Media

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Time Passing in the USA

I was driving through Springfield. I saw the sign for Thurston High School. It reminded me of the shooting there. I struggled to remember the boy’s name. Kit? Kid? Kip. Kip Kinkel. I was driving. I asked my 18 year old to look up the date Kip Kinkel shot up Thurston High School. It was May 20, 1998, nearly twenty years ago. He only killed two, and wounded 25. Then came Columbine with its bloodbath of deaths and it is used as the yardstick against which we measure, and Springfield and Thurston High are largely forgotten, as are so many where only a handful are killed. Shortly after the shooting in Florida, an article was going around on social media challenging the allegation that there have been 18 shootings since the first of the year because in some cases no one died, or in others, the shooting was a suicide. I guess if lots of people don’t die or there isn’t outward hate then it doesn’t matter. What a fucking joke.

After Sandy Hook I wrote Safety is a Straw Man. In it I argued that the reason gun control legislation has nothing to do with safety or infringing on rights really, but the profits of the gun industry. Since I wrote that, a few others have said the same thing, but this topic never really comes to the fore. Those who don’t want control put out their memes on social media claiming guns don’t kill people, people do. Those who want gun control put out their memes about how fucking useless are the platitudes on thoughts and prayers. Meanwhile, the politicians and power mongers do nothing because ultimately they know there isn’t a damn thing the population can do about it. If we could, we would have. They keep their place of power, the gun manufacturers keep making their fortunes, and they all laugh at us fighting with one another on their way to the bank.

Yeah, I’m cynical.

I was in my twenties when a mentally ill 15 year old, white, male killed two children and wounded 25 other people in Springfield. I did not have children yet. Now my oldest daughter is 18 and in college and my youngest in school. I have acquired my teaching degree and license, and I have spent hours learning how to react if a school shooting occurs, all the procedures and codes and charts that are essentially about how not to get murdered and to know how and when to hide. A lot of damn time has passed and still nothing has been done. Calls for action. Horrible, heart-wrenching speeches. Hand wringing. Thoughts and prayers (which, if this shit worked, would have by now, one would think). Nothing changes.

To me all of these mass shootings are just another symptom of the brutal dysfunction of the United States. Everything this country stands for is a lie. Our military bases populate the world because the US is the world’s biggest warmonger (Are there German military bases in the US? Are there Japanese military bases in the US? Then why are our military bases there?). It is the bastard child of the almighty imperialist abusers, and it took the lessons of its forebears to heart. Still to this day if those in power want something they take it. The average citizen might not agree with stealing native American burial grounds for oil, but so what? If those in power want it, they take it, and they have the police and enough citizens to agree with them to get it done. The average citizen might know they are suffering under enormous medical debt, but those in power refuse to give up their profits so we can medically take care of ourselves. Average citizens might not want to blow off the tops of mountains or reroute rivers or kill wolves and polar bears, but those in power want what is under the mountain or the water in the river or the land where the wolves and polar bears live, and they take it. Rugged individualism is the lie that one by one, sitting in our bunkers with our guns, we can thrive. On an individual basis, most people in this country are decent and good, but also damaged and traumatized, and victims of damage and trauma have to spend their time taking care of themselves as best they can. They don’t have the ability or confidence that they can stop the almighty US of A and its narcissistic bullying. They know, have been taught since birth, have been brought up and propagandized to believe there is nothing they can do.

So here we sit, twenty years after a damaged boy damaged countless other lives, and it will happen again and again because hand wringing, thinking, and praying doesn’t stop those in power who take what they want when they want it. Guns make a profit. Controlling those guns will slow that profit and those in power will make sure this never happens. This way of being is a cancer on the soul of an ugly nation and an even uglier civilization with a long, ugly history of taking what it wants when it wants it. That we have a “leader” who symbolizes this isn’t an accident. The individual traumas that go unhealed, the wounds we carry and pass on, have created a collective that has metastasized into a place where children are shot up in schools every week, where children are stolen from their parents because they are brown and then shipped to countries they have never been to, where going to have a broken arm fixed costs a month’s wages, where a month’s wages won’t buy shelter and food, where mountaintops are blown off, where oil is sucked and spilled on the ground, where rivers are rerouted, where men can beat and rape their wives and children, but if those women or children kill them in defense, they will spend their lives in prison, where police murder black people just because they are black and suffer no consequences, where…

I could go on and on. The list is so long, the dysfunction of this culture and this country is so pervasive and complete that it is the norm. It shuts people down. It creates more of the same: rampant, hideous narcissism and the consequential dysfunction and trauma. We can only address it if we bring it down to a much smaller level.

Yesterday I saw an article that told the story of one teacher who is stopping gun violence in schools. She isn’t packing a pistol or learning how to better hide. She isn’t doing anything that is a band aid to the problem created by this sort of violence. Daily, she pays attention to her students. She asks the students who they want to sit with and has them write it down. She also asks the students to write little excerpts about how they are feeling. She then analyzes the information on a regular basis to determine which children are being left out, which children are likely the lonely ones, and she addresses these issues individually. One by one, she is trying to find the children who are hurting or lonely, and then goes to them individually to try and assuage their pain. She is bringing down these problems to an individual level to help and heal pain. It isn’t easy, but why should this kind of work be easy?

All of us can do this. In each moment, we can react to that moment, and work not to react to previous moments of pain. Anyone who isn’t so stuck in their own pain and trauma can help those who are. Those who are stuck in pain and trauma can try to heal themselves so that they don’t create pain and trauma for others. We can resist the tyranny of this culture in every way possible. I’m not trying to offer platitudes and comfort for the downtrodden in a single blog post, but I do believe that if enough people stopped hand wringing and blaming and participating in a culture that creates isolation, rage, and damage, we can make some small difference, and this has to be better than what we have now.

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We’re Killing our Planet

We are killing our planet, and while it might be the tiny fragment who benefit in the short term monetarily, it is anyone who refuses to acknowledge or stop the problem who is equally complicit. I start to list all of the things we are doing to this earth, most of which is done in the name of increasing short-term wealth for a very few, but much of which increases conveniences for a lot of us, and the list grows too big to write out in a blog post. There are books listing all we are doing and what could and should be done (Eaarth by Bill McKibben is a favorite), so I don’t really need to list out all of it anyway. Sometimes it is just hearing about a couple of these things within the same two hours that gets my stomach rolling. Today in Master Gardener class we discussed the multiple assaults that are decimating the bee populations. This was followed closely by the big money, big oil bullshit report by the USDA on the Keystone XL pipeline. Most Americans aren’t following this, and of those who are, many don’t realize that those who wrote the report were hand-picked by big oil interests. Gads, when are people going to realize that we are being railroaded on every front? How bad does it have to get?

Herein lies another part of why I rarely write here anymore is because it all just seems too big and too insurmountable. I am simply one tiny voice not being heard. This is not sour grapes; it is reality. I have thought and analyzed and considered and wondered, and then thought about it all again, what is the purpose in my writing here? The conclusion I continually draw is that if I’m trying to get some message out about what we are doing to this earth, this blog adds very little to the conversation, and so I don’t write, not much anyway, because it is so overwhelming.

We have to save our planet. People have got to start caring and doing more than separating their trash into piles that can be recycled versus those that can’t. It is going to take something bigger from each and every one of us. In the meantime, the planet will never be the same. It can’t. We can only hope to make it a place that we can live on for more than a few more decades. We have got to see past this minute and understand our long term actions. We have got to be mindful in every single thing that we do, because it has an impact. We ALL have an impact. Go buy some plastic contrivance for your child’s birthday? Recognize that the plastic contrivance has a long-term impact, then ask whether it is worth the trade off. I cannot imagine anyone who really understands this ever believing that whatever they gain from the plastic contrivance will outweigh the life of our earth. Because it is that important. Every tiny decision adds to the mass that makes everything a very, big deal. It does overwhelm me because it really is that big and because we have chosen not to pay attention, now we will be forced to take action as we are bombarded by climate event after climate event, and lose species after species after species.

I really believe if we are to survive, and honestly I’m not sure I would want to be a part of an earth populated only with humans, we have got to change. We have to stop participating in a system that doesn’t work. We have got to stop polarizing and warring. It will only happen through peace and love, if we can actually get there. I see glimmers of hope, interspersed with stories about the bees and the Keystone XL, but sometimes it is really difficult to maintain equanimity.

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Global tax dodgers exposed — Salon.com

Shared post from Salon.com can be seen here.

Global tax dodgers exposed

UPDATED: Tax havens of oligarchs, politicians and the wealthy unveiled by largest file leak ever

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Updated, 12:15 p.m.: ICIJ pointed out that many of the world’s major banks – including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank – have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways:

Documents obtained by ICIJ show how two top Swiss banks, UBS and Clariden, worked with TrustNet to provide their customers with secrecy-shielded companies in the BVI and other offshore centers.

Clariden, owned by Credit Suisse, sought such high levels of confidentiality for some clients, the records show, that a TrustNet official described the bank’s request as “the Holy Grail” of offshore entities — a company so anonymous that police and regulators would be “met with a blank wall” if they tried to discover the owners’ identities.

Clariden declined to answer questions about its relationship with TrustNet.

“Because of Swiss banking secrecy laws, we are not allowed to provide any information about existing or supposed accountholders,” the bank said. “As a general rule, Credit Suisse and its related companies respect all the laws and regulations in the countries in which they are involved.”

A spokesperson for UBS said the bank applies “the highest international standards” to fight money laundering, and that TrustNet “is one of over 800 service providers globally which UBS clients choose to work with to provide for their wealth and succession planning needs. These service providers are also used by clients of other banks.”

Updated, 11: 40 a.m.: And here are some more notable individuals found by theGuardian/ICIJ investigation to be hiding funds in offshore accounts:

  • Jean-Jacques Augier, France’s François Hollande’s 2012 election campaign co-treasurer, launched a Caymans-based distributor in China with a 25 percent partner in a BVI company. Augier says his partner was Xi Shu, a Chinese businessman.
  • Mongolia’s former finance minister. Bayartsogt Sangajav set up “Legend Plus Capital Ltd” with a Swiss bank account, while he served as finance minister of the impoverished state from 2008 to 2012. He says it was “a mistake” not to declare it, and says “I probably should consider resigning from my position”.
  • The president of Azerbaijan and his family. A local construction magnate, Hassan Gozal, controls entities set up in the names of President Ilham Aliyev’s two daughters.
  • A senator’s husband in Canada. Lawyer Tony Merchant deposited more than US$800,000 into an offshore trust.
  • Spain’s wealthiest art collector, Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, a former beauty queen and widow of a Thyssen steel billionaire, who uses offshore entities to buy art.

Updated, 11: 20 a.m.: Nominee directors, military and intelligence links: As was original highlighted by the Guardian/ICIJ last year, a number of so-called nominee directors of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) have connections to military or intelligence activities.

Notably Gamma Group — the firm that develops surveillance software that (as noted here) has been used by oppressive regimes against activists including in Bahrain — was found to have offshore funds in the BVI:

Louthean Nelson owns the Gamma Group, a controversial computer surveillance firmemploying ex-military personnel. It sells bugging technology to Middle East and south-east Asian governments.

Nelson owns a BVI offshore arm, Gamma Group International Ltd.

Martin Muench, who has a 15 per cent share in the company’s German subsidiary, said he was the group’s sole press spokesman, and told us: “Louthean Nelson is not associated with any company by the name of Gamma Group International Ltd. If by chance you are referring to any other Gamma company, then the explanation is the same for each and every one of them.”

After he was confronted with evidence obtained by the ICIJ/Guardian investigation, Muench changed his position. He told us: “You are absolutely right, apparently there is a Gamma Group International Ltd.”

The ICIJ also notes a “sham” director who is U.K.-based operative working to hide money for the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line –  a firm the E.U., the U.N. and the U.S. have accused IRISL of aiding Iran’s nuclear-development program. Under the front name “Tamalaris Consolidated Limited,” the company registered in the BVI with the British-based operative named as director.

Updated, 10.50 a.m.: Sham directors: The Guardian, whose investigative journalists collaborated with ICIJ in the tax haven project, highlights a list of “sham directors” uncovered in the leaked files. These individuals “appear on official records as directors of companies while acting only on the instructions of its real owners, who stay invisible and off-the-books.”

Over 22,000 companies use this network of 0nly 28 sham directors — some with over 700 companies to their names with offshore account holdings. See here for a full table of these sham directors.

Original post: A trove of leaked documents 160 times the size of Wikileaks’ cache reveals the vast global web of tax havens in which the world’s wealthiest hide their fortunes. A 15-month investigation carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which involved dozens of reporters sifting through thousands of leaked files from offshore companies and trusts, highlights the dirty dealings between politicians and the mega-rich involved in tax evasion.

“The leaked files provide facts and figures — cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals — that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike,” noted ICIJ on the investigation’s publication.

The trove of data — believed to be the largest leak in history — exposes some 120,000 letterbox entities, offshore accounts and other nefarious deals in more than 170 countries, alongside the names of 140,000 individuals alleged to have placed their money in known tax havens.

The investigation found high profile individuals from around the world — from oligarchs to the family members of dictators, to wealthy American financiers and professionals — engaged in efforts to dodge fiscal authorities. Individuals and groups found to be part of the tax evasion web include (via ICIJ):

  • Individuals and companies linked to Russia’s Magnitsky Affair, a tax fraud scandal that has strained U.S.-Russia relations and led to a ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans.
  • A Venezuelan deal maker accused of using offshore entities to bankroll a U.S.-based Ponzi scheme and funneling millions of dollars in bribes to a Venezuelan government official.
  • A corporate mogul who won billions of dollars in contracts amid Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s massive construction boom even as he served as a director of secrecy-shrouded offshore companies owned by the president’s daughters.
  • Indonesian billionaires with ties to the late dictator Suharto, who enriched a circle of elites during his decades in power.
  • The eldest daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, found to be a beneficiary of a British Virgin Islands (BVI) trust. (Philippine officials said they were eager to find out whether any assets in the trust are part of the estimated $5 billion her father amassed through corruption.)
  • The wife of Russia’s deputy prime minister, Igor Shuvalov, and two top executives with Gazprom, the Russian government-owned corporate behemoth that is the world’s largest extractor of natural gas, identified in offshore data.
  • Among nearly 4,000 American names is Denise Rich, a Grammy-nominated songwriter whose ex-husband was at the center of an American pardon scandal that erupted as President Bill Clinton left office.

We will continue to update this post once more details from the extensive tax evasion leaks emerge.

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.

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Dolly and Steve, What Have You Done to Your Faces?

Dear Steve Martin and Dolly Parton,

Your age would have looked better than whatever it is you have done to your faces. You both have always managed to present an aura of self-possession through which the surgeries have exposed a fissure, a dissonance.  It’s a shock, frankly. There are other entertainment figures who, if they were to undergo such drastic and obvious alterations, it would seem in character with the person they have presented to the public over the years. But not you.

It’s ironic too, that on some level you were seeking to pass as youthful, with that sort of attractiveness, and in your bizarre caricatures, you have made yourself even more noticeable, but not for the reasons you sought. The attractiveness of your age would have been enough. Having spent years watching you, we would have understood the grace it takes to remain public and mature.

In any case, you surprised me. You under met my expectations. I do hope on a personal level that the extraordinary surgeries have helped you to understand how little important what you desired was to who you are.

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The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy

The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy  The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality.

— by Naomi Wolf

This post is a reprint and can be found here.

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that “New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers” covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, andpenned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that “It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk.”

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors’, city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.

The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online “What is it you want?” answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, “we are going after these scruffy hippies”. Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women’s wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).

In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.

But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the “scandal” of presidential contender Newt Gingrich’s having been paid $1.8m for a few hours’ “consulting” to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies’ profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.

Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists’ privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can’t suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.

Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

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The Olympics

I tried watching the Olympics on the internet tonight.  Greedy NBC can’t even let you watch old stuff without inserting hideous commercials so I turned it off.  Then I decided to try and watch it from another country. Canadian Television worked just fine without the stupid Proctor and Gamble ads.  Gag.  Commercials are one of the main reasons I do not own a television.  That, and most shows are so inane I can’t stand to waste my precious time watching them.  Life is happening; I would rather experience it (even when it’s not that exciting) than spend my time staring at some dumb television show.  I think back to the shows I used to watch when I had a t.v. and none of them were worth the time I spent.

I do like some of the cable series and have watched them on DVD, Six Feet Under, Weeds, and Dexter.  Unfortunately, though, whenever I get into one of these shows, they take over my life because I just want to watch and watch until I get to the end.  However, I do look back fondly on them, like a good book, which is different than mainstream television shows I spent years watching (ER, Party of Five, and Ally McBeal).  Years after I quit watching ER I tuned in.  None of the characters I had watched before were left.  I quit when they took the adopted child away from the gay doctor because she was gay.  That just made me too mad and I didn’t want to hang around for weeks to try and find out what happened, plus they always took months long breaks.

I haven’t had a television now for years and I don’t miss it.  Thought I missed it some when the Olympics started, but having tried to watch via NBC, I’ve gotten a clue how they run things and I would hate it.  I’m not missing anything.  NBC would chop the shit out of it all, ruin it with ads and cuts to other events right when things were getting interesting, keep out the athletes who aren’t their pets, and generally make viewing miserable.  I can get whatever I need right here on the internet.  I’ll log in to Ukranian television.  Yeah, that will work.

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Bombing the Moon

Ever since I heard about NASA’s intention to bomb the moon (see the story here), thoughts and reactions to the news have been flittering in and out of my head.  There are so many, I have had difficulty articulating what one definitive thing bothers me the most about it.  Yet conclusively, my overall sense is that it is WRONG. s_full-moon

Cost:  Why is it we spend billions on crap like this, chasing water on the moon, when we can’t (or won’t) spend the same amount here to conserve water?  Senseless stupidity.  I won’t even get into the waste of money when unemployment numbers are higher than ever and we are in two wars…

No Choice:  NASA does what it wants.  We might vote in a mostly new Congress every two years, but we have such little control over how they spend our money, ultimately, what difference does it make?  Legislators on both sides of the aisle are unwilling to underfund NASA.  I’ve heard all the arguments about how NASA research benefits us all, and I’m sure there are aspects of their research that do, but this is just silly.  There might be the claim they are looking for water, but it’s really a bunch of grown kids who think it’s cool to go bomb the moon and there isn’t a damn thing any of us can do about it.  If they really wanted to conserve water, just as much would be spent on the very real climate and water problems we are experiencing right here on earth.  Plus, as silly as it sounds, the moon belongs to all of us, collectively.  What right do a few have to go and harm that which isn’t theirs?  They don’t.

The Unknown:  Scientists can conduct all the earth bound tests they want to.  The simple fact is there is no way of knowing what ramifications this will have on the moon and the earth.  These planets are inextricably linked.  The earth and moon are connected gravitationally and energetically.  Messing with these forces could alter our tidal patterns, weather patterns, and who knows what else.  It’s just foolishness.  And dangerous.

I don’t know.  If enough people feel about this as I do, then perhaps we could turn public opinion against it enough to get the government to stop it.  My inclination is though, that a bunch of idiots who like movies by Michael Bay would think it’s “AWESOME” and think that naysayers like myself are just a bunch of fuddy duddies.  American ignorance is so prevalent on so much else, I would not be surprised.  On most issues, I consider myself very forward thinking.  I’m willing to try most things.  But not this.  Bombing the moon isn’t only silly, it is scary and wrong.

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Watch Out for the Big, Bad Pig

So a week ago I published a blurb about the swine flu thinking everyone was freaking out for nothing.  For a few days after, I wondered if maybe I got it wrong.  Now however, I’m back to my original premise.  I was also right about the foolish overreacting that would take place.  Some ountries have banned travel to Mexico.  Others have killed off a bunch of pigs.  Everyone is still all freaked out.  Yet the numbers of deaths have remained quite small and very contained even though the flu itself has shown up in many places.  Craziness.

The killing of the pigs really bugs me.  In spite of assertions by doctors and other scientists that this flu isn’t caught from eating pork, nor can it be transmitted from pigs to humans, Egypt killed over 300,000 pigs.  In response, the WHO came out with a statement that the name needs to be changed because killing pigs is unnecessary.

All the news organizations went nuts when a toddler died from the flu outside of Mexico, the first case outside that country.  EGADS!  It’s spreading!  Someone outside Mexico died!  We’re all going to get it!  It’s pandemic! We’re all dead!  Um, yeah.  Lost in the uproar was the fact the child was Mexican and had just been in Mexico.  It wasn’t like the flu came crawling across the border, snaking its way north in ever increasing tentacles.  Yet that is what the media worldwide seemed to want people to believe.

The actual truth is that most of the people who died had not gotten treatment when they should have.  For everyone else who has contracted the flu, their illnesses have been sh0rt-lived and they have recovered.  The trick was early detection and intervention.  It would be nice if the news media could find a nice balance between letting people know they should do something and acting like lunatics.  Unfortunately they usually lean towards lunacy.

The nasty right-winger radio hosts have used the swine flu as an opportunity to spread their hate mongering, lies, and racism.  They blatantly lie, claiming that we’re all going to get sick from Mexicans and we better close our borders further.  It’s disgusting.  Maybe any idiots who believe their bullshit will lock themselves in their homes with a gun and stop wandering the streets. If this happens, I guess in a twisted way the hate mongerers have performed a public service.

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Tell it Like it Is: Torture

I read a story on the BBC website today.  The story is repeated in its entirety below.  What struck me after reading the story was the BBC’s willingness to relate the torture described by Mr. Binyam Mohamed, a man held by the US for just under 7 years and released last February, all charges against him dropped.  US mainstream media is completely unwilling to tell it like it is, preferring instead to describe the fringes, keeping the hard truth from reaching our eyes.  Chickens.

Americans need to read and see what torture means.  The word torture isn’t horrific anymore.  We hear a bit about waterboarding, or see the most sanitized photos from Abu Ghraib, but unless we’re looking for it, we’re not hearing what our country did to people.  It’s appalling.

Last week I read an article on Mr. Marri, the man who has been held without charges or trial for years.  It was an online article, which meant anyone could comment.  Some guy commented that “torture works.”  Really?  How is that?  Does that mean that if I hold a lighter to your balls while you are tied to a fence in neither a sitting or standing position and ask you whether you raped my mother you will continue to deny it, even if I set your balls on fire?  Is that evidence of torture’s “success”?

Read this BBC story and judge for yourself.  Ask whether you could hold out under such conditions.  Ask whether you would say anything to get someone to stop drowning you, or cutting you, or leaving you hanging by chains in the dark with music so loud you cannot hear.  Then tell me whether torture works.

The link to this story can be found here.

Demands for MI5 ‘torture’ inquiry

Binyam Mohamed getting off his plane

Mr Mohamed arrived back at RAF Northolt in London in February

MPs have demanded a judicial inquiry into a Guantanamo Bay prisoner’s claims that MI5 was complicit in his torture.

In a Mail on Sunday interview, UK resident Binyam Mohamed claims MI5 fed his US captors questions which led him to make a false confession.

His allegations are being investigated by the government, but the Foreign Office said it did not condone torture.

Shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve said the “extremely serious” claims should also be referred to the police.

‘Dark prison’

Mr Mohamed told the paper he was held in continual darkness for weeks on end in a prison in Kabul, Afghanistan.

He has claimed that while in US custody in 2002, he was rendered to Morocco for interrogation and torture.

Now he has released what he said were two telegrams sent from British intelligence to the CIA in November 2002.

In the first memo, the writer asks for a name to be put to him and then for him to be questioned further about that person.

The longest was when they chained me for eight days on end, in a position that meant I couldn’t stand straight nor sit
Binyam Mohamed

The second telegram asks about a timescale for further interrogation.

The legal organisation Reprive, which represents Mr Mohamed, said its client was shown the telegrams in Guantanamo Bay by his military lawyer Lieutenant Col Yvonne Bradley.

Mr Mohamed claimed he acquired the telegrams through the US legal process when he was fighting to be freed from Guantanamo Bay.

Daniel Sandford, BBC Home Affairs correspondent, said Mr Mohamed’s claims would be relatively simple to substantiate.

“As time progresses it will probably become quite apparent whether indeed these are true telegrams and I think it’s unlikely they’d be put into the public domain if they couldn’t eventually be checked back.”

The Conservatives have called for a police inquiry into his allegations of British collusion.

Mr Grieve called for a judicial inquiry into the allegations.

“And if the evidence is sufficient to bring a prosecution then the police ought to investigate it,” he added.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said there was a “rock solid” case for an independent judicial inquiry.

Labour MP Andrew Dismore, who chairs the joint committee on human rights, said he would asking the home and foreign secretaries to explain how Britain’s policy against torture is being implemented and monitored.

Shami Chakrabati, director of campaign group Liberty said: “These are more than allegations – these are pieces of a puzzle that are being put together.

“It makes an immediate criminal investigation absolutely inescapable.”

Former Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis accused the government of “stonewalling” by referring the claims to the Attorney General rather than the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“What appears to have happened is they have been turning blind eyes,” he added.

‘Wrong-doing’

Mr Mohamed told the paper the worst part of this captivity was in Kabul’s “dark prison”.

“The toilet in the cell was a bucket,” he told the paper.

“There were loudspeakers in the cell, pumping out what felt like about 160 watts, a deafening volume, non-stop, 24 hours a day.

We abhor torture and never order it or condone it
Foreign Office spokesman

He added: “They chained me for eight days on end, in a position that meant I couldn’t stand straight nor sit.

“I couldn’t sleep. I had no idea whether it was day or night.”

Mr Mohamed spent just under seven years in custody, four of those in Guantanamo – the US’s camp in Cuba.

He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 as US authorities considered him a would-be bomber who fought alongside the Taleban in Afghanistan.

But last year the US dropped all charges against him, and he was released in February.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We abhor torture and never order it or condone it.

“We take allegations of mistreatment seriously and investigate them when they are made.

“In the case of Binyam Mohamed, an allegation of possible criminal wrong-doing has been referred to the Attorney General.

“We need now to wait for her report.”

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I Hate Windows

I’ve switched to mac. However I still own a pretty decent PC that I keep because of WordPerfect, the best and only word processing program, a program that makes stupid, counterintuitive Word look like the mangled piece of shit that it is. If only Corel would make a WordPerfect for mac, things truly would be perfect.  Anyway, I digress.

I have not had the PC out for about 7 months.  It’s been packed away in Oregon.  I used it yesterday to work on some documents in WordPerfect.  I forgot just how hideously obnoxious windows is.  I hate the constant updates.  I hate the stupid little messages telling me stuff I already got 4000 times ago without the stupid little message.  I hate that I have to give “Supervisor Permission” to do anything, even though I’m the only one using the damn thing, and even though I told it I was the only one using the damn thing.

Windows-based computers are called PCs, for “personal computers,” but the truth is they are anything but.  They are completely designed for work in an office with some IP nazi who wants total control of everything you do.  There should be some way to shut that shit off, but there isn’t.  I called HP when I got the thing new and nope, can’t do it.  Annoying.

Just now I came into my office after taking a shower.  The PC had turned itself on and was sitting there wondering if it could install updates.  Um, no.  Go away. I don’t want to have to sit and wait and give you permisssion and then hang out while you reboot and do all your foolish things. Leave me alone.  I’m going to go use my mac.

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Chet Baker

Ah, Chet. How horribly, dysfunctionally sad you are. Were the demons who drove you to infuse your body with toxins the same that inspired you to play? Are you the Sylvia Plath of horn playing? Your voice is like butter, so smooth and creamy, I want to lick your words. Your playing is sensual, lovely, golden. The sounds you create are so perfect, yet everything else about you is a disaster. Would your music be so beautiful if you were not so tortured? I suppose we will never know…

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Just Gotta Love It

It is unbelievable the content of questions on ABC’s debate between Obama and Clinton. It was an hour into the debate before the moderator asked any questions of substance on issues that affect anyone. Until that point, the content was pure nonsense, sound-bite, reality television, tabloid fodder ridiculousness. Of course the entire thing was lampooned on Jon Stewart, as it should have been. After seeing the Jon Stewart piece I found and watched the actual debate, but had to turn it off after ten minutes because it was too painful to view. Utterly remarkable.

As it is, those of us with brains will lament this state of affairs through emails and the sending of this video to others who share our views. Obama sent out a bulletin on myspace complaining. I’m sure liberal bloggers everywhere are writing all about it. Editorialists will provide their opinions. And you know what? Nothing will change. None of it. We’ve gotten so overloaded with information and crap and constant noise in the background and tabloid television and reality everything and commercials in the grocery stores and never silence anywhere that this too will pass. Tomorrow something equally shameful will occur, we’ll all cry a river, and in the noise and constancy it will continue. It’s depressing. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is an expert. Everyone is talking. No one is listening. The only thing that is changing is that it is all getting a bit worse every day. I know this is a bit of a pessimistic response to the reality of today’s world, at least in these United States, but it’s an honest response. I think anything else would be foolishness.

In my personal life, I continue to live and learn or live and not learn. It is what it is I guess. I don’t know. Lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should just chuck this brain and its efforts at enlightenment and go live on a beach somewhere with my daughter and my dogs and ignore the rest of the planet. It is very easy to want to bury my head in the sand. I know, I know. I’ve heard it before. You’re intelligent and educated. Use that to help change things. But I don’t think I can do anything outside the scope of my little world. Hell, I can’t change things inside the scope of my little world, why would I ever have the audacity to think I can do more than what I already do?

Yeah, I’m pessimistic tonight. I am what I am. I have this negative streak that runs through me. I can’t escape it. C’est la vie.

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More Mindless Rambling

Wow.  So I check out of reality for a few days and when I check back in the hottest story out there is a transgendered man having a baby and Obama’s bowling ability.  I think maybe it’s time to check back out again.  I normally avoid the news but there are some headlines that are unavoidable.  Plus I listen to NPR and get bits and pieces there, although I extended my news fast to All Things Considered several years ago and have not felt the worse for wear as a result.  Gotta protect that old sanity, ya know?

So I pulled into WordPress this morning to discover many changes. I’m sure there are lots of us out here commenting on it, what we like, what we don’t.  I think once I get used to it, I will like it.  I’m already liking the place to type better than previously.  And I’ve noticed that there is a spell-checker.  Yes, I think I’m going to like it.  I’m not so keen yet on the dashboard, but I think with time and familiarity, it will all be good.

Okay, so right now Piper is spinning around and having a coniption fit because I’m typing and not paying one hundred percent attention to him, and Molly is standing over him, hovering like a bee over a flower.  I’m not sure of the influence she is attempting to exert, but Piper is oblivious.  Oh, and now she just got a good sniff of his butt.  Yum.  How was that for you, Molly?  Dogs.  They are unabashedly willing to partake of their senses, even if it involves a good solid butt sniffing.

I realized today that I am in some regards paralyzed by the sheer number of things I need to do.  Many of them are small things.  I just need to chip away at those things.  Others are huge, like packing, for instance.  I just need to dive in and begin.  It’s funny, just last week I was discussing hoarding with my counselor.  You know, why people hoard, how it gets started, all that.  I know a few hoarders and their lives are completely stuck.  One of the reasons we discussed is how something happens and the person lets things go, then things get out of hand, then they are paralyzed by the mess and magnitude.  Then I discovered this morning that my paralysis is similar; I have not been doing anything because there is so much to do.

Earlier this week, I had dinner at the new house of some very good friends.  They were lamenting all the work they need to do to make the house a home.  I advised them to take it one space at a time.  Break it down into smaller pieces.  I’m taking my own advice.  I’m going to make a list, then I’m going to sort the list into manageable pieces, then attack each piece.  Some of the stuff I need to do could all be done in one day if I just did it.  Like filing a tax extension.  The taxes are done, I just don’t have the money to pay them yet.  So I’m going to file this extension.  I doubt it will take long, but I haven’t done it.  And this CLE reporting thing lawyers have to do.  It’s a pain.  I started it, then stopped for some reason (probably to go do something really important like bang drums or play the bass) and never picked it up again.  Now it’s sitting here on my desk.  Both these things, tax extensions and CLE reports, have a deadline.  It’s a good thing or I could see them sitting there even longer.

What is this, this procrastination?  I’ve not been much of a procastinator before.  Yet here I am.  And this week when Milla has been gone, it has been oh so easy to play.  South Park video?  Much more appealing than tax extensions.  I have a friend who texts me, Want to go watch a late movie? Yes.  Not Uh sure, or okay, but YES.  Emphatically, yes.  Oh, and go here and watch this video.  It’s called Mathmaticious and parodies Fergilicious.  It’s better than Fergie’s.  More entertaining.  His sexy dancing in front of the window kills me.  Very clever.  Pretty soon he’ll be passed all around and end up in a South Park episode getting killed by Chocolate Rain guy.  Good times.

See what I mean?  It’s so easy.  Just start typing your blog or doing something else.  After a bit, feel like a break.  Casually open a new tab.  Type in YouTube.  Then surf a little.  Find something that looks interesting, like Mathmaticious.  Watch it.  Laugh.  Then watch what it’s parodying, or click on something else on the side where all the videos are in a row.  Discover a lot of time has passed.  Shake your head in dismay at your ability to waste a lot of time.  There is facility in time-wasting like no other, especially when computers are involved.  Millions of others conspire to help you.  Yikes.

I have wasted enough time this morning, er, afternoon.  I must do something productive, if only for a moment.  So I’m going to get up and go brush my teeth.  That’s a step in the right direction.  My drum store neighbor is bringing over the drum set this afternoon.  I’m thrilled.  I CANNOT wait.  I keep looking out the window, waiting for him to pull up.  Come on little drummies, come into my house.  I want you.  Banging drums has to be better than watching YouTube, right?  I’m having one of those moments I’ve written about before where I can’t come up with a coherent ending to my post, so it continues to ramble on and on about nothing at all.  Come here little drummies?  Seriously?  Did I say that?  Okay, I’m really going now.  I have to go to the bathroom.  Oh there’s a story there that I can’t tell on the internet, but it’s so awful and funny, maybe I’ll put it on my secret blog, my anonymous blog.  It needs to be written about because it’s that hilarious.

I’ve decided since typing this that I REALLY like the new WordPress. It’s much more user friendly.  It saves my posts for me, eliminating the likelihood of blog loss because of my fucked up computer.  It’s great.  I love it.  I’m going to have to figure out tags and all that, but it will all be good.  I’ll get it done.

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Drip Drip Drop Little Rain is Falling

Our local NPR station is doing one of its annual membership drives.  They bug the hell out of me.  First of all, they keep going on and on about my having not called, but how do they know?  Maybe I did.  Yeah, I know.  It’s meant for people who haven’t called, but still.  Anyway, today this listener called in and said how her local NPR station makes her feel “connected to the community” and I got to thinking, connected to the community how exactly?  Because you hear what they are telling you, that provides connection?  Then I started wondering what connection is anyway.  Everyone talks about being “connected,” but what the hell is that?  I always considered connection actually requiring something be in one piece.  But some seem to believe connection exists just by knowing some of what is going on.  I don’t know that it is.  You hear about some group doing something or you hear about how some guy shot his wife or you hear about the local elections so yeah, you’re in the know, kind of like high school.  But how are you connected to that just by knowing it occurred?  And some of these things, like hearing about how someone killed someone else, who wants to be connected to that anyway?  Since I happen to think connection connotes, well, one piece, is it one piece for information to be broadcast and for me to hear it without really giving anything back? I suppose if the person on the radio told me about some volunteer opportunity and I went and did it, then maybe by virtue of my having become one piece at some point there was a connection.  But this notion of connection because the information is out there and I hear it just doesn’t quite sit with me.

It’s funny, people seem to feel we are more connected because we can go to the internet and get information from someone across the world, or we can send an email at the drop of a hat or pick up a phone and dial, and maybe in the context of the phone we can have a connection because another person can be on the other end.  But so much of it is an illusion of connectivity.  There really isn’t one piece.  There is one person at one end of an electronic device doing something or hearing or seeing something on the electronic device.  At another time, and possibly simultaneously, there is another person or several people in various places connected to electronic devices and interacting with them.  But the actual people are not necessarily actually connected, especially when it comes to the internet.

I thought about this a lot when I internet dated, something I have given up for good.  It creates this illusion of intimacy.  You go through essentially a catalogue looking for the right visual stimuli that appeals to you on whatever level, be it through photos or what is posted about the person, or what they have to say, whatever.  Then, while sitting alone at a keyboard, you send some signal letting them know you are interested.  At some point in the future, they get your signal, look at your marketing tools, then ignore the signal or respond via another electronic signal.  If that happens to be email, you can spend hours, days, weeks even, sitting and typing at the computer without ever having encountered the other human being.  You may discuss things in depth.  You may keep it light.  Whatever.  The point is, it is an illusion because you have never actually connected to that human being, at least in terms of connection being in one piece.  No wonder it is so easy for dishonesty to proliferate.  I’m not arguing that people can’t lie when they hook up in bars, but at least there you have the visual clues to go along with what is being communicated verbally to ascertain how much of what is going on is the truth.  I would suspect the same is true receiving information from various forms of media and assuming it is true and assuming we are connected.  It’s an illusion and it’s easier to be deceived.

If the rain is falling all at once, are the drops connected before they land?  If I am driving in my car with others on the road, are we connected by virtue of heading in the same direction?  I suppose the answers could be yes and no, spanning science and the metaphysical.  I don’t know.  I think I’ll go ponder these connundrums while I take a shower.

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America Junior High

I saw this blog on the front page of wordpress this morning that says a vote for Huckabee is a vote for Hillary. I love how the writers of the post assume Hillary is going to be the Democratic candidate.  Why isn’t it a vote for Obama?  Or have the pundits all decided who the candidates are?

I listened to Talk of the Nation last week on polling.  One thing I found kind of interesting and also disturbing was all the talk about “failures” in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  So because they couldn’t figure out who would win ahead of time, they failed?  Why all this need to predict the future?  What are you going to know if you know who wins?  It drives me bananas.  There are some subjects where polling might be useful, but trying to predict elections to me seems to have no valid purpose.  If you are able to start figuring out who will win, then put that information out there, then people vote based on the lemming effect, isn’t that somewhat irresponsible?  Isn’t it encouraging people to vote based on something other than the issues?  And the people who vote based on who is already winning, what is that?  Do you feel like you are more important because you’re with the crowd?  I find it ironic that a country that pays so much lip service to the individual is actually full of so many sheep, whether it’s wanting the lastest consumer gadget because everyone else has it, wearing the latest fashion because everyone else wears it, or voting for the most popular candidate because they are well, the most popular.  It’s like giant junior high, and the pundits are the gossipers.  It’s nuts.

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Listen to the Music

I read this blog on Matt Nathanson’s myspace page.  He was lamenting that we don’t have music like the 60’s.  He thinks music today lacks the depth of the music in the 60’s and that it doesn’t impact us today the way music did for people then.  He received several comments back, mostly it seemed from aging baby boomers, agreeing with him.

Sorry, Matt, but I couldn’t disagree more.  I have long felt the baby boomers were always more flashy and external in their dealings with the world.  Notice us!  We’re here!  Our way is the best!  Since other generations have come along, the baby boomers have lamented their lack of everything, character, depth, taste, you name it.

But I don’t think we lack any of that, we just go about things in a different way, and our way tends to be more introspective.  I’m Generation X.  We are not like the boomers.  Music is just as important to us, it is just more internal.  I think it’s appropriate that Kurt Cobain is held up as a sort of icon of our generation.  His internal struggles are the struggles of our generation. His pain is our pain.

I have recently become acquainted, through an online forum, with a whole lot of people born within the two years before and two years after me.  All of us, no matter what part of the country we’re in, no matter what we’re doing, are all struggling, mostly internally, with the demons the baby boomers loved to scream about.  We just don’t put it out there for everyone in the same way the boomers did.  We mull things over.  We ponder.  We observe.  Our movies are quieter.  Our books can be quite dark (and darkly funny).  Music speaks to us as individuals.

Matt comes from the generation after mine.  I have long observed them as being kind of like the baby boomers, but happier.  They are creative and amazing, and seem to be enjoying themselves.  Us X’ers are struggling with a generational creative angst, but we internalize it more.  I look at the generation after mine and want what they have, their spirit, their verve, their happiness.

Music means more to me than most things.  I listen to certain songs and I am transported to that creative energy wave where I feel connected to all things.  I hear certain lyrics and know that the poet who wrote it (that’s the extent of my poetic ability–Ha!) was speaking my words, only more eloquently and with a beautiful melody.  I have generated some of my best writing after hearing a song that took me to that energetic creative place.

So Matt, don’t underestimate the music of today.  It’s amazing.  I love it that we have avenues to access music outside the mainstream music industry.  Right now I live in Portland and the music vibe here is unbelievable.  We’re tuned in…just because we aren’t screaming it from the housetops like the baby boomers did doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us just as deeply.

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Would You Like Fries With Your News?

I do not read or watch the news.  I know there are those out there who would consider this irresponsible, and perhaps for them this is true.  But I know most of it is designed to keep my heart rate elevated and probably also to make me shop, two things I have no desire to experience on a regular basis, so for over a decade I have engaged in a “news fast.”

Ironically enough, this has not kept me from being aware of what is going on in the world around me, although I did not know who Laci Peterson was, the pregnant lady who was murdered, until her husband was on trial (and in fact I had to google Lacy and pregnant to get her name for this, such is my lack of knowledge on the subject).  I like to peruse the Living section in the paper and get the little entertainment blurbs.  I also like the Metro section and when I’m at Starbucks or see it somewhere, I’ll read a lot of it.  This is the section on Portland and surrounding areas, so often the information is useful.  I will occasionally glance at the opinions section, and I like to check out the obituaries to see if anyone young died.  Weird, I know.  All of this is only when I’m at Starbucks or another coffee place that has papers and I’m sitting alone and forgot to bring a book or desire something a little more fluffy than whatever I happen to be reading at the moment.

I never watch television news.  Ever.  I absolutely hate it.  When I last watched news, the stories were less like music videos than they are now.  When I catch a glimpse of the news at someone else’s house or in a store where its blaring, it blows my mind how far it seems from anything desiring to impart information.  It’s constant noise and visual effects and seriously, it looks like music videos.  I hate it.

I am on a few political listserves, MoveOn and People United for Change.  I get emails from them and I read through them.  I unsubscribed from most of them because when I was getting too much, I never read any of it.  At least by limiting the number I can absorb some of the information, but I limit what I take in because there is just so much to get angry about, and I do not want to spend my life pissed off.  I know someone once said that if you aren’t mad, you aren’t paying attention, but I can’t spend every minute of every day being angry.  I can make choices that hopefully contribute to change, but being angry all the time isn’t going to help anything and will likely make me sick, so my choice is to limit the sheer volume of information, especially about the current administration.  Yes, they are power hungry.  Yes, they are liars.  Yes, they’ve created multiple disasters that will take years to sort out.  Okay.  I get it, but I’m not spending my time on this planet pissed off every minute of every day.

There is a point to this.  I have a yahoo email account.  I use it for things like ebay or Craigslist ads, stuff I don’t want in my personal email.  When you login to yahoo, the front page is one liner news.  I have been following the Heath Ledger stuff.  I liked him as an actor.  A lot.  I thought he was brilliant in Brokeback Mountain, but he was a standout even in his early stuff like 10 Things I Hate About You.  And I loved A Knight’s Tale.  Plus lately it seems like I keep hearing about people dying from prescription drugs.  A friend of mine died last spring from the drugs she was taking for eczema.  In December, two friends of mine each had a friend who died in their sleep from taking prescription drugs, and I read it was a possibility Brad Renfro died from prescription drug interactions, possibly with illegal drugs or alcohol.  (See my post from 1-22-2008.  It’s a bit tongue in cheek, but I noticed all these people dying from prescription drugs.) So I have been following the Heath Ledger story out of interest from that angle as well.  I’ll be curious what the autopsy report shows.

Anyway, as I logged in to my yahoo account each day, I saw the stories on Heath and I actually clicked on them and read them.  Mostly the yahoo stories seemed to add a new paragraph to the top of the same story while the bottom paragraphs stayed the same.  Then the other morning, I went to Starbucks and decided to hang out for a while.  I went to the used paper bin and started pulling out the sections I like to read.  The front page had a story on Heath, so I grabbed it.  Back at my table, I started reading the story and maybe there are those out there who will not be surprised by this, but the story was one hundred percent, word-for-word identical to the stories on yahoo.

Okay.  I’m not naive.  I know that media is consolidated.  But really, do we get one story every time we read the news?  Does some person out there get to write it, then that is the story that is copied here, there, and everywhere?  For the next several days, whenever I went into a Starbucks, I pulled out the paper and there was the same Heath info straight off yahoo news.  It was the same whether the paper was the Oregonian or the NY Times.  How boring is that?

I KNOW how publicist’s work. I KNOW that if someone wants something to be the official story, get all the news orgs to pick it up and that will be what’s reported.  I KNOW the vagaries of the media conglomorate system.  But does that still mean we have to have one story written by one writer that’s put out into the system of what we get to read?  That is so boring!  And these stories don’t have a byline. They are just bland.

I find this disappointing.  Are we all so used to this now that I shouldn’t be surprised?  No wonder people often don’t believe what is in the news.  You get one story over and over, it’s easy to believe we’re being fed what someone wants us to believe.  Reporters are supposed to report what they observe, the truth as they see it.  And there are those who believe there is one truth, one thing that factually occurred.  But we all know that we each see things differently according to our own conditioning.  If we get five accounts of the same event, we can put those together and perhaps get a more flavorful account of something we were not there to experience.  When we get one sanitized, flavorless, boring version of what supposedly is, it’s hard not to wonder if there is more to the story.  I think we’re all less likely to trust what we’re given when it’s force fed, canned blandness.  Or perhaps we’re less likely to question.  Don’t question it and don’t believe it.  It’s like the television news with its music video visual bombardment, all hype and no substance.  There’s nothing there.  We’re not being told anything.  Here we have the internet and this theoretical access to the entire world, but we’re all being fed the same thing.  We have this opportunity for imagination and creativity to flourish, and instead the entire world gets the same thing. Assembly-line news.  News like Starbucks.  And Target.  And Walmart.  And Sears.  And on and on and on.  Even politicians have turned into mass market products to appeal to everyone and no one.  Yuck.  What a sad state of affairs we’ve gotten ourselves into.

We need a change.  I have been sitting here mulling over the sheer enormity of the bland mass marketing of every single thing.  I guess people will have to want it to change in order for it to happen.  The number of various levels on which change would have to happen to actually succeed is staggering.  As such, it’s easy to see why anyone would look at that magnitude, feel powerless, and so do nothing.  But that doesn’t work.  Each person has to change what they can if they want things to be different.  If each one of us does that, anything is possible.

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Could it Be a Blonde-Actor Murder Conspiracy?

Has anyone noticed how much Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger look alike?  They could have been brothers.  Now they are both dead.  Maybe there is a conspiracy afoot to murder blonde attractive men.  They had the same eyes.  Weird.  I bet no one puts two and two together.  I wonder if a bunch of non-famous blonde men have died in their sleep from unknown causes.  That would be even more suspicious.  Very strange indeed.

In any case, I hope Heath did not commit suicide.  What a sad choice for him if he did.  I have heard of two women near me who died under similar circumstances in the last two months.  One was 39, the other was 26.  Both were taking prescription meds.  Both were found dead in their beds.  Neither of them was depressed and neither death was ruled a suicide.  I have two friends who were friends with each of them.  They died within a week of one another in Portland.  Last spring, another friend of mine died from taking prescription meds for exzema.

Considering the number of people in my life who have died from prescription drugs versus the total number I know, it seems the total numbers of deaths are quite high.  I’ve known one person who died in a car accident.  I’ll bet most would cite car accidents as more likely than deaths from prescription drugs, but based on the number of people I know who have died and under what circumstances, prescription drugs are much more worrisome.

Hmmmm…this is all stream of consciousness, but it is something interesting to think about.  Perhaps there is some validity to my unwillingness to take any drugs, including prescription ones.

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Why do men marry?

What makes a man marry?  I saw this headline today on Yahoo.  I’m sure they have they trot out the same boring answers, yada yada yada.  Well, I’m here to tell them that the answer is easy.  It’s a little date-rape drug women use on men called Beer.  I was made aware of this oft-abused substance via a public service email a few days ago (Thank you, Carin, for bringing this to my attention!).  It really brought to light for me the extensive insidiousness of this substance and its entrenched toehold in American society.  People complain about the tobacco companies, but what we really should worry about is the proliferation of beer.  How many unwanted hookups have occurred because of this toxic substance?  How many, dare I say it, marriages?  It is truly frightening indeed.

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“Troubled” Actor Dies

Brad Renfro died.  Why is it this makes me so sad?  Another young actor taken by drugs.  It happens.  I loved that kid’s energy.  I noticed it early.  He just had a presence.  He was in the movie, Sleepers.  Now, there was a movie with tough material.  Unbelievable material.  He was amazing in that awful story.  Everything horrible that happened to the character in that movie showed on that kid’s face.  Later when I heard of him having drug problems, he reminded me of River Phoenix and I hoped it wouldn’t end up being what he was known for.  He obviously chose a path to learn something, but I don’t think he got it.  Now he will have to come back and do it again.

There is so much I don’t understand.  I’m not sitting here lamenting the travesty at the waste of youth; I get it that young people die as well as old people.  I’m not lamenting the shame of it, although I recognize that it is a shame and that is something to lament.  What I don’t understand is what his energy was like right before he died.  What was out there?  If he had made a different choice than the one that led to his death, would he realize he had dodged a bullet?

The news headline says “Troubled Actor Brad Renfro Dies at 25.”  That’s what they call him, “troubled actor.”  It sucks.  We won’t see talented kid whose presence affected people.  At least I noticed him.  He may not have had the blockbuster of Haley Osmont or Dakota Fanning, but he could act and he continued working.  He was this little kid and he had access to his emotions, could put them out there for us on the screen.  People magazine called him one to watch under 30 when he was 13 years old.  Maybe that is part of why he was troubled, those available emotions.  Maybe not.  Maybe he just started taking drugs for fun and then could not stop.  But I looked at his bio on IMDB and saw that he was raised by his grandma.  Sounds like maybe things weren’t so kosher at home.  I doubt this all happened in a vacuum.

Addendum:  A few days after his death, I did some searching and discovered on Wikipedia that he indeed had trouble at home before he was ever cast in a movie.  He’d had run-ins with the law by age ten, and the director who cast him in his first movie, The Client, saw that maturity and pain in his eyes that I saw on the screen as well.  Apparently, the director said he wanted “a tough and savvy survivor, a kid with an authentic Southern accent, a kid from a trailer park, like the character in the movie.”  He then found Renfro in a police station.

Over the next couple of weeks, if they deem him a big enough star to warrant any attention, the rag mags will trot out all the stories, rehash his “troubled” history, and come to the same sad conclusion that Hollywood is terrible for kids.  But I think they miss the point.  Troubled dysfunctional families are terrible for kids.  Not having the time to develop the tools to deal with growing up in troubled dysfunctional families is terrible for anyone, whether in Hollywood or not.   Growing up in families that don’t give you those tools forces us to sink or swim.  And sometimes, even when you think you’re swimming, you may only be treading water.

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John Mayer and Douchebags

I read John Mayer’s blog post for December 26. It made me laugh. Douchebag. Apparently, google searches for his name and the word douchebag alone bring up quite a few hits. Top on the list was another musician. Several other muscians and actors followed. He discusses the pleasure of the sound of the word, likens the air flowing through the lips to sliding across a wooden floor in woolen socks. I suppose it does have a sort of enjoyable wwwwooooooshhhh across the lips. Only it’s douchebag!  Eewww! Douchebags are gross. Think about it. They are bags of water with a tube attached to clean out the vagina. I suppose the bags themselves never get into the vaginal canal or touch whatever is rinsed out, but still. Ick.

Mr. Mayer…If it is indeed Mr. Mayer. My ex suggested to me that Mr. Mayer does not write this stuff himself. However, having heard interviews with him, the tone and style of his blogs are quite consistent with his natural speaking voice so I tend to believe Mr. Mayer wrote the post. Mr. Mayer…Mr. Mayer?  No, Johnny.  Johnny then goes on to analyze what precisely makes a douchebag. He points out that it is quite possible that those using the word douchebag probably do not like the objects of their affection because they are different than the users of the word, and that they are often expanding artistic direction in ways that do not appeal to the users of douchebag. Johnny concludes that true douchebags are those who treat others with disrespect. It is implied that the douchebag word users are the real douchebags.

Johnny doesn’t say this, but it is quite likely the douchebag word users are jealous of the objects of their affection. The word users are sitting home flinging word shit on their computer at actors and musicians who appear to live the diamond life, being famous, getting the girls, spending the big money. And there is something about the level of vocabulary of the type who regularly employs the word douchebag and in the context described by Johnny, as well as the types of people they choose to use it about. They criticize what they are paying attention to, the actors and the musicians. I started to type that they probably read People and Us mags, but actually, they probably don’t read paper at all. They get their news from Yahoo front page and Myspace entertainment. Then they call people they don’t like douchebags. They ignore politicians and people creating real harm. It is not a word used to discuss those I would perhaps consider douchebags, people like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and their ilk. I actually prefer fascist terrorist-producing sociopath dictator wannabees myself, but douchebag does seem to have a ring to it that may be quite appropriate under the circumstances.

Anyway, interesting blog choice, Johnny Boy.

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Addendum to the Longest Post

I was so tired the other night because it was late when I was writing, so I finally just had to stop.  After I stopped writing, I did some quick google searching for the sites that I did not know.  What I found was surprising.  Most of the sites were socialization and video sharing sites.  Badoo, a top search for the world, looks to be like myspace and facebook.   Same with hi5 and second life.  Daily motion is a video sharing site and appears similar to Youtube.  As my kind commentator pointed out, tmz is a place to follow celebrity gossip.

I thought about this quite a bit yesterday.  MSNBC says that its top clicked stories of the week are all murder and killing stories.  I checked a few other “news” sites and found similar patterns.  Yet a search for what people are looking for, at least in 2007, reveals that what we actually seek is to connect, through socialization sites and video.  We’re interested in the latest celebrity scandal (i.e., tmz and Anna Nicole Smith), but for the most part, we want to connect with one another.  In a sense, it could be argued that we are not so interested in murder and death as we are in life, our lives and the lives around us.  Even the checks on celebrity stories could be viewed as a way to connect; we wish to see how those who appear to have everything are really human in the ways that they mess up.  (And of course it is so much fun to taunt Paris Hilton when she cries about how she’s “changed” after a few nights in jail.  Poor baby.  Yes, you are human.  Riiiight.)

I think perhaps the “news” organizations ought to consider getting a clue on this point.  They design sites where you click for the “latest story.”  Yet those stories are chosen by the organization and a link is created to click.  They are the ones that are creating the “top-clicked stories” because they are the ones choosing which stories to present.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, created by the “news” organization.  Would their results be the same if their subject matter were different?  I doubt it.  In fact, if murder and killing stories weren’t on there at all, they could not be clicked at all.  Suppose the stories presented were about world affairs or national interest pieces.  Yes, the stories may then be about killing because the stories might be about wars, but they probably would not be the sort of sensationalized killing stories available via the “top clicked sites.”

What with the proliferation of shows like CSI, I suppose the “news” organizations think all we are interested in is murder and killing.  What they fail to understand is that it isn’t the murder that interests us on shows like that, it is the investigation and the finding of the clues.  These are two different things.  In some ways the investigation is a form of joining together between the people seeking to find the clues into the murder.  Again, connection.  Like the searches on google for social sites and video sharing, what we seem to seek is relationship and association, not murder and killing.  This shouldn’t be surprising, but considering “news” organizations have sought to shove murder and killing down our throats as long as there have been “news” stories, I don’t expect it to end anytime soon.

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The Longest Blog

Happy New Year.  And what are the top ten stories being clicked on at MSNBC?  Amanda Knox’s deadly exchange.  Who’s Who Student murdered in Italy.  Photos:  Terror at home for Connecticut family.  Who killed Stacy Peterson?  To catch a predator.  The reals story behind “Alpha Dog.”  Phil Spector evidence photos.  Predator goes to Kentucky.  Palladium murder photo gallery.  Photos:  Death in the Hollywood Hills.

Seriously?  Is this seriously what Americans consider the most popular pages on MSNBC?  Does MSNBC do something to market these murderous stories and photos so everyone is so interested in them?  Shouldn’t we all be disturbed that the top stories grabbing American attention are all about killing and mayhem?  Jesus.  Something is really messed up about that.  There must be something at the site that encourages people to choose these stories.  I cannot yet fathom that these are the top story views by choice.  I would think a more accurate measure of what people are searching for would be the top ten google searches.  Then people would, of their own accord, be entering the information into the search engine and not having it flashing in their faces begging them to click.  Google is good that way, with its lack of ads and fanfare.

Well.  So I did a google search for the top ten google searches and came up with an interesting page analyzing the year 2007 and the searches done throughout the year and the top searches, both by U.S. and by the world.  They calculate the top searches as rising and falling.  For the world, the top risers are iphone, badoo, facebook, dailymotion, webkinz, youtube, ebuddy, second life, hi5, and club penguin.  The fastest US risers are iphone, webkinz, tmz, transformers, youtube, club penguin, myspace, heroes, facebook, and Anna Nicole Smith.

Well.  There are many searches on these lists for things I have never even heard of, so I must not be in line with the rest of the world population.  I’m not “with it” if you will.  However, I can count myself among the top US searchers on youtube and myspace.  Myspace I use so I don’t have to type it in the URL.  Pure laziness on my part because from google’s response I can click right into wherever I want.  And Youtube needs no explanation.  I’m shocked Club Penguin is on here.  Milla loves it.  I have to convince her not to play it after she’s been to visit non-Waldorf friends.  I would not have known it was so popular.  I do not know what badoo, dailymotion, webkinz, ebuddy, second life, hi5, or tmz are.  I am going to have to search those, thereby increasing their search popularity, just so I can find out what they are.

There are fallers from the list as well.  World Cup tops this list, followed by mozart, fifa, rebelde, kazaa, xanga, webdetente, sudoku, shakira, and mp3.  I do not know what fifa, rebelde, kazaa, and shakira are, although I think shakira might be a singer.  My goodness, I’m frighteningly out of touch, aren’t I?  I’m surprised mozart is on this list, not because it’s going down, but because he is on the list at all.

For anyone who cares, I found this information at:  http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/

Well it is officially 2008 on the west coast so I can now head to bed.  This blog has the notoriety of having been started in one year and completed in another.  Makes it sound as if I spent a good deal of time on it, rather than about 21 minutes.

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The Great Debaters

I saw The Great Debaters last night.  I spent a good deal of the film feeling even more fired up that we need to continue to fight racism in this country, only lately the racism is more obviously against middle easterners and Mexicans.  It is as if racism against these groups is acceptable, as racism against blacks was not so long ago.

I feel so strongly that as a white person, the thing I can do to fight racism is to call it when I see it.  Racism is racism is racism.  I will not accept racist emails in my inbox clothed in the mask of righteous indignation about how our tax dollars or spent or sent as some deceitful public service message claiming to be about “protecting” me from terrorism when it is really bigotry, and not even much disguised bigotry.

I get SO angry that this continues.  As I watched The Great Debaters last night, I got even more fired up about the email I had received on Christmas day.  I came home and felt that fire and wanted to DO something and wondered, what can I do?  I can write.  I lay in bed unable to sleep with the desire to write something, anything more than just an angry response to a bunch of bigots.  As I did this, I conceived a novel.  I have all of the characters.  I have the location.  I have the basic premise of the story.  And I am going to write it and hope that ONE person reads it and THINKS and gets as fired up against racism as I did when I received that racist bullshit bird poop email and as I watched The Great Debaters.

It is time for those who hate racism in this country to stand up against the racism that is allowable now, racism against middle easterners and Mexicans.  It is time to say that racism against these people is NOT okay.  Ever.

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I Know What I Want

So I’m at work and I brought my puppy and he’s rooting around on the floor, spinning in circles, being completely silly.  He loves rubbing his tummy on the carpet like that.  He grunts and makes goofy noises.  I love him so much.

So I’m reading this book, well, listening to this book being read to me in my car.  I’m really enjoying it.  It’s John Irving and he’s always great.  Anyway, as is often the case with me and books I enjoy, I can see the movie as I would direct it.  How I would tell the story, who I would cast in the various parts, what part of the book I would keep because it’s rare to be able to include an entire book in a movie.  Often there are smaller side stories in books that work in books but don’t in movies because of the nature of reading versus viewing.  For instance I thought the first Harry Potter tried to include too much.  One book made into a movie where I think the movie did better than the book was Sideways.  When I read Sideways, it was as if the movie makers saw the book exactly as the author and as the reader, yet they left out some sensationalized side stories that almost seemed like they were written as over the top movie scenes.  The movie was better having left them out.  I digress.

Anyway, I’m reading this book and I can REALLY see the movie.  It’s a great book and I can feel the entire atmosphere of the thing.  Then at some point, I hear the name of a chapter and it is the name of a movie and I realize that this book has been made into a movie and I would not have conceptualized it as the movie maker did at all.  I hate the movie version.  The actors they chose for the leads.  Ick.  Wrong.  And as is often the case with movies turned into books, they took the most sensationalized parts and chopped them together with none of the connecting tissue from the book and just made this big mess.  I remember when I saw the movie that I did not like it and feeling like something was missing.  Now I know why.

I know movies are different than books, that they are their own creation and I don’t think they should be compared in many cases because they are what they are.  But I also don’t think you should try to pretend a movie is the book if it loses so much of what was originally there.  Like The Shipping News.  Puke.  God, I couldn’t even watch it.  They fucking butchered the book.  Why didn’t they just call it something else and leave the book alone?  Get an idea from a book, then go make your damn movie, but don’t pretend it’s the book when it’s not even in the ballpark.  I have read The Shipping News so many times.  It is easily my favorite book, and that is saying a lot because you can’t pin me down on a favorite ANYTHING.  Seriously.  This book, I know it inside out and backwards.  I know its characters.  I can SEE its characters.  When I heard the book was being made into a movie, I had to read the book again.  I could SEE that movie, see how I would shoot it, the angles, the light, all of it.  And NONE of the book made it into that movie except a few pitiful, over the top plot lines and the names of the characters and that was IT.  They didn’t even make the characters look like the characters in the book and the looks of the characters in the book are almost characters themselves.  HOW could they?  Ack.  Gags me.

So I’m reading this John Irving book now and hearing it and having to force out the characters and story as envisioned by the screenwriter and director (one and the same in this case) as I try to enjoy this book.  The story is actually quite fascinating.  I love it.  And now I have Jeff Bridges’s face looming in to take over one of the main characters when he’s not even CLOSE!  He doesn’t even inhabit the character of the character, let alone the looks.  Looks in a movie can be different from the looks of the character in a book if the actor can BECOME the character, but he didn’t.  Remember Sandra Oh and Virgina Madsen in Sideways?  In the book, Maya looked like Sandra Oh and Stephanie looked like Virginia Madsen, but they are switched in the movie and it doesn’t matter because the actors so inhabited the characters.  It just doesn’t detract in any way.  But in this book I’m reading now, Jeff Bridges is not the character he plays.  Maybe he never read the book.  Maybe he just read the screenplay that butchered the book.  Because as I conceptualize the character in the book, not only does he not characterize the character, he does not look like the character looks.  And Kim Bassinger…I won’t even go there.

Why would John Irving let this happen?  Why would Annie Proulx?  Maybe they don’t get a choice.  But John Irving and Annie Proulx are HUGE authors. They have to be able to maintain some control.  Why couldn’t the movie makers just say that the movie was “inspired” by the book and not pretend the movie is the book come to life when it’s not?

Well that’s enough of my film/literary snob rant for the day. What do I know?  I just know I can’t stand that movie and it is interrupting my enjoyment of this book.