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Wednesday, November 30, 2005
In his speech at the Naval Academy, it would have been so easy for George Bush to have said, using the bureaucratic passive, "mistakes were made," and to have fired Donald Rumsfeld, and to have ordered soldiers on their third tours of duty in Iraq to be flown home--for good--before the holidays. His approval rating would have jumped 30% overnight, consumers would have flooded the stores--the country would have partied. But Bush's "plan" sends an old message, one the troops know well: You won't come home without victory, unless you come home in a coffin. That is a soldier's fate--to fight and die--and if our troops didn't know that when they signed up, too bad for them. Because the Commander-in-Chief is quite content for them to die. How is that? Well, given what we know of Bush's history as Lord High Executioner in Texas and his religious sense of mission as President, we are invited to conclude that Bush doesn't deeply mourn the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq. Really, we're invited to go further--their deaths are the sacrifice Bush offers to "freedom" and God. In some crazy way, he seems to believe that they died for him; their spilled blood gives him renewed vigor. This week, an eighteen-and-a-half foot fir tree--bless Laura Bush; she has the courage to call it what it is: a Christmas tree--arrived at the White House in glorious fashion, "lying sideways in a forest-green carriage drawn by a pair of dark chocolate horses wearing red bows." I thought: As if the tree were going to its funeral. In the Middle Ages, people were constantly reminded of death by strategically displayed memento mori--like a skull on a banquet table. What would a memento mori be now? A skull on the holiday buffet, draped in military medals? Flags dripping blood? Skeletons blowing bugles at military funerals? I see, instead, a living memento mori: our President. An invisible black cloud surrounds him; unseen vultures swoop overhead. No matter--he is CEO of the Angel Manufacturing Company. And he and his colleagues have work to do.
Monday, November 28, 2005
The world is a mess. So it seems. Or maybe everything that was hidden, festering, wrong, twisted and based on lies, is now surfacing and showing itself in all its various forms of greed and violence and un-truth. That could be helpful. How can you heal something if you aren't sure what it is? The medicine needs to be specific to the illness. The remedies I am finding myself drawn to are: Radical Truth-speaking, Fearlessness, Defense of the Helpless and Young, Resistance to Manipulation, and Voting with my Dollars. Every person's every action has an effect. It's true. Every small act of compassion, every brief moment of speaking the truth, every dollar, i.e., unit of energy, put into a pro-Earth, pro-healing cause, counts. Everything counts. Every thought, every word, every choice. -- Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny), in her online newsletter
Thanksgiving is an invitation to celebrate plenty. I have a problem with mass suggestions, so ever since Little Uptown was old enough to laugh at clowns, the three of us--along with much of the Hasidic community from Brooklyn--spend Thanksgiving afternoon at the Big Apple Circus. Afterward, if we have successfully ducked all invitations, we head off to a coffee shop and a satisfying stroll home through a deserted Central Park. Until recently, walks in the park featured actual conversations. But ever since the little one developed--in quick succession--the power of speech, a sense of empowerment and a point of view, our chats have a random, schizy quality. One of the grownups might mention a weird news factoid. Then the kid has an observation about Polly Pockets--and all hope of a serious exchange is extinguished. I have learned to be grateful for that punctured balloon. On our own, Mrs. Uptown and I are in danger of becoming terminally serious. Each day, ever more clearly, we see the fantasy that government leaders are competent, concerned or even remotely intelligent being stripped away. And we are left staring at that most frightening of all realizations: We must save ourselves. We must save ourselves because, no matter which party wins in '06 and '08, the cupboard is bare. And will continue to be. In a time when tanks and bombers are becoming weapons of antiquity, the proposed US military budget calls for more and more of them. For 2006, the military budget is slated to rise from this year's $420 billion to $441.6 billion--well over 50% of our government spending. Okay, I can go to the gym more and train harder there. I can work smarter and/or longer. I can find new ways to store up nuts for the inevitable winter. But it's hard to think about waste on this scale without getting gloomy. It's even harder to realize that not even a Democratic landslide is going to beat those swords into better schools and national health care. What will? If Emerson is to be believed, the process of life itself: "Things refuse to be mismanaged long; nature hates monopolies and exceptions." Our empire seems poised for a fall. But only a pessimist makes straight-line projections. Emerson again: "The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts." Most days, I can't see that "deep remedial force"--the force of karma, of Buddhism at work. But on my better days I grasp that all I have to work with is now. There's no point worrying about events far beyond my control. For all we know, this depressing year might just be the prelude to glory. What--the bad news is the good news? After a chilly Thanksgiving, a comforting thought.
Over the weekend, I read about a highway fatality in Colorado: A 17-year-old likely will face misdemeanor charges after allegedly losing control of his car while text messaging and hitting a bicyclist. The bicyclist, Jim R. Price of Highlands Ranch, died Friday, two days after the accident.
"We do not believe it was an intentional act, but it was inattentiveness to the roadway," said Lt. Alan Stanton, spokesman for Douglas County Sheriff's Office. "The investigation showed that he was text-messaging on his cell phone" at the time of the accident.
The driver could face a charge of careless driving resulting in death, Stanton said. Under Colorado law, the teen could face up to a year in prison.
It was the second time Price, an avid cyclist, had been hit by car. He suffered a broken ankle two years ago when he was hit while riding on a bike path. His wife, Shirley, said he had been especially mindful of cars since then.
Shirley Price wasn't angry with the teen. "I feel sorry for the teenager," she said. "It was a stupid mistake," she told the Rocky Mountain News. A stupid mistake? What are they smoking out there? The kid was text-messaging while he drove. A misdemeanor? An accident? What kind of message does that send? 'Ooops, my bad.' No. In any sane county, it's not 'careless driving'--it's criminally negligent homicide. The kid goes to jail for more than a year. And before he does, he should be forced to send a message to everyone on his buddy list: a picture of Jim Price's corpse.
Do Not Use Condoms. God hates sex outside of marriage, but He hates contraception even more:
A Brazilian singer who promoted the use of condoms in an anti-AIDS campaign has been dropped from the lineup of next month's Christmas concert at the Vatican.
"The Vatican may not want Daniela Mercury in one of its shows, but we want her to continue her effort and her campaign to fight HIV transmission in our country," said Nilcea Freire, Brazil's minister of state for women's affairs.
"We lament that the Vatican and the pope will not have an opportunity to listen to her," said Pedro Chequer, who heads Brazil's anti-AIDS program. "It's the pope's loss."
Who Would Jesus Torture?
Hell Houses are a technique used by conservative Christian churches in North America to proselytize. According to these evangelicals, when your savior sheds blood and dies for you, he owns you (you are "bought with a price"), and torment is not a result of specific sins on your part, but is due to your failure to submit to salvation: "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." [Matthew 13: 40-42].
The writer goes on to explain how "Christians" not only participate in atrocities in Iraq, but justify them.
Muslim? You Can't Play Football at New Mexico State.
How crazy is this:
This was supposed to be Muammar Ali's year at New Mexico State. "Muammar Ali, who led the team with 561 yards rushing, will get even more opportunities," predicted SI.com in its NCAA football preview.
But he has no opportunities now. He's off the team.
On October 9, he "received a message on his phone answering machine at his home that his jersey was being pulled and that he was released," says a letter from his attorney, George Bach, of the ACLU of New Mexico, to the university. That letter, dated October 25, alleges that Head Coach Hal Mumme engaged in religious discrimination.
"Coach Mumme questioned Mr. Ali repeatedly about Islam and specifically, its ties to Al-Qaeda," the letter states. This made Mr. Ali uncomfortable, it says. And then, after the team's first game, "despite being the star tailback for several years, Mr. Ali was relegated to fifth string and not even permitted to travel with the team," the letter says.
There were only two other Muslim players on the team, and they were also released, it says. The letter adds that the coach "regularly has players recite the Lord's Prayer after each practice and before each game."
Ali's father, Mustafa Ali, says the trouble started at a practice over the summer when the coach told the players to pray.....
WAS THE WHITE HOUSE FIRST TO CALL FOR U.S. TROOPS TO BE WITHDRAWN FROM IRAQ?According to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, George Bush actually has an original idea--granted, exactly the opposite of everything he's been saying--about reducing our military presence in Iraq. And what about the Democratic plan? "Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror," McClennan said. But Biden offered his plan almost a week earlier. What, the clocks run backward at the White House?
So the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis got together a week ago to talk about peace. Where was the U.S.? Pointedly not there. Read it and weep: A major conference held in Cairo this weekend provided the spectrum of Iraq's political class with an opportunity to engage in a give-and-take about a negotiated end to the war in Iraq. During the three-day conference, which ended Monday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani made an offer to start talks with the armed Iraqi fighters. "If those who call themselves the Iraqi resistance desired to contact me, I would welcome them," said Talabani.
But in his noon briefing on Monday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack discussed the Arab League peace talks coolly and only in response to a question. He refused to endorse Talabani's call for talks between the Iraqi government and the resistance. Instead, in keeping with President Bush's insistence on staying the course and Vice President Cheney's address at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on Monday, McCormack emphasized that "hardcore terrorists" in Iraq will be dealt with "on the military front."
The fact that the United States is not trumpeting the importance of the Cairo peace talks, and the fact that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top-level officials did not attend it, are failures of diplomacy. Not only did scores of Iraqi political leaders travel to Cairo to talk face to face in a manner that could not have happened in Baghdad, but the meeting was also attended by heads of state, including Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. After three days of talks, the attendees decided to convene a full-fledged peace conference in Cairo in late February or early March.... So what does the Bush plan mean? This week, the President will tell us that Iraqi police are much improved and so we will soon be able to withdraw some of our soldiers. The first part is a lie: insurgent attacks are up, as are US casualties. It is now almost totally unsafe for Americans to leave the Green Zone. The road to the Baghdad Airport is still not secure. The second part is just politics--and also a lie: Americans have indicated they no longer support the war, and Bush has to find some sort of exit strategy before the '06 elections. But he doesn't plan to leave Iraq. So, in the speech he'll give later this week, he will reportedly say that some US troops can come home. He may or may not say they'll be replaced by the Air Force, which will support our remaining troops with the kind of 'precision bombing' that managed to kill masses of civilians in Vietnam. But just consider the soldiers on the ground. Fewer American troops are easier targets for the insurgents. So the odds are, fewer troops will sustain the same number of casualties as our current forces--or more. Those poor suckers will die because the President can't tell the truth about the 2,100 lives he's already sacrificed for nothing. Either send in more troops and complete the mission (whatever crazy 'mission' it is this week)--even if it takes a decade--or get everybody home. But putting men and woman at risk for non-military reasons--in my book, that's borderline treason.
Four years after 9/11, no one can decide on the buildings that will replace the World Trade Center or the memorial that will be erected to honor the dead. Wait--there is one exception. Everyone loves the design for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which will connect that much-trafficked area to subways and the train to New Jersey. The design for that terminal sailed through the review process because it is utterly fantastic. White, arched like a fish and ornamented with white steel that looks like fish bones radiating from a spine, it's like nothing Americans have ever seen. There's a reason: The architect of the first building to be erected on this iconic American site isn't an American. He is a Spaniard who has worked extensively in Zurich and Paris and Barcelona. He has won a million prizes and 13 honorary doctorates. And he is generally considered the planet's most exciting architect. Why the praise? Because his work is like no other: a skyscraper that twists and turns like a plant growing toward the sun, an apartment building that looks like randomly stacked cubes. No wonder the new exhibition of his work at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is called 'Sculpture into Architecture'--he draws, he sculpts, he takes his cue from nature. Now there's a book of his work: the most exciting art book I've seen in a long time. Five and a half pounds. Three hundred images. Connections that will excite anyone who cares not just about architecture and engineering, but about sculpture and anatomy and poetry. The architect? Santiago Calatrava.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. --- Cicero
In this video, Jean Schmidt --- a Congresswoman who graduated from the Ann Coulter School of Rhetoric --- calls John Murtha a coward and, in essence, a traitor. It gets really exciting at the end. Things to keep in mind: Murtha served 37 years in the Marines. He has won two Purple Hearts. Every week, he visits wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Three years ago, he won the Marines' highest honor, the Semper Fidelis Award of the Marine Corps Foundation. And --- one more thing --- he's very tight with the Pentagon. Here's the transcript for the lazybones among you.
The war in Iraq was lost before it began. It was lost the day it was conceived. And if the men who cooked it up had studied 20th-century history, they would have known that. Very simply, no colonial power has won a war fought against an insurgent army in the insurgents' country. The French in Vietnam. The French in Algeria. The Russians in Afghanistan. Losers, all. Why is this so? Because wars are not only fought in space --- space unfamiliar to the invaders, space far from the invaders' homeland --- but in time. And time is never the friend of the invader. Some useful quotes from Jonathan Schell's classic book about Vietnam, The Real War: The Vietnamese were well-versed in the strategies of time. The Americans, hardly able to see beyond the next election, could at best look four or five years ahead. A decade was already off the political map. The Vietnamese were accustomed to thinking in decades, even in centuries...We ran out of time. This is the tragedy of Vietnam --- we were fighting for time rather than space. And time ran out.
---Norman B. Hannah, foreign service officer"You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield," said the American colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. "That may be so," he replied, "but it is also irrelevant."
--- Conversation in Hanoi in l975It's hard to believe this is so simple, but it is. Rock breaks scissors. Poorly-equipped insurgents find ways to defeat the army of the richest nation on earth. The invading colonial power just doesn't understand that some wars are not about might --- they're about culture. Could we have 'won' in Iraq? Easily! All we had to do is be true liberators. If we had turned on the electricity and kept it on. If we had cleaned the water and made sure it was plentiful. If we had hired Iraqis to do this work and paid them fairly. If, in short, we behaved like the democracy we wanted them to become...and then left. But we did not do this. We brought our own contractors in, and let them run wild and make obscene fortunes for services they often never delivered. We let our troops use chemical weapons --- white phosphorous, for example --- that Saddam only dreamed of possessing. We used torture as an instrument of policy. We killed civilians. We leveled cities. Is it any wonder they hate us? Is it any wonder they want us gone? From The New York Times: For the first time, Iraq's political factions collectively called today for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit to a pullout schedule. Now pretty much everyone grasps there is no way to win --- that we have seen the problem, and it is us. This creates enormous difficulties for the government and its ever-dwindling cadre of apologists. 2,100 souls have been squandered. Tens of thousands bear physical and psychological wounds that will wreck their lives. Hundreds of billions of dollars down the toilet. And every reason to think our commanders --- or higher --- could be indicted for war crimes. So you get, as a rationale, for 'staying the course,' this: "Setting a date [for withdrawal] would mean that the 221 soldiers I've lost this year, that their lives will have been lost in vain," says Army Maj. Gen. William Webster "If you put yourself in the shoes of the terrorists, if they get to believe that all they have to do is wait, because we're going to pull out precipitously, then something enormously valuable has been lost." So says Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense who has not been right once about the war. So they get House Majority Leader Roy Blunt to call Congressman Murtha "the poster boy for Al Jazeera." And the President's press spokesman compares Murtha to Michael Moore. But the facts say otherwise: The Bush team wasted every soldier killed, from number one right up to 2,100. The good news: Americans have been lied to so relentlessly for five years they're beginning to catch on --- nothing that these white men in suits say checks out. No plan going in, no plan to get out, no reason to stay except to stay. If they said, 'Hey, we really need this oil --- if we don't take it, you'll be stranded by the side of the highway,' the American people might have gone for it. If they'd said, 'This is war, and war means torture,' a lot of people might have forgiven them. But they haven't. And they can't. So our leaders go on losing the war, wasting lives and breaking hearts and bleeding precious resources that we need to fix our damaged homeland. History won't forgive them. Neither, it looks like, will the military, which clearly expressed its desire to leave through Murtha. Neither will the American people. George Bush, who once looked like our Caesar, will soon be regarded as the worst President in our history --- and outside of Fox News and Loose Canon and a bunch of hard-core, my-country-right-or-wrong 'patriots', no one will remember voting for the guy. As I say, pretty much everyone --- except for the bozos in charge --- gets this. The Bad News is the Good News: We lost. Let's get our troops home. And then let's get on to our real work --- finding some way to make it up to the families of the dead and maimed. Happy Thanksgiving.
How many 'terrorists' has the United States detained since 'The War on Terror' started four years ago? 83,000 --- enough to fill a football stadium. And how many have been convicted of any crime greater than immigration violation or motor vehicle infraction? None.
The great movie, Battle of Algiers, shows why the French had to lose in Algeria. Here, 'Col. Mathieu' --- commander of the French forces --- explains to French journalists covering the war why torture is a necessary tool: MATHIEU Let's try to be precise then. The word "torture" does not appear in our orders. We have always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies. As for the NLF [National Liberation Front], they request that their members, in the event of capture, should maintain silence for twenty-four hours, and then, they may talk. Thus, the organization has already had the time necessary to render useless any information furnished ...What type of interrogation should we choose? The one the courts use for a crime of homicide which drags on for months? 3RD JOURNALIST The law is often inconvenient, colonel ... MATHIEU And those who explode bombs in public places, do they perhaps respect the law? No, gentlemen, believe me, it is a vicious circle. And we could discuss the problem for hours without reaching any conclusions. Because the problem does not lie here. The problem is: the NLF wants us to leave Algeria and we want to remain. Now, it seems to me that, despite varying shades of opinion, you all agree that we must remain. When the rebellion first began, there were not even shades of opinion. All the newspapers, even the left-wing ones wanted the rebellion suppressed. And we were sent here for this very reason. And we are neither madmen nor sadists, gentlemen. Those who call us fascists today forget the contribution that many of us made to the Resistance. Those who call us Nazis do not know that among us there are survivors of Dachau and Buchenwald. We are soldiers and our only duty is to win. Therefore, to be precise, I would now like to ask you a question: Should France remain in Algeria? If you answer "yes," then you must accept all the necessary consequences.
Talk about an entrance! You hear 2,000 prisoners stomping and clapping for Johnny Cash. You see the guards of Folsom Prison rushing toward the commotion. You watch the band play the same introductory riff over and over. And then, in a prison wood shop that serves as a dressing room, you see Johnny Cash. He's bent over a buzz saw, a finger on the blade, lost in his thoughts. The musical bio-pic is not generally an experience that rips you apart. In the formulaic version, you get the early inspiration, the years of struggle, the big break and, more often than not, the cliched irony: Success ain't all it's cracked up to be. The celebrity hero ends up sadder and wiser. Or dead. Either way, the moral seems more about show business than anything else. 'Walk the Line' uses some of these conventions, but they're in the service of a very big idea --- how a primal wound can wreck a life. For Cash, that wound came when his brother is killed in a sawmill accident. 'Where were you?' his father sneers. Well, Johnny had been fishing, with not a care in the world. His brother had dreams of becoming a preacher; Johnny saw only goodness in him. After his death, Johnny can't help believing --- his father even says it --- that the wrong son died. But a fire burns in this kid; he wants to make music. Failure becomes success. Johnny Cash is launched. But that primal wound is unfinished business --- the more successful he becomes, the more it will nag at him. I'm not telling you anything you don't know about Cash when I say the pills that seem so innocent quickly become weapons of self-destruction. Who should see this movie? Anyone interested in country music or Johnny Cash. But more: anyone who's in a relationship where the childhood trauma lingers, where an unwelcome guest is following one (or both) of you around. Walk the Line shows you the price you pay for not dealing with it. And, gloriously, the reward to be had for facing your demons.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
What you don't have, you don't need it now. --U2, 'It's a Beautiful Day'
Little Uptown gets her Big Girl Bed today. No more crib. She's three-and-a-half now. She's ready. We're not. For Mother Uptown and this late-life father, it's all confusion. We know all about time, and how it bends. We always grasped that life is just a blink of an eye and that, 'like an ever-rolling stream,' we shall all be carried away. But it was only yesterday that we brought our little girl home from the hospital and fell, all three of us, into a sleep as deep as the forest. Three months of colic followed. Then months I don't remember--the baby seemed mostly inert. Suddenly she was walking, then the walking stopped and the running began. And music school. Ballet classes. Now she changes clothes a dozen times a day. Has a point-of-view. Tells jokes. Makes analogies. Is, really, a big person trapped in a small person's body. (And is also, just a kid.) In just three years. Three years is how much longer we are scheduled to endure President Bush, a small person trapped in a big person's body. It does not seem like a short time--those three years stretch out ahead of us, an infinite vista of incompetence and mendacity and, for all we know, treason. A man can do a great deal of damage in three years if he sets his mind to it, and George Bush has always been a guy with his mind set. He's also a guy in denial. Bloggers aren't supposed to use the 'bunker' word, because that's a reference to you-know-who, and we lose all credibility if we compare this guy to that guy. Yeah, but I can't resist mentioning that 'water-boarding'--a practice that the White House says isn't nearly 'torture'--has an interesting history. From the 11/14 edition of AndrewSullivan.com: The use of a board was stylistically most closely associated with the work of a Nazi political interrogator by the name of Ludwig Ramdor who worked at Ravensbruck camp. Ramdor was tried before the British Military Court Martial at Hamburg (May 1946 to March 1947) on charges for subjecting women to this torture, subjecting another woman to drugs for interrogation, and subjecting a third to starvation and high pressure showers. He was found guilty and executed by the Allies in 1947. Cheery, isn't it? Who's going to find our leaders guilty? Who's going to execute them? No, they'll give each other Medals of Freedom and hope to hell Paris Hilton cracks up her Bentley again the day that the Supreme Court decides that we really can't put prisoners of war on the rack in secret jails. Or that habeas corpus actually matters. The latest reports have Bush not speaking to his father and being PO'd at Karl Rove. He is said to speak--on a regular basis--only to first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. You'll notice: all women. You could get pretty far with a psychological analysis that starts with this image: a boy hiding behind Mommy's skirts. And that's not the worst of it. CrooksandLiars.com ran a video of Bush campaigning the other day. Take a look. And pay careful attention to the slurring of words. If you didn't know that Jesus had helped Bush stop drinking years and years ago, you might say this guy is....sloshed. The country has, in recent weeks, finally wrapped its mind around the fact that Bush is a colossal liar. And that his lies are compounded by the massive incompetence that starts in his office and then seeps into every corner of his Administration. And that, at many points in the chain of commands, colossal crimes have been committed--in Iraq, billions have disappeared, probably in billion-dollar chunks. But crazy--crazy is hard to swallow. Because crazy doesn't usually get better without help. And because, if not treated, crazy gets crazier with time. Three years. I'm going to find projects that matter, the better to store up nuts for the winter. I'm going to do what I can to help the people the government is determined to hurt. (Yes, I know this is exactly what 'they' want, but whatcha gonna do--let children starve?) And I'm going to make sure I spend as much time as possible with Little Uptown. Bush may make minutes feel like hours; time with the little one just flies. And then, if we are lucky, three years will pass. Bush will shuffle off to his ranch, where no one will ever challenge him and the damage he can do is limited. And, having waited years for this moment, we will put our shoulders into the task of restoring our country's honor. For Little Uptown. And all the little ones.
Target has decided that if its pharmacists object to filling prescriptions for Plan B birth control, they don't have to. Says Target: In the rare event that a pharmacist's beliefs conflict with filling a guest's prescription for the emergency contraceptive Plan B, our policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest's prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner, either by another Target pharmacist or a different pharmacy.
The emergency contraceptive Plan B is the only medication for which this policy applies. Under no circumstances can the pharmacist prevent the prescription from being filled, make discourteous or judgmental remarks, or discuss his or her religious beliefs with the guest. The legal basis? Target claims that its employees are protected by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Huh? Target employees can refuse to wait on you because of their religious beliefs? You know they'd never argue a position that crazy in court... You know the correct response? Vote with your feet: Walk away from Target.
Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" invasion and occupation of Iraq. United Methodist leaders have spoken against the Iraq war before. This is a first for individual bishops. "In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent," said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide.
Brian Hart and his wife Alma lost their 20-year-old son, John Daniel Hart two years ago. John served in the Army's 173d Airborne Brigade in Iraq. Shortly before he died, he told his father that he and his buddies were concerned that their Humvee had no bulletproof armor--or even metal doors. Sadly, he was right to be concerned. In his grief, Brian Hart has badgered the military and the government to protect our soldiers better. He has built a network of supporters. And he keeps in touch. Here is his letter of 11/05/05. Dear Friend,
We received this photo by email from Sgt. Nick Pulliam in Iraq. An excerpt from the email was, "I attached a photo that you might want to post. The vehicle in question was hit by an IED on the road from ... The entire crew was o.k. thanks to the added armor. Our convoy witnessed this explosion and we were first on site to recover the vehicle. It now resides on our lot .... Thanks again for your, and Alma's, efforts on our behalf."
[The photo shows a soldier with a sign: Thanks to: Brian + Alma Hart, Senator Kennedy, and everyone else who care for our well being and makes an effort. You have saved lives.]
I have stared at the photo in humble appreciation over the weekend trying to decide whether or not to post it. After all, we should be thanking the Pulliams of this world instead, the unheralded soldiers that did their job, those willing to go in harm's way, come what may.
Since John was killed two years ago, Alma and I wanted to get the word out about the shortages of equipment with the simple mission of reducing casualties – of doing right by him for the comrades he was willing to die for. We never wanted to be the story – just get the problem solved and move on. But over time, somewhere, somehow, we became hopelessly intertwined in the prickly vines of our time that ensnare our hearts and threaten to smother the soul of our nation.
I would put Nick's photo in a box safely away with similar photos of wrecked vehicles we've received and alongside the crude cardboard memorial built by John's comrades as an ad hoc memorial – a simple frame made of wood from a crate, painted white – the collected treasures of our heart. The phrase in Nick's picture written on cardboard with a marker that caused me to change my mind and forward his message along is "thanks ... everybody who cares for our well being and makes an effort. You have saved lives."
Alma and I are mindful of the great many that went above and beyond the call to get the issue of body and vehicular armor addressed over the last two years. To those who wonder if their individual efforts ever made a difference against the stupidity of uncaring bureaucrats and the insanity of our times. So I have decided to post this photo. Also I forward to you by email this humble letter of thanks as you were part of the solution and did something.
As I think over the last two years, I hardly know who to thank first. There are so many to whom we are indebted, and almost all of whom desire anonymity.
We thank Sen. Kennedy for taking us seriously and going to bat for soldiers over 10 times now on vehicular and body armor procurement. He will never get the credit he deserves.
We thank Sen. Reed of Rhode Island for being on the ball from the beginning;
Mrs. B1 in Connecticut who cornered Rep. Shays in a diner and got him to agree to Rep. Meehan’s resolution on accelerated armor production if Rep. Simmons concurred; to Mrs. B2, another mother of a soldier that harassed Rep. Simmons office to take our calls and to Rep. Simmons for co-sponsoring Meehan’s resolution in 2004.
To thank Mrs. B2 for taking in soldiers at Walter Reed as if they were her own and with dogged persistence seeing that they got the treatment they deserved
To thank employees of Armor Holdings that went above and beyond the call to produce equipment,
To Rep. Murtha who spent an hour and a half on the phone with me after Dr. Silber got him to take my call because he was willing to get to the bottom of the fact that Congress was being lied to by generals regarding humvee production capacity and their statements about funding and then he got the appropriations needed. Without his help and later Duncan Hunter's, I'm certain hundreds, if not a thousand more, would be dead.
Of Tommy in upstate NY, who collected antique military vehicles, who pointed out to me almost immediately that this problem had occurred before in Vietnam and who doggedly pursued congressmen, senators and talk show hosts from the cab of his wrecker to get the truth out. Now in his late 30s he has enlisted to do his part even though he is old enough to know better. God bless him.
The many mothers of soldiers that tracked down their congressmen, especially those families from the National Guard.
To thank Mrs. Patti Bader-Patton who runs Brandon's Blog and founded Soldiers Angels because she showed me the power of the internet to get a message out and the benefits of unyielding tenacity. When wounded soldiers came in droves to military hospitals in Germany with nothing but a hospital gown, she raised thousands of dollars with Mrs. Saucier and Mrs. Nicholson to give them basic toiletries, and as much dignity as could be packed in a backpack.
Congressman Young's wife who visited daily the soldiers at Walter Reed and our friends there the Schieders.
Of many thanks to soldiers that risked their careers to tell us the truth in emails and phone calls to cold and lonely graveside testimonials.
Relatives and friends that wrote letters to officials, who tried to hand letters to Cheney who would not accept them.
Sen. McCain, who swung a few critical votes to keep the humvee plant running this summer when all else failed.
Rep. Weldon, who helped the Bernsteins.
Soldiers for the Truth and Operation Truth for being a forum and honest broker of news for enlisted personnel unable to speak up for themselves.
I want to thank the many journalists who stood up and helped us and to shame those gray and timid souls that didn't -- a public affairs statement from the Pentagon is not the whole news and sometimes not even the truth.
So I type our thanks with tear-blurred eyes and cloudy mind -- to everyone who cared for the soldiers' welfare and made an effort to make a difference – together perhaps we did.
Sincerely,
Brian & Alma Hart So many people. So very many good people. Makes you want to be one of them, doesn't it?
'The da Vinci Code' of art--that's the shorthand for Jonathan Harr's book. It's certainly a convenient way to summarize 'The Lost Painting' and amp up the excitement. Consider the painter. Caravaggio has become the favorite bad boy of the Italian Baroque--passionate, combative, probably gay, a murderer, and, along the way, an artist who painted masterpiece after masterpiece and then did his legend a favor by dying young. And consider the paintings: images ripped from the movies, all gloss and shadow, usually with only a single light source to highlight the dirty faces of extreme personalities seen in extremis. And then consider the painting: The Taking of Christ. One of only 80--or maybe 60--on the planet. Worth $50 million. If, that is, it were on the market. If, that is, anyone knew where it was. That's the engine of this book, the first by Harr since his best-selling legal chronicle, 'A Civil Action.' 'The Taking of Christ' is the Grail of Caravaggio scholars. There are copies, but the original disappeared 200 years ago. Can anyone find it? The answer is: Yes. 'How' is answered in the brisk 290 pages of The Lost Painting.
Monday, November 07, 2005
We need the moral high ground and our troops need the moral high ground because we've always believed we were better, we weren't like other armies--we didn't abuse people, we didn't torture, we didn't kill them. And to strip that core value from our troops is to strike at the very heart of the patriotism, the morale, the spirit, that animates the force of free men and women fighting for democracy. -- General Wesley Clark on torture
"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law. We do not torture." -- George Bush, 11/7/05
On Marathon Day in New York, I get this absurd burst of ambition. 'Next year,' I tell myself, 'I'll run this sucker.' But I'm a sprinter, by build and temperament. And now, with age and some small maturity, I'm just a spectator. My apartment is about mile 24. So I go down to the corner to watch. It's beautiful on Fifth Avenue most years, and it was especially pretty yesterday--leaves just starting to turn, a flawless sky, a great crowd. The first runners we saw were the women, and the cheers were loud. Next came the disabled. Most rode hand-propelled bikes. Some were grizzled Vietnam vets. A few were women. Most were amputees; some had useless legs, taped together. You see these people and you imagine the dedication it takes to do what they do--hell, just to get through their days--and you have a faint flash of what feels like pity, and then you get a surge of admiration for what they're achieving. Yeah, they had some bad luck, but they didn't let it stop them. They're steaming down Fifth Avenue, bathed in glory--this is the stuff of heroism. It's not to be patronized. It's to be cherished. And so you cheer. Then came a guy with one good leg. The other ended at the knee, and then he had a spring-like thing that functioned as a shin and shoe. Three friends were running with him, and I thought, 'What an honor that must be,' and I practically shouted myself hoarse for the guy. At length came the four lead male runners. Magnificent Africans, lean and hollow-eyed, running together just a bit longer before the turn into Central Park and the sprint to the finish. The spectators cheered for them, but nothing like the cheers for the disabled. I thought about that. And decided that what I saw--what I see every year--is something glorious: We want to cheer for people who get a bad break and don't accept it. We're happy that these people find comrades. That they make a plan and execute it. And then, on a day that honors excellence, that they too get a chance to shine. And then I thought this, and it made me so so sad: these deeply human impulses are also our finest impulses as Americans. We are--at least most of the people I know--generous people, eager to do a kindness if we can. But our government is another story. Just last week, Congress voted to deny free food to hundreds of thousands of school children in the name of a more 'responsible' budget. To do that and go home to your own well-fed kids--and feel no shame? Who does that? Hateful men, mean and proud of it. Men determined to keep on killing and maiming people in Iraq who will never get much in the way of medical care, support or opportunity. So it hurts to see, as I did on Marathon Day, the face of fairness and inclusion and brotherhood. It's a bitter reminder of who we are at our best, and how little that matters when our leaders are intent on showing us at our worst.
Did Pat Robertson really say on Sunday that the tornado in Indiana and Kentucky was God's way of expressing His anger at the actor Warren Beatty and his wife, Annette Bening, for trying to disrput a speech by Arnold Schwarzenegger? I am told, on 'The 700 Club' show on 11/6, Pat said: 'By choosing to disrupt this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God's wrath. Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at a town on the opposite side of the country?' Ok. Beatty, Bening, Arnold--all Hollywood elite. They have a minor incident in San Diego. So God throws thunderbolts at.....two Red States?
2000--yes, this movie will upset you. And do you need that? Yes, you do, because there's a surprise at the end that will take your breath away. And, also, because you are going to send this to everyone you know--and especially to anyone you can think of who still believes the 2000 died for anything so noble as a reason.
It has not been reported in the U.S. media--with the exception of a new blog called Firedoglake--that Bush traveled to the summit with a retinue of 2000 (yes, two thousand) security/staff. Last week, three airplanes loaded with arms for security as well as food for the entourage arrived in Argentina. Also, four AWAC spy planes are surveying the area. Sikorsky helicopters were transported to Argentina, U.S. navy ships have been deployed off the coast of Mar del Plata, all in anticipation of unrest due to the unpopularity of Bush in Argentina and in all of Latin America.
From The Washington Post: "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.
Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.
The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. Of course they're not defined. That's the beauty of unlimited government fighting an unending war. The key thing: never run out of enemies. Even if you have to play eeny-meeny-myny-mo....
Harvard University professor emeritus Edward O. Wilson is the guru of biodiversity and sociobiology. In an introduction to a collection of Charles Darwin's book prefaces, he tees off on 'intelligent design': Many who accept the fact of evolution cannot, however, on religious grounds, accept the operation of blind chance and the absence of divine purpose implicit in natural selection. They support the alternative explanation of intelligent design. The reasoning they offer is not base | | |
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