More nostalgia

One of the best songs, ever:

Cindy Sheehan responds to Pelosi's speech

The following is a response by Cindy Sheehan to Nancy Pelosi:

Denver, CO – I did not watch Ms. Pelosi’s speech at the DNC. I was actually giving a speech of my own in another part of Denver, but I have read the transcript of Ms. Pelosi’s remarks and I have also read the criticisms of this speech on all of the Democratic blogs. Ms. Pelosi did not get high marks, to say the least. I have read some things I cannot repeat, but criticisms of “wooden,” “boring,” “uninspired,” and “hypocritical,” are some comments coming from committed and rabid Democrats. It does seem pretty hypocritical when such a public failure can claim that McCain has the “experience of being wrong.”

With Congress at a 9% approval rating, it is amazing to me that Ms. Pelosi can stand in front of anyone and claim “success” and claim that her leadership has taken this nation on a better path. Our economy is crashing; hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes despite the $300.00 “stimulus” check Ms. Pelosi sent them. Some Americans are being forced to choose whether to buy gas or food, despite the miniscule hike in the federal minimum wage, which affected a very small percentage of the population since most states already had minimum wages that exceeded the federal minimum wage. A true progressive “change” in that direction would be mandating a living wage, which differs from state/state and city/city; but based on the cost of living. It’s easier to push people of color or poor people out of cities like San Francisco by increasing the cost of living, while not mandating a living wage.

Some other of Ms. Pelosi’s “accomplishments” that she touted in her speech were:

Keeping toxic toys out of the hands of children.

(The toys that were put into our children’s hands by the “free” trade agreements she supports and the outsourcing of jobs that pay slave wages to countries that make our consumer goods and encourage cutting back costs so we can go to Wal-mart and get “low, low” prices).

We passed legislation to keep hard working American families in their homes

(According to Reality Trak, 1 out of every 194 homes received foreclosure notices in the first quarter of this year and Congress was more interested in bailing out Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and predatory lenders than keeping “American Families” in their homes.)

And, we enacted a new G.I. Bill to thank our veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by sending them to college.

(Ms. Pelosi did not mention in her speech that her congress has funded the war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of over 400 billion dollars and since she became Speaker, over 1200 of our troops have been killed unnecessarily and hundreds of Iraqis/Afghans have been murdered or displaced from their homes. Ms. Pelosi should not be “thanking” our veterans, she should be apologizing to them for continuing to send them off to fight a war that has physically, mentally, or emotionally wounded tens of thousands of them for no reason at all).

Ms. Pelosi even said that Iraq was: “a catastrophic mistake that has cost thousands of lives of our men and women in uniform and trillions of dollars, as well as has weakened our standing in the world and our capability to protect the American people, Barack Obama is right and John McCain is wrong. Very, very wrong.” Well, if John McCain has been wrong and the occupation of Iraq (she says nothing about Afghanistan, and, in fact, she supports the Obama plan of redeploying troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to fight the “real war on terror”), then Nancy Pelosi has also been “very, very wrong.” One doesn’t pour funds to the tune of “trillions” of dollars into a “catastrophic mistake.”

Borrowing the rhetoric of the right, Ms. Pelosi wants to honor our troops that have made America the “Land of the free and the home of the brave.” Collaborating with the Bush regime to foist upon us a “Prevention of violent radicalism and homegrown terrorism law” and working with the City of Denver and the State of Colorado and Homeland “Security” to turn Denver into a fascist police state, would have made a person of conscience choke on those words. I certainly know that my son did not join the US Military and die in a “catastrophic mistake” to turn this nation into one that is looking more like a bi-partisan repressive despotic dictatorship every day. I have a radical idea for Ms. Pelosi! How about she honors our troops by obeying her sworn oath to “uphold and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic,” the same oath our troops take.

Ms. Pelosi is famous for taking our constitution “off the table” and will go down in infamy as the Vichy-enabler of the Bush regime and along with her beloved “party” will be known as the party that killed the 4th amendment to the Bill of Rights (with her support of warrantless spying on Americans and immunity from the felonious breaking of the FISA laws) and the 8th amendment as the sanctioners of torture.

During her speech, Ms. Pelosi is giving evidence that her leadership will also further dissolve the separation between church and state that has accelerated during the Bush “catastrophic mistake” of a Presidency. She assured the convention goers and lapdog media that the Democratic path is one to the Christian heaven: “It is the path that renews our democracy by bringing us together as one nation under God.” Whose god? Bush’s god? Obama’s god? Pelosi’s god? Osama’s god? Olmert’s god? The god of the “two” party system: mammon? The very words, “God,” or “religion” do not belong anywhere near public political discourse. Obviously, not everyone worships the same god, or any god, or gods. We must end the rhetoric of “holy wars” and remember that we do not elect a Pope of America, but a President. I also have another question…how is democracy “renewed” by forcing us together as a “nation under God?” This was not only an un-American thing to say, but the rhetoric is as empty as the treasury of the USA.

The “successes” of Pelosi’s leadership look an awful lot like failures when we know that she mostly capitulated to the Bush regime and when her failures have been so catastrophically tragic.

In September, Ms. Pelosi, will have a few weeks left of her leadership position when she will go back to lead a congress that has that abysmal approval rating and has passed the least amount of legislation in the last 20 years. Congress will take up business for about three weeks in September and a good start will be to arrest Karl Rove on the first day for ignoring a congressional subpoena. On day two, begin to roll back the executive branch excesses of the last eight years and reclaim the separation of powers that were ensured by the founders before the next president takes over and takes the scepter of an empire and not the mantle of public service as only the “first of equals.”

There’s nothing more important for her to do.

Not a convention, but a coronation

The Obama campaign is censoring what people can say in their speeches at their party's convention. For a guy who claims to represent a break from the old style politics, this sounds like the same old politics to me. It reminds me of when Kerry's gestapo back in 2004 had all the antiwar banners torn down at the convention as soon as anyone tried to put them up.

I'll add this to the thousand or so reasons why I'll be voting for the Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney this November.

One of the best songs ever

The Damned Outside Lands Festival

The Outside Lands Festival has turned the western half of this city into a big fat mess. I'll be glad when the weekend is over.

Nostalgia alert

Cindy Sheehan is on the ballot!

From Cindy Sheehan's facebook page comes this announcement:

Dear Supporter,

On behalf of the people of San Francisco and all whom dream of a better tomorrow, we are proud to announce that Cindy Sheehan is officially on the ballot as a candidate for California's 8th Congressional District Representative to the U.S. House. Cindy is only the 6th Independent candidate ever to be listed on a California election ballot.

There has been an overwhelming and unprecedented show of support among San Francisco voters for the Sheehan campaign's progressive agenda. Over the past few months, hundreds of volunteers and supports rallied around getting their voices heard in November's election. After collecting roughly 20,000 signatures, with at least 10,198 qualifying, the Sheehan campaign has proven its viability with flying colors.

Cindy's access to November's ballot is evidence of growing discontent among San Francisco voters with the Democratically lead U.S. congress and its inability to end the war, hold the Bush administration accountable for unconstitutional acts, stimulate the economy, reform healthcare, reconsider trade agreements that harm American workers and the environment and cut ties to corporate lobbyists. The Sheehan campaign is offering a new vision for San Francisco and the nation. Cindy believes in peace, accountability, freedom, and well being for all. She believes that war should be a last resort for defense and not the handy policy tool that it is currently being used as. She believes that healthcare is a basic right in a democratic society and should not be based on ability to pay. Cindy knows that it is essential to keep our representatives and leaders accountable to our Constitution and to democratic practices. She knows that we must retool our economy to be in harmony with the environment and its sustainability. Most importantly, Cindy understands that Americans are striving for a new type of politics that has meaning, puts people before profits and that challenges the divisive two party system.

After overcoming its first obstacle by achieving ballot access, the Sheehan campaign is in full gear and ready to achieve victory in November. Over the next few months, the campaign will be working hard to spread its message of peace, accountability, and hope. Thank you to all whom have shown their support by volunteering, donating, advocating, and being the change that we wish to see. Although Cindy is on the ballot, the most challenging part of the campaign is around the corner. We must spread our message more widely, recruit more volunteers, raise more funds and secure more votes. As a grassroots campaign going up against a well oiled machine, we are fighting an uphill battle. Regardless, we have hope. We have hope because we understand the power of people to chance society. The civil rights movement and women's liberation movement within the United States is evidence that if we come together in union, regardless of the odds against us, we can overcome all obstacles. The Sheehan campaign's message to you today is that, we can overcome! We can overcome fear. We can overcome the military industrial complex. We can overcome corporate domination of our economy. We can overcome environmental degradation. Let us create a society grounded in peace, love, and humanity.

Onwards to victory!!!!!

Let us elect Cindy Sheehan to the House of Representatives!

www.CindyforCongress.org

No comment

From Paul Krugman's August 4 column in the New York Times:

Incidentally, it’s surprising that the lousy economy hasn’t yet had more impact on the campaign. Mr. McCain essentially proposes continuing the policies of a president whose approval rating on economics is only 20 percent. So why isn’t Mr. Obama further ahead in the polls?

One answer may be that Mr. Obama, perhaps inhibited by his desire to transcend partisanship (and avoid praising the last Democratic president?), has been surprisingly diffident about attacking the Bush economic record. An illustration: if you go to the official Obama Web site and click on the economic issues page, what you see first isn’t a call for change — what you see is a long quote from the candidate extolling the wonders of the free market, which could just as easily have come from a speech by President Bush.

Hate and church shootings

The man who went into a UU church with a gun believed that "all liberals should be killed". In his home were found books by various far right authors, including the radio hatemonger Michael Savage.

Interestingly enough, shortly before the shooting, Savage had made the news for two separate reasons. His lawsuit, filed against an organization that had publicized Savage's own words of hatred against Muslims and which illustrated just how loony and extreme he was, was thrown out of court. And Savage's bizarre and ignorant rampage against the diagnosis of autism outraged parents across the country.

The gunman listened to hatemongers and took those words of hate to heart. And now, the hatred that fueled the gunman's actions continues unabated in the aftermath of the tragedy. One web site reported:

At Free Republic.com, which serves largely as a venue for conservatives to chat, the denomination itself was subjected to derision, with bloggers writing comments such as, "What place does ’Annie’ have in a worship service. I’d have probably shot up the place too," and, "Unitarian Church. Enough said."

The shooting in a UU church was not just a random crime. It was an act of political terrorism, just as the Oklahoma City bombing was an act of political terrorism. Its motive was specifically political, and the man who carried out the killings was incited by the hatred spewed by his political heroes. When you sew the seeds of hate, as people like Savage do, one should not be surprised when some people take that message a little too literally.

J'en rêve encore

I love this song. It was a big hit in France a few years ago.

The airline industry

Jim Hightower's commentary today about the airline industry is right on the money.

Eugene Debs and the right of dissent

The LA Times featured an interesting review of the book Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent.

French music

God Bless Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas has written a wonderful column about the war photography and the role that the press plays in covering up the horrors of war. I highly recommend reading the entire column. The article begins:

Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”

Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.

As the saying goes, the picture was worth a thousand words because it showed the true horrors of this war.

Neither side is immune from the killing of Iraqi civilians. But Americans should be aware of their own responsibility for inflicting death and pain on the innocent.

The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, said about 20 readers complained about the photo, while a few readers praised the Post for publishing the stark picture on page one.

Some mothers said they were offended that their children might see the picture, though one wonders whether their youngsters watch television and play with violent videos in a pretend world.

From the start of the unprovoked U.S. “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, the government tried to bar the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of American soldiers returning from Iraq. A Freedom of Information lawsuit forced the government to release pictures of returning coffins.

Howell said some readers felt the photo of the Iraqi boy was “an anti-war statement; some thought it was in poor taste.” Well, so is war.

I particularly like the last sentence in the above quote. After all, what greater anti-war statement is there, than war itself?

One reason why I don't own an iPod.

From the "Computing Q&A" column in a recent issue of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Q: I would like to find a media player that has the music features of an iPod and a decent screen, but also with built-in FM radio. Is there such a device?

A: In fact, many players now on the market can fit that bill. Models from Creative, Samsung, SanDisk, Sony and others feature color displays rivaling those found in the iPod Classic and the iPod Nano, along with built-in FM tuners, so you can listen to radio as well as saved music. Microsoft's Zune, a direct competitor to the iPod, also sports onboard FM.

Why Apple hasn't seen fit to fit an FM tuner into its iPods is unclear. One possible explanation: Why let people listen to music for free over the radio when you can force them to buy it on iTunes?

I think that the comment about forcing people to buy music on iTunes is right on the money. Apple's marketing strategy with respect to online music is very much about using its dominance in the online sales market (via iTunes) to leverage iPod sales--and vice versa. I am not sure how many of the other major manufacturers of MP3 players are integrated with an online sales service the way that Apple's is, but if any are, certainly nothing else in online sales has the dominance that iTunes has. Since Apple's iPods are so coupled with their online music sales--one exists to support the other--Apple has a vested interest in using iPods to help promote iTunes sales.

This seems to be a clear example of a monopolistic practice. It is little different, in my view, from what Microsoft was doing for years with Internet Explorer.

That is one reason why, just on principle alone, I own a non-Apple MP3 player. In any case, having an FM receiver is one of the things that I specifically look for in a player.

611 Calories burned

The Bay Area Bike to Work Day web page has a calculator that tells you have many calories you burn by bicycling to work, and also how many pounds of toxic emissions you save.

According to this page, my round trip bike commute burns 611 calories.

Criticize the war and praise the warmonger

Jackie Speier was sworn in as Tom Lantos's replacement in the House of Representatives, and she gave a speech severely criticizing the Iraq war. A group of whiny Republicans who couldn't handle the existence of anti-war language on the House floor walked out (which makes me wonder just how common it is to hear strong anti-war language in that venue.)

But here's the irony. According to the article in the SF Chronicle, she began that same speech "by praising her predecessor, Lantos, who died in February of esophageal cancer after serving in Congress for 27 years." She went on about how irreplaceable he was. How interesting. Lantos was one of the biggest warmongers in the House. Not only did he favor the current Iraq war, but he was also a key factor in the first Iraq war in 199o. He was the chief Congressional promoter of the false allegations of Iraqi soldiers ripping Kuwaiti babies from their incubators. It was precisely this lie that Lantos had spread that convinced enough people in Congress to vote in favor of authorizing the first Gulf war. Would there have been a second Iraq war without the first one? One can thus draw a straight line from Lantos to the current mess in Iraq.

Partisian politics is funny that way. Speier and Lantos are fellow Democrats. Far be it for her to criticize Lantos for his complicity in the very war that she turned around and blasted. She is part of the same party machine that Lantos was, and she knows that principle only goes so far; she will not bite the hand that feeds her.

War Crimes

The Dean of the UC Berkeley Law school has published a memo stating that, despite John Yoo's complicity in the Bush administration's policy on torture, Yoo's job is safe at UC Berkeley.

Does"academic freedom" give one the right to actively collude with war criminals, up to and including providing those war crimes with legal cover?

Art and popular music

It is rare when artistic quality and popularity converge, but somehow it managed to happen in the case of the Beatles, who were both the greatest pop act in world history, and also pop music's greatest artistic geniuses. It is rather amazing, given how popular so much of the word's musical fluff is, that the Beatles have managed to hold onto the record for the most number one hits (20). But the news that Mariah Carey now has 17 number one hits and may very well surpass the Beatles some day only serves to confirm that we live in a hopeless world. The one great convergence between artistic genius and popularity will finally crumble in the face of superficiality.

Admittedly, Carey has has two decades to reach this plateau, while the Beatles did their thing in a span of about six years or so. But still.

Madonna in the "rock and roll" hall of fame

Regarding Madonna's induction into the "Rock and Roll" "Hall of Fame" (I put scare quotes around "Rock and Roll" because she is not a rock artist, and I put scare quotes around "Hall of Fame" because a Hall of Fame ought to be in the business of recognizing artistic merit rather than pandering to commercial pablum that happens to sell a lot), I think this quote sums it up nicely:

"It seems like this is driven by commercial achievement and sales, rather than having anything to do with the rock 'n' roll genre," said to AP Steve Morse, a Boston Globe music critic who was a member of the nominating committee for seven years. "It's really a commercial move. They'll be able to sell more tickets to the museum and more people will watch the broadcast."

Happy Birthday, Peace Symbol

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol.

More nostalgia

When science discovers the obvious

It took a scientific study for someone to figure this out:

In the world of romance, we seek out partners who are just as "hot" or "not hot" as we are.

A new study supports the idea that super models flock together while individuals lacking the perfect face and body also stick together.

"Beautiful people marry beautiful people and less beautiful people marry less beautiful people," said Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences and Sloan School of Management.

Well golly gee. Who knew?

Progressivism is still dead, thank you very much

From David Sirota's column in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Obama has let Clinton characterize the 1990s as a nirvana, rather than a time that sowed the seeds of our current troubles. He barely criticizes the Clinton administration for championing job-killing trade agreements. He does not question that same administration's role in deregulating the financial industry and thereby intensifying today's boom-bust catastrophes. And he rarely points out what McClatchy Newspapers reported this week: that Clinton spent most of her career at a law firm "where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards," including Wal-Mart's.

Sirota points out that "Obama hasn't touched any of this," noting, for example, that

his campaign relies on corporate donations. Though Obama certainly is less industry-owned than Clinton, the Washington Post noted last spring that he was the top recipient of Wall Street contributions. That cash is hush money, contingent on candidates silencing their populist rhetoric.

More music they don't make anymore

Morford on Exxon, profits, war, and greed

Interesting quote from a column by Mark Morford:

Here, then, is perhaps the most dominant question surrounding the upcoming big transition, as the nation prepares over the next year to finally rid itself of the cancer of Bush: Are we still capable of reshaping the capitalist demon, injecting it, on a national scale, with something like conscience and compassion and responsibility, sans the need to sell your mother, rape Alaska, or bomb ancient cities and kill pathetic foreign dictators in a pitiable attempt to vindicate your dad? Is such a turnaround even possible anymore?

Because this nasty truth remains: Bush or no, Exxon and its nefarious, insanely powerful ilk are ramming full speed ahead, undertaking more incredibly brutal, land-raping techniques as you read these very words to get at the Earth's remaining supply of oil, sucking up tar sand and coal and anything else possible to maintain profit and power. They are, and will continue to be, utterly relentless and, at least for a number of years to come, quite unstoppable.

There is no eliminating the dark side of capitalism, the gluttony and the greed and the violent underbelly. There is only minimizing, shifting the emphasis, changing the pitch and angle of approach, trying to take what is, at its very heart, a flawed and self-destructive system, and making it into something proud and interesting and vibrant, something actually worth defending.

Can it be done? Is it still possible? No matter how many poetic Barack Obama speeches, no matter how many pragmatic Hillary Clinton promises, it's a question that seems far bigger than both of them. And the truth is, it's really the only question that matters.

They don't make music like this anymore

I love Berkeley

From today's New York Times:

BERKELEY, Calif. — While the City Council here has little — read, no — sway over foreign policy and distant wars, local parking is a different matter. And so it was that a parking space directly in front of the recruiting station here for the Marine Corps was awarded on Tuesday night to an antiwar group in the hope of running the Marines out of town.

Having failed in recent years to impeach President Bush and stop the war in Afghanistan, members of the City Council approved a resolution that encourages people to nonviolently “impede, passively or actively,” the work of the recruiters.

Life Under American Capitalism

Here's two news items about life under American capitalism:

Exxon Mobil Posts Record Profits

US loses 17,000 Jobs in January

Neither Obama nor Clinton

I occasionally hear the word "progressive" used to describe either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. Whenever I hear that, I have to shake my head. It quite frankly bothers me that mainstream corporate liberalism is somehow trying to co-opt the word "progressive" for beliefs and values that are diametrically opposed to progressive ones.

Let's get something straight. There will be no progressive realignment under a Democratic president. While I understand the frustration that one feels after eight years of Bush, I would not characterize either Obama or Clinton as being even remotely progressive. Both candidates, for example, have gone out of their way to placate corporate interests in the hopes of getting support from Big Business (as the recent article in Fortune that I cited in my previous entry put it, "Clinton and Obama view CEO support as a key part of their crossover appeal.")

You cannot be a progressive if you are not willing to actively challenge the corporate ruling class--something that is clearly off both of these candidates agendas. Instead, they go hat in hand looking for handouts from corporate CEOs. And we know how the tit for tat works in that case.

Neither candidate calls for single-payer health care. Neither candidate calls for an immediate and total withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Both candidates have repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq when it has come up for a vote. In fact, neither Obama nor Clinton will commit to getting US troops out by 2013! Obama counts among his advisers none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was one of the biggest hawks in the Carter administration.

There is a lot of wishful thinking every November among people who support the Democrats, who keep hoping that this party, that is so much in bed with corporate interests, and which refuses to denounce Bush as a war criminal, and which continues to fund the war in Iraq, will somehow act as a progressive force in American politics. It just ain't gonna happen.

Presidential candidates and Big Business

A Fortune article that details the close relationship between the Presidential candidates of both major parties and those in charge of major corporations illustrates the point that, whoever the candidates of the two major parties turn out to be, all of them are in bed with Big Business. The article reports that

Clinton and Obama view CEO support as a key part
of their crossover appeal.

A roster of business endorsements "says to voters that
you'll be strong on the economy," says Clinton
campaign chair Terry McAuliffe. Most of the top-tier
candidates - Republican and Democrat - have made
pilgrimages to the Business Roundtable's offices in
Washington to pitch some 60 CEOs at a time.

'Well then. Nuff said. We know that the agenda of neither major party candidate will include challenging corporate power.

From Cindy Sheehan's blog

From Cindy Sheehan's blog:

After nearly four years of living with the horrible knowledge that my son was killed in Iraq for the lies of the lying bastards of the Bush regime, I still mourn him and miss him with all my heart and soul and I don't know if I will ever be able to go through a day without being reminded that he should be alive and well and home with his family. Presidential daughter Jenna Bush will be getting married soon and I can't help but feel that Casey should have been able to have the same opportunity to get married and have his own children and future.

We cannot place the blame solely at the foot of BushCo, though. We have two Senators vying for their party's presidential nomination who are nothing but spoiled Demo-Brats who snipe and bicker at each other instead of calling for the immediate removal of our troops from Iraq and the ouster of the liars who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the tragic creation of millions of broken hearts (when we buried Casey, I discovered that the term is not just a figure of speech).

We have a Speaker of the House who has taken impeachment "off the table" and refuses to even consider doing her job because impeachment would be too "divisive" when so many families have been physically, emotionally, and politically divided by Republican and Democratic war crimes and support of war crimes.

It is imperative that BushCo be impeached for past, present and future high crimes and misdemeanors. They have not only lied about the reasons for invading and occupying Iraq, but they have used their war of terror to redefine and lie about torture and commit unspeakable crimes against humanity.

The FCC decides that buttocks are a sexual organ

Fascinating biological analysis from the FCC:

"Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense."

Tomorrow Never Knows

I heard a story on NPR yesterday about a Beatles tribute band that focused on doing live performances of the later Beatles songs, which were recorded after the Beatles stopped touring and thus were never performed live. The tribute band, called the Fab Faux, has done an amazing job of bringing the 1960s studio technology to live performances. I found this example on Youtube of a performance of "I am the Walrus" that they did on the David Letterman show. It is truly amazing--I never imagined that I would ever hear a faithful live version of that song, but here it is:

Paving the way

Ken Rudin writes on the NPR web site that if the Democrats become the first major party to nominate either an African-American or a woman for President, they certain would not be the first party to do so. He has compiled a list of third party candidates who have been either female or black:

WOMEN: Victoria Woodhull (Equal Rights Party, 1872); Belva Lockwood (Equal Rights Party, 1884 and 1888); Charlene Mitchell (Communist Party, 1968); Linda Jenness (Socialist Workers Party, 1972); Margaret Wright (People's Party, 1976); Deirdre Griswold (Workers World Party, 1980); Ellen McCormack (Right to Life Party, 1980); Maureen Smith (Peace and Freedom Party, 1980); Sonia Johnson (Citizens Party, 1984); Willa Kenoyer (Socialist Party, 1988); Lenora Fulani (New Alliance Party, 1988 and 1992); Gloria La Riva (Workers World Party, 1992); Helen Halyard (Socialist Equality Party, 1992); Marsha Feinland (Peace and Freedom Party, 1996); Mary Hollis (Socialist Party, 1996); Diane Templin (Independent American Party, 1996); Monica Moorehead (Workers World Party, 1996 and 2000).

BLACKS: Clifton DeBerry (Socialist Workers Party, 1964); Charlene Mitchell (Communist Party, 1968); Eldridge Cleaver (Peace and Freedom Party, 1968); Dick Gregory (Freedom and Peace Party, 1968); Lenora Fulani (New Alliance Party, 1988 and 1992); Ron Daniels (Peace and Freedom Party, 1992); Monica Moorehead (Workers World Party, 1996 and 2000).

Little Mermaid found on Mars!

James McGrath has posted a blog entry that includes a photograph taken from the Spirit lander on Mars:



I think it bears an eerie resemblance to the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, which is Denmark's national icon:

2007 movies

There is always a lot of buzz after the Oscar nominations about who got "snubbed", but my basic feeling is that the Oscar nominations (not to mention the awards themselves) can't be taken all that seriously. I start from the position that it is unlikely that I will agree with the Academy on much of anything, and then allow myself to be pleasantly surprised by the occasional points of agreement.

After I see a movie in a theatre, I go into IMDB and give the movie a score from 1 to 9 (I rarely give out 10's--just because.) Anyway, here is the list of 9's that I gave to last year's movies:

"In the Shadow of the Moon" - documentary
"In the Valley of Elah"
"Juno"
"The King of Kong" - documentary
"Michael Clayton"
"Sicko" - documentary

Interesting that 3 out of the 6 that I gave a 9 to were documentaries.

Whoa! Stop the presses!

AP reports the following:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

Well, d-u-u-u-u-h-h-h.

Those wacky drug companies

You gotta love what the pharmaceutical industry can get away with.

Here's a news item that demonstrates what I mean:

The results of a clinical trial released Monday found that Vytorin did not reduce the buildup of harmful plaque in arteries any better than a much cheaper generic drug.

But the study was completed in April 2006. Typically, results are released in three to six months. Merck and Schering-Plough, the two companies that developed and marketed the drug, withheld test results for 19 months.

Additional clinical trials are often started after a drug is on the market so companies can make bigger claims and gain more market share. In Vytorin's case, it didn't work out that way. "The company's goal in doing this kind of study is to show their drug was better than the alternative drug. And they failed to do that," said Dr. Brian Strom of the University of Pennsylvania.

Companies are required to release test results to the FDA. But the FDA is not allowed to tell anyone else. So "disappointing" results have often been hidden, even from the doctors who prescribe the medications.

"The FDA considers the results from a clinical trial to belong to the company, that it's a 'trade secret' even if it's about a drug not working," said Dr. Jerry Avorn of Brigham & Women's Hospital.

The best part of it is that the government agency that is supposed to regulate the drug industry has actually been covering up for it.

Tony the Tiger

A news item from the beleaguered San Francisco zoo:

Zoo officials hope to find a new partner for a Siberian tiger that has been locked alone inside a labyrinth of Lion House cages since its platonic mate was shot dead after it attacked three zoo visitors.

Tatiana, the 4-year-old tiger who escaped its enclosure on Dec. 25 and killed Carlos Sousa and attacked two other men before it was shot by police, was brought to The City in 2005 for an older male tiger named Tony, according to San Francisco Zoo chief veterinarian Jacquie Jencek.

All I could think of when I read that snippet was--the zoo named one of their tigers Tony?

Cindy Sheehan on Hillary Clinton

This is from a January 8 entry in Cindy Sheehan's blog in response to her famous crying incident in New Hampshire:

She showed no emotion when I met with her along with another Gold Star Mother: Lynn Braddach from Oregon, whose son Travis Nall was also KIA in Iraq. We poured our hearts and souls out to her and she hardly even blinked, let alone shed a tear for our heartbreak that she had been a major neo-connette chearleader for.

That meeting happened in September of 2005, just a few short weeks after we left Camp Casey in Crawford, Tx on August 31, 2005. Anti-war sentiment was high and the apex was a mass march and rally that hundreds of thousands of like-minded (many for the first time) attended in the belly of the evil empire on September 24th. Since then, the motivation and energy of the anti-war movement has ebbed and flowed with each subsequent fresh assault on peace and democracy by BushCo with the help, support and justification of “Democrats” like Hillary Clinton.

I particularly like her characterization of Hillary Clinton as having been "a major neo-connette cheerleader" for the war. Unfortunately, a lot of voters now seem willing to forgive and forget Clinton's early support for the war, her refusal to apologize for that support, and the subsequent lies that she has used to justify that early support. And even recently, Clinton has talked about leaving US troops in Iraq through 2013. But Cindy Sheehan has been directly touched by the war that Hillary Clinton voted for and supported. Cindy Sheehan has good reason to be angry.

I bet he wishes he could fire the Board of Supervisors, too

From today's San Francisco Chronicle, we learn that mayor Gavin Newson has forced out three members of the Municipal Transportation Agency, including the head of the San Francisco Bike Coalition, Leah Shahum. As an independent voice who spoke her mind, Shahum obviously needed to be replaced by a Newsom crony who would rubber stamp his policies and parrot the Newsom party line. According to the Chronicle,

Three of the seven directors on the high-profile Municipal Transportation Agency board were informed by the Newsom administration over the weekend that their services are no longer needed.

One of those told she was being shown the door was Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, one of the most politically active advocacy groups in the city.

Since she was appointed to the post about 1 1/2 years ago, Shahum hasn't been shy in voicing her opinion - at times at odds with the administration's positions. Two examples: the closure of certain roadways to private automobiles in Golden Gate Park on Saturdays and issues regarding litigation over the city's Bicycle Plan.

"And it's been made clear to me that the mayor has been none-too-pleased that the Bicycle Coalition didn't endorse him" when he ran for re-election last year, Shahum said Monday. The coalition did not endorse any candidate in the mayor's race.

"I'm disappointed that somebody like myself who has been an effective advocate for sustainable transportation would be asked to step down," she said.

George McGovern calls for impeachment

George McGovern argues in a Washington Post column that Bush and Cheney should be impeached--something that my own Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, refuses to even consider. Among other things, McGovern writes:

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Hear hear! I would go even farther than McGovern. I think that, after impeachment, Bush and Cheney should be tried as war criminals. But hey, one thing at a time.

Afghanistan redux

Here is a quote from a January 2 column by columnist Robert Scheer:

In the film "Charlie Wilson's War," the nitwit and deeply corrupt congressman elevated to heroic status through Tom Hanks' ever-charming performance has a meeting with Pakistan's then-dictator Zia ul-Haq, in which they broker a deal for a joint effort to "save" Afghanistan from the Soviets. It's all great fun; the United States is, as always, on the side of the good guys, in this case the Afghan mujahedeen, who later morphed into the Taliban, hosts of al Qaeda.

The movie does not mention that the mujahedeen went to war against the Soviet-backed government then in power in Kabul after it committed the unpardonable crime of allowing female students to attend rural schools. The film casually notes that General Zia, the U.S. ally in this effort to bring "freedom" to Afghanistan, was, like so many of the movie's heroes, a hard case full of contradictions, as exemplified by his having murdered Pakistan's previous ruler, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

I was in college when the Soviets intervened militarily in Afghanistan in 1980. I remember well the reaction that ensued--or, perhaps I should say, overreaction. In response to the events of the time, Jimmy Carter, who was gearing up for his re-election campaign, played a crucial role in the ramping up of the Cold War rhetoric that in turn set the stage for what followed when Reagan took office. For example, Carter instituted draft registration--something that I never forgave him for. Obviously, I opposed what the Soviets were doing--it was stupid and self-defeating, if nothing else. But it also was not, as it was portrayed in the media at the time, an act of territorial conquest or a land grab. I pointed out at the time to anyone who would listen that, first and foremost, there was already a pro-Soviet government in power in Afghanistan before the Soviets ever sent their troops there. It can hardly be an act of "conquest" to send troops to help an allied government on your nation's borders fight against an insurgency (imagine what the US would do if Mexico were embroiled in a civil war). And, as Scheer pointed out, and as I argued at the time, the reason the war started was that the religious fundamentalists who were fighting against the government in Kabul were, among other things, opposed to the fair treatment of women. These were people who were trying to keep Afghan society in the stone age. I further argued at the time that the Soviet war against a determined guerrilla insurgency was bound to fail anyway--that Afghanistan would be the USSR's Vietnam--and thus the fears that were raised in response to their military intervention were simply an overreaction.

History proved me right about the ultimate Soviet failure in Afghanistan, and history also proved me right when we saw just how barbaric the fundamentalism in Afghanistan turned out to be. In the light of the attacks of September 11, it is clear that the US, by supporting these fundamentalist fanatics, helped to create a monster that turned around and bit us. Much of the Cold War mentality at the time was really based on trumped up fears, and yet now, many look back on that time and act as if we don't know all that we have learned about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Too often during the Cold War, our government was on the side of evil--such as in the support of terrorists and death squads in Latin America, or the support of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Fear and hysteria were the tools of the trade used to justify these misdeeds. But you might think that, after what happened to the World Trade Center, Americans might be a little more circumspect about the long term consequences of US foreign policy.