Some of Monkey Boy's latest words on Iraq, spoken during the same week that photographs from US-run torture chambers have run in the media (both have emphasis added by yours truly):
A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed, and now sits in a jail. I also said on that carrier that day that there was still difficult work ahead.Full text here.
One year later, despite many challenges, life for the Iraqi people is a world away from the cruelty and corruption of Saddam's regime. At the most basic level of justice, people are no longer disappearing into political prisons, torture chambers, and mass graves -- because the former dictator is in prison, himself. And their daily life is improving. Electricity is now more widely available than before the war. Iraq has a stable currency and banks are thriving. Schools and clinics have been renovated and reopened, and power plants, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, and bridges are being rehabilitated. Iraq's oil infrastructure is being rebuilt, with the Iraqi oil industry already producing about 2.5 million barrels per day.Full text here.
Oh, and as reported here last month the part about there being no mass graves is complete baloney as well.
I was displeased that the man whom I believe is the same fellow who posted a bald-faced lie about anarchists to Portland Indymedia (that one threw the bomb at Haymarket Square, when in fact to this day nobody knows who threw that bomb) spoke at the rally and totally omitted the fact that the Haymarket martyrs were all anarchists. That, after he got everyone chanting their names and lauding their efforts.
My big worry of the day is that I may develop a nasty sunburn from being laggardly about applying the sunblock.
Some of my photos from today's march and rally are here.
The Yellow Line is now open, but I still have yet to ride it. Given that I had no reason to be in North Portland over the weekend, I didn't see much point in riding what would thus be for me a round trip to nowhere, even if it was free. Especially since Portland's rail fetish means people go ga-ga over such events and the trains are usually packed on the first few days of service for a new line.
For the families standing in the dusty car park of Abu Ghraib prison yesterday, the revelations of torture and abuse came as no surprise. Every morning, relatives of Iraqi detainees inside the US prison, just west of Baghdad, gather in the hope that their loved ones might be released. They rarely are.Full story here.The photos of US soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees may have provoked outrage across the world. But for Hiyam Abbas they merely confirmed what she already knew — that US guards had tortured her 22-year-old son Hassan.
Breaking down in tears, Mrs Abbas said US guards had refused to let her in. She had so far only managed to see Hassan once — two months ago — following his arrest last November.
"He told me: 'Mum, they are taking our clothes off. We are nude all the time. They are getting dogs to smell our arses. They are also beating us with cables.'"
A foul mood triggered by the recent discovery that the built-in CD/DVD drive in my laptop is now kaput. That, after the death of the battery and hard disk in recent months. And two of the three have happened since my unemployment insurance ran out. How thoughtful.
Now they're admitting the agents of the American Gestapo murdered prisoners.
And talk about your meaningless little slaps on the wrist:
An official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.Sound just a teensy bit lenient? And if that's the minimal punishment the soldiers are getting for committing murder, what's happening to the mercenaries who do it (who in other lesser cases of abuse have gotten off scot-free)? Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were allowed to literally get away with murder.
And abuse like pouring phosphoric acid on prisoners sounds like a technique right out of Saddam's torture cells. Oh, wait. His torturers used hydrochloric or sulphuric acid. There, see, we're still different.
And Rummy proves beyond a doubt that his continued breathing is a waste of good oxygen:
Rumsfeld refused to use the word "torture.""I'm not a lawyer," he said. "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture ... And therefore I'm not going to address the 'torture' word."
Look at this entry in Tom Tomorrow's blog. The abuses at Abu Gharib started (in earnest, at least) after guards were transfered there from Guantánamo.
And in another entry we learn that my speculation a few minutes ago about mercenaries enjoying impunity for murdering prisoners has indeed been proven true.
A Christian Science Monitor article reports, among other things: a conspiracy to cover up the tortures and hide them from International Red Cross inspectors, and the fact that the guards being punished for their torturing were directed and instructed to by higher-up military intelligence officers.
The International Committee of the Red Cross apparently witnessed unsavory things at Abu Gharib multiple times, and urged the occupiers to do something about it multiple times. Full story here.
Former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, self-appointed godfather and behind-the-scenes manipulator of Oregon politics, who opposed the recent People's Utility District effort while being a secret investor in a dummy corporation set up by a bunch of Texas speculators to take over Portland General Electric, has just been exposed as a pedophile and rapist. Since his statutory rape offense happened in 1975, and the crime has a three-year statute of limitations, he'll not be prosecuted for it.
True to Goldschmidt's established record of honesty and openness, he initially claimed his retirement from the various organizations he's involved with was because of a heart condition. In a sense, that's true: he doesn't seem to have much of one.
Let's recap:
In other words, the torture should come as no surprise, and responsibility for it goes to the very top. Far from being an isolated outrage, it's completely in character with everything else they've done. Richard Scheer's recent column in the Los Angeles Times makes a similar point.
Saw the movie Reds yesterday, only about twenty years after it was first released. Before I saw the movie, I visited an acquaintance who recently moved into the neighborhood.
Today, I learn that the man whose life the movie follows, John Reed, once lived in a house on the site where the building containing my acquaintance's apartment now stands (2020 SW Salmon St. in case you're interested).
Spare me the sanctimonious crap from the White House about it showing how awful "the other side" is. "Our side" has admittedly beaten people to death. Cutting someone's head off is more humane than that, as it's a quicker death.
Of course, that presumes (probably incorrectly) that Berg wasn't tortured before he was beheaded. Moreover, Berg apparently wasn't taking an active role in combat; but then again, the detainees at Abu Gharib are just suspects, most of them ordinary Iraqis caught up in wide dragnets.
So all in all, both Berg and the Iraqis tortured and murdered at Abu Gharib suffered essentially identical treatment. Far from showing how awful "the other side" is, it shows how awful and alike both sides are, and how much the whole conflict between Islam and the West is a clash of competing barbarisms.
One thing I did yesterday was locate the memorial (such as it is) in Washington Park to John Reed, whom as mentioned a few days ago once lived in this neighborhood. It's apparently the only such memorial in the USA. (Being a radical does not exactly endear one to the establishment that decides who gets memorials erected in public places.)
As the pictures show, it consists of a bronze plaque set into concrete at the base of a park bench. The bench, in case you're interested, is inside Lewis & Clark Circle facing east to northeast.
Amongst the points made in one of the articles he references is that seventy to ninety percent of those detained (and, hence, tortured) in Iraq were "arrested by mistake". And that's by the occupiers' own estimates!
Oh. One other thing. Remember back to the days immediately following that awful morning in September of 2001. One of the ideas many "respectable" mainstream sources were floating was of torturing suspects. Yet another item to add to the list of evidence that what happened at Abu Gharib should be seen as no anomaly and come as no surprise.
It appears that the noxious right-wing Hindu nationalist government in India has been defeated. Good riddance.
Left generally undiscussed in the establishment media is the connection between the BJP's right-wing economic policies and its Hindu nationalist social ones. It's rather simple, actually: If you sell the nation's assets off to foreign speculators and reduce the people's say over the economy, you have to be Doing Something to distract them. And that Something happens to be fanning the flames of Hindu religious nationalism.
That's not to say that things are going to be getting dramatically better in India any time soon. Congress governments have ruled that nation most of the years since independence, and India stayed impoverished. Not to mention almost unbelievably corrupt. And Congress-led governments have been enthusiastic participants in the oppression of Kashmir. So what's happened is more the removal of a bad thing than the creation of a good one.
An interesting feature of the election is that Congress did not win an outright majority and that they will have to enter into a coalition with various Communist parties to govern. The Communist parties, interestingly, did better than they ever have in the polls. So the results should be seen as a repudiation of the two big parts of the BJP's policies.
Expect the machinery of global capitalism to make the Indians suffer for their decision to choose a more secular and more socialistic government over a more nationalist and capitalistic one. There's lots of Third World countries with cheap labor out there; why put up with one that raises their costs a little by not sitting up and barking on command as enthusiastically?
That particular problem is something bigger than the government of any one nation — even one of a billion people — can solve.
"Don't throw out the baby with the bath-water." That's what the true believers in various sorts of religious and spiritual superstition all tend to tell me when I express skepticism of their pet views (especially the stranger parts thereof).
Continuing the analogy, if there's a baby in the bath, the thing to do is finish bathing the baby, take the baby out of the tub, dry it off (i.e. remove as much bath-water from the baby as one easily can), and empty the tub down the drain. If one leaves the baby in the tub out of some paranoid fear of one's inability to tell baby and dirty water apart, (being a baby) it will soon fall asleep.
And then promptly drown, as babies and small children are wont to do in even a few inches of water. In the name of saving the baby, one has killed it. Now all one has is a decaying corpse in a pool of fetid water.
So yes, a given tradition may (in fact, probably does) have some insights into the human condition that are useful. As well as no small amount of what are frankly just silly superstitions. And in the name of trying to get a grasp on the former without getting entrapped in the latter, I'm going to use my mind to judge which is which.
A friend and I are looking for an older diesel vehicle to convert to biodiesel. Sounds simple enough, right?
Except a) we want to use it for camping and carrying cargo, and b) most (meaning 90% or so) non-commercial diesel vehicles seem to be sedans or coupes (the two most useless forms of motor vehicle ever invented). Not to mention c) VW Rabbit pickups, the most common diesel pickups out there, are nearly impossible to find canopies for. A pickup without a canopy is nearly as useless as a coupe or sedan, as it provides no shelter for camping in or for carrying cargo in rainy weather (and this is western Oregon).
Electric vehicles are a non-option, because they are either a) criminally expensive, b) exceedingly small, c) very limited in range between charges, or d) some combination of (a) through (c). Not to mention e) you can't easily travel long distances in one because charging stations are rare (while biodiesel vehicles will run happily on plain diesel fuel from any truck stop).
Diesel station wagons and non-ridiculously-sized cargo or camper vans are even harder to find than pickups.
So I was excited to see a Datsun diesel pickup advertised for sale. It was in somewhat battered shape (whaddaya expect for a 24-year-old vehicle). But worth getting a mechanic to take a look at nonetheless. Then I find out that there are apparently no mechanics familiar with Datsun diesels in the Portland metro area. They either specialize in Volkswagen, Mercedes, or (most common of all of course) big trucks.
Sigh.
It's something I've been meaning to muse on for several months, ever since seeing that movie. In none other than the Badgad Theater, one of the locations featured in that (shot in Portland) movie. Which was especially trippy were the scenes filmed from the very seat I was sitting in (or at least damned close to it) on the balcony. That experience alone made seeing the movie worthwhile to me.
Some good rants against the movie by skeptics who know (or at least claim to know) more than I do about quantum physics are here and here.
Myself, I've never studied such subjects in detail. I'll just say that any time one asks questions about the ultimate nature of reality (be they under the guise of theoretical physics or any other belief system) one has pretty much wandered into the realm of the metaphysical. So it's not surprising to see some parallels between some of the stuff theoretical physicists say and some of the stuff in the mythologies of various religions. That probably has more to say about how the human mind is hard-wired to think about certain questions (and even is hard-wired to consider asking those questions in the first place) than any such reality itself. Once one delves into the metaphysical, one is by definition descending into a rabbit hole of mysteriousness.
The stuff about how various elements of ambiguity in quantum theory such as the uncertainty principle imply one can affect the world in gross ways just by thinking about it strike me as pure bunk. Those bizarre quantum rules about the observer affecting the observed only take place at a level that's impossible to observe normally and can only be inferred about based on indirect evidence. Far from providing evidence for supernatural phenomena whose affects can be observed unaided, they would appear to undercut it. They say that any such effects are beyond our observation, and always will be.
In other words, the separation between observer and observed, while not literally true, is so close to the truth in common practice it's still completely reasonable to act in everyday life as if the assertion were true. Saying otherwise is like someone claiming that because of the relativistic linking of space and time, it's entirely possible for me to get on the train to Beaverton and for it to be the year 2104 outside when I arrive at my stop half an hour (by my watch) later. In reality, the infinitesimal amount my watch will lag as a result of that trip would be far smaller than any extra variation caused by the temperature being a few degrees warmer or colder affecting the oscillator whose cycles the watch counts.
I had heard months ago, before even seeing the movie, that it was a product of the Ramtha cult of J.Z. Knight. Turns out that the rumor is true; head on over here and scroll down to the "What are the spiritual influences of the filmmakers?" question.
Which is only going to bolster my pre-existing skepticism about some of the more bizarre claims in the film. I have about as much respect for spiritual capitalists and profiteers as I do for physical ones.
... Had to be the bit on Masaru Emoto's "pictures of water". First, the fact that they were explained as such in the movie, when they are obviously pictures of ice. It's not technically a lie, since ice is frozen water, but most people associate the word water with water in its liquid form. I'll point out that Emoto's own web site (and, apparently, his book) are more honest than the movie and identify the subject matter as ice or crystals.
As far as thoughts and prayers affecting the crystalline structure: a) the pictures were taken with a microscope, b) even a tiny amount of water obviously fills up lots of real estate when seen through a microscope, which c) begs the decision of which little scene is photographed.
Given that nothing was said about how the decision in (c) above was made, one wonders if it was nothing but Emoto's judgment call. Practically any frozen sample would contain pretty, symmetric patterns and ugly asymmetric ones. Could Emoto's bias in favor of the results he wanted to see have led him to select the prettiest parts of the samples treated nicely and the ugliest parts of those treated wickedly? The fact that so many of the pretty hexagonal crystals are nicely centered in the frame of view certainly argues against random selection and in favor of conscious human intervention. Perhaps even more tellingly, nothing on methodology could be found on Emoto's web site.
And open up a "water crystal photography" studio in Portland. There's certainly enough New Age dupes in this town to provide a steady stream of customers, and parting fools from their money tends to be a lucrative form of business.
Of course, New Agers tend to be nasty, greedy, selfish capitalists when their schemes are horned in on. Witness J.Z. Knight's edginess when someone else tried to channel her own personal spirit: she filed suit to get monopoly rights on Ramtha, who is now the world's first trademarked spirit! Head on over here to get the admission straight from the horse's mouth (scroll down; it's near the end of the page). In that light, would I get a knock on the door and a sheaf of legal documents from Emoto's attorney?
That's assuming I could stomach doing something that actually promotes such loopiness instead of people taking real action to improve their own lives. Not only that, I don't think I could keep my mouth shut about how I believed I was doing nothing but separating fools from their money. And I'd have to go "in the closet", so to speak, about other beliefs of mine that clash with the basic premise of such a business.
From George Soros' commencement address at the Columbia School of International & Public Affairs (emphasis added):
What happened in Abu Ghraib was not a case of a few bad apples but a pattern tolerated and even encouraged by the authorities. Just to give one example, the Judge Advocate General Corps routinely observes military interrogations from behind a two-way mirror; that practice was discontinued in Afghanistan and Iraq. The International Red Cross and others started complaining about abuses as early as December 2002.
Bamboo is one of the few plants whose shoots can penetrate pavement. This bamboo plant is busy reclaiming a driveway to more productive uses. Somehow, I suspect those legends of the Chinese executing people by tying them down over emerging bamboo shoots might not be just legends.
That's my thoughts on realizing that OSX Panther uses vim instead of nvi for it's vi editor in text mode. Then again, maybe not completely. It seems as if this version of vim finally supports the Q command. I'm so impressed. It only took them a decade or so to do it. Lack of support for this command (which I'm accustomed to using and have no intention of giving up) has been at least 50% of the reasons behind hating vim with a passion.
The remaining objection is over my having gotten used to the way nvi handles multiple windows. We'll see if I can get used to that.
Update: I must confess being shocked. Not only does Q work as it ought to, but the nvi way of opening multiple editing windows does as well. The only difference is that the windows aren't of symmetric sizes. I don't think that minor nit is worth the effort of building and installing nvi (and then fighting every OS upgrade that puts vim back). Never thought I'd say it, but it appears that at long last there may be a version of vim out there that doesn't suck.
One thing about May Day I didn't mention is that when I got to the North Park Blocks, I had an incredible burning desire to remove my sandals and feel the ground I was walking on. Not only that, it felt incredibly good once I did that. And, surprisingly (given that it was in the eighties and the pavement was fairly hot), my sandals stayed off for about two thirds of the march that followed.
That prompted a resolution to try walking shoeless as much as possible, at least until the cold weather returns this fall. And maybe even beyond then, who knows. Practically "as much as possible" means "wherever silly dress codes don't prohibit it, there's not too many thorns or broken glass, and when I'm not sick of feeling pavement".
I have occasionally walked barefoot for a few miles on trails in Forest Park, and went five miles barefoot on my last day at Breitenbush Hot Springs last month. And I remember the scolding I'd get after getting cactus thorns in my feet "it's what you deserve for not having your shoes on" in New Mexico. And I've always removed my shoes indoors, at my seat in theaters, and at my desk in the office. So it's not completely a new development.
The biggest annoyance is that there's just so darn much pavement in the city, and concrete gets old real fast. It's so hard and harsh. It feels especially nasty when it's chilly outside. But even that's been less of an annoyance in the past few days.
It's rather more of an annoyance this evening after I made my feet sensitive again by hiking about 6.5 miles (a little over 10 km for you metric fans). At least they feel that way, the skin is still all there (and pretty tough now after nearly a month). Then again, I'd have tired feet if I walked that much with shoes on, too. Just a different kind of tired.
I like hiking barefoot the best. It's so great to feel the Earth one is walking on. One gets an appreciation for which areas of the forest floor get sunlight, and which ones stay cool and shady; which areas are damp and which are well-drained. The sight and smell of evergreen trees is accompanied by the sensation of walking on a carpet of fir needles. Mud becomes a pleasure instead of a shoe-staining annoyance.
I was shocked to see how many banana slugs had perished because hikers had stepped on them. None were my fault; I had incentive to be more careful. I once saw a T-shirt about how only newcomers who've never accidentally stepped on a slug go barefoot in the Pacific Northwest. I'd turn that around: far from an argument against bare feet in this part of the world, it's an argument for them. I don't want to be disconnected from the suffering I cause; I want to perceive it so I can minimize it.
I suppose I'd feel somewhat differently if the slugs in question were the introduced ones which are voracious garden pests. But our native slugs feast mostly on fungus and leaf litter. I'll never understand why people from places with critters like cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and fire ants say "Ewww!" and make such a big deal about harmless mollusks.
Managed to save one banana slug by moving it off the trail. Also saved a pacific sideband snail. Those are real pretty: large land snails with a swirling pattern of stripes on their shells, and the animal itself is a mosaic of red and black. A picture of one I took a few years ago is here. Today's was the first one I've seen this year, so it made my hike.
And my feet are still tingling.
An entry for the "all the good ones are taken" department. And a little research uncovers that Gold Kist is a producer's cooperative of chicken farmers in the Southeast. Too bad. I had visions of starting a worker's co-op with that name just for the sake of the clever domain. .coop registry WHOIS server For help on using this server use "?" (without the quotes). For more .coop information browse to http://www.coop The domain records that match "chicken.coop" are listed below. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Domain ID: 10947D-COOP Domain Name: chicken.coop Expiry Date: 25 Jul 2007 21:14:02 UTC Sponsoring registrar: Secura GmbH Created by: DCLLC Last updated by: Secura GmbH Created: 25 Jul 2002 21:14:02 UTC Last updated: 16 Apr 2003 10:13:36 UTC Last transferred: Contact Type: registrant Contact ID: 2053C-COOP Name: Karla Harvill Organisation: Gold Kist Inc. Street 1: P.O. Box 2210 Street 2: Street 3: City: Atlanta State/Province: GA Postal code: 30301 Country: United States Voice: +1.7703935091 Voice extn: Fax: Fax extn: Email: karla.harvill@goldkist.com Contact Type: admin Contact ID: 2053C-COOP Name: Karla Harvill Organisation: Gold Kist Inc. Street 1: P.O. Box 2210 Street 2: Street 3: City: Atlanta State/Province: GA Postal code: 30301 Country: United States Voice: +1.7703935091 Voice extn: Fax: Fax extn: Email: karla.harvill@goldkist.com Contact Type: billing Contact ID: 2053C-COOP Name: Karla Harvill Organisation: Gold Kist Inc. Street 1: P.O. Box 2210 Street 2: Street 3: City: Atlanta State/Province: GA Postal code: 30301 Country: United States Voice: +1.7703935091 Voice extn: Fax: Fax extn: Email: karla.harvill@goldkist.com Contact Type: tech Contact ID: 2053C-COOP Name: Karla Harvill Organisation: Gold Kist Inc. Street 1: P.O. Box 2210 Street 2: Street 3: City: Atlanta State/Province: GA Postal code: 30301 Country: United States Voice: +1.7703935091 Voice extn: Fax: Fax extn: Email: karla.harvill@goldkist.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The .coop registry WHOIS database provides information for .coop registered names only. Although every effort is made to maintain the accuracy of the WHOIS data, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. This service is intended only for query-based access. You agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to: (a) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations to entities other than the data recipient's own existing customers; or (b) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that send queries or data to the systems of Registry Operator or any ICANN-Accredited Registrar, except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations. The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of dotCoop. All rights reserved. dotCoop reserves the right to modify these terms at any time. By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy. BY USING THE WHOIS SERVICE AND THE DATA CONTAINED HEREIN OR IN ANY REPORT GENERATED WITH RESPECT THERETO, IT IS ACCEPTED THAT DOTCOOP IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF, OR IN CONNECTION WITH, THE REPORT OR THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE WHOIS SERVICE, NOR OMISSIONS OR MISSING INFORMATION. THE RESULTS OF ANY WHOIS REPORT OR INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE WHOIS SERVICE CANNOT BE RELIED UPON IN CONTEMPLATION OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS WITHOUT FURTHER VERIFICATION, NOR DO SUCH RESULTS CONSTITUTE A LEGAL OPINION.
Scrub jays normally cache acorns in hollow trees. This fellow has learned to cache peanuts inside crevices in the ironwork of the fire escapes on my building. Apologies for the blurry picture; he (or she) doesn't remain still very long.
I was sure I was going to miss scrub jays after leaving the Bay Area. Their distinctive cries were always being heard in the Oakland neighborhood I called home. I was pleasantly surprised after moving here to discover that Portland is near the northern end of their range (never saw one in the Puget Sound region). Apparently there's enough Garry oaks here to keep them happy.
I noticed with pleasure last autumn that Hoyt Arboretum had an Athrotaxus cupressoides in its nursery, maturing in size until it's ready for planting. Otherwise known as the Tasmanian Pencil Pine, it's almost never seen in cultivation. A pity, as the foliage is sufficiently bizarre: as the picture shows, it looks more like an Equisetum (horsetail) than a conifer at first glance. And then you see the telltale staminate cones.
That's noteworthy. Last winter was an unusually nasty one here in Portland, and the temperate species of the Southern Hemisphere don't like outbreaks of cold dry wind like we got. That's because the temperate zones south of the Equator simply don't get such weather: there's no land path from the antarctic regions to the southern temperate latitudes. Any cold fronts heading north get moderated and moistened by the southern seas.
Not only did this Athrotaxus escape the cold completely unscathed (and in a pot at that!), but it's happy enough in its new home to attempt to reproduce.
Going to see a friend in Newport for a few days. May post a few updates from there, as I'll be taking my laptop and he has net access.
And, as expected, my hay fever is all but gone. Amazing what a little clean ocean air will do.
If only there were some way of supporting myself out here.
So, did I commit an act of flag desecration when I ripped open that wet wipe envelope shortly after photographing it? What about someone who buys and eats that candy?
Well, the candy is a bit of a stretch, since it's not a true image of the US flag. And a patriotic holiday is coming up; such things have long been produced for such events. But a wet wipe envelope? Give me a break! Especially when there's so many of 'em in the dispenser by the toilet in the bus that it's obvious it's not just a holiday thing.
And there's a more serious side to it all as well. It's a truism that the places that are the worst totalitarian shitholes are often the ones where the government is the busiest tooting its own horn and insisting people love it. Places actually worth living don't generally shove patriotic symbols in your face everywhere. They don't have to; the facts of their citizens' lives speak louder than any symbolism. The emergence of such symbols in unexpected spots is thus evidence that things are getting worse for the majority.
[T]he definition of a successful career is one that consumes almost every aspect of one's life. They make it sound better than that during the indoctrination process, I'm sure.Full article here.
That's what's really happened of course. Articles in the establishment media like this one try to phrase it otherwise, but separate out the facts and the essence of the situation comes through.
And note that the resistance is growing over time, and if past struggles for national liberation hold true (and there's nothing to indicate they won't) this trend will continue. So the fact that the resistance can force a stand-off like this means they are winning.
I simply can't see it any other way. It's not as if groups like Al Qaeda don't want to attack US targets; it's pretty clear that they do. And, to this end, they'll continue trying.
No, it's that the Bush Regime has demonstrated, again and again, that they are not now, never have been, and and probably never will be really serious about any terrorist threat. Their interest is solely in exploiting things for their own personal gain. The way they sat on pre 9-11 intelligence indicating something big was about to happen, smuggled bin Laden family members out of the US immediately after the attacks, have refused to improve security around nuclear power stations, and lied their way into a war against a country that had nothing to do with terrorism all provide ample evidence for this claim. The "War on Terrorism" isn't about terrorists; it's about herding and managing public opinion at home, distracting people from an extremely partisan and classist agenda that is hurting the majority of most Americans (not to mention a majority of the world's people).
And my skepticism goes far beyond the softball questions being asked by the Democrats and their allies. It's more than just the fear such a warning will instill. Just consider the official targets listed in the original announcement: the G8 conference in Georgia, the Democratic convention, and the Republican convention. All three are scheduled to be protested by those of us who oppose the gathering darkness of American neo-fascism.
And already, a state of emergency has been declared in the counties near and surrounding the G8 summit. (But trust us, it's because of terrorists and not protests.)
Getting back to the first paragraph, note that nothing I'm saying means there won't be an attack this summer. There very well may, and in no small part thanks to foibles of the same ruling class that claims to be "protecting" us. In fact, given in which the way that ruling class has furnished evidence to many people that the US is indeed the Great Satan, there almost certainly will be such an attack in the future.
That's my impression after a few days. It's not as blatantly sucky as earlier versions of vim, but the vim version 6.2 distributed with Panther still has sometimes-erratic screen-updating behavior, and an undo facility that appears totally incompatible with traditional vi.
Unfortunately, nvi seems perpetually stuck on version 1.79 and hasn't been updated in at least five years. So like it or not, vim seems to be the wave of the future. Guess the creeping featureism in it won out over consistency and simplicity. Sigh.
Still think I'm going to end up building and installing nvi as long as it still builds and still is available.
"I'm very disappointed it took so long," said Howard Simon, 79, of Napa. Simon, who fought across France and into Germany with Gen. George Patton's legendary Third Army, has traveled to Washington with his wife, Claudia, for the activities.-- A World War II veteran, offering his reason for the unusually tardy erection to a memorial to those who fought that war, as quoted in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article"It was just overlooked, I think. We World War II veterans are nice people, so we didn't press," Simon said.
My explanation is somewhat more cynical. Most of the wars the US fought in during the last 100 years have been of extremely questionable merit: the Spanish-American, an imperialist land grab; the First World War, taking sides in a squabble between European imperialists so US capitalists who lent money to one side don't lose their shirts; the Korean, with its unwarranted segue from defense to offense at the Yalu River; the Vietnam, a squabble between two imperialist superpowers. World War II stands out as the one where the US entered a war in response to an attack on its territory. It's a clear-cut case of a defensive war. Plus, one of the three Axis powers being fought against probably qualifies as the nastiest dictatorship in all of history.
So, in contrast to the other wars, there was simply no need to engage in propaganda measures like monument-erecting to justify World War II. This theory is bolstered by my observation of how the Spanish-American War, perhaps the most blatantly evil and imperialistic (and controversial) US military venture with the possible exception of the current Iraq War, is one of the most commemorated conflicts.
A recent article in Willamette Week claims to refute most of the charges activists make against Starbucks. Fair enough. Some of the points it makes are indeed factual, and inconvenient facts only get more inconvenient if one ignores them (I believe this paraphrases something Bertrand Russell once wrote).
However, Charge No. 2 in the article (about the oppression of third-world farmers) isn't quite refuted. And Charge No. 5 (homogenization) is actively upheld.
Perhaps most significant of all is a charge that isn't even mentioned: Starbucks role in gentrification. By "giv[ing] people a safe place to have their first specialty-coffee experience", it caters to just the sort of insecure yuppie scum who want to live in a safely Disnified and cleaned-up urban neighborhood, thus facilitating the elimination from such neighborhoods of those types who make the yupscum jittery.
WW's examination of Charge No. 1 (Starbucks drives independent coffeehouses out of business) simply bolsters this argument. Starbucks has expanded into Portland like mad since 1989. The significant correlation with this is not the concurrent expansion of independent coffeehouses, but the concurrent gentrification of Portland.
That's right, if she doesn't agree with you 100%, she's part of an enemy conspiracy. There's never any room for honest error or plain old stupidity. It's always part of some grand plan. They're out to get you. They always are.
Or so I think after taking a quick glance at that article and many of the comments on it.
And you can bet you won't hear anywhere near as much attention paid to this in the establishment media as to the antics of the so-called "ecoterrorists". Even though the people that targeted Ms. Haigh actually did a person physical harm, something those doing ecological direct action deliberately (and successfully) try to avoid.
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