I’m listening to the vaunted press conference of George Bush that’s going on right now, and I’m guessing this will be remembered as one of the weirdest, most arrogant and bile-filled crankfests yet to spew out of the Whiner-in-Chief in the history of his presidency. Snark, snark, appreciative/nervous laughs from the gaggle, snark. Of course there’s the mandatory fake-humility of a call to bipartisanship, couched within a “fuck-you, Dems” remark about hanging on to his principles (as if he had any). His hubris and defensive bullying really knows no bounds.

But the real news is that this Yalie brat has finally given one of the architects of our poisonous foreign policy the heave ho, “after a series of thoughtful conversations”:  Read more 

More than 2000 Americans died after Bush flubbed his little joke, and the American people voted him back into office. But somehow Kerry’s remarks are on a par with child molestation or apostasy. This, in itself, seems a meta-joke so monstrous that it almost makes you believe there’s a God. Funny folks, you fellow Americans of mine.

UPDATE: For some reason the video above won’t open on this website, so click here. Thanks to Music for America for the video.

“Education — if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well,” said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

To quote our whimsical Secretary of Defense, “Oh, Henny-Penny, the sky is falling!” Somebody told the truth. It’s too bad Kerry left out the punch line: “Just ask President Bush.”

So now it’s dogpile-on-Kerry time again:

Some Democrats defended the senator, but others privately cringed. An unnamed Democratic congressman told ABC News: “I guess Kerry wasn’t content blowing 2004, now he wants to blow 2006, too.”

Oh, bravo, sir! Displacement is so much more constructive than confronting the source of the problem.

So, keeping alive a completely meaningless cockfight, CNN wants to know “who should apologize” over the artificial horror engendered by John Kerry’s clumsy comment on why kids should do well in school:

President Bush has called Kerry’s comments “insulting” and “shameful” and said the Democrat from Massachusetts owes an apology to the U.S. military. Kerry said the president owes the troops an apology for misleading the country into the war in Iraq. What do you think? Does Kerry owe the nation’s military an apology, or does Bush?

Rather beside the point now, since Kerry already apologized. We truly are a nation of fainting goats.

Here’s what I told them:  Read more 

Best Halloween viewing to commemorate the deaths of 103 Americans in Iraq during October 2006?

Hands down it’s got to be Joe Dante’s zombie movie Homecoming, a primal scream at what may go down in history as America’s most hideously wanton war:

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what a fucking mess we’re in,” (Dante) continues. “It’s been happening steadily for the past four years, and nobody said peep. The New York Times and all these people that abetted the lies and crap that went into making and selling this war-—now that they see the guy is a little weak, they’re kicking him with their toe to make sure he doesn’t bite back. It’s cowardly. This pitiful zombie movie, this fucking B movie, is the only thing anybody’s done about this issue that’s killed 2,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis? It’s fucking sick.”

After all the whining on the Right about Hollywood’s liberal bias, you’d think we’d have seen movies like this coming out a dime a dozen, but we haven’t. Why? Because, as is the case with many Republicans, Hollywood is motivated by the profit margin, and making anti-war statements, especially in today’s political climate, is self-immolation. Dante himself recognized it:

“You can’t do theatrical political movies; people don’t go to them. You can’t do them on television, because you’ve got sponsors,” he says. “Michael Moore’s last picture made a lot of money, but he was vilified for it so much he’s practically in hiding.”

Dante hopes Homecoming functions as a wake-up call—not so much for politicians but for filmmakers. “If this spurs other people into making more and better versions, it will have done its job. I want to see more discussion,” he says. “Nobody is doing anything about what’s going on now—compared to the ’70s, when they were making movies about the issues of the day. This elephant in the room, this Iraq war story, is not being dramatized.”

The movie itself veers wildly between satire and tears; the scene in the diner between an older couple and a dead soldier they call out of the rain is unexpectedly touching. I can’t think of any movie more fitting for the day, and the election season, than one about the dire necessity of voting these bastards out of office, even if one has to come back from the dead to do it.

Remember the howls of derision that greeted The Lancet’s now 2-year old report of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq? Well, the study has been updated, so prepare for the screech owls of denial to tune up for a mass hoot:

A careful Johns Hopkins study has estimated that between 420,000 and 790,000 Iraqis have died as a result of war and political violence since the beginning of the US invasion in March, 2003.

Interesting conclusions are that we are wrong to focus so much on suicide car bombings. The real action is just shooting enemies down with bullets. Only 30 percent of the deaths have been caused by the US military, and that percentage has declined this year because of the sectarian war.

Why, look up in that tree! There’s one now:

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council said “many experts” found that a 2004 study by the same group “wildly inflated the findings.” That study said the war had caused 100,000 Iraqi deaths.

“This study appears to be equally flawed,” he said. The new study said the deaths have resulted from coalition military activity, crime and religious violence.

Seems like only yesterday we heard Bush saying:

“We’ve made good progress. Iraq is more secure.”

Sorry. That was all the way back in August. Who could have anticipated the Iraqis would die like flies?”

So the House passed the latest reversal of the Magna Carta without a sweat, aiming their usual transparently false accusations of “coddling” at those who saw the Act for what it is—an attack on American ideals, the Constitution, and a big fuck-you to the rest of the world just guaranteed to do bin Laden’s propaganda work for him.

Now the Senate takes up the momentous work of finishing the job. Just now I heard Trent Lott on NPR’s Morning Edition (not yet up on the website) deriding concerns about interrogation techniques. In a racist monologue I’d thought he’d learned better to indulge by now, he went on about the use of dogs: why would anyone be afraid of dogs? How ridiculous! And now a quote:

“Haven’t they (the prisoners) ever delivered laundry? Weren’t they ever barked at by a dog?”

Why, no, Senator, I believe you must have them confused with the Chinese.

God help us all.

That Ritter and McGovern come to Philly. If you live in the Philadelphia area or within a few hours drive, be there! I’mplanning on asking if they have any ideas on Israel and Lebanon, too.

Many people have made up their minds on Iraq, but many more still have nagging questions about how we became embroiled in this contest of atrocities that has become our occupation of Iraq. The conflicting positions taken by various factions inside and outside the US have generated confusion and malaise.

Here is a chance to get those questions answered by two people that have been very close to the situation for years.

Scott Ritter was the UN’s top weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before working for the UN he served as an officer in the US Marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf War. He is the author of “Iraq Confidential” (www.iraqconfidential.com ), published in October, 2005 by Nation Books. - “The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right.” - Seymour Hersh

RAY McGOVERN works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in Washington, DC. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Join Scott, Ray and area DFA’ers at:

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley
424 Centre Street
Bethlehem, Pa. 18018
Friday, July 21 at 7:00 pm


The Unitarian Society of Germantown
6511 Lincoln Drive (West Mt. Airy)
Philadelphia, PA 19119
Saturday, July 22 at 1:00 pm


BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
2040 Street Road
Warrington, PA (just east of Rt 611)
Saturday, July 22 at 7:00 pm

$10 Free Will donation requested. No one will be refused.

RSVP or request more info by clicking here.

(Your RSVP helps us plan a convenient, successful event.)

Sponsored by:

Montgomery County Democracy for America

Upper Bucks for Democracy

Lehigh/Northampton Progressive Alliance  Read more 

As I said, I’m running this a couple times before Saturday for maximum exposure. My husband, our friends, and many fine grassroots organizing folks have worked hard to make this happen, and it promises to be wonderful. If you live in the Philly area or within a few hours drive, get there!

Many people have made up their minds on Iraq, but many more still have nagging questions about how we became embroiled in this contest of atrocities that has become our occupation of Iraq. The conflicting positions taken by various factions inside and outside the US have generated confusion and malaise.

Here is a chance to get those questions answered by two people that have been very close to the situation for years.

Scott Ritter was the UN’s top weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before working for the UN he served as an officer in the US Marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf War. He is the author of “Iraq Confidential” (www.iraqconfidential.com ), published in October, 2005 by Nation Books. - “The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right.” - Seymour Hersh

RAY McGOVERN works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in Washington, DC. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Join Scott, Ray and area DFA’ers at:

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley
424 Centre Street
Bethlehem, Pa. 18018
Friday, July 21 at 7:00 pm


The Unitarian Society of Germantown
6511 Lincoln Drive (West Mt. Airy)
Philadelphia, PA 19119
Saturday, July 22 at 1:00 pm


BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
2040 Street Road
Warrington, PA (just east of Rt 611)
Saturday, July 22 at 7:00 pm

$10 Free Will donation requested. No one will be refused.

RSVP or request more info by clicking here.

(Your RSVP helps us plan a convenient, successful event.)

Sponsored by:

Montgomery County Democracy for America

Upper Bucks for Democracy

Lehigh/Northampton Progressive Alliance  Read more 

I’m going to run this a couple times before next Saturday for maximum exposure. My husband, our friends, and many fine grassroots organizing folks have worked hard to make this happen, and it promises to be wonderful. If you live in the Philly area or within a few hours drive, get there!

Many people have made up their minds on Iraq, but many more still have nagging questions about how we became embroiled in this contest of atrocities that has become our occupation of Iraq. The conflicting positions taken by various factions inside and outside the US have generated confusion and malaise.

Here is a chance to get those questions answered by two people that have been very close to the situation for years.

Scott Ritter was the UN’s top weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before working for the UN he served as an officer in the US Marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf War. He is the author of “Iraq Confidential” (www.iraqconfidential.com ), published in October, 2005 by Nation Books. - “The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right.” - Seymour Hersh

RAY McGOVERN works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in Washington, DC. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Join Scott, Ray and area DFA’ers at:

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley
424 Centre Street
Bethlehem, Pa. 18018
Friday, July 21 at 7:00 pm

The Unitarian Society of Germantown
6511 Lincoln Drive (West Mt. Airy)
Philadelphia, PA 19119
Saturday, July 22 at 1:00 pm

BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
2040 Street Road
Warrington, PA (just east of Rt 611)
Saturday, July 22 at 7:00 pm

$10 Free Will donation requested. No one will be refused.

RSVP or request more info by clicking here.

(Your RSVP helps us plan a convenient, successful event.)

Sponsored by:

Montgomery County Democracy for America

Upper Bucks for Democracy

Lehigh/Northampton Progressive Alliance  Read more 

View Peter Turnley’s photo essay, “THE BEREAVED, Mourning the Dead, in America and Iraq”, recently published in Harper’s, here.

Pray for peace.

And you thought George Bush was the only one they had to brag about. Turns out Steven D. Green, the ex-Army soldier arrested for the March rape of a 15-year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family, also previously released with an honorable discharge for a “personality disorder”, calls Midland his voting district, too.

So far we know that Green and 3 (possibly 4) others are accused of conspiring to rape the girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, and that according to witnesses, she told her mother she was afraid of them, and mom was planning on sending her away for awhile. We know the family was killed, including Abeer’s 7 year old sister, and that Abeer was gang-raped before being shot to death and partially burned in an attempt to destroy the evidence. From the Army Times:  Read more 

Oh, what the heck.

Don’t say you weren’t warned…
Like, countless times…
Over decades.

Love,
Bob Fosse and Christopher Isherwood

On September 18, 2001, Christie Whitman’s EPA gave us the news:

“We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances,” Whitman said. “Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink,” she added.”

But today the NYTimes tells us:

“In the cold, clinical language of the autopsy report of a retired New York City detective that was released this week, there were words that thousands of New Yorkers have come to anticipate and to fear.
“It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident,” stated the report from the medical examiner’s office in Ocean County, N.J.
That “reasonable degree of medical certainty” — coroner language for “as sure as I can be” — provides the first official link made by a medical expert between the hazardous air at ground zero after the trade center collapse and the death of someone who worked in the rescue effort.”

 Read more 

The big strong men in Connecticut have collapsed with relief after successfully fending off a vote to hold Catholic hospitals, which receive state and federal monies through insurance and other channels, accountable for providing rape victims access to birth control. It inevitably became a debate on abortion and the right of the hospitals to remain faithful to their religious dogma against it, but face it—-the Catholic position is to condemn any form of birth control regardless of how it works, so the abortion issue is merely a red handkerchief to goad the anti-abortion bull into charging. During deliberation, a young woman who had been gang raped and nearly killed gave testimony on the relief she felt at the hospital where she was treated after being given birth control. She was followed by a number of abortion foes who pleaded religious freedom while offering Christian crocodile tears for what the woman had experienced.

Yes people, it’s life! Let’s give you that, all right? The fertilized egg is life, just as the cells on the back of the hand are life, just like amoebas are life. But the difference between fertilized eggs and amoebas is that amoebas can live independently, eat, reproduce, experience a life cycle. And the similarity between fertilized eggs and cells on the back of the hand is that they cannot do any of those things unless they are given an assist, the latter in a petrie agar and the former via implantation into a uterine wall, which may or may not take. Blastocysts cannot develop independently on their own.

It comes down to this:
The National Institutes of Health, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and American Medical Women’s Association all hold identical definitions of pregnancy, which, in the words of the AMWA’s Position Statement on Emergency Contraception,

“defin(e) pregnancy as beginning with implantation. Emergency contraceptive pills work prior to implantation and therefore are considered by these respected organizations and AMWA as a contraceptive, not as an abortifacient. Emergency contraceptive pills do not affect an established pregnancy and numerous studies of the teratologic risk of conception during regular use of oral contraceptives (including the use of older, higher-dose preparations) found no increase in risk.”

Why at implantation? Well, it may be because until implantation, the fertilized egg has no chance of growing into anything at all. It will wither and die without the sustenance provided by the endometrial wall. And many billions do. Women become pregnant regularly and cluelessly, and for her entire reproductive life each woman’s menstrual waste in every country on earth has been sent over and over and over again to the garbage dump, carrying the remains of her countless failed conceptions. Speaking scientifically, blastocysts are cheaper than a dime a dozen…they are a dime a trillion, and if they weren’t, not enough would successfully implant to continue the race.

Fertilized eggs are not babies, and no matter how much you may want them to be, the scientists and medical experts who know more about it than you do aren’t going to call them pregnancies until they implant. And until they implant, they cannot, by any medical definition, be aborted. Anti-abortion and anti-contraception groups may devoutly wish it to be otherwise, but giving Plan B and RU-486 does not cause abortion.

You don’t like it? Ok, you can define pregnancy to mean conception if you must. You can even define it to mean the first time you think about having sex with someone, or better yet, you can pass a law endowing personhood on every unfertilized egg and motile sperm sloshing around a human body, but wishing doesn’t make it so. It won’t make a few cells the moral equivalent of a real live woman or child. It won’t endow those few cells with the capacity to suffer the pain and horror of a girl who has been eviscerated by thugs, and left to incubate their seed. But it will intesify that pain, and perpetuate it, and spread it cruelly amongst the people least able to avoid it.

Over at Tom Wicker’s League of Gentlemen, the NYTimes is alerting the rabble to the dangers of contraception:

“Two more women have died after taking RU-486, the abortion pill. Officials said today that they did not know what caused the deaths, and they did not indicate when the deaths had occurred.
From September 2003 through May 2005, four women died in California from a rare and highly lethal bacterial infection after taking abortion pills.”

The anti-choice people have been trying to shut down access to this drug since it became available in the US in 2000, and the good old “liberal” NYTimes is happy to give them an assist by placing the story prominently on the front page. Is it the danger to public health that the prominence of the article implies that it is? The FDA:

“The risks of death from infection after using the pill are similar to the risks after surgical abortions or childbirth, officials said.”

From 1999 to 2003, a span of only 4 years, Merck’s anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx was responsible for 27,785 deaths and cardiac arrests, out of 1.4 million who took the drug. That’s 2% of those who took it. And despite the damning evidence that showed Merck had consistently covered up the fatalities to save it’s fiscal hide and continue selling the drug, the FDA decided to allow it to go back on the market.

But RU-486? Four women, all within a specific radius of one another in the state of California, died from the same bacterial infection. Now 2 more deaths have come to light. 6 women have now died, out of half a million who took the contraceptive over the course of 6 years. That’s 12 tenth thousandths of one percent! Still, any death is enough to let loose the dogs of mysogynistic war, and the snakes of opportunism.  Read more 

For the last 7 days, the 2nd-3rd most e-mailed story in the NYTimes has been about macaroni and cheese. Not only macaroni and cheese, but cats, as well. Do you need any further evidence that our nation’s people are paralyzed by the deepest clinical depression since 1932? I cried at Brokeback Mountain, I freaked over Terry Gilliam’s dispatch of an adorable kitten in The Brothers Grimm, yet I sit here hardly lifting a finger as my country goes down the tubes and we skate ever closer to genuine facism. I am Exhibit 1 for the case for public depression.

So as long as we’re going to be depressed, let’s wallow in it. Below is the recipe I got for mac and cheese from a former co-worker. It is better than the NYTimes recipes for mac and cheese. It is better than any mac and cheese I’ve ever had, and may well be a tantric meditation leading to one’s final entry into heaven when eaten.

(BTW, the “Out of Iraq” event went rather well, and we hope to do more and similar events in the future. Thanks to those who came or spread the word. Stay tuned.)

• 2 blocks each of Kraft sharp, extra sharp, and mild cheddars, shredded
• Big box of Velveeta
• 4 eggs
• 3 cans evaporated milk and a little whole milk
• 3 1/2 one-pound boxes of elbow macaroni
• Salt to taste
• Breadcrumbs if desired

In saucepan combine canned milk with Velveeta. Stir till melted, add salt.

Cook macaroni.
In large pot or dish, combine macaroni, shredded cheese, and cheese sauce.

Add eggs.

Put in casserole, top with shredded cheese and breadcrumbs.

Bake at 350 degrees about 1 1/2 hours.

This should feed 40. If you have any left over, give me a call.

Here’s to the old pagan tradition of wassailing the apple trees. From the Sulgrave Manor website we read:

” Apple trees were sprinkled with wassail to ensure a good crop. Villagers would gather around the apple trees with shotguns or pots and pans and made a tremendous racket to raise the Sleeping Tree Spirit and to scare off demons. A toast was then drunk from the Wassail Cup. Wassailing was meant to keep the tree safe from evil spirits until the next year’s apples appeared.

Oh apple tree, we’ll wassail thee
And hoping thou wilt bear
For the Lord does know where we may go
To be merry another year
To grow well and to bear well
And so merrily let us be
Let every man drink up his glass
And a health to the old apple tree
Brave boys, and a health to the old apple tree”

 Read more 

Thanks to Lambert for the nice piece on brunch. We had a good time, too.

And I’m sorry I have been so out of the loop. I can’t blog now. Fatigue, depresssion, constantly phasing in and out of illness, I’m pretty useless for anything except work, for which I save all my energy, and even there I’m pretty much phoning it in. I’ve decided to take a sabbatical for the next month, in hopes that after the holidays I’ll be in better shape and more worthy to add my two cents here and elsewhere.

Keep plugging NOLA. And watch out for others who want to cover it over, using the excuse that it’s not healthy to dwell on all the bad. There’s a fine line to be walked between keeping up morale for the people who dream of rebuilding their homes, and rah-rahing a bunch of no-nothing bullshit to make the rest of the world think the place is going to be just like new in another couple months. The second approach is a sure way to let people off the hook from caring about the worst natural disaster to ever hit our country. It was 95,000 square miles of damage. Over 5000 people are still missing. Bodies were still being pulled out while I was there, only a couple miles from my shelter in Kenner.

If it was your home, you would tell anyone else who advised you to cash it in and move away to go fuck themselves. We owe it to them to remember, and do something about it.

In today’s NYTimes, Bush picks door Number 2.

 Read more 

In NOLA there is no dearth of signs like this:



popping up all over street corners and other high-visibility sites, advertising jobs, loans, cleaning and restoration services, “house gutting”, and often just that businesses closed for storm damage have re-opened again. Among these are always the ones announcing “Katrina lawsuits” and legal assistance.



Why?

In yesterday’s NYTimes, the editorial noticed that Katrina survivors, having had enough of Bush’s compassionate conservatism, are taking matters into their own hands:

“Public outrage is clearly growing over the federal government’s woefully inadequate program for housing the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Last week a group of survivors filed the first of what are likely to be several lawsuits alleging that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has failed to live up to its responsibilities. The recovery effort has been subject to blistering criticism from conservative, nonpartisan and liberal groups alike. The same basic question is this: Why did the Bush administration focus on trailer parks built by FEMA - which is actually not a housing agency - instead of giving the lead role to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has so much experience on this issue?”

“Outrage” barely expresses it. Everywhere you go in New Orleans and environs you can see the anger, written on the sides of buildings (“Screw you, Nagin, we made our own plan”), spelled out on broken signs with magnetic letters (“Where was FEMA?”), scrawled on the ruined appliances that litter the streets (“Build a crap wall. What Katrina left, Wilma will take”), on homemade signs propped up in the piles of detritus and trash unbiquitous to the curbs in front of almost every house (“Evacuate Broussard” “Thanks, Aaron!”), and on the T-shirts sold by small vendors in the Quarter (“FEMA: Federal Employees Missing Again”).  Read more