The worrisome details, as reported by our correspondent, Mr. Sun.

February is Black History Month and over at my site I am celebrating by holding a writing contest. The rules are simple. Compose a fairly well thought out article about some aspect of Black History. Anything at all will be fine. Let me know where to find your writing and I’ll add you to the list.

The point is just to get people more interested in African American Heritage and the history of things like slavery or the civil rights movement. As a bonus for taking part, at the end of February I will pick the best piece and give the author a prize. The prize will most likely be a book dealing with Black History.

Head on over for more details and then start thinking up something to write about. You have until the end of the month and you can enter as many seperate articles as you want.

Many have linked to this article from the 60’s on the date of the South Vietnamese elections, which witnessed an 83% participation rate and were, at the time, deemed largely successful. Without assessing the overall premise that there is some similarity between the problems that plagued Vietnam and those that face our operation in Iraq (there obviously are, but there are of course similarities between all conflicts; I would have chosen the Phillipines), the basic comparison for the significance of elections in moving towards a pluralistic society is worth examining.

When discussing anything in the Iraq is Vietnam Redux context, one has to acknowledge that in Vietnam, not only were we fighting a distinct and identifiable state in North Vietnam, but that the opposition in that battle could hardly be considered a minority population whose existential expression of angst was a biproduct of their lack of political power. In Iraq, we are facing the exact opposite. The current insurgency, though formidable in size, does in no way constitute a majority/plurality of the Iraqi people as did the movement in Vietnam, or other revolutionary movements such as that in Algeria against the French. Though there are sympathizers amok, they are much more anti-American than they are pro-insurgency.

Another advantage for the North Vietnamese, aside from their shear size, was the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Undoubtedly a charismatic and populist leader in the entire peninsula, he solidified the North Vietnamese block while simultaneously bringing forth support in South Vietnam. For Iraq, it is unclear whether any side–the Zarqawi bloc, the Sadr wing, the Chalabiites (they’re mostly in our Pentagon), or the incoming majority party–has a true social legitimacy that can attract such support. That is, aside from al-Sistani, who derives his authority from his scholarly work and hierarchical title.

What really made the South Vietnamese struggle in their battle to fend off the communist block in the North, was their ineffectiveness in crafting a government that was actually answerable to the people. Plagued by mind-boggling levels of government corruption and led by self-concerned and illegitimate leaders, there was never any real effort to establish a stable democratic state by a significant portion of SV’s themselves, despite countless efforts by the U.S. The significance for Iraq is that it will have to face many obstacles, including the current insurgency and the likelihood of communal violence, to actually establish a viable state (read: monopoly on means of violence) and that its success will depend more on Iraqis themselves than anything that can be done by the U.S. The South Vietnamese gave only a half-hearted effort, and at this point, the Iraqis are much more enthusiastic, as shown by yesterday’s election, and seriously concerned about a proper stasis for Iraq and, in general, the Middle East.

So, what to expect. Though many of the problems that face Iraq today can easily be attributed to the flaccid nature of our post-occupation plan, or lack thereof, and our ineffective methods at rectifying them thus far, digging out of the hole will be up to the Iraqis themselves. Most reform movements boil down to this essential dynamic, as are most failures.

(Cross-posted at Polemic Propaganda)

Jeanne on the nature of conservatism as a political movement.

Most Oregon DNC members have agreed to support Howard Dean for chair of the Democratic Party, including Committeeman Wayne Kinney, Oregon Democratic Party chair Jim Edmunson, vice chair Meredith Wood Smith, and (yours truly) Committeewoman Jenny Greenleaf.

Although Meredith Wood Smith voted for Donnie Fowler in the Association of State Democratic Chairs executive committee meeting, she will support Dean in accordance with the vote of the total body, which voted this morning to endorse Dean.

Delegation member State Senator Kate Brown has not yet committed to a candidate. Sen. Brown has a vote as a representative of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Oregon also has one at-large delegate, Gail Rasmussen, who is planning to give her proxy to Wayne Kinney to vote as he sees fit.

You know, for years, New York has gone by the sobriquet “Baghdad on the Hudson”

As sister cities of a sort, I say we return the favor.

I think we should award the Coalition Provisional Authority with the honorary title of “Tammany on the Tigris”

although it does appear that, as with most things, Joe Conason got there first

A hat tip to Besotted Blog for pointing out this piece.

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3– United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.
Read the rest of this entry »

without their help, apparently

Personally, I find it enormously reassuring how much energy the - er - activist wing of the right is putting into baiting the left just now.

My impression is that if they had anything of substance they thought they had a chance of putting a positive spin on, we’d be hearing about that instead.

via Slacktivist and Jeanne.

The vote on Gonzales will probably be Wednesday. Please take the time to call as many Dem senators as you can today and tomorrow. They are nearly all taking tallies of out-of-state callers as well as of constituents. Typically, they will need cover to do the right thing, which is to oppose the nomination of one of the chief architects of BushCo’s Torture Policy.

Call here. Write here.

Yesterday while clearing the shameful cluttered mess known colloquially as “my desk”, I came across my old list of possible sites to blogroll at Late Night Thoughts. A quick look showed me two things: first, the blogs I read three years ago are those I still read today, with a couple of new additions, mostly as some of my favorites shut down; and second, the blogs I rejected were, universally, those that emitted a certain pm stench.

And what is pm stench, you ask?

pm is my own short-hand for a certain kind of University professor. Other possible names are: the pest, the pain-in-the-ass, the maniac, and the horse’s patoot.

You see, we librarians have a very specialized view of professors (or “teaching faculty”, as it’s more correct these days when many academic librarians also hold faculty status). It’s our jobs to order their materials, make sure their students have access to reserve readings, help with their research, babysit them through techonological teething pains, and argue with them over budgets. After several years of daily contact, any librarian worth her salt recognizes that there is a specific taxonomical tree for teaching faculty, to wit: Read the rest of this entry »

Regret the Error has what, for the New York Times, should really be a profoundly humiliating error.

Of course, there are some of us who suspected they were having trouble with this distinction at the time.

When I first saw the Lie Girls website, I thought it was hilarious. A big chunk of that humor came from the fact that this prudish administration’s lies and distortions were being repeated by women posing as slutty phone sex operators. That’s funny.

Now we have a case of life imitating art, or perhaps art imitating life, and the results are far less humorous. From the same administration that backs ineffective abstinence-only Sex Ed classes in schools because anything else is improper, comes a new approach to squeezing information out of Gitmo detainees:

SAN JUAN, P.R., Jan. 27 (AP) - Female interrogators tried to break male Muslim detainees at the United States prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by sexually touching them, by wearing miniskirts and thong underwear, and, in one case, by smearing a Saudi man’s face with red ink, which he was led to believe was menstrual blood, according to part of a draft manuscript written by a former Army sergeant.

The manuscript, which was obtained by The Associated Press, was written by Erik R. Saar, who was an Arabic translator at Guantánamo from December 2002 to June 2003.

Mr. Saar, 29, did not provide the manuscript, but he did confirm the authenticity of nine draft pages obtained by The A.P. He asked that his hometown remain private so he would not be harassed.

The manuscript is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a book Mr. Saar is writing about the military’s use of women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects. a woman working as a civilian contractor had used an outfit that included a miniskirt and thong underwear during interrogations of prisoners that included Muslim men, who consider close contact taboo with women who are not their wives.

In another case, Mr. Saar’s manuscript describes a military woman interrogating an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee. The interrogator wanted to “break him,” according to Mr. Saar’s manuscript, adding that the woman removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt. She began taunting the detainee, the manuscript says, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner’s back and commenting on his apparent erection.

When asked how she could break the prisoner, a Muslim linguist told the woman to tell him she was menstruating, then to touch him and to turn off the water in his cell so he could not wash. “The concept was to make the detainee feel that, after talking to her, he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength,” the manuscript says.
Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody on the Left in happy for the Iraqis who have lived to see today and who were able to vote yesterday in the US-sponsored elections. Everybody on the Left is impressed with the courage it took for Iraqis to vote during a civil war, under clear threats that voting would be considered an act punishable by death. But we on the Left have been impressed by the Iraqis before Sunday. We have been impressed by the Sisyphean patience they have shown since the invasion and during the occupation as their electricity has disappeared and their water has run dry. We were impressed with the Iraqis’ patience as they waited two years for elections that could have been held six months after Baghdad fell. We’ve marvelled at the way the Shia resist being drawn into a broader and bloodier civil war even as weddings are targetted by suicide bombers. We’ve been impressed that they have endured the collective punishment of Fallujah. We stood with them when the torture at Abu Ghraib and other American prisons was exposed and we called for a full investigation that would find out exactly how far up the chain of command the rot had reached. We stand with them now as we oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales, one of the architects of the torture program that has done so much damage to the cause of justice within Iraq and around the world.

As for the elections on Sunday, they were a vital and exciting step in a process of democratization, as BushCo has said. They are also a watershed because now we will see what other democratic institutions will be allowed to exist, which BushCo has ignored. Trade unions? Universal sufferage? Free press? Independent judiciary? Relgious freedom? Will Iraq develop its own economic institutions that benefit Iraq or will it continue to operate under the Neocons’ corpofascist thumb? The Left’s concern with the Iraqi elections is not only that they aren’t perfect, it is that BushCo will use them to endorse whatever schemes he can get away with under cover of one democratic exercise. For all his talk about democracy being a process, he uses elections, especially flawed ones, as an ending point instead of a starting point. We don’t need to look any further than our own country to see that pattern and the disasterous results it can bring.

There seems to be some money missing in Iraq

An audit by a U.S. inspector says the U.S.-led authority that governed Iraq after the 2003 invasion failed to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to Iraqi ministries.

The audit released Sunday by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the Coalition Provisional Authority failed to establish control systems to verify how the money was spent, which opened it to corruption.

In some instances, money was used to pay what the report calls “ghost” employees, explaining that out of 8,206 guards on the payroll at one ministry, only 602 could be accounted for.

Mr. Bremer thinks he knows the reason for that, though

Former CPA chief Paul Bremer rejected the findings, saying the report assumes western-style accounting procedures could have been quickly set up during wartime.

You have to give the iraqis credit for running a petrochemical industry all these years without having a basic understanding of the strange foreign ways of our money.

Oddly, at the same time as the CPA was failing to grasp the essentials of the concept of not paying non-existent employees, they managed to set up a Central Bank, train a staff for an Iraq Stock Exchange, liberalize foreign investment rules and set up a unified currency system.

Weighed against this, they did show a certain lack of sophistication in setting up a flat tax system.

Oh, wait. That was us.

However, they did have the helpful assistance of that nice Mr. Chalabi in setting up the CPA. He knows something about money.

Maybe the problem with Iraq’s finances is a little too much sophistication, neh?

edit: Liquid List translates the nine billion figure into more concrete terms.

This can’t be right. I know for a fact that there’s classes in Leather Appreciation and Correct Hair Arrangement at least.

The executive committee of the Association of State Democratic Chairs (ASDC) today endorsed Donnie Fowler for chair of the DNC on a vote of Fowler 8, Dean, 6. What does this mean? Hard to tell. Potentially, not that much.

The Democratic Party is the most Byzantine organization I’ve ever belonged to, but I’ll try to explain who these folks are.

The DNC is made of of 447 members. A hundred or so of the members are chairs and vice chairs (or highest-ranking officer of the opposite sex) of their state parties. These folks have a separate, but related organization, which is the ASDC. The people who voted today make up the executive committee of that organization. The entire organization votes tomorrow morning, and that vote could very well turn out differently.

The state chair’s association has been asking DNC members in each state to withhold public comment in hopes that the ASDC as a voting block could get all the candidates to agree to things the states wanted. Then, the idea is to vote as a block.

Realistically, that probably won’t happen. Many delegations will split their vote, and given closeness of the vote between Fowler and Dean, it doesn’t look as though the ASDC will reach consensus. I don’t know what that means as far as “power to the states.”

You should expect to hear a lot of announcements of endorsements right after the vote tomorrow morning. At that point, state chairs, vice chairs, and elected committee members who have been holding back (including me!) will feel free to break their silence.

Much more discussion about this over at DNC-Chair Central, mydd.com.

They’re going for the minority vote as the party of Lincoln and of civil rights. Sure, the Republican Party post-Lincoln and post-Goldwater are markedly different, but don’t let that fool you, because apparently parties stay the same no matter what. If they want to appeal to black voters, perhaps the GOP will adopt policies that benefit minorities, instead of corporate interests, and stop starving major cities that contain large populations of the African-American community of crucial funding.

The main problem the GOP will have in pursuing this strategy is that every black person that seems to run for office on the Republican ticket is either a crazed psycho, or . . . crazy. Alan Keyes in Illinois, and Vernon Robinson in North Carolina (aka the next Jesse Helms) are just some of the examples. Efforts to suppress the black vote in Detroit were probably not helpful either.

Speaking of profiteering, you might enjoy seeing who the biggest procurers are, thriving off the blood money of a government that respects no life.

Murder’s the biggest growth industry when the GOP’s running the auction house.

Saddam and his sons a bit too cruel? Simple. Kill 100,000 Iraqis and lose 1,500 troops doing it. To eliminate three men.

Social Security gonna be a little short of cash in 35 years? Build a multi-trillion dollar replacement plan with lesser guarantees to the elderly.

And in each of these cases, dozens of political cronies will reap the windfall profits of these ’solutions’. Soldiers die and someone gets richer for it. Seniors will be in poorhouses and someone will get richer for it.

That’s the approach to everything Bush tackles. Magnify the molehill to make it seem a mountain. If the bathwater’s lukewarm, instead of a gallon of hot, toss the bathwater, toss the baby, toss the tub…. hell, toss the bathroom, too. Then privatize the mudhole so someone cleans up, and it sure won’t be the bather.

It’s not about re-inventing government. It’s about legalizing rape.

When cartoon characters go all gay and shag-centric, entire families are corrupted. And now there’s visual proof. (Such a waste of good interior decoration…)

I took the day to go to the DNC Northeast Regional Caucus in New York today. I got there thinking that I wouldn’t have a problem getting in but was told by a very nice young gatekeeper that I was out of luck. I had to have pre-registered. Lucky for me I stood there shocked while the nice man apologized for the rules change and assured me that I wasn’t the only person he sent packing because in that minute another man, who had also been told he couldn’t get in, but then did, showed up, figured out that I was getting booted and told me the magic words to say and to whom to say them. Five minutes later I was sitting in a beautiful balconied ballroom waiting to hear the candidates pitch about two hundred delegates.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have ventured into the Wingnuttia once again, though just barely, into the Instapundit land where left is full of hate and still stuck in the 1960’s haircuts, whereas the right is all cool and logical and coiffed in the latest fashions. Glenn Reynolds feels very sorry for all us liberals and lefties, so sorry that I can almost see his sage sighs of pity:

HATE-FILLED STUPIDITY FROM LEFT-LEANING ACADEMICS ISN’T NEWS anymore, which is why I haven’t been paying much attention to the story of Colorado professor Ward Churchill’s comparison of 9/11 victims to Eichmann. But go here and look at the picture.

Isn’t he exactly what you imagined? Shoulder-length hair, grimly self-righteous expression, black turtleneck, Abbie Hoffman sunglasses. A man whose look, like his rhetoric, is frozen in the amber of 1969.

The same kind of guys, looking the same way, were saying the same kinds of things when I was younger than my daughter is now. When will the Left catch up with the times?

I wonder what Glenn would regard as catching up with the times? Freedom marching in black boots?

He gives us lots of advice on how to do better, which mostly consists of trying to be just like him. But he also says something quite interesting about the way the right and left control their exteme characters:

Heh. And for those who email saying “what about Falwell on the right,” well, it’s worth remembering that the term “idiotarian” was coined with Falwell in mind. It’s just that the right has done a better job of muzzling and marginalizing its idiots, while the Left has embraced them. And if the “backlash” theory set out above is true, it will only get worse, which is bad for the Left, and bad for America.

“The right has done a better job of muzzling and marginalizing its idiots”? Ann Coulter is marginalized? Rush Limbaugh is muzzled? The “idiots” are not found in the Bush administration? Even in some very high places? And what about Rick Santorum?

Or maybe Glenn is right. Maybe the wingnuts have even more extreme and frightening people locked up somewhere in their attics. Now that gives me nightmares.

On the eve of the Iraqi elections which will justify the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqis and over 1,400 Americans, the early returns are in: eight dead at a police station in the Kurdish region, while other attacks on polling stations throughout the country are taking place.

Think back to last summer, when it was suggested by a murky little known electoral commission somewhere that Americans make plans to suspend our own elections, in the event that “terrorists were up to something.” (Fortunately, as you will recall, other events, such as John Kerry’s inability to deal with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Dan Rather’s inability to deal with GOP operatives masquerading as pajama-wearing bloggers, well-timed fake terror alerts and general national ennui combined to save us from what might have been a tragic “terrorist attack”.)

And yet, unlike some theoretical and very, very unlikely stateside terrorist event, we know for certain that Iraqi polling places and voters and election workers will be attacked for sure, because neither we nor our mostly not trusted Iraqi allies are not in control of huge portions of Iraq (such as much of Baghdad, for example), and, because as I noted above, those attacks are underway right this second.

It remains astounding just how preposterous this is. We, of course, have a geographically based proportional representation system that would ensure that even if dangerous conditions in, say, Samarra produced a low turnout, Samarra would still get representatives, albeit selected by fewer locals. A national list system means the exact opposite: if things are cool in Kuridstan and the Shiite South, and a high turnout is attained there, and the Sunnis the middle are screwed, well, they’re REALLY screwed, because their parties will get fewer seats altogether. This is especially troubling given that the new national assembly will be responsible for the permanent constitution, which may well then permanently disadvantage Sunnis (and will be perceived as such even if it is more benign than that).

All astounding. It’s been nearly two years since the fall of Baghdad. We could have had local and regional elections legitimizing at least some levels of Iraqi government, and giving regional governments (such as Iraq’s existing 18 province structure) some semblance of a stake in calming things down and getting things working. We could have set up a system whereby this election could have been conducted by mail (as in Oregon), avoiding dangerous concentrations of people as sitting ducks at polling places.

We did… none of the above. Because this whole Iraqi election is, and was, and forever shall be, simply a bone to throw here, at our polity, that the cost of bankrupting our national fisc and decimating our reserve system and killing 1,400 of our people and wounding perhaps 5-10,000 more and interfering with the lives of hundreds of thousands more for a war that needn’t ever have been fought… were all worth it, you see, because some blood-stained, corrupt, ill-conducted, half-assed project we called “an election” took place. And yet, millions of Iraqis, looking optimistically to the future, risking their lives, will participate in this charade, possibly at a higher turnout rate than in many parts of our own country, where for the most part, people don’t have to brave suicide bombers to vote (although, in the event the next election is particularly close, some voters in Cleveland or Jacksonville might have to consider that possibility, I s’ppose).

1. …you think Spongebob Squarepants is a homosexual, but Condoleeza Rice isn’t.

2. …you think “the hood” is what you wear to a Klan rally.

3. …you think the “establishment clause” is the drunk at your local bar who dresses up as Santa every year.

4. …you think Andover is a sexual position.

5. …you thnk Kennebunkotrt is a sexual technique

6. …you think “Yale” is what you do to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s name during a NASCAR race.

7. …you believe RU486 is a science fiction movie.

8. …you turn on the radio whenever someone says you need to “rush.”

9. …you think “hip hop” is what you do to avoid the homeless person hanging out in front of your building.

10. …you believe that a cut in your family’s income makes it harder for you to pay your bills, but a cut in the federal government’s income makes it easier to pay its bills.

11. …you think “fatwah” is the obese Chinese guy who runs the restaurant around the corner from your house.

12. …you think Muhammad Ali must be a member of Al Qaeda.

13. …you think Jewish holocaust survivors voted for Pat Buchanan.

14. …you think “freedom” means “France.”

15. …you think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a gentleman, and Bill Clinton is a pervert.

16. …you think “Sex” is the latin word for Six.

17. …you boycott Heinz Ketchup because you think the former wife of the Heinz heir somehow controls the company instead of its board of directors and stockholders.

18. …you think an iPod is a little alligator patch you wear on your shirts.

19. …you get incredibly offended when someone says something nice about your lesbian daughter.

20. …you think “due process” is what causes your grass to be wet in the morning.

21. …you think the “first amendment” is what you do to your story when your wife finds out you lied to her.

22. …you think Payola is a tax refund check.

23. …you think there is cuch a thing as the “Democrat” party.

24. …you think Nicolette Sheridan is a slut, but Anne Coulter is a lady

25. …you think freedom means making up someone else’s mind for them.

26. …you think it’s a victory for freedom and democracy if Iraqis vote in Iraq, but “voter fraud” and an attempt to “steal the election” if minority Democrats are permitted to vote in the United States.

Please feel free to add to this list, and distribute it as widely as possible. I may even publish it. (All original material copyrightd by me, Hesiod Theogeny.)

Sister Helen Prejean has been quietly returning to public view lately to publicize her new book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.

Up until about 1980, she had held the view of many Americans, that the death penalty was just and appropriate. A change of heart, brought about in part by living amongst poor southern blacks and discovering what it was like to live under “the dirty side of the American tapestry” resulted in her work on behalf of inmates, and the eventual publication of her most famous book. In 1993, on NPR’s Fresh Air she was interviewed by Terry Gross about that book, Dead Man Walking. In 1996 her voice became wonderfully amplified when the movie made from her book hit theatres like a ton of bricks, but in a time when we just couldn’t crush people enough with the penal system, her eloquent, reasoned appeals for mercy and humility went pretty much unheeded. “Oh, what a great movie”, people said, and never thought twice about the issue again.

Twice I have heard her speak, and I can’t adequately convey the effect she had on me. Her message–that we should eliminate the death penalty not only because we cannot prevent innocent people from being murdered by it, but also because it serves no useful purpose except to coarsen and brutalize us as a society–is compelling, complex, and full of empathy. Her emotional, theological, and practical arguments are flawless. Her compassion and understanding of victims’ families makes her position even more convincing. And her voice, which is warm and earthy and full of love, the same voice that has comforted so many death row inmates and families, is a wonderful, healing thing to hear.

On January 11, she appeared as a guest on NPR/WHYY, on Marty Moss-Coane’s Radio Times, to promote the book and also to get the word out that the official Catholic catechism no longer allows a loophole for governments to execute, so long as a viable aternative, i.e., prisons, exists. You can hear this fascinating interview here, and hear, in the bargain, her portrayal of George Bush as carefree executioner, aided and abetted by Alberto Gonzales’ careless attention to the review process, as so damningly laid out by Alan Berlow in The Atlantic Monthly.

For more on her discussion of Bush’s conservative compassion and Christian works, check out her January 13 piece for the New York Review of Books, Death in Texas .

We can’t say we weren’t warned. But it’s such a relief to hear something as humane as Sister Helen’s message amidst so much miserable news.

Well, not quite. But close enough:

DAVOS, Switzerland - Actress Sharon Stone hijacked the staid World Economic Forum on Friday, interrupting a panel on poverty with a spur-of-the-moment fund-raiser that within minutes brought in more than $1 million to fight malaria in Africa.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was moderating a session on anti-poverty efforts when Stone stood to address a panel that included Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the presidents of Brazil and Tanzania.

“Please identify yourself,” said Frist, perhaps one of the few men on the planet who couldn’t visually identify the sultry star of such hit movies as “Basic Instinct” and “Casino.”

“Sharon Stone,” she said dryly, proceeding to announce that she was giving $10,000 on the spot to help Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mbaka’s anti-malaria efforts. As Frist tried to steer the conversation back to poverty, Stone talked over him, urging people to stand up and give to Mbaka.

“People are dying in his country today,” she said.

The surprised senator yielded to the spike-haired movie star. Mbaka, a large, round man, grinned widely as roughly three dozen people stood to be counted and have their pledges written down.

That’s one million more for mosquito nets from Sharon Stone. And hijacking the staid World Economic Forum gets my vote any day. It’s true, of course, that meetings that discuss and plan for aid efforts are important and that not every problem in the world can be saved by just impulsive fund-raising in this way. But much of the discussion in the World Economic Forum is really pointless from the beginning, given the political realities involved. So I’m glad that Sharon found a way to get some money out of all that nitpicking and posturing for power.
—-
You can watch a video of this event here. Original link from dkos diaries.

This may be the age of conservative journalists being in trouble. Not only are Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus all a little bit in trouble right now, but Media Matters for America has a series of articles on Jeff Gannon, the Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent of Talon News. Talon News is a wingnut media corporation. According to Media Matters, Gannon is well known for asking loaded pro-Republican questions at White House press briefings. Like these:

“McClellan: I think we’ve been through this issue. [Nod to Gannon] Go ahead.

“Gannon: Scott, when you talk about the unemployment — or the jobs being created, is that based on the payroll survey, or the household survey? Because there’s — because of the tax cuts, there’s been a tremendous increase in the number of entrepreneurs that have started their own businesses, and those numbers aren’t reflected in the payroll survey.

“McClellan: That’s correct, yes. The household survey is different from the payroll survey. And the household survey showed that some — an increase of 496,000 jobs in January alone. So there are different numbers that you’re talking about there. And we can look at both. But, again, you’re getting into — you’re getting into the numbers here. The numbers that the President is interested in is the actual numbers of jobs being created and the policies that we are taking to create an even more robust environment for job creation.”

In his March 10, 2004, column, Froomkin indicated that Gannon has served as a useful lifeline for McClellan amid hostile questioning from less compliant reporters:

But he [Gannon] does keep lobbing those softballs. Sometimes he even brings props. And press secretary McClellan seems to appreciate it.

Yesterday, for instance, McClellan was getting hammered with questions about the 9/11 commission and the possible inappropriate juxtaposition of a visit to a 9/11 memorial with a fundraiser on Thursday.

It was getting ugly. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” McClellan said in response to a jibe. (See the full text of the briefing.)

Then he saw daylight:

“Go ahead, Jeff.”

Gannon: “Thank you. First of all, I hope the grand jury didn’t force you to turn over the wedding card I sent to you and your wife. (Laughter.) Do you see any hypocrisy in the controversy about the President’s mention of 9/11 in his ads, when Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaign issued this button, that says, ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’? I have a visual aid for folks watching at home.”

McClellan: “You’re pointing out some historical facts. Obviously, Pearl Harbor was a defining moment back in the period of World War II, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was strongly committed to winning World War II and talked about it frequently.”

Gannon: “So you think it certainly is valid that the President does talk about it and –”

McClellan: “Yes, he addressed this this weekend, when he was first asked about it. September 11th was a defining moment for our nation. We all shared in that experience. And it’s important that we look at how we lead in a post-September 11th world. And that’s an important discussion to have with the American people, and to talk about the differences in approaches to winning the war on terrorism and preventing attacks from happening in the first place.”

It’s nice to have such a supporting reporter in these troublesome press briefings, isn’t it? Gannon likes the White House point of view on issues so well that he has used the RNC talking points extensively in his own writing, word by word, it appears, in some cases.

Thus, it’s not surprising that Media Matters for America asks why Talon News has press credentials, especially as they appear to employ very few journalists. It might be equally engaging to ask how one gets to become the Washington bureau chief of a newspaper that has White House credentials. Gannon gives the following biographical information:

Jeff is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University System and holds a Bachelor of Science in Education. He is also a graduate of the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism.

I had never heard of the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism. This is what the Leadership Institute website says about the program:

The Broadcast Journalism School is a one-stop, full-service seminar for conservatives who want a career in journalism. You’ll learn information you won’t receive anywhere else and get personalized advice from our expert faculty:

* Learn how to find good internships and make the most of them
* Gain networking skills to help you land your job and increase your effectiveness
* Develop a top-notch resume and learn how to make yourself stand out in an interview
* Learn a proven, step-by-step job hunting strategy and much more

An intense two-day seminar, the Broadcast Journalism School is designed to give aspiring journalists the skills necessary to bring balance to the media and succeed in this highly competitive field.

For $50, you’ll receive two days of instruction, meals on Saturday and Sunday and all course materials. Limited free housing is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Let me see if I got this right: One becomes the Washington bureau chief of a newspaper that has White House press credentials by taking an intense two-day seminar in journalism? And it costs all of fifty dollars?

Well, we here on the American Street should be able to beat that. How about a two-hour seminar from the American Street School of Journalism for $19.99, and then a short apprenticeship in the American Street News? You’d get a nice diploma to frame and you just might become the bureau chief for almost any city that you’d like. Though Paris has been taken by me.
—-
Also posted on my own blog.

It’s good to know that we’re doing so well in Iraq that the water’s back on in Baghdad! Riverbend’s used some of her 4-out-of-24-hour electricity to share her jubilation:

E. was the first to hear it. We were sitting in the living room and he suddenly jumped up, alert, “Do you hear that?” He asked. I strained my ears for either the sound of a plane or helicopter or gun shots. Nothing… except, wait… something… like a small stream of… water? Could it be? Was it back? We both ran into the bathroom where we had the faucets turned on for the last eight days in anticipation of water. Sure enough, there it was- a little stream of water that kept coming and going as if undecided. E. and I did a little victory dance in front of the sink with some celebratory hoots and clapping.

It’s a good thing they have something to do, with the curfew and all.

E. and I spent the day carrying up buckets of water. The water flow is so weak, it takes about 17 minutes to fill up a 10 liter plastic pail (I was timing it). We’ve carried up about 10 buckets until now. The water still doesn’t reach the kitchen faucets so we’ve managed to move the dirty dishes to the bathroom and are washing them there.

What’s with all this water carrying? Don’t they have rallies to attend, precincts to canvass, phonebanks to work? Isn’t there supposed to be an election this weekend?

Facing car bombs, snipers, suicide bombers, beheadings and abductions, Iraqis by the millions are set to vote Sunday.

“Hey, it could be worse,” said Anyan Aroubiyah, “here our votes will count, unlike the way it was in Ohio.”

Billmon describes the holiday atmosphere of the democracy what we brung.

Exit polls by Fox News show Saddam Hussein the winner of this weekend’s Iraq election. Baathist party candidates for the new Iraqi Assembly quietly swept into office after a constant barrage of terrorist alerts in the days leading up to the election. “The alarmed Iraqi electorate was apparently too scared to change horses in mid-stream,” an Iraqi political observer said. “Saddam promised them more of the same, along with protection against the American terrorist threat.”

Other observers said Saddam’s values of torture, pre-emptive strikes, opportunistic combat and castration of suspected homosexuals were the key factor in the Baath Party success at the polls. “Saddam is the voice of God,” an older woman whispered as she stepped out of a new $50 million Crystal Cathedral being built by American fundamentalists in Baghdad. “His style of torture is so much more loving than the American style of torture.”

In the US, White House officials said they were checking into the competency of the voting machines that were last used in Ohio last November.

Opponents of Baathists on the ballot had attempted to drive the debate away from the security issue to more fundamental social issues like electricity, drinking water and food. Some suspected political sabotage when their campaign rallies were continuously interrupted by American air strikes and beheadings. “What good is security, when everyone is dying from dirty water and lack of food?” the opposition leader suggested.

From his jail cell, Saddam Hussein relished his latest victory. The once and future president was optimistic in his outlook. ” I’m getting ready to spend some political capital, ” Saddam says.

As the new Baathist government takes shape, Saddam says he will restore the order that has eluded his country in the two years since he was deposed. In one of his first actions after his re-election he announced the appointment of George W. Bush’s personal friend and US Attorney General designate Alberto Gonzalez as his new director of torture. “Since dearly departed son Husay is no longer available, I have great trust that Mr. Gonzalez can take over where Husay left off,” Saddam noted.

An honest confession can be good for the pocketbook. Williams, Gallagher, and McManus should now be drooling over lucrative book offers from the Vast Liberal Publishing Conspiracy. They need only tell their stories about how they were paid to write articles pushing Our Noble Lame Duck’s agenda.

Not one to let such an enriching opportunity pass, I am revealing here for the very first time that I, too, have been a recipient of largess for my own work over the past year. Naturally, not being heartless enough to take money from an obese infant slowly drowning in its bathtub, I accepted no actual government payments. Instead, all those deposits to my offshore accounts came from private groups and individuals, making this not political bribery, but mere ideological product placement.

Furthermore, I have maintained my usual high ethical standards throughout. Yes, I was paid to push the meme that The Trentster was an impediment to our Congressional agenda, and should step down as Senate leader. However, when the very same folks from Nashville who made the substantial wire transfer to me for that, wanted me to go further and promote re-release of an old movie, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, I refused to violate my conscience by posting a phony favorable review. That time I just told Physicians For Feline Vivisection to keep their cash.
Read the rest of this entry »

With fresh revelations occurring almost daily about the columnists and commentators hired to provide positive coverage for Bush’s policies, and waves of indignation sweeping across blogtopia (ysctp!) by the Swiftnote Apologists for the Almost Wouldabeen Truth, the tireless pollsters here at American Street Central set out to determine how the scandal rates with the average Jane & John Q. Citizen.

Please vote only once, to maintain the scientific accuracy of this poll. (Note: the answers of Jeff Jarvis lookalikes will be discounted.)

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, center, is flanked by his wife Lynne, right, and Israel’s President Moshe Katsav, left, as leaders from 30 countries gather to remember the victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops in Oswiecim, southern Poland on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005. In the middle of the service, the vice president, clothed in a green parka, carved a hole in the ice and caught a seven-pound walleye.

Do as I say:

“But all our Cabinet Secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.”

-George W. Bush, January 26, 2005

Not as I do:

To date, the Bush administration has paid public relation firms $250 million to help push proposals, according to a report Thursday in USA Today.

President George W. Bush and Dr. John Apostolakis look at a electronic medical record system during a visit to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, January 27, 2005. Bush on Thursday proposed increasing federal funds to promote computerized medical records, which he said would save patients’ lives and money as he touted plans to overhaul the health care industry.

As Jenny mentioned yesterday, President Bush’s new Secretary of Education has objected to an episode of a PBS children’s show that features a cartoon rabbit visiting a lesbian couple in Vermont. (Presumably the episode’s title, “Sugartime!”, with its hints of hot girl-on-girl-on-bunny action, is what first alerted Ms. Spellings to its unsuitability for children.)

And then in February, there will be a same-sex wedding on “The Simpsons.”

And, of course, we are still feeling the effects of SpongeBobGate.

The Baptist Press reports on what this all means:

Pro-family leaders say both cartoons are another indication that homosexuality is moving further into the mainstream of society.

“As any parent knows, kids are riveted to cartoons,” Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, told Baptist Press. “… You’re taking a kid and what he loves to do most — which is watch cartoons — and you’re introducing an adult topic which is inappropriate.”

[…]

LaBarbera said he watches Postcards from Buster with his children.

“It’s extremely offensive that they would even consider doing this issue,” he said. “… They’re teaching the acceptance of homosexuality to toddlers.”

Reportedly, in the “Sugartime!” episode, a girl introduces Buster to ‘’my mom and Gillian,'’ and the group sits down to dinner. So, toddlers will be taught to accept the idea that you can have dinner with two women and a little girl. Thank heavens Margaret Spellings is trying to protect innocent children from that!

Mr. LaBarbera says that it shouldn’t be about teaching children to be tolerant of those with different family situations, or helping children from nontraditional families to feel accepted. No, cartoons should be showing children that these kinds of families are abnormal and sick. You know, for the good of the children.

LaBarbera said homosexual activists miss the point. Children need both a mother and a father, he asserted.

“They’re trying to get kids used to the idea that having two moms or having two dads is normal, when actually it’s very abnormal and it’s very harmful to children,” he said. “This is the liberals’ way of indoctrinating our children — all the while they lecture us about being intolerant and respecting diversity.”

Marc Fey, director of Christian worldview and education analyst at Focus on the Family, called the Postcards episode an “insidious attempt” to teach children what many traditional parents would find unacceptable.

“Our kids are targeted particularly in schools and in the media to adopt a worldview consistent with a group that we would vehemently disagree with,” he told BP. “There are big stakes with cartoon characters because they have the power to define for a child what’s real or what’s acceptable or what’s true.”

Um, yeah. From the cartoons I watched as a child, I learned that violence is the acceptable response to any situation. Oh, and that’s it’s perfectly fine for a rabbit to dress up like a woman and give steamy kisses to a human — as long as the human really believes that the rabbit is a sexy lady. I also learned that it’s true that animals can talk, people can be mutated by gamma rays so as to turn into the Fantastic Four, and that if you walk off of a cliff, you won’t start falling until you realize that you aren’t on the ground anymore. So, yeah, I can see where showing a rabbit visit a girl with two mommies will cause terrible psychic damage to our youngsters.

Anyway, BP has more about those omnipresent TV homosexuals:

In April 1997 ABC aired the controversial episode of “Ellen,” in which the lead character, Ellen DeGeneres, announced that she was a lesbian. A subsequent episode showed Ellen walking into the bedroom with a woman.

Since then, homosexual characters have been somewhat of a staple of television, led by the popular NBC sitcom “Will & Grace.”

“People are sick of homosexuality being everywhere — when they turn on the TV, when they open the newspaper,” LaBarbera said. “Everywhere you turn in the culture homosexuality is being promoted and celebrated and treated as if it’s no big deal. The average American — not just the average Christian — but the average American is sick of it.”

Yes, there is homosexuality everywhere! On “Will And Grace”! On “Ellen”! On every page of the newspaper! And now in three cartoons! And we average Americans are sick of it — sick of having to acknowledge that homosexuals exist. We want it all to stop. So from now on, we’d appreciate it if homosexuals would stop doing stuff that makes us obsess about them, such as wanting to get married, having dinner with Buster, or existing.

Deep in his underground laboratory, Professor Amerigo Street is working feverishly on his latest invention. He’s invited me in for a look. And all I can say is “it’s kinda sorta huge.”

No, it’s not the results of the Perranoski Prize voting, though admittedly, that’s rather large for an infant. (Can I say “infantesimal”?) What’s that? You haven’t voted yet and there’s just 4 days left to bestow these awards on the most talented? Get thee to thy vote, knave! Between the votes there and a few dozen email entries, the voting’s been - shall we say - thin?

Unlike the snobby Webby Awards, where it costs hundreds just to be nominated, Wampum’s Koufax Awards and this supplemental Perranoski Prizes contest are provided for free. Few can appreciate the extra work done by folks like Marybeth, Eric and Dwight, tabulating thousands of votes, cross-checking IP addresses to be sure no-one’s gaming the vote, while i keep a rifle trained on Cruella deHarris, Kenneth Blackwell and the owner of Diebold, to keep democracy free. And do we ask much in return?

No. Just a few minutes of your precious time, to add your vote. Oh, and a mention from Kevin D or Duncan or Oliver or Markos or Jesse or Jerome & Chris to stimulate that vote. ( Alas, they respond with silence. Their world is too big and ours too cold. Mine ass is large - it covers multitudes! - and they have divorced me in pursuit of trophy wife-blogs…. :: sigh :: )

Now where was I? Oh yeah, with the professor, in his laboratory dungeon.

Now his last invention went over well: from the General, S. Z. of the Planet of the Craps, the world according to the fafs, Ayn with the shruggable atlases, the Taterriffic HappyFunBall, Professor Irwin Corey, Barbara the Foglifter, occasional appearances from the Happiest Marsupial and the Opinion Pusher… and the good professor created a MONSTER hit called:

In fact, they should be showing up shortly, as the bars are closed.

And what does Professor Street have in store for us now? Sorry, until I get my check for $225,000 from Bush, I’m not at liberty to say. But I can promise this:

1) After February 1st, the last new member of our new team will be returned from vacation (in Brazil!) and weighing in.

2) Also in early February, the new, vastly improved and long overdue links page mmFFFF!! mmmmph rrrrmmmmmph!, er, yeah. Believe it when you see it.

3) Perranoski prizewinners, too, next week!

4) The usual awesome displays of prowess, wit, spicy retort and tasty morsels of comfort content from a most incredible team.

5) Before February’s over, we may even have a facelift and tummy tuck for the cover of this great place. A genuine arteest is on the task already and the only clue I’ll give is she’s quite the great sonnet maker. Then a certain code kung-fu-meister will turn the art into performance art, for its functional display.

6) Oh yes, you’ll pay, my pretties ! After the January Blog-Ad discounts expire, you’ll pay plenty to be seen amid the celebrity shindig we have happening here. But it’s not too late to take advantage of the discounts, if your ad begins displaying by January 31st.

As I have to pay for some of the upgrades and upkeep, these ads are what keeps us all afloat here. If you’re a regular connoisseur partaking of this site, you really oughta click on the ads now and then. (Especially NOW, eh?)

I promise you this: with this team, and all you’ll see next week, and next month, you’re going to find some nice surprises on top of all the great content. Why? Because we like you. Your ass never has looked fat to us. You’re too sexy for your shirt. And we don’t hate you because you’re beautiful. And we can see our faces in your floors!

And now… let the Friday Funnies begin !