Happy birthday Misha Glouberman.

I emailed him tonight because Anna remembered it was his 35th birthday, and I was kind of wondering what he's up to these days. Turns out, he's up to this:

Trampoline Hall Lectures, April 1 at Fez

FIE TO dreary pundits...
A POX ON well-pressed suits...
TO HELL WITH things going precisely as planned...

We bring you TRAMPOLINE HALL: A night of three people lecturing on subjects
they're not experts in.

Created by McSweeney's author Sheila Heti. Hosted by Misha Glouberman, "a
man known for wrinkled suits" (The New Yorker).

For the past fifteen months in Toronto, and on its ten-city tour of the
U.S., Trampoline Hall has left sold-out crowds in tears of confusion and
relief.

The debut evening of our monthly New York series will feature:

photographer Chris Buck on ass-kissing
Leanne Shapton of J&L on subletting
journalist Emily Nussbaum on hermaphrodism

After each lecture the audience asks questions. Fights break out. People
burst into song.


TUESDAY APRIL 1
Fez Under Time Café
380 Lafayette Street (at Great Jones Street) - New York, NY
Doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8:00 sharp
Cover is $7

www.trampolinehall.net

"playing in the spaces between a party and a show" - Eye Weekly, Toronto

"unruly and caustically funny" - The Independent Weekly, Durham

"like Mark Twain fronting the Ramones" - Philadelphia Weekly

Misha himself gave this event the following ringing endorsement:

"If you're unsure whether you want to recommend it, ask Sophie. She came twice, and hated it."

Subject:
Re: Your Letter to Patrick Meade
From:
Bob McMillan
Date:
Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:55:24 -0800
To:
Diane Albert



Diane Albert wrote:

> All I can say, Mr. McMillan, is that it is unclear to me what your interest is in an exchange between Mr. Meade and me, which he misconstrued.
>

I read about it on his Web site and I felt compelled to comment. These are intense times and a lot of Americans, like me, feel frustrated by the way the media has covered this war. I feel that some important stories (e.g. Why are we having a tax cut and a massive increase in spending in a down economy, and what's the plan to improve the economy? Where is Osama bin Ladin? Why does the government make a connection between the secular Iraqi government and a reiligous fundamentalist terrorist organization? What exactly is Clearchannel's involvement in pro-war rallies and Clearchannel Vice Chairman Tom Hicks's dubious relationship with the President (http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/ m1111/1797_300/59086099/print.jhtml)) are not being covered while too many soft stories are being offered as infotainment.

In short, people are holding you to a higher standard than before.

I'm reassured to hear you imply that you weren't trying to be glib with Mr. Meade, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, if you'll please consider that it's possible that your comments might have been construed that way. Honestly, I think it was already pretty obvious that the Seattle Times changed photos from time to time.

Onward fierce journalists!

Bob McMillan

Subject:
RE: Your Letter to Patrick Meade
From:
"Diane Albert"
Date:
Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:18:16 -0800
To:
"Bob McMillan"

All I can say, Mr. McMillan, is that it is unclear to me what your interest is in an exchange between Mr. Meade and me, which he misconstrued. Nonetheless, read it again and ask yourself if there was anything exceeding a customer service intent. I can assure there was not.
Diane Albert
Letters Editor

This one's for Rick.

Subject:
Your Letter to Patrick Meade
From:
Bob McMillan
Date:
Thu, 27 Mar 2003 22:16:33 -0800
To:
opinion@seattletimes.com, dalbert@seattletimes.com
CC:
jvesely@seattletimes.com


To:
Diane Albert
Letters Editor

Ms. Albert,

I read your recent email exchange with Patrick Meade ( (http://www.one-eyed-jack.net/jack//003_03_23 _one_eyed_jack_archive.html#200057629) and I have to say, I don't feel that you've lived up to your responsibilities as letters editor.

While I have to give you props for at least answering Mr. Meade's letter, your first answer seemed glib and condescending. If you're going to defend your newspaper's editorial policy, defend it. Don't resort to easy sarcasm. Newspapers have an important duty in these troubled times and it would be reassuring to your readers to know that you're taking their comments seriously (and even reading them all the way through from time to time) and not thoughtlessly posting photos of dolphins all over the place while American GIs are dying.

Bob McMillan

Here's a great link from Anna. As you may have heard, radio Borg ClearChannel has been a major sponsor of a lot of these Anti-peace rallies all over the United States. Now the question that occured to me when I heard about a media giant involved in this kind of political advocacy was, "What's in it for them?" Is this just promo for the radio stations, or is there a deeper purpose?

This editorial by Paul 'please-give-me-a-new-publicity-shot' Krugman has the answer.

The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Bush was governor of Texas, Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., called Ultimco, and Clear Channel’s chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Hicks, Ultimco placed much of the university’s endowment under the management of companies with strong

Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Bush a multimillionaire.

If you really want to know the story of Hicks and his extremely dubious relationship with Dubya, you can read this Harper's Magazine article from three years back which delineates the slimy and Byzantine connections that have linked these two men for the past decade.

This is probably how Dan Rather sounds to the Iraqis. It's an hilarious analysis; for example, the false surrender at Nasiriyah gets the following wild interpretation:

US troops have suffered a lot because they lack adequate mental preparation. The US troops were reportedly attacked in Nasiriyah because they "took the enemy lightly". When some Iraqi soldiers flaunted white flags and raised their hands, US troops really thought that the enemies were coming to surrender. They did not expect that the Iraqi soldiers, having come near, suddenly opened fire and killed nine American soldiers.

It's a pretty silly story, in part because the tone is so un-journalistic. But is it really that much more silly than some of the stuff we're reading?

China, by the way, is the most interesting country to watch in all of this conflict. They're one of Iraq's closest neighbors, and as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, they're probably the most likely to be affected by the flow of middle eastern oil in the next 20 years.

What would the US do if China decided, following the doctrine of pre-emption, to move into Iran and liberate it?

I had that dream. You know the one. You're back in high school after almost two decades, and some of the same people are still there for some reason. I was going back to make up a chemistry course and get that high school diploma that I'd somehow never managed to get. The school was the same, but security was tighter, and I felt really self-conscious, being so much older than everyone else there, except a few of my old high school acquaintances (never friends) who had decided to return for similar reasons. I asked a security guard where the chemistry class was and -- breaking the trend in this long-recurring nightmare -- he said something wise.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"It's the silliest story, I'm living with my parents for a few months while I make up this chemistry high school course that, because of some bookkeeping error I never got credited with. So for one term, I've got to go back to high school. Kind of a lark, really."

"Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to make it up at night school," he said. "That way, you could keep your job and go to school with adults. It'd make a big difference."

In all the times I had experienced this dream -- it's been going on for about 15 years now -- this had never occurred to my unconscious. It was like a revelation.

I awoke feeling very grateful to that security guard and thinking of the image of law enforcement at high school, and how my idea of what school is has changed so radically since I actually attended it. And then it struck me: there haven't been any shooting rampages since 9/11. Why is that? Is our police-state approach to life actually working? Or, with real killing in the forefront of the American imagination, are kids somehow more reluctant to try it out themselves?

Looks like the White House is reading Mike's blog, and the House is reading Rick's. Onward fierce bloggers!

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (Reuters) - On President Bush's Air Force One flight to Florida on Wednesday it was au revoir French toast, hello "Freedom toast."



"Stuffed Freedom Toast" topped the breakfast menu, in a subtle slap at the French for helping to confound U.S. attempts to get the U.N. Security Council to authorize military force against Iraq

This is about as "subtle" as the Bush administration gets. They're probably still laughing at the creative genius behind this subversive little gem of hilarity.

Bloggers are parasites, says (blogger/cartoonist) Tom Tomorrow. Yes, professional investigative journalism is a good and valuable thing, but when you read this it sure sounds like he's never rewritten a press release under deadline. There is reporting. And then there is the crap that most journalists spew out.


Look, the relationship of bloggers to the mainstream media is roughly that of wood tick to deer, a parasite which draws sustenance from an unwilling host. Blogging is many wonderful things--a new form of independent publishing, giving voice to the voiceless, presenting a wide range of opinion and creating new communities and on and on--but this blogging vs. traditional media dynamic is just silly. Blogging vs. traditional punditry is really more like it, I think.

So let me get this straight. The closer the Americans get to Bagdhad, the more likely Hussein is to use these chemical weapons, which he may or may not have? In other words, the closer we get to his own people, the more likely he is to use these notoriously uncontrollable weapons. Somebody's insane here. I hope it's us.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an interview with France 3 television, cited speculation that "there is a box around Baghdad, that if we penetrate that box," Saddam would unleash a chemical attack. "If he did," Powell added, "it would not stop the (U.S.) assault."

I'm in Shock & Awe (Anna and I were talking about what might be the cliche of record for this war, as "Mother of... " was during Gulf War I. My vote: "Shock & Awe") over Jimmy's new look. The boy has made up for his previous indiscretions with a beautiful new look for his blog. Well done, Jimmy!

I'm not kidding. This represents a higher level of political debate about the War in Iraq than we've generally seen on American TV, mainly because it's two sided.

Cherry also went at it with MacLean over the war in Iraq, chiding the Canadian government for its "lack of support to our American friends."

"I hate to see them go it alone," Cherry said.

He added: "These guys are over there, they're over there giving it all ... we're just riding their coattails," Cherry said.

MacLean stood firm that it was Canada's right not to go.

"Why attack Iraq if they haven't attacked you?" MacLean said.

The source: Hockey Night in Canada.

The war had a bad day yesterday, according to the newspapers I've read this morning, but still you could almost get the sense that no Iraqis are being killed. It seems pretty clear that less than 50 Americans have died so far, but how many Iraqis? 50? 100? 1,000? 10,000? I have no idea. The closest sense I get comes from Where is Raed. who writes:

What was most disturbing are the images from the hospitals. They are simply not prepared to deal with these things. People were lying on the floor with bandages and blood all over. If this is what “urban warefare” is going to look like we’re in for disaster. And just now the images of US/UK prisoners and dead, we saw these on Iraqi TV earlier. This war is starting to show its ugly ugly face to the world.
The media wars have also started, Al-jazeera accusing the pentagon of not showing how horrific this war is turning out to be and Rumsfeld saying that it is regrettable that some TV stations have shown the images.

Wow. Just got the March 24 New Yorker. Maybe I'm on to something here.

This is the traditional case for pacifism. It hangs on an insight about means and ends. “Thou shalt not kill”: whether the commandment is seen as coming from God or simply from self-evident moral intuition, few dispute that to kill is to commit a wrong, and that to refrain from killing is to prevent a wrong.

I can still hear the helicopters overhead. San Francisco has been filled with the constant sound of aircraft for the last two days. Helicopters mostly, but all through the night there were small fixed-wing aircraft flying above as 1,400 people were arrested in what the Chronicle is calling the "largest demonstration in years. From what I saw, it didn't seem to be as large a demonstration here on Feb 15, but it was un-permitted, it covered a lot more surface area, and it happened during the work week, so it was *way* more disruptive.

After Anna called, I walked down to Montgomery and Bush where about 30 protesters were sitting in the middle of the street, squared off against maybe 20 cops in riot gear. There was a pretty large crowd of onlookers -- a lot of people like me taking pictures -- and protesters who didn't necessarily want to get arrested. At Montgomery an Jackson, there was a line of maybe 10 Muni busses, stopped, blocking traffic. The drivers were out front talking to each other, enjoying themselves in that Muni-time kind of way where you never quite let up on that last foothold of resentment that makes you invulnerable to the public.

Cars were driving backward down Montgomery street and though it was around a quarter to nine, the financial district felt like a Monday morning cathedral. I walked down the middle of Montgomery for a bit, looking back at the Transamerica building and the stopped-up street before it. There was a beat up Muni bus on the corner marked "Alpha Group." My first thought was that the protesters had somehow commandeered it.

At Market street, there were newspaper boxes overturned into the middle of the street, and a lone woman sitting on a SF Weekly box seemed to be blocking the entire westward flow of traffic. This was just an illusion, though, as I could see the real disturbance was up around Battery somewhere. At Battery there was a kind of crazy band playing improvised samba march music, and people were dancing. This was the protest's "fun zone."

Further down Market, I saw a pretty large group of protesters disperse, blown off the street like chaff by a phalanx of baton-wielding police. Maybe 15 people were left behind, and one by one they were picked up, arrested, Polaroided (there were so many cops with Polaroids, it occurred to me that some of them might be taking souvenir shots) handcuffed in plastic, and then shuffled off -- and this is what the Muni vehicles were for -- to a waiting bus. In a weird riff on the Marines at Iwo Jima, firemen were skill-sawing a street sign in two so that police could remove some protesters handuffed around it, and all around the crowd was really peaceful and respectful.

I started heading home, feeling a kind of joy and comfort that there were people who were calling bullshit on this war, but I also felt a deep disquiet. A sense of helplessness, and lingering self doubt. Why wasn't I being arrested? To what extent did I really want to go on record about all of this? How was it affecting me?

I got home and put on Young Americans. Really loud. And then I took out a bunch of copy paper and, taping it together, spent the next hour writing our four large words in black marker and taping them to my front window. Listening to those David Bowie songs produced with that Philly sound, Luther Vandross singing in the background was a strange experience. The whole album seemed like such an innocent and hopeful collaboration, so much unlike the US/UK's latest joint venture. Disco happiness and that coke-fuelled sense that anything is possible.

And then I began to think of the Crusades, and the fact that we are living under a religious executive, and the church next door, and the very appeal of religion -- both to the individual and the state. These were the words I strung together:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Anna just called from her way to BART to tell me that the streets of San Francsico's financial district are shut down today. She says that no traffic is moving anywhere, and that there are people in the intersections sitting in hay -- planted for peace.

Cool.

Just doin' my part in this crazy war

It's not every day you discover that you were involved in military research. Anna was watching TV news last night when this report came on a local channel.

Apparently, on of the non-traditional military tactics that will be applied during this war is called 'swarming.' It allows military units to seek and engage targets much more quickly than in the last war. As a bonus, it was developed, in part, by studying a monthly San Francisco bicycle event that we've participated in called Critical Mass.

The notion of swarming was developed in part from a swarming behavior Arquilla noticed in San Francisco during bicycle demonstrations.

"A leaderless network called Critical Mass would come together on Friday afternoons, they would communicate with each other by e-mail, and they would come from all over the city on their bicycles and create an enormous disruption for several hours," he says.

Word to my friend Nick. Don't be alarmed because your page comes up first in a search for "all funny pictures on rednecks and hillbillys."

When you spell hillbillies properly, it doesn't even show up.

Jimmy gets the award for most annoying blog innovation of the day. Maybe it's a Mozilla thing, but when I click on the Hell links (some of which are broken, by the way) that have now replaced his blog I get referred to some members-only site (hell.com) that launches these pop-up windows that eventually ask me for my email address. This kind of simulates the "hell" effect, I guess, but in a frustrating pencil-breaking bureaucratic way instead of in the fire-and-brimstone, scorpions-in-the-desert fashion I prefer.

For the first time ever, I'm ahead of Blogger in my linking. I noticed today that Blogger.com has a link to Where's Raed on its front page -- a site, apparently blogged from Baghdad, that I linked to a number of weeks back. It's certainly more informative than any newspaper report you'll read -- and Journalists in Iraq are forced to have an official minder with them at all times; someone who keeps their sources in line (e.g. "Saddam is a good man, George Bush is no good,").

Anyhow, you should read this guy's Rant on why this war is stupid and how hypocritical it is for the US to claim to be bringing democracy to this country at this time and in this way.

What is bringing on this rant is the question that has been bugging for days now: how could “support democracy in Iraq” become to mean “bomb the hell out of Iraq”? why did it end up that democracy won’t happen unless we go thru war? Nobody minded an un-democratic Iraq for a very long time, now people have decided to bomb us to democracy? Well, thank you! how thoughtful.
The situation in Iraq could have been solved in other ways than what the world will be going thru the next couple of weeks. It can’t have been that impossible. Look at the northern parts of Iraq, that is a model that has worked quite well, why wasn’t anybody interested in doing that in the south. Just like the US/UK UN created a protected area there why couldn’t the model be tried in the south. It would have cut off the regimes arms and legs.

So I just clicked onto the Amazon link to Worley's forthcoming album, entitled "Have You Forgotten?" (No Darryl, but soon, hopefully) and I noticed that in Amazon's "Customer Advice" section, someone had recommended Megadeth's "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying" to go along with it. I recommended the same.

I got a note from FAIR today saying that in an examination of TV sources for two weeks of Iraq coverage, they found that, "Of all official sources, 75 percent (222 of 297) were associated with either the U.S. or with governments that support the Bush administration's position on Iraq; only four out of those 222, or 2 percent, of these sources were skeptics or opponents of war."

And these guys didn't even look at Fox.

So I wrote the major networks sampled in this survey (NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS) and told them to get their act together.

Then it occurred to me that my reporting on this was hasn't exactly been balanced. Therefore, in the interest of balance, I submit the following link. It provides the lyrics to a song that has shot up to number 9 on the Billboard Country Single charts.

Here's a sample:

I hear people saying we don't need this war
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend

CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?


And so on and so forth...

Although Worley was a minor-leaguer until he started penning this jingoistic claptrap, he's apparently now taking the country music world by storm.

One last thing, I couldn't help but notice that the number one song on this Billboard chart was Travelin' Soldier, by the Dixie Chicks. Here's a recent quote by singer Natalie Maines:

"Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

There was a candlelight vigil across the street from my house last night. Fifty shaky sparks of light lit in consideration of those about to die, singing "We Shall Overcome." It was as faint and weak of the spirit of understanding in this beast of a country.

I am so disappointed in America.

This is a country of extremes and it seems that as much as there is undeniable greatness to this land, it is fed equally by a careless self-centeredness that knows no satisfaction.

I walked by O'Reilley's Pub today on Green street this afternoon, across from the mortuary, and the street was already alive with life and happiness, and it really felt as though I was living in the time of Isaiah. This time of great distraction has happened before, 2,700 years ago, when the people said, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." (Isaiah 22:13)

God was distinctly unimpressed, as I imagine he is now. "Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood." (1:15)

Meanwhile, on a less Apocalyptic-Biblical note, people appear to be noticing that the US media is a load of crap. Apparently half of the Guardian's traffic comes from the US now, while CNN's web numbers are down in the last few months.

Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in challenging the White House position on Iraq, I'm not surprised if Americans are turning to foreign news services for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond freedom fries," said Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing editor, who keeps a weblog devoted to media issues.

Poster of the day: From my mom.

Oh, and I just met my nemesis John Galvin, quite by accident this evening. Nick was taking him on a tour of his secret spots in San Francisco (city busses and Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store, as far as I could tell) and I happened to walk by. My first words to Galvin, "I'm going to kill you." This was followed by quick conversation and a quick exit, as I had a nagging suspicion that I'd left a faucet running in the bathroom. Turned out to be a red herring.

Surprise of the day: Galvin was wearing a baseball cap and not a beret.

Mystery of the day: Who is MikeP, and why is he saying "hi" to Anna on my blog (see comments on my previous post)? Could we have a Google stalker in our midst?

Good God! They're testing an artificial brain. Just what I need. 100% accurate, silicon-generated memories of junior high.

For example, it is unclear whether we have any control over what we remember. If we do, would brain implants of the future force some people to remember things they would rather forget?

The ethical consequences of that would be serious. "Forgetting is the most beneficial process we possess," Williams says. It enables us to deal with painful situations without actually reliving them.

But, on the other hand, maybe remembering things better would not be such a bad thing for our troubled nation. I was watching 60 Minutes II last night (by the way, 60 Minutes is a crap show; they could learn a lot from the 5th Estate) and the commentary dude at the end, I forget his name -- note to self, research brain implant possibilities -- did a commentary on how convenient these "we're all going to protest by walking out of classes" student protests seem to be. It's funny, I'd been talking to Anna about this just the day before, and I agree that asking a bunch of students to walk out of classes in protest is a bit like asking them to watch VH-1 for a social studies assignment. Ben Stein -- whose son was building a bomb in the back yard at the time. I kid you not. He's clearly got his finger on the pulse of teen ambition -- was interviewed in the report, and he said something like "No classes, I get to do something meaningful with my life, and I'm only 15? Yahoo!" I remember this my time at York University. Student protest walkouts always had a kind of 'snow day' feel to them. I never really cared about what was being protested.

Anyhow, the 60 Minutes II dude was doing alright, but then he interviewed a bunch of 15 year olds and asked them to explain why they were protesting. Now, he did not go into a school and ask a bunch of kids who were sending, say, care packages to our boys in the Middle East and ask them the same questions, and he did not show any student protesters who seemed to have a clue what they were actually doing, but still, I think it's a fair point that there are lots of kids who treat student protests as a way to cut classes. If we expected 15 year-old kids to have fully formed political ideas, we probably wouldn't deny them the right to vote, would we?

But then I got annoyed. The 60 Minutes dude is asking some sweet little 15 year old girl why she's protesting, and she says, "Because they're bombing Iraq and innocent people are dying and it's wrong." Mr. 60 Minutes patronizingly then informs Sweet 15, to her eternal mortification, that no, we have not bombed Iraq and we all have a chuckle at her expense. Then he gets all serious and says, "there are too many people, on both sides of this issue, who don't know the facts."

Yeah, well here's one fact for you Mr. 60 Minutes. Before your stupid op-ed piece aired your very own show ran a report on how we had bombed the shit out of our own guys when we were, you guessed it, bombing Iraq.

Don't ask me why up up before 6 AM writing about this. I have no answer.

Deepak Chopra's Plan to Rebuild Iraq: A Middle Eastern DisneyWorld

Hmm. Maybe totalitarianism isn't so bad after all? After all it works in DisneyWorld? Why not in Disney World Iraq.

But a military analyst said the "Mickey Mouse Peace Plan" is doomed to fail because Saddam would divert profits from the theme park to fund his totalitarian regime and probably put a statue of himself beside Mickey Mouse. Moreover, the park would be totally unaffordable to most Iraqis, said John Thompson, director of the Mackenzie Institute, a military think-tank.

Talk about Collateral Damage

You've heard of the "Mother of All Bombs" (don't you love it when the military gets all ironic like a Hollywood movie)? Maybe they should renamel it the Well Armed Severe Hazard Imploding with Next Generation TONnage. It would make these people happy.

Moab's Mayor David Sakrison has written to the president asking him to rename the bomb, fearing it will damage the image of his town.

I was email debating with James yesterday about the extent to which the US is becoming a totalitarian dictatorship when I stumbled onto my Thought of the Week.

It's all the same fucking thing

There's this Janice Joplin song (don't remember the name; I'm not a fan) where she stops singing and goes on this rant about how people plan to do things tomorrow, as if tomorrow somehow existed, when in fact, it's always the same fucking day. Then she went on to illustrate how tomorrow exists more strongly for some than for others, but that's another story.

In San Francisco right now, the Chief of Police was recently under indictment for obstruction of justice and though the charges have now been dropped, people in the city are rightfully asking, "what the heck is going on?" We all kind of know that this has something to do with politics and the DA running for re-election, so that must be a factor. But the real reasons behind these charges -- and the fac that they were dropped -- and how a late night street brawl over some fajitas could take down, however briefly, the Chief of Police remain like gnostic mysteries to most of us.

But politics goes on, and it seems that the cardinal rule of politics is this: There is no better way to deflect criticism than by creating an enemy. This is what the United States has clearly done with Iraq, but I think this is also what many countries in the international community have done with the United States. Just as those of us in the US should be trying to understand why Bush has such a hard-on for Hussein (and we're doing a terrible job of understanding this), the citizens in France and Russia and China should really ask themselves why their countries are suddenly so willing to confront he US. Heard any news about Chechnya lately or the Falun Gong? And what happened to that French-brokered peace in the Ivory Coast? Politics is an exercise in self interest, not altruism, and those who play the morality card the strongest tend to be those who have the most to gain from a distraction.

Bush as finally signed a law I like.

President Bush on Tuesday signed legislation creating a national "do-not-call" list intended to help consumers block unwanted telemarketing calls.

But why are politicians exempt from this? Is it supposed to be some sort of public service when special interest groups and political parties spend tons of money on telemarketers to try and influence the democratic process? To my mind, this simply makes expensive campaigns more effective.

Not a great story, but it asks an interesting question: Why do we hate our parents? Is it because we never stop being babies or because they never stop being parents? From the Yoga Journal.

"All that attention comes with a lot of expectations," I began. "Western parents don't feel that their children already are who they are—they feel that it is their job to make them who they should be. Children feel this as a burden."

And if you feel like listening to some Internet radio, here's a link to an interview with Harper's Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham, who is always worth listening to. My favorite part of this interview is how he compares the US military to the Venetian Doge's Barge -- beautiful and spectacular, but completely useless in an era of nuclear and biological weapons. Thanks to Janie for sending in the link.

FAIR just alerted me to this story, apparently dropped by most American newsmedia (including the NY Times). Apparently the US has been spying on Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN.

The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.

I just read Newsday correspondent Laurie Garrett's leaked letter from this year's Davos forum. This email was never intended for public consumption, so it's particularly interesting and candid.

There are a few interesting things about this article, the first being the extent of the Bush administration's disconnection from the world *business* community. This idea of the Republicans as business-friendly is simply not true. Yes, they take care of their friends in the oil and defence industries, but no, they don't have much experience or expertise in any industry that doesn't require government subsidies.

Other than the fact that the world seems to be totally fucked, the thing that struck me about this note is the extent to which the Bush administration -- Ashcroft in particular -- is perceived as a synod of religious fundamentalists.

- For a minority of the participants there was another layer of AntiAmericanism that focused on moralisms and religion. I often heard delegates complain that the US "opposes the rights of children", because we block all treaties and UN efforts that would support sex education and condom access for children and teens. They spoke of sex education as a "right". Similarly, there was a decidedly mixed feeling about Ashcroft, who addressed the conference. I attended a small lunch with Ashcroft, and observed Ralph Reed and other prominent Christian fundamentalists working the room and bowing their heads before eating.

The rest of the world's elite finds this American Christian behavior at least as uncomfortable as it does Moslem or Hindu fundamentalist behavior. They find it awkward every time a US representative refers to "faith-based" programs. It's different from how it makes non-Christian Americans feel -- these folks experience it as downright embarrassing.

The last thing I'll say about this note, is that I find Ms Garrett's objections to its publication laughingly disingenuous. Here is a woman who has registered her own WWW domain and is clearly very interested in promoting herself as a public figure. And she's annoyed that her candid comments are in the public interest? Do you think Newsday would have published this email if it had been written by Vincente Fox (she calls him "sexy & smart"), the CEO of Heineken ("hilarious"), or Bill Gates ("fascinating and fun")? Of course.

To imply that a candid, first hand account of the meeting of the leaders of the world is somehow not in the public interest is simply absurd.

She writes, "Do you actually believe, as you type your random thoughts in such Internet settings, that you are participating in Civilization? In Democracy?"

And what of the role of an informed populace in democracy? How should this happen? By reading Newsday? Ms. Garrett didn't even report on Davos for Newsday, as far as I could tell. So why didn't some of the material she discussed here form the basis of a news story? Why didn't she want to report on any of this?

Wounded privacy aside (I mean, in what way is her privacy really violated here? This email doesn't reveal anything personal about Ms. Garrett, except for the fact that she's starstruck by the leaders of the world; and who, honestly, wouldn't be), there are two reasons I can see for objecting to this.

1) Having her candid thoughts posted will piss off her sources.

Yup. And reporting the truth will do that too. Sometimes, it's in the public interest to do this. But this is a major dilemma for most of the journalistic establishment and there's no way around this one. If you don't have access, you can't report. If you report with complete candor, you won't have access.

2) There is a difference between writing your impressions of something and actually "reporting." Higher professional standards apply to the latter.

Bullshit. This is a false distinction created by journalists to make themselves feel a misplaced sense of nobility.

If you think about it, this email -- and more importantly -- Ms. Garrett's reaction to its publication goes a long way toward illustrating the self-censorship that happens in the mainstream media, the false distinction between "professional reporting" and "writing what you think" (one does not get you in trouble with your sources; the other is interesting and useful) and the relentless objectivity of the subjective act of blogging.

I heard on Harry Shearer's Le Show this morning that convict clothing is all the rage in Italy these days.

Watching Bush equivocate and not answer questions last night I was reminded of my recurring major problem with this war: What's in it for Bush. Sure, you can talk about oil and all of that, but doesn't the US already have enough control over the international oil market? Don't we already have a military presence in Iraq? Isn't Canada in our pocket, as far as oil prices go? And don't we have vast reserves in Alaska that would cost less than a war with Iraq to mine?

Well today I read the most interesting explanation of the US regime's motivations to date: the muy borracho defense, written by John Perry Barlow (yes, there was one good thing about the Grateful Dead).

First, they seek to scare Saddam Hussein into voluntarily turning his country over to the U.S. and choosing safe exile or, failing that, they want to convince the Iraqi people that it¹s safer to attempt his overthrow or assassination than to endure an invasion by American ground troops.

Second, they are trying to convince every other nation on the planet that the United States is the Mother of All Rogue States, run by mad thugs in possession of 15,000 nuclear warheads they are willing to use and spending, as they already are, more on death-making capacity than all the other countries on the planet combined. In other words, they want the rest of the world to think that we are the ultimate weaving driver. Not to be trusted, but certainly not to be messed with either.

Oh god. I hope FBI Agent Coleen Rowley is wrong

In a letter last week to the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, Ms. Rowley said that he had a responsibility to warn the White House that the bureau would not be able to "stem the flood of terrorism that will likely head our way in the wake of an attack on Iraq."

Delta Airlines to use novel weapon in war on terrorism: the credit check. If have the choice, don't fly this bone-headed airline.

Starting later this month, Delta passengers will be asked a lot more than 'window or aisle', or whether you want that 'special meal'. Delta wants to know more: a lot more. As a pilot test of a new Orwellian airline 'security' program, Delta will be running background checks on anyone who flies Delta from one of three as-yet undisclosed airports.

What will Delta do?

* Run a credit check on you;
* Investigate your banking history;
* Run a criminal background check.

Furthermore, according to this Wired story: ""Every time a credit report is run on you, it hurts your credit rating," Scannell said. "Frequent fliers will not only have a nice thick Delta dossier, but a damaged credit history to boot.""

Think there's no problem with the erosion of public space in America? Think that shopping malls can replace town squares? Think again. From the Albany Times Union:

In Monday's incident, an attorney for the state was arrested and hauled into court after refusing to take off a T-shirt that said "Give Peace a Chance" while shopping at the mall.

This is at least the second time in recent months that mall security asked people wearing T-shirts with peace slogans to leave.

By the way, he bought the shirt at the mall.

Hold my hand
And in this warming instant
Let the rumbling old earth
Do the work

Let the rich and dying air
Tap past our clothes
And let all the trappings and heartfelt forgotten ages
Slip

And know this:
That flesh-to-flesh
I love you deep

In that sovereign place
So tender and green
And silent beneath the bone

Uncle Ben's, Declaration of Independence, etc...

Could it be that the corporate world does not have the answer for every political question? Blasphemy!

The head of U.S. public diplomacy efforts in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks resigned from her State Department post Monday, a U.S. official told CNN.

Charlotte Beers, 67, a former top advertising executive, took office shortly after the attacks to spearhead a campaign to win support for the United States in the Muslim world.

Here's a pretty interesting Reuters story about the state of blogging ("Weblogs, or blogs for short, the online diaries that first flowered among would-be Emily Dickinsons in cyberspace") and how people are now checking out blog word bursts to see what the whole crazy internet is nattering about.

If you're in to mathematically-generated nonsense with oblique connections to meaning, there's also this Adam Gopnik item about Listening post, a machine that actually speaks out the crap that it culls from Internet chat rooms.