Last week we spotlight Betty's hilarious "Friedman on the Fourth Pt. I. " This week we all agreed that the second part needed highlighting. Read it and laugh.
Friedman on the Fourth Pt. II
"Say your damn prayers, Kristof," Thomas Friedman, the less and less great each day, to Nicky K.
If you're thinking the line should come along holding hands with "And reach for the sky!" then you're obviously late to the party.
It was a cook out. A picnic on the roof. It was Monday, the Fourth of July. Thomas Friedman was wearing his shorty robe but he'd long since tossed aside the "Kiss the Chef" apron. We'd had song, we'd had drama and now we were left overcooked burgers as a result of Thomas Friedman, overcooked to the point that one longed for merely "burned." I'd followed Mrs. K's lead and tossed my burger over the ledge. We were both eating cole slaw burgers utilizing the coleslaw Mrs. K had brought (ask her for the recipe, she makes wonderful cole slaw). Others weren't so fortunate.
Patti Nelson Limerick, a would be op-ed-ist, was along for reasons no one was clear on.
Proving herself to be a really round the way gal (or else just stupid, Mrs. K and I voted for the latter), Patti had plunged in "with both hands, gripping with all ten digits, to embrace and encompass that which both surrounds and penetrates." Lots of words, but get them out now, Patti, before your kneeling at the toilet and the buger's coming back up.
Since we were all paired up, Nicky & Mrs. K, myself and my husband Thomas Friedman, Patti was odd woman out, a title she's no doubt held for longer than any can remember.
Not wanting to offend Thomas Friedman or maybe just scared of another repeat of the last "you are so dead to me, Kristof" scene that played like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on really bad benders as the words, fur, and soda crackers flew (largely into Nicky K's eye), Nicky K couldn't find it in him to say "No, no, I will not eat the burger!"
Patti's dithering smile revealed she'd lost a good portions of the crowns and caps as she merrily chomped away on the brick burger. Nicky K wasn't willing to sacrifice his own dental health but he didn't have it in him to stand up to Thomas Friedman. (Insert standard, self-aggrandizing Thomas Friedman boast here.) So Nicky K had stalled for time. Currently, we all waited for him to say the prayer he demanded necessary before he could eat the brick burger. After the saying of grace, it would get ugly.
"Our father, who art in heaven," Nicky K began bowing his head while Thomas Friedman grunted. "Thank you for this food. Please protect Judith and all the anonymice. Protect us from fact checkers and look kindly on even those of us who appear to create cab drivers out of thin air . . ."
On that part all eyes, went to Thomas Friedman who snorted.
"Kirstof, as usual, you waste too many words," Friedman complained. "Good eats, Great Man, thanks."
Friedman smiled at everyone including Patti who grinned at him vaguely, or maybe that's her natural look, with chipped teeth flashing.
"Me. I'm the great man," Thomas Friedman oh so modestly explained.
Patti burst out laughing. For a moment, I almost liked her. Almost.
"Yes, you are!" Patti squealed. "We all are, we tap into our inner psyches and navigate the emotional waters of our turgid souls in search of an elevated reason for the human condition that might we all acknowledge is life?"
As she waited for some sort of response, Thomas Friedman lept in.
"You had your prayers, sissy boy," Thomas Friedman said pointing at Nicky K, "now eat that burger."
We all leaned forward waiting to see what would happen. Would Nicky K cave? His wife hoped he wouldn't. I remember when I used to root for my husband too. A lot easier not to root for him when he is Thomas Friedman.
Nicky K pulled the brick burger up to his mouth. He opened his mouth. Good Lord, he was going to eat it! Didn't he learn anything from Patti losing both her caps and her own teeth?
No, he didn't.
He was going to chew.
He was about to bite down.
"I can't do it!" Nicky K cried out.
Thomas Friedman looked pissed.
"You will eat the fruits of my grill, Kristof," Thomas Friedman huffed.
"Of course, I will," Nicky K said breathlessly. "But I can't continue to the lie."
Thomas Friedman's bushy eyebrows went into twitching overdrive.
"What? What is this? I demand you tell me!"
"Bettina!" Nicky K said pointing at me.
Now all eyes were on me.
"She's stopped reading your columns!" Nicky K exclaimed.
Thomas Friedman gasped, clutched his chest and began jumping up and down while moaning. This was especially bothersome since he was wearing, remember, the shorty robe. For the "all over tan," remember?
We were looking at Thomas and the Friedmans whether we wanted to or not. Patti seemed to want to.While this was going on, Nicky K hurled his brick burger like a frisbee, no complete idiot he.
I heard the window across the street break but everyone was watching Thomas Friedman gasp and howl.
"Yes, it's true," I finally admitted just to end the drama before Thomas Friedman went completely Baby Jane on us. I knew I didn't want to know whatever happened to Baby Jane Friedman.
Long story short, I've been stuck reading every piece of drivel he types. Not just the columns themselves, but anything he writes. The other day, he wrote a letter to his mother. It started off "Dearest good mother, good because you birthed me, but not great because you aren't me,
How are you?" It only got worse.
Then he decided he'd try his hand at the Times crosswords. He's never managed to finish one yet but I'm still expected to look it over and say things like, "6 across, five letter word for what we all seek. 'PENIS.' Great job, Thomas Friedman." Now the word was clearly "PEACE" but you can't disagree with Thomas Friedman.
The Fourth of July was always one of my favorite holidays, what with the food, the fireworks, the day off. Now it's just the day when I got sentenced. Doing my time on OpEd Row.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Blog spotlight: TCI: "Rove's latest talking point implodes but the Times doesn't notice"
We have two blog spotlights this week. This one is from C.I. at The Common Ills. We think it covers a point that's missing from the dialogue on the Rove issue.
NYT: Rove's latest talking point implodes but the Times doesn't notice
Grab the tiger by the tail. That's what the daily reporting on Rove is these days.
As Sidney Blumenthal noted on Democracy Now! yesterday, the grand jury leaks are springing in an awfully convenient manner for Karl Rove:
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: Well, Karl Rove is waging a communications battle in the way he wages communications battles. He is trying to act -- he's acting as though this is -- this matter is going to be decided by a court of Washington pundits. He is leaking stories now. There are stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that are clearly leaked by his lawyer trying to depict him in a light in which he is innocent of the charges, but that's not how this is going to be decided. It's going to be decided by the prosecutor. And I think that Rove is in a panic mode. He's acting in a very frenetic way, and he is undermining himself, and he is undermining his principal, the President.
AMY GOODMAN: How is he undermining himself?
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: He's undermining himself by putting out all of these stories and keeping this at a -- in the forefront of the news. He has regarded his defense as though it is the defense of the administration himself. He cannot separate himself. Furthermore, the President has not separated him. He walked to Marine One, his helicopter, accompanied by Karl Rove, a clear statement that he stands by Rove. So, Bush has embraced Rove, as well. This is -- Bush -- Rove's damage control, in my view, has created more damage. This so-called master of communications is undermining himself in terms of communications, but in the end, none of that matters. It all comes down to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and what he decides to do.
So today's talking points come via a team of reporters in this morning's New York Times. It's entitled "State Dept. Memo Gets Scrutiny in Leak Inquiry on C.I.A. Officer" and it's written by Richard Stevenson. (No "W." in his byline for a change.) But wait, that's not all.
Before we can move on we need to scroll credits: " "By RICHARD STEVENSON . . . This article was reported by Douglas Jehl, David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Stevenson."Munch on that popcorn a little longer, we're still not done with the credits. "David E. Sanger and Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article." "With special guest-star Heather Locklear."
Okay, I'm kidding on the Locklear part. (I think.)
But that's six reporters [CORRECTION, five. Always check my math. Thanks to Shirley for catching this.] from the paper working on this story. And yet I honestly don't think they grasp what they're reporting.
Let's nutshell the article. There's a memo. From June 11, 2003. State Department memo. It refers to Valerie Plame as Valerie Wilson so it's obvious that Novak didn't see it, right?
Right? Why right? Why wouldn't he use her previous name? The same way that the right uses "Rodham" to clobber Hillary Clinton with to this day. Novak's not a talented journalist, but as a hack, he knows how to appeal to his base. "She's Wilson's wife! And she doesn't use his last name! Bra burner!"
Nothing's proven about whether or not Novak saw the memo by the fact that he used "Plame" and not "Wilson."
Here's the other big talking point: Rove's "warning" to Matt Cooper, it's okay because he immediately e-mailed Stephen J. Hadley (deputy national security advisor at the time). So see, Rove didn't do anything wrong.
Far from clearing Rove, that actually adds to the problems.
Why is that?Rove e-mails (allegedly) Hadley that he "didn't take the bait" when Cooper asked about whether or not Joseph Wilson was damaging the Bully Boy with his statements.We find out two important things right away. Let's go real slow.
1) Rove put the Bully Boy ahead of national security.
Do we all get that? He "didn't take the bait." No, he didn't. He deflected "the bait" by confirming he'd heard Plame was CIA. (According to the accounts.)
Is this going to be his defense? Is this how it will play out?
When confronted with possible bad polling, Rove confirms that someone's CIA? That's the defense?Standing by his main man means putting the nation at risk?
That's a defense he wants to stand on?
(Like Blumenthal, I personally believe the leaks are orchestrated by Rove and others interested in saving Rove. Saving Lack of Privacy Rove. I'm just not sure if they're just tossing just about anything out there until they can find the best talking point or if they're tossing anything out there because they're trying to obscure the issues involved. Regardless, this talking point doesn't make things "rosy.")
Let's walk it through real simple. You're a reporter for Premiere. I'm a p.r. flack for Matt Damon. You call me up and ask, "Is it true that Damon's new movie bombed in previews?"My response is to confirm you to that the woman filling out the card with her husband at the preview is CIA. I then fire off an e-mail to my boss saying, "Great news! I didn't take the bait! I steered the reporter to a CIA agent!"
Do we see the problem here? Supposedly, Cooper wants to know if the Bully Boy is being damaged by Wilson's statements. Rove deflects. He confirms that Wilson is married to a CIA agent.
Put out two hands in front of you and pretend they're scales. See which one tips when you weigh Bully Boy's polling with identifying a CIA agent.
2) I can't believe they did this. Bully Boy's no brain (neither is Rove) but are people going to pay attention to this defense?If they are, do they get what the leak is saying?
Rove talked to Cooper before Novak's column was published. Rove told Hadley about the conversation. Let's say Rove just confirmed Plame to Cooper. (That's just as bad and it is identifying, but let's move on to a larger point that I don't think they see in this latest talking point). When Rove sent that e-mail (if he did) to Hadley, we have someone in national security that knows a CIA agent is on the verge of being outed.
I'm sure Condi will offer her "bowels of the agency" or "basement" or whatever looney remark she made re: the sixteen words originally.
It wasn't lower level. Her right-hand man knew. That's the talking point today. Her right- hand man knew that a CIA agent was about to be the topic of the press. What did they do at that moment to find out about leaks? Did they alert the CIA?
Or were they all high fiving and saying "Way to go Karl-ster! You didn't take the bait!"
Let's be really clear, Rove supposedly sent an e-mail to the deputy of national security immediately after getting off the phone with Matt Cooper. Let's go the Times' article:
After his conversation with Mr. Cooper, The Associated Press reported Friday, Mr. Rove sent an e-mail message to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, saying he "didn't take the bait" when Mr. Cooper suggested that Mr. Wilson's criticisms had been damaging to the administration.
Mr. Rove told the grand jury in the case that the e-mail message was consistent with his assertion that he had not intended to divulge Ms. Wilson's identity but instead intended to rebut Mr. Wilson's criticisms of the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq, The A.P. reported, citing legal professionals familiar with Mr. Rove's testimony. Dozens of White House and administration officials have testified to the grand jury, and several officials have been called back for further questioning.
If people are paying attention to today's talking point, Rove just ratted somebody out (though he probably doesn't realize it). Did he tell who he got the information from?
No.
But the talking point advises us that the deputy of national security knows the press is talking about Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. Did Hadley follow up?
Don't toss out any nonsense that, "They may not have known she was undercover!" Hadley's job should have required him to find out what Plame's position was. Regardless of what her job was, the CIA should have been advised what was about to break. And Plame should have been warned.
Was the CIA advised? I don't know. But from Joseph Wilson's reactions, Plame sure wasn't warned. From his statements, she didn't get a heads up. Novak's column appears on the 14th of July. Rove talks to Cooper on the 11th of July. In those three days, what did Hadley do? What was the administration doing? (Yeah, I know, probably helping the story along, but that's not in their talking points.)
How did Hadley follow up? Did he report it to his superior? (Condi Rice.) What measures did they take to protect Plame? She wasn't assigned body guards at the time. Wilson's made no reference to her getting a call that said, "Hey Val, just a heads up, the press are talking about you, you're probably going to be the topic of a story and be named. Those friends and neighbors that don't know anything about who you really work for -- you might want to break it to them."
Hadley's job was not to protect Bully Boy from fading poll numbers. His job was national security.
If people are paying attention to today's talking point, one question should be, "What was done when Hadley was informed?" What steps got taken?
Was the CIA informed what was coming down the pike?
Or was everyone who is supposed to be working for the nation suddenly under the impression that their job was serving on the election committee for the Bully Boy?
From Thursday's mid-morning entry:
Wally e-mails to note Pirate Smile's post at Democratic Underground ("Plame has worked undercover within the past 5 years according to the WP") where Pirate Smile draws our attention to an October 4, 2003 Washington Post article entitled "Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm" (by Walter Pincus and Mike Allen):
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons. -snip-
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. "That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.
Shouldn't Hadley have been able to find out what the Washington Post did? Did he attempt to?What did he do when he received Rove's e-mail?
His job wasn't to prop up the Bully Boy, his job was to protect the country. Serving the country, his job, would have entailed passing the knowledge on. Possibly up to Rice, possibly to the CIA.
But there should have been a follow up to determine a) what Plame's position was, b) what risks there were for the CIA and c) ensuring that a warning was conveyed to Valerie Plame and any agents or assets that worked with her.Was that done?
Let's drop back even further. The Times article tells us that Rove spoke to Novak before he spoke to Cooper. Two days prior which puts that conversation on July 9th. Did Rove also e-mail about that one?
What was our National Security Agency doing when at least one participant knew that Plame was about to be outed?
Can't blame this one on outmoded computers at the FBI. If there's a breakdown in the sharing of intellegence, it appears to be a human breakdown. It appears to be someone or someones not doing his or their job. Maybe Hadley passed it on up the chain and, if so, maybe his hands are clean.
But all this posturing after the fact by the Bully Boy that he was committed to finding out who leaked Plame's identity -- it's false. He should have known it was coming before Novak's column was published. Rove sure should have told him. Hadley or Rice should have told him. He should have known what was coming down and efforts at questioning the staff should have begun prior to the outing being published.
If I'm not being clear here, Bully Boy wasn't watching someone snag change from a candy machine. This was a national security issue. And the claim that Valerie Plame wasn't undercover (1999 puts her in the five year provision, other reporting carries it further) doesn't negate the fact that the leader of the country should have ensured that action was taken to warn Plame of what the press was asking.
Now maybe that 'triple decker, chocolate mocha joe, double secret background' meant that along with Cooper not talking, Rove was also supposed to be silent? That doesn't wash and not just because of the fact that that Rove allegedly e-mailed Hadley after speaking to Cooper. It doesn't wash because Plame's working for the government. The administration (at least Rove) and our National Security Agency (at least Hadley) know a government employee is about to be a topic in the press. If she were a secretary at the CIA (which she wasn't but some dismissive pundits have portrayed her as such), she still rated a heads up. Her bosses rated a heads up.
What did Rove and Hadley do with the information?
What it looks like, accepting today's talking point, is that they both put Bully Boy ahead of serving the country and ahead of doing their jobs.
Novak's column did not take the administration by surprise. Rove's latest talking point demonstrates that the administration knew people were asking about Plame (at least knew of Cooper, possibly Rove's not claiming he also passed on the news that Novak was snooping around also). There should have required no pressure (via the public urged on by David Corn and BuzzFlash) to get the Bully Boy moving on finding out what happened. In fact, the administration should have already been on it.
And instead of offering what appears to be the subtext of the article today (Scoots Libby going down!), the crack team of reporters for the New York Times (look at the list: Douglas Jehl, David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane ) should have included one individual who grasped what we've walked through -- one reporter who picked up the phone and asked Hadley for a statement. The article should have included it even if it were only, "Hadley stated he could not commment . . ."
I honestly don't think the Times realizes what they are reporting today. Or maybe they see it as a talking point and didn't feel it needed looking into.
But what they're reporting is that by July 11th, the deputy national security advisor knew that the press was asking about a CIA agent and apparently nothing was done to warn her agency or to warn her. The only phrase that comes to my mind is "Dereliction of duty."
NYT: Rove's latest talking point implodes but the Times doesn't notice
Grab the tiger by the tail. That's what the daily reporting on Rove is these days.
As Sidney Blumenthal noted on Democracy Now! yesterday, the grand jury leaks are springing in an awfully convenient manner for Karl Rove:
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: Well, Karl Rove is waging a communications battle in the way he wages communications battles. He is trying to act -- he's acting as though this is -- this matter is going to be decided by a court of Washington pundits. He is leaking stories now. There are stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that are clearly leaked by his lawyer trying to depict him in a light in which he is innocent of the charges, but that's not how this is going to be decided. It's going to be decided by the prosecutor. And I think that Rove is in a panic mode. He's acting in a very frenetic way, and he is undermining himself, and he is undermining his principal, the President.
AMY GOODMAN: How is he undermining himself?
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: He's undermining himself by putting out all of these stories and keeping this at a -- in the forefront of the news. He has regarded his defense as though it is the defense of the administration himself. He cannot separate himself. Furthermore, the President has not separated him. He walked to Marine One, his helicopter, accompanied by Karl Rove, a clear statement that he stands by Rove. So, Bush has embraced Rove, as well. This is -- Bush -- Rove's damage control, in my view, has created more damage. This so-called master of communications is undermining himself in terms of communications, but in the end, none of that matters. It all comes down to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and what he decides to do.
So today's talking points come via a team of reporters in this morning's New York Times. It's entitled "State Dept. Memo Gets Scrutiny in Leak Inquiry on C.I.A. Officer" and it's written by Richard Stevenson. (No "W." in his byline for a change.) But wait, that's not all.
Before we can move on we need to scroll credits: " "By RICHARD STEVENSON . . . This article was reported by Douglas Jehl, David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Stevenson."Munch on that popcorn a little longer, we're still not done with the credits. "David E. Sanger and Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article." "With special guest-star Heather Locklear."
Okay, I'm kidding on the Locklear part. (I think.)
But that's six reporters [CORRECTION, five. Always check my math. Thanks to Shirley for catching this.] from the paper working on this story. And yet I honestly don't think they grasp what they're reporting.
Let's nutshell the article. There's a memo. From June 11, 2003. State Department memo. It refers to Valerie Plame as Valerie Wilson so it's obvious that Novak didn't see it, right?
Right? Why right? Why wouldn't he use her previous name? The same way that the right uses "Rodham" to clobber Hillary Clinton with to this day. Novak's not a talented journalist, but as a hack, he knows how to appeal to his base. "She's Wilson's wife! And she doesn't use his last name! Bra burner!"
Nothing's proven about whether or not Novak saw the memo by the fact that he used "Plame" and not "Wilson."
Here's the other big talking point: Rove's "warning" to Matt Cooper, it's okay because he immediately e-mailed Stephen J. Hadley (deputy national security advisor at the time). So see, Rove didn't do anything wrong.
Far from clearing Rove, that actually adds to the problems.
Why is that?Rove e-mails (allegedly) Hadley that he "didn't take the bait" when Cooper asked about whether or not Joseph Wilson was damaging the Bully Boy with his statements.We find out two important things right away. Let's go real slow.
1) Rove put the Bully Boy ahead of national security.
Do we all get that? He "didn't take the bait." No, he didn't. He deflected "the bait" by confirming he'd heard Plame was CIA. (According to the accounts.)
Is this going to be his defense? Is this how it will play out?
When confronted with possible bad polling, Rove confirms that someone's CIA? That's the defense?Standing by his main man means putting the nation at risk?
That's a defense he wants to stand on?
(Like Blumenthal, I personally believe the leaks are orchestrated by Rove and others interested in saving Rove. Saving Lack of Privacy Rove. I'm just not sure if they're just tossing just about anything out there until they can find the best talking point or if they're tossing anything out there because they're trying to obscure the issues involved. Regardless, this talking point doesn't make things "rosy.")
Let's walk it through real simple. You're a reporter for Premiere. I'm a p.r. flack for Matt Damon. You call me up and ask, "Is it true that Damon's new movie bombed in previews?"My response is to confirm you to that the woman filling out the card with her husband at the preview is CIA. I then fire off an e-mail to my boss saying, "Great news! I didn't take the bait! I steered the reporter to a CIA agent!"
Do we see the problem here? Supposedly, Cooper wants to know if the Bully Boy is being damaged by Wilson's statements. Rove deflects. He confirms that Wilson is married to a CIA agent.
Put out two hands in front of you and pretend they're scales. See which one tips when you weigh Bully Boy's polling with identifying a CIA agent.
2) I can't believe they did this. Bully Boy's no brain (neither is Rove) but are people going to pay attention to this defense?If they are, do they get what the leak is saying?
Rove talked to Cooper before Novak's column was published. Rove told Hadley about the conversation. Let's say Rove just confirmed Plame to Cooper. (That's just as bad and it is identifying, but let's move on to a larger point that I don't think they see in this latest talking point). When Rove sent that e-mail (if he did) to Hadley, we have someone in national security that knows a CIA agent is on the verge of being outed.
I'm sure Condi will offer her "bowels of the agency" or "basement" or whatever looney remark she made re: the sixteen words originally.
It wasn't lower level. Her right-hand man knew. That's the talking point today. Her right- hand man knew that a CIA agent was about to be the topic of the press. What did they do at that moment to find out about leaks? Did they alert the CIA?
Or were they all high fiving and saying "Way to go Karl-ster! You didn't take the bait!"
Let's be really clear, Rove supposedly sent an e-mail to the deputy of national security immediately after getting off the phone with Matt Cooper. Let's go the Times' article:
After his conversation with Mr. Cooper, The Associated Press reported Friday, Mr. Rove sent an e-mail message to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, saying he "didn't take the bait" when Mr. Cooper suggested that Mr. Wilson's criticisms had been damaging to the administration.
Mr. Rove told the grand jury in the case that the e-mail message was consistent with his assertion that he had not intended to divulge Ms. Wilson's identity but instead intended to rebut Mr. Wilson's criticisms of the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq, The A.P. reported, citing legal professionals familiar with Mr. Rove's testimony. Dozens of White House and administration officials have testified to the grand jury, and several officials have been called back for further questioning.
If people are paying attention to today's talking point, Rove just ratted somebody out (though he probably doesn't realize it). Did he tell who he got the information from?
No.
But the talking point advises us that the deputy of national security knows the press is talking about Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. Did Hadley follow up?
Don't toss out any nonsense that, "They may not have known she was undercover!" Hadley's job should have required him to find out what Plame's position was. Regardless of what her job was, the CIA should have been advised what was about to break. And Plame should have been warned.
Was the CIA advised? I don't know. But from Joseph Wilson's reactions, Plame sure wasn't warned. From his statements, she didn't get a heads up. Novak's column appears on the 14th of July. Rove talks to Cooper on the 11th of July. In those three days, what did Hadley do? What was the administration doing? (Yeah, I know, probably helping the story along, but that's not in their talking points.)
How did Hadley follow up? Did he report it to his superior? (Condi Rice.) What measures did they take to protect Plame? She wasn't assigned body guards at the time. Wilson's made no reference to her getting a call that said, "Hey Val, just a heads up, the press are talking about you, you're probably going to be the topic of a story and be named. Those friends and neighbors that don't know anything about who you really work for -- you might want to break it to them."
Hadley's job was not to protect Bully Boy from fading poll numbers. His job was national security.
If people are paying attention to today's talking point, one question should be, "What was done when Hadley was informed?" What steps got taken?
Was the CIA informed what was coming down the pike?
Or was everyone who is supposed to be working for the nation suddenly under the impression that their job was serving on the election committee for the Bully Boy?
From Thursday's mid-morning entry:
Wally e-mails to note Pirate Smile's post at Democratic Underground ("Plame has worked undercover within the past 5 years according to the WP") where Pirate Smile draws our attention to an October 4, 2003 Washington Post article entitled "Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm" (by Walter Pincus and Mike Allen):
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons. -snip-
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. "That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.
Shouldn't Hadley have been able to find out what the Washington Post did? Did he attempt to?What did he do when he received Rove's e-mail?
His job wasn't to prop up the Bully Boy, his job was to protect the country. Serving the country, his job, would have entailed passing the knowledge on. Possibly up to Rice, possibly to the CIA.
But there should have been a follow up to determine a) what Plame's position was, b) what risks there were for the CIA and c) ensuring that a warning was conveyed to Valerie Plame and any agents or assets that worked with her.Was that done?
Let's drop back even further. The Times article tells us that Rove spoke to Novak before he spoke to Cooper. Two days prior which puts that conversation on July 9th. Did Rove also e-mail about that one?
What was our National Security Agency doing when at least one participant knew that Plame was about to be outed?
Can't blame this one on outmoded computers at the FBI. If there's a breakdown in the sharing of intellegence, it appears to be a human breakdown. It appears to be someone or someones not doing his or their job. Maybe Hadley passed it on up the chain and, if so, maybe his hands are clean.
But all this posturing after the fact by the Bully Boy that he was committed to finding out who leaked Plame's identity -- it's false. He should have known it was coming before Novak's column was published. Rove sure should have told him. Hadley or Rice should have told him. He should have known what was coming down and efforts at questioning the staff should have begun prior to the outing being published.
If I'm not being clear here, Bully Boy wasn't watching someone snag change from a candy machine. This was a national security issue. And the claim that Valerie Plame wasn't undercover (1999 puts her in the five year provision, other reporting carries it further) doesn't negate the fact that the leader of the country should have ensured that action was taken to warn Plame of what the press was asking.
Now maybe that 'triple decker, chocolate mocha joe, double secret background' meant that along with Cooper not talking, Rove was also supposed to be silent? That doesn't wash and not just because of the fact that that Rove allegedly e-mailed Hadley after speaking to Cooper. It doesn't wash because Plame's working for the government. The administration (at least Rove) and our National Security Agency (at least Hadley) know a government employee is about to be a topic in the press. If she were a secretary at the CIA (which she wasn't but some dismissive pundits have portrayed her as such), she still rated a heads up. Her bosses rated a heads up.
What did Rove and Hadley do with the information?
What it looks like, accepting today's talking point, is that they both put Bully Boy ahead of serving the country and ahead of doing their jobs.
Novak's column did not take the administration by surprise. Rove's latest talking point demonstrates that the administration knew people were asking about Plame (at least knew of Cooper, possibly Rove's not claiming he also passed on the news that Novak was snooping around also). There should have required no pressure (via the public urged on by David Corn and BuzzFlash) to get the Bully Boy moving on finding out what happened. In fact, the administration should have already been on it.
And instead of offering what appears to be the subtext of the article today (Scoots Libby going down!), the crack team of reporters for the New York Times (look at the list: Douglas Jehl, David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane ) should have included one individual who grasped what we've walked through -- one reporter who picked up the phone and asked Hadley for a statement. The article should have included it even if it were only, "Hadley stated he could not commment . . ."
I honestly don't think the Times realizes what they are reporting today. Or maybe they see it as a talking point and didn't feel it needed looking into.
But what they're reporting is that by July 11th, the deputy national security advisor knew that the press was asking about a CIA agent and apparently nothing was done to warn her agency or to warn her. The only phrase that comes to my mind is "Dereliction of duty."
Sunday, July 10, 2005
A note to our readers
Another edition. What a nightmare. We spent two hours discussing books for our "Five Books, Five Minutes." We lost it in post and what was saved was not much. Ava and C.I. both said they weren't sitting through that again this morning. Jess agreed. Ty asked if we'd ever make it to bed before the sun came up. So we'll try to pick that up next week.
We have blog spotlights, multiple and there's a reason for that. But you can read an entry from Mike, Betty, Rebecca, Kat, and Pru. Thanks to all involved. (We would have liked to reprint an entry by Ruth but we didn't have time to ask ahead of time.) (C.I. said there were enough Blog Spotlights and asked that we not reprint any C.I. penned items so that the focus could be on others. Maybe next week we can pick up this. We think it's pretty incredible.)
We thank Maria and C.I. for saying yes to Maria's Democracy Now! post being repeated. We like this feature and hope you're passing the word that the headlines are available in text and audio.
We have a half-assed "Dear Third Estate Sunday Review." Half-assed because only half was saved and when we completed it, we immediately attempted to post. Guess what? Yep, lost another one.
We've had questions about A Winding Road and Folding Star. We have no answers. But we did explore the topic of shutting down a blog, of blogs and other issues. We hope Folding Star is fine and if there's a return to blogging, great. We're keeping up the link for now.
Calm down, there's a review by Ava and C.I. They're addressing Summerland and Two and a Half Men.
And we have an editorial ("Head On Home") that we hope you enjoy. Next week, we intend to do the book reviews and other things. If problems with the Blogger program persist; however, we may do an editorial, a TV review and make it a best of edition.
We thank everyone for their help. And we'll start with Dallas because Ava points out that too often we forget to say thank you to Dallas. Dallas hunts down our links. Without his help, we'd be a nice print edition (we do a print edition for our campus) but not much to offer on the internet. So thank you to Dallas.
We'll say thank you to everyone who helped out. That's not saying, "Yeah, I like it." That's rolling up their sleeves. Discussing, debating, tossing out lines and changing lines. The crew this go round was Kat, Betty, Rebecca and Mike. Thank you.
Ava and C.I. did the TV review (as always). And we thank our honorary member C.I. who always helps out, always hangs in there. That's not an easy task because when we're winding down, C.I.'s still got a site called The Common Ills, maybe you heard of it?, where posts need to go up. If it weren't for problems with the Blogger program, we would have all been asleep at a semi-decent hour.
We're all tired of it. Betty takes a nap to stay up and help. She drags through Sundays. Mike's cool with it but he's not had time to burn out on these all night sessions. But with the exception of Jim, we think everyone else is down to the filter. (You thought we'd say wick, right? We're not that obvious!) Which is why if the nonsense with Blogger losing our posts starts up again next weekend, we'll do a best of edition to give everyone time to get some sleep.
We hope there's something here to make you think or make you laugh or make you mad.
And we're sorry about the loss of "Five Books, Five Minutes." Especially since Ava and Jess went through the e-mails for book suggestions, composed of list of your suggested books and then we all picked five from it. Those books are not being forgotten. We'll address them next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava
We have blog spotlights, multiple and there's a reason for that. But you can read an entry from Mike, Betty, Rebecca, Kat, and Pru. Thanks to all involved. (We would have liked to reprint an entry by Ruth but we didn't have time to ask ahead of time.) (C.I. said there were enough Blog Spotlights and asked that we not reprint any C.I. penned items so that the focus could be on others. Maybe next week we can pick up this. We think it's pretty incredible.)
We thank Maria and C.I. for saying yes to Maria's Democracy Now! post being repeated. We like this feature and hope you're passing the word that the headlines are available in text and audio.
We have a half-assed "Dear Third Estate Sunday Review." Half-assed because only half was saved and when we completed it, we immediately attempted to post. Guess what? Yep, lost another one.
We've had questions about A Winding Road and Folding Star. We have no answers. But we did explore the topic of shutting down a blog, of blogs and other issues. We hope Folding Star is fine and if there's a return to blogging, great. We're keeping up the link for now.
Calm down, there's a review by Ava and C.I. They're addressing Summerland and Two and a Half Men.
And we have an editorial ("Head On Home") that we hope you enjoy. Next week, we intend to do the book reviews and other things. If problems with the Blogger program persist; however, we may do an editorial, a TV review and make it a best of edition.
We thank everyone for their help. And we'll start with Dallas because Ava points out that too often we forget to say thank you to Dallas. Dallas hunts down our links. Without his help, we'd be a nice print edition (we do a print edition for our campus) but not much to offer on the internet. So thank you to Dallas.
We'll say thank you to everyone who helped out. That's not saying, "Yeah, I like it." That's rolling up their sleeves. Discussing, debating, tossing out lines and changing lines. The crew this go round was Kat, Betty, Rebecca and Mike. Thank you.
Ava and C.I. did the TV review (as always). And we thank our honorary member C.I. who always helps out, always hangs in there. That's not an easy task because when we're winding down, C.I.'s still got a site called The Common Ills, maybe you heard of it?, where posts need to go up. If it weren't for problems with the Blogger program, we would have all been asleep at a semi-decent hour.
We're all tired of it. Betty takes a nap to stay up and help. She drags through Sundays. Mike's cool with it but he's not had time to burn out on these all night sessions. But with the exception of Jim, we think everyone else is down to the filter. (You thought we'd say wick, right? We're not that obvious!) Which is why if the nonsense with Blogger losing our posts starts up again next weekend, we'll do a best of edition to give everyone time to get some sleep.
We hope there's something here to make you think or make you laugh or make you mad.
And we're sorry about the loss of "Five Books, Five Minutes." Especially since Ava and Jess went through the e-mails for book suggestions, composed of list of your suggested books and then we all picked five from it. Those books are not being forgotten. We'll address them next week.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava
Editorial: Time to Head On Home
To quote the Beatles "I read the news today, oh boy."
A quick scan of the headlines on BuzzFlash reveal what we already knew, the Bully Boy's not made us safer. We see links to stories on the feelings of the British. (Similar to Pru's feelings expressed at The Common Ills.)
C.I. and Dallas go international and end up with Tony Allen-Mills and Andrew North's "Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden" (Sunday Times of London) about "the worst incident in the history of the Seals." Not a credit the Bully Boy needs right now after dragging his feet for almost four years since Sept. 11th. What was "Wanted Dead or Alive?" A provocative personal ad? It certainly wasn't anything with meaning.
Then there's Michael Smith's "UK in talks to hand Iraq role to Australia" (also Sunday Times of London):
BRITAIN is negotiating with Australia to hand over military command of southern Iraq to free up British troops for redeployment to the front line in Afghanistan.
An announcement is expected within weeks that several thousand British soldiers are to be sent to Afghanistan.
The coalition of Operation Enduring Falsehood continues to shrink.
And folks, we're just getting started. Still sticking with The Sunday Times of London, check out Hala Jaber's "Allawi: this is the start of civil war:"
IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved.
"The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq," said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: "The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak."
Occupations will lead to civil wars. No surprise there. To resentment, to anger and to violence.
Or how about this UPI article linked to at Iraq Coalition Casualties? The link's bad
(they don't have the full web address in the link) but look at what you can read:
07/09/05 upi: Iraq war results in at least 254 amputees
Army hospitals treated 254 amputees from the Iraq war...Nearly 19,000 soldiers have been medically evacuated ...There were 2,527 evacuated with battle injuries, 5,444 with non-battle injuries and 10,758 with disease.
At The Independent, Andy McSmith's "Leaked memo shows Iraq pull-out plans" only makes the point more clear about who's still wanting to dance with Bully Boy and who's called a taxi for the ride home:
Almost two thirds of the 8,500 British troops in Iraq will have been pulled out by the end of next year, under plans drawn up in Whitehall to hand over two provinces to Iraqi control.
The plan set out in a leaked memo written by the Defence Secretary John Reid, hints that the Government is keen to cut the heavy cost of patrolling southern Iraq.
The memo calculates that the current cost of the British presence in Iraq, around £1bn a year, could be halved if the number of troops were reduced to 3,000 during 2006. The memo implies that the British would formally hand over control to the Iraqis of the four provinces currently under British control by April 2006, but that it take another eight months before what the memo calls the "UK military drawdown" has been completed - and 18 months before the money comes through.
Are we starting to get the picture yet? The public is. They want the troops home. Polls show that. It's just the media and our leaders that are too timid to address it. "Stay the course!" they chant. This "cakewalk" has now lasted over two years. Donald Rumsfeld says twelve is a possiblity. "Cakewalk?"
How do you define "success" in Iraq? That's difficult since the reasons for the invasion/occupation constantly shift. But it's not been a cakewalk, this war of choice. And we haven't made the world safer for anyone. Iraq's not safer. We're not safer. The London bombings prove the fly paper theory was crap.
Now we're supposed to let the ones who brought us this war go back to the drawing board to . . . think up new excuses? They had no planning other than (as Naomi Klein pointed out in "Baghdad Year Zero") to have a tag sale on the Iraqi assets. Even the Operation Happy Talkers seem to have a case of cat got their tongues. (Sadly, we're sure this is a momentary condition.)
If sane people can agree that the illegal occupation is a disaster for everyone involved (outside of those profitting from the war), how much are we willing to give to "stay the course?" We want the body counts to double? When do we reach the point that we say enough?
We steer to you to "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" and ask at what point do we take a realistic look at what's going on?
Pig-headed is not a virtue. It's not sane. It's not logical. And it's only going to get more people killed.
The Bully Boy has sullied this nation's name. He's trashed treaties and conventions. He's had a five-year frat party at our expense. At some point, we need to roll up our sleeves and do some cleaning. And that means tossing in the garbage the notion that after two years of the "cake walk" this is anything like what was sold to us.
"Stay the course?" We say "head on home." Head on home to what America is supposed to stand for. On what America is supposed to represent. This invasion/occupation isn't what America's supposed to be about. So let's all grow up, sober up and realize that the Bully Boy's taken us on a two-year bender. Comes a time when you gotta head home. It's past time for that.
Iraq had no WMD. It was not a threat to us ("mushroom cloud," Condi?). Someone lied us into war. They took us off course. It's time to get back to what America's all about and it's time to realize that drunk slurring his words and telling us he knows another bar that's still open isn't anyone we want to get a car in with. We're ready to head on home and return to the lives we should be leading. Lives that don't involve wars built on lies. Lives that don't involve trying to impose a system on a people who didn't ask for us to be there. Lives that don't involve falling for the latest Operation Happy Talk. Lives that are reality-based. Bar's closing, let's all head on home. At least the ones who still have that option, the ones who didn't give their lives to a war of choice, one that should have been avoided.
[Note: Since these editorials tend to get reposted elsewhere, we'll note this was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review crew of Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava as well as by C.I. of The Common Ills, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner, Mike of Mikey Likes It! and Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man.]
A quick scan of the headlines on BuzzFlash reveal what we already knew, the Bully Boy's not made us safer. We see links to stories on the feelings of the British. (Similar to Pru's feelings expressed at The Common Ills.)
C.I. and Dallas go international and end up with Tony Allen-Mills and Andrew North's "Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden" (Sunday Times of London) about "the worst incident in the history of the Seals." Not a credit the Bully Boy needs right now after dragging his feet for almost four years since Sept. 11th. What was "Wanted Dead or Alive?" A provocative personal ad? It certainly wasn't anything with meaning.
Then there's Michael Smith's "UK in talks to hand Iraq role to Australia" (also Sunday Times of London):
BRITAIN is negotiating with Australia to hand over military command of southern Iraq to free up British troops for redeployment to the front line in Afghanistan.
An announcement is expected within weeks that several thousand British soldiers are to be sent to Afghanistan.
The coalition of Operation Enduring Falsehood continues to shrink.
And folks, we're just getting started. Still sticking with The Sunday Times of London, check out Hala Jaber's "Allawi: this is the start of civil war:"
IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved.
"The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq," said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: "The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak."
Occupations will lead to civil wars. No surprise there. To resentment, to anger and to violence.
Or how about this UPI article linked to at Iraq Coalition Casualties? The link's bad
(they don't have the full web address in the link) but look at what you can read:
07/09/05 upi: Iraq war results in at least 254 amputees
Army hospitals treated 254 amputees from the Iraq war...Nearly 19,000 soldiers have been medically evacuated ...There were 2,527 evacuated with battle injuries, 5,444 with non-battle injuries and 10,758 with disease.
At The Independent, Andy McSmith's "Leaked memo shows Iraq pull-out plans" only makes the point more clear about who's still wanting to dance with Bully Boy and who's called a taxi for the ride home:
Almost two thirds of the 8,500 British troops in Iraq will have been pulled out by the end of next year, under plans drawn up in Whitehall to hand over two provinces to Iraqi control.
The plan set out in a leaked memo written by the Defence Secretary John Reid, hints that the Government is keen to cut the heavy cost of patrolling southern Iraq.
The memo calculates that the current cost of the British presence in Iraq, around £1bn a year, could be halved if the number of troops were reduced to 3,000 during 2006. The memo implies that the British would formally hand over control to the Iraqis of the four provinces currently under British control by April 2006, but that it take another eight months before what the memo calls the "UK military drawdown" has been completed - and 18 months before the money comes through.
Are we starting to get the picture yet? The public is. They want the troops home. Polls show that. It's just the media and our leaders that are too timid to address it. "Stay the course!" they chant. This "cakewalk" has now lasted over two years. Donald Rumsfeld says twelve is a possiblity. "Cakewalk?"
How do you define "success" in Iraq? That's difficult since the reasons for the invasion/occupation constantly shift. But it's not been a cakewalk, this war of choice. And we haven't made the world safer for anyone. Iraq's not safer. We're not safer. The London bombings prove the fly paper theory was crap.
Now we're supposed to let the ones who brought us this war go back to the drawing board to . . . think up new excuses? They had no planning other than (as Naomi Klein pointed out in "Baghdad Year Zero") to have a tag sale on the Iraqi assets. Even the Operation Happy Talkers seem to have a case of cat got their tongues. (Sadly, we're sure this is a momentary condition.)
If sane people can agree that the illegal occupation is a disaster for everyone involved (outside of those profitting from the war), how much are we willing to give to "stay the course?" We want the body counts to double? When do we reach the point that we say enough?
We steer to you to "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" and ask at what point do we take a realistic look at what's going on?
Pig-headed is not a virtue. It's not sane. It's not logical. And it's only going to get more people killed.
The Bully Boy has sullied this nation's name. He's trashed treaties and conventions. He's had a five-year frat party at our expense. At some point, we need to roll up our sleeves and do some cleaning. And that means tossing in the garbage the notion that after two years of the "cake walk" this is anything like what was sold to us.
"Stay the course?" We say "head on home." Head on home to what America is supposed to stand for. On what America is supposed to represent. This invasion/occupation isn't what America's supposed to be about. So let's all grow up, sober up and realize that the Bully Boy's taken us on a two-year bender. Comes a time when you gotta head home. It's past time for that.
Iraq had no WMD. It was not a threat to us ("mushroom cloud," Condi?). Someone lied us into war. They took us off course. It's time to get back to what America's all about and it's time to realize that drunk slurring his words and telling us he knows another bar that's still open isn't anyone we want to get a car in with. We're ready to head on home and return to the lives we should be leading. Lives that don't involve wars built on lies. Lives that don't involve trying to impose a system on a people who didn't ask for us to be there. Lives that don't involve falling for the latest Operation Happy Talk. Lives that are reality-based. Bar's closing, let's all head on home. At least the ones who still have that option, the ones who didn't give their lives to a war of choice, one that should have been avoided.
[Note: Since these editorials tend to get reposted elsewhere, we'll note this was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review crew of Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava as well as by C.I. of The Common Ills, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner, Mike of Mikey Likes It! and Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man.]
TV Review Summerland scores, Two and a Half Men annoys
Summerland, don't it wash the body wash down.
While The OC kids work it real hard to find a problem and the One Tree Hill gang mistakes infantile for daring, the WB's Summerland comes off like a real show. There are plots. There are characters. The characters speak to one another, not at one another.
We had to empty the contents of a lot of body wash to find one genuine drama geared to pre-teens, teens and adults but low and behold it does exist. Summerland doesn't deserve the "body wash" label. This isn't a show that postures or pretends. It's an old fashioned drama. If that's your kind of genre, then Summerland is your kind of show.
Lori Loughlin stars as Ava, a woman who's trying to keep it together and do the right thing. (Yes, we liked that too.) To nutshell the show, Ava's sibling died and she's now raising three children. Call it Party of Four but realize that she's got help from friends. (or think of it as Family Affair: 2005 with a sexy parental substitute and the Mr. French role spread out among three friends -- none of whom dresses as a butler.)
Shawn Christian plays Ava's friend Johnny. He's also someone with whom she's been more than friends in the past and, in the episode we watched last week, someone she wants to be more than friends with again. The tension leading up to Ava to tell Johnny (who'd just moved in with another woman) that she wanted to be a couple was stronger than anything we saw watching the body wash operettas.
We were actually interested in the developments there. Partly due to the fact that the writers know how to create tension and partly due to the fact that Loughlin and Christian know how to act. (Loughlin apparently knows a great deal, she's billed as co-creator of the show.) E-mails came in on the need for us to weigh in on Chad Michael Murray's "chewy" nipples and Big forehead's pits, on the laid back group of adults playing high schoolers on The OC, but we've only had three e-mails on Summerland.
We're not sure whether that reflects ratings but for those looking for a show to get caught up in, we strongly urge you to sample Summerland ("only two new episodes left!" trumpets the ads on the WB). We'd also strongly suggest that Shawn Christian get a hair cut and quick. Why anyone would want to work a modified Peter Brady look is beyond us. It's also beyond the rules of time for Christian, at his age, to carry the look off. Once you get over the misplaced mop top, you realize that not only can he act, he's actually hot. Don't hide that under bad hair, Christian.
We didn't see a weak performance in the cast. The juvenile leads (played by people not staring down thirty -- which is shocking after One Tree Hill and The OC) actually have talent. That includes Jesse McCartney who plays Braden but sadly didn't utilize his 60s mod hair we'd seen in the music video. McCartney turned 18 into April which makes him fair game in our book if he embarrasses himself. But he didn't. He can act. (He can't, however, sing so let's hope he gets that out of system quickly.) Kay Panabaker, Nikki, turned 15 in May and we'll bend our rules on not commenting on actors under eighteen enough to note that a) she knows what to do and b) what's with all these actors coming from Texas? We noticed that with The OC and One Tree Hill but didn't comment on it. But this is the third time we've come across this so we'll just toss that question out there.
Penabaker has the strength (and the youth) to pull off the "Fell in Love With a Boy . . . who happens to be gay and can I change him?" scenes. (She's quickly set straight that no, she can't.)
Merrin Dungey plays Ava's friend and roommate and though the writers would be smart to stop leaving her personal life offscreen, Dungey's talented enough that many may not notice. She's playing Susannah here but some may know her as Franci on Alias. (When Franci died . . . Correction, when real Franci died and then later fake Franci as well, so did our interest in the show that really wants to convince you Horse Face is the new hot look. Possibly the absence on that show of female regulars under forty is required to make that argument?)
Rounding out the regulars are Ryan Kwanten, Ava's surfer friend Jay who helps out, and Taylor Cole as McCartney's love interest Erika. (Note that Cole is 20 and, ask yourself why again, from Texas.) There are honestly more sparks between Kwanten and Cole than between Cole and McCartney. We're not sure that was intended. And possibly with Jay acting as Braden's surfing coach it was part of the usual "focus on sports, son" argument.
Which brings us back to Loughlin. Playing the substitute parent of Braden, Nikki and Derrick, she's believable. She's more than that, she's good. She knows how to use her body and her voice to bring a character to life. We note that because when we did our review of CSI Miami a number of e-mails came in how mean we were to poor Emily Proctor. "She's trying to be a serious actress!" huffed one. With that tinkly, helium voice? In those cleavage sporting blouses?
Maybe the defenders of The Dukes of Hazard: Reunion!'s former Mavis missed it, but she's playing a crime scene investigator not the brave "honey" who's suing Hooters because they fired her due to her age (in a Lifetime movie that we're sure is in the works and no doubt called Not Without My Boobies!). Loughlin's got a body. We're sure its been disrobed in the past on Summerland and will be in the future (we really think that as soon as Christian's Johnny gets a haircut, Ava needs to celebrate by hauling his ass into bed).
But just as we didn't buy Melanie Griffith as a cop in A Stranger Among Us (or as someone who could pass for Jewish or, for that matter, human), we didn't buy Little Miss Squeaks as a crime scene investigator. Loughlin's voice doesn't bring to mind Lauren Bacall or Demi Moore, but it is an adult woman's voice. It's also a no nonsense voice. ("No nonsense," not "nagging." Patricia Heaton fans -- both of you -- take note.) With Kim Delaney having short circuited, Leah Ayers having vanished and Demi Moore moved on to the big screen, Loughlin may be one of the last 80s soap stars still working in TV. When she joined the Full House cast, the show seemed a little more reality based (and the cartoonish elements all the more obvious). Since then, she's not disgraced herself in the various women in crisis films she and others have starred in. But at the start of this decade, she did something that caught our attention -- she played "herself" in Wednesdays 9:30 (8:30 Central). The show lasted about an eye blink. But while it was on, she sent up her own image. (Something Jennifer Grey tried to do but failed at in It's Like, You Know . . . Grey's finest performance may still have been given in Ireland even if it was seen by few.)
It's the sort of risk that various actors wanted to take on TV in another time but few even consider these days. Summerland comes with its own risks for Loughlin. Fronting a show that's going after the youth audience can tap the strengths of strong performers. Look at poor Catherine Hicks who once held so much promise and, believe it or not, once convincingly portrayed Marilyn Monroe. So we were curious if Loughlin would stand around on the sidelines, like some sort of aged Natalie Wood, crying out "Don't race him, Jimmy!"
She doesn't. She carries the show. And that's the other thing about Summerland. It's not cast with rejects from Mobsters (and other films that were seen by even fewer people) who pop up from time to time for no real reason other than to bore the audience. The adults on this show are a part of the show and don't leave you saying, "Oh, that's why they never made it in film."
We're not fans of the format. But we'd be willing to watch Summerland again (especially if Christian got a hair cut). We didn't feel preached to or talked down to or insulted by Summerland. It's a solid show that is easy to get caught up in. It left us with hope for TV.
So much hope that we thought, "Let's grab another show." Sadly, we grabbed Two and 1/2 Men. Nothing will destroy your hopes that TV might pull itself out of the crapper quicker than an episode of Two and a Half Men or, as we like to think of it, I'm Not a Total Sleeze and Quit Saying I'm Gay! That pretty much sums up this Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer show that the TV listing assures us is a "sitcom."
If there are laughs to be found in grinding a hamburger patty into Sheen's hairy armpit, if, this show destroys them with it's deadened delivery and reoccuring theme of "Mom loved me more!" With Heather Locklear to knock the wind out of his sales, Sheen's smirk was almost palatable. But that was Spin City and Cryer is no Heather Locklear. With the minicing Jon Cryer beside Sheen, it's as though you're watching a reality version of All in the Family with Sheen as Archie and Cryer as Edith.
Pretty in Pink was 1986. Since then Cryer's starred in five TV bombs. But make no mistake, he's saved the stinkiest for last. Anyone still with goodwill towards Cryer as a result of Ducky Dell prepare to kiss it goodbye.
As they milk the "Mom loved me more" bit, we're also treated to Charlie Sheen phoning it in or else attempting to recreate the "sparkle" of a Burt Reynolds appearence on Dinah! Possibly, it is the latter because someone's got to love Sheen for them to think he's doing anything appealing here. It makes as much sense as the desire to continue to attempt to push John Cusak as a romantic lead despite the facts that have audiences have screamed "NO!" repeatedly.
There Sheen is each Monday night leering at the camera, making entendres about sex (not double entendres, the show can't handle that level of complexity), yucking it up at fart jokes and generally treating any woman under fifty as his own personal mattress. Now granted, that narrative got Sheen a ton of play in the tabloids for most of the eighties and nineties, but at least the tabloids had the decency to act shocked." CBS wants you to find it amusing.
If there's any luster left at the "Tiffany Network," this show will surely tarnish it. It is a "hit."
Coasting on Raymond's coattails, it managed to get designated a hit. But Raymond's gone and there's nothing here that will draw in audiences. What passes for humor isn't strong. The Desperate Single Women angle is about as "fresh" as Desperate Housewives. But they milk it via a neighbor who's supposed to make stalking "cute."
That's how you know it's TV -- because they pass "stalking" off as cute. In real life, stalkers don't usually get mistaken for "cute" nor are they generally female.
We're not sure what's going to kill the show first, the loss of a lead-in to hand viewers to them or the fact that Sheen's offscreen antics may no longer have the buffer of Denise Richards. Probably not a good idea to build a "family sitcom" (no matter how leering) around a man more famous in the nineties as a client of Heidi Fleiss than for anything he did onscreen. In fact his rap sheet is far more impressive than his filmography. Let's just deal with the most recent "hits:" Arrested for assault in 1996, arrested for battery in 1997, hospitalized for an overdose in 1998 and fresh off probation as the decade began, Sheen's colorful, not so distant past may have blotted away memories of the zombie walk through performances of Major League II, Terminal Velocity, The Arrival and the lot but they didn't make him a good actor.
How much does CBS want to get behind this show now that Swinging Sheen is single again? How much are they willing to stake the network's future on it? There are grumblings that the wrong show was moved to Wednesdays (Still Standing) and concern that one new tabloid headline could make the trash seem far less funny. We'd say those are good concerns and possibly the answer here would have been to never have put this crap on the air.
And while considering that, we'd add a question of our own: How much does CBS hate women? That's the question we're left with after watching Two and a Half Men.
While The OC kids work it real hard to find a problem and the One Tree Hill gang mistakes infantile for daring, the WB's Summerland comes off like a real show. There are plots. There are characters. The characters speak to one another, not at one another.
We had to empty the contents of a lot of body wash to find one genuine drama geared to pre-teens, teens and adults but low and behold it does exist. Summerland doesn't deserve the "body wash" label. This isn't a show that postures or pretends. It's an old fashioned drama. If that's your kind of genre, then Summerland is your kind of show.
Lori Loughlin stars as Ava, a woman who's trying to keep it together and do the right thing. (Yes, we liked that too.) To nutshell the show, Ava's sibling died and she's now raising three children. Call it Party of Four but realize that she's got help from friends. (or think of it as Family Affair: 2005 with a sexy parental substitute and the Mr. French role spread out among three friends -- none of whom dresses as a butler.)
Shawn Christian plays Ava's friend Johnny. He's also someone with whom she's been more than friends in the past and, in the episode we watched last week, someone she wants to be more than friends with again. The tension leading up to Ava to tell Johnny (who'd just moved in with another woman) that she wanted to be a couple was stronger than anything we saw watching the body wash operettas.
We were actually interested in the developments there. Partly due to the fact that the writers know how to create tension and partly due to the fact that Loughlin and Christian know how to act. (Loughlin apparently knows a great deal, she's billed as co-creator of the show.) E-mails came in on the need for us to weigh in on Chad Michael Murray's "chewy" nipples and Big forehead's pits, on the laid back group of adults playing high schoolers on The OC, but we've only had three e-mails on Summerland.
We're not sure whether that reflects ratings but for those looking for a show to get caught up in, we strongly urge you to sample Summerland ("only two new episodes left!" trumpets the ads on the WB). We'd also strongly suggest that Shawn Christian get a hair cut and quick. Why anyone would want to work a modified Peter Brady look is beyond us. It's also beyond the rules of time for Christian, at his age, to carry the look off. Once you get over the misplaced mop top, you realize that not only can he act, he's actually hot. Don't hide that under bad hair, Christian.
We didn't see a weak performance in the cast. The juvenile leads (played by people not staring down thirty -- which is shocking after One Tree Hill and The OC) actually have talent. That includes Jesse McCartney who plays Braden but sadly didn't utilize his 60s mod hair we'd seen in the music video. McCartney turned 18 into April which makes him fair game in our book if he embarrasses himself. But he didn't. He can act. (He can't, however, sing so let's hope he gets that out of system quickly.) Kay Panabaker, Nikki, turned 15 in May and we'll bend our rules on not commenting on actors under eighteen enough to note that a) she knows what to do and b) what's with all these actors coming from Texas? We noticed that with The OC and One Tree Hill but didn't comment on it. But this is the third time we've come across this so we'll just toss that question out there.
Penabaker has the strength (and the youth) to pull off the "Fell in Love With a Boy . . . who happens to be gay and can I change him?" scenes. (She's quickly set straight that no, she can't.)
Merrin Dungey plays Ava's friend and roommate and though the writers would be smart to stop leaving her personal life offscreen, Dungey's talented enough that many may not notice. She's playing Susannah here but some may know her as Franci on Alias. (When Franci died . . . Correction, when real Franci died and then later fake Franci as well, so did our interest in the show that really wants to convince you Horse Face is the new hot look. Possibly the absence on that show of female regulars under forty is required to make that argument?)
Rounding out the regulars are Ryan Kwanten, Ava's surfer friend Jay who helps out, and Taylor Cole as McCartney's love interest Erika. (Note that Cole is 20 and, ask yourself why again, from Texas.) There are honestly more sparks between Kwanten and Cole than between Cole and McCartney. We're not sure that was intended. And possibly with Jay acting as Braden's surfing coach it was part of the usual "focus on sports, son" argument.
Which brings us back to Loughlin. Playing the substitute parent of Braden, Nikki and Derrick, she's believable. She's more than that, she's good. She knows how to use her body and her voice to bring a character to life. We note that because when we did our review of CSI Miami a number of e-mails came in how mean we were to poor Emily Proctor. "She's trying to be a serious actress!" huffed one. With that tinkly, helium voice? In those cleavage sporting blouses?
Maybe the defenders of The Dukes of Hazard: Reunion!'s former Mavis missed it, but she's playing a crime scene investigator not the brave "honey" who's suing Hooters because they fired her due to her age (in a Lifetime movie that we're sure is in the works and no doubt called Not Without My Boobies!). Loughlin's got a body. We're sure its been disrobed in the past on Summerland and will be in the future (we really think that as soon as Christian's Johnny gets a haircut, Ava needs to celebrate by hauling his ass into bed).
But just as we didn't buy Melanie Griffith as a cop in A Stranger Among Us (or as someone who could pass for Jewish or, for that matter, human), we didn't buy Little Miss Squeaks as a crime scene investigator. Loughlin's voice doesn't bring to mind Lauren Bacall or Demi Moore, but it is an adult woman's voice. It's also a no nonsense voice. ("No nonsense," not "nagging." Patricia Heaton fans -- both of you -- take note.) With Kim Delaney having short circuited, Leah Ayers having vanished and Demi Moore moved on to the big screen, Loughlin may be one of the last 80s soap stars still working in TV. When she joined the Full House cast, the show seemed a little more reality based (and the cartoonish elements all the more obvious). Since then, she's not disgraced herself in the various women in crisis films she and others have starred in. But at the start of this decade, she did something that caught our attention -- she played "herself" in Wednesdays 9:30 (8:30 Central). The show lasted about an eye blink. But while it was on, she sent up her own image. (Something Jennifer Grey tried to do but failed at in It's Like, You Know . . . Grey's finest performance may still have been given in Ireland even if it was seen by few.)
It's the sort of risk that various actors wanted to take on TV in another time but few even consider these days. Summerland comes with its own risks for Loughlin. Fronting a show that's going after the youth audience can tap the strengths of strong performers. Look at poor Catherine Hicks who once held so much promise and, believe it or not, once convincingly portrayed Marilyn Monroe. So we were curious if Loughlin would stand around on the sidelines, like some sort of aged Natalie Wood, crying out "Don't race him, Jimmy!"
She doesn't. She carries the show. And that's the other thing about Summerland. It's not cast with rejects from Mobsters (and other films that were seen by even fewer people) who pop up from time to time for no real reason other than to bore the audience. The adults on this show are a part of the show and don't leave you saying, "Oh, that's why they never made it in film."
We're not fans of the format. But we'd be willing to watch Summerland again (especially if Christian got a hair cut). We didn't feel preached to or talked down to or insulted by Summerland. It's a solid show that is easy to get caught up in. It left us with hope for TV.
So much hope that we thought, "Let's grab another show." Sadly, we grabbed Two and 1/2 Men. Nothing will destroy your hopes that TV might pull itself out of the crapper quicker than an episode of Two and a Half Men or, as we like to think of it, I'm Not a Total Sleeze and Quit Saying I'm Gay! That pretty much sums up this Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer show that the TV listing assures us is a "sitcom."
If there are laughs to be found in grinding a hamburger patty into Sheen's hairy armpit, if, this show destroys them with it's deadened delivery and reoccuring theme of "Mom loved me more!" With Heather Locklear to knock the wind out of his sales, Sheen's smirk was almost palatable. But that was Spin City and Cryer is no Heather Locklear. With the minicing Jon Cryer beside Sheen, it's as though you're watching a reality version of All in the Family with Sheen as Archie and Cryer as Edith.
Pretty in Pink was 1986. Since then Cryer's starred in five TV bombs. But make no mistake, he's saved the stinkiest for last. Anyone still with goodwill towards Cryer as a result of Ducky Dell prepare to kiss it goodbye.
As they milk the "Mom loved me more" bit, we're also treated to Charlie Sheen phoning it in or else attempting to recreate the "sparkle" of a Burt Reynolds appearence on Dinah! Possibly, it is the latter because someone's got to love Sheen for them to think he's doing anything appealing here. It makes as much sense as the desire to continue to attempt to push John Cusak as a romantic lead despite the facts that have audiences have screamed "NO!" repeatedly.
There Sheen is each Monday night leering at the camera, making entendres about sex (not double entendres, the show can't handle that level of complexity), yucking it up at fart jokes and generally treating any woman under fifty as his own personal mattress. Now granted, that narrative got Sheen a ton of play in the tabloids for most of the eighties and nineties, but at least the tabloids had the decency to act shocked." CBS wants you to find it amusing.
If there's any luster left at the "Tiffany Network," this show will surely tarnish it. It is a "hit."
Coasting on Raymond's coattails, it managed to get designated a hit. But Raymond's gone and there's nothing here that will draw in audiences. What passes for humor isn't strong. The Desperate Single Women angle is about as "fresh" as Desperate Housewives. But they milk it via a neighbor who's supposed to make stalking "cute."
That's how you know it's TV -- because they pass "stalking" off as cute. In real life, stalkers don't usually get mistaken for "cute" nor are they generally female.
We're not sure what's going to kill the show first, the loss of a lead-in to hand viewers to them or the fact that Sheen's offscreen antics may no longer have the buffer of Denise Richards. Probably not a good idea to build a "family sitcom" (no matter how leering) around a man more famous in the nineties as a client of Heidi Fleiss than for anything he did onscreen. In fact his rap sheet is far more impressive than his filmography. Let's just deal with the most recent "hits:" Arrested for assault in 1996, arrested for battery in 1997, hospitalized for an overdose in 1998 and fresh off probation as the decade began, Sheen's colorful, not so distant past may have blotted away memories of the zombie walk through performances of Major League II, Terminal Velocity, The Arrival and the lot but they didn't make him a good actor.
How much does CBS want to get behind this show now that Swinging Sheen is single again? How much are they willing to stake the network's future on it? There are grumblings that the wrong show was moved to Wednesdays (Still Standing) and concern that one new tabloid headline could make the trash seem far less funny. We'd say those are good concerns and possibly the answer here would have been to never have put this crap on the air.
And while considering that, we'd add a question of our own: How much does CBS hate women? That's the question we're left with after watching Two and a Half Men.
Folding Star's decision to stop blogging
Last week started out pretty good. We were pleased with the edition we'd put out. We all had the Fourth to spend as we pleased. O'Connor's announcement was weighing heavy but all and all, pretty good week. Or so it seemed.
Monday morning, Rebecca was surfing (while painting her toe nails as she noted) when she came across a post and immediately called C.I., Kat and Jess. They didn't know anything about it. None of us did.
Folding Star decided to stop blogging. A Winding Road is no more. In addition, Folding Star's deleted all posts. The only one of us who's been in any contact with Folding Star since then is C.I.
Folding Star has advised that any readers of A Winding Road that have questions should send
"questions/queries to foldingstar05@yahoo.com."
We were all surprised by the news. Readers who've asked us why we didn't mention it last week, we didn't know it was happening. We had no indication at all. We'd even spotlighted Folding Star's post on Sandra Day O'Connor.
We're all part of The Common Ills community and the news surprised us. Also made us wonder how long are own sites would last? We teased each other about that. With C.I., we teased that the increasing drumbeat of e-mails would finally lead to C.I. announcing "the community is no more, go home! Go home!" a la Tracey Ullman. With Rebecca, we joked that as the winter months gathered, she'd pack up and move to a tropical spot where she'd lie by the beach each day and tan away. With Mike, we teased that as soon as he got into his next serious relationship, he'd forget all about blogging. With Betty, we teased that Paul Krugman would say, "At last, someone else who sees how foolish Thomas Friedman truly is! Come away with me, Betty!"
With Kat, we joked that the Pink Floyd reunion would lead to her running the laser light show for them and no time for blogging. And Third Estate Sunday Review was teased about being a Fleetwood Mac about to happen with "shacking ups" and "breaking ups."
But behind the humor, we were all wondering about ourselves. (We are Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim, Ava, C.I., Mike, Betty, Kat and Rebecca.) Betty who had no time for blogging drove herself crazy trying to get a post up this week. She had already gotten a few e-mails asking if she was bailing as well and she wanted something up to show that she was "still in the game." Betty works and works and works again on each entry. By contrast, C.I. does rough drafts and posts those. Over here, C.I. will do editing with all of us and keep reworking an entry until it's as sharp as it can be. Over there, C.I. just posts what gets typed up. So it wasn't a case of being like Betty. But C.I. noted that it was a lot easier to focus on work regarding O'Connor's replacement than to focus on doing entries. Rebecca tried to stay positive. We'd all agreed to try to see if Folding Star wanted to talk about it before we made a public comment. Rebecca was upset (and says she still is) and by Friday, she blogged on it. (And no, we weren't mad at her for that.) Mike wondered what was going on because he'd never met or spoken to Folding Star and was completely in the dark. Kat, in her typical cool, didn't let it affect her. She almost posted Friday, she says, but figured, "I've already said, I'll post when I have something to say and I'm not doing a daily blog."
We'd always planned to address it here, this Sunday. We wish we had something to tell you. C.I.'s shared all that's permitted. We weren't given a heads up and we were given no notification after.
From Folding Star's post there was an e-mail that led to doubts and the decision to close down the site. We've all had doubts and we've all had our share of nasty e-mails.
We're not sure what was behind the decision, but we'll respect it and say that we enjoyed A Winding Road and our sorry that it has been shut down. Since all the past posts are gone, we've all wondered what to do about our permalinks/blog rolls?
Possibly Folding Star will decide to start it back up, we don't know. In case that happens, we're willing to leave it up. We're also willing to leave it up to note that a community member ran a blog from January to July.
And of course our highlights of Folding Star at this site remain.
We wish we had something to tell you. We don't.
A number of you have e-mailed all of us expressing surprise and disappointment. We share that.
At the end of the day, we're still here. We're still blogging. (Or doing entries, in C.I.'s case.) We're not planning to bail anytime soon.
But we do realize that with all the fun we're having, at some point it will come to an end. This site is helped out by some great folks (Kat, Rebecca, Ruth, Dallas, Maria, Mike, Rebecca, Betty and C.I.) but it's run by five journalism majors. College won't last forever. And we've long said that we might retire the site when we graduate or we might try to pass it on to some journalism students who weren't done with college yet. C.I.'s health is a topic thanks to jerks and The Common Ills would go on without C.I. (for health reasons or any other) with Ava as long as she was willing to do it. Rebecca's been working on an entry for over a week now and it's the most difficult one she's ever had to work on. ("Still working on it!") She's not really sure how it will go over or how she'll feel about it after it's posted. She may take a break after it goes up. Betty's determined to plug away but notes that it's very difficult juggling her kids, her job, her home and blogging. And we'll note again that Betty writes and rewrites and rewrites again. Mike thinks he's found his niche but admits that he doesn't know how it will feel when fall rolls around and he's doing full time classes again.
We've all been very lucky because it's mainly been fun. There have been tense moments. (And we'll never forgive or forget the attacks on C.I. and we'll leave it at that because C.I. said "Let's not go into that again.") But we've had fun swapping stories and sharing things. We've had fun with some great e-mails. We've had fun feeling that we could share something with readers (members in C.I.'s case) that they might miss otherwise. ("Tonight has not been fun," Kat said. And we'll agree with that since we lost a post.)
As a community, we tried to include other members who blogged. Maybe we didn't push hard enough to include Folding Star? Maybe "busy" really required asking again to make sure FS knew we were sincere?
But in the bad times, we've had te fact that we could share and we could discuss. And that carried us over the bumps in the road. We're not sure that Folding Star had that same feeling. (And if we weren't trying hard enough, our apologies to Folding Star.)
An e-mail is the reason cited. It seems hard to believe that one e-mail alone could cause someone to close down a site. So we're assuming there was more going on. Folding Star was working and going to college and maybe the e-mail was the last straw? We don't know.
We're as in the dark as any of you. But the point that C.I. stressed, the point that made all of us decide to start blogging, was that what we need are more voices. The mainstream media has a very narrow range. For now at least, the internet can provide a platform for other voices.
And we all try to take that to heart. Ruth covers NPR. Not from a "Cokie Roberts says it and it's true" but from a critique of wisdom that's come with age and experience and we appreciate and enjoy her contributions. Kat's covering music. And it would be really easy to be parroting what a blow hard from The New Yorker (we're all in agreement with Kat on that) has to say. Instead, she's focusing on how music needs to mean something. It needs to be something more than "beats" and "hooks" and pretty faces wearing few clothes. We're not seeing many superstar acts on tour these days, new ones. That's got a lot to do with the fact that they're not musicians. And they're not Madonnas. They tease it out and have no desire to push any limits.
So you're left with bad music and timid performers more often than not. Kat's critiques are needed in an age when a New Yorker critic feels the need to sing the praises on the product that is Justin Timberlake. Rebecca's the woman who will not be pushed around. And she's not going to be repeating news from the mainstream. Like C.I., she's going for the items that aren't being covered everywhere. (She was on the polio issue before anyone we knew was talking about it.)
And her site gets backlash e-mails because she's not going to fit into your tidy image of "the little woman." Betty's blog is a novel. Let's be honest. Those entries are like chapters. And throughout the novel is the critique of neoliberalism and imperialism and, for the matter, "misguided do-gooderism." Mike's hitting hard on the recuriting issue and answering questions that no one else is tackling (crotch rot, for one!). Like Rebecca and C.I., he's citing Democracy Now! and other independent media voices. And then there's C.I. and The Common Ills. The site that we all sprung from. (Rebecca just told C.I. to shut up and we'll write what we want on this part.)
We'll make it a whole paragraph in fact. The news of C.I.'s cancer isn't something we largely dealt with on a personal level. Jim's said if anything happens to C.I. he doesn't want to blog anymore. Other than some conversations Ava and C.I. have had, that's been the extent of our dealing with that issue. We know it's there. We know C.I.'s better. But we do worry.
And the reason we worry is personal. But in terms of the web, it also has to do with the fact that we all started because of The Common Ills. We saw a site that valued our input, shared our belief that the troops needed to be brought home now, wasn't afraid to risk attacks for taking a stand and offered news we didn't hear of elsewhere. Clamor? Didn't know of it until C.I. pushed it. LeftTurn? Same deal. Our appreciation for Democracy Now! only grew as a result of The Common Ills.
Time wasn't wasted on runaway brides or Aruba or other nonsense. And whether it's Katrina vanden Heuvel or Naomi Klein or Tom Hayden or Grace Lee Boggs or whomever, the voices for peace had a place there. And not in a "hippie" mocking tone. We're honestly bothered by the dismissal of "hippies." Not just because Jess' parents were and are hippies. But because of the sneering self-satisfied attitude. Earth to sneerers, you're not doing a lot of good tearing down a group that believed in something. Maybe you think it makes you look "mature." Or maybe you think it makes you look "moderate." We think it makes you look silly. And we've noticed that while you sneer at the hippies, you rush to prop up John McCain. We'll take one hippie over twenty John McCain's any day. And wonder about the value system of those who wouldn't?
Jess' dad works on prison reform, his mother is a public defender. Jess grew up not having Nike and other products pushed down his throat. His parents expected him to make contributions to discussions around the table -- and they ate their meals together. They have a garden that they work together. Playing music on the radio or stereo was always better than TV in Jess' house, and playing music yourself was better than playing recorded music. Taking stands was supported even if Jess' parents disagreed with the stands. (His mother especially wishes he'd go into music and forget about journalism. But she supports his decision.)
So we're not quite sure where these sneerers get off looking down on "hippies." Maybe they'd prefer to hob knob with Greg's parents instead of Dahrma's? And maybe that something about the sneerer's value systems?
But at The Common Ills, it's never, "Tom Hayden, hippie, doesn't get it!" Or "Maxine Hong Kingtson, hippie, doesn't get it!" But maybe that's because C.I.'s not trying to start the next war or support the current one? Or to be a Nicholas Kristof and tear down the left to score points with the right? (Someone should figure out what feminism ever did to Nicky K and why he hates feminists so much that he lies about them. Then they might want to figure out why his paper is okay with that?) For Rebecca, the turning moment was the post on NPR bringing on the husband of woman who worked for Dick Cheney to critique John Kerry's campaign -- and not telling the listeners that the man's wife worked for Dick Cheney. For Third Estate Sunday Review members it was that and the strong opposition to Simon Rosenberg whose first word was, no doubt, "lite." For Betty it was a number of things but what stands out was that Black History Month was noted there. Every day. For Mike, it was the "Night Letter" which he didn't hear about anywhere else. For Kat it was "everything -- going to sources that weren't obvious, taking stands and just the I'm not going to bullshit it and try to curry favor by appearing moderate."
We did a piece here on blogging. And the moral of that fairy tale was to speak in your voice. We need more of that and we need more voices. But not to run down links to ABC or a big paper. We need voices that will steer to you to our independent media. That's Democracy Now!, that's Free Speech Radio News, that's BuzzFlash, that's magazines other than Time and Newsweek.
For all the carping about the mainstream media, we don't see a lot of people using other sources.
We'll single out one person by name, Jude of Iddybud, because she does work a wide variety of resources. She'll note Pacifica in a post or feature a smaller newspaper or whatever. But Jude's an exception. We see a lot of people who want to note Cokie Roberts, not critique her but note her. "Cokie Roberts said . . ." Is that really what we need the internet for?
As journalism majors, we're concerned with the overreliance on "acceptable sources." They're only "accpetable" because so many have made them that. If for one week, and we're not trying to start a movement here -- we're just offering a thought, every left blog made a point to highlight Democracy Now! each day, think of how much good that could do?
We go to some blogs, especially new ones, and think, "You don't grasp the power that you have." ("Tear In Your Hand" by Tori Amos on Little Earthquakes.) We have a power now, who knows how long before the net gets regulated and completely absorbed by big media?
But we're all in agreement that while we're here we'll try to offer the left. There won't be any links to articles or comments by Andrew Sullivan. We'll work our resources from the left and we'll continue to criticize the mainstream media.
We got e-mails about C.I.'s stance regarding The Times and Judith Miller. Those looking for disagreement are going to be disappointed. (Rebecca remains indifferent.) Kat's opinion is they crack down on big media and then watch out in the counter culture. Betty's opposed to giving up sources. Mike says you don't rat. And The Third Estate Sunday Review has been involved in repeated debates on this topic both with fellow students and in classrooms.
We're happy to see a little bravery from The Times. ("Little" in contrast to what's gone on there for so long. We do not, however, think that there is anything "little" about Miller and the paper's stance. We think that's brave. Hopefully, it will cross over to the pages of the paper.)
We're glad that C.I. took a brave stand. And we applaud others who take a brave stand even when we don't agree with it because there are too many people in this country who just go along.
We need more bravery. And we really wanted to highlight an entry of C.I.'s on the need for courage but C.I. felt we had enough blog spotlights. (We did have a lenghty "Five Books, Five Minutes" and it's gone. We're not recreating what Blogger lost.)
A little while ago, these were very dark times. We entertained thoughts of moving to Canada. But brave voices spoke out. So to anyone blogging or thinking of starting a blog, we ask that you be a brave voice. And if you get a piece of hate mail, like Folding Star did, you find someone to talk to about it. When the death threats towards Ava and C.I. (for TV reviews!) started, we wouldn't have gotten through that without each other.
Recently Dick Durbin tried to be a brave voice but couldn't take the criticism. We've seen enough backing down, enough apologies for things that didn't require apologies. We've seen people push the myth of "red" states, we've seen people say "don't make fun of James Dobson."
We've seen enough crap.
"You don't know the power that you have." We're returning to that because we don't know that people get the power that they have. A butterfly flaps it's wings and the effects are felt. We're sorry that Folding Star's decided to shut down A Winding Road but we hope everyone realizes that they do have a voice and that their voice can make a difference. Not if it's only in your head though. You have to get it out there. And you have to know that there may be threats and flamers but if you stand your ground you can make a difference.
We wish we could tell you, "We spoke to Folding Star and the reason is . . ." We can't. We can only tell you that we hope Folding Star blogs again and that we're still here. And that a lot of you writing searching e-mails on this topic should consider blogging. More voices.
Monday morning, Rebecca was surfing (while painting her toe nails as she noted) when she came across a post and immediately called C.I., Kat and Jess. They didn't know anything about it. None of us did.
Folding Star decided to stop blogging. A Winding Road is no more. In addition, Folding Star's deleted all posts. The only one of us who's been in any contact with Folding Star since then is C.I.
Folding Star has advised that any readers of A Winding Road that have questions should send
"questions/queries to foldingstar05@yahoo.com."
We were all surprised by the news. Readers who've asked us why we didn't mention it last week, we didn't know it was happening. We had no indication at all. We'd even spotlighted Folding Star's post on Sandra Day O'Connor.
We're all part of The Common Ills community and the news surprised us. Also made us wonder how long are own sites would last? We teased each other about that. With C.I., we teased that the increasing drumbeat of e-mails would finally lead to C.I. announcing "the community is no more, go home! Go home!" a la Tracey Ullman. With Rebecca, we joked that as the winter months gathered, she'd pack up and move to a tropical spot where she'd lie by the beach each day and tan away. With Mike, we teased that as soon as he got into his next serious relationship, he'd forget all about blogging. With Betty, we teased that Paul Krugman would say, "At last, someone else who sees how foolish Thomas Friedman truly is! Come away with me, Betty!"
With Kat, we joked that the Pink Floyd reunion would lead to her running the laser light show for them and no time for blogging. And Third Estate Sunday Review was teased about being a Fleetwood Mac about to happen with "shacking ups" and "breaking ups."
But behind the humor, we were all wondering about ourselves. (We are Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim, Ava, C.I., Mike, Betty, Kat and Rebecca.) Betty who had no time for blogging drove herself crazy trying to get a post up this week. She had already gotten a few e-mails asking if she was bailing as well and she wanted something up to show that she was "still in the game." Betty works and works and works again on each entry. By contrast, C.I. does rough drafts and posts those. Over here, C.I. will do editing with all of us and keep reworking an entry until it's as sharp as it can be. Over there, C.I. just posts what gets typed up. So it wasn't a case of being like Betty. But C.I. noted that it was a lot easier to focus on work regarding O'Connor's replacement than to focus on doing entries. Rebecca tried to stay positive. We'd all agreed to try to see if Folding Star wanted to talk about it before we made a public comment. Rebecca was upset (and says she still is) and by Friday, she blogged on it. (And no, we weren't mad at her for that.) Mike wondered what was going on because he'd never met or spoken to Folding Star and was completely in the dark. Kat, in her typical cool, didn't let it affect her. She almost posted Friday, she says, but figured, "I've already said, I'll post when I have something to say and I'm not doing a daily blog."
We'd always planned to address it here, this Sunday. We wish we had something to tell you. C.I.'s shared all that's permitted. We weren't given a heads up and we were given no notification after.
From Folding Star's post there was an e-mail that led to doubts and the decision to close down the site. We've all had doubts and we've all had our share of nasty e-mails.
We're not sure what was behind the decision, but we'll respect it and say that we enjoyed A Winding Road and our sorry that it has been shut down. Since all the past posts are gone, we've all wondered what to do about our permalinks/blog rolls?
Possibly Folding Star will decide to start it back up, we don't know. In case that happens, we're willing to leave it up. We're also willing to leave it up to note that a community member ran a blog from January to July.
And of course our highlights of Folding Star at this site remain.
We wish we had something to tell you. We don't.
A number of you have e-mailed all of us expressing surprise and disappointment. We share that.
At the end of the day, we're still here. We're still blogging. (Or doing entries, in C.I.'s case.) We're not planning to bail anytime soon.
But we do realize that with all the fun we're having, at some point it will come to an end. This site is helped out by some great folks (Kat, Rebecca, Ruth, Dallas, Maria, Mike, Rebecca, Betty and C.I.) but it's run by five journalism majors. College won't last forever. And we've long said that we might retire the site when we graduate or we might try to pass it on to some journalism students who weren't done with college yet. C.I.'s health is a topic thanks to jerks and The Common Ills would go on without C.I. (for health reasons or any other) with Ava as long as she was willing to do it. Rebecca's been working on an entry for over a week now and it's the most difficult one she's ever had to work on. ("Still working on it!") She's not really sure how it will go over or how she'll feel about it after it's posted. She may take a break after it goes up. Betty's determined to plug away but notes that it's very difficult juggling her kids, her job, her home and blogging. And we'll note again that Betty writes and rewrites and rewrites again. Mike thinks he's found his niche but admits that he doesn't know how it will feel when fall rolls around and he's doing full time classes again.
We've all been very lucky because it's mainly been fun. There have been tense moments. (And we'll never forgive or forget the attacks on C.I. and we'll leave it at that because C.I. said "Let's not go into that again.") But we've had fun swapping stories and sharing things. We've had fun with some great e-mails. We've had fun feeling that we could share something with readers (members in C.I.'s case) that they might miss otherwise. ("Tonight has not been fun," Kat said. And we'll agree with that since we lost a post.)
As a community, we tried to include other members who blogged. Maybe we didn't push hard enough to include Folding Star? Maybe "busy" really required asking again to make sure FS knew we were sincere?
But in the bad times, we've had te fact that we could share and we could discuss. And that carried us over the bumps in the road. We're not sure that Folding Star had that same feeling. (And if we weren't trying hard enough, our apologies to Folding Star.)
An e-mail is the reason cited. It seems hard to believe that one e-mail alone could cause someone to close down a site. So we're assuming there was more going on. Folding Star was working and going to college and maybe the e-mail was the last straw? We don't know.
We're as in the dark as any of you. But the point that C.I. stressed, the point that made all of us decide to start blogging, was that what we need are more voices. The mainstream media has a very narrow range. For now at least, the internet can provide a platform for other voices.
And we all try to take that to heart. Ruth covers NPR. Not from a "Cokie Roberts says it and it's true" but from a critique of wisdom that's come with age and experience and we appreciate and enjoy her contributions. Kat's covering music. And it would be really easy to be parroting what a blow hard from The New Yorker (we're all in agreement with Kat on that) has to say. Instead, she's focusing on how music needs to mean something. It needs to be something more than "beats" and "hooks" and pretty faces wearing few clothes. We're not seeing many superstar acts on tour these days, new ones. That's got a lot to do with the fact that they're not musicians. And they're not Madonnas. They tease it out and have no desire to push any limits.
So you're left with bad music and timid performers more often than not. Kat's critiques are needed in an age when a New Yorker critic feels the need to sing the praises on the product that is Justin Timberlake. Rebecca's the woman who will not be pushed around. And she's not going to be repeating news from the mainstream. Like C.I., she's going for the items that aren't being covered everywhere. (She was on the polio issue before anyone we knew was talking about it.)
And her site gets backlash e-mails because she's not going to fit into your tidy image of "the little woman." Betty's blog is a novel. Let's be honest. Those entries are like chapters. And throughout the novel is the critique of neoliberalism and imperialism and, for the matter, "misguided do-gooderism." Mike's hitting hard on the recuriting issue and answering questions that no one else is tackling (crotch rot, for one!). Like Rebecca and C.I., he's citing Democracy Now! and other independent media voices. And then there's C.I. and The Common Ills. The site that we all sprung from. (Rebecca just told C.I. to shut up and we'll write what we want on this part.)
We'll make it a whole paragraph in fact. The news of C.I.'s cancer isn't something we largely dealt with on a personal level. Jim's said if anything happens to C.I. he doesn't want to blog anymore. Other than some conversations Ava and C.I. have had, that's been the extent of our dealing with that issue. We know it's there. We know C.I.'s better. But we do worry.
And the reason we worry is personal. But in terms of the web, it also has to do with the fact that we all started because of The Common Ills. We saw a site that valued our input, shared our belief that the troops needed to be brought home now, wasn't afraid to risk attacks for taking a stand and offered news we didn't hear of elsewhere. Clamor? Didn't know of it until C.I. pushed it. LeftTurn? Same deal. Our appreciation for Democracy Now! only grew as a result of The Common Ills.
Time wasn't wasted on runaway brides or Aruba or other nonsense. And whether it's Katrina vanden Heuvel or Naomi Klein or Tom Hayden or Grace Lee Boggs or whomever, the voices for peace had a place there. And not in a "hippie" mocking tone. We're honestly bothered by the dismissal of "hippies." Not just because Jess' parents were and are hippies. But because of the sneering self-satisfied attitude. Earth to sneerers, you're not doing a lot of good tearing down a group that believed in something. Maybe you think it makes you look "mature." Or maybe you think it makes you look "moderate." We think it makes you look silly. And we've noticed that while you sneer at the hippies, you rush to prop up John McCain. We'll take one hippie over twenty John McCain's any day. And wonder about the value system of those who wouldn't?
Jess' dad works on prison reform, his mother is a public defender. Jess grew up not having Nike and other products pushed down his throat. His parents expected him to make contributions to discussions around the table -- and they ate their meals together. They have a garden that they work together. Playing music on the radio or stereo was always better than TV in Jess' house, and playing music yourself was better than playing recorded music. Taking stands was supported even if Jess' parents disagreed with the stands. (His mother especially wishes he'd go into music and forget about journalism. But she supports his decision.)
So we're not quite sure where these sneerers get off looking down on "hippies." Maybe they'd prefer to hob knob with Greg's parents instead of Dahrma's? And maybe that something about the sneerer's value systems?
But at The Common Ills, it's never, "Tom Hayden, hippie, doesn't get it!" Or "Maxine Hong Kingtson, hippie, doesn't get it!" But maybe that's because C.I.'s not trying to start the next war or support the current one? Or to be a Nicholas Kristof and tear down the left to score points with the right? (Someone should figure out what feminism ever did to Nicky K and why he hates feminists so much that he lies about them. Then they might want to figure out why his paper is okay with that?) For Rebecca, the turning moment was the post on NPR bringing on the husband of woman who worked for Dick Cheney to critique John Kerry's campaign -- and not telling the listeners that the man's wife worked for Dick Cheney. For Third Estate Sunday Review members it was that and the strong opposition to Simon Rosenberg whose first word was, no doubt, "lite." For Betty it was a number of things but what stands out was that Black History Month was noted there. Every day. For Mike, it was the "Night Letter" which he didn't hear about anywhere else. For Kat it was "everything -- going to sources that weren't obvious, taking stands and just the I'm not going to bullshit it and try to curry favor by appearing moderate."
We did a piece here on blogging. And the moral of that fairy tale was to speak in your voice. We need more of that and we need more voices. But not to run down links to ABC or a big paper. We need voices that will steer to you to our independent media. That's Democracy Now!, that's Free Speech Radio News, that's BuzzFlash, that's magazines other than Time and Newsweek.
For all the carping about the mainstream media, we don't see a lot of people using other sources.
We'll single out one person by name, Jude of Iddybud, because she does work a wide variety of resources. She'll note Pacifica in a post or feature a smaller newspaper or whatever. But Jude's an exception. We see a lot of people who want to note Cokie Roberts, not critique her but note her. "Cokie Roberts said . . ." Is that really what we need the internet for?
As journalism majors, we're concerned with the overreliance on "acceptable sources." They're only "accpetable" because so many have made them that. If for one week, and we're not trying to start a movement here -- we're just offering a thought, every left blog made a point to highlight Democracy Now! each day, think of how much good that could do?
We go to some blogs, especially new ones, and think, "You don't grasp the power that you have." ("Tear In Your Hand" by Tori Amos on Little Earthquakes.) We have a power now, who knows how long before the net gets regulated and completely absorbed by big media?
But we're all in agreement that while we're here we'll try to offer the left. There won't be any links to articles or comments by Andrew Sullivan. We'll work our resources from the left and we'll continue to criticize the mainstream media.
We got e-mails about C.I.'s stance regarding The Times and Judith Miller. Those looking for disagreement are going to be disappointed. (Rebecca remains indifferent.) Kat's opinion is they crack down on big media and then watch out in the counter culture. Betty's opposed to giving up sources. Mike says you don't rat. And The Third Estate Sunday Review has been involved in repeated debates on this topic both with fellow students and in classrooms.
We're happy to see a little bravery from The Times. ("Little" in contrast to what's gone on there for so long. We do not, however, think that there is anything "little" about Miller and the paper's stance. We think that's brave. Hopefully, it will cross over to the pages of the paper.)
We're glad that C.I. took a brave stand. And we applaud others who take a brave stand even when we don't agree with it because there are too many people in this country who just go along.
We need more bravery. And we really wanted to highlight an entry of C.I.'s on the need for courage but C.I. felt we had enough blog spotlights. (We did have a lenghty "Five Books, Five Minutes" and it's gone. We're not recreating what Blogger lost.)
A little while ago, these were very dark times. We entertained thoughts of moving to Canada. But brave voices spoke out. So to anyone blogging or thinking of starting a blog, we ask that you be a brave voice. And if you get a piece of hate mail, like Folding Star did, you find someone to talk to about it. When the death threats towards Ava and C.I. (for TV reviews!) started, we wouldn't have gotten through that without each other.
Recently Dick Durbin tried to be a brave voice but couldn't take the criticism. We've seen enough backing down, enough apologies for things that didn't require apologies. We've seen people push the myth of "red" states, we've seen people say "don't make fun of James Dobson."
We've seen enough crap.
"You don't know the power that you have." We're returning to that because we don't know that people get the power that they have. A butterfly flaps it's wings and the effects are felt. We're sorry that Folding Star's decided to shut down A Winding Road but we hope everyone realizes that they do have a voice and that their voice can make a difference. Not if it's only in your head though. You have to get it out there. And you have to know that there may be threats and flamers but if you stand your ground you can make a difference.
We wish we could tell you, "We spoke to Folding Star and the reason is . . ." We can't. We can only tell you that we hope Folding Star blogs again and that we're still here. And that a lot of you writing searching e-mails on this topic should consider blogging. More voices.
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
You liberals and your silly talk are impossible to get through without a beer or two. Which gave me the idea that we might be able to get together over a few beers and I could set all of you straight.
Wade in Denver
Dear Wade,
There ain't enough beer in the world. Keep reading -- you might learn something.
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
I just saw War of the Worlds and I'm wondering how much impact the filmed explosions cause on our biosphere. Do they accelerate the green house effect? How damaging are they?
Ellen
Dear Ellen,
We're not scientists. It's a good question, but we're not scientiests. As for damaging, we'd argue that seeing Tom Cruise pose as a concerned father in an "action film" is pretty damaging. But then Dakota Fanning's not that much younger than Katie Holmes, is she?
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
My girlfriend is obsessed with Orlando Bloom to the point where I'm beginning to feel like a third whell. I go over there it's a Lord of the Rings or some other film the little freak is starring in. It's not that I mind her attraction to him, it's that I can't take the obsession. We go to the drug store tonight on our way to her parents where we are expected for dinner. Quick in and out to grab some aspirin she needs. Turns into two hours as she scans the various teeny mags looking for photos of Orlando. The whole time I'm reminding her that her parents are waiting and she doesn't care. She grabs three magazines, pays for them and we leave (without the aspirin). When we get to her parents, she makes up this story about how I got lost and couldn't find their house. So I'm looking like an idiot. What should I do and keep in mind that she's forty-two years old.
Gabriel in upstate New York
Dear Gabriel,
We're not sure what to tell you. One suggestion is give it a year and the bloom will have faded.
We'll also advise that just because someone tells a lie doesn't mean you have to go along. You seem especially bothered by the blame (we've deleted that passage at Gabriel's request). There's no rule that if you're blamed unfairly you have to grin and bear it.
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
Why are you so hard on Cokie Roberts? Won't you give her credit for anything?
Concerned in the US
Dear Concerned,
We will give Cokie Roberts credit for being the most persistent gasbag who's time and again spouted conventional wisdom that even she couldn't grasp. We'll also give her credit for being one of the more, if not most, prolific clip-job authors in the trade. Lastly, in a world obsessed with beauty and youth, we'll note that with each TV appearance, she strikes a blow in defense of jowl sporting gasbags everywhere (even if they weren't able to trade on family connections the way she was). Hope that makes you feel better. We'd hate to slight her.
You liberals and your silly talk are impossible to get through without a beer or two. Which gave me the idea that we might be able to get together over a few beers and I could set all of you straight.
Wade in Denver
Dear Wade,
There ain't enough beer in the world. Keep reading -- you might learn something.
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
I just saw War of the Worlds and I'm wondering how much impact the filmed explosions cause on our biosphere. Do they accelerate the green house effect? How damaging are they?
Ellen
Dear Ellen,
We're not scientists. It's a good question, but we're not scientiests. As for damaging, we'd argue that seeing Tom Cruise pose as a concerned father in an "action film" is pretty damaging. But then Dakota Fanning's not that much younger than Katie Holmes, is she?
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
My girlfriend is obsessed with Orlando Bloom to the point where I'm beginning to feel like a third whell. I go over there it's a Lord of the Rings or some other film the little freak is starring in. It's not that I mind her attraction to him, it's that I can't take the obsession. We go to the drug store tonight on our way to her parents where we are expected for dinner. Quick in and out to grab some aspirin she needs. Turns into two hours as she scans the various teeny mags looking for photos of Orlando. The whole time I'm reminding her that her parents are waiting and she doesn't care. She grabs three magazines, pays for them and we leave (without the aspirin). When we get to her parents, she makes up this story about how I got lost and couldn't find their house. So I'm looking like an idiot. What should I do and keep in mind that she's forty-two years old.
Gabriel in upstate New York
Dear Gabriel,
We're not sure what to tell you. One suggestion is give it a year and the bloom will have faded.
We'll also advise that just because someone tells a lie doesn't mean you have to go along. You seem especially bothered by the blame (we've deleted that passage at Gabriel's request). There's no rule that if you're blamed unfairly you have to grin and bear it.
Dear Third Estate Sunday Review,
Why are you so hard on Cokie Roberts? Won't you give her credit for anything?
Concerned in the US
Dear Concerned,
We will give Cokie Roberts credit for being the most persistent gasbag who's time and again spouted conventional wisdom that even she couldn't grasp. We'll also give her credit for being one of the more, if not most, prolific clip-job authors in the trade. Lastly, in a world obsessed with beauty and youth, we'll note that with each TV appearance, she strikes a blow in defense of jowl sporting gasbags everywhere (even if they weren't able to trade on family connections the way she was). Hope that makes you feel better. We'd hate to slight her.
Nuevo plan del Pentágono exige mayor participación a nivel nacional
Nuevo plan del Pentágono exige mayor participación a nivel nacional
Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana.
Nuevo plan del Pentágono exige mayor participación a nivel nacional
El Pentágono adoptó un nuevo plan de seguridad nacional que exige que los militares estadounidenses amplíen su función militar. El Washington Post informa que el nuevo plan aumenta la presencia militar no solo aérea sino marítima y terrestre en Estados Unidos, y en otras zonas aéreas menos tradicionales, incluyendo compartir información con quienes se encargan del cumplimiento de las leyes civiles. Según el periódico, el documento no exige que una nueva autoridad jurídica utilice fuerzas militares en suelo estadounidense, sino que plantea la probabilidad de que tropas de combate estadounidenses actúen en caso de que civiles o fuerzas de la Guardia Nacional se vean superados. El documento también exige que los analistas de inteligencia militar formen grupos con los oficiales de la aplicación de la ley civil para identificar y rastrear a sospechosos terroristas. Afirma la autoridad del presidente para desplegar fuerzas de combate terrestre en territorio estadounidense para "interceptar y sofocar amenazas". El Post informa que en el área de inteligencia, el documento habla de desarrollar "un cuadro" de especialistas en terrorismo del Pentágono y de desplegar a algunos de ellos dentro del territorio estadounidense para que trabajen con el FBI y con fuerzas de policía locales. Gene Healy del Instituto Cato dijo "El paso de los militares hacia una capacidad de inteligencia interna genera preocupación. La última vez que las fuerzas armadas se involucraron en la vigilancia nacional en la época de la Guerra de Vietnam, la inteligencia militar tenía miles de archivos de estadounidenses que no eran culpables de otra cosa que de oponerse a la guerra." Healy agregó que "No me parece que queramos transitar ese camino tra vez".
Más de 100 legisladores iraquíes piden el retiro de Estados Unidos
Más de 100 miembros del parlamento iraquí piden oficialmente que Estados Unidos retire sus tropas de Irak. Exigen que la Asamblea Nacional adopte una resolución que cancele la solicitud realizada por el gobierno iraquí al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU para ampliar la presencia de las fuerzas multinacionales. Asimismo piden al gobierno que establezca una fecha para el retiro.
Diplomático egipcio ejecutado. El Cairo cierra misión.
Egipto anunció que cerrará temporalmente su misión diplomática en Irak y ordenó al personal que regresara a El Cairo, luego de que un grupo militante se atribuyera la autoría de la muerte del enviado egipcio en Bagdad. El Cairo asimismo solicitó al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU el jueves que tratara en forma urgente el tema de proteger a los diplomáticos en Irak. Un grupo que se identificó como Al-Qaeda en Irak dijo en un foro de Internet que había matado al embajador egipcio, que fue secuestrado en un calle en Bagdad el sábado, semanas después de que asumiera su cargo en la capital iraquí. Publicaron un video corto del diplomático mientras era interrogado, pero no mostraron el asesinato.
Tropas estadounidenses abrieron fuego contra civiles
El sábado, tropas estadounidenses abrieron fuego contra dos autos que trasladaban civiles en el oeste de la capital. Una mujer y su hijo murieron a consecuencia de los disparos. El suegro de la mujer resultó gravemente herido. La familia cristiana se dirigía a Jordania.
Embajador iraquí acusó a Estados Unidos de la muerte de su sobrino
El embajador iraquí ante las Naciones Unidas, Samir Sumaidaie, acusó a infantes de marina estadounidenses de matar a su sobrino de 21 años de edad. Según el embajador, su sobrino fue arrestado porque los infantes de marina encontraron un rifle en su casa. Luego de que lo detuvieron, el joven fue hallado sin vida con un tiro en el cuello.
Gobierno iraquí admitió haber torturado detenidos
El gobierno iraquí admitió que sus fuerzas de seguridad torturan y maltratan a los detenidos. El reconocimiento tuvo lugar luego de que un informe de the Observer de Londres, revelara la existencia de cámaras de tortura secretas y campañas de asesinatos realizadas por grupos paramilitares apoyados por el gobierno. Un portavoz del gobierno responsabilizó de los hechos a la brutalización de la sociedad iraquí bajo el régimen de Saddam Hussein. El portavoz dijo "Estas cosas suceden. Lo sabemos."
Cinco ciudadanos estadounidenses detenidos en Irak
El Pentágono admitió el miércoles que las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses tienen al menos cinco ciudadanos estadounidenses detenidos entre los más de 10.000 prisioneros en Irak. Los cinco están detenidos sin acusaciones o acceso a abogados, porque se sospecha que están vinculados a la resistencia iraquí. El Departamento de Defensa se niega a identificar a los cinco prisioneros. Sin embargo, el New York Times y el Los Ángeles Times identificaron a uno de ellos como Cyrus Kar, un aspirante a cineasta de Los Ángeles de 44 años de edad, que fue arrestado en Irak en mayo. Un portavoz de la Unión Estadounidense por las Libertades Civiles (ACLU) dijo que Kar ha estado prácticamente incomunicado durante más de 50 días y dijo que su detención es "ilegal, inconstitucional e inhumana".
Antichavista acusada
Un juez de Venezuela ordenó que una figura de la oposición que fue recibida por el presidente Bush vaya a juicio con tres colegas acusados de conspiración de derrocar al gobierno utilizando fondos estadounidenses. María Corina Machado y otros tres miembros de su grupo Sumate, que ayudaron a organizar un referéndum contra el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez hace casi un año, fueron acusados de "conspiración para cambiar el sistema republicano de Venezuela". Chavez llamó a Machado traidora luego de que el grupo Sumate recibiera financiamiento de la Fundación Nacional para la Democracia (NED, por sus siglas en inglés). El juez ordenó que los tres permanecerían en libertad hasta el juicio. Machado se reunió con Bush en la Casa Blanca el 31 de mayo.
Pinochet pierde inmunidad
Un tribunal de apelaciones de Chile le ha retirado la inmunidad al ex-dictador General Augusto Pinochet, en el caso que implica prisioneros políticos asesinados durante su severo régimen. El caso alega la participación de Pinochet en el secuestro y asesinato de prisioneros políticos durante lo que los servicios de inteligencia denominaron "Operación Colombo".
Juez peruano ordenó el arresto de 118 soldados por Masacre del ‘88
Mientras tanto, un juez peruano ordenó el arresto de 118 soldados por su supuesta participación en la masacre de campesinos en un pueblo andino en 1988. El juez decretó la orden con relación a la tortura y matanza de más de dos decenas de personas en Cayara.
Presidente de Bolivia anuncia elecciones
El presidente interino de Bolivia, Eduardo Rodríguez, anunció ayer que programó las elecciones presidenciales para el 4 de diciembre. La decisión tuvo lugar semanas después de revueltas dirigidas por indígenas que provocaron el retiro de Carlos Mesa.
La Iglesia Unida de Cristo aprueba matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo
La Iglesia Unida de Cristo es la mayor iglesia cristiana que aprueba el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo. Aproximadamente un 80 por ciento del cuerpo general de la iglesia aprobó una resolución el lunes convocando a las iglesias que lo integran para considerar políticas de matrimonio que "no discriminen a las parejas basadas en el sexo". Asimismo solicita a las iglesias que consideren apoyar leyes que garanticen iguales derechos matrimoniales a las parejas homosexuales y que trabajen contra las leyes que prohíben el matrimonio homosexual.
Maria: Hello. In English, here are twelve headlines from Democracy Now! Read the headlines in English below and ask yourself "Is there anyone I can pass this on to?" Who owns Telumundo? NBC. Telumundo. Make a difference this weekend, think of one person you can alert that Democracy Now! is providing their headlines each day in Spanish and English for reading and listening to. Please get the word out.
New Pentagon Plan Calls For Greater Domestic Role
The Pentagon has adopted a new homeland security plan that calls for the U.S. military to greatly expand its domestic role. The Washington Post reports the new plan expands the military's presence not only in the air and sea at home but also on the ground and in other less traditional areas including intelligence sharing with civilian law enforcement. According to the Post, the document does not ask for new legal authority to use military forces on U.S. soil, but it raises the likelihood that U.S. combat troops will take action in the event that civilian and National Guard forces are overwhelmed. The document also calls for military intelligence analysts to be teamed with civilian law enforcement to identify and track suspected terrorists. And it asserts the president's authority to deploy ground combat forces on U.S. territory to "intercept and defeat threats." The Post reports that in the area of intelligence, the document speaks of developing "a cadre" of Pentagon terrorism specialists and of deploying a number of them domestically to work with the FBI and local police forces. Gene Healy of the Cato Institute said, "The move toward a domestic intelligence capability by the military is troubling. The last time the military got heavily involved in domestic surveillance, during the Vietnam War era, military intelligence kept thousands of files on Americans guilty of nothing more than opposing the war." Healy added, "I don't think we want to go down that road again."
More Than 100 Iraqi MPs Call for US Withdrawal
More than 100 members of the Iraqi parliament are now officially calling for the US to withdraw its troops from Iraq. They are demanding that the National Assembly adopt a resolution cancelling the request made by the Iraqi government to the UN Security Council to extend the presence of multinational forces. They also call on the government to set a timetable for withdrawal.
Egyptian Diplomat Executed, Cairo Closes Mission
Egypt says it is temporarily shutting down its diplomatic mission in Iraq and has recalled its staff to Cairo, after a militant group claimed to have killed Egypt's top envoy in Baghdad. Cairo also asked the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to urgently address the issue of protecting diplomats in Iraq. A group identifying itself as Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a posting on a web forum that it killed the Egyptian ambassador, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad street late Saturday only weeks after he took up his post in the Iraqi capital. It posted a short video of the diplomat being questioned, but did not show his slaying.
U.S. Troops Open Fire On Civilian Car
On Saturday, U.S. troops opened fire at two cars carrying civilians west of the capital. A woman and her child were killed. The woman's father-in-law was seriously wounded. The Christian family was driving to Jordan.
Iraq Ambassador Accuses U.S. Of Killing His Nephew
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations -- Samir Sumaidaie -- is accusing U.S. Marines of shooting dead his 21-year-old nephew. According to the ambassador, his nephew was arrested because Marines found a rifle at his home. After Marines detained him, the young man was found dead with a bullet in his neck.
Iraqi Gov't Admits To Torturing Detainees
The Iraqi government has admitted that its security forces are carrying out torture and abusing detainees. The admission came after a report in the Observer of London revealed the existence of secret torture chambers and murder campaigns carried out by government-backed paramilitary groups. A government spokesman blamed it in part on the brutalising of Iraqi society under Saddam Hussein. The spokesman said "These things happen. We know that."
Five US Citizens Being Held in Iraq
The Pentagon admitted on Wednesday that the US military is holding at least five U.S. citizens among more than 10,000 prisoners in Iraq. All of the five are being held without charges or access to lawyers. They are all being held on loose suspicion of being linked to the Iraqi resistance. The Defense Department refuses to identify the five. But the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have identified one as 44-year old Cyrus Kar, an aspiring filmmaker from Los Angeles who was arrested in Iraq in May. An ACLU spokesperson said Kar has been held virtually incommunicado for more than 50 days and called his detention "illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane."
Anti-Chavez Figure Indicted
A judge in Venezuela has ruled that an opposition figure who was received by President Bush will go on trial with three colleagues accused of conspiring to overthrow the government using U.S. funds. Maria Corina Machado and three other members of her Sumate group, which helped organize a referendum against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nearly a year ago, are being charged with "conspiracy to change Venezuela's republican system." Chavez has called Machado a traitor after her Sumate group received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. The judge ruled that the 3 would remain free until the trial took place. Machado met Bush at the White House on May 31.
Pinochet Stripped of Immunity
A court of appeals in Chile has stripped ailing ex-dictator General Augusto Pinochet of his immunity in a case involving political prisoners killed during his iron-fisted rule. The case alleges Pinochet's involvement in the abduction and killing of political prisoners during what his intelligence services dubbed "Operation Colombo."
Peruvian Judge Orders Arrest of 118 Soldiers for '88 Massacre
Meanwhile, a Peruvian judge has ordered the arrest of 118 soldiers for their alleged involvement in the massacre of peasants in an Andean village in 1988. The judge issued the order in connection with the torture and killing of more than two dozen people in Cayara.
Bolivia Pres. Announces Elections
Bolivia's interim president, Eduardo Rodriguez, announced yesterday that he has scheduled presidential elections for Dec 4. This followed weeks of indigenous-led revolt that brought down President Carlos Mesa.
United Church of Christ Endorses Same Sex Marriage
The United Church of Christ has become the country's largest Christian church to endorse same sex marriage. Roughly 80 percent of the church's general body approved a resolution on Monday calling on member churches to consider wedding policies that "do not discriminate against couples based on gender." It also asks churches to consider supporting legislation granting equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples and to work against laws banning same sex marriage.
Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana.
Nuevo plan del Pentágono exige mayor participación a nivel nacional
El Pentágono adoptó un nuevo plan de seguridad nacional que exige que los militares estadounidenses amplíen su función militar. El Washington Post informa que el nuevo plan aumenta la presencia militar no solo aérea sino marítima y terrestre en Estados Unidos, y en otras zonas aéreas menos tradicionales, incluyendo compartir información con quienes se encargan del cumplimiento de las leyes civiles. Según el periódico, el documento no exige que una nueva autoridad jurídica utilice fuerzas militares en suelo estadounidense, sino que plantea la probabilidad de que tropas de combate estadounidenses actúen en caso de que civiles o fuerzas de la Guardia Nacional se vean superados. El documento también exige que los analistas de inteligencia militar formen grupos con los oficiales de la aplicación de la ley civil para identificar y rastrear a sospechosos terroristas. Afirma la autoridad del presidente para desplegar fuerzas de combate terrestre en territorio estadounidense para "interceptar y sofocar amenazas". El Post informa que en el área de inteligencia, el documento habla de desarrollar "un cuadro" de especialistas en terrorismo del Pentágono y de desplegar a algunos de ellos dentro del territorio estadounidense para que trabajen con el FBI y con fuerzas de policía locales. Gene Healy del Instituto Cato dijo "El paso de los militares hacia una capacidad de inteligencia interna genera preocupación. La última vez que las fuerzas armadas se involucraron en la vigilancia nacional en la época de la Guerra de Vietnam, la inteligencia militar tenía miles de archivos de estadounidenses que no eran culpables de otra cosa que de oponerse a la guerra." Healy agregó que "No me parece que queramos transitar ese camino tra vez".
Más de 100 legisladores iraquíes piden el retiro de Estados Unidos
Más de 100 miembros del parlamento iraquí piden oficialmente que Estados Unidos retire sus tropas de Irak. Exigen que la Asamblea Nacional adopte una resolución que cancele la solicitud realizada por el gobierno iraquí al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU para ampliar la presencia de las fuerzas multinacionales. Asimismo piden al gobierno que establezca una fecha para el retiro.
Diplomático egipcio ejecutado. El Cairo cierra misión.
Egipto anunció que cerrará temporalmente su misión diplomática en Irak y ordenó al personal que regresara a El Cairo, luego de que un grupo militante se atribuyera la autoría de la muerte del enviado egipcio en Bagdad. El Cairo asimismo solicitó al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU el jueves que tratara en forma urgente el tema de proteger a los diplomáticos en Irak. Un grupo que se identificó como Al-Qaeda en Irak dijo en un foro de Internet que había matado al embajador egipcio, que fue secuestrado en un calle en Bagdad el sábado, semanas después de que asumiera su cargo en la capital iraquí. Publicaron un video corto del diplomático mientras era interrogado, pero no mostraron el asesinato.
Tropas estadounidenses abrieron fuego contra civiles
El sábado, tropas estadounidenses abrieron fuego contra dos autos que trasladaban civiles en el oeste de la capital. Una mujer y su hijo murieron a consecuencia de los disparos. El suegro de la mujer resultó gravemente herido. La familia cristiana se dirigía a Jordania.
Embajador iraquí acusó a Estados Unidos de la muerte de su sobrino
El embajador iraquí ante las Naciones Unidas, Samir Sumaidaie, acusó a infantes de marina estadounidenses de matar a su sobrino de 21 años de edad. Según el embajador, su sobrino fue arrestado porque los infantes de marina encontraron un rifle en su casa. Luego de que lo detuvieron, el joven fue hallado sin vida con un tiro en el cuello.
Gobierno iraquí admitió haber torturado detenidos
El gobierno iraquí admitió que sus fuerzas de seguridad torturan y maltratan a los detenidos. El reconocimiento tuvo lugar luego de que un informe de the Observer de Londres, revelara la existencia de cámaras de tortura secretas y campañas de asesinatos realizadas por grupos paramilitares apoyados por el gobierno. Un portavoz del gobierno responsabilizó de los hechos a la brutalización de la sociedad iraquí bajo el régimen de Saddam Hussein. El portavoz dijo "Estas cosas suceden. Lo sabemos."
Cinco ciudadanos estadounidenses detenidos en Irak
El Pentágono admitió el miércoles que las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses tienen al menos cinco ciudadanos estadounidenses detenidos entre los más de 10.000 prisioneros en Irak. Los cinco están detenidos sin acusaciones o acceso a abogados, porque se sospecha que están vinculados a la resistencia iraquí. El Departamento de Defensa se niega a identificar a los cinco prisioneros. Sin embargo, el New York Times y el Los Ángeles Times identificaron a uno de ellos como Cyrus Kar, un aspirante a cineasta de Los Ángeles de 44 años de edad, que fue arrestado en Irak en mayo. Un portavoz de la Unión Estadounidense por las Libertades Civiles (ACLU) dijo que Kar ha estado prácticamente incomunicado durante más de 50 días y dijo que su detención es "ilegal, inconstitucional e inhumana".
Antichavista acusada
Un juez de Venezuela ordenó que una figura de la oposición que fue recibida por el presidente Bush vaya a juicio con tres colegas acusados de conspiración de derrocar al gobierno utilizando fondos estadounidenses. María Corina Machado y otros tres miembros de su grupo Sumate, que ayudaron a organizar un referéndum contra el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez hace casi un año, fueron acusados de "conspiración para cambiar el sistema republicano de Venezuela". Chavez llamó a Machado traidora luego de que el grupo Sumate recibiera financiamiento de la Fundación Nacional para la Democracia (NED, por sus siglas en inglés). El juez ordenó que los tres permanecerían en libertad hasta el juicio. Machado se reunió con Bush en la Casa Blanca el 31 de mayo.
Pinochet pierde inmunidad
Un tribunal de apelaciones de Chile le ha retirado la inmunidad al ex-dictador General Augusto Pinochet, en el caso que implica prisioneros políticos asesinados durante su severo régimen. El caso alega la participación de Pinochet en el secuestro y asesinato de prisioneros políticos durante lo que los servicios de inteligencia denominaron "Operación Colombo".
Juez peruano ordenó el arresto de 118 soldados por Masacre del ‘88
Mientras tanto, un juez peruano ordenó el arresto de 118 soldados por su supuesta participación en la masacre de campesinos en un pueblo andino en 1988. El juez decretó la orden con relación a la tortura y matanza de más de dos decenas de personas en Cayara.
Presidente de Bolivia anuncia elecciones
El presidente interino de Bolivia, Eduardo Rodríguez, anunció ayer que programó las elecciones presidenciales para el 4 de diciembre. La decisión tuvo lugar semanas después de revueltas dirigidas por indígenas que provocaron el retiro de Carlos Mesa.
La Iglesia Unida de Cristo aprueba matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo
La Iglesia Unida de Cristo es la mayor iglesia cristiana que aprueba el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo. Aproximadamente un 80 por ciento del cuerpo general de la iglesia aprobó una resolución el lunes convocando a las iglesias que lo integran para considerar políticas de matrimonio que "no discriminen a las parejas basadas en el sexo". Asimismo solicita a las iglesias que consideren apoyar leyes que garanticen iguales derechos matrimoniales a las parejas homosexuales y que trabajen contra las leyes que prohíben el matrimonio homosexual.
Maria: Hello. In English, here are twelve headlines from Democracy Now! Read the headlines in English below and ask yourself "Is there anyone I can pass this on to?" Who owns Telumundo? NBC. Telumundo. Make a difference this weekend, think of one person you can alert that Democracy Now! is providing their headlines each day in Spanish and English for reading and listening to. Please get the word out.
New Pentagon Plan Calls For Greater Domestic Role
The Pentagon has adopted a new homeland security plan that calls for the U.S. military to greatly expand its domestic role. The Washington Post reports the new plan expands the military's presence not only in the air and sea at home but also on the ground and in other less traditional areas including intelligence sharing with civilian law enforcement. According to the Post, the document does not ask for new legal authority to use military forces on U.S. soil, but it raises the likelihood that U.S. combat troops will take action in the event that civilian and National Guard forces are overwhelmed. The document also calls for military intelligence analysts to be teamed with civilian law enforcement to identify and track suspected terrorists. And it asserts the president's authority to deploy ground combat forces on U.S. territory to "intercept and defeat threats." The Post reports that in the area of intelligence, the document speaks of developing "a cadre" of Pentagon terrorism specialists and of deploying a number of them domestically to work with the FBI and local police forces. Gene Healy of the Cato Institute said, "The move toward a domestic intelligence capability by the military is troubling. The last time the military got heavily involved in domestic surveillance, during the Vietnam War era, military intelligence kept thousands of files on Americans guilty of nothing more than opposing the war." Healy added, "I don't think we want to go down that road again."
More Than 100 Iraqi MPs Call for US Withdrawal
More than 100 members of the Iraqi parliament are now officially calling for the US to withdraw its troops from Iraq. They are demanding that the National Assembly adopt a resolution cancelling the request made by the Iraqi government to the UN Security Council to extend the presence of multinational forces. They also call on the government to set a timetable for withdrawal.
Egyptian Diplomat Executed, Cairo Closes Mission
Egypt says it is temporarily shutting down its diplomatic mission in Iraq and has recalled its staff to Cairo, after a militant group claimed to have killed Egypt's top envoy in Baghdad. Cairo also asked the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to urgently address the issue of protecting diplomats in Iraq. A group identifying itself as Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a posting on a web forum that it killed the Egyptian ambassador, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad street late Saturday only weeks after he took up his post in the Iraqi capital. It posted a short video of the diplomat being questioned, but did not show his slaying.
U.S. Troops Open Fire On Civilian Car
On Saturday, U.S. troops opened fire at two cars carrying civilians west of the capital. A woman and her child were killed. The woman's father-in-law was seriously wounded. The Christian family was driving to Jordan.
Iraq Ambassador Accuses U.S. Of Killing His Nephew
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations -- Samir Sumaidaie -- is accusing U.S. Marines of shooting dead his 21-year-old nephew. According to the ambassador, his nephew was arrested because Marines found a rifle at his home. After Marines detained him, the young man was found dead with a bullet in his neck.
Iraqi Gov't Admits To Torturing Detainees
The Iraqi government has admitted that its security forces are carrying out torture and abusing detainees. The admission came after a report in the Observer of London revealed the existence of secret torture chambers and murder campaigns carried out by government-backed paramilitary groups. A government spokesman blamed it in part on the brutalising of Iraqi society under Saddam Hussein. The spokesman said "These things happen. We know that."
Five US Citizens Being Held in Iraq
The Pentagon admitted on Wednesday that the US military is holding at least five U.S. citizens among more than 10,000 prisoners in Iraq. All of the five are being held without charges or access to lawyers. They are all being held on loose suspicion of being linked to the Iraqi resistance. The Defense Department refuses to identify the five. But the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have identified one as 44-year old Cyrus Kar, an aspiring filmmaker from Los Angeles who was arrested in Iraq in May. An ACLU spokesperson said Kar has been held virtually incommunicado for more than 50 days and called his detention "illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane."
Anti-Chavez Figure Indicted
A judge in Venezuela has ruled that an opposition figure who was received by President Bush will go on trial with three colleagues accused of conspiring to overthrow the government using U.S. funds. Maria Corina Machado and three other members of her Sumate group, which helped organize a referendum against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nearly a year ago, are being charged with "conspiracy to change Venezuela's republican system." Chavez has called Machado a traitor after her Sumate group received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. The judge ruled that the 3 would remain free until the trial took place. Machado met Bush at the White House on May 31.
Pinochet Stripped of Immunity
A court of appeals in Chile has stripped ailing ex-dictator General Augusto Pinochet of his immunity in a case involving political prisoners killed during his iron-fisted rule. The case alleges Pinochet's involvement in the abduction and killing of political prisoners during what his intelligence services dubbed "Operation Colombo."
Peruvian Judge Orders Arrest of 118 Soldiers for '88 Massacre
Meanwhile, a Peruvian judge has ordered the arrest of 118 soldiers for their alleged involvement in the massacre of peasants in an Andean village in 1988. The judge issued the order in connection with the torture and killing of more than two dozen people in Cayara.
Bolivia Pres. Announces Elections
Bolivia's interim president, Eduardo Rodriguez, announced yesterday that he has scheduled presidential elections for Dec 4. This followed weeks of indigenous-led revolt that brought down President Carlos Mesa.
United Church of Christ Endorses Same Sex Marriage
The United Church of Christ has become the country's largest Christian church to endorse same sex marriage. Roughly 80 percent of the church's general body approved a resolution on Monday calling on member churches to consider wedding policies that "do not discriminate against couples based on gender." It also asks churches to consider supporting legislation granting equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples and to work against laws banning same sex marriage.
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