart of the problem, anticipating the backlash Springsteen would cause: “We are proud of the good jobs, benefits and career opportunities we provide to more than 1.4 million U.S. associates who choose to work at Wal-Mart and serve our customers every day.”
Barack Obama went from becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review (1990) to becoming the first black president of the United States of America so quickly, that it is not a stretch to say that we have only known him as a candidate. His life, for the last eighteen years, has been one carefully modulated and expertly managed campaign. Even when he held such underachieving slacker status positions such as United States Senator, his votes, his appearances, his public statements- and even the shirtless beach photos – have all been part of the larger campaign. As a candidate, perhaps no one has ever been as good as Obama. He has been so good, in fact, expectations of his presidency are rivaled only by an Evangelical Christian’s expectation that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Like Christ, Obama is now a myth. The man will never walk in step with what we think of him, because we have projected so much onto him. Yes, it does speak well of his campaign that it was able to leverage the desperation of so many who were so horrified of our own inaction these past eight years. We needed a savior to rescue us from the shame brought on because we had, collectively speaking, done nothing after George Bush stole the 2000 election save for prop up a cottage industry that fed us a steady stream of clever anti-Bush t-shirts and bumper stickers for us to brandish on the sidelines as our President proceeded to treat the constitution as a pesky little obstacle in his way as he waged his comic book battle of good vs. evil, now let loose from the safe confines of his little village idiot of a head and leaving a trail of blood soaked deserts and unknown blowback in its wake.
There are some who will give Obama high grades for a longer than average honeymoon period simply because the man has replaced will be remembered by history as the worst president to ever hold the office. Alfred E. Newman would have been an improvement on Bush, the subliminal thinking will go, and Obama is surely better than Alfred E. Newman. But for many, the bar is set unreasonably high. Like Christ, many praise Obama as a revolutionary. I’m more inclined to agree with Ashley Sanders, former spokesperson for the Ralph Nader campaign, who described the change that Obama has sold us as
a hazy feeling that Obama (despite all evidence to the contrary) was the peace candidate, the environmental candidate, the Black candidate, the people’s candidate. The whole production borrowed ideas that were actually dangerous to Wall Street, gutted them of danger, and resold them as ideas that were dangerous to Wall Street. It used spectacle to create the illusion that an infinity of similar options was the same thing as a meaningful choice, as real change or authenticity. It was the triumph of ideology: getting people to vote against themselves in the name of themselves.
The whole thing smacked of buying punk clothes at Hot Topic.
As Americans, we know not where to get punk clothes but at Hot Topic, and are so entrenched in ad culture that we would not know a revolution unless it was being sold to us. Here is what is being sold to us in the first week of the Obama presidency: Obama has swept into town and takes swift action in reversing the criminal culture of torture and rendition and secret prisons by issuing an executive order to shut GITMO. This much is true. Read the rest of this entry ?
There are interesting political histories behind these candidates. First, Deb Gordils challenged an incumbent, Dick Mell, for city council in Chicago’s Ward 33 who could not be unseated in 2003. She is Hispanic and the district has a fast-growing Hispanic constituency. Even though she was unsuccessful, garnering 13.75% of the votes in the non-partisan two-way race, it amounted to a Pyrrhic victory for the incumbent. An ally of his was defeated because he had to focus on his own reelection instead of focusing on electing this ally. Two cops even tried to take pictures her as a “representative of Mell’s,” and her video recording of this led to the defeat of one of the cops in a race for Alderman:
Gordils made headlines earlier when she confronted two uniformed police officers taking pictures of her and identifying themselves as Mell’s representatives.
“They said, ‘What are you looking for? What job can we get you? Do you want something with the Water Reclamation District? You only have to go to a couple of meetings,”” Gordils said.
Gordils turned her video camera on them. One was Chester Hornowski, who’s running against Ald. Tom Allen (38th).
As IPR has previously reported, Alan Augustson ran in the same district as a Green in November. He got just over 9,200 votes – or 4% – with the Democratic winner getting over 170,000 votes, and the Republican getting about 50,000.
Another former opponent of Rahm Emanuel in the race is Mark Fredrickson, who ran against him in the 2006 Democratic primary and got about 9% of the vote. Emanuel is a Democrat of the highest order – apparent from his recent appointment by Obama and being the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaigns Committee – so Fredrickson had an uphill battle to fight with his 2006 candidacy. Emanuel is also infamous for being a vicious partisan and relentless fighter.
Candidate Matt Reichel is only 27 years, yet has some political experience. He worked with the peace movement while in college, volunteered for political causes in France during graduate school, and in 2007 he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and worked for the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign. After Kucinich conceded, he went to Ohio’s 10th congressional district to help re-elect the Congressman.
Interestingly, Simon Ribeiro is the nephew of former US Senate Alfonse D’Amato, who represented New York. The following video was posted at Ribeiro’s campaign website:
Congratulations to you and Michelle for making history. Now I will be honest and tell you now that I did not vote for you. I belong to the Green Party. I and many that I know expect you to do the right thing by the American people. I would love to see you keep your promises. This cannot be just a honeymoon moment. I hope that you can lead us with the same amount of integrity, honesty and fortitude that led you to Chicago to study and serve your local community there years ago. I would love to see America respected around the world again. Can you make that happen? I have a firm commitment to make sure that I spread the word to everyone I know, that we as Americans can never, ever again take our liberty for granted. Liberty is free, but we must all do our parts to maintain it. It can disappear quickly with the simple flick of a pen to the bottom of a document. And in bits and pieces. Will you continue to do what the people want or bow to the corporations and lobbyists and powers that be? Will you do the right thing and restore those rights that were viciously taken away from us in a very calculated way, bit by bit during King George’s Reign of Terror? Read the rest of this entry ?
You gotta believe, minus the tragic parts, the cosmos is one gargantuan comedy. Consider, despite a burgeoning global financial slump, the Chinese New Year of 2009 arrives Monday, January 26 — the Year of the Ox, symbolizing, yes, calm, hard work and risk-aversion. Strangely enough, outgoing 2008 was, according to the same Chinese calendar, the Year of the Rat: charming and clever, yet cunning and selfish! Right! As in Bush and Cheney, perhaps?
Just as you might suspect, the Year of the Earth Ox promises “stability and dependability,” writes Stephanie Dempsey on Tarot. com.“Oxen place great emphasis on authority and tradition. Therefore, 2009 will lay an especially heavy burden on world leaders. Government officials, CEOs and community organizers will be expected to correct society’s ills. If they slack off, they’ll be thrown by the wayside. Substance is always favored over style in the Year of the Ox.”
We’ll see, won’t we.
The Ox, or the Buffalo sign of the Chinese Zodiac, generally represents prosperity through fortitude and hard work, but it can seem like forever.Previous Ox years were 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997. And, according to Wickipedia, the USA’s new President Barack Obama was born August 4, 1961, which makes him a Leo in conventional astrology. But in the Chinese calendar, he’s an Ox, which considerably ups the ante. “People born in the Year of the Ox,” according to San Francisco’s Chinese Cultural Center, “are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn. They hate to fail or be opposed.”
CLEVELAND (AP)-In what might be the most controversial news in the world of rock ‘n’ roll since the passing of Elvis Presley, it was announced today that Tipper Gore, wife of former Vice President, Al Gore, is to be inducted in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, causing both praise and outrage from rock ‘n’ roll fanatics throughout the world.
Gore, 60, besides being known as the wife of the former vice president, had also made a name for herself back in the Eighties by leading a group composed mostly of Washington wives called, The Parent’s Music Resource Center (or The P.M.R.C., as it was more infamously known).The P.M.R.C.’s main task was to force the music industry to labeleach record it released, in the same manner films were rated by the MPAA, particularly those that included “explicit lyrics.”
In response to many of the rock videos Gore had watched as part of her research with the P.M.R.C., she had once publicly cried, “The images frightened my children!They frightened me!I am frightened!Way frightened!The graphic sex and the violence were too much for us to handle.”
Eventually, a Senate-hearing on the “dangers” of rock music was held and artists including Frank Zappa, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and legendary folk artist, John Denver, came to the defense of the first amendment rights of the artists in question.It was later decided that each record company would “voluntarily” label albums if they felt they might cause a disturbance in certain communities.Still, once the smoke had cleared, Tipper Gore had become a full-blown enemy of the rock world.
Ironically, years later, after her husband and Bill Clinton had won the 1992 presidential election, The Gore’s made an appearance on MTV, the very channel they had once accused of perpetrating “pornography,” thanking all the young people that had supported them in their campaign.Those that remembered the Tipper Gore of the 1980’s were shocked and somewhat perplexed by the appearance. Read the rest of this entry ?
Washington (AP)- In his final couple of hours in office, George W. Bush declared war against the state of Hawaii, claiming that its native inhabitants may possibly be connected to terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
In a last-minute joint-session, Congress quickly acted, approving the war,stating the evidence that Bush has promised to provide as early as next week, was strong enough to support his decision to go to war.Though 44th President Barack Obama has already publicly denounced the war, he has gone on the record, stating, “Withdrawing troops from the state of Hawaii will be a long, painful process.I wish I could do it in a day but that is asking the impossible.”He then went on to set 2010 as the starting point for the withdrawal.
When asked whether or not attacking one of our own states seemed reactionary and senseless, all parties involved refused to comment.
While no one president alone can wave a magic wand and change the world, Barrack Obama has inspired the kind of hope that has people thinking big. Even if you don’t buy into the Obama revolution and think Obama espouses a foreign policy that could only be described as “the Bush doctrine, with slightly less calories” (and you would be correct) you can still dream big, can’t you?
On the eve of the inauguration, let’s create a list, if only as a social experiment, of the things we want in the first year from this administration. Express your wishes in a short phrase or sentence like “single payer healthcare” or “revoke the policy of pre-emption” or “all dogs neutered”. I’ll take the most compelling of these & create poll.
On the day after the inauguration, I will post that poll right here at Operation Itch. This should give us a clear idea of what Operation Itchers want in Obama’s first year.
Then we can put our heads together and see if we can’t achieve it. Don’t think we can get anything done together? Come on, say it with me now- YES WE CAN. – DT ( you can read the David Swanson article I talk about here)
I promised myself when Dennis asked me to contribute to Operation Itch that I wouldn’t write about politics, considering almost everything on the site is political in nature.I also can not express myself politically as well as people like Dennis so I usually write about what I know best: music and film.I do, however, plan to take this next week to let out my final gasps of frustration at what has happened over the last eight years.I just want to get in a few more final jabs before the bell rings, ending the fifteen round.I’m well aware that nothing I write will cause the knockout I wish it would.Obviously, my opponents are too powerful to be punished for their sins but like Rocky Balboa in the original Rocky film, after he realizes he can’t beat Apollo Creed, I just want to know I went the distance and I did my best and got a good few shots in before the end of the fight.Although, the truth be told, the damage done over the last eight years will be echoing throughout the world for years to come, much like the brain damage Rocky suffered after going the distance against Apollo.
Okay.That being said…
I was a lone man, sunk in the middle of my couch, crying like a child.President-elect Obama was on the television accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.Although, there were parts of his speech that were moving, I was not crying because I was touched by what he had said.I was well aware that he was a politician, an expert on rhetoric, knowing just what buttons to push to tug at our hearts and minds.It was an historic nomination but that was not what brought me to tears.
“A real revolution turns things upside down; it gets at the root of a problem or radically includes or excludes a new or old idea. What we got from Obama was not a revolution, as even a cursory study of his own centrist, American-myth-heavy rhetoric would attest. What we got from Obama was just what Adbusters (glowingly) said we got: a President who used technology to speak to us in a language we understood.”
It’s inauguration time, and you know what that means: last chance to board the bandwagon headed toward happy delusion. This time around, the Dems have even saved some space for erstwhile opponents—people who can usually keep a cool head amidst all the media hoopla. From the looks of it, Adbusters saw fit to drop their bionic anti-advertising stare and reserve a seat right next to the New York Times and a bevy of other “progressive” magazines that wanted to celebrate the reality they created.
Don’t believe me? Here is the prompt Adbusters sent out to all their meme warriors in holy expectation of the upcoming coronation (an event that, beyond being as transcendentally historical as we’ve been promised, will also usher in a whole new generation):
Meme warriors, cultural creatives and Generation O:
The outpouring of euphoria around the globe following Barack Obama’s victory has raised expectations. Like the president-elect, we (and you) have been calling for change for eight long years. On November 4th we got it, a genuine, bloodless revolution. The question now is: will it amount to anything?
Obama’s campaign benefited hugely from enlisting young voters in the cause. Obama told them that the post-baby boomer era had begun. He challenged their cynicism and spoke to them through their own media: through Facebook, through Twitter. They overwhelmingly gave him their support at the polls. And they won. They won big. Maybe now Generation O will finally drop the hipster pose and become a force to change the world.
For the next issue of Adbusters we want your thoughts and opinions on whether you think Generation O has revolutionary potential.
So I responded. (What pissed-off, media-abused leftist wouldn’t?) Here are my thoughts on the so-called Generation O.
There was something a little less than comforting about the prompt Adbusters used to solicit our thoughts on the revolutionary potential of Generation O. In their solicitation, Adbusters gave a series of givens before asking their readers to answer for the undecided: It was incontrovertible that Obama had contributed to an “outpouring of euphoria across the globe,” that he had been extending the mission of Adbusters by “calling for change,” and that his election amounted to a “genuine, bloodless revolution.” All that was decided. Agreed upon. Now the only question left was whether Generation O would “drop its hipster pose” long enough to carry the revolution forward.
I think Adbusters’ givens beg far more questions than their actual question does, and while the actual question is not whether Obama will bring change, but whether the younger generation will carry out that change, I believe the attitudes Adbusters revealed in their intro to the question are the same attitudes that will keep Generation O from possessing or exercising true revolutionary potential. Read the rest of this entry ?
According to our stellar American media, Israelis are united behind their country’s military actions in Gaza.
New York Times:
JERUSALEM — To Israel’s critics abroad, the picture could not be clearer: Israel’s war in Gaza is a wildly disproportionate response to the rockets of Hamas, causing untold human suffering and bombing an already isolated and impoverished population into the Stone Age, and it must be stopped.Yet here in Israel very few, at least among the Jewish population, see it that way.
It’s very east to make generalities like that when one doesn’t include Israeli dissidents, who are jailed when protesting the war against the Palestinian people:
Israel National News:
Five leftist protesters were arrested Saturday night at a demonstration in Tel Aviv against the IDF’s operation in Gaza. The marchers attempted to enter the Ministry of Defense compound but were prevented from advancing by police. One demonstrator was injured.
Protesters said that the Gaza operation would not contribute to the security of the country. “No one can say that a massacre of Gaza residents will protect the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon,” one of the protesters told a reporter from the Hebrew-language newspaper Haaretz.
Israel: United is a convenient slogan when one completely neglects to mention the hundreds of Israeli Arabs, who apparently don’t count when referring to this vague concept known as “Israel.”
Haaretz:
Seven hundred protesters against the Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza, mostly Israeli Arabs or residents of East Jerusalem, have been arrested since the operation began, and dozens have been indicted. The protesters, 226 of whom are still in custody, are suspected of involvement in disturbances, illegal demonstrations or stone-throwing, police said. Of the detainees, 237 are minors. Most of the protests that led to arrests took place in Jerusalem or the north.
Protest isn’t limited to the civilian population. Haaretz reports that an Israeli soldier has been jailed after refusing to fight in Gaza:
An Israel Defense Forces reserves soldier, taking part in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip which entered its 17th day on Monday, has refused to enter the Hamas-ruled territory along with his unit in protest of the killing of Palestinian civilians.
On Monday it emerged that the soldier has been jailed for 14 days in a military facility. He was the first soldier to be tried for refusing orders since the beginning of the operation.
And what does the Times say of all of this?
But voices of dissent in this country have been rare.
Oh. Well, I guess they’re rare if you don’t report them.
You would never know the world’s blessed with a “new, improved” branch of mental heath called POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, would you? I mean, gauging recent cringe-and-flinch-inducing calamity-oriented-type headlines, emails, events, situations we all are far too familiar with lately.
Suddenly the Bad-News Bears are everywhere! Harbingers of Hopelessness! I mean, even lawyers, let alone Buddhists, agree life is pain and suffering — therefore, you pop a few thousand doses of Big Pharma’s Anti-Depressants — and then you die, right?
Well, enough of those Nattering Nabobs of Negativism of yore! Never before have we so desperately needed a cognitive tool such as PP to lead us out of the Morass of Pessimism, 21st century successor to the Slough of Despond. Positive Psychology’s nothing all that new, really. New Whines in Old Bottles, or Old Whines in New Bottles. But it does strive for the Sunny side!!
Call it what you will, Positive Psychology’s been around for eons, maybe even since Cave-Man days– long before French motivational maven Émile Coué postulated in the last century, “Every Day in Every Way I Feel Better and Better.” Coué maintained curing our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thoughts, which could be accomplished through activation of the imagination. Although he claimed he was not primarily a healer but one who taught others to heal themselves, he maintained he could achieve physical changes through autosuggestion.
In the last segment, I described as briefly as possible the inherent difficulty in working for an extremely low wage, maintaining a long-distance relationship, and saving up to move to another country at the same time.
My fiancee and I began doing the paperwork necessary for me to move to Buenos Aires and to live and work legally in Argentina. While I started working on getting my passport, she called the immigration office to find out what procedure we had to go through for me to become a permanent resident after we married. All I needed, she was informed, were my passport, birth certificate, a clean criminal record, and, of course, a little money for the paperwork (the equivalent of about $100).
I had never lived outside of Kansas, so the proper organization to turn to for my certified criminal record search was the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI). Luckily, I was able to get a copy of my birth certificate from my parents, who I don’t have the best relationship with and asking for favors is kind of a slow process, but it wasn’t too much trouble. I sent the paperwork for the criminal record search (along with the $30 money order) and turned my attention toward getting my passport. Read the rest of this entry ?
“Shotgun Party is definitely in many ways a crossover band,” says Jenny Parrott, lead singer and songwriter for the Austin-based trio.“Most of our music is written by me and I love soul, R & B, vintage jazz, country and Bjork.Chris, the bass player, is a huge bebop & Beatles fan and Katy is a classically trained violinist whose life was changed by bluegrass.We all add very different and hopefully complimentary things to our sound.It is hard to put an accurate name on this type of sound but we often get away with ’swing,’ ‘pop’ or ‘country.’”
click for the Shotgun Party myspace page
Regardless of what name you assign to their sound, their music definitely “swings.”
Chris Chrepp’s upright bass and Jenny Parrott’s steady strumming on the guitar provide the perfect driving rhythm for Parrott’s playful melodies, Crepp’s and Katy Rose Cox’s impressively tight harmonies and Cox’s extraordinary fiddle playing.The end result is a combination that can put a smile on the face of even the most miserable of curmudgeons.
In fact, it was that combination that helped the band land a residency one of Austin’s most legendary venues, The Continental Club.It was after a CD release party that went extremely well that the band began playing The Continental on a consistent basis, eventually landing them the prestigious spot at Happy Hour.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a better staff than the one at the Continental Club,” says Parrott.“They treat musicians very well there.I don’t know many clubs where the owners book the shows, come out to see the bands play and spend time at their own club.It seems very hands on.And of course, the caliber of the music at that club is awesome.”
And although Cox is the only original Texan out of the three (Parrott hails from the Northeast and Crepps from San Diego), they are all equally immersed in and dedicated to Austin’s flourishing music scene.They only have kind words to say about their fellow musicians, as well as their fellow citizens.
“I enjoy the quality of musicianship here.” Crepps says.“I also love the camaraderie amongst musicians.There’s not a lot of animosity.From my experiences there’s a general interest in what the other bands are doing.”
Cox adds, “People here in Austin love to dance, eat good food, swim and laugh. There is no place else like Austin.”
The other week I walked into a cozy and inviting second-hand bookstore called the Last Word near the Penn campus in West Philadelphia while waiting for a movie to start around the corner. That’s how it is these days for books — no longer the main event, now relegated to the sidelines. And I’m what passes for a Book Person. I buy books from, whenever possible, independent bookstores rather than chains. I read books cover to cover, savoring each word. I write books. Sometimes they even get published.
The salesclerk, a pleasant 40-ish woman, and I begin chatting. We share our mutual loathing of those new-fangled wireless electronic book–reader-thingees like Kindle— think iPods for books– retailing for $359. You can even order them pre-loaded with hundreds of book titles. I compare them to vibrators — you might think you’re getting sex, but it’s sure not human!
But oh, the mindless blather touting this devilish device! “Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel has a long tradition of nurturing the literary-minded — Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, even Harpo Marx hung out there in its heyday. Keeping up with the times, the folks running the Algonquin today apparently still have literature on their minds, and are offering Amazon’s Kindle pre-loaded with a book of their choice for guests of the hotel during their stay…” burbles the website Switched-dot-com.
We both agree battery-powered books seem a crime against nature.
“People like the feel of real books, the smell of books,” the salesclerk declares fervently. “They like to touch them. They like to carry books with them wherever they go. Books are already portable. You can read them anywhere. Books are, in their way, comforting.”
Certainly books are the low-tech solution to the reading process. Here’s hoping actual books — and public gathering-places to read them like libraries — never go out of style. If only Philly’s Mayor could have been there to participate in our conversation, maybe he’d have second thoughts about his misguided –and potentially dangerous — threat to shut 11 neighborhood library branches to eliminate some red ink in the city’s way-out-of-whack budget.
Doesn’t the Mayor know books are magical? Isn’t he aware books can change lives, young and old, forever? Doesn’t he realize books are a passport to the Imagination Unlimited?
And, instead of privatizing some of the city’s libraries in poor neighborhoods, as he may now do, why not simply eliminate 10-year real estate tax abatements extended to rich, powerful corporate interests instead.
Here’s a city with one of the highest murder rates in America, yet so short-sighted as to even consider closing nearly a dozen libraries, which function as cultural community centers. Boy, how dumb — and bogus — can you be? Libraries are incredibly important to people of all ages. They can be safe, quiet places to do homework after school. They can be places to use computers, thus helping conquer the Digital Divide for impoverished families. They can be places to do research, seek intellectual enrichment, attend lectures, movies, workshops, or even socialize. Think about it. And then rescind the order to shutter those libraries. Read the rest of this entry ?
The police in Nassau County, New York released a report this week that clearly lays the blame for a Black Friday trampling death on Wal-Mart.
The worker’s death on November 28th took place at a Valley Stream, Long Island Wal-Mart store. According to Newsday, which says the plan was released December 31st, the police report suggests that Wal-Mart needs to be much better prepared than it was when bargain hunters took the life of a temp worker at the retailer’s store.
Nassau County Police want Wal-Mart to plan thoroughly, arrange for efficient crowd control and engage in clear communication, to prevent another tragedy. Wal-Mart would not comment on the plan, but told Newsday, “We look forward to continuing to work with law enforcement to make our safety measures even stronger in the future.”
The latest report is the result of private discussions that took place in mid December at Nassau police headquarters, attended by 75 representatives from area department stores and malls. The retailers and the police were under pressure to demonstrate that some reforms would be made in the wake of the death of Jdimytai Damour of Queens, New York, who was called “a seasonal worker” byNewsday. Wal-Mart officials were at the closed-door meeting at the Nassau police station.
In their report, Nassau police said they will respond and assist when needed, “but the responsibility for the security and control of these sales events rests with the store. Store administrators should never market a sales event without having a plan, and the proper resources to manage it.” The police also note, “history has shown that large-scale events can turn from an orderly gathering to chaos as the doors open. Ultimately the goal is to provide a safe and comfortable shopping experience for patrons.” This requires “cooperation from the business owners, mall security, contract security employees and law enforcement. These special sales pose unique challenges to the business owner, mall owner and those who are charged with providing security for the event.” Read the rest of this entry ?
There is a myth circulating in the mainstream media that Israel’s missiles are finding their targets with surgical precision.
The lie entails comparing something like the 250-pound GBU-39 “smart bomb” to a surgeon’s knife. A small side-note: the United States Congress approved the sale of this bomb to Israel. Actually, they approved the sale of 1,000 of these bombs to Israel. Second side-note: Your tax dollars bought the bombs.
So-called “rational adults” argue that this horrible, destructive device, which has enough explosive power to decimate six feet of reinforced concrete, is exactly the same as the precision guaranteed between a doctor’s steady hand, a blade, and a patient’s flesh.
It’s generous to call this myth stupid. It’s probably fairer to call it dishonest. Of course a bomb can’t be smart, or precise, primarily because of its very nature as a bomb – a tool of mass destruction. This is like the difference between if I punch you in the face or I slam you with a wrecking ball. You may get up after I deck you, but the wrecking ball will turn you into a human stain. I may also knock over a few buildings whilst trying to thwart you because a giant tool of destruction doesn’t offer any precision. That’s also the difference between a ground invasion and aerial bombing. The whole idea of using a bomb or a missile instead of 100,000 ground troops is to cause maximum damage with minimal casualties on the side of the bomb-dropping or missile-firing country. Read the rest of this entry ?
“I’m figgering
On biggering and BIGGERING and BIGGERING and BIGGERING, turning MORE Truffula Trees into Thneeds which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!”
– Dr. Seuss, THE LORAX
“Istanbul was Constantinople/ Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople/ Been a long time gone, Constantinople/ Why did Constantinople get the works?/ That’s nobody’s business but the Turks” – Lyrics from “Istanbul”/ They Might Be Giants
It is hard to resist the pull to join the growing bandwagon of pundits, analysts, soccer moms, and plumbers offering their advice to Barack Obama as he prepares to become the forty- third president of the United States. Not that I am hesitant to share my opinions. After all, it was this time last year that I found myself, by virtue of sharing my opinions in a few YouTube videos, sitting on the Dennis Kucinich campaign bus across from the man running for president just days before the New Hampshire primary getting paid to offer my opinions on all matters related to politics. Dennis Kucinich, with all of my help, took 1% of the vote in New Hampshire. So I don’t delude myself into thinking that Rahm Emanuel will be presenting the president elect with the cliff notes of the advice that is to follow.
The U.S. in 2010?
Amid all the hoopla of the campaign mixed with the sober realities of the never ending war(s), a recession that is on the eve of a global depression and the ever increasing possibility that I will never get a job writing for The Daily Show comes the question: what if Barack Obama is not only the next president of the United States, but the last president of the United States?
Andrew Osborn, in his December 29th article in the Wall Street Journal, sheds some light on Russian academic Igor Panarin, who predicts that the United States has seen her last presidential election cycle.
Ever.
Panarin is even getting requests to scribble his John Hancock (will anyone remember him?) on this map (pictured here) he created. Read the rest of this entry ?
Former Democratic Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney – who has since run for president on the Green Party ticket – is on her way to the Gaza Strip. She is not taking the recent Israeli attacks lightly, and she is taking some friends with her, including an Al Jazeera reporter who was once held in the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
This is being coordinated through the Free Gaza organization, which is holding a press conference tomorrow (they also have a newsletter about it here). Their press release about the subject is below the fold. (update here) Read the rest of this entry ?
Maralyn Lois Polak • Operation Itch Contributing Writer 
Anita Stewart 
Washington (AP)- In his final couple of hours in office, George W. Bush declared war against the state of Hawaii, claiming that its native inhabitants may possibly be connected to terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
According to our stellar American media, Israelis are united behind their country’s military actions in Gaza.
The lie entails comparing something like the 250-pound GBU-39 “smart bomb” to a surgeon’s knife. A small side-note: the United States Congress 
OPERATION ITCH 