I just don't get it

With CEOs' salaries skyrocketing (even after all the scandals involving over-compensated corporate managers), it turns out that the workers' pensions will fall to the axe because of United Airlines' bankruptcy reorganization. Result: its defined-benefit plan will pay $800 per month as a pension to an employee who'd been promised $1700.

Isn't it time Americans woke up to what's afoot in America? Apparently not, so long as the same companies that are sucking up our money own the media that doesn't report it.

I'm not making this up

Halliburton's KBR unit, the one that's been all over the news in the last two years for overcharges and missing documents in its Iraq rip-off, was just awarded bonuses of millions of dollars by the Defense Department for its "very good" work.

This essay from a Louisville, Kentucky, paper, says it all

Louisville, Kentucky? How can a city in a red state have such a blue paper? No, not blue. True blue.

I'm soliciting suggestions

for a word to be applied to that temporal gap between when a story is reported in the foreign press, or on a blog, and when it is finally (if indeed it ever is) picked up by MSM here in the US. This powerful piece of information about Bush's predetermination to attack Iraq and "fix the facts" to justify the invasion lay outside of US news for at least a week until just now, when the Chicago Tribune finally gave it a small half-column. Now, let's see if it gets any further legs or whether it'll be washed away by stories about runaway brides and weird pop singers.

Two questions arise from this news story

in today's NYT.

First, where on Earth does the reporter get the phrase, "fully and freely elected democratic government" in describing Iraq's present set of office-holders? The nation was under occupation and a large segment of the populace boycotted the election because of the Sunnis' outrage at the US presence in the country. That phrase certainly isn't necessary for the story that follows (about the selection of a cabinet) and is clearly the product of the same herd instinct and bias that characterized the reporting of events in Iraq since Bush set his eyes on it. It's an indication, and an obvious one, of how colored the US reporting is on this war, notwithstanding the mea culpa the NYT has previously expressed over just that bias.

Second, if Iraq can have a Human Rights ministry in their government, why can't we?

Ooops, here it comes

This mass grave isn't Saddam Hussein's doing. It's apparently the product of some pissed off Shiites getting even with Sunnis, from deeds back in the day. Or not. Either way, it's a dangerous turn of events.

Whazzup?

I just finished a book by George Johnson, who writes, among other things, science pieces for the NYT. Fire in the Mind. A super read, an in-depth analysis of various scientific theories--math, physics, geology, biology--juxtaposed against native American tales and myths, all with a view to explaining why we seem to have a "fire in the mind" to learn about ourselves and our meaning. He concludes thus (I'm leaving out some really good stuff):

"Sometimes the intelligence of our species seems like a tiny flame
flickering on the periphery of a vast blackness, trying to illuminate the
void. Who gave us this burden? Will anyone or anything beyond our
celestial campsite ever care? If this web is just something we are
spinning for our own amusement, it will die along with its
creators.

"...[I]t is hard not to believe that we are all
participating in something universal, something holy, that the pageant must
unfold beyond our planet. Perhaps we are merely one among a myriad of
players--gathering bits, abstracting concepts, building great edifices of
theory, these mathematical Towers of Babel, that reach higher and higher above
the plains. High enough, perhaps, to make out, just barely, the
rhythm of other dancers, the flickering of other fires."

Was that conclusion just Johnson's late-night musing, or perhaps--more cynically--his way of satisfying his editor with a final phrase signaling a role for faith, or at least an instinct for mysticism? I'm not sure, but to me it doesn't matter. While I disagree with some people's interpretation of the quote attributed to Einstein ("God does not play dice with the universe"), namely, that Einstein was expressing a belief that something mystical was at work in the universe, I am coming to believe that we humans aren't anywhere near capable of knowing everything--even of seeing everything. I believe Einstein was saying something like, "We don't know what game is afoot, because we can't see God or the dice, or even ourselves."

That I truly believe, for me anyway. I'll always be playing dice in the dark. The question then becomes, Why play at all?

Cofer the Beheader

This quote of our counterterrorism chief, seeking bin Laden's head in a box, reveals all one needs to know about the propensitites of Bush appointees.

A reason to watch Entertainment Tonight

Here's a take on why "serious bloggers" should keep connected to the topics of lesser significance. Does this mean we must watch all the trash on TV? No, but we score no style points for ignorance, either.

Now just a goddam minute

Now they're going after PBS. We'll lose not only Nova, Amercian Experience and Now, but the Antiques Road Show too, the latter not on political grounds, but because it's competitive with, and hence to be absorbed by, commercial television, just like Siskel and Ebert were.

Thank God for the NYT

Not just that it (and a few other MSM outlets, such as the LA Times) more than occasionally provides an outlet for news that's not reported by the other sources, such as this one on the recent ouster of the UN investigator of prison practices in Afghanistan, but that it's a big enough source that its stories can't be ignored. Right? Let's see if the story is picked up anywhere else. I'll report back on this.

Soft Patch or Hard Times

With increasing inflation and declining GDP, there has been mention by the economic pundits of the possibility of stagflation. This phenomenon last occurred in the seventies, when inflation soared and the economy remained flat, so that there was no apparent fiscal or monetary remedy that wouldn't either trigger higher inflation or drive the economy downward. We're probably not headed there yet, but there are ominous signals--and little indication that anything in being done to stem the tide, while both the U.S. trade imbalance and federal deficit continue to grow unchecked. If I were a dollar-holder, or a treasury bond trader, I'd be looking to get out pronto.

There's got to be something wrong with this poll

I simply don't believe that 63% of Americans believe that the bible is literally true. Just don't believe it, that's all.

What's wrong with America?

Here, in detailed presentation, are two features of American global policy that I detest: Its militarism and its blind, greed-driven dependence on oil. There are others: Its crass materialism and dollar-dominated corporatism, the inequities of world wealth that it causes and perpetuates, its aspiration to empire and a few others. But the first two--they're the ones that are going to ruin our nation and destroy the planet first.

This scathing report

on the status of Iraq's security forces, detailing the absenteeism, lack of training, absence of morale (contrary to the recent representation of the US military command): Is it contained in some left-wing opinion piece? No--it's found in a news analysis by Business Week Online.

Condi's solution to terrorism

The surest way to deal with the ever-increasing numbers of terrorist activities around the globe, despite the assurances of Bush and Rice that the US is winning the "war on terr'r" is to stop publishing the embarrassing statistics. Especially since last year, the administration's attempt to minimize the numbers of attacks was found out and the report revised upward.

So--no more annual report on global terrorism will be submitted by the new Secretary of State. What you don't know won't hurt us, is Condi's motto.

SIP's

This new Amazon.com feature sounds interesting. Surely it's the basis for a new board game.

Where's the outrage?

I'm not posting regularly, nor am I on the Internet much, because I've traveled to Tucson for several days and I'm relegated to a dialup connection. As a result, I haven't yet checked Google News to see whazzup, but I'll be surprised to find broad Mainstream Media coverage of this outrageous situation about armored vehicles in Iraq. This is at least the third separate time the absence of armor has been raised--the first being within three months of the invasion, the second being about three months ago, and still we've heard only muttering about it on the MSM.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld and his Pentagon minions roll on: mindless, callous criminals. And more mindless and callous than they? The MSM, which allows them to do so.

Bottoming out

I watched a Frontline TV show last night called, "The Architect," devoted entirely to Karl Rove's activities and orchestration of Bush's electoral victories and the rightward shift of the Republican Party which has lately led to its dominance in Washington and in many states. (Rove declined to be interviewed for the show, which was co-produced by The Washington Post).

There wasn't anything new in the presentation for those who follow politics and certainly not for those who've read Bush's Brain. However, I came away with a sense that the Democrats, at least many of those in power, haven't yet gotten the fundamental message that the show demonstrated: The way to achieve political strength is by perseverance, organization and adherence to a resonant message.

Rove's drive as a youth stemmed from Goldwater's loss in 1964, a nadir for the Republicans--and for the conservative message. From that bottom there was nowhere to go but up, and within four years Nixon was in the White House, followed by Ford and, with but a brief interruption, twelve more years of conservative rule, during which time Rove rose in the ranks and plied his trade by carving out a rightist agenda of low taxes and capitalist hegemony over the economy. Now, in the wake of the damaged image of the Democrats caused by the Clinton presidency he's aligned the Republicans with the religious right, armed them with the "war on terror" and is firmly in control of the national pulse, with his candidate cutting taxes, cutting federal programs, opting out of treaties, gaining control over strategic resources and calling out religious slogans to invigorate the faithful to support his causes and his candidate.

Well, the Democrats have bottomed out now, too. True, the 2004 presidential race was no landslide, like those Goldwater, Dukakis and McGovern suffered. But the Republicans hold sway in all three branches of the federal government and in most states. They have the resonant messages, too: The "Ownership society and "culture of life" being the latest.

I've been watching the Democrats in Congress lately, during the confirmation hearings of Gonzales, Rice, Negroponte, and, most recently the brute, John Bolton. With the exception of a few members of Congress, including Barbara Boxer, from my state, the Democrats' responses are pitiful. Where's the outrage that Bush should appoint and retain those who failed America during his first term? Where's the message that we've lost thousands of lives and limbs in a war that wasn't necessary? Where's the demand that these appointees be held accountable?

The Democrats must adopt an affirmative message and a consistent means of its delivery. It has always been the party of the working class, it has always protected minorities, the environment, the freedoms of press and religion--causes that are now being trampled by the Republicans. The Democrats must now, as any twelve-stepper knows, acknowledge the problem and, one day at a time, take steps--forward and upward--to correct it, starting at the bottom.

What a difference two years make

The famous square in Baghdad where Saddam Hussein's statute was toppled is shown in two telling photos. The first--taken as the statue fell--shows the square nearly empty except for some US troops and a handful of Iraqis. The second, taken last week, shows tens of thousands of Iraqis rallying to protest the US occupation. (BTW, during the first anniversary of the invasion the square was blocked off for security reasons.)