AlterNet: MediaCulture: Unembedded in Iraq

AlterNet: MediaCulture: Unembedded in Iraq: "The US Corporate media consistently characterizes the Iraqi resistance as 'foreign terrorists and former Ba'athist insurgents'. In your experience, is this an accurate portrayal? If not, why?

This is propaganda of the worst kind. Most Iraqis refer to the Iraqi Resistance as 'patriots.' Which of course most of them are-they are, especially in Fallujah, primarily composed of people who simply are resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign power. They are people who have had family members killed, detained, tortured and humiliated by the illegal occupiers of their shattered country."

Blonde Joke

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double-pane energy efficient kind. But this week I got a call from the contractor complaining that his work had been completed a whole year ago and I had yet to pay for them.

Boy oh boy, did we go around! Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid.

So, I proceeded to tell him just what his fast talking sales guy had told me last year... that in one year the windows would pay for themselves. There was silence on the other end of the line so I just hung up and I haven't heard back.

Guess I won that stupid argument.

NEWS -- march to the right

Molly Ivans
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/20413/

Mourning in America

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on November 4, 2004, Printed on November 6, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/20413/

Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog? Now, you know you
cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is
otherwise.

Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of
killin' chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could.
He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has
killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong. And
leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog
or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing'll smell so bad the
dog won't be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the
last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won't kill
chickens again.

The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the
American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to
sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.

And at least Democrats won't have to clean up after him until it is
real clear to everyone who made the mess.

In some circles, that will be seen as sour grapes. But in Texas, we've
been losing elections to the demagogic triad of God, gays and guns
long enough to be pretty cynical about how it works out. I'm sure
millions of Americans voted for George W. under the honest impression
that he stands for moral values â?? family, patriotism, faith in God.
I'm sure it's the Democrats' fault that such a silly ruse is allowed
to stand. What Bush actually does stand for is nicely summed up by a
rather common news story that got stuck on the business pages lately.

In September, Merck & Co., the huge drug manufacturer, pulled Vioxx
off the market. Vioxx was a popular pain-killing, anti-arthritis drug,
but Merck said it was putting patients' safety first. A new study from
the Federal Drug Administration showed high doses of Vioxx triple the
risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death.

From there, the story bifurcates â?? it takes two directions. Sen.
Charles Grassley of Iowa revealed that the FDA had tried to silence
the author of the study, Dr. David Graham, associate director of
science in the Office of Drug Safety. Grassley said the FDA first sat
on Graham's study and that then he was "ostracized" and "subjected to
veiled threats and intimidation."

The Wall Street Journal followed the other fork, finding internal
memos from Merck showing that company officials may have been aware of
the dangers of Vioxx as long ago as 1996, including a memo apparently
instructing its sales reps to "dodge" the question when doctors asked
about the cardiac record of Vioxx.

In short, we have a toothless regulatory agency in the pocket of the
industry it is supposed to patrol. We have an administration-wide
contempt for science and plain facts. And the allegation against the
folks at Merck is that they were making such enormous profits on a
drug that killed people that when they knew or suspected it was
killing people, they kept right on selling it. When the information
that Merck had known for a long time about Vioxx and heart attacks
became public, the company's stock fell by 9.6 percent.

That's the system George W. Bush stands for: where a corporation can
knowingly kill people for profit and, when it finally comes out,
everyone knows the penalties will be so light the company doesn't even
lose a tenth of its worth. Hey, just a little bump in the road.

We sure don't want any of that terrible, burdensome government
regulation to control that kind of behavior, do we? We sure don't want
an FDA that listens to its own scientists and acts promptly, do we? We
sure don't want anyone to sue these monster corporations, do we? I bet
if it were possible to compare the odds of an American getting killed
by a negligent regulatory agency and rapacious corporate behavior
versus an American getting killed by a terrorist, it would turn out we
need to be a lot more scared of rank greed and its enablers than we do
of terrorists. And that's not counting what the corps. (pronounced
corpse) steal and mess up.

So, fellow progressives, stop thinking about suicide or moving abroad.
Want to feel better? Eat a sour grape, then do something immediately,
now, today. Figure out what you can do to help rescue the country â??
join something, send a little money to some group, call somewhere and
offer to volunteer, find a politician you like at the local level and
start helping him or her to move up.

Think about how you can lend a hand to the amazing myriad efforts that
will promptly break out to help the country recover from what it has
done to itself. Now is the time. Don't mourn, organize.
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20413/

Interesting maps of the election results

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

This goes a long way toward illustrating how closely the nation split
-- much better than a purely geographic view.

Errol Morris: Election '04

Errol Morris: Election '04: "Listen to Real People who voted for George Bush in 2000, but will be voting for Kerry in 2004.

Why so many? Because people say some are better than others. The problem: no one agrees on which ones those are."

Joke - Shark

Shark!

There is this atheist swimming in the ocean. All of a sudden he sees a shark in the water, so he starts swimming furiously towards his boat.

As he looks back, he sees the shark turn and head towards him. He's scared to death, and as he sees the jaws of the great white beast open, revealing its horrific teeth, the atheist screams, "Oh God! Save me!"


In an instant, time is frozen and a bright light shines down from above. The man is motionless in the water when he hears the voice of God say, "You are an atheist. Why do you call upon me when you do not believe in me?"

Confused, and knowing he can't lie, the man replies, "Well, that's true I don't believe in you, but how about the shark? Can you make the shark believe in you?"

The Lord replies, "As you wish," and the light retracts back into the heavens. The man feels the water move once again.

As the atheist looks back, he can see the jaws of the shark start to close down on him, when all of sudden the shark stops and pulls back.

Shocked, the man watches as the huge beast closes its eyes, bows its head and says, "Thank you Lord for this food which I am about to receive..."

Very serious webpage concerning the importance of your vote

http://davechase.net/presidential_horror_show.swf

Not!

Fwd: Salon: The blind leading the blind

The blind leading the blind

Even if they don't like to say it out loud, lots of Democrats think
that George Bush's supporters are a horde of ignoramuses. Now comes
evidence that they're right! A remarkable new report titled "The
Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters" from PIPA, the
Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of
Maryland, suggests that rank and file Republicans are more benighted
than even the most supercilious coastal elitist would imagine.

Analyzing data from a series of nationwide polls, the report finds
that a majority of Bush supporters believe things about the world that
are objectively untrue, while the majority of Kerry supporters dwell
in the reality-based community. For example, Bush backers largely
think that the president and his policies are popular internationally.
Seventy-five percent believe that Iraq was providing "substantial" aid
to al-Qaida, and 63 percent say clear evidence of this has been found.
That, of course, would be news even to Donald Rumsfeld, who earlier
this month told the Council On Foreign Relations, "To my knowledge, I
have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."

Though its language is dispassionate, the report lays responsibility
for this epidemic of ignorance at the White House's door. "So why are
Bush supporters clinging so tightly to these beliefs in the face of
repeated disconfirmations?" it asks. "Apparently one key reason is
that they continue to hear the Bush administration confirming these
beliefs."

Indeed, it says, "an overwhelming 82% [of Bush supporters] perceive
the Bush administration as saying that Iraq had WMD (63%) or a major
WMD program (19%). Only 16% of Bush supporters perceive the
administration as saying that Iraq had some limited activities, but
not an active program (15%) or had nothing (1%). The pattern on al
Qaeda is similar. Seventy-five percent of Bush supporters think the
Bush administration is currently saying Iraq was providing substantial
support to al Qaeda (56%) or even that it was directly involved in
9/11 (19%). Further, 55% of Bush supporters say it is their impression
the Bush administration is currently saying the US has found clear
evidence Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda (not saying
clear evidence found: 37%)."

These people aren't going to be swayed by the argument that Bush has
alienated American's allies and left the country isolated in the
world, because they don't believe this to be the case. "Despite a
steady flow of official statements, public demonstrations, and public
opinion polls showing that the US war against Iraq is quite unpopular,
only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in
the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq," the study says.
Bush supporters also think that world public opinion favors Bush's
reelection. In a poll taken from September 3-7, the study says, "57%
of Bush supporters assumed that the majority of people in the world
would prefer to see Bush reelected, 33% assumed that views are evenly
divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be preferred."

In fact, a PIPA study released in early September found that a
majority or plurality of people from 32 countries preferred Kerry to
Bush. PIPA surveyed 34,330 people, ages 15 and above, from regions all
over the world. A Pew poll released this spring similarly found that
"large majorities in every country, except for the U.S., hold an
unfavorable opinion of Bush."

Bush supporters are also mistaken about the president's own positions
(a pattern of misapprehension that an earlier PIPA report also
documented). "Majorities incorrectly assumed that Bush supports
multilateral approaches to various international issues -- the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines
(72%); 51% incorrectly assumed he favors US participation in the Kyoto
treaty -- the principal international accord on global warming... Only
13% of supporters are aware that he opposes labor and environmental
standards in trade agreements -- 74% incorrectly believe that he
favors including labor and environmental standards in agreements on
trade. In all these cases, there is a recurring theme: majorities of
Bush supporters favor these positions, and they infer that Bush favors
them as well."

According to the report, this reality gap is something new in American
life. "So why do Bush supporters show such a resistance to accepting
dissonant information?" it asks. "While it is normal for people to
show some resistance, the magnitude of the denial goes beyond the
ordinary. Bush supporters have succeeded in suppressing awareness of
the findings of a whole series of high-profile reports about prewar
Iraq that have been blazoned across the headlines of newspapers and
prompted extensive, high-profile and agonizing reflection. The fact
that a large portion of Americans say they are unaware that the
original reasons that the US took military action -- and for which
Americans continue to die on a daily basis -- are not turning out to
be valid, are probably not due to a simple failure to pay attention to
the news."

The analysis says that the roots of this denial could lie in the
trauma of 9/11 and people's desire to hold on to their image of Bush
as a "capable protector." It offers no guidance, though, on how
ordinary Republicans might be coaxed back to reality.

And while "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters" may be
perversely satisfying to Democrats in its confirmation of blue-state
prejudices, it carries a pretty disturbing question for all rational
Americans: How can arguments based on fact prevail in a nation where
so many people know so little?

-- Michelle Goldberg

Is the President losing it?

Is the President losing it?

First it was presenile dementia. Now, it's a stroke.

A rash of armchair-diagnosis speculation about President Bush's health, based on his faltering speech

in the first debate to his drooling and drooping Wednesday night, is
flying around the Web. And there's nothing to feed
"is-he-really-fit-to-lead?" grousing among Democratic partisans in the
blogosphere like the fact that President Bush, who was pronounced
healthy at his annual check-up in August 2003, has refused to get his annual physical this year before the 2004 election.

A letter by one Dr. Joseph Price of Carsonville, Mich., to the Atlantic Monthly in response to James Fallows' July/August cover story on Bush and Kerry's debating styles, first raised the idea that Bush's mental faculties might be in decline.

But it was Bush's less-than-lucid performance in the first presidential
debate against Senator John Kerry that sparked the creation of a short video montage
juxtaposing footage from that debate with video from George W. Bush
sparring with then-Texas Governor Ann Richards, ten years ago. (You can
see more footage of the younger Bush's debating prowess here.)

"In the 1994 video he was going along and having no trouble having a nice flow of language. But now he's so faulting and labored and

limited," says Robert McInerney, a retired internist in Pittsfield,
Mass. "He's getting as inarticulate as I am, and I'm in my senior
years," adding this caveat: "[But] I think it would be foolish to make
a diagnosis over a one-minute video clip."

Bush's insistence on tightly-controlled appearances has other doctors

wondering, too. "I think he's deteriorated in terms of his problem with
word-finding, repetition of phrases and understanding what other people
are saying," said Dr. Justin Frank, a professor in the Department of
Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, who is the
author of "Bush on the Couch."
But Dr. Frank also stressed: "He would need to be tested to see if he
has dementia. This is all speculation without testing. He could just be
extremely acutely anxious. Anyone can get anxious and sound
disorganized."

Still, Dr. Frank said that during his book tour this summer from L.A.
to Philadelphia, seven or eight different physicians and psychologists
came up to him at readings to discuss their concerns about the
President's mental health: " Four people said they thought he reminded
them of their patients in the early state of Alzheimer's. Several
people wondered if there is a gradual deterioration from chronic substance abuse.

But Bush's improved performance in the latter debates made others doubt
that there's anything organic amiss: "In someone who has got a
developing dementia, they have good days and they have bad days. But it
isn't 90 minutes of bad debate one day, and 90 minutes of good debate
one day. It's much more subtle than that," says Dr. Raymond A. Wertheim
of Bethesda, Md.

After Bush's performance in the third debate, Dr. Frank changed his own
at-arm's-length diagnosis: " I think that the reason he looked demented
in the past debates is that Kerry figured out how to make him anxious.
And when he's anxious he gets disorganized. But Kerry did not make him
anxious this time. So, the issue for him is trying to manage anxiety.
That's his main concern."

Now, that still doesn't explain Wednesday night's spitting.

Is the President losing it?

First it was presenile dementia. Now, it's a stroke.

A rash of armchair-diagnosis speculation about President Bush's health, based on his faltering speech
in the first debate to his drooling and drooping Wednesday night, is
flying around the Web. And there's nothing to feed
"is-he-really-fit-to-lead?" grousing among Democratic partisans in the
blogosphere like the fact that President Bush, who was pronounced
healthy at his annual check-up in August 2003, has refused to get his annual physical this year before the 2004 election.

A letter by one Dr. Joseph Price of Carsonville, Mich., to the Atlantic Monthly in response to James Fallows' July/August cover story on Bush and Kerry's debating styles, first raised the idea that Bush's mental faculties might be in decline.

But it was Bush's less-than-lucid performance in the first presidential
debate against Senator John Kerry that sparked the creation of a short video montage
juxtaposing footage from that debate with video from George W. Bush
sparring with then-Texas Governor Ann Richards, ten years ago. (You can
see more footage of the younger Bush's debating prowess here.)

"In the 1994 video he was going along and having no trouble having a
nice flow of language. But now he's so faulting and labored and
limited," says Robert McInerney, a retired internist in Pittsfield,
Mass. "He's getting as inarticulate as I am, and I'm in my senior
years," adding this caveat: "[But] I think it would be foolish to make
a diagnosis over a one-minute video clip."

Bush's insistence on tightly-controlled appearances has other doctors
wondering, too. "I think he's deteriorated in terms of his problem with
word-finding, repetition of phrases and understanding what other people
are saying," said Dr. Justin Frank, a professor in the Department of
Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, who is the
author of "Bush on the Couch."
But Dr. Frank also stressed: "He would need to be tested to see if he
has dementia. This is all speculation without testing. He could just be
extremely acutely anxious. Anyone can get anxious and sound
disorganized."

Still, Dr. Frank said that during his book tour this summer from L.A.
to Philadelphia, seven or eight different physicians and psychologists
came up to him at readings to discuss their concerns about the
President's mental health: " Four people said they thought he reminded
them of their patients in the early state of Alzheimer's. Several
people wondered if there is a gradual deterioration from chronic substance abuse.

But Bush's improved performance in the latter debates made others doubt
that there's anything organic amiss: "In someone who has got a
developing dementia, they have good days and they have bad days. But it
isn't 90 minutes of bad debate one day, and 90 minutes of good debate
one day. It's much more subtle than that," says Dr. Raymond A. Wertheim
of Bethesda, Md.

After Bush's performance in the third debate, Dr. Frank changed his own
at-arm's-length diagnosis: " I think that the reason he looked demented
in the past debates is that Kerry figured out how to make him anxious.
And when he's anxious he gets disorganized. But Kerry did not make him
anxious this time. So, the issue for him is trying to manage anxiety.
That's his main concern."

Now, that still doesn't explain Wednesday night's spitting.

Curious George Replaces A Light Bulb

How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to replace a light bulb?

The Answer is TEN:

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed.

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed.

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb.

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either "For changing the light bulb or for darkness".

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb.

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a stepladder under the banner:

"Light Bulb Change Accomplished".

7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally "in the dark".

8. One to viciously smear #7.

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb changing policy all along.

10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Salon.com Politics

Salon.com PoliticsThe GOP ticket's week from hell

Last week’s presidential debate might very well turn out to be the pivotal moment in the 2004 election, with an unfiltered Bush finally revealing his full limitations before 66 million Americans. But it is this week that will go down in history as the point when the wheels began to come off the Bush-Cheney juggernaut. The Republicans' week started on a dismal note with a massive report on page one of the Sunday New York Times that exhaustively detailed how the administration built its case for war on a false claim that aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were intended for manufacturing a nuclear bomb. It went quickly downhill for the Bush team after that. On Monday Defense Secretary Rumsfeld suddenly veered off-message, telling a Council on Foreign Relations luncheon that he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" proving a connection between Saddam and al-Qaida. The same day, just in time to give John Edwards more ammunition for his face-off with Cheney, former U.S. occupation chief Paul Bremer told an insurance conference in West Virginia that the Bush administration had gone into Iraq with too few troops to secure the peace.

By Tuesday night the Bush campaign was hungry for a one-sided Cheney triumph in the suddenly critical vice-presidential debate. Instead, the stoop-shouldered and weary-looking vice president was forced up a tree by his aggressive opponent, with the gruff old veep growling down at the snapping, young hound below him for over 90 miserable minutes.

It was more political meltdown on Wednesday, with chief U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer declaring in his final report to Congress that Saddam had no WMD program after inspectors left Iraq in 1998, once and for all knocking out the key Bush argument for war. Meanwhile there was more carnage on the war front, and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad sent out a sobering e-mail, warning American personnel to steer clear of the Lone Star restaurant and other popular spots in the supposedly top-security Green Zone and to "conduct a thorough search of your vehicle prior to entering it." Oh, and oil prices continued to spike, in part because of the instability of the Iraq supply.

But hey, other than that, as Bush and Cheney keep insisting, things are looking up! Maybe they’re just channeling Richard Farina, the ‘60s folk singer who authored "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me."

Meanwhile, after promising a major policy speech on Iraq on Wednesday, Bush simply ratcheted up his increasingly shrill rhetoric, calling Kerry "dangerous" on foreign policy and suggesting the Democratic candidate picked his running mate for his hair. Bush’s wild punches are beginning to take on the same whiff of desperation his father gave off during the last stretch of his losing battle with Bill Clinton in 1992, when the elder Bush began bizarrely referring to Al Gore as "ozone man." As the AP reported Wednesday, "Political analysts see alarm bells ringing inside the Bush re-election effort."

As Bush heads for St. Louis and his second debate with Kerry, the table has turned on him. Now he’s the one under pressure to revive his stumbling campaign with a powerful performance. If he fails, his week from hell could become a month from hell.

Autistic child transcended boundaries

Autistic child transcended boundaries

Teen killed riding bicycle had an extraordinary mind

By Melissa Ludwig

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Zev Garfinkle's bar mitzvah was perfect. The 13-year-old read from the Torah with perfect diction, without stammering or slurring. Poised and calm, he behaved like the man he became that day, according to Jewish tradition.

A month later, Zev was hit by a car while riding his bicycle to McNeil High School, where the Deerpark Middle School eighth-grader took advanced math and science classes. Even with a helmet, Zev suffered severe head injuries, and he died Sept. 23, the day after the accident. Department of Public Safety troopers said the driver was not at fault.

In middle school, Zev stuck out like a parrot in the snow. He had a form of autism that garbled his speech and robbed him of social skills. An orthodox Jew, Garfinkle wore a kippah, or skull cap, and tzit tzit, ritual fringes, to school every day. He ate only kosher food his mother packed in a lunch for him.

But Zev's extraordinary brilliance and surprising wisdom touched people, said Sari Garfinkle, Zev's mother.

"He transcended any kind of boundaries," she said. "He could be really infuriating, but at the same time he left a really big mark on anyone who worked with him."

She said teachers, doctors and friends who had known Zev came from all over the state to see him in the hospital before he died. His funeral was jointly officiated by Yosef Levertov, a rabbi who practices the ultra-orthodox Hasidic form of Judaism, and Neil Blumofe, cantor of the town's conservative Jewish congregation, Agudas Achim. Christian pastors also attended.

Sari Garfinkle believes her son's legacy is to show what can happen when children with special needs are given the right tools to succeed.

"I think he opened a lot of people's eyes," said Barbara Murdock, Zev's special education teacher. "They are all amazed at the huge progress that he has made."

From birth, Zev had problems with speech and motor skills, Garfinkle said. At school in Boca Raton, Fla., Zev would throw tantrums that lasted for hours, she said. When the family moved to Austin in 1995, his problems continued. At age 7, a doctor diagnosed him with autism.

"I was thrilled," his mother said. "I am a big believer in meeting problems head-on, and you can't meet them head-on when you can't define them."

Once his parents and teachers began to understand what was going on in Zev's head, his behavior turned around, she said.

To control his environment, Zev clung to routine. He was a devout Jew and prayed three times a day.

Like many autistic children, he was sensitive to smells, sounds and touch.

For a whole year, he wore only red from head to toe, she said. Idiom and the delicate dance of body language and social niceties that most children learn effortlessly were utterly foreign to Zev.

"Do you know what the closest quasar to the earth is?" was Zev's standard opening line in a conversation.

"Small talk was completely lost on him," Garfinkle said. "He used to say that if he could make people into equations, he might be able to understand them."

Zev, who scored off the charts on intelligence tests, loved math and astrophysics.

"He was a pure and logical thinker," said Lori Ollmann, who taught geometry to Zev when he was in the seventh grade. "He had such a beautiful mind."

Zev began blossoming in school, Garfinkle said. Unable to sit in a regular class for more than five minutes in elementary school, Zev was attending a math class at McNeil that lasted an hour and a half -- and making the highest grades in the class.

His parents expected him to go to college -- Zev was set on Princeton -- and his classmates expected him to find a cure for cancer, teachers said.

This is the way his mother will remember him: "He was shining."

AlterNet: Debate This

AlterNet: Debate This: "This column is not about the presidential debate. It's about Other Stuff. Particularly eye-catching are the updates on the price of gasoline, your overtime pay, why the company most likely to hold the mortgage on your house could go broke, why you're getting peanuts from new tax cuts just passed by Congress and how the government is kicking hundreds of thousands of kids off health insurance while promising not to. Cheer all around."

AlterNet: A Toxic Mix: God, Country, and Perpetual Fear

AlterNet: A Toxic Mix: God, Country, and Perpetual Fear: "Bush and the GOP have taken their bible-thumping ways to a whole new level: now they're using the Good Book to try and bash in the skulls of their opponents. "

USATODAY.com - Cracker Barrel customer says bias was 'flagrant'

USATODAY.com - Cracker Barrel customer says bias was 'flagrant': "The Rev. Henry Harris, 55, also African-American, says that at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Arkansas two years ago, he and his family watched for 35 minutes as white diners in parties of the same size who arrived after him were escorted to tables. He wound up in the smoking section 'with other African-American patrons,' even though he had requested non-smoking and tables were open there. When he appealed to a manager, he 'politely looked at me and said if we were dissatisfied ... there was a Burger King' around the corner."

Anti-Bush at warp speed:

Printer Friendly Version - Kerry's silent supporter: " Add 'Star Trek' cast member George Takei, who played navigator Sulu in the classic television series, to the folks who want to see President Bush replaced. 'Bush is responsible for the needless deaths of so many young men and women,' Takei says in the upcoming Steppin' Out magazine. 'I don't usually agree with Howard Stern's opinions ... but when it comes to the direction of the country, we're on the same page.' Takei, who grew up during World War II in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, likens today's heightened security to the conditions of that era: 'You never get over being detained in a internment camp. It stays with you for life. ... I can relate to how Arab-Americans must feel.'"

Planet autism

Planet autism

Last summer, a man in California shot his 27-year-old autistic son to death and then shot himself. I understand why.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Scot Sea

Sept. 27, 2003 | Lose track of time on the phone, get distracted with the mail, daydream over a cup of coffee, that's all it takes. The odor has finally made its way down the hall. When you see the balled-up pants and diaper on the floor you know you are too late. A bright red smear across the door, the molding, the wall. Turn the corner and the bedroom is a crime scene. An ax murder? In fact, it is only your daughter at her worst. (Worse than three days without sleep? Worse than ear-splitting screams that physically hurt, actually cause you to drop what you hold in alarm, compel you to shriek back at your delighted child who smiles at you sincere as a spring day?) Shit everywhere. Splashes of blood glistening like paint, black clots, yellow-brown feces, and a 3-foot-in-diameter pond of vomit that your daughter stands in the middle of, a dog-eared copy of Family Circle in one hand, reaching for the TV with the other. She is naked except for stockinged feet, blood soaked up to her ankles. Hands dripping, face marked like a cannibal, she wears an expression of utter bewilderment: What's happened to me? Where am I? Is this good? Am I OK? There being nowhere to walk without stepping in some bodily emission, you throw bath towels down like a bridge to get to her.

Stripping her unavoidably stains you. A bloody hand print on the square of your back as she balances herself when you roll down her sopping stockings. You hope she touches nothing else but what does it matter as the bathroom remains appalling in spite of the previous cleanups: cabinet handles encrusted with dried excrement, brown swipes on the light switch, corner of the mirror, shampoo bottle, Q-Tips, ceramic figurines, curtain louvers. (Holiday guests take you aside to warn you of rodents in unusual locations. Ancient turds in drawers, inside books. You thank them. Apologize. Yeah, it's an ongoing problem.)

In the warm rain of the shower she proceeds to dig. She is excavating for what remains of the impacted stool, hard as a French roll. This entire episode, this habit, the result of some maddening control issue. The behaviorists, the gastroenterologists, the living-skills experts all suggest their strategies and therapies and videos and diets and oils and schedules. Certainly she knows what you want -- appropriate toileting. And there are occasions when she does just that. Goes in, sits, finishes. This, maybe 5 percent of the time. Some huge, softball-size stool discovered in the toilet bowl. You shout for each other and gaze in wonder as at a rainbow or falling star. That's how excited you are.

Get in the shower with your daughter. Wash her hair three times, scrub her down, between the toes, everywhere. Take an old toothbrush to her nails. Towel her down. Her hair, lightly -- enough. Better stop. Know how she hates that. Let the rest air-dry. Get her dressed. Diaper. Thank God for extra large Good-Nites. (Remember the college gal at Safeway in her Birkenstocks and hemp sun hat: "Didja know," she must inform you, "it's disposable diapers that are filling up America's landfills?") Next, deodorant, sweat pants, the rest. Rewind the movies. Pop in her favorite CD soundtrack ("Annie") and program it for loop. Pull out a couple of old Redbook magazines. Make sure all the doors are locked. Remember when she wandered away, found in the middle of the street, a garbage truck honking at her like she's some stray mutt.

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Sooner or later, parents raising children with severe learning disabilities receive the "Welcome to Holland" essay by Emily Perl Kingsley. It describes a couple planning the trip of a lifetime to Italy. They prepare and study and learn everything they can about their cherished destination. When their plane lands, though, an announcement: They have arrived in Holland. Holland? They wail. We've dreamed all our lives of Italy. Italy is where they want to be. Not here!

"But there has been a change in the flight plan," Kingsley writes. "You've landed in Holland and there you must stay." New guide books, a new language, a completely different group of people than those you hoped to meet. Worse still, "everyone you know is coming and going from Italy and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, 'Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned.'"

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Two hundred years ago most of these kids were tossed down the well or thumped against the fence post. It was either that or watch your own torn to pieces by the coyote, or trampled to death in the corral, or drown in the duck pond or tumble off a ledge or wander off in a blizzard. If you were of an educated class, institutionalization became an option. A way out. There were always the few, though, whose pride or familial loyalty or stubbornness would not allow them to abandon such a child. Upright, determined mothers -- mostly -- who would rescue the idiot from the snowbank, from their husband's impassive grip, and nurse it and attend and teach the strange thing until the child might even say "hello" when ordered and carry a basket of eggs without stumbling.

There's just something missing in his head is all. He be slow, like your Uncle Bert. The husband had grown up seeing three-headed lambs and bizarre carrots looking more like udders. He was aware of nature's imperfections. Sometimes it snowed in August. Sometimes the bread didn't rise. Best to throw out that mix. Best to keep the lines clean, the herds strong, purebred. But his wife refuses to push the runt away. Her husband, a man who shoots old mules and pulls out the dead weed and makes a Saturday night vest from the skin of a stillborn calf, has neither pity nor patience with the wife's indulgent efforts in the matter of the idiot. He will ignore the child. Like the lame piglet and the other orphaned stock following the wife around for the bottle, if she wants to put up with that, well, just keep 'em out of my way.

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Autism. Auto: for "self," or "same." The tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and desires ... unmindful of objective reality. (Webster's) At one time a generic term applied to children navigating pre-social orientation. Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget noted 6-year-olds playing marbles as completely indifferent to rules, fairness, winners, losers. Two or more side by side yet no group norms emerged. Possibly each child played an entirely separate game. "[Their] relations to the world are autistic -- determined largely by the wishes and preferences of the individual."

A tiny but multiplying percentage of seemingly healthy children persist in spurning socialization, cocooning themselves from human contact. Pediatric shrinks, at a loss, anoint the manifestation Serious Emotional Disturbance, later sanded down to "disorder." Enter Bruno Bettelheim, who postulates his infamous "refrigerator mom" theory. Everybody remembers this from Psych 101. How to explain these peculiar, silent, radically remote children? Normal and handsome in every other respect? Freudian, clearly. Cold, aloof mothers disdaining the maternal bond. Curiously, other siblings either below or ahead of the odd child have no complaints. Her ex-husband, his pride squashed, confused, castrated, weighs in for the prosecution: "That bitch was an iceberg! Kid wouldn't go near her." Of course, the kid wouldn't go near anyone. Anyone at all. (Autistic infants, it is believed, produce abnormally high levels of endorphins at birth; they receive no pleasure from bonding with their mothers and, by extension, ignore incentives for social interaction.)

Today, autism is recognized as a profound and mysterious neurological disorder characterized by certain behavior types and patterns of interaction and modes of communication. A spectrum disorder, in fact, encompassing so many symptoms that intake counselors, after exhausting considerations of Tay-Sachs, Fragile X, Kleinfelter's and Turner Syndrome, still categorize whole generations of 2-year-olds as "Other Health Impaired."

Media presentations emphasize the savants: the 6-year-old Beethoven or the human calculator, or there, on Discovery Health, a teenage Rodin. The average autistic children, not excluding the savant, struggle with varying degrees of developmental retardation. They can operate the VCR but cannot button their coat. Have no interest in markers or crayons but will spend hours tearing paper, leaves, twigs into micro particles. Some are high-functioning -- can read and speak, attend college, develop careers. Temple Grandin (autism's John Nash), a world renowned authority on cattle psychology whose visionary stockyard designs have transformed one-third of the bovine and pork operations in this country alone, strolls through corrals of half-ton Herefords. They snort like grizzlies and paw the earth. She knows that one switch of their mighty heads would crush any man's clavicle yet they allow her to walk among them, scratch their necks, communicate. The complexity of human interaction, however -- reciprocity, Romeo and Juliet -- remains as elusive to her as colorless green ideas sleeping furiously.

For better or worse, autism may be in the throes of its own 15 minutes of fame. It's had recent cover stories in both Newsweek and Time and features on virtually all the TV magazine shows. Look, there's NFL star Doug Flutie frolicking with his autistic kid while shilling for a long-distance provider. Beck holds benefit concerts for autism research. Nicholas Sparks' recent supermarket potboiler concerned a missing child with autistic symptoms. A fictional senator on "The West Wing" filibusters Congress on behalf of his autistic grandchild. Our biggest stars share the screen with autistic protagonists: Richard Dreyfuss, Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Willis, and Tom Cruise, most famously, supporting Dustin Hoffman's "Rainman," a watershed entry in the MR Film Festival. Other screenings celebrate the asylum romps, "King of Hearts," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Awakenings," "Quills," "K-Pax," films presenting madness as romantic, adorable or courageous -- hence, "A Beautiful Mind." Some are only excuses for actors to chew scenery -- witness Sean Penn in "I Am Sam" or worse, Elizabeth Shue's embarrassingly artificial portrayal of autistic Molly in the 1999 movie of the same name.

The movies prefer to apply the humanistic model to disability so that any attendant bleakness or the utter incomprehensibility of some conditions becomes only aberrant behavior immaterial to the subject's uniqueness as a human being. This same psychological model, however, views its members as basically rational, oriented toward a social world and motivated to getting along with others. But the autistic rarely makes adjustments to the world. Their own world remains self-generated and self-contained. Autism, as one text suggests, is "imagination self-determined." A world of, perhaps, pure imagination. Is this a curse, or are they in fact angels among us? Some autistic youngsters learn to sing before they ever speak. Others spin in place, their eyes closed, for hours, in their own encapsulated rave.

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Celestial metaphors do little to temper the exhaustion you struggle with as your daughter, still going strong at 3:30 a.m., cranks out her version of the diagnostic handbook for developmental disorders' Greatest Hits. This in spite of receiving her meds back, when? 7 that evening? Enough detox, compulsion blocker and synapse stim to sober a junkie. But for some reason -- full moon, diet, puberty? -- her sleep patterns have been cross-circuited. The deeper into brutal night she marathons the more wired, delirious, hypermanic she becomes. You have isolated yourself in her room. The same home-taped "Sesame Street" plays the same two and a half hours over and over. This, an integral part of the same preservative tic impelling her to clutch to her chest all manner of unrelated objects: a door stop, a bean bag, a ball of foil, a coaster, a hairbrush, a subscription card, a winter scarf. When she bends to pick up yet another item -- a shoe -- invariably the lot of it gets away from her and you watch as the bundle spills to her feet. Dutifully, robotically, she gathers everything up again, dropping some, retrieving, dropping again like a bumbling vaudeville comic. You watch this fascinated, then impassioned, then with alarm (what ... the hell ... is she doing? ) then with dull acceptance. It is just the same scene from the same interminable clip on the Late Show from hell.

You doze. You wake, her hand on your face. Time to rewind the video. Surly with fatigue you shove her aside as the school bully would some playground twerp. Clothes all over the floor. She's emptied her dresser, the closet. Inexplicable sculptures composed of sweaters pancaked with a book, then a stocking, a puzzle piece, an old moldy pretzel all constructed in mysterious, calculated intent. They dot the little room like totems, mushrooms, shrines amid a Japanese garden. You sit together as the VCR motor whines. Yoga on the TV -- must be dawn. Beautiful bodies made of rubber on some tropical shore. Hey, they got nothing on your kid whose quadruple-jointed limbs can do Cirque du Soleil moves. An hour later your wife wakes you. (What do you do without a partner? How is this possible alone? Sex ... maybe a quick tumble whenever the kid sleeps. Jumping each other like scamps. Going at it. Then you notice your child standing in your bedroom, waiting. Standing there like Carrie, shiny red as a candied apple, wet footprints, dogs licking her legs. Coitus interruptus anyone?) Sunlight streaming through the window. Is she down? you ask. Is she asleep? She's in the shower, your wife responds. She got me up.

Daylight seems to click her down a few amps. She seems alert and ready for the day. A full circle has transpired and now, a familiar morning ritual. Calming, predictable. Breakfast. More pills. Hair. Teeth. Dressed. (Help your 15-year-old daughter on with her bra every morning and the female breast loses most of its mystery.) Get her on the bus. Now you must leave for work. Can't take any more sick days. So sleepwalk through the motions. Hope your reserves kick in. Take an early lunch. Doze in the car for an hour. Throw down three cups of mud stewing since morning. Limp 'til 5:30. Collapse at home. Sleep through midnight. Again, your wife wakes you. Yeah, she's still up, she informs you -- napped two hours at school, cruising ever since. Your wife has clients tomorrow. She must crash. Time for your shift.

Men may be from Mars and women, indeed, Venus. But Planet Autism is where you reside now.

Doctors know everything. Doctors know squat. Hire an immunologist to pursue research your own internist finds superfluous. Ophthalmologists say don't bother with glasses -- they'll never keep them on. Neurologists and psychiatrists prescribe truckloads of alchemy, names suggesting the moons orbiting this new world: zyprexa, naltrexone, clonidine, ranitidine, trazodone. Some indeed become the magic pill. The miracle drug. But getting there can resemble trial and error binges that would shrivel Hunter S. Thompson.

Ten years ago there were pediatricians who didn't know autism from the Ottoman Empire. Now it's the diagnosis du jour. An entire alternative health industry sprouts up around it. The usual suspects, some expert, or a blood chemist, or an Indonesian pharmacist places an ad in Prevention magazine, publishes a newsletter, hits the conferences, premieres a Web page and before long a thousand parents are in line for facilitated communication, blue-green algae, auditory integration therapy, the secretin hormone, whatever. Maybe it will actually work? At least for a couple of weeks, maybe a month. If the guinea pig is your kid she may demonstrate a promising response. Increased verbalization. Improved eye contact. Focused participation within some innocuous family activity. Then cruelly, predictably, her confused wiring, a permanent hard drive virus directs her biochemistry to countermand the positive results of the new substance, to develop -- in effect, immunity to it. And so in time this latest, exciting remedy becomes no more than an asterisk in the snake oil file.

Western medicine is on the defensive. The U.S. Department of Education reports a 900 percent increase in cases of autism since 1992. On C-SPAN exhausted, terrified, furious parents vent their hopeless wrath during congressional hearings investigating claims that Big Pharma has ignored for years their belief that pediatric vaccinations precipitated their children's acquisition of autism. Is the mercury-based preservative contained in the vaccines -- Thimerosal -- overwhelming the baby's premature immune system? A generation ago kids received these shots in measured intervals. Today, some infants get a concentrated cocktail so as to be done with it.

Sensing the inevitable, bills exonerating vaccine manufacturers from liability snake their way through Congress. The most notorious of which, a rider -- Mickey Finn'd at the 11th hour into the density of the Homeland Security Bill under cover of smallpox! -- attempted to exempt Eli Lilly from any and all damages related to vaccine complaints. The provision's author? Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Uncovered by public watchdogs, it has since been removed from the bill.

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Bicker with, annoy, scream at, then finally threaten school administrators who want to dump your child in a room full of vegetables. Obtaining effective programs and services, you learn, is like squeezing water from wood. (What was the final straw that pushed Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords out of the GOP? Bush's refusal to increase federal funding for special education.) Fight like hell for the best curriculum, the best teachers. Otherwise, you're just a rube swallowing input consisting of, "sign here." Individualized education programs can be expensive. School districts will dig in their heels. Be reasonable, the administrators say. Fuck them. Demand everything. Let the band hold bake sales.

New Age pests, overdosed on media mythology, overhear you are the parent of an autistic child and, eyes aglow, pronounce, "Oh! And isn't that just a blessing?" In Wisconsin, storefront fundamentalists suffocate an 8-year-old autistic boy to death while attempting to "exorcise" his strange behaviors. Evangelicals offer how it is the world's collective sin that is to blame. Manifesting itself as suffering, wickedness, the mysterious afflictions that befall the innocent. Clueless neighbors, whose own children run wild, devoid of discipline, remark, "Yeah, our kids are just like her -- 'cept we got three of them."

Years go by and your daughter has yet to intellectualize danger, fear, gravity, pain. At Costco you've lost her twice. There are terrifying seconds after you realize she is gone, gone! And she'd go off with anyone. Anyone holds out their hand she would take it. But there she is at the video bins ... Later she puts her hand through a plate glass window. You don't notice until, filling the hummingbird feeder, you glance at her shredded arm. Waiting in the E.R. presents another nightmare, a treadmill of Kafkaesque absurdities. Like your kid is going to sit in a chair for three or four or five hours. Right. Must keep moving. So you walk with her without rest. Gliding together in sweeping, repetitive loops throughout the waiting room, holding her arm upward as much as possible. Still, she manages to lunge for stranger's drinks, hoot and scream inappropriately, bolt down hallways. She is atomic. She is the nucleus around which her positively charged parents rotate -- or deflect from -- in collision. Finally, the triage nurse buzzes you in. "Oh, autistic? You should have said something. I would have bumped you." Insurance? Yeah, but for godsakes don't mention autism. HMO's won't cover it. Taking her vitals is akin to restraining a wild animal. Half a dozen nurses, two paramedics and some beefy security guys must hold her down 40 minutes before the knockout drops relax her. All this for eight stitches.

Occasionally, guardian angels materialize. A young woman who bonds with your child like some mysterious winged sibling. But eventually they must leave, to pursue a career in special education or guide rafters in Wyoming. Departments of developmental disabilities, in their infinite wisdom, offer alternatives under the auspices of placement vendors who contract with lowest bidder employment agencies. Minimum wage high school grads show up at your door, thick as a brick, snapping gum, caked in makeup, don't know autism from order-of-fries-with-that? So you train them. It's either that or quit your job so somebody is home after school. Well, the new gal is finally enough along that you figure she can handle taking her charge out in public. The cops explain later that your daughter caused such a scene in the parking lot of Target somebody thought a kidnapping was in progress. Her new aide, useless, tugging on the screaming preteen, became hysterical when the police arrived. The sheriff's helicopter, whirling figure eights, exacerbates everything. Your daughter, you are told, was unresponsive to police commands, resisted contact. She was handcuffed after attempting to bite one of the officers.

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In the apocalypse scenario, your nightmare -- infrastructure cleaved, roads clogged, E.R.'s overwhelmed -- your kid drags down the entire family. As does the diabetic kid, the wheelchair kid. Does someone stay behind so that the family may survive? Or does the family reject this, insisting the unit stay whole while around them entropy multiplies?

In August 2002, Delfin Bartolome of Laguna Niguel, Calif., shot to death his 27-year-old autistic son, Dale, and then himself. You must acknowledge that you know this man. You have seen him in your coffee, the windshield, the mirror. A father approaching 60. The young adult under his roof knocking him down reaching for the cereal. A succession of in-home aides quit. The mother, fighting her own infirmities, avoids her son. Placement in group homes refused.

Siblings of the grown disabled child still living with the parents say, I got my own problems. The father sees his son in 10 years locked away somewhere. Forgotten. No advocate. No family. No warmth of touch. Who will care what his pleasures are? Will someone ever take him rafting down the Bitterroot again? The father sees his son wandering hallways the rest of his life. Soiled pajamas. Decaying teeth. His only human contact a brusque toweling down after a lukewarm shower.

For most people, autism, like abstract art or Alzheimer's or astrophysics, remains startling and unfathomable. For parents, the raising of children with severe disabilities confirms the indifference of nature, the disorder of the universe. Any potential, any ambition they once may have entertained for themselves has forever been compromised. Together with their remarkable, impossible children they make a life on a different planet. Where the gravity is very strong. And the climate rarely changes.

Convention of Hate

The Village Voice: Features: Convention of Hate by Sydney H. Schanberg:

"I realize politicians of all parties twist history every which way to their benefit, but wasn't it the Bush administration that sent the troops into Iraq without enough body armor or armor for the sides of their battle vehicles? Casualties rose as a result. Soldiers' parents went on the open market back home to buy state-of-the-art body vests with ceramic-plate reinforcement, and then shipped them to their sons and daughters in Iraq. Not until early this year did the Pentagon begin to fill the gap. No part of this failure had anything to do with a vote by Senator Kerry. "

Opinion: Bush Waffles On What Ideals He Actually Believes

365 Gay
(http://www.365gay.com/opinion/Releases/Releases.htm)

Bush Waffles On What Ideals He Actually Believes
by John Marble

After four years in office, President Bush seems to have not yet settled on
exactly what it is that he believes.

The Bush Presidency is a duel between his rhetoric and his record. The
President's rhetoric claims the compassionate mantle, while his record
champions discrimination against millions of American families. Bush
prefers to talk like a conservative, although he has actively presided over
the greatest expanse of the federal government in a generation.

President Bush accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination this
week with a speech that reemphasized his flip-flopping vision. Bush
promised to reduce the size of government, but then detailed how he would
expand federal programs. He vowed to personally increase government
spending, but then attacked John Kerry as the "tax-and-spend" candidate.
Bush talked of simplifying the tax code, but then touched on how he would
further complicate the code through additional loopholes.

President Bush's greatest flip-flop comes when he talks about his desire to
expand personal liberty to every American.

Excerpts from his acceptance speech include the following waffles:

Flip: "The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an
ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more."
Flop: "Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our
society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges."

Flip: "I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that
government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their
lives."
Flop: "I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference
between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

Flip: "I believe in the transformational power of liberty: The wisest use of
American strength is to advance freedom."
Flop: "If you voted against the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act, which
President Clinton signed, you are not the candidate of conservative values."

President Bush still seems confused as to whether he wants to expand liberty
and freedom, or whether he wants to expand the role of government in
people's lives. America is worthy of a President who understands that the
reduction of liberty can never bring forth freedom. We deserve a president
other than George W. Bush.

John Marble is Communications Director for the National Stonewall Democrats

a new soft drink for mature men!!!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Pfizer Corp Announcement



Pfizer Corp. announced today that VIAGRA will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.



Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of cocktails, highballs and just a plain, good, old-fashioned stiff drink.



Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of "MOUNT & DO".

So it's about courage is it?

I don't know if you have noticed, but this whole campaign has revolved around courage. From the day Howard Dean took on the feckless Democratic establishment, through John Kerry's military-drenched convention, through McCain's and Giuliani's speeches last night, the key questions of this race have been: Who has political courage? Who's willing to fight? Who has the resolve to lead in times of war?



From David Brooks' column in the New York Times on August 31, 2004.





Tuesday, David Brooks devoted his New York Times column to the idea that this entire election is about courage and resolve. And while he was coy about his own conclusion regarding the question, we know enough of Brooks to know that he would favor Bush in a courage and resolve contest.



To allow the Republicans to frame the key issues as "courage and resolve" would seem a bit troublesome on the surface. However, the lines between courage and foolhardiness on the one hand and resolve and hardheadedness on the other may, in fact, be the key questions the voters will resolve in November. And, viewed this way, I see trouble ahead for George W. Bush and the neoconservative movement that so aggressively sold and prosecuted the war in Iraq.



They exploit what they perceive as a division between those who question the war and those whose sons and daughters go bravely into battle for their country. Their miscalculation on this issue may prove to be the final mistake and undoing of a morally vacant administration.



There is not an American alive who does not treasure above all gifts the generosity of spirit and the courage that go into the decision to put one's life at the service of a democratic nation. There is not one of us who does not grieve the loss of these young lives, as they perceive them to be, in our service. Yet politicians exploit that sacrifice for selfish ends when they challenge those who disagree with their policies as somehow ungrateful to those who sacrifice for our freedom.



We hear it often and I find it a very troubling statement--the idea that "they" sacrifice for "our" freedom. Itshould offend a democratic people to the very core.



In a democracy, the decision to go to war should be a commitment that we are willing sacrifice for our freedom. The decision to go to war should not be lightly taken without the full involvement of the legislative branch of government according to the process laid out in the constitution. That process seems designed to at least minimize the possibility that warmaking would ever become an instrument of policy that would be undertaken without the full support and commitment of the people. If it is worth risking our lives for, it is worth making the declaration of war according to the very clear requirement of the constitution.



This war is fought by "other people's children" and mercenary corporations on foreign soil without the administration's asking so much as an increase in the taxes we pay. We hide from the the terrible truth of death and destruction while we heap the platitudes of praise on the brave soldiers, sailors and marines who valiantly give their lives for--so they are told--our freedom. I would submit that, in a democracy, any war that does not strive to share sacrifice equally cannot be construed as a war in defense of democracy. It may well defend the people within the political boundaries that once lived by a democratic spirit. But it has ceased to live according to the fundamental principles of democracy that the war purports to defend.



And there is another way of looking at courage, too. Every American exercises courage with the daily insistence upon living free. It is sometimes easier to yield in the face of fear, to quit our daily routines, to accept less freedom than our spirits require simply because there is danger in the world.



Americans do two things in the face of danger:



they continue to be free with passionate disregard of the willful efforts to frighten them into submission

they do what is necessary and within their ability to contribute to efforts to lessen the danger.





That does not mean striking out at some general class of "evildoers". An intelligent response profits from a more sophisticated view of the world and the reasons underlying the dangers we face. Americans do not shrink from the need to confront evil. It is as much in our generation to face down dictators and terrorists as it was in the generation that confronted tyranny and inhumanity in the last century. But true courage requires that we act with intelligence and in a spirit of shared sacrifice. In short, true courage requires that we remain true to our democratic principles.



A democracy in which "they" are allowed to sacrifice for "us" is a democracy already in decline and on the road to defeat. There is still time to turn this democracy around by putting true courage in the White House again, this time in the person of John Kerry, a man who has seen fit to put himself at his nation's service like the men and women who serve in Iraq and who, having seen war, is passionate in his pursuit of other means of resolving international problems.



The way of peace is the way of courage. It is no less so today than it was twenty centuries ago when Jesus of Nazareth stood the world of power on its head with a simple commitment to peace and justice as the way to the kingdom of God. You would think it would have some appeal to those in power today. It is, after all, a faith based initiative.

Divest Terror

The influential Washington-based Center for Security Police recently unveiled a groundbreaking report entitled, "Terrorism Investments of the 50 States." This report analyzes the investment portfolios of America's leading public pension funds. The key finding of the report is that America's 87 largest and most influential pension systems invest some $200 billion in companies that provide revenues, advanced technology, equipment and moral cover to governments that enable terrorism. (This detailed report and related materials can be obtained at www.DivestTerror.org.)

To be sure, there is nothing illegal about investing in any of the roughly 400 companies that partner with our enemies' friends. Nor is it illegal for such companies to do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes. Whether the law prohibits such activities or not, however, we believe most Americans will agree with us that they are wrong ââ?¬â?? wrong morally, wrong strategically and wrong financially.

Consequently, DivestTerror.org offers a "how-to" manual showing ways in which investors, taxpayers and other citizens can bring pressure to bear to convert this $200 billion investment into leverage that can be used to help defeat terrorism. Reduced to its essence, the idea is this: By divesting the stock of these companies, public pension systems, university endowments and even individual investors can send a powerful message to the companies that provide life-support to many of the planet's most dangerous regimes. You can choose to continue to partner with rogue state regimes that aid and abet terrorism. Or you can do business with American investors and capital markets. But you can no longer do both.

As the DivestTerror.org website makes clear, divestment campaigns have already proven to be highly effective instruments. In fact, over the last twenty years, institutional and private investors have repeatedly used their financial leverage to initiate social change. For instance, these efforts have been used to bring pressure on stocks of companies involved in tobacco, alcohol, gambling, guns and environmentally insensitive behavior. Arguably, the best-known example to date was the shareholder activism that used divestment to force the apartheid government of South Africa to abandon its heinous apartheid policy. Subsequently, that government was forced to surrender power.

By applying this model to companies doing business in terrorist-sponsoring states, we hope to achieve a success no less momentous than that accomplished in South Africa. All it will take is for Americans like you to feel empowered to play a role in the war on terror, to make known your views against investment in terrorist-sponsoring states and to use tools like those provided by DivestTerror.org to target and maximize the effectiveness of your activism. Please visit this informative and useful site and to join in the campaign it is now waging to defeat those who threaten not only our lives, but those of our children and grandchildren, as well.

My pure raw fury!!!!

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America Greenspan warns cuts to Social Security may be “abrupt and painful” By Jamie Chapman 3 September 2004 Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan warned last week that the major government-funded entitlement programs covering US retirees—Social Security and Medicare—will face “abrupt and painful” curtailment, unless the government begins paring back benefits now. Speaking at a Federal Reserve conference held in the mountain resort of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on August 27, Greenspan said, “As a nation, we owe it to our retirees to promise only the benefits that can be delivered.” He went on, “If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver to retirees without unduly diminishing real income gains of workers, as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our programs.” Greenspan continued, “Most observers expect Social Security, under existing law, to be in chronic deficit over the long haul; however, the program is primarily defined benefit, and so the scale of the necessary adjustments is limited. The shortfalls in the Medicare program, however, will almost surely be much larger, and be much more difficult to eliminate.” The need to “recalibrate our programs” is Greenspan’s veiled reference to cuts in benefits for government-funded pensions and health care benefits for retirees. The issue is an explosive one. Social Security was introduced as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”—a program designed to ameliorate the worst conditions facing the working class in order to forestall social revolution. Until 1935, many workers faced destitution when they could no longer work in the backbreaking conditions of industry, since their companies offered them no pensions at all. Millions of working people, who pay into Social Security their entire working lives, now face a threat that these benefits will either be cut or eliminated before they ever reach retirement age. The Bush administration has proposed allowing wage earners to shift a portion of their contributions to Social Security into personal retirement accounts invested in the stock market. While pitched as a plan to “save Social Security” and create an “ownership society,” the real purpose of this plan is to pump vast new resources into the stock market in order to further enrich wealthy stockholders. At the same time, it would place what constitutes the sole source of income for many retirees at the mercy of the shares market. Moreover, the shift to personal accounts would only serve to drive the Social Security fund closer to bankruptcy. It is estimated that the costs of the transition would run close to $1 trillion, while it would divert money that would otherwise pay for benefits. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has remained vague about his own proposals for Social Security, declaring that he would not “privatize” the program or cut existing benefits. Of course, even the Republicans do not use the term “privatization” to sell their plan for allowing Wall Street to raid the Social Security Trust Fund. And the thrust of proposals for instituting cuts in the program is not the reduction of existing benefits, but rather the slashing of benefits for workers who have yet to retire. Discussion of shifting a Social Security funds into the stock market, it should be recalled, were well advanced under the Clinton administration and had broad bipartisan support. This is by no means the first time that Greenspan has raised the issue of sharp cuts in entitlements. In testimony before Congress last February, he called for cuts in Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for making the Bush administration tax cuts permanent for the 2 percent of the wealthiest Americans. In fact, Greenspan has been raising the issue of Social Security cuts for the last 20 years. Greenspan claims that as the “baby boom” generation retires, the Social Security Trust Fund will no longer be able to pay its retirement obligations. The Fed chairman cites statistics that by the year 2035, the American population over age 65 will rise from 12 percent of the population to 20 percent. He cited “[t]he decade-long acceleration in productivity and economic growth [that] has seemingly muted” the necessity of making “stark choices” between reduced benefits or higher taxes. In an assessment of future economic prospects, he stated, “history discourages the notion that the pace of growth will continue to increase.” There is no mystery as to what choice Greenspan and both big business parties favor. They insist that any shortfall in Social Security funds—including those that will be created if plans for the individual retirement accounts go forward—are to be made up through raising taxes on working people and cutting the benefits of retirees. The vast wealth controlled by the corporations, banks and wealthy elite must remain untouched. See Also: What’s behind the attack on pensions and social security? [4 March 2004] US central bank chief calls for cuts in Social Security [27 February 2004]

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: Here Come the Low-Mileage Hybrids

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: Here Come the Low-Mileage Hybrids: "Equating a hybrid with a high-efficiency car was sufficient so long as a hybrid was a high-efficiency car. The hybrid Honda Civic and Toyota Prius met this standard. The Japanese companies transformed modestly efficient vehicles into outstandingly efficient ones.

But the introduction of the Ford Escape ushers in the era of low-mileage hybrids. The hybrid Escape's overall fuel economy is better than other vehicles in its class but is still only half that of the Prius or Civic. Chevrolet's new hybrid trucks, the Sierra and Silverado may get little more than 20 mpg.

The mileage situation is, if anything, even worse than this because the new hybrids don't get significantly better mileage on the highway. A hybrid can shut off its engine when idling and can use its battery and electric motor to accelerate. Thus it achieves markedly better mileage in stop-and-go city driving than on the open highway. That's where the fuel economy comes from. For example, the Prius achieves 60 mpg in city driving and 51 mpg on the highway. On the open road a hybrid Escape gets mileage no better than that of several other vehicles in its class, like Toyota's RAVA4. And yet one suspects that hybrid SUVs and pick-up troutside of cities."e used outside of cities."

What can I do this election season?

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TrueMajority members send us a lot of e-mails asking, “What can I do for this election?”

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• by yourself, such as registering to vote or updating your voter registration information via the Internet;
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TrueMajority members have done a great job of making their voices heard by their Washington representatives. But it’s a lot easier to get what we want from our government when the right people get elected. All signs point to this election being every bit as close as the last one.

Check out our Web site to find something that works for you. http://www.truemajority.org/actionregister/toolkit_html.cfm

Here’s to making change,

Duane Peterson
The TrueMajority Crew

Sojourners : Election 2004

Sojourners : Election 2004

AlterNet: Election 2004: Deserter's Delight

AlterNet: Election 2004: Deserter's Delight: "I know you and I have had our differences in the past, and I realize I am the one who started this whole mess about 'who did what' during Vietnam when I brought up that 'deserter' nonsense back in January. But I have to hand it to you on what you have uncovered about John Kerry and his record in Vietnam. Kerry has tried to pass himself off as a war hero, but thanks to you and your friends, we now know the truth."

AlterNet: Conservatives, Repent!

AlterNet: Conservatives, Repent!: "The Swift Boat Liars are of interest only as a perfect case for those in media studies to see exactly how this stuff spreads, although it does dig up yet again the issue of how George W. Bush spent the Vietnam War. Here's a review of the state of play on that story. USA Today recently rehashed the remaining questions:"

"People, G-O-P-eople"

The highlight of the $5 million star-studded fundraiser for John Kerry in Los Angeles last night may have been Barbra Streisand's defeat-Bush version of her song "People."



Here are the lyrics as transcribed by the press pool reporter at the fundraiser. All together now:


People

I mean G-O-People

Who'd believe there's such people in the world

Bush sees a

Lotta Condoleeza

They're dividing the planet's oil

According to Richard Poil

And they're all just trainees

Of Cheney's

Now Rumsfeld

We must get rid of Rumsfeld

He's the spookiest person in the world

As for Powell

He's neither fish nor fowl

He's in the back of the room

While they're all fiddling with gloom

No one's minding the store

What's more

Let's discuss this war we're lost in

Don't ask what it's costin'

What's a trillion or two to rule the world.

The Senate

Oooo how I want the Senate

All we need is two people in the world

I see a

Antonin Scalia

How I dread every time he sits

Scared out of my Wolfowitz

Time those neocon guys

Were gone byes

??? (pool reporter's note)

While the globe is frying

And the fishes are dying in the world

And their solution

For all the pollution

Is just to bear it and grin

And practice not breathing in

But things are gonna be great

Just wait

When the White House stationary

Reads President John Kerry
We'll be the luckiest people in the world

Quote of the day

"Cheney brought my mother up to the casket, so she could pay her respects. She is in her 80's, and she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don't think he's a mindful human being. That's probably the nicest way I can put it."

Ron Reagan, in an upcoming interview with the New York Times Sunday Magazine

Some humor . . .



Ariel Sharon came to Washington for meetings with George W. and for a state dinner. Laura Bush decided to bring in a special kosher chef and have a truly Jewish meal. At the dinner that night, the first course served is matzo ball soup.



George W. looks at this and, after learning what it is called, tells an aide that he can't eat such a gross and strange-looking brew. The aide says that Mr. Sharon will be insulted if he doesn't at least taste it. Not wanting to cause any trouble (after all, he ate sheep's eye in honor of Arab guests), George W. gingerly lowers his spoon into the bowl and retrieves a piece of matzo ball and some broth.



He hesitates, and then swallows. A big grin appears on his face. He finds that he really likes it, and digs right in and finishes the whole bowl.



"That was delicious," Bush says to Sharon. "Do you Jews eat any other part of the matzo, or just the balls?"

WSOCTV.com - Charlotte News - Autopsy: Statesville Man Choked On Vomit During Arrest

WSOCTV.com - Charlotte News - Autopsy: Statesville Man Choked On Vomit During Arrest: "STATESVILLE, N.C. -- An autopsy shows that an autistic man choked on vomit as he was being taken to jail by Statesville police.
Sidney Templeton's mother called police for help on Saturday when he became agitated about a new caretaker. Authorities said he fought with officers, though his mother says she never saw that.
Templeton was being taken into the Iredell County Jail when he struggled with officers and, in the words of Sheriff Stephen Hampton, had a 'medical emergency.'
Doctor Patrick Lantz performed the autopsy on Monday. He said Templeton apparently threw up and inhaled some of his vomit."

Not Even a Hedgehog - The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. By Christopher?Hitchens

Not Even a Hedgehog - The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. By Christopher?HitchensThe fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.

The Village Voice: NY Mirror: La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto

The Village Voice: NY Mirror: La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto
Dear JOHN KERRY: Keep on standing back all slack-jawed and vague-ish, kid. Let DUBYA self-destruct with his empty, Stepfordy ravings about making the world safe from terror—other people's, that is. Let the revelations keep coming—like how we were the terrorists in Abu Ghraib and how our lamented hero Pat Tillman was actually killed by our own other heroes in inept, I mean friendly, fire, not to mention how all of this was provoked by nonexistent weapons! (No wonder GEORGE TENET was canned, I mean stepped down for personal reasons.) And let Dubya's continued hate crusade against gay marriage take an interesting turn as cynics melt at the sight of perfectly nice queers hugging (and flirting with Hugh Jackman) on TV and wonder how stealth-bombing this would be consistent with our self-appointed role as fiery freedom fighters.

Yahoo! News - Bald Is Hair Color in Montana

Yahoo! News - Bald Is Hair Color in Montana: "HELENA, Mont. - Bald is a hair color in Montana. Montana's Web site lists 'bald' as an option when applying online for a fishing license. "

Texas Talk



George Bush and Dick Cheney are enjoying lunch at a fancy Washington restaurant.Their waitress approaches the table to take their order. She is young and attractive. She asks Cheney what he wants, and he replies, "I'll have the heart-healthy salad." "Very good, sir," she replies. Turning to Bush, she asks, "And what do you want, Mr. President?"



Bush answers, "How about a quickie?"



Taken aback, the waitress slaps him and says, "I'm shocked and disappointed in you. I thought you were bringing a new administration that was committed to higher principles and morality!" With that, the waitress stalks off in a huff.



Cheney leans over to Bush and says, "Mr. President, I believe that's pronounced 'quiche.'"

Health News Article | Reuters.com

Health News Article | Reuters.com: "Vaccine Critics Attack Mercury Report"

OSC Orders Congress to Investigate HHS, CDC and FDA Wrongdoing Regarding Mercury in Children's Vaccines, Says National Autism Association

OSC Orders Congress to Investigate HHS, CDC and FDA Wrongdoing Regarding Mercury in Children's Vaccines, Says National Autism Association: "WASHINGTON, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- National Autism Association announced today that Scott Bloch, Office of Special Counsel (OSC), is calling for further investigation into the link between neurological disorders and Thimerosal, a mercury preservative found in childhood vaccines. In an OSC press release, Bloch states that the allegations of wrongdoing towards Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ' ... raise serious continuing concerns about the administration of the nation's vaccine program ... '"

President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief - Center for American Progress

From the beginning, George W. Bush has made his own credibility a central issue. On 10/11/00, then Governor Bush said: "I think credibility is important. It is going to be important for the president to be credible with Congress, important for the president to be credible with foreign nations." But President Bush's serial flip-flopping raises serious questions about whether Congress and foreign leaders can rely on what he says.

AUTISM link to Michelangelo

Times of India - India



LONDON : Renaissance-era artistic genius Michelangelo might have had Asperger's syndrome, a milder form of autism which causes sufferers to have difficulties...

<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/713524.cms
>

Effects of autism on families

Effects of autism on families: "According to Wakely, previous research has suggested that siblings of children with autism can feel lonely and neglected, but that positive outcomes are possible too, with some siblings showing higher maturity and better social skills."

Salon.com Books | Busting big fat liars

Salon.com Books | Busting big fat liars: "The right-wing media warfare naturally is most visible during presidential election years. 'I've been saying for six months, no matter who was running for office this year, the right has a system in place to caricature that person,' says Brock. 'This is what I realized after 2000 -- that what happened to the Clintons during the '90s really had very little to do with the Clintons because the same thing happened to Gore in 2000. And then it happened to [Sen. Tom] Daschle when the Senate changed hands in 2001, and it happened to the mourners of [the late Sen.] Paul Wellstone in 2002. It goes on and on.' After witnessing how this Republican 'noise machine' again worked so well in shaping the caustic and undermining press coverage of Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000, Brock is trying to awaken the public from slumber about these techniques."

gq plus @ gq.com: "Four years into an embattled Bush administration, Colin Powell is hard at work at something he's never had to worry about before: salvaging his legacy. "

A major scandal is going down this week at the Supreme Court, and I thought you'd like to see the hilarious little movie that exposes it:



http://www.justiceisduckblind.com



Here's the skinny: The Supreme Court is hearing a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney. They're trying to decide if Cheney should have to give up the members of his secret Energy Task Force, which he has kept hidden from the public. (Hmm, I wonder why. Could it be that he loaded the Task Force with his oil buddies?)



This is where it gets funky. Among the judges hearing the case is Antonin Scalia -- who recently went on a duck hunting vacation with Cheney, flying down to Louisiana at taxpayer expenses aboard Air Force Two. Despite this very cozy state of affairs, Scalia has stubbornly refused to withdraw from the case.



Check it out -- and sign on to the petition calling on Cheney to come clean about his Energy Task Force.



http://www.justiceisduckblind.com/petition.asp

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Bunless burger vs. the fluffernutter: "Fast-food restaurants are launching new 'healthy,' diet-friendly foods -- including a McDonald's adult happy meal. How do they stack up to some of our lunchtime favorites?"

Salon.com | Why John Kerry should run on 9/12: "The choice awaiting the American people in November couldn't be more clear-cut: Vote your fears or vote your hopes. If we do the former, Bush wins. But if we are inspired to do the latter, we could reach the 50 percent of eligible voters who've given up on our democracy -- and it could be Kerry in a landslide. "

Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment: "Mainframe mania"

Church Sign Generator - Real Church Signs: "You've seen them - the signs in front of churches, with a witticism or a pun that made you groan. I think they're hilarious, often unintentionally so. I've decided to start collecting the ones I see around Austin and on the web."