10.07.2008
can i have some of what she's smoking?
oh, i forgot, she's into pills...
Cindy McCain in tennessee
"McCain, who stopped to visit a half-dozen children at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt today, said the presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has "waged the dirtiest campaign in American history,” and her husband Sen. John McCain will use tonight’s debate to correct the distortions.
“The days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill are what we need to look to: a divided government but a government that needs to agree to disagree,” she said. “We’re now seeing polarizing factions, people politicizing things that should be about what’s best for America. Instead, they’re doing what’s best for themselves.”"
compare that with the truth:
Sen. John McCain's campaign "has now shifted virtually 100% of his national ad spending into negative ads" attacking Sen. Barack Obama.
and what happened last week when Obama tried to shake McCain's hand on the floor of the senate?
McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.
Perhaps John McCain should read his own take on the reasoning behind negative campaign advertising...
"I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it."
John McCain on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (2/21/2000)
posted by scott 2:48 PM
oh, i forgot, she's into pills...
Cindy McCain in tennessee
"McCain, who stopped to visit a half-dozen children at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt today, said the presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has "waged the dirtiest campaign in American history,” and her husband Sen. John McCain will use tonight’s debate to correct the distortions.
“The days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill are what we need to look to: a divided government but a government that needs to agree to disagree,” she said. “We’re now seeing polarizing factions, people politicizing things that should be about what’s best for America. Instead, they’re doing what’s best for themselves.”"
compare that with the truth:
Sen. John McCain's campaign "has now shifted virtually 100% of his national ad spending into negative ads" attacking Sen. Barack Obama.
and what happened last week when Obama tried to shake McCain's hand on the floor of the senate?
McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.
Perhaps John McCain should read his own take on the reasoning behind negative campaign advertising...
"I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it."
John McCain on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (2/21/2000)
posted by scott 2:48 PM
10.03.2008
we're all socialists now! (...with cheaper wooden arrows*)
The fucking bullshit bailout bill passed. I think it was about 100 pages long when it went to the Senate and it came back to the House with an extra 300 pages or so... each worth about $100,000.00 dollars.
An example of the earmarks added to make it more palatable to the House would be Section 503: "Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for children."
But hey, at least it was a bi-partisan addition, thanks to Oregon's Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Gordon Smith, a Republican.
So now our money is not only going to bail out the corrupt CEOs on Wall St, a decade or so of predatory lending practices, and, let's be honest now, the stupid fucking Americans on Main St that really wanted to live on posh Brentwood Drive yet really couldn't afford it and went and bought that house anyway; but ALSO help give tax breaks to people that make toy wooden arrows. You know, I'd be cool with some aspects of socialism, like the ones that take our money and give it to SOCIAL programs... this however, is not doing that.
So now instead of the manufacturers of wooden toy arrows paying their fair share of taxes, they're getting a break - which means whatever programs their tax money was going toward** is now not being funded. America, FUCK YEAH!
* of course assuming the manufacturers of said wooden arrows pass the savings onto us, the consumer
** i know, very general oversimplification - but the concept is the same
P.S. I'm still somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, and would not be surprised at all if John McCain, in a move already decided upon by his campaign and the current administration, suspends his campaign again to go to Washington and implore Bush to veto this bill because the American people won't stand for it. Bush vetoes it, and Main St. America loves John McCain, the maverick. USA! USA!
posted by scott 11:59 AM
The fucking bullshit bailout bill passed. I think it was about 100 pages long when it went to the Senate and it came back to the House with an extra 300 pages or so... each worth about $100,000.00 dollars.
An example of the earmarks added to make it more palatable to the House would be Section 503: "Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for children."
But hey, at least it was a bi-partisan addition, thanks to Oregon's Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Gordon Smith, a Republican.
So now our money is not only going to bail out the corrupt CEOs on Wall St, a decade or so of predatory lending practices, and, let's be honest now, the stupid fucking Americans on Main St that really wanted to live on posh Brentwood Drive yet really couldn't afford it and went and bought that house anyway; but ALSO help give tax breaks to people that make toy wooden arrows. You know, I'd be cool with some aspects of socialism, like the ones that take our money and give it to SOCIAL programs... this however, is not doing that.
So now instead of the manufacturers of wooden toy arrows paying their fair share of taxes, they're getting a break - which means whatever programs their tax money was going toward** is now not being funded. America, FUCK YEAH!
* of course assuming the manufacturers of said wooden arrows pass the savings onto us, the consumer
** i know, very general oversimplification - but the concept is the same
P.S. I'm still somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, and would not be surprised at all if John McCain, in a move already decided upon by his campaign and the current administration, suspends his campaign again to go to Washington and implore Bush to veto this bill because the American people won't stand for it. Bush vetoes it, and Main St. America loves John McCain, the maverick. USA! USA!
posted by scott 11:59 AM
9.19.2008
is eddacayshun important?
Barack Obama:
Occidental College - Two years.
Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) (Attorney), (Magna Cum Laude)
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.) (Attorney)
VS.
John McCain :
United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 out of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism
posted by scott 1:21 PM
Barack Obama:
Occidental College - Two years.
Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) (Attorney), (Magna Cum Laude)
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.) (Attorney)
VS.
John McCain :
United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 out of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism
posted by scott 1:21 PM
oil and maps
Sen. John McCain on Wednesday touted Sarah Palin's experience in charge of Alaska's energy resources as evidence that she was prepared to serve as America's commander in chief.
In an interview with ABC's "World News," McCain repeatedly mentioned that his vice presidential pick had been in charge of "20 percent of America's energy supply" when she served in Alaska's natural resources agency.
"And one of the key elements of America's national security requirements are energy," he said. "She understands the energy issues better than anybody I know in Washington, D.C."
"Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first, so, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first," - Sarah Palin, Energy Expert and University of Idaho graduate in sports journalism.
now compare the energy expert Palin's quote with this one:
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our [children]." - Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA
hmmmmmmm.
posted by scott 9:45 AM
Sen. John McCain on Wednesday touted Sarah Palin's experience in charge of Alaska's energy resources as evidence that she was prepared to serve as America's commander in chief.
In an interview with ABC's "World News," McCain repeatedly mentioned that his vice presidential pick had been in charge of "20 percent of America's energy supply" when she served in Alaska's natural resources agency.
"And one of the key elements of America's national security requirements are energy," he said. "She understands the energy issues better than anybody I know in Washington, D.C."
"Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first, so, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first," - Sarah Palin, Energy Expert and University of Idaho graduate in sports journalism.
now compare the energy expert Palin's quote with this one:
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our [children]." - Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA
hmmmmmmm.
posted by scott 9:45 AM
3.20.2008
3.14.2008
from salon today - i know no one really reads this blog, but i think this story should be posted everywhere.
A sickening truth at Guantánamo
A gravely ill detainee I represent, never charged with a crime, has been neglected by military doctors. Will he be the next to die inside the notorious prison?
By H. Candace Gorman
March 14, 2008 | The U.S. government has long insisted that it provides quality medical treatment to all suspected terrorists imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Even the dependably cynical Michael Moore, in his latest film "Sicko," fell for the hype. But it is time to set the record straight. Five prisoners are now known to have died inside the secretive prison -- at least one under dubious circumstances -- and others are gravely ill. And in the case of one very ill man, there is evidence of extraordinary medical neglect on the part of military physicians.
I am an attorney representing that man, Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi, who has been held inside America's legal black hole since March 2002. The U.S. government has never charged him with any wrongdoing. Military officials claim he has been given proper healthcare. But Al-Ghizzawi appears to have acute liver disease, among other ailments, and the military is allowing his condition to deteriorate without proper diagnosis or treatment, according to a doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross who has observed Al-Ghizzawi and his medical records at the prison. A leading medical expert who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case agrees with that conclusion, as do I, based on my observations of my client during repeated visits to Guantánamo. Military and government officials have refused to grant me access to my client's medical records.
Al-Ghizzawi, now 45, is a Libyan-born man who had been living quietly in Afghanistan with his Afghan wife. They had a small shop selling honey and spices that they later expanded to a bakery. They have a young daughter, now 6 years old, whom Al-Ghizzawi last saw when she was just a few months old. When the American bombs started to fall in late 2001 on Jalalabad, the city where Al-Ghizzawi lived with his family, he did what most people would do: He fled. He took his wife and infant daughter to his wife's parents' home away from the city. Unfortunately, Al-Ghizzawi was not well known in his in-laws' village. Bounty hunters turned Al-Ghizzawi over to the Northern Alliance in December 2001, who then handed him over to the United States. (Our government offered millions of dollars for captured "murderers and terrorists," and few questions were asked when Arab men were turned over for those bounties.) By March 2002, Al-Ghizzawi was sent to Guantánamo, where he was never charged with a crime or given the opportunity to prove his innocence.
The military eventually used so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals to justify holding prisoners at Guantánamo without the due process on which our legal system is based. But in Al-Ghizzawi's status review in November 2004, the tribunal unanimously found him not to be an "enemy combatant" (as was determined to be the case with some 35 other prisoners). The U.S. government proceeded to convene a second tribunal using exactly the same "evidence" against Al-Ghizzawi found to be worthless the first time around. One of the officers who sat on the first tribunal, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham of the Army Reserve, testified to Congress in July 2007 that the evidence against Al-Ghizzawi was "garbage." In the meantime, Al-Ghizzawi has not been allowed to see or talk to his wife and young daughter for more than six years.
The duration and isolation of his indefinite confinement are appalling enough, but now Al-Ghizzawi appears to be dying of liver disease. Eighteen months ago, in August 2006, I filed an emergency motion with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to try to get copies of Al-Ghizzawi's medical records, which the government refused to turn over. Bush administration lawyers submitted an affidavit in response from the then medical director at Guantánamo, Dr. Ronald Sollock, who acknowledged that Al-Ghizzawi had a "history of hepatitis B," and stated that the military had run "routine" tests on Al-Ghizzawi. The results, he said, came back "normal." Sollock also noted in his affidavit that Al-Ghizzawi became infected with tuberculosis while at Guantánamo. This was the first that Al-Ghizzawi had learned of his having a "history of hepatitis B" and of being infected with tuberculosis. But U.S. District Judge Bates denied my motion to gain access to the medical records.
Shortly thereafter, in December 2006, Al-Ghizzawi was moved to Camp 6 at Guantánamo, a maximum security facility where prisoners are kept in total isolation. When I protested to military officials about this seriously ill man being put in such harsh conditions, I was told that Camp 6, which had just opened that month, was the new prison facility for the "general population." I was given no other explanation as to why Al-Ghizzawi was moved there.
I brought Al-Ghizzawi's ill health to the attention of the International Committee for the Red Cross. Representatives of the ICRC who are granted access to Guantánamo and its population have watched the medical deterioration of some prisoners there, but they are apparently helpless to do anything to stop it. One ICRC doctor, expressing anger and frustration, told me that he had sought healthcare for Al-Ghizzawi after looking at his test results from the military, but said that military officials had ignored him. He also told me he believed that Sollock's affidavit appeared to have been written to conceal or downplay Al-Ghizzawi's test results, rather than adequately explain them to the court.
When I visited Al-Ghizzawi last October, he told me that a military doctor had finally conceded that he had a severe liver infection. According to Al-Ghizzawi, the doctor asked to do a liver biopsy, but also told Al-Ghizzawi that the procedure was dangerous and could damage his organs. (The military has denied that anyone spoke to Al-Ghizzawi of such a risk.) Al-Ghizzawi declined the biopsy, and the medical staff has apparently failed to treat his liver infection. But according to Dr. Juerg Reichen, a leading expert on liver disease who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case, a biopsy would not have been necessary to diagnose and treat him properly.
I filed another emergency motion on my client's behalf in February. Judge Bates then ordered the government to update him on Al-Ghizzawi's health, and in mid-February the government submitted an affidavit from the new medical director at Guantánamo, Dr. Bruce Meneley, a dermatologist by specialty. In that Feb. 15 affidavit, Meneley admitted that tests were performed on Al-Ghizzawi as far back as November 2006 -- shortly after the judge had denied my initial request for medical records -- showing that Al-Ghizzawi's liver was not "normal" as Sollock had testified in October 2006.
So why did military doctors, after learning of Al-Ghizzawi's liver problems in fall 2006, fail to start treating him properly, and instead move this ill man to the isolation of Camp 6? The answers to these questions remain unknown. But Reichen, the expert on liver disease, said in an affidavit submitted to the court on Feb. 19, "It is evident that [military doctors at Guantánamo] withhold information without any military value, misinterpret it and try to withhold treatment from Mr. Al-Ghizzawi."
I continue to visit with Al-Ghizzawi every other month for two days at a time, and monitor his dying. In our meetings we talk about his legal case and his family, but mostly we discuss his deteriorating health. Al-Ghizzawi has become weaker and weaker and at times he is barely able to talk. Each of the last few times that I saw Al-Ghizzawi I thought I would not see him alive again. Our most recent meeting was on Feb. 26 and 27, after which I filed a memorandum updating the judge about his ill health.
To date, five men are known to have died at Guantánamo. One died recently from cancer. The military claims that the four other deaths were suicides, including the death of Abdel Rahman Al Amri, a Saudi man, whose death in May 2007 the military referred to as an "apparent suicide." But the military refuses to release the results of their investigations into those deaths.
With his own death looming, Al-Ghizzawi has given me his last will and testament and instructions for the disposition of his remains. I don't have the heart to tell him that one simple request will almost certainly never be granted by our military: to have his remains tested to see exactly what killed him, so that if such testing does confirm a history of hepatitis B, his wife and daughter can be tested to ensure their health is not compromised by this same disease.
I am a solo practitioner with more than 25 years' experience as an attorney. I knew how expensive and difficult taking on Al-Ghizzawi's case could be when I started it, but I chose to represent this man because his case is as important as it gets. With Guantánamo, our government has turned its back on the rule of law and thumbed its nose at the rest of the world. It is up to the rest of us to try to set things right.
In the emergency motion filed in February, I asked Judge Bates to tell the government "enough is enough" and to move Al-Ghizzawi to a competent civilian medical facility before he dies. The government is expected to file its response to the motion on Friday, and Bates will likely rule shortly thereafter. For Al-Ghizzawi, it may already be too late.
posted by scott 2:22 PM
A sickening truth at Guantánamo
A gravely ill detainee I represent, never charged with a crime, has been neglected by military doctors. Will he be the next to die inside the notorious prison?
By H. Candace Gorman
March 14, 2008 | The U.S. government has long insisted that it provides quality medical treatment to all suspected terrorists imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Even the dependably cynical Michael Moore, in his latest film "Sicko," fell for the hype. But it is time to set the record straight. Five prisoners are now known to have died inside the secretive prison -- at least one under dubious circumstances -- and others are gravely ill. And in the case of one very ill man, there is evidence of extraordinary medical neglect on the part of military physicians.
I am an attorney representing that man, Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi, who has been held inside America's legal black hole since March 2002. The U.S. government has never charged him with any wrongdoing. Military officials claim he has been given proper healthcare. But Al-Ghizzawi appears to have acute liver disease, among other ailments, and the military is allowing his condition to deteriorate without proper diagnosis or treatment, according to a doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross who has observed Al-Ghizzawi and his medical records at the prison. A leading medical expert who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case agrees with that conclusion, as do I, based on my observations of my client during repeated visits to Guantánamo. Military and government officials have refused to grant me access to my client's medical records.
Al-Ghizzawi, now 45, is a Libyan-born man who had been living quietly in Afghanistan with his Afghan wife. They had a small shop selling honey and spices that they later expanded to a bakery. They have a young daughter, now 6 years old, whom Al-Ghizzawi last saw when she was just a few months old. When the American bombs started to fall in late 2001 on Jalalabad, the city where Al-Ghizzawi lived with his family, he did what most people would do: He fled. He took his wife and infant daughter to his wife's parents' home away from the city. Unfortunately, Al-Ghizzawi was not well known in his in-laws' village. Bounty hunters turned Al-Ghizzawi over to the Northern Alliance in December 2001, who then handed him over to the United States. (Our government offered millions of dollars for captured "murderers and terrorists," and few questions were asked when Arab men were turned over for those bounties.) By March 2002, Al-Ghizzawi was sent to Guantánamo, where he was never charged with a crime or given the opportunity to prove his innocence.
The military eventually used so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals to justify holding prisoners at Guantánamo without the due process on which our legal system is based. But in Al-Ghizzawi's status review in November 2004, the tribunal unanimously found him not to be an "enemy combatant" (as was determined to be the case with some 35 other prisoners). The U.S. government proceeded to convene a second tribunal using exactly the same "evidence" against Al-Ghizzawi found to be worthless the first time around. One of the officers who sat on the first tribunal, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham of the Army Reserve, testified to Congress in July 2007 that the evidence against Al-Ghizzawi was "garbage." In the meantime, Al-Ghizzawi has not been allowed to see or talk to his wife and young daughter for more than six years.
The duration and isolation of his indefinite confinement are appalling enough, but now Al-Ghizzawi appears to be dying of liver disease. Eighteen months ago, in August 2006, I filed an emergency motion with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to try to get copies of Al-Ghizzawi's medical records, which the government refused to turn over. Bush administration lawyers submitted an affidavit in response from the then medical director at Guantánamo, Dr. Ronald Sollock, who acknowledged that Al-Ghizzawi had a "history of hepatitis B," and stated that the military had run "routine" tests on Al-Ghizzawi. The results, he said, came back "normal." Sollock also noted in his affidavit that Al-Ghizzawi became infected with tuberculosis while at Guantánamo. This was the first that Al-Ghizzawi had learned of his having a "history of hepatitis B" and of being infected with tuberculosis. But U.S. District Judge Bates denied my motion to gain access to the medical records.
Shortly thereafter, in December 2006, Al-Ghizzawi was moved to Camp 6 at Guantánamo, a maximum security facility where prisoners are kept in total isolation. When I protested to military officials about this seriously ill man being put in such harsh conditions, I was told that Camp 6, which had just opened that month, was the new prison facility for the "general population." I was given no other explanation as to why Al-Ghizzawi was moved there.
I brought Al-Ghizzawi's ill health to the attention of the International Committee for the Red Cross. Representatives of the ICRC who are granted access to Guantánamo and its population have watched the medical deterioration of some prisoners there, but they are apparently helpless to do anything to stop it. One ICRC doctor, expressing anger and frustration, told me that he had sought healthcare for Al-Ghizzawi after looking at his test results from the military, but said that military officials had ignored him. He also told me he believed that Sollock's affidavit appeared to have been written to conceal or downplay Al-Ghizzawi's test results, rather than adequately explain them to the court.
When I visited Al-Ghizzawi last October, he told me that a military doctor had finally conceded that he had a severe liver infection. According to Al-Ghizzawi, the doctor asked to do a liver biopsy, but also told Al-Ghizzawi that the procedure was dangerous and could damage his organs. (The military has denied that anyone spoke to Al-Ghizzawi of such a risk.) Al-Ghizzawi declined the biopsy, and the medical staff has apparently failed to treat his liver infection. But according to Dr. Juerg Reichen, a leading expert on liver disease who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case, a biopsy would not have been necessary to diagnose and treat him properly.
I filed another emergency motion on my client's behalf in February. Judge Bates then ordered the government to update him on Al-Ghizzawi's health, and in mid-February the government submitted an affidavit from the new medical director at Guantánamo, Dr. Bruce Meneley, a dermatologist by specialty. In that Feb. 15 affidavit, Meneley admitted that tests were performed on Al-Ghizzawi as far back as November 2006 -- shortly after the judge had denied my initial request for medical records -- showing that Al-Ghizzawi's liver was not "normal" as Sollock had testified in October 2006.
So why did military doctors, after learning of Al-Ghizzawi's liver problems in fall 2006, fail to start treating him properly, and instead move this ill man to the isolation of Camp 6? The answers to these questions remain unknown. But Reichen, the expert on liver disease, said in an affidavit submitted to the court on Feb. 19, "It is evident that [military doctors at Guantánamo] withhold information without any military value, misinterpret it and try to withhold treatment from Mr. Al-Ghizzawi."
I continue to visit with Al-Ghizzawi every other month for two days at a time, and monitor his dying. In our meetings we talk about his legal case and his family, but mostly we discuss his deteriorating health. Al-Ghizzawi has become weaker and weaker and at times he is barely able to talk. Each of the last few times that I saw Al-Ghizzawi I thought I would not see him alive again. Our most recent meeting was on Feb. 26 and 27, after which I filed a memorandum updating the judge about his ill health.
To date, five men are known to have died at Guantánamo. One died recently from cancer. The military claims that the four other deaths were suicides, including the death of Abdel Rahman Al Amri, a Saudi man, whose death in May 2007 the military referred to as an "apparent suicide." But the military refuses to release the results of their investigations into those deaths.
With his own death looming, Al-Ghizzawi has given me his last will and testament and instructions for the disposition of his remains. I don't have the heart to tell him that one simple request will almost certainly never be granted by our military: to have his remains tested to see exactly what killed him, so that if such testing does confirm a history of hepatitis B, his wife and daughter can be tested to ensure their health is not compromised by this same disease.
I am a solo practitioner with more than 25 years' experience as an attorney. I knew how expensive and difficult taking on Al-Ghizzawi's case could be when I started it, but I chose to represent this man because his case is as important as it gets. With Guantánamo, our government has turned its back on the rule of law and thumbed its nose at the rest of the world. It is up to the rest of us to try to set things right.
In the emergency motion filed in February, I asked Judge Bates to tell the government "enough is enough" and to move Al-Ghizzawi to a competent civilian medical facility before he dies. The government is expected to file its response to the motion on Friday, and Bates will likely rule shortly thereafter. For Al-Ghizzawi, it may already be too late.
posted by scott 2:22 PM
9.24.2007
the american daisycutters
is the band i'm playing in right now, and we just recorded some new stuff.
check it out here
i also wrote a bunch of the music for "The Freeloaders Guide to Easy Living", a series of internet comedy shorts, and did the same for Matt Besser's "The Very Funny Show", which premieres on Oct 4th at TBS.com. go there then!
posted by scott 7:39 PM
is the band i'm playing in right now, and we just recorded some new stuff.
check it out here
i also wrote a bunch of the music for "The Freeloaders Guide to Easy Living", a series of internet comedy shorts, and did the same for Matt Besser's "The Very Funny Show", which premieres on Oct 4th at TBS.com. go there then!
posted by scott 7:39 PM
9.20.2007
a republican leads with his heart instead of towing the party line
hey, cheney has a gay daughter too!
maybe if he lead with his heart he...oh yeah. nevermind.
seriously, though, this is just a great story.
found this over at andrew sullivans blog
A statement from the republican mayor of San Diego
"With me this afternoon is my wife, Rana. I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the City Attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage.
My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart. During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships. I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly -- as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.
In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the Council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.
The arrival of the resolution -- to sign or veto -- in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I have decided to lead with my heart -- to do what I think is right -- and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.
For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community.
As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage -- than anyone else -- simply because of their sexual orientation.
A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years. I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case.
Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed. The concept of a "separate but equal" institution is not something that I can support.
I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today. All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.
I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.
I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones -- for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's wondrous adventures.
And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana."
posted by scott 9:46 AM
hey, cheney has a gay daughter too!
maybe if he lead with his heart he...oh yeah. nevermind.
seriously, though, this is just a great story.
found this over at andrew sullivans blog
A statement from the republican mayor of San Diego
"With me this afternoon is my wife, Rana. I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the City Attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage.
My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart. During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships. I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly -- as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.
In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the Council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.
The arrival of the resolution -- to sign or veto -- in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I have decided to lead with my heart -- to do what I think is right -- and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.
For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community.
As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage -- than anyone else -- simply because of their sexual orientation.
A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years. I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case.
Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed. The concept of a "separate but equal" institution is not something that I can support.
I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today. All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.
I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.
I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones -- for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's wondrous adventures.
And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana."
posted by scott 9:46 AM
8.20.2007
words of wisdom from andrew sullivan, my big gay conservative hero
"I've learned these past few years that just because some people are paranoid doesn't mean the Bush administration isn't capable of almost anything."
posted by scott 2:30 PM
"I've learned these past few years that just because some people are paranoid doesn't mean the Bush administration isn't capable of almost anything."
posted by scott 2:30 PM
6.11.2007
...some were born to sing the blues
so everyone's talking about this sopranos thing, huh?
it reminds me of that old phil collins video where he keeps slapping at a fly, or maybe it was rik ocasek - the fly, not phil collins...nevermind...
anyway;
"so 'ow does it end?"
personally i loved the "ending". In my opinion Tony got whacked. Earlier in the season when he's at the lake with Bobby, they're talking about getting hit, and Bobby says something to the effect of, "You wouldn't even see it coming."
Tony doesn't. He dies, the show goes black and the music stops. Turn out the lights. When we kick it, all our plot strings are still left dangling, but at least we don't care about that anymore. It's over. It doesn't matter which of the shady characters in the place did him in.
And even if he didn't croak, I think Chase did a fucking great job during the last ten minutes of the show conveying the hell that is Tony's existence. Worrying about every single person that comes through the door, thinking it could be the one. So maybe he's still alive, but it's hardly a happily ever after.
Or maybe Iran launched a nuke at New York and missed, hitting a Jersey suburb. Who knows? Not Tony.
He's dead.
Or not.
more uninformed opinions here:
I think T was representative of America today; A rich, fat polluter who really doesn't give a shit about anything but money.
And if he was America, then A.J. was a blue state; he gets all worked up over the fucked up state of the world, but he was easily distracted by something shiny and new (a beamer and a paycheck for doing next to nothing), quickly forgetting all about the problems in the world around him.
Making Meadow the red state; in total denial and wants to become a lawyer because of the injustices faced by her dad. You know, getting arrested for breaking the law and shit. Scooter Libby, anyone? Oh yeah, and she's also going to be getting this cushy, high-paying job because of some guy she knows. hmmmm...
I guess that makes Carm... Laura Bush? Hillary? i dunno.
But damn, what a fucking great series that was.
Ciao, Sopranos.
posted by scott 3:57 PM
so everyone's talking about this sopranos thing, huh?
it reminds me of that old phil collins video where he keeps slapping at a fly, or maybe it was rik ocasek - the fly, not phil collins...nevermind...
anyway;
"so 'ow does it end?"
personally i loved the "ending". In my opinion Tony got whacked. Earlier in the season when he's at the lake with Bobby, they're talking about getting hit, and Bobby says something to the effect of, "You wouldn't even see it coming."
Tony doesn't. He dies, the show goes black and the music stops. Turn out the lights. When we kick it, all our plot strings are still left dangling, but at least we don't care about that anymore. It's over. It doesn't matter which of the shady characters in the place did him in.
And even if he didn't croak, I think Chase did a fucking great job during the last ten minutes of the show conveying the hell that is Tony's existence. Worrying about every single person that comes through the door, thinking it could be the one. So maybe he's still alive, but it's hardly a happily ever after.
Or maybe Iran launched a nuke at New York and missed, hitting a Jersey suburb. Who knows? Not Tony.
He's dead.
Or not.
more uninformed opinions here:
I think T was representative of America today; A rich, fat polluter who really doesn't give a shit about anything but money.
And if he was America, then A.J. was a blue state; he gets all worked up over the fucked up state of the world, but he was easily distracted by something shiny and new (a beamer and a paycheck for doing next to nothing), quickly forgetting all about the problems in the world around him.
Making Meadow the red state; in total denial and wants to become a lawyer because of the injustices faced by her dad. You know, getting arrested for breaking the law and shit. Scooter Libby, anyone? Oh yeah, and she's also going to be getting this cushy, high-paying job because of some guy she knows. hmmmm...
I guess that makes Carm... Laura Bush? Hillary? i dunno.
But damn, what a fucking great series that was.
Ciao, Sopranos.
posted by scott 3:57 PM
5.07.2007
there is no spoon
are we really living in the matrix?
read this.
an excerpt:
A surprising number of plants have spiral patterns in which each leaf, seed, or other structure follows the next at a particular angle called the golden angle. The golden angle is about 137.5º. Two radii of a circle C form the golden angle if they divide the circle into two areas A and B so that A/B = B/C.
The golden angle is closely related to the celebrated golden ratio, which the ancient Greeks and others believed to have divine and mystical properties. Leonardo da Vinci believed that the human form displays the golden ratio.
Plants with spiral patterns related to the golden angle also display another curious mathematical property. The seeds of a flower head form interlocking spirals in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The number of clockwise spirals differs from the number of counterclockwise spirals, and these two numbers are called the plant's parastichy numbers (pronounced pi-RAS-tik-ee or PEHR-us-tik-ee).
These numbers have a remarkable consistency. They are almost always two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, which are another one of nature's mathematical favorites. The Fibonacci numbers form the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . . , in which each number is the sum of the previous two.
doesn't it seem like if we break all this down far enough, we're going to find some kind of artificial programming code at the core of it all?
creepy.
posted by scott 10:59 AM
are we really living in the matrix?
read this.
an excerpt:
A surprising number of plants have spiral patterns in which each leaf, seed, or other structure follows the next at a particular angle called the golden angle. The golden angle is about 137.5º. Two radii of a circle C form the golden angle if they divide the circle into two areas A and B so that A/B = B/C.
The golden angle is closely related to the celebrated golden ratio, which the ancient Greeks and others believed to have divine and mystical properties. Leonardo da Vinci believed that the human form displays the golden ratio.
Plants with spiral patterns related to the golden angle also display another curious mathematical property. The seeds of a flower head form interlocking spirals in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The number of clockwise spirals differs from the number of counterclockwise spirals, and these two numbers are called the plant's parastichy numbers (pronounced pi-RAS-tik-ee or PEHR-us-tik-ee).
These numbers have a remarkable consistency. They are almost always two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, which are another one of nature's mathematical favorites. The Fibonacci numbers form the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . . , in which each number is the sum of the previous two.
doesn't it seem like if we break all this down far enough, we're going to find some kind of artificial programming code at the core of it all?
creepy.
posted by scott 10:59 AM
5.03.2007
exactly, exactly, exactly
The Truth, as written by Glenn Greenwald (from salon today ~ emphasis' mine):
Thursday May 3, 2007 07:16 EST
The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press
This week, the Bush administration sought vastly increased powers to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans, and then threatened to begin spying again illegally and without warrants. It was revealed that Condoleezza Rice would meet with Syrian officials, a significant shift in Middle East policy.
Yesterday, it was disclosed that Iraq's government is actually purging itself of anyone who seeks to impede lawless Shiite militias. And one of the right-wing's most influential academicians published an article on The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page explicitly advocating "one-man rule" in America whereby the President can ignore the "rule of law" in order to fight The Terrorists.
None of that -- or virtually anything else of even marginal significance -- was reported by The Politico, an online political magazine founded by some of the nation's most prestigious and admired (in Beltway terms) political journalists. But yesterday, The Politico's so-called "chief political columnist," Roger Simon, published a 674-word article -- prominently touted on The Politico's front page -- exclusively about John Edwards' haircuts, cleverly headlined "Hair today, gone tomorrow."
To begin his article, Simon pronounces:
It is the haircut that will not die.
He can spin it, he can gel it, he can mousse it. But it is not going away.
Simon marvels at how enduring the story is -- as though there is some phenomenon keeping the story alive independent of the fact that the gossipy, tiny-minded, substance-free "political journalists" plaguing our nation -- from Roger Simon and Maureen Dowd to Adam Nagourney and Mickey Kaus and Matt Drudge -- have not stopped talking about "the story." It's tantamount to someone who keeps chewing their food and spitting it across the room and then marvelling at how filthy things are and writing columns bewilderingly examining how and why the floor is covered with crusted food and what that signifies.
This is at least the eighth time that The Politico -- which gloriously "broke" the story -- has referenced Edwards' haircut. The featured article yesterday is the second on this topic from Simon, who is not a mere columnist, but is The Politico's "Senior Political Columnist."
Even The Politico -- for which no story is too petty or Drudge-following -- seems embarrassed by its obsession. Thus, Simon claims in his article that he "was willing never to write about the haircuts again," and The Politico's front page headline claims: "Roger reluctantly takes another look at the haircut that will not die." In the article itself, Simon offers up this excuse for why he is writing his "newspaper's" eighth story in less than two weeks about John Edwards' hair:
"This is bad: When you go to Google and enter "Edwards haircut," the first item that comes up is a story by Bill Wundram in The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa. . . . "
The article got 324 comments from readers. When people inside the Beltway are talking about your haircut, it doesn't matter much. When people in Iowa are talking about your haircut, you may have a problem.
So Simon uses the excuse that the item in the Iowa paper received 324 comments as proof that this is a huge story outside the Beltway, that there is this spontaneous groundswell of interest among salt-of-the-earth ordinary Iowans in John Edwards' hair. Therefore, he simply has to write about it.
But what Simon omits is that the reason the item in the Iowa paper received so many comments is because Matt Drudge linked to it, just as he linked to The Politico's story on this "issue." That fact was something that countless commenters to the Iowa item mentioned, including the sixth comment, followed by many others.
The Politico's Senior Political Columnist tries to claim that there is some sort of groundswell of interest in the Edwards/haircut story compelling him to write about it, when in reality, it is nothing more -- as usual -- than the fact that he and his colleague Matt Drudge and other similar types are chattering about it, and they mistake that chatter, which is all they know and understand, for what the "ordinary people" find important. And that, in turn, makes them chatter about it more and more, feeding that self-affirming, self-important, self-centered Beltway journalist cycle endlessly.
Earlier this week, I recorded a BloggingheadsTV session with The Politico's Ben Smith, who "broke" the "Edwards hair story," about some of the media issues I've been writing about generally and with regard to The Politico specifically. A technical error prevented its being recorded, and we will re-schedule shortly, but Smith offered up the defense which literally every mainstream journalist spouts when defending themselves from blogger criticism.
Bloggers, you see, are critical of journalists because bloggers are partisan but journalists are not. Journalists deal only in objective facts and have no political agenda. Bloggers, by contrast, don't care about facts, only their crass partisan agenda. Thus, they want journalists to adhere to that partisan agenda, and because that is not what journalists do -- journalists are separate from and high above partisan agendas -- bloggers get angry at journalists.
It all stems from the fact that bloggers do not understand the important, objective, nonpartisan role played by journalists. That is what all of this "media criticism" is about -- just the misguided, angry confusion on the part of the masses who do not understand the Proper Role of Journalism. It's what virtually all of them assure themselves when dismissing the criticisms aimed at them.
I'm not sure what can be done to make it any clearer that media criticisms have nothing to do with a desire that journalists be more "partisan." Most media criticisms that I hear -- and the criticism I voice -- so plainly have nothing to do with that. Here are three of the principal criticisms made:
(1) Mainstream journalists pompously spout claims that are factually, objectively, demonstrably false -- and then, in their pomposity, refuse to acknowledge or correct their error.
Time's Managing Editor, Richard Stengel, tells viewers that Americans do not want Karl Rove questioned under oath even though all relevant polling data shows the exact opposite. Andrea Mitchell tells her viewers that Americans want Lewis Libby pardoned and that Nancy Pelosi now is just as unpopular as Denny Hastert was before the November elections even though those statements are the opposite of reality. None of that gets corrected, because it's spouted lazily or without the slightest concern for whether it's true.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
(2) Journalists mindlessly pass on government statements without bothering to investigate if they are true. And they grant anonymity to government sources to do nothing but spew false government propaganda with impunity.
Hence, Jessica Lynch fought off evil Iraqi terrorists in a brave firefight. Saddam Hussein had aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons and extensive ties with Al Qaeda. The Government found bentonite in the anthrax used to attack the U.S. and that strongly suggests Saddam was behind the attacks.
No investigation is conducted to determine if the government claims are true. They are just passed along by journalists who claim that repeating what they are told is the essence of their job now. And even when it turns out that their sources deliberately lied to them in order to plant false claims with the journalists' viewers or readers, they continue to protect the identity of the sources and refuse to tell the American public who was behind the deliberate falsehood.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
(3) National journalists wallow endlessly in vacuous, vapid, empty-headed, petty gossip, obsessed with meaningless chatter and snide, personality-based assaults more appropriate for a junior high clique than anything else. And they do so while ignoring the most substantive and consequential political matters.
One example illustrating this criticism would be a flamboyantly launched "new" online political magazine, run by the nation's most institutionally prestigious "political journalists," expending extraordinary amounts of time and energy writing about John Edwards' haircut, rather than covering any number of political scandals, matters concerning war, and a whole variety of other issues with profound impact on the lives of millions of people.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
The Politico's own Editor-in-Chief, John Harris, wrote in his book that political journalism is a "Freak Show" ruled by Matt Drudge, which makes it, by definition, a Freak Show devoted to advancing the Limbaugh-led right-wing agenda. More than any other journalistic outlet around, The Politico has conducted itself so as to feed off of the core of that right-wing Freak Show.
This is what Harris wrote when explaining to me in the most generously patient way the difference between the elevated work of political journalists and the rambunctious, lowly partisanship of bloggers:
"Although we are a new publication, Politico has several reporters and editors who have been in this profession for two decades or more. They know that what counts is reputation over the long haul, not any individual story or any uproar du jour on the blogs. . . .
In your case, much of your criticism comes from a distinct ideological perspective. That's fine, but surely you must appreciate that not everyone acts with your degree of ideological motivation. In the case of people at Politico, our motivations are simple -- to write interesting and worthwhile stories and to put those stories before largest possible audience."
That pious lecture was delivered by an individual who oversees a "newspaper" that has published no fewer than eight items in the last two weeks about John Edwards' haircut, including a front-page-promoted article yesterday devoted exclusively to that matter by his "Senior Political Columnist."
The sprawling, glaring, and ever-widening discrepancy between (a) how journalists like Harris preeningly describe what they do and (b) the empty-headed trash they churn out on a regular basis, is the actual crux of most media criticism. At one of the most consequential times in our nation's political history, during a presidency that few can dispute has been radical and among the most nation-changing in history, our national political press is symbolized by Roger Simon's chatter about John Edwards' hair (and Simon, with no embarrassment at all, even shares that he has debated the True Meaning of the Edwards Hair issue with "many of my friends and colleagues").
And when one objects to this state of affairs, journalists like John Harris look down their nose and proclaim that complaints are just coming from the lowly masses who do not understand the lofty, elevated and important function journalists fulfill. And then they go and edit their next Edwards Haircut story.
-- Glenn Greenwald
posted by scott 10:11 AM
The Truth, as written by Glenn Greenwald (from salon today ~ emphasis' mine):
Thursday May 3, 2007 07:16 EST
The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press
This week, the Bush administration sought vastly increased powers to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans, and then threatened to begin spying again illegally and without warrants. It was revealed that Condoleezza Rice would meet with Syrian officials, a significant shift in Middle East policy.
Yesterday, it was disclosed that Iraq's government is actually purging itself of anyone who seeks to impede lawless Shiite militias. And one of the right-wing's most influential academicians published an article on The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page explicitly advocating "one-man rule" in America whereby the President can ignore the "rule of law" in order to fight The Terrorists.
None of that -- or virtually anything else of even marginal significance -- was reported by The Politico, an online political magazine founded by some of the nation's most prestigious and admired (in Beltway terms) political journalists. But yesterday, The Politico's so-called "chief political columnist," Roger Simon, published a 674-word article -- prominently touted on The Politico's front page -- exclusively about John Edwards' haircuts, cleverly headlined "Hair today, gone tomorrow."
To begin his article, Simon pronounces:
It is the haircut that will not die.
He can spin it, he can gel it, he can mousse it. But it is not going away.
Simon marvels at how enduring the story is -- as though there is some phenomenon keeping the story alive independent of the fact that the gossipy, tiny-minded, substance-free "political journalists" plaguing our nation -- from Roger Simon and Maureen Dowd to Adam Nagourney and Mickey Kaus and Matt Drudge -- have not stopped talking about "the story." It's tantamount to someone who keeps chewing their food and spitting it across the room and then marvelling at how filthy things are and writing columns bewilderingly examining how and why the floor is covered with crusted food and what that signifies.
This is at least the eighth time that The Politico -- which gloriously "broke" the story -- has referenced Edwards' haircut. The featured article yesterday is the second on this topic from Simon, who is not a mere columnist, but is The Politico's "Senior Political Columnist."
Even The Politico -- for which no story is too petty or Drudge-following -- seems embarrassed by its obsession. Thus, Simon claims in his article that he "was willing never to write about the haircuts again," and The Politico's front page headline claims: "Roger reluctantly takes another look at the haircut that will not die." In the article itself, Simon offers up this excuse for why he is writing his "newspaper's" eighth story in less than two weeks about John Edwards' hair:
"This is bad: When you go to Google and enter "Edwards haircut," the first item that comes up is a story by Bill Wundram in The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa. . . . "
The article got 324 comments from readers. When people inside the Beltway are talking about your haircut, it doesn't matter much. When people in Iowa are talking about your haircut, you may have a problem.
So Simon uses the excuse that the item in the Iowa paper received 324 comments as proof that this is a huge story outside the Beltway, that there is this spontaneous groundswell of interest among salt-of-the-earth ordinary Iowans in John Edwards' hair. Therefore, he simply has to write about it.
But what Simon omits is that the reason the item in the Iowa paper received so many comments is because Matt Drudge linked to it, just as he linked to The Politico's story on this "issue." That fact was something that countless commenters to the Iowa item mentioned, including the sixth comment, followed by many others.
The Politico's Senior Political Columnist tries to claim that there is some sort of groundswell of interest in the Edwards/haircut story compelling him to write about it, when in reality, it is nothing more -- as usual -- than the fact that he and his colleague Matt Drudge and other similar types are chattering about it, and they mistake that chatter, which is all they know and understand, for what the "ordinary people" find important. And that, in turn, makes them chatter about it more and more, feeding that self-affirming, self-important, self-centered Beltway journalist cycle endlessly.
Earlier this week, I recorded a BloggingheadsTV session with The Politico's Ben Smith, who "broke" the "Edwards hair story," about some of the media issues I've been writing about generally and with regard to The Politico specifically. A technical error prevented its being recorded, and we will re-schedule shortly, but Smith offered up the defense which literally every mainstream journalist spouts when defending themselves from blogger criticism.
Bloggers, you see, are critical of journalists because bloggers are partisan but journalists are not. Journalists deal only in objective facts and have no political agenda. Bloggers, by contrast, don't care about facts, only their crass partisan agenda. Thus, they want journalists to adhere to that partisan agenda, and because that is not what journalists do -- journalists are separate from and high above partisan agendas -- bloggers get angry at journalists.
It all stems from the fact that bloggers do not understand the important, objective, nonpartisan role played by journalists. That is what all of this "media criticism" is about -- just the misguided, angry confusion on the part of the masses who do not understand the Proper Role of Journalism. It's what virtually all of them assure themselves when dismissing the criticisms aimed at them.
I'm not sure what can be done to make it any clearer that media criticisms have nothing to do with a desire that journalists be more "partisan." Most media criticisms that I hear -- and the criticism I voice -- so plainly have nothing to do with that. Here are three of the principal criticisms made:
(1) Mainstream journalists pompously spout claims that are factually, objectively, demonstrably false -- and then, in their pomposity, refuse to acknowledge or correct their error.
Time's Managing Editor, Richard Stengel, tells viewers that Americans do not want Karl Rove questioned under oath even though all relevant polling data shows the exact opposite. Andrea Mitchell tells her viewers that Americans want Lewis Libby pardoned and that Nancy Pelosi now is just as unpopular as Denny Hastert was before the November elections even though those statements are the opposite of reality. None of that gets corrected, because it's spouted lazily or without the slightest concern for whether it's true.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
(2) Journalists mindlessly pass on government statements without bothering to investigate if they are true. And they grant anonymity to government sources to do nothing but spew false government propaganda with impunity.
Hence, Jessica Lynch fought off evil Iraqi terrorists in a brave firefight. Saddam Hussein had aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons and extensive ties with Al Qaeda. The Government found bentonite in the anthrax used to attack the U.S. and that strongly suggests Saddam was behind the attacks.
No investigation is conducted to determine if the government claims are true. They are just passed along by journalists who claim that repeating what they are told is the essence of their job now. And even when it turns out that their sources deliberately lied to them in order to plant false claims with the journalists' viewers or readers, they continue to protect the identity of the sources and refuse to tell the American public who was behind the deliberate falsehood.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
(3) National journalists wallow endlessly in vacuous, vapid, empty-headed, petty gossip, obsessed with meaningless chatter and snide, personality-based assaults more appropriate for a junior high clique than anything else. And they do so while ignoring the most substantive and consequential political matters.
One example illustrating this criticism would be a flamboyantly launched "new" online political magazine, run by the nation's most institutionally prestigious "political journalists," expending extraordinary amounts of time and energy writing about John Edwards' haircut, rather than covering any number of political scandals, matters concerning war, and a whole variety of other issues with profound impact on the lives of millions of people.
Does that sound like a demand that journalists be more "partisan"?
The Politico's own Editor-in-Chief, John Harris, wrote in his book that political journalism is a "Freak Show" ruled by Matt Drudge, which makes it, by definition, a Freak Show devoted to advancing the Limbaugh-led right-wing agenda. More than any other journalistic outlet around, The Politico has conducted itself so as to feed off of the core of that right-wing Freak Show.
This is what Harris wrote when explaining to me in the most generously patient way the difference between the elevated work of political journalists and the rambunctious, lowly partisanship of bloggers:
"Although we are a new publication, Politico has several reporters and editors who have been in this profession for two decades or more. They know that what counts is reputation over the long haul, not any individual story or any uproar du jour on the blogs. . . .
In your case, much of your criticism comes from a distinct ideological perspective. That's fine, but surely you must appreciate that not everyone acts with your degree of ideological motivation. In the case of people at Politico, our motivations are simple -- to write interesting and worthwhile stories and to put those stories before largest possible audience."
That pious lecture was delivered by an individual who oversees a "newspaper" that has published no fewer than eight items in the last two weeks about John Edwards' haircut, including a front-page-promoted article yesterday devoted exclusively to that matter by his "Senior Political Columnist."
The sprawling, glaring, and ever-widening discrepancy between (a) how journalists like Harris preeningly describe what they do and (b) the empty-headed trash they churn out on a regular basis, is the actual crux of most media criticism. At one of the most consequential times in our nation's political history, during a presidency that few can dispute has been radical and among the most nation-changing in history, our national political press is symbolized by Roger Simon's chatter about John Edwards' hair (and Simon, with no embarrassment at all, even shares that he has debated the True Meaning of the Edwards Hair issue with "many of my friends and colleagues").
And when one objects to this state of affairs, journalists like John Harris look down their nose and proclaim that complaints are just coming from the lowly masses who do not understand the lofty, elevated and important function journalists fulfill. And then they go and edit their next Edwards Haircut story.
-- Glenn Greenwald
posted by scott 10:11 AM
4.26.2007
another fucking rant.
The Baldwin thing - this is just madness... WHO THE HELL CARES? it happens ALL the time, a parent blows up at their kid.
The media is the goddamn problem. Alec left a message for his daughter, not for anyone else - now every night the news is replaying it and having talking heads come in and comment on it, how do you think that makes the kid feel? It's not fucking news. it's just not.
...and it's not like there's no real news they could be reporting. the problem is not Baldwin, hell, it's not Rosie or Imus or even Phil Spector - it's the media in this country constantly pandering to the lowest common denominator checkout line magazine fluff celebrity trash. It needs to get back to the thousands of issues that actually affect everyone in this country, and start educating the masses so they can be a much better informed electorate come november '08.
How fucked up is it that most americans could tell you how many times britney has been to rehab or paris has lost her blackberry, yet probably couldn't name one elected official from their district? Sanjaya and Michael Richards aren't your voice on capitol hill, people. Pay more attention to the people in power than the people on the hollywood power list. We've been seeing exactly what happens when we don't for quite a while now, and it's not looking too great.
posted by scott 9:06 AM
The Baldwin thing - this is just madness... WHO THE HELL CARES? it happens ALL the time, a parent blows up at their kid.
The media is the goddamn problem. Alec left a message for his daughter, not for anyone else - now every night the news is replaying it and having talking heads come in and comment on it, how do you think that makes the kid feel? It's not fucking news. it's just not.
...and it's not like there's no real news they could be reporting. the problem is not Baldwin, hell, it's not Rosie or Imus or even Phil Spector - it's the media in this country constantly pandering to the lowest common denominator checkout line magazine fluff celebrity trash. It needs to get back to the thousands of issues that actually affect everyone in this country, and start educating the masses so they can be a much better informed electorate come november '08.
How fucked up is it that most americans could tell you how many times britney has been to rehab or paris has lost her blackberry, yet probably couldn't name one elected official from their district? Sanjaya and Michael Richards aren't your voice on capitol hill, people. Pay more attention to the people in power than the people on the hollywood power list. We've been seeing exactly what happens when we don't for quite a while now, and it's not looking too great.
posted by scott 9:06 AM
4.13.2007
a quick little rant
on this whole fucking Imus debacle.
all of you fucking idiots that are calling this a violation of his first amendment rights are fucking idiots. he said what he said, and he could say it again if he wants. is he in jail? is congress passing a law against saying "nappy headed hos"? (well, not yet...)
he was fired because the companies he works for (or, more accurately, the companies that advertise with the companies he works for) felt his comments were unacceptable. you go ahead and call some black woman you work with a nappy headed ho. see how long you keep your job. you won't go to jail for saying it, though, and that's all the first amendment promises.
as for him being offensive in the past, well duh. he's a fucking idiot.
posted by scott 10:26 AM
on this whole fucking Imus debacle.
all of you fucking idiots that are calling this a violation of his first amendment rights are fucking idiots. he said what he said, and he could say it again if he wants. is he in jail? is congress passing a law against saying "nappy headed hos"? (well, not yet...)
he was fired because the companies he works for (or, more accurately, the companies that advertise with the companies he works for) felt his comments were unacceptable. you go ahead and call some black woman you work with a nappy headed ho. see how long you keep your job. you won't go to jail for saying it, though, and that's all the first amendment promises.
as for him being offensive in the past, well duh. he's a fucking idiot.
posted by scott 10:26 AM
4.12.2007
so it goes...
"When I think of my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole Solar System will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."
i blame bush.
posted by scott 12:27 PM
"When I think of my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole Solar System will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."
i blame bush.
posted by scott 12:27 PM
4.08.2007
the american daisycutters @ dipiazzas in long beach, 4/5/07
seasons
overture
dirty
illusion
sonata in blue
ocean
green
posted by scott 11:41 AM
seasons
overture
dirty
illusion
sonata in blue
ocean
green
posted by scott 11:41 AM
3.21.2007
3.14.2007
my birthday is coming up...
nothing says 'action' figure like Meat!
it just needs a cool theme song like Log...
It's meeeeat, it's meeeat, fun to punch or eat..."
posted by scott 2:57 PM
nothing says 'action' figure like Meat!
it just needs a cool theme song like Log...
It's meeeeat, it's meeeat, fun to punch or eat..."
posted by scott 2:57 PM
woke up this morning...
hmmm... he's dressed like kevin finnerty, the ducks are leaving, he's looking over his shoulder at new york, and his last name is soprano. i think he might be a little too infamous to go into witness protection without some plastic surgery though - even if he is all the way in kingman, arizona.
so how do you think it's gonna end?
posted by scott 2:19 PM
hmmm... he's dressed like kevin finnerty, the ducks are leaving, he's looking over his shoulder at new york, and his last name is soprano. i think he might be a little too infamous to go into witness protection without some plastic surgery though - even if he is all the way in kingman, arizona.
so how do you think it's gonna end?
posted by scott 2:19 PM
3.02.2007
yes, of course, this is hello.
for those of you that might have been reading the comments on the last post and gotten completely confused, may I present the diddy/bjork phone conversation.
hit refresh to watch it from the first ringy dingy:
posted by scott 3:16 PM
for those of you that might have been reading the comments on the last post and gotten completely confused, may I present the diddy/bjork phone conversation.
hit refresh to watch it from the first ringy dingy:
posted by scott 3:16 PM
2.28.2007
jesus h christ
from IMDB today -
Criticism continued to swell Tuesday over Discovery Channel's planned telecast Sunday night of The Lost Tomb of Jesus, executive produced by James Cameron, which claims that a tomb has been discovered in Israel containing bone boxes of Jesus's family, including one that is inscribed, "Judah, son of Jesus." CNSNews.com, a unit of the conservative Media Research Center, which has close ties with Christian fundamentalist groups, quoted Asbury Theological Seminary professor Ben Witherington as saying, "This is a story full of holes, conjectures and problems." Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, said, "The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an immovable foundation of what I know is true." Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, the nation's largest lay Catholic organization, commented, "Not a Lenten season goes by without some author or TV program seeking to cast doubt on the divinity of Jesus and/or the Resurrection."
"this is a story full of holes, conjectures, and problems."
yep, no holes or problems in the bible, and no one interprets it to say what they want it to at all, of course not.
"The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an immovable foundation of what I know is true."
i mean yeah, you find a box with human remains labed jesus next to ones labeled mary magdalene and judah, son of jesus - obviously that's impossible! Christ didn't have any kids! He was crucified and then rose from the dead a few days later!
...wait, what was the impossible part there?
wouldn't it be ironic if the 'king of the world' debunked the 'king of kings'?
don'tcha think?
posted by scott 12:56 PM
from IMDB today -
Criticism continued to swell Tuesday over Discovery Channel's planned telecast Sunday night of The Lost Tomb of Jesus, executive produced by James Cameron, which claims that a tomb has been discovered in Israel containing bone boxes of Jesus's family, including one that is inscribed, "Judah, son of Jesus." CNSNews.com, a unit of the conservative Media Research Center, which has close ties with Christian fundamentalist groups, quoted Asbury Theological Seminary professor Ben Witherington as saying, "This is a story full of holes, conjectures and problems." Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, said, "The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an immovable foundation of what I know is true." Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, the nation's largest lay Catholic organization, commented, "Not a Lenten season goes by without some author or TV program seeking to cast doubt on the divinity of Jesus and/or the Resurrection."
"this is a story full of holes, conjectures, and problems."
yep, no holes or problems in the bible, and no one interprets it to say what they want it to at all, of course not.
"The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an immovable foundation of what I know is true."
i mean yeah, you find a box with human remains labed jesus next to ones labeled mary magdalene and judah, son of jesus - obviously that's impossible! Christ didn't have any kids! He was crucified and then rose from the dead a few days later!
...wait, what was the impossible part there?
wouldn't it be ironic if the 'king of the world' debunked the 'king of kings'?
don'tcha think?
posted by scott 12:56 PM
2.26.2007
oops... i'm fucking insane
i mean she's been acting nuts, but did anyone see this coming? look at that goddamn picture! that's that blonde chick in the schoolgirl uniform from that video back then? get the fuck outta here...
i mean how far could you possibly go to alienate your entire fan base? it's like if bono was caught pissing on some starving african kids, or natalie maines released a sex tape starring her and dubya.
you ever think maybe she and lohan have like some fucking crazy-ass high stakes triple dog dare pissing contest thing - that got really out of control a while ago - going on?
posted by scott 10:50 PM
i mean she's been acting nuts, but did anyone see this coming? look at that goddamn picture! that's that blonde chick in the schoolgirl uniform from that video back then? get the fuck outta here...
i mean how far could you possibly go to alienate your entire fan base? it's like if bono was caught pissing on some starving african kids, or natalie maines released a sex tape starring her and dubya.
you ever think maybe she and lohan have like some fucking crazy-ass high stakes triple dog dare pissing contest thing - that got really out of control a while ago - going on?
posted by scott 10:50 PM
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