http://networkedblogs.com/p6577318
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) -vs- Transformers (2007)
When Robots Collide
Beau DeMayo
June 25, 2009 in Action, Beau DeMayo, Comic Book, Sci-Fi, Teens
The Smackdown. Hollywood's in love with the 1980s, and nowhere is it more apparent than with the Transformer's franchise. Started in 2007, the first "Transformers" was a box-office success, easily earning itself a sequel in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Now, in less then two years, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" hits theaters with the same cast and crew as the original. Sounds like a fair fight? So true spirit to the Transformer series, today's smackdown pits robot against robot in a knock-down intergalactic cinematic fight as we ask which film does robot-on-robot action better?
The Challenger. With "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," Michael Bay spares no expense ensuring audiences get more bang for their $14 movie ticket. This time, a college-bound Sam Witwicky finds himself trapped in the ever-escalating war between the Autobots and Decepticons...again. See, a prehistoric Transformer called The Fallen intends to drain our sun to obtain the Transformer's life-force, Energon. Naturally, he'll then conquer the cosmos or achieve some equally impolite end (like chewing with his mouth open). But only Sam knows the location of this Energon machine due to a series of psychic visions. Now, Sam must lead the Autobots to Egypt where they wage war against The Fallen, his Decepticons, and Megatron...yes, that's right, Megatron's back too. Still want more plot? Don't worry; I just gave you half. Clocking in well over two hours, "Transformers: RotF" has enough plot for three trilogies. It's the only type of sequel you'd expect from Michael Bay: one that's bigger, louder, and dumber.
The Defending Champion. "Transformers" was pitched to Michael Bay as a film about a boy getting his first car. Sounds nice. Really, it's about a boy caught between two groups of alien robots whose intergalactic war has crashed landed on Earth. Everyone's searching for the Allspark, a techno-mystical cube with the power to animate any mechanical form. By the end of the movie, I think I got that Megatron wanted this cube so he could create a new mechanical army to take over Earth... but that was after two brain-busting hours of claustrophobic action, syrupy slow-mo shots, self-aware jokes, and bombastic explosions.
The Scorecard. Both "Transformers" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" brim with elaborate action set-pieces, campy humor, and hyper-sexuality. Industrial Light and Magic struggles in both films to design the Transformers in such a way that we can distinguish one from the other. Whenever a fight erupts between Autobot and Decepticon, the on-screen action tumbles into a jumbled mess of flopping, indistinguishable mechanical parts. Sure, I appreciate the high level of detail, but not at the cost of coherent action scenes. "Transformers: RotF" especially suffers from ILM's designs as Bay introduces a whole slew of new Transformers that simply blend together. It's hard to appreciate large-scale action sequences when I can't tell the good from the bad guys and thus, can't tell who's winning.
Now both films embrace Bay's typical low-brow humor. Again, "Transformers: RotF" probably suffers most in this category. Gags like Sam's mom lolly-gagging around on a college campus after eating pot-brownies or the dangling wrecking ball testicles on a construction Decepticon aren't just dumb, they're insulting to the audiences' intelligence. "Transformers" had some corny moments, many centered around the Autobots fitting into Sam's suburban life. However, none proved as gregarious and useless as those in Transformers: RotF" where the jokes simply exist onto themselves and are cracked in the most inappropriate moments.
While on the topic of insulting our intelligence, let's not forget Sam's girlfriend Mikaela, played by Megan Fox. When we first meet her, Mikaela is bent over a motorcycle in daisy dukes, applying lip gloss as she flirts with Sam on the phone. This scene alone establishes Bay's general outlook toward women in "Transformers 2: RotF." Everyone female -- from college students to lip-lassoing Decepticons -- exist either as love-dumb airhead or sexy vixena. In the first film, we at least got to see female Defense analysts and agents. Even Mikaela, struggling to be more than just the popular girl, had a journey in "Transformers." She doesn't just make pouty-kiss faces at the camera as she does this time around.
But so far, both these films are guilty of the same crimes, with "Transformers: RotF" being a bit more to blame.
Now while "Transformers" had its healthy dose of claustrophobic over-plotting, "Transformers: RotF" proves that bigger is not always better. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman scribed both films, with Ehren Kruger joining them for the second outing. How much Michael Bay contributed to story, I don't know. However, there seems to be a constant tension between Bay's sensibilities and the retro-camp feeling the scribes hoped to achieve. Looking at the dialogue (especially of The Autobots), one will notice its on-the-nose, campy feel. What at first can be seen as just poor dialogue is really an homage to the 1980s cartoons, where Optimus Prime spoke in verbose monologues about sacrifice, virtue, and friendship. The writers spend a hefty amount of time establishing this cartoony world only to have Bay come in and try to merge it with real world grittiness.
In all his films, Bay has a clear love of the military. Even "Transformers" suffered from the "I love the military" attitude of Bay. But in "Transformers: RotF," I actually began to wonder if this movie was financed by the United States Military. As the Autobots square off against The Decepticons, Bay continually forces the US military to have a role in the action. Whole portions of the climax play like "Join The Army" ads, showing extreme sports style camera views of parachuting into combat. We watch Higgins boats and jet bombers do their thing. And we spend way too much time listening to "Delta Four, you are ready to blah blah blah at Vector blah blah bleh." But yet, at the same time, there's this evil alien robot with a energy spear hopping around The Great Pyramids, reeling in his plan "to destroy the sun and kill mankind!" It just doesn't fit. It doesn't feel natural or organic. Plus, isn't this a movie about big-ass robots?
Where this really hurts Bay is that the military, at times, is actually more competent than Sam or the Autobots. Example, while a huge Decepticon destroys a pyramid, another character calls a battleship off the coast and orders them to use their "rail gun." What is this rail gun? I don't know. First time we've ever heard about it. So, the battleship unveils this hi-tech rail gun and proceeds to destroy the huge Decepticon (from miles away!) when all of the Autobots could barely handle it. Yet they never use the gun again. Even as smaller and more exposed Decepticons continue to fight, the good guys never think, "Hey, that rail gun worked really nifty that time. Hm, how about..."
Moments like these seem too hammed and forced. This, matched with the constant intercutting of military procedures and lingo, create a climax that's like a geriatric patient wadding through mud.
Now, characterization is another thing to examine with these two films.
When the movie begins, you see that Sam's journey is going to be one of becoming a man. He's young and going off to college and his parents struggle to let him go. Now, more on his own than in the first film, Sam must rise to the occasion and lead the Autobots. Yet, isn't this essentially the same journey from the first film? What you soon realize in "Transformers: RotF" is that you are watching "Transformers," all over again, only with more robots, more action, and more dialogue. Sequels like "The Dark Knight" or "Spider-Man 2" demonstrated that you must ask a new dramatic question of your characters. The characters and the world must be explored differently, with new conclusions reached because of it. "Transformers: RotF" just retreads its predecessor's ground, adding nothing new.
And don't count on the Autobots to make the story feel any different. For spending so much time humanizing the Transformers with intricate facial expressions and body features, Bay fails to apply that same level of detail to their character arcs. Optimus Prime and his Autobot friends do not change. Optimus is always the loyal, headstrong leader. Bubblebee is always the loyal, childish robot. They don't grow, they don't evolve as a result of their conflicts. They simply move through a set of action pieces toward the film's end.
So now we're left with strict plot. "Transformers" was fairly standard in terms of its plot. We have a sympathetic character. He gets in trouble. Whoops! Bad guys. Comedic moments. Action. Damn, things look severe. What? Yay! Good guys win! So while I can't forgive the plot paradox of the Allspark being a object that can both restore and kill Transformers, I can say "Transformers" at least tried. On the other hand, "Transformers: RotF" takes poor plotting to another level.
The movie spends forty minutes establishing itself. And that's because it's just so damned convoluted. Here, just watch:
Sam is going to college and Mikaela is staying behind and while Sam's gone his parents are going to Paris to get some free time now that they've finally let their son go. But Sam touched a fragment of the Allspark from the first movie and now is having these mental breakdowns in class and drawing weird Autobot hieroglyphs everywhere. Meanwhile, The Autobots are working for the US government but at the same time they may be exiled by the government because the Decepticons are still causing a ruckus and the public is becoming more and more aware that there are gigantic robot aliens warring on the planet. Also the Decepticons are spying on Earth in order to locate Megatron (who died) so they can bring him to The Fallen who is the master of Megatron and wants to find this ancient machine that was left on Earth that will allow him to harness the sun's rays to get Energon which will enable him to create an army and take over the universe.
We wait nearly an hour for all of that to get set-up....just so we can understand what the hell is going on. What's worse? It doesn't stop there as Sam must journey to find an ancient Prime Transformer who space-jumps them to Egypt where they go on an Indiana Jones adventure trying to solve an ancient riddle about three kings and hunt down a legendary alien artifact.
Along the way, as we trudge through this near incomprehensible plot, we lose track of any character arcs, any themes, or any nuances that would make us appreciate this film as anything more than eye sex (and like I said, even that is jumbled). By the time we reach Egypt and the film's climactic battle, you actually find yourself rooting for the film to end regardless of who dies in the process.
The Decision. So yeah, I know, "Transformers" is not a great film. But it was understandable in terms of plot and character. There was something to hold onto in the journey of a boy becoming a man. But "Transformers: RotF" is just spectacle, and jumbled spectacle at best. It retreads its predecessors ground with more action and less class. So when it comes down to these two films, it's "Transformers" that offers us something more than what meets our eye!
Monday, June 29, 2009
The New York Times and Iran
“Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism. It is perhaps too much to hope that Iran’s experience will prevent the rest of Mossadeqs in other countries, but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and far-seeing leaders.”
New York Times, August 1954
This quote should be remembered whenever mainstream pundits claim those in the Middle East aren't ready for democracy. In fact, Iran had a vibrant democracy over 50 years ago, and it was squashed by the CIA and US oil companies because Mossadeq was demanding a fair cut for the Iranian people on the oil business.
Likewise any talk in the mainstream press claiming outrage over election fraud in Iran shouldn't be taken seriously after the Bush swindles of 2000 and 2004. At this point, the US establishment has less credibility defending democracy than it does condemning torture and war crimes.
Ahmadinejad's reelection may be a con, but I've yet to see any evidence of it, even if the dude is a creep. At this point, this just looks like another attempted electoral coup funded by the Orwellian named National Endowment for Democracy to put another guy who will shove the IMF agenda down his country's throat while feigning to be a paragon of democracy...
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/pers-j19.shtml
The New York Times and Iran: Journalism as state provocation
19 June 2009
Bill Van Auken
In an editorial published Thursday entitled “Iran’s Nonrepublic,” the New York Times once again denounced the country’s presidential elections, declaring that “government authorities bulldozed the results” and that the victory of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was “bogus.”
At the same time, echoing a statement made by President Barack Obama the day before, the newspaper warned, “Given its history with Iran, the United States must take special care not to be seen as interfering.”
The Times editorial board does not believe that this stricture applies to itself. Since the results of the June 12 election were announced, the newspaper has pursued a journalistic policy of out-and-out provocation in service of the imperialist interests that official Washington insists it must not be seen as pursuing.
The Times observes no standard of journalistic objectivity, reporting as fact that the Iranian election was stolen, without providing a scintilla of proof to back it up. Instead, it uncritically repeats the insistence of the Mousavi camp that it is so.
The newspaper has not even bothered to report, much less analyze, the vote totals, which are readily available by both city and province and refute the claims made that the ballots were rigged to give Ahmadinejad a 60 percent margin across the board.
On the contrary, they show that Mousavi won—in some cases by a two-to-one margin—precisely in the areas that are now the center of the election protests—the wealthier suburbs of Tehran, Shiraz and elsewhere.
The US has intense interests in Iran, with the Obama administration fighting wars on its eastern and western borders. There is, moreover, the long history of hostility between the two countries, stemming from Washington’s previous domination of Iran and its oil wealth through its dictatorial client regime under the Shah, and the revolution that brought that regime to an end. Given these interests and this history, conscientious coverage of Iranian politics, particularly by US journalists, calls for not only objectivity, but also sensitivity to Washington’s intervention in Iran’s affairs and attempts to influence its politics.
The Times coverage, however, exhibits no such objectivity whatsoever. The newspaper has simply ignored commentary from prominent analysts of the region who have suggested that the claims of a rigged election are not supported by the evidence. These include Anthony Cordesman, the chief military strategy and Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Hillary Mann Leverett, the former chief Iran analyst on George W. Bush’s National Security Council, and her husband Flynt Leverett, a long time CIA analyst and NSC staffer, who together wrote a column entitled “Ahmadinejad won. Get over it;” and George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor private intelligence service.
All of them said that the right-wing populist Ahmadinejad retained substantial popular support in Iran, particularly among the rural poor and more oppressed social layers, and warned against “Iran experts” who based their analyses on wishful thinking and contact with a more affluent, English-speaking minority in Iran.
The fact that the Times employs its claims of fraud to demand a new election—calling the Guardian Council’s call for recounting ballots a “cynical gesture”—is highly significant. The newspaper is not interested in correcting vote fraud, but rather in bringing pressure to bear within the Iranian state to effect a political coup.
This was spelled out explicitly Thursday by Times foreign affairs columnist Roger Cohen, who speculated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “will come to view Ahmadinejad as a liability.” He continued, “In Mousavi he has a credible vehicle for a reform of the regime that serves to preserve it... The supreme leader can find the means to reverse course.”
This succinctly sums up Washington’s aims—to exert pressure on the Iranian state to carry out a change at the top that will render the regime more amenable to US interests in the region and more open to American capital within Iran. The concern for democracy, while sincerely held by millions of Iranians, is for the Times, as for the US government, merely a pretext.
No doubt there were instances of vote-rigging in Iran, but this is the rule, not the exception, in elections around the globe. And not infrequently, particularly in the so-called lesser developed countries, elections end in charges of fraud by the losing party that trigger mass demonstrations and even armed clashes.
Just last April, elections in Moldova ended in violent protests, with the losing party claiming fraud and the winning one saying it was the victim of an attempted coup. In November of last year in Nicaragua, nationwide local elections in which the opposition claimed irregularities led to confrontations involving thousands of people armed with bats, rocks, machetes and guns. Last July, charges of election fraud led to mass rioting in the capital of Mongolia. There is no record of the Times becoming particularly exercised about any of these events.
Particularly instructive is the attitude taken by the newspaper toward the disputed 2006 presidential election in Mexico, when the conservative candidate Felipe Calderon—with just 36 percent of the vote and amid substantiated charges of gross electoral fraud—claimed victory over his left-nationalist opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The Times called for no new election then, and was largely indifferent to the evidence that the election had been rigged. While the massive crowds that took to the streets of Mexico City were comparable to those seen in Tehran, the newspaper showed only disdain for the protesters.
On July 7, just five days after the contested vote totals were announced, the Times haughtily editorialized: “Mr. Lopez Obrador has occasionally furthered his political career by inviting supporters to take to the streets... but he should resist inciting mass protests, which would harm Mexico’s stability and add to his image as a less-than-committed democrat.”
In Mexico, the victim of vote fraud was told to stand down in the interests of “stability,” while mass protests by his supporters were portrayed as a threat to democracy—the exact inverse of the newspaper’s approach to the Iranian events. Why the difference? In Mexico, the candidate favored by Washington won, and in Iran, the White House seeks not stability, but destabilization.
Even closer to home, the approach of the newspaper to the claims of a stolen Iranian election stands in stark contrast to the open theft of the 2000 election by the Republican Party, which only two years before had sought to carry out an extra-constitutional coup against an elected president by means of a bogus impeachment—an operation that the Times had helped legitimize.
In that election, it was not a matter of the government offering a partial recount of disputed ballots in Florida, but a direct intervention by the US Supreme Court to stop a statewide recount that had been ordered by the Florida Supreme Court to insure that all votes were properly counted. Did the Times advocate mass protests or demand a new election? Far from it. The newspaper made itself an accomplice to this unprecedented assault on democratic rights—the suppression of the vote to install the candidate who had lost the popular vote nationally.
In the course of the bitter battle over the Florida vote, a Times editorial demanded an end to “wild talk of vote-stealing and coups d’état”—precisely what was happening. And after the US Supreme Court selected Bush, negating the will of the majority of voters, the newspaper demanded that the decision be accepted in order to “unify the nation.” It praised Democratic candidate Al Gore for capitulating, calling it “a patriotic duty.”
Neither the Times nor the US government are in a position to give lessons to Iran or anyone else on the subject of democracy. The American electoral system, rife with fraud, is controlled lock, stock and barrel by two parties of big business whose national candidates are vetted for their loyalty to a financial oligarchy.
Leading US politicians—including John Kerry in an op-ed piece published by the Times Thursday—have insisted that the US must keep a low profile in Iran because of its role in organizing the 1953 coup that overthrew the nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, and ushered in the 26-year torture regime of the Shah. By the same token, the editors of the Times should keep their mouths shut.
In 1953, their correspondent in Tehran, Kennett Love, was not only a willing conduit for CIA disinformation, but acknowledged participating directly in the coup. He subsequently wrote of giving an Iranian army tank column instructions to attack Mossadeq’s house. Afterwards, the Times celebrated the coup and demanded unconditional support for the Shah’s regime.
Little has changed since. It is not difficult to find evidence that the Times acts—both in its news coverage and its editorial line—as a major instrument of US foreign policy. Its main function is to provide justifications for the policies pursued by American imperialism around the globe, while manipulating public opinion at home and abroad to support them. As the “newspaper of record,” it sets the agenda for much of the US media, which echoes its line.
There was, of course, the well-known and criminal role played by the newspaper in promoting—and through its senior correspondent Judith Miller helping to fabricate—the lies of the Bush administration about “weapons of mass destruction” that were used as the pretext for the war against Iraq.
Then there was the newspaper’s endorsement of the abortive April 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Times praised the sections of the Venezuelan military that had “intervened and handed power to a respected business leader.” It argued that, as a result of the armed overthrow of an elected president, “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened.” It likewise helped Washington cover its tracks, claiming—incredibly—that the coup was “a purely Venezuelan affair.”
More recently, there was the newspaper’s response—both its reporting and editorials—to the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war. Using the same methods as in Iran—contempt for journalistic objectivity, the retailing of claims made by Washington and its allies as fact and disregarding of all evidence to the contrary—the Times presented the war as an unprovoked act of Russian aggression. It willfully ignored undeniable evidence that the fighting began as an unprovoked and brutal attack by Georgian forces on Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The Times cast the conflict as “Russia’s war of ambition,” an attempt by Vladimir Putin “to re-impose by force and intimidation as much of the old Soviet sphere of influence as he can get away with.” Facts on the ground, reported by monitors in Georgia from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) among others, belied this account and pointed to the US using Georgia as its proxy in an act of aggression against Russia itself.
In the case of the present crisis in Iran, the Times has employed all of these methods of distortion and deceit on a grand scale, in an effort that was prepared well before the elections were held.
Leading this effort is Executive Editor Bill Keller, who is arguably the most morally compromised editor in the US today—and that’s saying something! It was Keller who, at the request of the Bush administration, withheld a story on the National Security Agency’s illegal domestic spying operation until after the 2004 election, playing what may have been a decisive role in delivering Bush a second term.
He was recently dispatched to Tehran to write “Memos from Iran.” The extraordinary character of this assignment is shown in the fact that between taking over as the newspaper’s senior editor in July 2003 and his trip to Iran, Keller—the newspaper’s man in Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union—is credited by the Times web site with writing precisely six articles, none of them news stories.
Keller’s presence is evidence that the Times is involved in a major operation. He was accompanied to Tehran by a number of others, including the vicious anti-socialist foreign affairs columnist Roger Cohen. A veteran propagandist for US imperialist interests, Cohen has churned out justifications for the US intervention in the Balkans, the war against Iraq, the US policy in Georgia, and now the destabilization effort in Iran.
In the days of Kennett Love, the CIA put journalists on its payroll to secure their collaboration. With the likes of Keller and Cohen, this is no longer necessary. The lavishly-paid senior columnists and editors at the Times don’t need to be bribed. Their social interests are naturally in sync with the aims of US imperialist policy.
The seamless intersection of the news and views published in America’s leading newspaper with the interests of US imperialism and its ruling elite is both a symptom and contributing factor in the advanced decay of democratic processes in the United States.
It poses the urgent necessity of building a new independent socialist media of the working class, the task being carried forward by the World Socialist Web Site.
New York Times, August 1954
This quote should be remembered whenever mainstream pundits claim those in the Middle East aren't ready for democracy. In fact, Iran had a vibrant democracy over 50 years ago, and it was squashed by the CIA and US oil companies because Mossadeq was demanding a fair cut for the Iranian people on the oil business.
Likewise any talk in the mainstream press claiming outrage over election fraud in Iran shouldn't be taken seriously after the Bush swindles of 2000 and 2004. At this point, the US establishment has less credibility defending democracy than it does condemning torture and war crimes.
Ahmadinejad's reelection may be a con, but I've yet to see any evidence of it, even if the dude is a creep. At this point, this just looks like another attempted electoral coup funded by the Orwellian named National Endowment for Democracy to put another guy who will shove the IMF agenda down his country's throat while feigning to be a paragon of democracy...
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/pers-j19.shtml
The New York Times and Iran: Journalism as state provocation
19 June 2009
Bill Van Auken
In an editorial published Thursday entitled “Iran’s Nonrepublic,” the New York Times once again denounced the country’s presidential elections, declaring that “government authorities bulldozed the results” and that the victory of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was “bogus.”
At the same time, echoing a statement made by President Barack Obama the day before, the newspaper warned, “Given its history with Iran, the United States must take special care not to be seen as interfering.”
The Times editorial board does not believe that this stricture applies to itself. Since the results of the June 12 election were announced, the newspaper has pursued a journalistic policy of out-and-out provocation in service of the imperialist interests that official Washington insists it must not be seen as pursuing.
The Times observes no standard of journalistic objectivity, reporting as fact that the Iranian election was stolen, without providing a scintilla of proof to back it up. Instead, it uncritically repeats the insistence of the Mousavi camp that it is so.
The newspaper has not even bothered to report, much less analyze, the vote totals, which are readily available by both city and province and refute the claims made that the ballots were rigged to give Ahmadinejad a 60 percent margin across the board.
On the contrary, they show that Mousavi won—in some cases by a two-to-one margin—precisely in the areas that are now the center of the election protests—the wealthier suburbs of Tehran, Shiraz and elsewhere.
The US has intense interests in Iran, with the Obama administration fighting wars on its eastern and western borders. There is, moreover, the long history of hostility between the two countries, stemming from Washington’s previous domination of Iran and its oil wealth through its dictatorial client regime under the Shah, and the revolution that brought that regime to an end. Given these interests and this history, conscientious coverage of Iranian politics, particularly by US journalists, calls for not only objectivity, but also sensitivity to Washington’s intervention in Iran’s affairs and attempts to influence its politics.
The Times coverage, however, exhibits no such objectivity whatsoever. The newspaper has simply ignored commentary from prominent analysts of the region who have suggested that the claims of a rigged election are not supported by the evidence. These include Anthony Cordesman, the chief military strategy and Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Hillary Mann Leverett, the former chief Iran analyst on George W. Bush’s National Security Council, and her husband Flynt Leverett, a long time CIA analyst and NSC staffer, who together wrote a column entitled “Ahmadinejad won. Get over it;” and George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor private intelligence service.
All of them said that the right-wing populist Ahmadinejad retained substantial popular support in Iran, particularly among the rural poor and more oppressed social layers, and warned against “Iran experts” who based their analyses on wishful thinking and contact with a more affluent, English-speaking minority in Iran.
The fact that the Times employs its claims of fraud to demand a new election—calling the Guardian Council’s call for recounting ballots a “cynical gesture”—is highly significant. The newspaper is not interested in correcting vote fraud, but rather in bringing pressure to bear within the Iranian state to effect a political coup.
This was spelled out explicitly Thursday by Times foreign affairs columnist Roger Cohen, who speculated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “will come to view Ahmadinejad as a liability.” He continued, “In Mousavi he has a credible vehicle for a reform of the regime that serves to preserve it... The supreme leader can find the means to reverse course.”
This succinctly sums up Washington’s aims—to exert pressure on the Iranian state to carry out a change at the top that will render the regime more amenable to US interests in the region and more open to American capital within Iran. The concern for democracy, while sincerely held by millions of Iranians, is for the Times, as for the US government, merely a pretext.
No doubt there were instances of vote-rigging in Iran, but this is the rule, not the exception, in elections around the globe. And not infrequently, particularly in the so-called lesser developed countries, elections end in charges of fraud by the losing party that trigger mass demonstrations and even armed clashes.
Just last April, elections in Moldova ended in violent protests, with the losing party claiming fraud and the winning one saying it was the victim of an attempted coup. In November of last year in Nicaragua, nationwide local elections in which the opposition claimed irregularities led to confrontations involving thousands of people armed with bats, rocks, machetes and guns. Last July, charges of election fraud led to mass rioting in the capital of Mongolia. There is no record of the Times becoming particularly exercised about any of these events.
Particularly instructive is the attitude taken by the newspaper toward the disputed 2006 presidential election in Mexico, when the conservative candidate Felipe Calderon—with just 36 percent of the vote and amid substantiated charges of gross electoral fraud—claimed victory over his left-nationalist opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The Times called for no new election then, and was largely indifferent to the evidence that the election had been rigged. While the massive crowds that took to the streets of Mexico City were comparable to those seen in Tehran, the newspaper showed only disdain for the protesters.
On July 7, just five days after the contested vote totals were announced, the Times haughtily editorialized: “Mr. Lopez Obrador has occasionally furthered his political career by inviting supporters to take to the streets... but he should resist inciting mass protests, which would harm Mexico’s stability and add to his image as a less-than-committed democrat.”
In Mexico, the victim of vote fraud was told to stand down in the interests of “stability,” while mass protests by his supporters were portrayed as a threat to democracy—the exact inverse of the newspaper’s approach to the Iranian events. Why the difference? In Mexico, the candidate favored by Washington won, and in Iran, the White House seeks not stability, but destabilization.
Even closer to home, the approach of the newspaper to the claims of a stolen Iranian election stands in stark contrast to the open theft of the 2000 election by the Republican Party, which only two years before had sought to carry out an extra-constitutional coup against an elected president by means of a bogus impeachment—an operation that the Times had helped legitimize.
In that election, it was not a matter of the government offering a partial recount of disputed ballots in Florida, but a direct intervention by the US Supreme Court to stop a statewide recount that had been ordered by the Florida Supreme Court to insure that all votes were properly counted. Did the Times advocate mass protests or demand a new election? Far from it. The newspaper made itself an accomplice to this unprecedented assault on democratic rights—the suppression of the vote to install the candidate who had lost the popular vote nationally.
In the course of the bitter battle over the Florida vote, a Times editorial demanded an end to “wild talk of vote-stealing and coups d’état”—precisely what was happening. And after the US Supreme Court selected Bush, negating the will of the majority of voters, the newspaper demanded that the decision be accepted in order to “unify the nation.” It praised Democratic candidate Al Gore for capitulating, calling it “a patriotic duty.”
Neither the Times nor the US government are in a position to give lessons to Iran or anyone else on the subject of democracy. The American electoral system, rife with fraud, is controlled lock, stock and barrel by two parties of big business whose national candidates are vetted for their loyalty to a financial oligarchy.
Leading US politicians—including John Kerry in an op-ed piece published by the Times Thursday—have insisted that the US must keep a low profile in Iran because of its role in organizing the 1953 coup that overthrew the nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, and ushered in the 26-year torture regime of the Shah. By the same token, the editors of the Times should keep their mouths shut.
In 1953, their correspondent in Tehran, Kennett Love, was not only a willing conduit for CIA disinformation, but acknowledged participating directly in the coup. He subsequently wrote of giving an Iranian army tank column instructions to attack Mossadeq’s house. Afterwards, the Times celebrated the coup and demanded unconditional support for the Shah’s regime.
Little has changed since. It is not difficult to find evidence that the Times acts—both in its news coverage and its editorial line—as a major instrument of US foreign policy. Its main function is to provide justifications for the policies pursued by American imperialism around the globe, while manipulating public opinion at home and abroad to support them. As the “newspaper of record,” it sets the agenda for much of the US media, which echoes its line.
There was, of course, the well-known and criminal role played by the newspaper in promoting—and through its senior correspondent Judith Miller helping to fabricate—the lies of the Bush administration about “weapons of mass destruction” that were used as the pretext for the war against Iraq.
Then there was the newspaper’s endorsement of the abortive April 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Times praised the sections of the Venezuelan military that had “intervened and handed power to a respected business leader.” It argued that, as a result of the armed overthrow of an elected president, “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened.” It likewise helped Washington cover its tracks, claiming—incredibly—that the coup was “a purely Venezuelan affair.”
More recently, there was the newspaper’s response—both its reporting and editorials—to the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war. Using the same methods as in Iran—contempt for journalistic objectivity, the retailing of claims made by Washington and its allies as fact and disregarding of all evidence to the contrary—the Times presented the war as an unprovoked act of Russian aggression. It willfully ignored undeniable evidence that the fighting began as an unprovoked and brutal attack by Georgian forces on Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The Times cast the conflict as “Russia’s war of ambition,” an attempt by Vladimir Putin “to re-impose by force and intimidation as much of the old Soviet sphere of influence as he can get away with.” Facts on the ground, reported by monitors in Georgia from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) among others, belied this account and pointed to the US using Georgia as its proxy in an act of aggression against Russia itself.
In the case of the present crisis in Iran, the Times has employed all of these methods of distortion and deceit on a grand scale, in an effort that was prepared well before the elections were held.
Leading this effort is Executive Editor Bill Keller, who is arguably the most morally compromised editor in the US today—and that’s saying something! It was Keller who, at the request of the Bush administration, withheld a story on the National Security Agency’s illegal domestic spying operation until after the 2004 election, playing what may have been a decisive role in delivering Bush a second term.
He was recently dispatched to Tehran to write “Memos from Iran.” The extraordinary character of this assignment is shown in the fact that between taking over as the newspaper’s senior editor in July 2003 and his trip to Iran, Keller—the newspaper’s man in Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union—is credited by the Times web site with writing precisely six articles, none of them news stories.
Keller’s presence is evidence that the Times is involved in a major operation. He was accompanied to Tehran by a number of others, including the vicious anti-socialist foreign affairs columnist Roger Cohen. A veteran propagandist for US imperialist interests, Cohen has churned out justifications for the US intervention in the Balkans, the war against Iraq, the US policy in Georgia, and now the destabilization effort in Iran.
In the days of Kennett Love, the CIA put journalists on its payroll to secure their collaboration. With the likes of Keller and Cohen, this is no longer necessary. The lavishly-paid senior columnists and editors at the Times don’t need to be bribed. Their social interests are naturally in sync with the aims of US imperialist policy.
The seamless intersection of the news and views published in America’s leading newspaper with the interests of US imperialism and its ruling elite is both a symptom and contributing factor in the advanced decay of democratic processes in the United States.
It poses the urgent necessity of building a new independent socialist media of the working class, the task being carried forward by the World Socialist Web Site.
Mediterranean Diet May Boost Longevity
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20090623/mediterranean-diet-may-boost-longevity
Mediterranean Diet May Boost Longevity
Study Shows Benefits of Diet That Favors Less Meat, More Veggies, and Olive Oil
By Caroline Wilbert
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
June 23, 2009 -- Want to live a long time? When you prepare dinner tonight, go heavy on the vegetables, skip the meat, and enjoy a bit of wine.
Past research already has linked the so-called Mediterranean diet with longevity. A new study finds that certain aspects of the diet -- such as high consumption of vegetables and olive oil, low consumption of meat, and moderate consumption of alcohol -- may be more strongly linked to longevity.
Researchers looked at the Greek participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. This included 23,349 men and women not previously diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, or diabetes.
Researchers examined their diets and followed them for 8.5 years, on average, until June 2008. All diets were rated according to how closely they adhered to a traditional Mediterranean diet.
During the study period, there were 652 deaths among 12,694 participants who had lower Mediterranean diet scores of 0-4 and 423 deaths among the 10,655 participants who had higher scores of at least 5. In general, those with higher scores were more likely to still be alive at the end of the study.
Certain aspects of the diet were more linked to this phenomenon than others. Contributors, in order of importance, were: moderate alcohol consumption, low consumption of meat and meat products, high vegetable consumption, high fruit and nut consumption, high monounsaturated to saturated fat ratio, and high legume consumption.
Mediterranean Diet May Boost Longevity
Study Shows Benefits of Diet That Favors Less Meat, More Veggies, and Olive Oil
By Caroline Wilbert
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
June 23, 2009 -- Want to live a long time? When you prepare dinner tonight, go heavy on the vegetables, skip the meat, and enjoy a bit of wine.
Past research already has linked the so-called Mediterranean diet with longevity. A new study finds that certain aspects of the diet -- such as high consumption of vegetables and olive oil, low consumption of meat, and moderate consumption of alcohol -- may be more strongly linked to longevity.
Researchers looked at the Greek participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. This included 23,349 men and women not previously diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, or diabetes.
Researchers examined their diets and followed them for 8.5 years, on average, until June 2008. All diets were rated according to how closely they adhered to a traditional Mediterranean diet.
During the study period, there were 652 deaths among 12,694 participants who had lower Mediterranean diet scores of 0-4 and 423 deaths among the 10,655 participants who had higher scores of at least 5. In general, those with higher scores were more likely to still be alive at the end of the study.
Certain aspects of the diet were more linked to this phenomenon than others. Contributors, in order of importance, were: moderate alcohol consumption, low consumption of meat and meat products, high vegetable consumption, high fruit and nut consumption, high monounsaturated to saturated fat ratio, and high legume consumption.
Fats to Avoid: The Polyunsaturated Oil Epidemic
http://www.naturalnews.com/026471_fats_health_fatty_acids.html
Fats to Avoid: The Polyunsaturated Oil Epidemic
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Elizabeth Walling, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews) They sit on the grocery store aisles, appearing rather innocent. They are clear and odorless - mainly because they have been bleached and deodorized with chemicals after high-heat processing has turned them rancid. And, interestingly enough, they are touted as a health food that can save your heart.
They are polyunsaturated oils like soybean, canola and corn oil. They are industrialized oil, and they have reared their ugly heads at the health of modern society.
Why is polyunsaturated fat bad for your health?
The main difference between polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat (like olive oil) is the structure. Monounsaturated fatty acids are linked by one double bond, but polyunsaturated fats are linked by multiple double bonds. This structure is unstable and wreaks havoc on the cells in your body. It contributes to oxidation and free radical damage in the body, which is linked to heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, autoimmune diseases and premature aging.
The instability of polyunsaturated fats is especially volatile during any kind of processing. Even small amounts of light, moisture, air or heat damage polyunsaturated fat. These oils cannot withstand exposure to heat when used for cooking, but they are still the main choice for restaurants and fast food joints because they are cheap and the claim "cooked in vegetable oil" sounds healthier to customers. The truth is that cooking with these oils turns them rancid, making them even more dangerous when consumed.
Another concern about consuming high levels of omega-6 fatty acids is they may interfere with the body's production of prostaglandins. This can cause many adverse conditions in the body, including blood clots, sterility, poor immunity, indigestion, and cancer.
Too much omega-6 fatty acids can also interfere with the use of the very important omega-3 fatty acids in the body. And since polyunsaturated oils are used almost exclusively in conventional processed foods, it's very easy for people to take in far more omega-6 fatty acids than their body can use. The omega-6 fatty acids in these oils essentially crowds out the omega-3's, leaving people's health to suffer as a result.
What about the claims that polyunsaturated oils are good for your heart?
Some experts have advised the public to toss out the traditional cooking fats like coconut oil and butter, and replace them with polyunsaturated oils instead. They say this will save your heart, but heart disease is more rampant than ever while we virtually soak our foods in these oils.
Historically, the evidence is hard to miss. Heart disease was a rare occurrence when most cultures consumed mainly fats like coconut oil, palm oil, butter, tallow and ghee. The rate of heart disease began to skyrocket in the early 20th century - just about the time when polyunsaturated oils became popular, mainly because they could be cheaply manufactured.
So, do we need to shun these oils completely?
Not exactly. You can still consume small amounts of these oils in your diet - if they aren't damaged and rancid. Avoiding processed foods can do a lot to protect you from rancid polyunsaturated oils. If you choose to purchase polyunsaturated oils, buy them organic and cold-pressed in opaque containers. Even then, these oils are best for sprinkling lightly over salads and not for cooking, since even medium heat can damage them. Instead, cook with traditional oils that can withstand the heat, such as coconut oil.
About the author
Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer, specializing in articles about health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent common illnesses.
Fats to Avoid: The Polyunsaturated Oil Epidemic
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Elizabeth Walling, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews) They sit on the grocery store aisles, appearing rather innocent. They are clear and odorless - mainly because they have been bleached and deodorized with chemicals after high-heat processing has turned them rancid. And, interestingly enough, they are touted as a health food that can save your heart.
They are polyunsaturated oils like soybean, canola and corn oil. They are industrialized oil, and they have reared their ugly heads at the health of modern society.
Why is polyunsaturated fat bad for your health?
The main difference between polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat (like olive oil) is the structure. Monounsaturated fatty acids are linked by one double bond, but polyunsaturated fats are linked by multiple double bonds. This structure is unstable and wreaks havoc on the cells in your body. It contributes to oxidation and free radical damage in the body, which is linked to heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, autoimmune diseases and premature aging.
The instability of polyunsaturated fats is especially volatile during any kind of processing. Even small amounts of light, moisture, air or heat damage polyunsaturated fat. These oils cannot withstand exposure to heat when used for cooking, but they are still the main choice for restaurants and fast food joints because they are cheap and the claim "cooked in vegetable oil" sounds healthier to customers. The truth is that cooking with these oils turns them rancid, making them even more dangerous when consumed.
Another concern about consuming high levels of omega-6 fatty acids is they may interfere with the body's production of prostaglandins. This can cause many adverse conditions in the body, including blood clots, sterility, poor immunity, indigestion, and cancer.
Too much omega-6 fatty acids can also interfere with the use of the very important omega-3 fatty acids in the body. And since polyunsaturated oils are used almost exclusively in conventional processed foods, it's very easy for people to take in far more omega-6 fatty acids than their body can use. The omega-6 fatty acids in these oils essentially crowds out the omega-3's, leaving people's health to suffer as a result.
What about the claims that polyunsaturated oils are good for your heart?
Some experts have advised the public to toss out the traditional cooking fats like coconut oil and butter, and replace them with polyunsaturated oils instead. They say this will save your heart, but heart disease is more rampant than ever while we virtually soak our foods in these oils.
Historically, the evidence is hard to miss. Heart disease was a rare occurrence when most cultures consumed mainly fats like coconut oil, palm oil, butter, tallow and ghee. The rate of heart disease began to skyrocket in the early 20th century - just about the time when polyunsaturated oils became popular, mainly because they could be cheaply manufactured.
So, do we need to shun these oils completely?
Not exactly. You can still consume small amounts of these oils in your diet - if they aren't damaged and rancid. Avoiding processed foods can do a lot to protect you from rancid polyunsaturated oils. If you choose to purchase polyunsaturated oils, buy them organic and cold-pressed in opaque containers. Even then, these oils are best for sprinkling lightly over salads and not for cooking, since even medium heat can damage them. Instead, cook with traditional oils that can withstand the heat, such as coconut oil.
About the author
Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer, specializing in articles about health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent common illnesses.
The Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinkpicturegalleries/5568774/The-Heart-Attack-Grill-in-Chandler-Arizona.html
The Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona
The Heart Attack Grill is a hospital-themed restaurant in Chandler, Arizona, which has become famous for embracing and promoting an unhealthy diet of extremely large hamburgers. Customers are referred to as "patients," orders as "prescriptions," and the waitresses as "nurses." "Patients" wear medical gowns, and their orders are written on on tags worn around their wrists. The restaurant's waitresses dress in sexy retro nurses' uniforms. The restaurant has been criticised for its portrayal of nurses. Its website features a disclaimer: "None of the women pictured on our website actually have any medical training, nor do they attempt to provide any real medical services." The concept of the Heart Attack Grill has been described as "nutritional pornography." The menu includes Single, Double, Triple and Quadruple Bypass Burgers, plus Flatliner Fries cooked in pure lard. The burgers' names imply coronary artery bypass surgery, and refer to the danger of developing heart disease from the food's high saturated fat and calorie content. The Quadruple Bypass Burger contains around 8,000 calories (about four times the recommended daily calorie intake for women.) A free wheelchair service is offered to "patients" who finish a Quadruple Bypass Burger. Customers weighing over 350 lb (160 kg) eat for free if they weigh in before each burger. The restaurant was founded in December 2005 by Dr Jon, who has published a "fitness" book: How to Eat, Drink and Smoke Your Way to Better Health.
Restaurants on the Ropes
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Restaurants-on-the-usnews-15511482.html
Restaurants on the Ropes
Rick Newman
Friday June 12, 2009
When Americans get stressed out, one thing they do is eat. But apparently not enough.
The dismal economy has punished retailers, with companies like Circuit City and Linens 'n Things going extinct and dozens of others losing money. Now it's hitting their cousins in the restaurant industry, too. The Bennigan's and Steak & Ale chains were early casualties, going belly up last summer. This year, with Americans cutting back on spending, sales at restaurants could fall by 10 percent or more. Analysts don't expect widespread closures, but some chains are likely to close unprofitable outlets, cut back on service, and look for other ways to reduce costs.
As in retail, companies that help people save money will weather the storm better than others. Chains like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Olive Garden, which offer ample portions at value prices, should do OK and maybe even pick up market share. It helps if they've been run conservatively, with low borrowing costs and cash held for a rainy day.
Other eateries are in a pickle. Fancy restaurants that had long waits a few years ago are now begging for customers and offering sales. Midpriced casual dining outlets are losing customers to cheaper fast-food joints. Even some dollar-menu franchises are suffering if they're overdependent on mall traffic or clustered in regions where the economy is weakest. A key factor is debt: With sales down everywhere, many companies that borrowed heavily to remodel, expand, or buy other franchises now find that interest payments gobble up a nerve-wracking amount of cash flow.
Since debt is such an important menu item, we scoured data from ratings agency Standard & Poor's to gauge which well-known restaurants are facing tough challenges. The following list represents companies that meet two criteria: They have a credit rating of B or lower, and S&P assigns them a negative outlook. Landing on this list doesn't mean the company is likely to declare bankruptcy or close its doors. But these firms are vulnerable to deteriorating economic and financial conditions. And the negative outlook means there's a chance S&P could downgrade the company's rating over the next six to 24 months. Here's our watch list:
Perkins Restaurant and Bakery. Company accountants could probably use some of the comfort food on the menu at this diner-style franchise, which has about 500 locations, mostly in the Midwest. Like other restaurants, Perkins has been able to cut food costs since they soared in 2007. But revenue has fallen, and the parent firm lost $9.7 million in the first quarter. S&P says the firm's liquidity position is "tenuous." With market share of just 8 percent, Perkins is more vulnerable to a lousy economy that competitors like Denny's (22 percent market share) and IHOP (19 percent). Perkins also owns the Marie Callender's Restaurant and Bakery chain, which suffers from similar financial burdens. Plus, Marie Callender is based in hard-hit California, which has been hammered by the housing bust.
A company spokesperson says Perkins has cut expenses by $7.3 million to help shore up its finances, delayed some remodeling, and called a halt to expansion.
El Torito. Slumping sales and steep debt are an unappetizing combo, especially in California, where this chain is based. The parent firm, Real Mex Restaurants, has bought time by extending a key credit line until next January. But S&P has questioned whether the company, owned by a group of private-equity firms, will have the cash flow to comply with loan terms over the next two years. Real Mex also owns Chevy's, the Acapulco chain, the more upscale El Torito Grill, and several other eateries. All are facing the same woes.
Real Mex says that cost-cutting has helped sustain earnings, and it recently hired a new CEO to help turn things around. The company also announced plans recently to issue new debt that would help cover a major payment due to lenders next year. If that offering is successful, it would indicate investors' confidence in the chain.
Sbarro. Many of this pizza chain's 1,070 outlets are in malls, where traffic is down and spenders are stingy. That contributed to a $5.7 million loss in the first quarter, more than double the red ink from a year ago. Interest payments on debt gobble up much of the company's cash flow, leaving little margin for error. The company is especially vulnerable to any rises in food or commodity costs and to competition that could force prices down. With about 40 percent of sales coming during the Christmas season, the company will need strong December results at a time of high unemployment and weak spending. A Sbarro executive declined to comment on the company's financial prospects.
Captain D's Seafood Kitchen. This chain's thrifty appeal--"sit-down food at fast-food prices"--hits the right note during lean times. And aggressive cost-cutting has helped offset falling sales. But debt is still too high, compared with the company's earnings. Parent company Sagittarius Brands got some relief last year from lenders who agreed to relax certain financial requirements. But the old terms go back into effect in 2010, and S&P doesn't think the firm, which operates nearly 600 restaurants across the south, will be able to meet them. A breach could trigger higher borrowing costs or give lenders the right to call in their loans. The California-based Del Tacos chain, which Sagittarius bought in 2006, is under similar pressure. The company didn't respond to calls seeking comment.
Krispy Kreme. The famed doughnut chain got too chubby over the last 15 years, and it's been closing unprofitable stores to help reverse several years of steep losses. Revenue has plunged since 2005, but cutbacks helped the company turn a $1.9 million profit in the latest quarter. Lenders have provided a breather by easing some of their requirements over the last two years. The temporary reprieve expires in 2011. By then, the company hopes that streamlining, profitable new overseas stores, and other measures will have strengthened its finances.
Spokesman Brian Little points out that Krispy Kreme has cut its debt by nearly 40 percent and has a $21 million cash cushion. The recession, he adds, isn't as daunting to Krispy Kreme as to other food chains: "We sell an affordable indulgence consumers will purchase when they can't afford to treat themselves or their families to other luxuries."
Mastro's. These elegant steakhouses may be among the nation's best, but they're also clustered in Arizona and southern California, where housing woes have char-broiled the economy. With just 7 outlets (including two Ocean Club restaurants), Mastro's lacks the scale and geographic diversity of bigger chains like Morton's and McCormick & Schmick's. Sales have fallen along with customers' net worth and corporate expense budgets, and Mastro's cash flow is likely to get worse before the double-cut porterhouse ($68.50) comes back into style.
To cope, Mastro's is scaling back expansion plans, and may only open four new restaurants by 2012, fewer than half its original target. "Returns to investors will be impaired," says CEO Tom Heymann, "but doing this will improve our cash flow and still allow us to grow and meet our commitments to the banks." And refrain from adding burgers and hot dogs to the menu.
Restaurants on the Ropes
Rick Newman
Friday June 12, 2009
When Americans get stressed out, one thing they do is eat. But apparently not enough.
The dismal economy has punished retailers, with companies like Circuit City and Linens 'n Things going extinct and dozens of others losing money. Now it's hitting their cousins in the restaurant industry, too. The Bennigan's and Steak & Ale chains were early casualties, going belly up last summer. This year, with Americans cutting back on spending, sales at restaurants could fall by 10 percent or more. Analysts don't expect widespread closures, but some chains are likely to close unprofitable outlets, cut back on service, and look for other ways to reduce costs.
As in retail, companies that help people save money will weather the storm better than others. Chains like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Olive Garden, which offer ample portions at value prices, should do OK and maybe even pick up market share. It helps if they've been run conservatively, with low borrowing costs and cash held for a rainy day.
Other eateries are in a pickle. Fancy restaurants that had long waits a few years ago are now begging for customers and offering sales. Midpriced casual dining outlets are losing customers to cheaper fast-food joints. Even some dollar-menu franchises are suffering if they're overdependent on mall traffic or clustered in regions where the economy is weakest. A key factor is debt: With sales down everywhere, many companies that borrowed heavily to remodel, expand, or buy other franchises now find that interest payments gobble up a nerve-wracking amount of cash flow.
Since debt is such an important menu item, we scoured data from ratings agency Standard & Poor's to gauge which well-known restaurants are facing tough challenges. The following list represents companies that meet two criteria: They have a credit rating of B or lower, and S&P assigns them a negative outlook. Landing on this list doesn't mean the company is likely to declare bankruptcy or close its doors. But these firms are vulnerable to deteriorating economic and financial conditions. And the negative outlook means there's a chance S&P could downgrade the company's rating over the next six to 24 months. Here's our watch list:
Perkins Restaurant and Bakery. Company accountants could probably use some of the comfort food on the menu at this diner-style franchise, which has about 500 locations, mostly in the Midwest. Like other restaurants, Perkins has been able to cut food costs since they soared in 2007. But revenue has fallen, and the parent firm lost $9.7 million in the first quarter. S&P says the firm's liquidity position is "tenuous." With market share of just 8 percent, Perkins is more vulnerable to a lousy economy that competitors like Denny's (22 percent market share) and IHOP (19 percent). Perkins also owns the Marie Callender's Restaurant and Bakery chain, which suffers from similar financial burdens. Plus, Marie Callender is based in hard-hit California, which has been hammered by the housing bust.
A company spokesperson says Perkins has cut expenses by $7.3 million to help shore up its finances, delayed some remodeling, and called a halt to expansion.
El Torito. Slumping sales and steep debt are an unappetizing combo, especially in California, where this chain is based. The parent firm, Real Mex Restaurants, has bought time by extending a key credit line until next January. But S&P has questioned whether the company, owned by a group of private-equity firms, will have the cash flow to comply with loan terms over the next two years. Real Mex also owns Chevy's, the Acapulco chain, the more upscale El Torito Grill, and several other eateries. All are facing the same woes.
Real Mex says that cost-cutting has helped sustain earnings, and it recently hired a new CEO to help turn things around. The company also announced plans recently to issue new debt that would help cover a major payment due to lenders next year. If that offering is successful, it would indicate investors' confidence in the chain.
Sbarro. Many of this pizza chain's 1,070 outlets are in malls, where traffic is down and spenders are stingy. That contributed to a $5.7 million loss in the first quarter, more than double the red ink from a year ago. Interest payments on debt gobble up much of the company's cash flow, leaving little margin for error. The company is especially vulnerable to any rises in food or commodity costs and to competition that could force prices down. With about 40 percent of sales coming during the Christmas season, the company will need strong December results at a time of high unemployment and weak spending. A Sbarro executive declined to comment on the company's financial prospects.
Captain D's Seafood Kitchen. This chain's thrifty appeal--"sit-down food at fast-food prices"--hits the right note during lean times. And aggressive cost-cutting has helped offset falling sales. But debt is still too high, compared with the company's earnings. Parent company Sagittarius Brands got some relief last year from lenders who agreed to relax certain financial requirements. But the old terms go back into effect in 2010, and S&P doesn't think the firm, which operates nearly 600 restaurants across the south, will be able to meet them. A breach could trigger higher borrowing costs or give lenders the right to call in their loans. The California-based Del Tacos chain, which Sagittarius bought in 2006, is under similar pressure. The company didn't respond to calls seeking comment.
Krispy Kreme. The famed doughnut chain got too chubby over the last 15 years, and it's been closing unprofitable stores to help reverse several years of steep losses. Revenue has plunged since 2005, but cutbacks helped the company turn a $1.9 million profit in the latest quarter. Lenders have provided a breather by easing some of their requirements over the last two years. The temporary reprieve expires in 2011. By then, the company hopes that streamlining, profitable new overseas stores, and other measures will have strengthened its finances.
Spokesman Brian Little points out that Krispy Kreme has cut its debt by nearly 40 percent and has a $21 million cash cushion. The recession, he adds, isn't as daunting to Krispy Kreme as to other food chains: "We sell an affordable indulgence consumers will purchase when they can't afford to treat themselves or their families to other luxuries."
Mastro's. These elegant steakhouses may be among the nation's best, but they're also clustered in Arizona and southern California, where housing woes have char-broiled the economy. With just 7 outlets (including two Ocean Club restaurants), Mastro's lacks the scale and geographic diversity of bigger chains like Morton's and McCormick & Schmick's. Sales have fallen along with customers' net worth and corporate expense budgets, and Mastro's cash flow is likely to get worse before the double-cut porterhouse ($68.50) comes back into style.
To cope, Mastro's is scaling back expansion plans, and may only open four new restaurants by 2012, fewer than half its original target. "Returns to investors will be impaired," says CEO Tom Heymann, "but doing this will improve our cash flow and still allow us to grow and meet our commitments to the banks." And refrain from adding burgers and hot dogs to the menu.
Epicurious Differs with Zagat Survey's Fast-Food
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/epicurious-differs-with-zagat-surveys-fast-food-findings-474492/
Epicurious Differs with Zagat Survey's Fast-Food Findings partner
by James Oliver Cury
Epicurious.com
Thu Jun 11, 2009
The Zagat surveys, long known for regional, customer-written restaurant reviews, recently turned their attention to the budget-friendly world of fast food. More than 6,000 people responded to the company's online poll, weighing in on the best burgers, fries, salads, coffee, and more.
The results: McDonald's makes the finest fries, In-N-Out Burger boasts the tastiest burger, and Starbucks serves the best coffee. Wendy's nabbed "top food" and "top facilities" in the megachain category (more than 5,000 locations).
But we at Epicurious beg to differ. Below we present our own analyses of some of Zagat's key findings.
TOP RATED AMONG MEGA CHAINS (more than 5,000 U.S. locations):
TOP FOOD
1. Wendy's [WINNER]
2. Subway
3. KFC
4. Taco Bell
5. Pizza Hut
Epicurious analysis: We like Subway for the simple reason that it bakes its own bread and lets you see the sandwichmakers making meals in front of your eyes. You can see the quality of the sliced meats, cheeses, and produce. So if the tomatoes look under-ripe, you can skip them. Plus, tacos, pizzas, fried chicken, and burgers can be greasy. Sandwiches, unless drenched in vinegar and oil, should not have this problem.
TOP FACILITIES
1. Wendy's [WINNER]
2. McDonald's
3. Subway
4. Burger King
5. KFC
Epicurious analysis: Contrary to rumor, this is not a competition for best bathroom. Facilities are defined as "quality of seating, ordering and waiting areas." We think it depends on which location you visit, what time you're there, and if it's near a bar.
TOP SERVICE
1. Subway [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. Domino's Pizza
4. McDonald's
5. Pizza Hut
Epicurious analysis: We've never met a surly Subway sandwichmaker, but have certainly met less-than-friendly order-takers at other fast-food chains. More to the point, there's a greater level of service needed to custom-build every sandwich in plain public view than there is in pressing the right buttons on a cash register and givig you proper change. Good call.
ZAGAT’S BEST BURGER
1. In-N-Out Burger [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. Burger King
4. McDonald's
5. Whataburger
Epicurious analysis: The cult following around In-N-Out is well-deserved: This is an independently owned, nonfranchised operation that sticks to what it does well (burgers) and doesn't attempt to cash in on healthy salads, grilled chicken, or coffee. More important, the burgers don't taste like any other fast-food fare. We especially like the flexibility in options: In addition to getting lettuce, tomato, onion, and a variation on Thousand Island dressing, customers can ask for things like mustard, pickle, and extra patties (the so-called secret menu).
That said, there are no outlets on the East Coast, so it's hard to think this represents a national opinion, and it's clearly not an apples to apples, or should we say, burgers to burgers, comparison.
ZAGAT’S BEST FRENCH FRIES
1. McDonald's [WINNER]
2. Burger King
3. In-N-Out Burger
4. Wendy's
5. Chick-fil-A
Epicurious analysis: If you've ever had bad or even mediocre fries, you know how disappointing they can be: soggy, undercooked, oversalted, etc. MickeyD's fries are crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, golden yellow-brown, and most important, tremendously consistent. Plus, they stand on their own, even without ketchup, and they have that scent-recognition thing. You can tell a Golden Arches fry from a mile away, and even if you don't think you're into them, you get a craving.
Some people disagree: "Wendy's are cut a bit thicker and they're not flavored with some sort of beef extract," noted one Epi editor. Nathan's scored points with another editor: "I find the consistency a turn-off. There's no thin and crispy mixed with random fat and soft fries, no surprises. They don't suggest 'potato' to me at all, rather reconstituted potato flour. Nathan's fries are my favorites; almost sweet-tasting, and brown outside with a smooth, not floury middle. They taste like potato!"
ZAGAT’S BEST SALADS
1. Panera Bread [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. McDonald's
4. Au Bon Pain
5. Corner Bakery Café
Epicurious analysis: Who orders salads at these places? No one we know. That said, at least Panera offers more than just iceberg lettuce.
ZAGAT’S BEST FRIED CHICKEN
1. KFC [WINNER]
2. Popeye's
3. Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits
4. Church's Chicken
5. Culver's Frozen Custard
Epicurious analysis: We're partial to Bojangles ourselves, but it's mainly in the South, so for pure consistency, we will give a greasy thumbs-up to KFC.
ZAGAT’S BEST GRILLED CHICKEN
1. Chick-fil-A [WINNER]
2. Panera Bread
3. Wendy's
4. Chipotle
5. El Pollo Loco
Epicurious analysis: We recently hosted a grilled chicken taste test in the Epicurious offices and found KFC's brand-new offerings to be best of breed. As our blog post enumerated:
"All the pieces, ranging from the breast to the chicken wing, had a nice golden charbroiled color, and grill marks, giving the impression that it had just come off the grill. KFC's meat was reasonably tender and juicy, and the skin actually had flavor thanks to the Colonel's six 'secret' herbs and spices."
ZAGAT’S BEST COFFEE
1. Starbucks Coffee [WINNER]
2. Dunkin' Donuts
3. Peet's Coffee & Tea
4. McDonald's
5. Caribou Coffee
Epicurious analysis: We hosted an informal taste test of hot mocha lattes on the set of Fox & Friends; Dunkin' Donuts took top honors. But some editors here believe Dunkin' Donuts' products can vary depending on location. Starbucks seems more consistent, for better or worse.
ZAGAT’S TOP ICE CREAM/CUSTARD
1. Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops [WINNER]
2. Rita's
3. Culver's Frozen Custard
4. Baskin-Robbins
5. Carvel
Epicurious analysis: What's not to love about Ben & Jerry's? Their products are great and the company seems to have a conscience. Plus, the shops are often quirky and have individual style, which is nice for a national brand. Second on our list: Carvel offers great soft-serve, flying saucers, and those ridiculous but somehow cool cakes like Cookie Puss and that Fudgie the Whale, etc. A final thought: Why no Friendly's or Haagen-Dazs?
ZAGAT’S TOP SMOOTHIES/FROZEN YOGURT
1. Smoothie King [WINNER]
2. Jamba Juice
3. Pinkberry
4. TCBY
5. Orange Julius
Epicurious analysis: Orange Julius still exists?
ZAGAT’S BEST MILKSHAKE
1. Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops [WINNER]
2. Dairy Queen
3. McDonald's
4. Cold Stone Creamery
5. Wendy's
Epicurious analysis: We were shocked that the highfalutin Ben & Jerry's beat McDonald's. McD should win hands down! Its shake is heaven; so thick that it can be drunk through a straw or eaten with a spoon.
On a final note: The editors at Epicurious believe there's more to the story than the numbers tell. While more than 6,000 people voted, it should be noted that this sample group included, by definition, only those people who are both familiar with Zagat Survey and have online access. Furthermore, Zagat does not provide the exact figures (no percentages), so it's impossible to tell who won by a landslide and who won by a small margin (i.e., did Chik-fil-A narrowly win the best-chicken competition by a single percentage point over KFC?). Finally, these types of surveys are always popularity contests; many people vote for whatever places actually operate in their area (there were many regionally specific options that aren't truly national) or whatever they grew up with. And only fast food chains were considered, no mom-'n'-pop shops. So, based on this, we think the Zagat poll "lacks comprehensiveness" and "doesn't take into account smaller regional chains."
Epicurious Differs with Zagat Survey's Fast-Food Findings partner
by James Oliver Cury
Epicurious.com
Thu Jun 11, 2009
The Zagat surveys, long known for regional, customer-written restaurant reviews, recently turned their attention to the budget-friendly world of fast food. More than 6,000 people responded to the company's online poll, weighing in on the best burgers, fries, salads, coffee, and more.
The results: McDonald's makes the finest fries, In-N-Out Burger boasts the tastiest burger, and Starbucks serves the best coffee. Wendy's nabbed "top food" and "top facilities" in the megachain category (more than 5,000 locations).
But we at Epicurious beg to differ. Below we present our own analyses of some of Zagat's key findings.
TOP RATED AMONG MEGA CHAINS (more than 5,000 U.S. locations):
TOP FOOD
1. Wendy's [WINNER]
2. Subway
3. KFC
4. Taco Bell
5. Pizza Hut
Epicurious analysis: We like Subway for the simple reason that it bakes its own bread and lets you see the sandwichmakers making meals in front of your eyes. You can see the quality of the sliced meats, cheeses, and produce. So if the tomatoes look under-ripe, you can skip them. Plus, tacos, pizzas, fried chicken, and burgers can be greasy. Sandwiches, unless drenched in vinegar and oil, should not have this problem.
TOP FACILITIES
1. Wendy's [WINNER]
2. McDonald's
3. Subway
4. Burger King
5. KFC
Epicurious analysis: Contrary to rumor, this is not a competition for best bathroom. Facilities are defined as "quality of seating, ordering and waiting areas." We think it depends on which location you visit, what time you're there, and if it's near a bar.
TOP SERVICE
1. Subway [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. Domino's Pizza
4. McDonald's
5. Pizza Hut
Epicurious analysis: We've never met a surly Subway sandwichmaker, but have certainly met less-than-friendly order-takers at other fast-food chains. More to the point, there's a greater level of service needed to custom-build every sandwich in plain public view than there is in pressing the right buttons on a cash register and givig you proper change. Good call.
ZAGAT’S BEST BURGER
1. In-N-Out Burger [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. Burger King
4. McDonald's
5. Whataburger
Epicurious analysis: The cult following around In-N-Out is well-deserved: This is an independently owned, nonfranchised operation that sticks to what it does well (burgers) and doesn't attempt to cash in on healthy salads, grilled chicken, or coffee. More important, the burgers don't taste like any other fast-food fare. We especially like the flexibility in options: In addition to getting lettuce, tomato, onion, and a variation on Thousand Island dressing, customers can ask for things like mustard, pickle, and extra patties (the so-called secret menu).
That said, there are no outlets on the East Coast, so it's hard to think this represents a national opinion, and it's clearly not an apples to apples, or should we say, burgers to burgers, comparison.
ZAGAT’S BEST FRENCH FRIES
1. McDonald's [WINNER]
2. Burger King
3. In-N-Out Burger
4. Wendy's
5. Chick-fil-A
Epicurious analysis: If you've ever had bad or even mediocre fries, you know how disappointing they can be: soggy, undercooked, oversalted, etc. MickeyD's fries are crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, golden yellow-brown, and most important, tremendously consistent. Plus, they stand on their own, even without ketchup, and they have that scent-recognition thing. You can tell a Golden Arches fry from a mile away, and even if you don't think you're into them, you get a craving.
Some people disagree: "Wendy's are cut a bit thicker and they're not flavored with some sort of beef extract," noted one Epi editor. Nathan's scored points with another editor: "I find the consistency a turn-off. There's no thin and crispy mixed with random fat and soft fries, no surprises. They don't suggest 'potato' to me at all, rather reconstituted potato flour. Nathan's fries are my favorites; almost sweet-tasting, and brown outside with a smooth, not floury middle. They taste like potato!"
ZAGAT’S BEST SALADS
1. Panera Bread [WINNER]
2. Wendy's
3. McDonald's
4. Au Bon Pain
5. Corner Bakery Café
Epicurious analysis: Who orders salads at these places? No one we know. That said, at least Panera offers more than just iceberg lettuce.
ZAGAT’S BEST FRIED CHICKEN
1. KFC [WINNER]
2. Popeye's
3. Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits
4. Church's Chicken
5. Culver's Frozen Custard
Epicurious analysis: We're partial to Bojangles ourselves, but it's mainly in the South, so for pure consistency, we will give a greasy thumbs-up to KFC.
ZAGAT’S BEST GRILLED CHICKEN
1. Chick-fil-A [WINNER]
2. Panera Bread
3. Wendy's
4. Chipotle
5. El Pollo Loco
Epicurious analysis: We recently hosted a grilled chicken taste test in the Epicurious offices and found KFC's brand-new offerings to be best of breed. As our blog post enumerated:
"All the pieces, ranging from the breast to the chicken wing, had a nice golden charbroiled color, and grill marks, giving the impression that it had just come off the grill. KFC's meat was reasonably tender and juicy, and the skin actually had flavor thanks to the Colonel's six 'secret' herbs and spices."
ZAGAT’S BEST COFFEE
1. Starbucks Coffee [WINNER]
2. Dunkin' Donuts
3. Peet's Coffee & Tea
4. McDonald's
5. Caribou Coffee
Epicurious analysis: We hosted an informal taste test of hot mocha lattes on the set of Fox & Friends; Dunkin' Donuts took top honors. But some editors here believe Dunkin' Donuts' products can vary depending on location. Starbucks seems more consistent, for better or worse.
ZAGAT’S TOP ICE CREAM/CUSTARD
1. Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops [WINNER]
2. Rita's
3. Culver's Frozen Custard
4. Baskin-Robbins
5. Carvel
Epicurious analysis: What's not to love about Ben & Jerry's? Their products are great and the company seems to have a conscience. Plus, the shops are often quirky and have individual style, which is nice for a national brand. Second on our list: Carvel offers great soft-serve, flying saucers, and those ridiculous but somehow cool cakes like Cookie Puss and that Fudgie the Whale, etc. A final thought: Why no Friendly's or Haagen-Dazs?
ZAGAT’S TOP SMOOTHIES/FROZEN YOGURT
1. Smoothie King [WINNER]
2. Jamba Juice
3. Pinkberry
4. TCBY
5. Orange Julius
Epicurious analysis: Orange Julius still exists?
ZAGAT’S BEST MILKSHAKE
1. Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops [WINNER]
2. Dairy Queen
3. McDonald's
4. Cold Stone Creamery
5. Wendy's
Epicurious analysis: We were shocked that the highfalutin Ben & Jerry's beat McDonald's. McD should win hands down! Its shake is heaven; so thick that it can be drunk through a straw or eaten with a spoon.
On a final note: The editors at Epicurious believe there's more to the story than the numbers tell. While more than 6,000 people voted, it should be noted that this sample group included, by definition, only those people who are both familiar with Zagat Survey and have online access. Furthermore, Zagat does not provide the exact figures (no percentages), so it's impossible to tell who won by a landslide and who won by a small margin (i.e., did Chik-fil-A narrowly win the best-chicken competition by a single percentage point over KFC?). Finally, these types of surveys are always popularity contests; many people vote for whatever places actually operate in their area (there were many regionally specific options that aren't truly national) or whatever they grew up with. And only fast food chains were considered, no mom-'n'-pop shops. So, based on this, we think the Zagat poll "lacks comprehensiveness" and "doesn't take into account smaller regional chains."
Family Circle
From Todd Brendan Fahey's Dogshit Park & other atrocities:
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2463
Family Circle
by Todd Brendan Fahey
When the ball falls earthward and the sinews of the wrist snap forward and the scream far across the net sounds more like the last blood-cry of Grendel than anything one should need to be subjected to over a friendly game on the public courts, there is not much a rusty amateur can do but stick out the oversized Prince and hope to make contact on the sweet spot--or even get a lucky one off the frame. Winning one game in a set, two games in such a match--legitimate games, 40-15, then a quick little net-shot down the line to finish it off and leave the blond bastard cursing...losing this way to such a monster, plus avoiding a first-service to the nuts, had always felt like victory to me.
I was faring even better than this against my wife's older brother that afternoon--so well, in fact, that I had begun to get cocky, at one point, tossing up an eleven-story volley as he tapped his feet at the net, knees bent just right, bearing a grin that had made him a famous poster-child for the Orthodontics Association of America. It was nearly one-hundred degrees on the asphalt that afternoon, and even from twenty feet away I could see the color in his face go in seconds from that of an early gamay beaujolais to Hanes t-shirt.
"God-damn..it...!" he stuttered, spinning like a top on the reinforced balls of his expensive new court shoes, before running flat-out for the baseline.
"Clay!?" his wife yelled. "It's only a game."
"Shutthefuckup!" I heard him coughing as he sprinted to the backcourt. He gave the ball a good racquetball swat before colliding shoulder-first into the green chain fence, but it was out by a mile.
"So, what's that now?" I wondered, watching as he collected his racquet from where he had collapsed in a heap.
"I think it's three serving four," his wife answered, reflexively, from a slight rise on the adjacent lawn.
"Goddamnit, Brittany," he pleaded in a tremulous falsetto, bringing the racquet up at an angle over his head. And if it weren't for those thin diamonds of steel, I do believe he would have beaten the shit out of her. "Why can't you support me? Just once, I'd like to hear you say 'Hit it, Clay! Get it, darling!' Something!"
"Yeah, yeah," she said, in a tone that hovered somewhere beneath condescension but above boredom; as if she wasn't quite tired of ridiculing her husband in public, but was sick to hell of tennis. I didn't know how many times she had been through this, but I could guess--and the numbers ran high in my mind.
Brittany Chambers was nothing less than the stuff of every adolescent's wet dream. And though I had never fantasized about her, I saw exactly why my brother-in-law had knocked her up four years back: all five-foot nothing, ninety-two pounds of twenty-year old prime loin, spun gold down to a cruel bubble-butt. She was a number, from swimsuit to miniskirt, but she wasn't my type--much as that will probably sound like sour grapes. I had had my fill of blondes by the time I stepped across the stage to grab my Bachelor's degree; by my Master's, I would date nothing but Orientals...which was a weird switch to some of my friends, but to none who really knew me...
Trina had made it clear even before we left our apartment that she wouldn't be watching the Big Game: that it would be too painful. And so, from a covered picnic area, where her adoptive family split time between preparing lunch and tending to the two whining grandchildren, I had settled for a goodbye smooch before heading off to the courts. I wished she could have been there to see her brother bounce violently off the fence, then onto the cement, following my skyward volley, but I trusted Brittany to tell her all about it later.
"I'm...stuffthisdownyourthroat," Clay grumbled from across the court, and by the embittered look on his face, I had every good reason to believe him. It was a blistering fastball, smack into the middle of the playing field, and how I managed to dink it over the net, I'll never know; but I did, and in his smugness he forgot to even run--just stood at the baseline and watched the ball drop safely by three or so inches.
"OHMYGOD!" he sputtered. "You pussy! Goddamnit, that's not tennis!"
And so it went, for the next three games, until I found myself serving for match-point. Trina appeared suddenly at the fence, like a shark circling the crippled.
"Better make this one, Clay," his wife chirped from the lawn, "or it's all over: Humiliation Time."
"You fucking bitch," he whispered over his shoulder, stamping both feet to some maniacal rhythm.
I sliced the ball along the inside corner, and, poised for absolutely anything, he delivered it back with a brutal forehand that barely grazed the doubles-line, and which he instantly exclaimed was: "Fuckin' IN! YEAH!!!! Alright!!!"
Trina blew me a kiss, but I tossed up a double-fault anyway--my first of the match. And when Clay ran to the net after returning my next service, I was driven by surging bile to cram the fuzzy green cue-ball down deep into his larynx.
A tap of his pan-faced Yonnex was all it took to return everything on this day to its rightful order. "Did you see that, Brit?!" he yelled, the ball still skittering down the inseam. "I gotta get you out of Mammoth," he hissed through the fence. "You're gonna get as fat as mom and Claris."
"You mom's had six kids. Give her a break."
"What's the other bitch's excuse?"
"What does it matter?" she wondered. "You're not married to her. And she's probably nicer than me, anyway. I know she's a better cook."
"Obviously," he giggled. Then he swiped his racquet against the court, abrading the protective strip. "Goddamnit, I love to win!"
Clay was far gone from the court--mauling Brittany on the lawn, and, as it appeared, fairly against her will--by the time I chased down the last new orange Penn and collected my racquet and walked out the gate, kissing Trina on a sleepy Eastern eyelid. One thing about Asian girls: when they wear make-up, it comes as a bonus, not a necessity.
On our second date, she had taken me to the sushi house under Lift 13--at which I had spent unholy sums on at least a half-dozen occasions (though I never told her this, her wanting the experience to be a "first-time," and all), and which could be counted on to be, on Friday nights after six, Kirin and sake hell. It was an early November, and the ski slopes had yet to see a flake of snow, and, warm-blooded as she is, the evening found her enveloped in a long sweater that dropped a good two inches past her ass, and not much else. I don't know if it was the heavy-black braid swinging down and around the top of that amazing derriere, or her bare, tanned legs, or those eyes: but every man and woman sucked silent sushi for a full ninety seconds, until we were seated at the bar.
I fell in love somewhere through the Funky Charley, a potentially nauseating thing to the uninitiated: freshwater eel wrapped in rice and seaweed, then quickly deep-fried and drizzled in a hot mustard sauce, whereupon the sushi-master wraps it in raw halibut and covers the long tube in tiny orange fish eggs. The bean-sprout antennae, which makes the whole slimy cylinder look like a banana slug, usually separates the men from the boys, as it were, but Trina tackled her three chunks with a set of porcelain chopsticks she kept hidden in her purse, and then came begging for some of mine.
"Go away," I told her, placing a hand on a crossed thigh, just north of the cuff of her sweater-dress. When she let it lie, I knew we would someday be married.
We had been living together almost a year when we received, by mail, an invitation to the family picnic. As it was I who had taken delivery of the batch of letters that afternoon, my first inclination was to pitch it out with the overflowing trash, but something held me back. That night, almost as an afterthought, half-way out the door to a fundraiser for a Libertarian candidate to the California State Assembly, I showed it to her.
"God," she said. "I was hoping they'd forgotten about me."
We both laughed, and said nothing else about the summons for the rest of the evening. After the keynote speech, as the mingling began in earnest, I handed to the candidate a finely-honed brochure--a professionally designed, three-color thing--along with a check for five-hundred dollars (a last-ditch effort of insane risk, given that Trina and I were cold-stone broke and in arrears by two months on our lease at a Mammoth Slopes Condo), and told him simply that whomever was running his campaign, I could do it better.
I was prepared to stop payment on that check the following morning if he had told me to bugger off, which I fully expected he would, but when he looked into my eyes and nearly cried, and told me that not even his million-dollar townhouse nor the thirty-some hydroponically-raised plants maturing nicely in his basement grow-room had been able to buy him the kind of happiness he knew he had always deserved, I let the check pass through, and he hired me the next morning at two-thousand a month, plus expenses and a clothing allowance, which I spent on Grateful Dead t-shirts and Guatemalan prints dresses for Trina, and we cultivated the votes of every brain-stunted eighteen-year old in every high school, ski outlet and hippie-trash bagel/coffee shop in Mono County, and won the election, further alienating Trina from her family.
To see them together was like watching a nest of birds, wherein one chick has tumbled out and been returned by human hands. To be around it, to witness the neglect, was too much for me to handle. I resisted valiantly most interaction with her parents and their six natural siblings, though Trina infrequently felt the need to make an appearance just to maintain some semblance of peace in the family.
As she told it, her parents had met and fallen in love at college in the early sixties, somewhere in San Francisco--had turned in, turned on, and dropped out, as was the fashion; had become early disciples of Leary, and, later, Baba Ram Dass, and, when they realized the latter was plainly on the money-make, fell in with another Family, whom they saw as attuned to waves of a higher, holier tenor, and who convinced the young couple to move with them: to Katmandhu.
Only it gets worse.
Once in India, starving for lack of money and delirious from a cleansing moonlight dip in the Ganges, the wretched, huddling party--white people!--were reduced to begging on the cold November streets of Calcutta, and not even the Untouchables would share their blankets, such was the group's odious presence. (They never made it near Katmandhu.)
It was then that Marvin and Ellen Weinswelter gave their lives over to Jesus Christ.
I shivered in my summer clothes the first time I heard the story, and resolved that if I were ever to marry Trina, we would have to move somewhere far, far away.
"It was so beautiful," Marvin Weinswelter had said, upon my first meeting with the clan, a meeting which took place at the slightly unkempt three bedroom house they rented on the outskirts of Mammoth. "Ellen was covered over with impetigo," he recalled, "and I felt like I might have been coming down with T.B., and here we were all hallucinating, even though we had given up drugs before leaving San Francisco. We were really on our last legs...and that's when we found Jesus."
"In the flesh?" I remember saying at the time, and not with any intentional antagonism, but with honest incredulity.
Her father than stared at me. "Son, have you been saved?"
"From what?" I asked.
"From...what? From your sins!" he screeched in a reedy voice. "I've been a sinner--"
"Hallelujia," his wife answered, quietly and automatically.
"I'm still a sinner. We're all unclean before God, son. Me, Ellen, Trina...right down to our youngest grandchild, though she won't know it for a few more years," he made sure to add. "That's how children are," he nodded. "It'd be too much for them: to know how vile they really are in the eyes of Yahweh, King of Kings, our Creator; and our Redeemer, His son, Jesus, the Christ."
I nodded righteously, but he wasn't ready to let it rest. I remember that first Meeting With The Folks as taking place on a clear, sunny Sunday afternoon in the high Sierras--the 49ers were away and on cable against Cincinnati--, and I remember having cultivated a fair resentment toward Trina for dragging me out of bed just before my second orgasm, so that we would be on time for the barbeque. I honestly didn't know if I'd ever be able to forgive her after the intense grilling I came under during those few minutes, Marvin Weinswelter suddenly falling to his knees, hands outstretched, jabbering in an unnerving dialect I assumed he had picked up on the streets of Calcutta: "Onglalala, ob ja-la-la, ka babawawa."
There is a nasty symmetry operative in the human psyche, in that the clearest memories we own are those which we most desperately desire to shake: The collective Weinswelter family: Marvin's wife Ellen; second son Jared, a first-year attorney in Mammoth, and his wife Claris; the two middle boys, quiet fraternal twins; and the two accidents: a gangling boy about fifteen, and a youngish girl I gauged as being around twelve, as she was just sprouting breasts, though it appeared Mrs. Weinswelter had been negligent in providing her with a training bra...every blessed one of them, collapsing on the floor and slabbering wildly the same rhetoric of gibberish. Trina was the last to fall in, and I was headed out the front door, and would have been safely into our condo-on-the-slopes, watching Jerry Rice catch one of Steve Young's five touchdown passes of the day, had Trina's hand not hooked mine by the knuckles, jerking me down into the family circle.
"Just babble," she whispered into my ear: "Blablablabla."
And so I did--treated it as some kind of boot-camp Army drill (though I have never served My Country directly; only grasping what I had seen of it on TV, and from Oliver Stone movies)--ran off at the mouth until my tongue was dry, and sweat covered my neck, and Marvin Weinswelter appeared satisfied.
"I knew you were spirit-filled from the minute I saw you," he croaked, exhausted. "God is love: Don't ever forget that."
I shook my head furiously, such were the rhythms of fear and anger still reverberating through my system, and we had no more talk of the "healing power of Jesus Christ" that afternoon, aside from a rote prayer before the eleven of us proceeded to scarf down half a dozen fat chickens I had basted and cooked on the barbeque in the backyard, just to achieve some momentary solace. I think I could have blocked the spectacle from whatever portion of the grey matter governs memory, had Trina's father not taken me aside again, as I attempted to extract the last shards of meat from a wing.
At fifty-one, he had just begun to forget things--little things, which would scarcely have been noticeable, were it not also for the persistent tremors that afflicted his neck and head, so that he appeared to dodder slightly, like a farm-raised turkey. I felt terrible for the man all the way around. He and Ellen, after being rescued from the doomed hippie-cult by a pair of wandering Christian missionaries, had traveled all over southeast Asia on the generosity of the Holy Spirit and not much else: unpaid proselytizers for the Lord, who seemed to always see them a hot meal and at least a creaky cot at the end of the day. As Marvin told it, He had also secured their passage back to California, though I had to take this one on faith. Ellen, somewhere in the couple's travails, had given birth to their first child, Clay (whose conspicuous absence during that first afternoon caused some significant grumbling), and, broke again, the child crying constantly, stranded in a suburb of Bangkok, nourished, it seemed, by little else than the powerful glow that is Belief, they made a pact of some metaphysical sort.
"We were led to an orphanage," Marvin continued. "And the Lord told us that if we were to adopt a small child, a girl, we would be provided safe passage back to California, where He said we were now needed." Trina's father was nodding, to confirm the story and also from the unfortunate onset of Parkinsons; and, reflexively, I nodded with him.
"You understand why we did it," Marvin asked in earnest.
"Oh, completely," I heard myself saying.
"We were commanded to bring her home," he said.
At this, I could think only of Abraham and the "knife-that-should-have-plunged," and I was consumed by heebie-jeebies.
"It's been a trial," he said, "there's no way around it. She tries, but she's just never really taken to The Faith. God designed all His creatures differently--and her kind have been slow to recognize Him, the Holy One." Then he gripped my by the forearms. "You'll see her through to the Kingdom. Won't you, son?"
A shudder ran from my the base of my coccyx to the top of the skull, and apparently he took this as affirmation, for in a moment he was gone and sitting a short distance from his wife, who was seated at a reinforced bench and half-way through her second whole chicken, her hands slick with the drippings of God knows how many buttered rolls.
Those were my recollections of my first meeting with Trina's family. And those sequences were to be roughly replicted on the four or five other occasions in which she and I made token appearances. The one common denominator, aside from the requisite Pentecostal gibbering and her father's pleas to me to "see that Trina gets saved," was the absence of her older brother Clay, who I understood to be some kind of genetically-perfected asshole. His ranking as Mammoth Lakes' Realtor-of-the-Year, and his three-year reign as top dog on the "Millionaire's Circle" was further proof of his mania. But as I backed up and surveyed as best I could this Daliesque Family Portrait, I saw that his personality defects might simply be a matter of overcompensation: there was something confusing about a family bearing distinctly Semitic features, but who evangelized like Jehovah's Witnesses (though they were not), and particularly for Trina--this small Asian girl, who had gone through twelve years of Christian Sunday school as "little Trina Weinswelter."
So when I finally met Clay on the other side of the net on a hot asphalt tennis court, I was not in the least surprised to see that he had married a knockout goy, and that he obviously spent great amounts of time and money thinning what would otherwise have been a coarse Jewish mane (he achieved that blanched-blond look, Brittany confided in Trina some time ago, through a powerful lemon-peroxide combo, and spent forty pops a week to keep it thinned and slightly over the eyelashes in a diagonal drop, a la Bryan Ferry. The rhinoplasty--which he had paid for himself, at eighteen, with his earnings from construction work through blistering high Sierra summers--gave him that Roman-god snout that he had always idolized from the movies). Yes, altogether he was a handsome sonofabitch, there was no getting around it (though Brittany also confided in Trina that the gene pool had not been particularly kind to him in the shorts, and that oft-times, in The Act, she thought she could stare up at Lyle Lovett, if only he were "hung like a real man").
Following the match I had no interest whatever in talking to Clay Chambers (ne Weinswelter: at eighteen, he had also changed his name through the power of the State of California); and, as it looked, he none in me.
Brushing the hair from his eyes occasionally, in that irritatingly stylish way, he ignored pleas from his wife and parents to aid in the preparation of lunch, preferring instead to chatter with his closest brother, Jared, two years younger and burning down the same road of success that had always eluded their father, who was now employed as a janitor at the only junior high school in the greater Mammoth area. Jared had graduated second in his law-school class at UC Berkeley, was no more religious than Clay, but was blessed with a natural compliance--came to church with his parents regularly, and, as I could tell, was just basically a hell of a guy: friendly, a good listener, a forgiving doubles partner; besides, he was married to Claris, who had been, on their wedding night, as striking a brunette as he was liable to see in his cramped little neck of the woods. (But were I friends with him at the time, close friends--and even then, these things can cut both ways--I would have told him to "look at the cheeks. And then under the chin." Chubby cheeks will give it away almost every time; a layer under the chin, at twenty-three, is death. And Claris owned both.) So I, for one, was nonplussed when she gained sixty pounds during her first pregnancy, dropping ten when the load was delivered stillborn, then gaining fifteen more while recovering from the trauma. That she and Ellen Weinswelter could now pass as twins--were it not for the matriarch's considerable hound-dog wrinkles, becoming the best of friends in the recovery period--was also predictable.
All this was suddenly weighing on me, and I turned to Trina under the covered barbeque pits. "Let's get out of here: I think I'm gonna explode."
"Have I done something wrong?"
"No. God, no." I kissed her forehead, and it tasted salty from the heat. "I've been a trooper; but I've hit the wall. I just hate these people," I blurted, before correcting myself. "Well, not all of them. Jared's a prince. Come on: let's go home and take a shower and smoke a fat one on the balcony. Whaddya say?"
"Oh, I'd love to, sweetheart, but I'm starving. And Dad just put the hamburgers on. Can you wait half an hour? Please?"
I sat heavily at one of the picnic tables, and forced myself into a kind of malnourished dream-coma, through which I meditated on the oasian squiggles rising from the blistering asphalt of the city park. In a little over an hour, I would be home in our condo on those dry, bare and slightly brown, but still beautiful, slopes, where in a lusty THC haze I would rewrite my own campaign speech for the billionth time. In four years it would be my turn to represent the Good People of the Republic of California. Maybe not represent exactly, more like herd them along with some kind of high-voltage animal prod, the sheep that are 99.44/100% of all registered voters. I would start with the Assembly. My boss, after two terms, would have handed over the proverbial reigns (this revelation coming a few weeks after his election, as he passed me a bomber in the basement grow-room of his wood-frame palace--indica I think it was, by the way I fell into a paralyzed state of admiration and unreality that rarely accompanies conventional herb). Then fuck the State Senate, which is for losers and the hidebound: I'd stomp straight into Congress, following roughly the same Freak-Power tactics that almost saw Hunter Thompson become Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado in '71.
(Here I made a mental note to reread that particular segment of The Great Shark Hunt.)
And after that, well, I would probably be assassinated. But so what? Life is like that. Like sex, it's the getting there that makes the struggle sweet. These and other equally crazed fixations had gripped my brain, sweat tumbling from my forehead, throat, chest, the fine hairs on my lower back, when suddenly I noticed flames fairly erupting from the barbeque.
"Marvin!" Ellen Weinswelter cried, dropping a half-empty bag of potato chips onto the picnic table: "Look what you've done!"
"O Merciful God," he cried from the playground, where he had been regulating the flow of the teeter-totter, acquiescing to the demands of Clay's and Brittany's two rotten little parasites. In running for the barbeque, he dropped the playground contraption, such that his four-year old grandson, Clay, Jr., hit bottom, with Stephanie, barely three, stuck up in the air in good-natured confusion. When little Clay decided to follow his granddad toward a blast furnace that was once the barbeque, the grease off the hamburgers nicely augmenting the power of the coals, Stephanie dropped nearly five feet and onto her tiny, unpadded bum.
"Waaaaaaaaaa!"
But there was no one within earshot to hear her, except me in my state of hyperattention, and I heard it as something extremely annoying, before blocking it out altogether.
Clay and Jared, upon seeing the meat briquettes that once promised to be their afternoon nourishment, fled to the tennis courts, not with any intention of actually playing (the temperature had soared to 103), but because both recognized it as neutral and distant ground. Brittany was gabbing conspiratorially with Claris about the possibilities of a new, easier (read: shorter) hair-style, which she knew Clay would be dead against. Marvin Weinswelter came under tremendous assault from his wife for ruining the burgers on their limited budget (though she had contributed less than $1,500 per annum over the past twenty years, usually from piano lessons and sundry stitchery-work). Trina, as usual, was trying to calm the cacophony, and her two youngest siblings were far across the soccer field, knocking some sort of sponge-ball around with a set of wooden paddles. (The fraternal twins had been spared this afternoon by a week-long church camp.)
I think I was the only one who noticed the cream-colored Ford panel van pull into the parking lot. And even I though nothing of it--until two men piled out and headed for the restroom.
"Fags!" I thought silently.
But as a registered Libertarian, I was required to be tolerant of such "lifestyle" decisions, and so I said nothing, to anyone, not even to Trina, for fear that she would accuse me of hypocrisy during some midnight argument (though we had not yet argued--but the occasion, I had been assured by my married friends, was not far off). I probably recoiled in disgust, though I don't recall the exact sequence, except that next I found myself tamping, with the heel of my rubber tennis shoe, a pile of bouncing-orange coals that had fallen from the barbeque and onto the concrete by the hand of Marvin Weinswelter, who had bravely but lamely tried to rearrange the molten mass with a steel poker.
When his wife said, casually, but with perfect clarity, "You can't even have an affair right; why did I ever think I could trust you to cook?", the few of us nearby became rigid, except for the accused, who, stalling momentarily, began stomping the remaining coals to extinction. Trina--who knew of her adoptive father's indiscretions with a church secretary several years earlier (the night she had told me this, I dreamed obscenely, all night long, of Jessica Hahn, whose surgically-enhanced hogans I had drooled over a few years earlier in that infamous Playboy spread)--lowered her head and muttered something nearly inaudible, but which I recognized as a prayer.
The unyeilding ugliness was enough to send Claris and Brittany skulking over the hump-in-the-field, to where their husbands would be playing tennis. What came back was something unexpected.
Scarcely three minutes from the time Marvin Weinswelter had been exposed for his infidelities, Jared and Claris came screeching across the lawn, reciting the various sundry statutes that pertain to couples separating in a childless-but-contested way, in accordance to the State of California.
"No fault??" Claris huffed. "What the hell is that? You're making it up!"
"I swear to God, I'm not," Jared yelled to her, his wife trudging across the grass toward the picnic area. "As long as there's no violence, they can't care. Think of how many cases they get every goddamned day. It's a huge state," he said breathlessly, but admirably without pleading.
The long and short of it (though from Jared's vantage-point, I couldn't see the short of it), was that a certain slim, perky red-headed paralegal had offered, during his first five weeks as associate partner in a prestigious Mammoth-area law firm, to, as she put it, "fill the vacancy underneath your desk." And since Claris routinely refused, how could he resist?
How, indeed? (And although Trina routinely obliged, I found myself weighing the hypothetical dilemma, the fetid rain pouring down.)
"If you'd've been more of a wife," he said, "maybe this would have never happened."
"Oh bullshit!" she retorted, and by this time the whole family had gathered and was entering into a right proper uproar. "You've said it, yourself: 'Fat girls give better head.'"
Jared retreated momentarily. "Well, theoretically," he stammered. "I don't know if it's a fixed thing. You know, first there's got to be the interest."
"Fuck you," she breathed.
I was just beginning to enjoy myself, when I heard a voice waver high and above the others.
"Plleease!" it said, shook in the air and hung like a tattered sheet on a line; and for the first few seconds I didn't recognize it as Trina's. When I did, I went numb.
"God, please! Stop it! Stop it!!"
And they did--I think to everyone's great shock. Couldn't help it. Her screams came on like a load of antioxidant from high overhead, a last, desperate salvo on a grass-fire threatening to rage overhill. For a full minute, the only sound, aside from the still-crackling hamburgers, was a burbling from Clay jr., who was busy moving a big plastic firetruck around the mashed coals and between our collective legs.
Gradually, each member of the Weinswelter family composed themselves and migrated, slowly, but fairly en masse, to the barbeque, to begin anew, a battalion damaged but not destroyed. Marvin began slicing onions; Jared patted down what was left of the ground round--meager lumps barely capable of feeding even the little ones.
"Clay, where's Stephie?"
Clay shrugged absently, silently, sullenly from where he sat alone on a bench, plucking at the strings of his racquet.
"Clay?" she said again, the voice quavering sickeningly. "Dad? Ellen?!"
It took me less than ten seconds to scan that small city park, all three and three-quarter acres of it, and to see that neither Stephanie nor the blond van were any longer in attendance. This I would find myself relaying over and over to a dozen officers from the Mammoth Lakes police department, along with a physical description of the van, of its driver and passenger--of their gait, distinguishing features, tattoos, moles ("brown or black? with or without hair?"), and again, hours later, to the FBI, Mammoth being barely an hour from the Nevada state line. But in those early minutes of desperation--as Clay walked to the playground and fell to his knees and shouted: "I'll fucking kill 'em! I'll fucking kill those...god damn...Fuck!", the rest of the Weinswelter family joining hands and kneeling as well, babbling unintelligibly, Trina being the quietest and also the most fervent--I thought I caught a glimpse of the Kingdom:
A shallow depression in a grove of pines holding all that is not sullied, and covered over with everything that is.
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2463
Family Circle
by Todd Brendan Fahey
When the ball falls earthward and the sinews of the wrist snap forward and the scream far across the net sounds more like the last blood-cry of Grendel than anything one should need to be subjected to over a friendly game on the public courts, there is not much a rusty amateur can do but stick out the oversized Prince and hope to make contact on the sweet spot--or even get a lucky one off the frame. Winning one game in a set, two games in such a match--legitimate games, 40-15, then a quick little net-shot down the line to finish it off and leave the blond bastard cursing...losing this way to such a monster, plus avoiding a first-service to the nuts, had always felt like victory to me.
I was faring even better than this against my wife's older brother that afternoon--so well, in fact, that I had begun to get cocky, at one point, tossing up an eleven-story volley as he tapped his feet at the net, knees bent just right, bearing a grin that had made him a famous poster-child for the Orthodontics Association of America. It was nearly one-hundred degrees on the asphalt that afternoon, and even from twenty feet away I could see the color in his face go in seconds from that of an early gamay beaujolais to Hanes t-shirt.
"God-damn..it...!" he stuttered, spinning like a top on the reinforced balls of his expensive new court shoes, before running flat-out for the baseline.
"Clay!?" his wife yelled. "It's only a game."
"Shutthefuckup!" I heard him coughing as he sprinted to the backcourt. He gave the ball a good racquetball swat before colliding shoulder-first into the green chain fence, but it was out by a mile.
"So, what's that now?" I wondered, watching as he collected his racquet from where he had collapsed in a heap.
"I think it's three serving four," his wife answered, reflexively, from a slight rise on the adjacent lawn.
"Goddamnit, Brittany," he pleaded in a tremulous falsetto, bringing the racquet up at an angle over his head. And if it weren't for those thin diamonds of steel, I do believe he would have beaten the shit out of her. "Why can't you support me? Just once, I'd like to hear you say 'Hit it, Clay! Get it, darling!' Something!"
"Yeah, yeah," she said, in a tone that hovered somewhere beneath condescension but above boredom; as if she wasn't quite tired of ridiculing her husband in public, but was sick to hell of tennis. I didn't know how many times she had been through this, but I could guess--and the numbers ran high in my mind.
Brittany Chambers was nothing less than the stuff of every adolescent's wet dream. And though I had never fantasized about her, I saw exactly why my brother-in-law had knocked her up four years back: all five-foot nothing, ninety-two pounds of twenty-year old prime loin, spun gold down to a cruel bubble-butt. She was a number, from swimsuit to miniskirt, but she wasn't my type--much as that will probably sound like sour grapes. I had had my fill of blondes by the time I stepped across the stage to grab my Bachelor's degree; by my Master's, I would date nothing but Orientals...which was a weird switch to some of my friends, but to none who really knew me...
Trina had made it clear even before we left our apartment that she wouldn't be watching the Big Game: that it would be too painful. And so, from a covered picnic area, where her adoptive family split time between preparing lunch and tending to the two whining grandchildren, I had settled for a goodbye smooch before heading off to the courts. I wished she could have been there to see her brother bounce violently off the fence, then onto the cement, following my skyward volley, but I trusted Brittany to tell her all about it later.
"I'm...stuffthisdownyourthroat," Clay grumbled from across the court, and by the embittered look on his face, I had every good reason to believe him. It was a blistering fastball, smack into the middle of the playing field, and how I managed to dink it over the net, I'll never know; but I did, and in his smugness he forgot to even run--just stood at the baseline and watched the ball drop safely by three or so inches.
"OHMYGOD!" he sputtered. "You pussy! Goddamnit, that's not tennis!"
And so it went, for the next three games, until I found myself serving for match-point. Trina appeared suddenly at the fence, like a shark circling the crippled.
"Better make this one, Clay," his wife chirped from the lawn, "or it's all over: Humiliation Time."
"You fucking bitch," he whispered over his shoulder, stamping both feet to some maniacal rhythm.
I sliced the ball along the inside corner, and, poised for absolutely anything, he delivered it back with a brutal forehand that barely grazed the doubles-line, and which he instantly exclaimed was: "Fuckin' IN! YEAH!!!! Alright!!!"
Trina blew me a kiss, but I tossed up a double-fault anyway--my first of the match. And when Clay ran to the net after returning my next service, I was driven by surging bile to cram the fuzzy green cue-ball down deep into his larynx.
A tap of his pan-faced Yonnex was all it took to return everything on this day to its rightful order. "Did you see that, Brit?!" he yelled, the ball still skittering down the inseam. "I gotta get you out of Mammoth," he hissed through the fence. "You're gonna get as fat as mom and Claris."
"You mom's had six kids. Give her a break."
"What's the other bitch's excuse?"
"What does it matter?" she wondered. "You're not married to her. And she's probably nicer than me, anyway. I know she's a better cook."
"Obviously," he giggled. Then he swiped his racquet against the court, abrading the protective strip. "Goddamnit, I love to win!"
Clay was far gone from the court--mauling Brittany on the lawn, and, as it appeared, fairly against her will--by the time I chased down the last new orange Penn and collected my racquet and walked out the gate, kissing Trina on a sleepy Eastern eyelid. One thing about Asian girls: when they wear make-up, it comes as a bonus, not a necessity.
On our second date, she had taken me to the sushi house under Lift 13--at which I had spent unholy sums on at least a half-dozen occasions (though I never told her this, her wanting the experience to be a "first-time," and all), and which could be counted on to be, on Friday nights after six, Kirin and sake hell. It was an early November, and the ski slopes had yet to see a flake of snow, and, warm-blooded as she is, the evening found her enveloped in a long sweater that dropped a good two inches past her ass, and not much else. I don't know if it was the heavy-black braid swinging down and around the top of that amazing derriere, or her bare, tanned legs, or those eyes: but every man and woman sucked silent sushi for a full ninety seconds, until we were seated at the bar.
I fell in love somewhere through the Funky Charley, a potentially nauseating thing to the uninitiated: freshwater eel wrapped in rice and seaweed, then quickly deep-fried and drizzled in a hot mustard sauce, whereupon the sushi-master wraps it in raw halibut and covers the long tube in tiny orange fish eggs. The bean-sprout antennae, which makes the whole slimy cylinder look like a banana slug, usually separates the men from the boys, as it were, but Trina tackled her three chunks with a set of porcelain chopsticks she kept hidden in her purse, and then came begging for some of mine.
"Go away," I told her, placing a hand on a crossed thigh, just north of the cuff of her sweater-dress. When she let it lie, I knew we would someday be married.
We had been living together almost a year when we received, by mail, an invitation to the family picnic. As it was I who had taken delivery of the batch of letters that afternoon, my first inclination was to pitch it out with the overflowing trash, but something held me back. That night, almost as an afterthought, half-way out the door to a fundraiser for a Libertarian candidate to the California State Assembly, I showed it to her.
"God," she said. "I was hoping they'd forgotten about me."
We both laughed, and said nothing else about the summons for the rest of the evening. After the keynote speech, as the mingling began in earnest, I handed to the candidate a finely-honed brochure--a professionally designed, three-color thing--along with a check for five-hundred dollars (a last-ditch effort of insane risk, given that Trina and I were cold-stone broke and in arrears by two months on our lease at a Mammoth Slopes Condo), and told him simply that whomever was running his campaign, I could do it better.
I was prepared to stop payment on that check the following morning if he had told me to bugger off, which I fully expected he would, but when he looked into my eyes and nearly cried, and told me that not even his million-dollar townhouse nor the thirty-some hydroponically-raised plants maturing nicely in his basement grow-room had been able to buy him the kind of happiness he knew he had always deserved, I let the check pass through, and he hired me the next morning at two-thousand a month, plus expenses and a clothing allowance, which I spent on Grateful Dead t-shirts and Guatemalan prints dresses for Trina, and we cultivated the votes of every brain-stunted eighteen-year old in every high school, ski outlet and hippie-trash bagel/coffee shop in Mono County, and won the election, further alienating Trina from her family.
To see them together was like watching a nest of birds, wherein one chick has tumbled out and been returned by human hands. To be around it, to witness the neglect, was too much for me to handle. I resisted valiantly most interaction with her parents and their six natural siblings, though Trina infrequently felt the need to make an appearance just to maintain some semblance of peace in the family.
As she told it, her parents had met and fallen in love at college in the early sixties, somewhere in San Francisco--had turned in, turned on, and dropped out, as was the fashion; had become early disciples of Leary, and, later, Baba Ram Dass, and, when they realized the latter was plainly on the money-make, fell in with another Family, whom they saw as attuned to waves of a higher, holier tenor, and who convinced the young couple to move with them: to Katmandhu.
Only it gets worse.
Once in India, starving for lack of money and delirious from a cleansing moonlight dip in the Ganges, the wretched, huddling party--white people!--were reduced to begging on the cold November streets of Calcutta, and not even the Untouchables would share their blankets, such was the group's odious presence. (They never made it near Katmandhu.)
It was then that Marvin and Ellen Weinswelter gave their lives over to Jesus Christ.
I shivered in my summer clothes the first time I heard the story, and resolved that if I were ever to marry Trina, we would have to move somewhere far, far away.
"It was so beautiful," Marvin Weinswelter had said, upon my first meeting with the clan, a meeting which took place at the slightly unkempt three bedroom house they rented on the outskirts of Mammoth. "Ellen was covered over with impetigo," he recalled, "and I felt like I might have been coming down with T.B., and here we were all hallucinating, even though we had given up drugs before leaving San Francisco. We were really on our last legs...and that's when we found Jesus."
"In the flesh?" I remember saying at the time, and not with any intentional antagonism, but with honest incredulity.
Her father than stared at me. "Son, have you been saved?"
"From what?" I asked.
"From...what? From your sins!" he screeched in a reedy voice. "I've been a sinner--"
"Hallelujia," his wife answered, quietly and automatically.
"I'm still a sinner. We're all unclean before God, son. Me, Ellen, Trina...right down to our youngest grandchild, though she won't know it for a few more years," he made sure to add. "That's how children are," he nodded. "It'd be too much for them: to know how vile they really are in the eyes of Yahweh, King of Kings, our Creator; and our Redeemer, His son, Jesus, the Christ."
I nodded righteously, but he wasn't ready to let it rest. I remember that first Meeting With The Folks as taking place on a clear, sunny Sunday afternoon in the high Sierras--the 49ers were away and on cable against Cincinnati--, and I remember having cultivated a fair resentment toward Trina for dragging me out of bed just before my second orgasm, so that we would be on time for the barbeque. I honestly didn't know if I'd ever be able to forgive her after the intense grilling I came under during those few minutes, Marvin Weinswelter suddenly falling to his knees, hands outstretched, jabbering in an unnerving dialect I assumed he had picked up on the streets of Calcutta: "Onglalala, ob ja-la-la, ka babawawa."
There is a nasty symmetry operative in the human psyche, in that the clearest memories we own are those which we most desperately desire to shake: The collective Weinswelter family: Marvin's wife Ellen; second son Jared, a first-year attorney in Mammoth, and his wife Claris; the two middle boys, quiet fraternal twins; and the two accidents: a gangling boy about fifteen, and a youngish girl I gauged as being around twelve, as she was just sprouting breasts, though it appeared Mrs. Weinswelter had been negligent in providing her with a training bra...every blessed one of them, collapsing on the floor and slabbering wildly the same rhetoric of gibberish. Trina was the last to fall in, and I was headed out the front door, and would have been safely into our condo-on-the-slopes, watching Jerry Rice catch one of Steve Young's five touchdown passes of the day, had Trina's hand not hooked mine by the knuckles, jerking me down into the family circle.
"Just babble," she whispered into my ear: "Blablablabla."
And so I did--treated it as some kind of boot-camp Army drill (though I have never served My Country directly; only grasping what I had seen of it on TV, and from Oliver Stone movies)--ran off at the mouth until my tongue was dry, and sweat covered my neck, and Marvin Weinswelter appeared satisfied.
"I knew you were spirit-filled from the minute I saw you," he croaked, exhausted. "God is love: Don't ever forget that."
I shook my head furiously, such were the rhythms of fear and anger still reverberating through my system, and we had no more talk of the "healing power of Jesus Christ" that afternoon, aside from a rote prayer before the eleven of us proceeded to scarf down half a dozen fat chickens I had basted and cooked on the barbeque in the backyard, just to achieve some momentary solace. I think I could have blocked the spectacle from whatever portion of the grey matter governs memory, had Trina's father not taken me aside again, as I attempted to extract the last shards of meat from a wing.
At fifty-one, he had just begun to forget things--little things, which would scarcely have been noticeable, were it not also for the persistent tremors that afflicted his neck and head, so that he appeared to dodder slightly, like a farm-raised turkey. I felt terrible for the man all the way around. He and Ellen, after being rescued from the doomed hippie-cult by a pair of wandering Christian missionaries, had traveled all over southeast Asia on the generosity of the Holy Spirit and not much else: unpaid proselytizers for the Lord, who seemed to always see them a hot meal and at least a creaky cot at the end of the day. As Marvin told it, He had also secured their passage back to California, though I had to take this one on faith. Ellen, somewhere in the couple's travails, had given birth to their first child, Clay (whose conspicuous absence during that first afternoon caused some significant grumbling), and, broke again, the child crying constantly, stranded in a suburb of Bangkok, nourished, it seemed, by little else than the powerful glow that is Belief, they made a pact of some metaphysical sort.
"We were led to an orphanage," Marvin continued. "And the Lord told us that if we were to adopt a small child, a girl, we would be provided safe passage back to California, where He said we were now needed." Trina's father was nodding, to confirm the story and also from the unfortunate onset of Parkinsons; and, reflexively, I nodded with him.
"You understand why we did it," Marvin asked in earnest.
"Oh, completely," I heard myself saying.
"We were commanded to bring her home," he said.
At this, I could think only of Abraham and the "knife-that-should-have-plunged," and I was consumed by heebie-jeebies.
"It's been a trial," he said, "there's no way around it. She tries, but she's just never really taken to The Faith. God designed all His creatures differently--and her kind have been slow to recognize Him, the Holy One." Then he gripped my by the forearms. "You'll see her through to the Kingdom. Won't you, son?"
A shudder ran from my the base of my coccyx to the top of the skull, and apparently he took this as affirmation, for in a moment he was gone and sitting a short distance from his wife, who was seated at a reinforced bench and half-way through her second whole chicken, her hands slick with the drippings of God knows how many buttered rolls.
Those were my recollections of my first meeting with Trina's family. And those sequences were to be roughly replicted on the four or five other occasions in which she and I made token appearances. The one common denominator, aside from the requisite Pentecostal gibbering and her father's pleas to me to "see that Trina gets saved," was the absence of her older brother Clay, who I understood to be some kind of genetically-perfected asshole. His ranking as Mammoth Lakes' Realtor-of-the-Year, and his three-year reign as top dog on the "Millionaire's Circle" was further proof of his mania. But as I backed up and surveyed as best I could this Daliesque Family Portrait, I saw that his personality defects might simply be a matter of overcompensation: there was something confusing about a family bearing distinctly Semitic features, but who evangelized like Jehovah's Witnesses (though they were not), and particularly for Trina--this small Asian girl, who had gone through twelve years of Christian Sunday school as "little Trina Weinswelter."
So when I finally met Clay on the other side of the net on a hot asphalt tennis court, I was not in the least surprised to see that he had married a knockout goy, and that he obviously spent great amounts of time and money thinning what would otherwise have been a coarse Jewish mane (he achieved that blanched-blond look, Brittany confided in Trina some time ago, through a powerful lemon-peroxide combo, and spent forty pops a week to keep it thinned and slightly over the eyelashes in a diagonal drop, a la Bryan Ferry. The rhinoplasty--which he had paid for himself, at eighteen, with his earnings from construction work through blistering high Sierra summers--gave him that Roman-god snout that he had always idolized from the movies). Yes, altogether he was a handsome sonofabitch, there was no getting around it (though Brittany also confided in Trina that the gene pool had not been particularly kind to him in the shorts, and that oft-times, in The Act, she thought she could stare up at Lyle Lovett, if only he were "hung like a real man").
Following the match I had no interest whatever in talking to Clay Chambers (ne Weinswelter: at eighteen, he had also changed his name through the power of the State of California); and, as it looked, he none in me.
Brushing the hair from his eyes occasionally, in that irritatingly stylish way, he ignored pleas from his wife and parents to aid in the preparation of lunch, preferring instead to chatter with his closest brother, Jared, two years younger and burning down the same road of success that had always eluded their father, who was now employed as a janitor at the only junior high school in the greater Mammoth area. Jared had graduated second in his law-school class at UC Berkeley, was no more religious than Clay, but was blessed with a natural compliance--came to church with his parents regularly, and, as I could tell, was just basically a hell of a guy: friendly, a good listener, a forgiving doubles partner; besides, he was married to Claris, who had been, on their wedding night, as striking a brunette as he was liable to see in his cramped little neck of the woods. (But were I friends with him at the time, close friends--and even then, these things can cut both ways--I would have told him to "look at the cheeks. And then under the chin." Chubby cheeks will give it away almost every time; a layer under the chin, at twenty-three, is death. And Claris owned both.) So I, for one, was nonplussed when she gained sixty pounds during her first pregnancy, dropping ten when the load was delivered stillborn, then gaining fifteen more while recovering from the trauma. That she and Ellen Weinswelter could now pass as twins--were it not for the matriarch's considerable hound-dog wrinkles, becoming the best of friends in the recovery period--was also predictable.
All this was suddenly weighing on me, and I turned to Trina under the covered barbeque pits. "Let's get out of here: I think I'm gonna explode."
"Have I done something wrong?"
"No. God, no." I kissed her forehead, and it tasted salty from the heat. "I've been a trooper; but I've hit the wall. I just hate these people," I blurted, before correcting myself. "Well, not all of them. Jared's a prince. Come on: let's go home and take a shower and smoke a fat one on the balcony. Whaddya say?"
"Oh, I'd love to, sweetheart, but I'm starving. And Dad just put the hamburgers on. Can you wait half an hour? Please?"
I sat heavily at one of the picnic tables, and forced myself into a kind of malnourished dream-coma, through which I meditated on the oasian squiggles rising from the blistering asphalt of the city park. In a little over an hour, I would be home in our condo on those dry, bare and slightly brown, but still beautiful, slopes, where in a lusty THC haze I would rewrite my own campaign speech for the billionth time. In four years it would be my turn to represent the Good People of the Republic of California. Maybe not represent exactly, more like herd them along with some kind of high-voltage animal prod, the sheep that are 99.44/100% of all registered voters. I would start with the Assembly. My boss, after two terms, would have handed over the proverbial reigns (this revelation coming a few weeks after his election, as he passed me a bomber in the basement grow-room of his wood-frame palace--indica I think it was, by the way I fell into a paralyzed state of admiration and unreality that rarely accompanies conventional herb). Then fuck the State Senate, which is for losers and the hidebound: I'd stomp straight into Congress, following roughly the same Freak-Power tactics that almost saw Hunter Thompson become Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado in '71.
(Here I made a mental note to reread that particular segment of The Great Shark Hunt.)
And after that, well, I would probably be assassinated. But so what? Life is like that. Like sex, it's the getting there that makes the struggle sweet. These and other equally crazed fixations had gripped my brain, sweat tumbling from my forehead, throat, chest, the fine hairs on my lower back, when suddenly I noticed flames fairly erupting from the barbeque.
"Marvin!" Ellen Weinswelter cried, dropping a half-empty bag of potato chips onto the picnic table: "Look what you've done!"
"O Merciful God," he cried from the playground, where he had been regulating the flow of the teeter-totter, acquiescing to the demands of Clay's and Brittany's two rotten little parasites. In running for the barbeque, he dropped the playground contraption, such that his four-year old grandson, Clay, Jr., hit bottom, with Stephanie, barely three, stuck up in the air in good-natured confusion. When little Clay decided to follow his granddad toward a blast furnace that was once the barbeque, the grease off the hamburgers nicely augmenting the power of the coals, Stephanie dropped nearly five feet and onto her tiny, unpadded bum.
"Waaaaaaaaaa!"
But there was no one within earshot to hear her, except me in my state of hyperattention, and I heard it as something extremely annoying, before blocking it out altogether.
Clay and Jared, upon seeing the meat briquettes that once promised to be their afternoon nourishment, fled to the tennis courts, not with any intention of actually playing (the temperature had soared to 103), but because both recognized it as neutral and distant ground. Brittany was gabbing conspiratorially with Claris about the possibilities of a new, easier (read: shorter) hair-style, which she knew Clay would be dead against. Marvin Weinswelter came under tremendous assault from his wife for ruining the burgers on their limited budget (though she had contributed less than $1,500 per annum over the past twenty years, usually from piano lessons and sundry stitchery-work). Trina, as usual, was trying to calm the cacophony, and her two youngest siblings were far across the soccer field, knocking some sort of sponge-ball around with a set of wooden paddles. (The fraternal twins had been spared this afternoon by a week-long church camp.)
I think I was the only one who noticed the cream-colored Ford panel van pull into the parking lot. And even I though nothing of it--until two men piled out and headed for the restroom.
"Fags!" I thought silently.
But as a registered Libertarian, I was required to be tolerant of such "lifestyle" decisions, and so I said nothing, to anyone, not even to Trina, for fear that she would accuse me of hypocrisy during some midnight argument (though we had not yet argued--but the occasion, I had been assured by my married friends, was not far off). I probably recoiled in disgust, though I don't recall the exact sequence, except that next I found myself tamping, with the heel of my rubber tennis shoe, a pile of bouncing-orange coals that had fallen from the barbeque and onto the concrete by the hand of Marvin Weinswelter, who had bravely but lamely tried to rearrange the molten mass with a steel poker.
When his wife said, casually, but with perfect clarity, "You can't even have an affair right; why did I ever think I could trust you to cook?", the few of us nearby became rigid, except for the accused, who, stalling momentarily, began stomping the remaining coals to extinction. Trina--who knew of her adoptive father's indiscretions with a church secretary several years earlier (the night she had told me this, I dreamed obscenely, all night long, of Jessica Hahn, whose surgically-enhanced hogans I had drooled over a few years earlier in that infamous Playboy spread)--lowered her head and muttered something nearly inaudible, but which I recognized as a prayer.
The unyeilding ugliness was enough to send Claris and Brittany skulking over the hump-in-the-field, to where their husbands would be playing tennis. What came back was something unexpected.
Scarcely three minutes from the time Marvin Weinswelter had been exposed for his infidelities, Jared and Claris came screeching across the lawn, reciting the various sundry statutes that pertain to couples separating in a childless-but-contested way, in accordance to the State of California.
"No fault??" Claris huffed. "What the hell is that? You're making it up!"
"I swear to God, I'm not," Jared yelled to her, his wife trudging across the grass toward the picnic area. "As long as there's no violence, they can't care. Think of how many cases they get every goddamned day. It's a huge state," he said breathlessly, but admirably without pleading.
The long and short of it (though from Jared's vantage-point, I couldn't see the short of it), was that a certain slim, perky red-headed paralegal had offered, during his first five weeks as associate partner in a prestigious Mammoth-area law firm, to, as she put it, "fill the vacancy underneath your desk." And since Claris routinely refused, how could he resist?
How, indeed? (And although Trina routinely obliged, I found myself weighing the hypothetical dilemma, the fetid rain pouring down.)
"If you'd've been more of a wife," he said, "maybe this would have never happened."
"Oh bullshit!" she retorted, and by this time the whole family had gathered and was entering into a right proper uproar. "You've said it, yourself: 'Fat girls give better head.'"
Jared retreated momentarily. "Well, theoretically," he stammered. "I don't know if it's a fixed thing. You know, first there's got to be the interest."
"Fuck you," she breathed.
I was just beginning to enjoy myself, when I heard a voice waver high and above the others.
"Plleease!" it said, shook in the air and hung like a tattered sheet on a line; and for the first few seconds I didn't recognize it as Trina's. When I did, I went numb.
"God, please! Stop it! Stop it!!"
And they did--I think to everyone's great shock. Couldn't help it. Her screams came on like a load of antioxidant from high overhead, a last, desperate salvo on a grass-fire threatening to rage overhill. For a full minute, the only sound, aside from the still-crackling hamburgers, was a burbling from Clay jr., who was busy moving a big plastic firetruck around the mashed coals and between our collective legs.
Gradually, each member of the Weinswelter family composed themselves and migrated, slowly, but fairly en masse, to the barbeque, to begin anew, a battalion damaged but not destroyed. Marvin began slicing onions; Jared patted down what was left of the ground round--meager lumps barely capable of feeding even the little ones.
"Clay, where's Stephie?"
Clay shrugged absently, silently, sullenly from where he sat alone on a bench, plucking at the strings of his racquet.
"Clay?" she said again, the voice quavering sickeningly. "Dad? Ellen?!"
It took me less than ten seconds to scan that small city park, all three and three-quarter acres of it, and to see that neither Stephanie nor the blond van were any longer in attendance. This I would find myself relaying over and over to a dozen officers from the Mammoth Lakes police department, along with a physical description of the van, of its driver and passenger--of their gait, distinguishing features, tattoos, moles ("brown or black? with or without hair?"), and again, hours later, to the FBI, Mammoth being barely an hour from the Nevada state line. But in those early minutes of desperation--as Clay walked to the playground and fell to his knees and shouted: "I'll fucking kill 'em! I'll fucking kill those...god damn...Fuck!", the rest of the Weinswelter family joining hands and kneeling as well, babbling unintelligibly, Trina being the quietest and also the most fervent--I thought I caught a glimpse of the Kingdom:
A shallow depression in a grove of pines holding all that is not sullied, and covered over with everything that is.
A Blackheart's Tale
Todd Brendan Fahey's got another book coming out in October... even better than Wisdom's Maw... called: Dogshit Park & other atrocities:
A Blackheart's Tale
by Todd Brendan Fahey
I hadn't known Jurgen for very long -- a little over a year, maybe -- when the change occurred. And if others swear they had seen it coming from months back, I suppose I must take them at their word. But I had not, and was patently unprepared for the metamorphosis that took place just after the Christmas season, when Jurgen called me from the Ogden city lockup and asked me to post the five hundred-dollar bond because no one in his family would."Jesus Christ, what happened?"
I assumed that he had gone to the City Club after an argument with Patrice, and that he had knocked back five too many and couldn't survive the Breathalyzer. But I was wrong.
"It's awful," he said. And I could tell that he was crying real, anguished tears. Suddenly and with unnerving clarity, he whispered, "I feel so awful. I thought about tying off a bed sheet...", but then his voice trailed away.
"I'll be there in forty minutes. Are you good for that long?"
He said he thought so. By the exhausted resignation in his voice I felt reasonably certain that the suicidal impulses had passed and that he was now rounding the bend into that stage of dread that accompanies savage transgressions against a loved one. I knew before I'd even hung up the phone that Jurgen had beaten his wife, though I don't know precisely how I knew -- I had no reason to convict my good friend of such an offense.
As fellow English instructors at a local college, Jurgen had become one of my closest friends. I had met him at a critical juncture in his life, weighing heavily, as he was, the costs of separating from Patrice. In the ensuing weeks we talked frequently about his feelings of guilt and inadequacy, both as a lover to his wife and an apostatized member of the Mormon church.
"I'm glad I went on that mission before I left the church," he often said. "I learned Dutch and got the hell out of Ogden. I'd be managing the spark plug counter at some auto parts store if I hadn't gone. I swear to God I would."
But he was just as proud of the trip he made to Europe two summers later to study world literature, and he talked about that journey even more so, and particularly of the time he'd run stone out of money, his parents having no more to lend. He'd stowed away on a Greek freighter bound for France, lived in a park and swept out shops for food and wine. And he saw those six months as the highlight and real turning point of his terribly naive and sheltered life.
I've never considered myself a particularly religious man, but I have felt the transcendent ecstasy that comes with packing five or six big bags and flying over the polar cap, toward a year of the glorious unknown.
While Jurgen foraged for his supper across the Channel, I was tucked away daily in a private pub inside London's Senate Library, steeped in warm Guinness. And if my sojourn had changed me at all -- which it had, in more ways than I care to go into now -- his must have crumbled the low timbers of his convictions.
He came back to the States with the hunger of a defrocked monk, moved out of his parents' home, painting houses to settle his undergraduate tuition; after work, he'd scatter most of his paycheck at one of the few drinking holes in Ogden, Utah. That is when he met Patrice.
As he told it, she was the first woman he had ever picked up from a bar. And she was still a virgin, which made him happy. "It would have been a quick date if she'd had anyone to compare me with," he had said, on more than one occasion. She carried heavy baggage, but he accepted the troubled package with a Stoic's resolve.
Jurgen and I had become friends during our first summer session at the college, sharing an office and talking whenever we could about the stories of Raymond Carver, whose grim vision we both knew intrinsically. As new faculty, we were both teaching an extra load to pay off our student loans. It was on one of these warm July mornings that Jurgen called to tell me that his two-year-old bullmastiff had drowned in a canal while jogging alongside Patrice the previous evening -- a ritual he resolutely believed had helped his wife retain a fragile sanity during their young marriage. It was during that phone call that I first heard him cry, and I believe the rush of emotion had more to do with his fear of their future than the death of that sweet dog.
"I'm all right," he said at the time, "but I don't know what Trice is going to do. She loved that dog like a kid."
And it was hard not to: the brute stood about a yard high at the shoulder and its food bills ran higher than most orthodontics. It rode everywhere with Jurgen, seated stately in the front seat of his catshit-yellow convertible Volkswagen Thing, like a proud granite statue. Patrice stopped carrying Mace when the dog was a few months old, and Jurgen had said he felt so secure with the jowly passenger that he was tempted to drop the theft clause on his auto insurance.
About a half mile from their home, the dog had become thirsty and wrested the leash from Patrice's grip. Later, Patrice said she had frozen as the dog lost her footing on the silty lip of the drainage canal. Even later Patrice said she thanked God that the dog hadn't looked at her as she splashed into the water and was carried in a rush through a steel porthole and down into the bowels of an Ogden city aqueduct.
"She couldn't have dealt with the eyes," Jurgen had told me. "God, the poor dog must have been terrified."
I felt sick for several days after that phone call, and I wished he had never mentioned the eyes, because it hadn't occurred to me when he first told me the news. After that, whenever I thought about it, I saw a mammoth brindle dog pull away from its owner -- a petite blonde who was probably lucky not to have been pulled in herself; a young woman who had endured four fathers, all alcoholic, all wife beaters, one of whom, after being caught molesting her youngest sister, locked himself inside the garage and fell asleep to the Roy Acuff Singers against the backdrop of a running engine; a nervous, insecure young woman who, in the dark waters of that ditch, had lost the most constant, enduring and uncomplicated source of affection she had ever known. I saw all this and still I could have put the phone down, said a prayer for the beast's newly departed soul, and gone back to whatever the hell it was I was doing without a second thought . . . if it weren't for those goddamned eyes.
***
Two black banks of snow, the dregs of winter, lined the stretch of I-15 from Salt Lake City to Ogden, and though the heater in my old Honda had stopped working, I felt almost warm in the clear night air. I locked the car and hiked up the steps of the Ogden Municipal Jail. It was only the second time I had been to a penal institution. The first was as a freshman in college, when the resident assistant of my dormitory floor decided to celebrate his twenty-first birthday with a pub crawl along Santa Barbara's State Street. As we staggered slowly northward, the band of ten mostly underage preps dwindled as we faced the test we had imposed upon ourselves at each new bar: a mixed drink, a shot of hard liquor, and a full beer...until the Long Island iced teas at Joe's Cafe whittled us down to three. I remember riding in the front seat of a BMW back to University of California-Santa Barbara, sitting next to an elegant brunette whose name kept slipping through the grey fissures of my addled brain. Then, in a shift of scenery that can be understood only by veterans of the blackout, I found myself behind a dumpster near campus heaving what smelled to be the essence of my bile duct, the birthday boy and another young cad stalking along the unlit street, snapping off car antennae and howling like a pair of jackals.
We were all arrested that night. Somehow, though, I succeeded in dragging the officers several hundred feet to a puddle of my own vomit, which they recognized as authentic by cross-checking the stain on my sleeve, and I was released with a warning. And though Jurgen looked considerably better than the two hangover victims I'd bailed out nearly a decade earlier, his bond was much steeper. There was no restitution that my friend could offer; no extenuation offered for crimes of youth.
"Where you wanna go?" I asked him, after the bail clerk counted the hundred-dollar bills I had just laid on the counter.
"Let's get me a couple of belts," he said. "That's what I should have done before. Should have just left the house and drank right through it. Trice would have been asleep when I got back and I could have gone comatose, and neither of us would have remembered a thing."
We drove to the City Club, as it was only three or four blocks away and Jurgen knew the proprietor and knew he would let us stay past closing time. On our way in, a handsome, diminutive waiter, wearing a gold satin shirt unbuttoned to midchest, stopped us, placing an index finger lightly on Jurgen's arm.
"The owner's gone for the night," the young man said, glancing at Jurgen. "But he left the boxed set on the stereo. Want me to slip it in?"
I cringed, but Jurgen tapped the little queenie on his shoulder with a fist, like he would have any fraternity buddy. "You're a good man, Stephen," he said.
The waiter blushed and walked over to the stereo in back of the bar, where he dropped a CD into the platter.
Jurgen shrugged. "He's a nice guy--" He sat down at a dark table in the corner, the first strains of David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name soaring through the speakers. "--queer as a three-dollar bill, but what the hell? He knows I'm married."
I watched Jurgen swipe the first whiskey from the tray while the waiter lowered a Pepsi onto the table, and I think it was the first time I actually felt embarrassed about my sobriety. We were both in the budding flower of our careers as Men of Letters, and I felt a certain professional responsibility to meet this crisis as all great men in the budding flower of their careers as writers had met similar crises: with a hearty laugh and a glass of Scotch whiskey, maybe even a cigarette. I knew it was irrational, but so probably did John Berryman and Fitzgerald and Dylan Thomas. And as soon as I made that diseased connection, I found myself committed.
Jurgen stared at me. "If this is a problem for you, we'll leave. Seriously," he said, resting his glass on a coaster. "I mean . . . I've got so much shit on my head, it feels like Bandini Mountain."
"Don't worry about it," I said calmly, but I could feel myself shaking under my coat. "I'll just join you for one, then I'll take you wherever you're sleeping tonight."
"Are you sure? . . ." he said, stammering as he searched for just the right words. "You can leave it, after just one?"
I walked to the bar and ordered a Cardhu, rocks, and came back to the table. "It'll feel good," I said, "knowing that I can leave it. It's been so long, it'll feel good."
He nodded and sipped from his glass and watched me as I pulled my own glass to my nose, inhaling the vapors, washing Cardhu around the rim, bringing it to my lips, letting the first wash of malt nectar flow past the tongue, a sting so full of pain and beauty and recollection that I lost consciousness for a bare moment. "What happened tonight?" I whispered, my voice far off in some boyhood tree house in Longview, Washington, victim to a bottle of Canadian Mist stolen by a neighbor kid from his father.
Jurgen finished off his Scotch and flagged down the waiter, who brought over two clean glasses and an announcement. "We're closing now. And so is the cash register. I can bring over the bottle if you want to pay me a little something for it now. I'll never tell."
"It's up to you." Jurgen shrugged. "I just know your wife's gonna freak if you come home three-to-the-wind. She's a good woman. You want to keep her."
I nodded and pulled my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans, removing a lone ten-dollar bill. "It's all I've got left."
The waiter smiled and left the bottle on the table. I don't know who poured first, but Jurgen didn't say a thing to me about my second glass, or my third. Instead, he repeated a variation on a story I had heard at least a dozen times in as many months. I didn't know what to say to him this time, any more than I had in the past: his wife was crazed, and I thought he was a natural-born saint for putting up with her.
She accused him of cheating at least twice a week and had flung books, ashtrays--anything within reach-- at his skull on at least three occasions. When she drank, she had the disconcerting habit of "revealing the family jewels," as he put it, despairingly, which made every barbecue and cocktail party a source of great anxiety for him.
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I think I would have smacked her around, too. And I said so, finally -- just slipped off my well-lubed tongue, and it came as a genuine shock to my ears.
"No, no," he said, brightening, "I'm glad someone else agrees. God, I've actually worried about having a stroke! Three years of this crap. Here," he said, refilling my glass. "So, you don't think I'm scum?"
The room was pulsing. I stared at Jurgen and saw one of the most patient, decent men I've ever been privileged to know. "Huh-uh. But I couldn't tell you what to do, either. Looks like you're trapped."
He nodded his head. "Yeah. I knew it from the minute I proposed. She'd kill herself if I left; but I can't take it anymore. I just can't take it anymore. I was sitting in that ratty recliner in the livingroom, and she came in and started raving. It took me five minutes to figure out what the fuck she was talking about."
"What was it?" I said. I slid my half-full glass of Scotch toward the center of the table and grabbed for the watery dregs of the Pepsi, which I drank down gratefully, then began chewing on the ice. Suddenly, I couldn't stand the taste of the Scotch.
"Turned out she was still mad about a party we were at last week. She got really drunk and I lost her. When she finally came back from God knows where, I was talking to a cousin of an old student of mine. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Like, seven of us were standing around and, Jesus, I was just talking to the girl."
He shrugged. "So I finally got it out of her, what was bugging her. And then she went berserk! Ran into the kitchen and came back with a bunch of dirty plates and shit from the counter. She missed my head by about half an inch with a big meat fork. And then I lost it. Goddamn it, I was just tired of cleaning up all the broken pieces, just tired of dealing with her moods. So I socked her, knocked her out cold. After about three or four minutes, she wasn't waking up too good, so I called the paramedics."
"I thought she called the dogs."
He shook his head. "They brought an Ogden sheriff along with 'em, arrested me on the spot--something about a 'cooling-off period'. Trice couldn't stop screaming...sh' kept saying, 'I deserved it. He didn't mean it, I deserved it!' I felt like a turd."
The waiter poured the last of the fifth of Scotch into Jurgen's glass. "Almost closing time, boys. Unless you want to get locked in."
Jurgen shrugged and shot back the whiskey. "You wanna know what's weird?"
I nodded.
"She's gonna love me when I get home. She's gonna treat me better than she's ever treated me before; she's gonna keep a lid on it." He stared down into his empty glass. "Some gals need to be dominated -- know where the power's coming from. I wasn't thinking like that when I slugged her, but before you came and got me out of the can, I started thinking about Ray Carver. His wife was just like Trice. Carver used to tie on a big one, I mean a really big one, and when MaryAnn picked at him that 'one last time,' he'd bash a bottle over her noggin and then they'd make up and go to bed. It just came to me -- one of those moments of resolution you read about but never really ever have yourself. Everything I ever read by Carver just came at me, and I realized that Trice's been knocked around by every guy she's cared about until I found her. Here I was, thinking I was about to deliver her from a life worse than hell. I thought, I'm a nice guy, a returned missionary for Chrissakes, and I can treat this poor girl better than anyone's ever treated her before. I thought, y'know, maybe one day we'll have kids and start going to church again. I'd like my kids to go to church. But Trice didn't respect me. Now she's gonna love me."
I laid the ten-note on the table and buttoned the topmost button of my coat, and Jurgen and I walked slowly down the icy steps of the City Club. I asked him, one more time, whether he wouldn't rather come back to my apartment and sleep in the guest room and see Trice the next morning, but he declined graciously, and I dropped him off at the base of his driveway and drove back to Salt Lake.
I was glad that I had cut my losses at three, was actually very proud of myself, and the drive home went smoothly. The key slid quietly into the dead bolt, after which I took great care not to bump into the furniture. In high school, if my mother was still up when I returned on a weekend night, she would make me breathe into her face, and then I would invariably be grounded for the next two weeks. My father, having never enjoyed the taste of liquor, not even beer, grieved at seeing a nearly grown young man being subjected to such scrutiny, but he always supported her decision. When I turned twenty-one, a few months after I had returned from London, he paid for my admittance to a private rehabilitation clinic, but not once did he speak to me about it, not once did he ask how I felt in those early morning hours around a group conference table with eleven other shivering alcoholics. As for my mother, she thought her boy had been delivered back to her.
I heard a stirring in the bedroom, and when I did, I groped quickly for the refrigerator and sought out something spicy, stuffing my mouth with what was probably the dinner my wife had made for us and had to put away alone hours earlier -- a complicated dish, tasting of chicken marinated in a curry -- as she walked across the hardwood floor and I strained my eyes and saw the crushing hurt, then the anger.
No dishes would be broken in my house this night, no punches thrown. I would not make love to my wife for many days, and when I would, it would be for both of us a lonely, passionless affair.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Todd Brendan Fahey's upcoming collection of stories, to be published October 2009 as a Far Gone Book...
Oscars doubling best-picture nominees to 10
Thanks to Chris Halverson for the following...
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/oscars-doubling-bestpicture-nominees-10-ap
Oscars doubling best-picture nominees to 10
Wed Jun 24, 2009
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The best-picture lineup at the Academy Awards is doubling from five films to 10, a move organizers said Wednesday will open the field to more worthy movies and possibly boost the ceremony's TV ratings.
The change, which was approved Tuesday night by the board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, takes effect at next year's Oscars on March 7.
The plan is a return to Oscar traditions of the 1930s and '40s, when a best-picture field of 10 or more films was common.
Academy President Sid Ganis said the board looked at last year's slate of films and decided there was room for more in the top category. "We nominated five, but there were many other great films last year," Ganis said.
Among last year's most acclaimed movies was the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight," which wound up snubbed. Another was "WALL-E," which won the Oscar for feature-length animation but was not among best-picture nominees.
Ganis said the broader field might make room for documentaries, foreign-language films, animated movies and even comedies, which typically do not fare well for best-picture nominations.
"Everybody says the academy will never nominate a comedy," Ganis said. "Well, maybe we will."
The Oscars have separate categories for animated, foreign-language and documentary films. A best-picture nomination would not preclude films from competing in those categories, as well.
With extra movies competing for the top honor, the Oscar show might draw a bigger TV audience as more fans tune to see how their favorite films fare, Ganis said.
The ratings for last February's Oscars were up solidly, but that followed a ceremony a year earlier that drew the lowest ratings ever. Along with other awards shows, the Oscars generally have been losing viewers over the past couple of decades.
Having 10 or more was common in Hollywood's golden age some 70 years ago. Ganis noted that 1939's 10 best-picture nominees were "Gone with the Wind," which won, "The Wizard of Oz," "Stagecoach," "Wuthering Heights," "Love Affair," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Of Mice and Men," "Dark Victory" and "Ninotchka."
All are generally considered classics today.
The last time there were 10 nominees was the Oscar ceremony for 1943, when "Casablanca" won best picture. There have been only five nominees each year since then.
On the Net:
http://www.oscars.org
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/oscars-doubling-bestpicture-nominees-10-ap
Oscars doubling best-picture nominees to 10
Wed Jun 24, 2009
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The best-picture lineup at the Academy Awards is doubling from five films to 10, a move organizers said Wednesday will open the field to more worthy movies and possibly boost the ceremony's TV ratings.
The change, which was approved Tuesday night by the board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, takes effect at next year's Oscars on March 7.
The plan is a return to Oscar traditions of the 1930s and '40s, when a best-picture field of 10 or more films was common.
Academy President Sid Ganis said the board looked at last year's slate of films and decided there was room for more in the top category. "We nominated five, but there were many other great films last year," Ganis said.
Among last year's most acclaimed movies was the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight," which wound up snubbed. Another was "WALL-E," which won the Oscar for feature-length animation but was not among best-picture nominees.
Ganis said the broader field might make room for documentaries, foreign-language films, animated movies and even comedies, which typically do not fare well for best-picture nominations.
"Everybody says the academy will never nominate a comedy," Ganis said. "Well, maybe we will."
The Oscars have separate categories for animated, foreign-language and documentary films. A best-picture nomination would not preclude films from competing in those categories, as well.
With extra movies competing for the top honor, the Oscar show might draw a bigger TV audience as more fans tune to see how their favorite films fare, Ganis said.
The ratings for last February's Oscars were up solidly, but that followed a ceremony a year earlier that drew the lowest ratings ever. Along with other awards shows, the Oscars generally have been losing viewers over the past couple of decades.
Having 10 or more was common in Hollywood's golden age some 70 years ago. Ganis noted that 1939's 10 best-picture nominees were "Gone with the Wind," which won, "The Wizard of Oz," "Stagecoach," "Wuthering Heights," "Love Affair," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Of Mice and Men," "Dark Victory" and "Ninotchka."
All are generally considered classics today.
The last time there were 10 nominees was the Oscar ceremony for 1943, when "Casablanca" won best picture. There have been only five nominees each year since then.
On the Net:
http://www.oscars.org
Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/25/obit.fawcett/index.htmlFarrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies
Story Highlights
Farrah Fawcett was known for iconic 1970s poster, role in "Charlie's Angels"
Actress was hailed for performance in TV movie "The Burning Bed"
Fawcett had cancer and made TV documentary about her battle
6-25-9
(CNN) -- Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and "Charlie's Angels" stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, died Thursday. She was 62.
Fawcett's death was confirmed by Paul Bloch, one of her representatives at Rogers and Cowan, an entertainment public relations firm.
Fawcett, who checked into a hospital in early April, had been battling anal cancer on and off for three years.
Bloch told CNN that Ryan O'Neal, Fawcett's romantic partner since the mid-1980s, and her friend Alana Stewart were with Fawcett at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, when she died. Gallery: The life of Farrah Fawcett »
"Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world," O'Neal said in a written statement. Read more tributes to Fawcett
O'Neal is the father of Fawcett's son, Redmond O'Neal, born in 1985. Redmond O'Neal is in an intense rehabilitation program conducted in the Los Angeles county jail, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore told CNN on Thursday.
Fawcett's son was informed on Wednesday night by a grief counselor and a chaplain that his mother's death was imminent, and a grief counselor and chaplain also told him when she died, Whitmore said.
The young man, who is currently with a chaplain, has spoken with his father, Whitmore said.
Ryan O'Neal had recently told People magazine that the sex symbol was declining.
"She stays in bed now. The doctors see that she is comfortable. Farrah is on IVs, but some of that is for nourishment. The treatment has pretty much ended," he said in a story posted May 7.
Fawcett's cancer journey has been documented in a television special partly shot by the actress. Fawcett began shooting "Farrah's Story," by taking a camera to a doctor's appointment. Eventually, the film expanded to include trips overseas in hopes of treating the cancer.
The documentary aired on NBC on May 15.
Fawcett's beauty -- her gleaming smile was printed on millions of posters -- initially made her famous. But she later established herself as a serious actress. She starred as a battered wife in the 1984 TV movie "The Burning Bed." She appeared on stage as a woman who extracts vengeance from a would-be rapist in William Mastrosimone's play "Extremities.
She reprised the "Extremities" role on film in 1986. Other Fawcett films include "Logan's Run" (1976), "Saturn 3" (1980), "The Cannonball Run" (1981), "The Apostle" (1997) and the Robert Altman-directed "Dr. T and the Women" (2000).
To many, Fawcett will always be best known for her red-swimsuited image on the pinup poster, which sold a reputed 12 million copies after its release in 1976.
Fawcett was a model best known for bit parts, commercials and as "Six Million Dollar Man" actor Lee Majors' wife when she shot the poster in early 1976 at the behest of Pro Arts, a Cleveland, Ohio, company.
Photographer Bruce McBroom placed Fawcett -- then known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors -- in the Indian blanket-draped front seat of his 1937 Chevy and snapped away. Fawcett did her own hair -- a long, tousled cascade of blonde locks -- picked out the red bathing suit and chose the frame later used for the poster, according to a story in the Toronto Star.
The poster, with Fawcett's million-dollar smile front and center, became a sensation.
Soon after the photo shoot, Fawcett was asked to join the cast of a new Aaron Spelling TV show, "Charlie's Angels," about a trio of female detectives who work for a mysterious man named Charlie, whose only appearance in the show was through his voice (supplied by John Forsythe). Watch Fawcett talk about why she left "Angels" »
Fawcett, who played Jill Munroe, was the last to be cast. Co-star Kate Jackson was the known name at the time, but thanks to her poster, Fawcett became the breakout star.
The highly rated TV series kicked off what came to be known as "jiggle TV," series full of pretty actresses who appeared in bikinis at the drop of a hat.
"Denunciations of 'massage parlor television' and 'voyeurism' only brought more viewers to the screen, to see what the controversy was about," wrote Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh about "Charlie's Angels" in their indispensable reference, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows."
ABC's "Three's Company" and CBS's "The American Girls" were among the shows that immediately followed, and shows such as "Baywatch" owe "Charlie's Angels" a debt.
But Fawcett didn't stay with "Angels" long. At the end of the first season, unhappy with her contract, she left the show and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd.
Fawcett's career stagnated for a time after "Charlie's Angels." She appeared in a handful of forgettable films and divorced Majors.
But her career received a major boost with her starring role in "The Burning Bed," a 1984 TV movie co-starring Paul Le Mat. Fawcett played an abused wife who sets fire to her husband's bed as he lies sleeping. Fawcett received an Emmy nomination for her performance.
Fawcett also became romantically involved with O'Neal around this time. The pair had a son, Redmond, in 1985.
In recent years, Fawcett has appeared sporadically in the public eye. She posed nude for Playboy in 1995. In 1997, she appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman," an interview that became notorious for Fawcett's apparent incoherence. She later said she was just having fun with Letterman.
She reunited with her "Charlie's Angels" co-stars, Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, for an awards show in 2006.
Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947. She married Majors in 1973; they divorced nine years later.
She was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.
Ed McMahon: A salute to the king of sidekicks
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-et-ed-mcmahon24-2009jun24,0,2998712.story
Ed McMahon: A salute to the king of sidekicks
The late TV personality did other things, yes, but his greatest accomplishment may have been his partnership with Johnny Carson. 'My role was to make him look good while not looking too good myself.'
By Robert Lloyd, Times Television Critic
June 23, 2009
Although he did other things in his 86 years, Ed McMahon, who died Tuesday in Los Angeles, will be remembered mostly as the man who sat next to Johnny Carson, except when more important celebrities came between them.
Notwithstanding the dozen years of hosting "Star Search," a role in the 1997 Tom Arnold sitcom "The Tom Show," a high-profile Cash4Gold ad during the last Super Bowl and all that knocking on people's doors in the name of American Family Publishers, McMahon was a professional sidekick, a less-than-equal partner in an enterprise of which he was nevertheless a vital part: Thinking of Johnny, one proceeds quickly and naturally to Ed, who by dint of association was almost as famous as his boss -- I say "almost" to include that fraction of the world that may have seen or heard of Carson but never watched his show.
It's easy to underestimate his accomplishment -- or even to wonder whether it should be called an accomplishment at all. We live in a nation of aspiring quarterbacks, pitchers, lead singers and presidents, where we are told to dream big and have it all. (The vice presidency of the United States is regarded as a rarefied form of failure.) But in a world where everyone is innately a star, what does it mean to settle for life as a mere moon?
And yet, just as the moon plays upon the Earth, animating its tides and its werewolves, the sidekick is not without power of his (or her) own. His very presence is the proof that his presence is required. He may come as a straight man, a stooge, a teacher, an apprentice, a servant or pal, but he completes the star-hero in some way to their mutual advantage -- as a counterweight, an anchor, a witness, a frame for the picture, a setting for the stone. Like Jiminy Cricket, a conscience. Who is Prince Hal without Falstaff, Don Quixote sans Sancho Panza? Little John and Robin Hood, Horatio and Hamlet, Friday and Crusoe, Watson and Holmes, Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, Ethel and Lucy, Barney and Fred, Barney and Andy, Ed and Ralph, Rhoda and Mary, Willow and Buffy, and all those traveling companions to Doctor Who -- unequal, perhaps, yet inextricable.
We may reflexively regard him as slower, dumber, less handsome than the hero he shadows, but in practice the sidekick may be the smarter, funnier, faster, better-looking or more practical one. Less bound by convention or expectation, flexible rather than stiff-necked, he is free in ways forbidden the hero. His life is simpler, his soul less troubled. Ed Norton may be a dimwit, but he isn't tormented, like Ralph Kramden, by desperation and desire. Spock is cooler than Kirk. It seems like the better job.
Not every talk show host has employed a sidekick in the McMahon mold. Merv Griffin had Arthur Treacher, a very tall British character actor who earlier specialized in butlers, appropriately, and, after McMahon, the best of the breed. Regis Philbin played second banana to Rat Packer Joey Bishop on his short-lived 1960s late-night show. But Dick Cavett was a solo act; Mike Douglas relied on changing celebrity co-hosts; and Jay Leno had no one on his couch. Still, it seems a sign of respect to McMahon (and to the institution he served) that when Conan O'Brien took the reins of "The Tonight Show," he had a partner in place, original "Late Night" sidekick Andy Richter.
Ed and Johnny were "as close as two non-married people can be," as McMahon wrote in his book, "Here's Johnny: Memories of Johnny Carson, 'The Tonight Show' and 46 Years of Friendship." McMahon, who was only two years older than Carson, began working as his announcer in in 1957, on the game show "Who Do You Trust?" and accompanied him to "The Tonight Show" in 1962, where they kept on for 30 years.
An uncharitable or undiscerning critic might say McMahon had an easy job: Laugh at the boss' jokes, read a few cue cards, sell a little dog food, cheerfully absorb whatever cracks are made at his expense, slide further down the couch as the evening's guests arrive. (Phil Hartman's "Saturday Night Live" impression of him -- the over-hearty laugh, the booming "You are correct, sir" -- has replaced the actual McMahon in the minds of a couple of generations of viewers.) But the way McMahon told it, that was the point: "My role was to make him look good while not looking too good myself," he wrote, and "to get Johnny to the punch line while seeming to do nothing at all." Carson, for his part, left the air saying, "This show would have been impossible to do without Ed."
There is a kind of genius in knowing how to live with a genius. Did anyone want to grow up to be Ed McMahon? Maybe not. (Though I would rather be Illya Kuryakin than Napoleon Solo.) But they also serve who only sit and laugh -- and cry "Hey-yo!" once in a while. Of all the things Ed provided Johnny, continuity was perhaps the most meaningful: Guests came and went; wives came and went; the world turned. But where there was Johnny, there was always Ed, the witness, the audience, one of us.
Ed McMahon: A salute to the king of sidekicks
The late TV personality did other things, yes, but his greatest accomplishment may have been his partnership with Johnny Carson. 'My role was to make him look good while not looking too good myself.'
By Robert Lloyd, Times Television Critic
June 23, 2009
Although he did other things in his 86 years, Ed McMahon, who died Tuesday in Los Angeles, will be remembered mostly as the man who sat next to Johnny Carson, except when more important celebrities came between them.
Notwithstanding the dozen years of hosting "Star Search," a role in the 1997 Tom Arnold sitcom "The Tom Show," a high-profile Cash4Gold ad during the last Super Bowl and all that knocking on people's doors in the name of American Family Publishers, McMahon was a professional sidekick, a less-than-equal partner in an enterprise of which he was nevertheless a vital part: Thinking of Johnny, one proceeds quickly and naturally to Ed, who by dint of association was almost as famous as his boss -- I say "almost" to include that fraction of the world that may have seen or heard of Carson but never watched his show.
It's easy to underestimate his accomplishment -- or even to wonder whether it should be called an accomplishment at all. We live in a nation of aspiring quarterbacks, pitchers, lead singers and presidents, where we are told to dream big and have it all. (The vice presidency of the United States is regarded as a rarefied form of failure.) But in a world where everyone is innately a star, what does it mean to settle for life as a mere moon?
And yet, just as the moon plays upon the Earth, animating its tides and its werewolves, the sidekick is not without power of his (or her) own. His very presence is the proof that his presence is required. He may come as a straight man, a stooge, a teacher, an apprentice, a servant or pal, but he completes the star-hero in some way to their mutual advantage -- as a counterweight, an anchor, a witness, a frame for the picture, a setting for the stone. Like Jiminy Cricket, a conscience. Who is Prince Hal without Falstaff, Don Quixote sans Sancho Panza? Little John and Robin Hood, Horatio and Hamlet, Friday and Crusoe, Watson and Holmes, Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, Ethel and Lucy, Barney and Fred, Barney and Andy, Ed and Ralph, Rhoda and Mary, Willow and Buffy, and all those traveling companions to Doctor Who -- unequal, perhaps, yet inextricable.
We may reflexively regard him as slower, dumber, less handsome than the hero he shadows, but in practice the sidekick may be the smarter, funnier, faster, better-looking or more practical one. Less bound by convention or expectation, flexible rather than stiff-necked, he is free in ways forbidden the hero. His life is simpler, his soul less troubled. Ed Norton may be a dimwit, but he isn't tormented, like Ralph Kramden, by desperation and desire. Spock is cooler than Kirk. It seems like the better job.
Not every talk show host has employed a sidekick in the McMahon mold. Merv Griffin had Arthur Treacher, a very tall British character actor who earlier specialized in butlers, appropriately, and, after McMahon, the best of the breed. Regis Philbin played second banana to Rat Packer Joey Bishop on his short-lived 1960s late-night show. But Dick Cavett was a solo act; Mike Douglas relied on changing celebrity co-hosts; and Jay Leno had no one on his couch. Still, it seems a sign of respect to McMahon (and to the institution he served) that when Conan O'Brien took the reins of "The Tonight Show," he had a partner in place, original "Late Night" sidekick Andy Richter.
Ed and Johnny were "as close as two non-married people can be," as McMahon wrote in his book, "Here's Johnny: Memories of Johnny Carson, 'The Tonight Show' and 46 Years of Friendship." McMahon, who was only two years older than Carson, began working as his announcer in in 1957, on the game show "Who Do You Trust?" and accompanied him to "The Tonight Show" in 1962, where they kept on for 30 years.
An uncharitable or undiscerning critic might say McMahon had an easy job: Laugh at the boss' jokes, read a few cue cards, sell a little dog food, cheerfully absorb whatever cracks are made at his expense, slide further down the couch as the evening's guests arrive. (Phil Hartman's "Saturday Night Live" impression of him -- the over-hearty laugh, the booming "You are correct, sir" -- has replaced the actual McMahon in the minds of a couple of generations of viewers.) But the way McMahon told it, that was the point: "My role was to make him look good while not looking too good myself," he wrote, and "to get Johnny to the punch line while seeming to do nothing at all." Carson, for his part, left the air saying, "This show would have been impossible to do without Ed."
There is a kind of genius in knowing how to live with a genius. Did anyone want to grow up to be Ed McMahon? Maybe not. (Though I would rather be Illya Kuryakin than Napoleon Solo.) But they also serve who only sit and laugh -- and cry "Hey-yo!" once in a while. Of all the things Ed provided Johnny, continuity was perhaps the most meaningful: Guests came and went; wives came and went; the world turned. But where there was Johnny, there was always Ed, the witness, the audience, one of us.
Johnny Depp As Mad Hatter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/johnny-depp-as-mad-hatter_n_218747.html
Johnny Depp As Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen And Anne Hathaway's White Queen: FIRST LOOKKatherine Thomson
06-22-09
Read More: Alice In Wonderland, Anne Hathaway, Anne Hathaway White Queen, Film, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp Alice In Wonderland, Johnny Depp Mad Hatter, Tim Burton, Entertainment NewsThe Tim Burton 3-D flick doesn't come out till spring 2010, but film fans now have their first look at Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen from the upcoming "Alice in Wonderland."
The lead role of Alice will be played by 19-year-old unknown Mia Wasikowska from Australia.
Works by the late Occultist, Aleister Crowley
Thanks to Richard Metzger for the following...
Works by the late Occultist, Aleister Crowley. Directed by Kenneth Anger. Music By Anatol Liadov. 2002.
Part I:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg2p6DuOprQ
Part II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGmCG7KRTc&feature=related
Works by the late Occultist, Aleister Crowley. Directed by Kenneth Anger. Music By Anatol Liadov. 2002.
Part I:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg2p6DuOprQ
Part II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGmCG7KRTc&feature=related
Yippie founder Paul Krassner still testing limits
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_en_ot/us_books_paul_krassnerYippie founder Paul Krassner still testing limits
By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 22, 2009
DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. – He was once a child music prodigy and in the decades since, Paul Krassner has been everything from political satirist to author, editor, anarchist and an advocate for both peace and pornography.
But the title he may favor is one he found buried in his FBI file.
"To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute," a letter in the file said in response to a favorable magazine interview with the co-founder of the Yippie Party, the group that notoriously disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "He's a nut, a raving, unconfined nut."
So Krassner titled his autobiography "Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut."
"I figured I might as well make use of it," says the author, smiling broadly as he sits in the living room of his modest tract home in this sandy, sagebrush-dotted corner of the Mojave Desert on a scorchingly hot morning. On a nearby table is a copy of "A People's History of the United States of America" by historian and social activist Howard Zinn.
For someone who has lived figuratively on the edge of society for most of his life, Krassner appears to have made the move literally as well, having left Los Angeles' epicenter of counterculture, Venice Beach, several years ago to take up residence in a place where the temperature sometimes hits 120 degrees, accompanied by blast-furnace winds of 70 mph or more.
But the co-founder of the group that once ran a pig for president and tried to disrupt the seat of capitalism by throwing dollar bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, says he has come to love his quiet little piece of Americana with its backyard views of the snowcapped mountains towering over Palm Springs in the distance.
Krassner, who made his debut at Carnegie Hall as a violinist at age 7 (and then almost immediately gave up music because he couldn't get along with his teacher) is 77 now. That's a number he confirms with both a sheepish grin and a faux apology: "I'm sorry, I don't know how that happened."
But if the years are gaining on him, the exuberant, still-youthful-looking rebel never lets on.
Still an unabashed political radical, as well as a prolific writer, Krassner is the author of more than a dozen books. The most recent, "Who's to Say What's Obscene: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today," comes out in July.
It takes a skewering look at American politics and morals, speaking generally in favor of such subjects as pornography and recreational drug use and dismissing the torture of prisoners of war as something that is truly obscene. But it goes about it in such a lighthearted fashion as to rarely seem preachy.
"The word that comes to mind when I think of him is integrity," says Robert Scheer, former syndicated columnist and founding editor of the online magazine Truthdig.com. "The guy anguishes over what is right and wrong more than the editors of the most respectable publications. ... He doesn't get it right all the time, but he always thinks it out."
It was Krassner, Scheer says, who gave him his big break as an investigative reporter, providing the money to travel to Vietnam in 1963 to report on covert U.S. involvement in that country's civil war before the United States had become inextricably involved in it. Scheer's story, first published in Krassner's small, groundbreaking satirical magazine, The Realist, was picked up by the mainstream media and gained national attention.
The publisher had raised the money for Scheer's Vietnam trip by selling red, white and blue posters with the word Communism, preceded by another, much more impolite word. The posters quickly became a hit on college dorm room walls.
"It really confused all these conservative types," Scheer recalled with a laugh. "They hated communism" but they also hated seeing it described with a barnyard epithet for sexual intercourse.
That is just one of a seemingly endless chain of stories of practical jokes and other stunts attached to Krassner's name, some of them true, others apocryphal.
One of the latter, says Krassner, is that he came up with the acronym for the Youth International Party by throwing his head back in a moment of psychedelic-inspired bliss and shouting "Yippie!"
"As a journalist, I knew that we had to have a who for the who, what, where, when and why that would symbolize the radicalization of hippies for the media," he says with a mischievous smirk. "So I started going through the alphabet: Bippie, Dippie, Ippie, Sippie. I was about to give up when I came to Yippie."
The movement he helped launch is not remembered fondly by everyone. David Horowitz, the former 1960s radical turned conservative commentator, said that although he likes Krassner personally he believes he and other Yippies must shoulder much of the blame for crises such as AIDS and drug addiction.
"It was one long incitement against America, against all the guidelines, the morals and mores that helped people make it through life," he said of the Yippie movement. "I think Yippies in the end were a terribly destructive force."
Although many of his contemporaries have died or retired, Krassner remains busier than ever. He contributes regularly to the popular blog Huffington Post, and writes columns for the pro-marijuana publication High Times and the online magazine Adult Video News.
A spirited conversationalist and a fierce student of politics and pop culture, he jumps continuously from one subject to the next when he talks, frequently going off on tangents as one interesting idea pops into his head after another.
He does it so often that when he's on a standup comedy tour, as he will be this summer, he'll sometimes appoint a member of the audience to act as his "tangent spotter" and tell him to get back on message and deliver the punch line.
"He doesn't waste time," says his longtime friend Wavy Gravy, the political activist and advocate for charitable causes who usually appears in public dressed as a circus clown. "People who waste time get buried in it. He keeps doing one thing after another."
Married for 21 years and the father of a grown daughter, Krassner is busy writing another book, this one a novel about a comedian who invites censorship but never gets arrested. It was inspired by an old friend, the groundbreaking Lenny Bruce, whose autobiography, "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People," Krassner edited.
At one point, says Krassner, he got so into the project that he began "channeling Lenny," hearing his voice directing him from the grave.
"Until one time he said to me, 'Come on, you don't even believe that,'" he says, punctuating the statement with an expletive and a loud, raucous laugh.
2012: Science or Superstition?
Thanks to Joan D'Arc of Paranoia Magazine:
"The 2012 meme has evolved beyond debates about the relevance of the Maya calendar. 2012 is an expression of the breakdown of our nihilistic civilization and a hint of what may lie beyond the end of this era. 2012 speaks to a growing mass curiosity about who we are and what we are doing on this planet... "
- Alexandra Bruce writing on 2012
2012: Science or Superstition? by Alexandrea Bruce. The book is due in September. I can't wait. She is also the author of "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Sometimes I think, we know nothing!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DylQeMx6hY
"The 2012 meme has evolved beyond debates about the relevance of the Maya calendar. 2012 is an expression of the breakdown of our nihilistic civilization and a hint of what may lie beyond the end of this era. 2012 speaks to a growing mass curiosity about who we are and what we are doing on this planet... "
- Alexandra Bruce writing on 2012
2012: Science or Superstition? by Alexandrea Bruce. The book is due in September. I can't wait. She is also the author of "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Sometimes I think, we know nothing!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DylQeMx6hY
Leighton Meester sex tape being shopped - report
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/06/19/2009-06-19_leighton_meester_sex_tape_being_shopped_around__report_gossip_girl_caught_on_vid.htmlLeighton Meester sex tape being shopped - report; 'Gossip Girl' caught on video with boyfriend?
Friday, June 19th 2009
Poor Leighton Meester. She never seems to get quite as much attention as her blithe blond goddess costar Blake Lively.
That may be about to change - for all the wrong reasons.
TMZ.com is reporting that a videotape of Meester having sex with her boyfriend is making the rounds in the celebrity sex tape marketplace.
The alleged video was made a few years ago and shows Meester in her birthday suit. Nothing kinky, except perhaps a little fancy footwork on the ingenue's part, according to TMZ.
The Web site says a company called celebhotline.com is trying to get it's hands on the tape.
It's spokesperson Kevin Blatt told TMZ, "We've seen the tape and we're hoping to close the deal."
Ten Reasons Why "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/ten-reasons-why-save-darfur-pr-scam-justify-next-us-oil-and-resource-wars-africa
Ten Reasons Why "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam to Justify the Next US Oil and Resource Wars in Africa
Tue, 11/27/2007
The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and "stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a "genocide" and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation's Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for "humanitarian intervention" to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.
"Out of Iraq - Into Darfur" cartoon by Mike Flugennock. Find more of his work at www.sinkers.org
Top Ten Reasons to Suspect "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam to Justify US Military Intervention in African
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance of false realities in the service of American empire is a core function of the public relations profession and the corporate news media. Whether it's fake news stories about wonder drugs and how toxic chemicals are good for you, bribed commentators and journalists discoursing on the benefits of No Child Left Behind, Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans, or slick propaganda campaigns employing viral marketing techniques to reach out to college students, bloggers, churches and ordinary citizens, it pays to take a close look behind the facade.
Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust US-backed or US-led military intervention in Western Sudan. Increasing scrutiny is being focused upon the "Save Darfur" lobby and the Save Darfur Coalition; upon its founders, its finances, its methods and motivations and its truthfulness. In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present ten reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign is a PR scam to justify US intervention in Africa.
1. It wouldn't be the first Big Lie our government and media elite told us to justify a war.
Elders among us can recall the Tonkin Gulf Incident, which the US government deliberately provoked to justify initiation of the war in Vietnam. This rationale was quickly succeeded by the need to help the struggling infant "democracy" in South Vietnam, and the still useful "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" nonsense. More recently the bombings, invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been variously explained by people on the public payroll as necessary to "get Bin Laden" as revenge for 9-11, as measures to take "the world's most dangerous weapons" from the hands of "the world's most dangerous regimes", as measures to enable the struggling Iraqi "democracy" stand on its own two feet, and necessary because it's still better to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here".
2. It wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite employed "genocide prevention" as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The 1995 US and NATO military intervention in the former Yugoslavia was supposedly a "peacekeeping" operation to stop a genocide. The lasting result of that campaign is Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest military bases on the planet. The U.S. is practically the only country in the world that maintains military bases outside its own borders. At just under a thousand acres, Camp Bondsteel offers the US military the ability to pre-position large quantities of equipment and supplies within striking distance of Caspian oil fields, pipeline routes and relevant sea lanes. It is also widely believed to be the site of one of the US's secret prison and torture facilities.
3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?
"The notion that a quarter million Darfuri dead are a genocide and five million dead Congolese are not is vicious and absurd," according to Congolese activist Nita Evele. "What's happened and what is still happening in Congo is not a tribal conflict and it's not a civil war. It is an invasion. It is a genocide with a death toll of five million, twenty times that of Darfur, conducted for the purpose of plundering Congolese mineral and natural resources."
More than anything else, the selective and cynical application of the term "genocide" to Sudan, rather than to the Congo where ten to twenty times as many Africans have been murdered reveals the depth of hypocrisy around the "Save Darfur" movement. In the Congo, where local gangsters, mercenaries and warlords along with invading armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola engage in slaughter, mass rape and regional depopulation on a scale that dwarfs anything happening in Sudan, all the players eagerly compete to guarantee that the extraction of vital coltan for Western computers and cell phones, the export of uranium for Western reactors and nukes, along with diamonds, gold, copper, timber and other Congolese resources continue undisturbed.
Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young and George H.W. Bush both serve on the board of Barrcik Gold, one of the largest and most active mining concerns in war-torn Congo. Evidently, with profits from the brutal extraction of Congolese wealth flowing to the West, there can be no Congolese "genocide" worth noting, much less interfering with. For their purposes, U.S. strategic planners may regard their Congolese model as the ideal means of capturing African wealth at minimal cost without the bother of official U.S. boots on the ground.
4. It's all about Sudanese oil.
Sudan, and the Darfur region in particular, sit atop a lake of oil. But Sudanese oil fields are not being developed and drilled by Exxon or Chevron or British Petroleum. Chinese banks, oil and construction firms are making the loans, drilling the wells, laying the pipelines to take Sudanese oil where they intend it to go, calling far too many shots for a twenty-first century in which the U.S. aspires to control the planet's energy supplies. A U.S. and NATO military intervention will solve that problem for U.S. planners.
5. It's all about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic and other natural resources.
Uranium is vital to the nuclear weapons industry and an essential fuel for nuclear reactors. Sudan possesses high quality deposits of uranium. Gum arabic is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, candies and beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and Sudanese exports of this commodity are 80% of the world's supply. When comprehensive U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime were being considered in 1997, industry lobbyists stepped up and secured an exemption in the sanctions bill to guarantee their supplies of this valuable Sudanese commodity. But an in-country U.S. and NATO military presence is a more secure guarantee that the extraction of Sudanese resources, like those of the Congo, flow westward to the U.S. and the European Union.
6. It's all about Sudan's strategic location
Sudan sits opposite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, where a large fraction of the world's easily extracted oil will be for a few more years. Darfur borders on Libya and Chad, with their own vast oil resources, is within striking distance of West and Central Africa, and is a likely pipeline route. The Nile River flows through Sudan before reaching Egypt, and Southern Sudan has water resources of regional significance too. With the creation of AFRICOM, the new Pentagon command for the African continent, the U.S. has made open and explicit its intention to plant a strategic footprint on the African continent. From permanent Sudanese bases, the U.S. military could influence the politics and ecocomies of Africa for a generation to come.
7. The backers and founders of the "Save Darfur" movement are the well-connected and well-funded U.S. foreign policy elite.
According to a copyrighted Washington Post story this summer
"The "Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country - the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum...
"The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year...
"Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars."
Though the "Save Darfur" PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.
8. None of the funds raised by the "Save Darfur Coalition", the flagship of the "Save Darfur Movement" go to help needy Africans on the ground in Darfur, according to stories in both the Washington Post and the New York Times.
"None of the money collected by Save Darfur goes to help the victims and their families. Instead, the coalition pours its proceeds into advocacy efforts that are primarily designed to persuade governments to act."
9. "Save Darfur" partisans in the U.S. are not interested in political negotiations to end the conflict in Darfur
President Bush has openly and repeatedly attempted to throw monkey wrenches at peace negotiations to end the war in Darfur. Even pro-intervention scholars and humanitarian organizations active on the ground have criticized the U.S. for endangering humanitarian relief workers, and for effectively urging rebel parties in Darfur to refuse peace talks and hold out for U.S. and NATO intervention on their behalf.
The slick, well financed and nearly seamless PR campaign simplistically depicts the conflict as strictly a racial affair, in which Arabs, generally despised in the US media anyway, are exterminating the black population of Sudan. In the make-believe world it creates, there is no room for negotiation. But in fact, many of Sudan's 'Arabs", even the Janjiweed, are also black. In any case, they were armed and unleashed by a government which has the power to disarm them if it chooses, and can also negotiate in good faith if it chooses. Negotiations are never a gurantee of anything, but refusal to particpate in negotiations, as the U.S. appears to be urging the rebels in Darfur to do, and as the "Save Darfur" PR campaign justifies, avoids any path to a political settlement among Sudanese, leaving open only the road of U.S and NATO military intervention.
10. Blackwater and other U.S. mercenary contractors, the unofficial armed wings of the Republican party and the Pentagon are eagerly pitching their services as part of the solution to the Darfur crisis.
"Chris Taylor, head of strategy for Blackwater, says his company has a database of thousands of former police and military officers for security assignments. He says Blackwater personnel could set up perimeters and guard Darfurian villages and refugee camp in support of the U.N. Blackwater officials say it would not take many men to fend off the Janjaweed, a militia that is supported by the Sudanese government and attacks villages on camelback."
Apparently Blackwater doesn't need to come to the Congo, where hunger and malnutrition, depopulation, mass rape and the disappearance of schools, hospitals and civil society into vast law free zones ruled by an ever-changing cast of African proxies (like the son of the late and unlamented Idi Amin), all under a veil of complicit media silence already constitute the perfect business-friendly environment for siphoning off the vast wealth of that country at minimal cost.
Look for the adoption of the Congolese model across the wide areas of Africa that U.S. strategic planners call "ungoverned spaces". Just don't expect to see details on the evening news, or hear about them from Oprah, George Clooney or Angelina Jolie.
Ten Reasons Why "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam to Justify the Next US Oil and Resource Wars in Africa
Tue, 11/27/2007
The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and "stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a "genocide" and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation's Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for "humanitarian intervention" to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.
"Out of Iraq - Into Darfur" cartoon by Mike Flugennock. Find more of his work at www.sinkers.org
Top Ten Reasons to Suspect "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam to Justify US Military Intervention in African
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance of false realities in the service of American empire is a core function of the public relations profession and the corporate news media. Whether it's fake news stories about wonder drugs and how toxic chemicals are good for you, bribed commentators and journalists discoursing on the benefits of No Child Left Behind, Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans, or slick propaganda campaigns employing viral marketing techniques to reach out to college students, bloggers, churches and ordinary citizens, it pays to take a close look behind the facade.
Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust US-backed or US-led military intervention in Western Sudan. Increasing scrutiny is being focused upon the "Save Darfur" lobby and the Save Darfur Coalition; upon its founders, its finances, its methods and motivations and its truthfulness. In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present ten reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign is a PR scam to justify US intervention in Africa.
1. It wouldn't be the first Big Lie our government and media elite told us to justify a war.
Elders among us can recall the Tonkin Gulf Incident, which the US government deliberately provoked to justify initiation of the war in Vietnam. This rationale was quickly succeeded by the need to help the struggling infant "democracy" in South Vietnam, and the still useful "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" nonsense. More recently the bombings, invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been variously explained by people on the public payroll as necessary to "get Bin Laden" as revenge for 9-11, as measures to take "the world's most dangerous weapons" from the hands of "the world's most dangerous regimes", as measures to enable the struggling Iraqi "democracy" stand on its own two feet, and necessary because it's still better to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here".
2. It wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite employed "genocide prevention" as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The 1995 US and NATO military intervention in the former Yugoslavia was supposedly a "peacekeeping" operation to stop a genocide. The lasting result of that campaign is Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest military bases on the planet. The U.S. is practically the only country in the world that maintains military bases outside its own borders. At just under a thousand acres, Camp Bondsteel offers the US military the ability to pre-position large quantities of equipment and supplies within striking distance of Caspian oil fields, pipeline routes and relevant sea lanes. It is also widely believed to be the site of one of the US's secret prison and torture facilities.
3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?
"The notion that a quarter million Darfuri dead are a genocide and five million dead Congolese are not is vicious and absurd," according to Congolese activist Nita Evele. "What's happened and what is still happening in Congo is not a tribal conflict and it's not a civil war. It is an invasion. It is a genocide with a death toll of five million, twenty times that of Darfur, conducted for the purpose of plundering Congolese mineral and natural resources."
More than anything else, the selective and cynical application of the term "genocide" to Sudan, rather than to the Congo where ten to twenty times as many Africans have been murdered reveals the depth of hypocrisy around the "Save Darfur" movement. In the Congo, where local gangsters, mercenaries and warlords along with invading armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola engage in slaughter, mass rape and regional depopulation on a scale that dwarfs anything happening in Sudan, all the players eagerly compete to guarantee that the extraction of vital coltan for Western computers and cell phones, the export of uranium for Western reactors and nukes, along with diamonds, gold, copper, timber and other Congolese resources continue undisturbed.
Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young and George H.W. Bush both serve on the board of Barrcik Gold, one of the largest and most active mining concerns in war-torn Congo. Evidently, with profits from the brutal extraction of Congolese wealth flowing to the West, there can be no Congolese "genocide" worth noting, much less interfering with. For their purposes, U.S. strategic planners may regard their Congolese model as the ideal means of capturing African wealth at minimal cost without the bother of official U.S. boots on the ground.
4. It's all about Sudanese oil.
Sudan, and the Darfur region in particular, sit atop a lake of oil. But Sudanese oil fields are not being developed and drilled by Exxon or Chevron or British Petroleum. Chinese banks, oil and construction firms are making the loans, drilling the wells, laying the pipelines to take Sudanese oil where they intend it to go, calling far too many shots for a twenty-first century in which the U.S. aspires to control the planet's energy supplies. A U.S. and NATO military intervention will solve that problem for U.S. planners.
5. It's all about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic and other natural resources.
Uranium is vital to the nuclear weapons industry and an essential fuel for nuclear reactors. Sudan possesses high quality deposits of uranium. Gum arabic is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, candies and beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and Sudanese exports of this commodity are 80% of the world's supply. When comprehensive U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime were being considered in 1997, industry lobbyists stepped up and secured an exemption in the sanctions bill to guarantee their supplies of this valuable Sudanese commodity. But an in-country U.S. and NATO military presence is a more secure guarantee that the extraction of Sudanese resources, like those of the Congo, flow westward to the U.S. and the European Union.
6. It's all about Sudan's strategic location
Sudan sits opposite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, where a large fraction of the world's easily extracted oil will be for a few more years. Darfur borders on Libya and Chad, with their own vast oil resources, is within striking distance of West and Central Africa, and is a likely pipeline route. The Nile River flows through Sudan before reaching Egypt, and Southern Sudan has water resources of regional significance too. With the creation of AFRICOM, the new Pentagon command for the African continent, the U.S. has made open and explicit its intention to plant a strategic footprint on the African continent. From permanent Sudanese bases, the U.S. military could influence the politics and ecocomies of Africa for a generation to come.
7. The backers and founders of the "Save Darfur" movement are the well-connected and well-funded U.S. foreign policy elite.
According to a copyrighted Washington Post story this summer
"The "Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country - the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum...
"The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year...
"Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars."
Though the "Save Darfur" PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.
8. None of the funds raised by the "Save Darfur Coalition", the flagship of the "Save Darfur Movement" go to help needy Africans on the ground in Darfur, according to stories in both the Washington Post and the New York Times.
"None of the money collected by Save Darfur goes to help the victims and their families. Instead, the coalition pours its proceeds into advocacy efforts that are primarily designed to persuade governments to act."
9. "Save Darfur" partisans in the U.S. are not interested in political negotiations to end the conflict in Darfur
President Bush has openly and repeatedly attempted to throw monkey wrenches at peace negotiations to end the war in Darfur. Even pro-intervention scholars and humanitarian organizations active on the ground have criticized the U.S. for endangering humanitarian relief workers, and for effectively urging rebel parties in Darfur to refuse peace talks and hold out for U.S. and NATO intervention on their behalf.
The slick, well financed and nearly seamless PR campaign simplistically depicts the conflict as strictly a racial affair, in which Arabs, generally despised in the US media anyway, are exterminating the black population of Sudan. In the make-believe world it creates, there is no room for negotiation. But in fact, many of Sudan's 'Arabs", even the Janjiweed, are also black. In any case, they were armed and unleashed by a government which has the power to disarm them if it chooses, and can also negotiate in good faith if it chooses. Negotiations are never a gurantee of anything, but refusal to particpate in negotiations, as the U.S. appears to be urging the rebels in Darfur to do, and as the "Save Darfur" PR campaign justifies, avoids any path to a political settlement among Sudanese, leaving open only the road of U.S and NATO military intervention.
10. Blackwater and other U.S. mercenary contractors, the unofficial armed wings of the Republican party and the Pentagon are eagerly pitching their services as part of the solution to the Darfur crisis.
"Chris Taylor, head of strategy for Blackwater, says his company has a database of thousands of former police and military officers for security assignments. He says Blackwater personnel could set up perimeters and guard Darfurian villages and refugee camp in support of the U.N. Blackwater officials say it would not take many men to fend off the Janjaweed, a militia that is supported by the Sudanese government and attacks villages on camelback."
Apparently Blackwater doesn't need to come to the Congo, where hunger and malnutrition, depopulation, mass rape and the disappearance of schools, hospitals and civil society into vast law free zones ruled by an ever-changing cast of African proxies (like the son of the late and unlamented Idi Amin), all under a veil of complicit media silence already constitute the perfect business-friendly environment for siphoning off the vast wealth of that country at minimal cost.
Look for the adoption of the Congolese model across the wide areas of Africa that U.S. strategic planners call "ungoverned spaces". Just don't expect to see details on the evening news, or hear about them from Oprah, George Clooney or Angelina Jolie.
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/darfur-%E2%80%9Cgenocide%E2%80%9D-lies-unraveling-%E2%80%93-only-1500-darfuris-died-2008-says-african-union
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling – Only 1,500 Darfuris Died in 2008, Says African Union
Wed, 06/24/2009
For more than five years, the Save Darfur Coalition has used a slick and star-studded multimillion dollar ad campaign to paint a horrific vision of 400,000 dead in a black vs Arab war of extermination. No historic or political causes are offered for this scenario; it's genocide a case of good vs. evil demanding our attention and action. But the big lies underpinning the Save Darfur campaign are coming undone. Reporters, scholars and even US envoys are returning from the region affirming that if there ever was a genocide in Darfur, and there may not have been, there isn't one now. The British government has even ruled that Save Darfur cannot, in that country, use the figure of 400,000 dead which it throws around in all its US advertisements, cause it just ain't true.
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling – Only 1,500 Darfuris Died in 2008, Says African Union
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
A hundred years ago, in the Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois observed that “...the country's appetite for facts on the Negro question has been spoiled by sweets.” If he was around today, DuBois could say the same for America's appetite for facts on Darfur, Sudan, the rest of Africa, Iraq, and most of the world. Facts are messy things. Facts come with historical contexts and uncertain consequences. Eternal truths, like good vs. evil are sweet like candy, simple and comforting.
Since its founding in 2004, the Save Darfur Coalition has spent tens of millions on a state of the art advertising campaign to paint us a picture that is exactly that. Sweet and simple, easy to understand, and most of all, we get to be the good guys. Darfur is, to use Samantha Power's phrase, “a problem from hell,” a piece of pure, unambiguous evil in which the global power of the US can be put to use constructively, because stopping a genocide calls for action, not for politics. Stopping genocide, we are told, is above politics. The lesson of genocide is that great powers must act, people of conscience and good will must intervene.
There are several problems with this, both as a general proposition, and specifically as it applies to Darfur. In the first place genocide is defined as the attempt to wipe out a nation or a people. There is so little evidence that mass killings on the scale necessary to be called genocide have occurred in Darfur that back in 2007, Save Darfur's UK operation was prohibited from using the figure of 400,000 dead that routinely appears in its advertisements in the US. Britain has a government truth-in-advertising agency called the Advertisement Standards Authority. They looked at Save Darfur's massive death toll. They took into account a 2006 US GAO report in which GAO assembled a number of death and casualty estimates, high and low for Darfur, and summoned a panel of experts to determine which were accurate.
The GAO study found the low estimates of 50 to 70 thousand dead from a variety of causes including disease and starvation due to desertification on all sides of the conflict to be more accurate than the high estimates of 200 to 400 thousand by direct armed violence on one side alone claimed by Save Darfur. The GAO report maintained that the peak death toll occurred in 2004 and early 2005 and had been trending downward since. This was compelling enough evidence for Britain to ban the inflammatory claims that Save Darfur still makes with impunity in the US, which has no truth in advertising laws.
African scholar Mahmood Mamdani has traveled extensively for many weeks in Sudan and Darfur as part of the African Union's Dialog for Darfur project, interviewing officials, activists and ordinary people on all sides of the conflict. In a talk at Howard University on March 20, 2009 he reported that only days before, the general in charge of the African Union's peacekeeping forces in Darfur pegged the death toll for the entire year in and around the refugee camps at a mere 1,500. While the deaths of 50 to 70 thousand people several years ago on multiple sides of an armed conflict are a grievous matter, not to be minimized or brushed aside, they don't count as the ongoing genocide of helpless civilians.
Around the same time that several members of Congress got themselves arrested at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, Afshin Rattansi, a reporter and broadcaster for Al Jazzera, CNN, The Guardian, Bloomberg News and other outlets toured Sudan, speaking to Africans as well as the representatives of western womens organizations in the country who attested that they were able to travel and speak freely and had seen “no evidence” of genocide.
Even USAF General Scott Gration, traveling in the region as US special envoy returned to Washington last week saying that the situation in Darfur was at worst “the remnants of genocide,” clearly implying that the worst violence had been over for some time. Gration's remarks may have exposed a divide in the administration, since UN ambassador Susan Rice stoutly maintained only two days before that genocide was “ongoing” in Darfur. Clearly, the genocide story is becoming less and less tenable.
But Save Darfur is all about advertising, and in the US, advertisers are under no obligation to tell the truth. Save Darfur is in fact, not a mass movement, but an advertising campaign, headed by the CEO of a PR company that boasts such clients as Dupont, the company responsible for murdering tens of thousands when one of its chemical plants exploded at Bhopal, India , and sent a cloud of poison gas rolling downhill into a city.
As BAR revealed in a 2007 story, Ten Reasons Why Save Darfur Is A PR Scam to Justify Oil and Resource Wars In Africa
According to a copyrighted Washington Post story this summer (in 2007)
"The "Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country - the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum...
"The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year...
"Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars."
Though the "Save Darfur" PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.
The construct of genocides, “problems from hell” popping up around the world in which the US is obliged to intervene is a very useful one. It appears to be the successor to the so-called “war on terror” as the justification for American military adventures around the world. Hear it from the lips of UN Ambassador Susan Rice herself;
The Responsibility to Protect or, as it has come to be known, R2P represents an important step forward in the long historical struggle to save lives and guard the wellbeing of people endangered by conflict. It holds that states have responsibilities as well as interests and that states have particularly vital duties to shield their own populations from the depraved and the murderous. This approach is bold. It is important. And the United States welcomes it...
The Responsibility to Protect is rooted in the principle that states have a fundamental responsibility to protect their populations from such atrocities as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. It holds that other states, in turn, have a corollary responsibility to assist, if a state cannot meet its fundamental responsibility to its citizens or to take collective action, if a state will not meet that fundamental responsibility...
Like the war on terror, stopping genocides real or imagined is above politics. It's a cause that absolves Americans of any responsibility to understand either their own history or that of the countries they intervene in.
The real Darfur is a complicated place with complicated politics that Save Darfur does not help us understand. What Save Darfur doesn't tell us is that there is a many-sided civil confict of insurgency and counterinsurgency, not a one-sided slaughter in progress. Save Darfur never mentions how the area was flooded with arms by the US, France and Israel on one side, and by Libya and the Soviet Union during Chad's decade of civil war. And in volumes of briefing papers and advertising copy, Save Darfur invariably forgets to tell us that the lines between which Darfuris are “black” and which are “Arab” have been fluid for centuries, and as Mahmood Mamdani in his book Saviors and Survivors explains, have more to do with culture and status than with “race” in Western terms.
The stark and horrific picture painted by the Save Darfur Coalition in fact prolongs the civil conflict in that unhappy country, encouraging one faction or another to avoid negotations for a settlement in the hope that Western intervention will put them on top. The “right to protect” doctrine espoused by Ambassador Rice ensures that regardless of the facts, Save Darfur will have the ear of policymakers for some time to come, as they look to sweeten the public excuses to intervene in other countries, and to spoil America's appetites for unpleasant truths in which it is not always the good guy.
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling – Only 1,500 Darfuris Died in 2008, Says African Union
Wed, 06/24/2009
For more than five years, the Save Darfur Coalition has used a slick and star-studded multimillion dollar ad campaign to paint a horrific vision of 400,000 dead in a black vs Arab war of extermination. No historic or political causes are offered for this scenario; it's genocide a case of good vs. evil demanding our attention and action. But the big lies underpinning the Save Darfur campaign are coming undone. Reporters, scholars and even US envoys are returning from the region affirming that if there ever was a genocide in Darfur, and there may not have been, there isn't one now. The British government has even ruled that Save Darfur cannot, in that country, use the figure of 400,000 dead which it throws around in all its US advertisements, cause it just ain't true.
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling – Only 1,500 Darfuris Died in 2008, Says African Union
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
A hundred years ago, in the Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois observed that “...the country's appetite for facts on the Negro question has been spoiled by sweets.” If he was around today, DuBois could say the same for America's appetite for facts on Darfur, Sudan, the rest of Africa, Iraq, and most of the world. Facts are messy things. Facts come with historical contexts and uncertain consequences. Eternal truths, like good vs. evil are sweet like candy, simple and comforting.
Since its founding in 2004, the Save Darfur Coalition has spent tens of millions on a state of the art advertising campaign to paint us a picture that is exactly that. Sweet and simple, easy to understand, and most of all, we get to be the good guys. Darfur is, to use Samantha Power's phrase, “a problem from hell,” a piece of pure, unambiguous evil in which the global power of the US can be put to use constructively, because stopping a genocide calls for action, not for politics. Stopping genocide, we are told, is above politics. The lesson of genocide is that great powers must act, people of conscience and good will must intervene.
There are several problems with this, both as a general proposition, and specifically as it applies to Darfur. In the first place genocide is defined as the attempt to wipe out a nation or a people. There is so little evidence that mass killings on the scale necessary to be called genocide have occurred in Darfur that back in 2007, Save Darfur's UK operation was prohibited from using the figure of 400,000 dead that routinely appears in its advertisements in the US. Britain has a government truth-in-advertising agency called the Advertisement Standards Authority. They looked at Save Darfur's massive death toll. They took into account a 2006 US GAO report in which GAO assembled a number of death and casualty estimates, high and low for Darfur, and summoned a panel of experts to determine which were accurate.
The GAO study found the low estimates of 50 to 70 thousand dead from a variety of causes including disease and starvation due to desertification on all sides of the conflict to be more accurate than the high estimates of 200 to 400 thousand by direct armed violence on one side alone claimed by Save Darfur. The GAO report maintained that the peak death toll occurred in 2004 and early 2005 and had been trending downward since. This was compelling enough evidence for Britain to ban the inflammatory claims that Save Darfur still makes with impunity in the US, which has no truth in advertising laws.
African scholar Mahmood Mamdani has traveled extensively for many weeks in Sudan and Darfur as part of the African Union's Dialog for Darfur project, interviewing officials, activists and ordinary people on all sides of the conflict. In a talk at Howard University on March 20, 2009 he reported that only days before, the general in charge of the African Union's peacekeeping forces in Darfur pegged the death toll for the entire year in and around the refugee camps at a mere 1,500. While the deaths of 50 to 70 thousand people several years ago on multiple sides of an armed conflict are a grievous matter, not to be minimized or brushed aside, they don't count as the ongoing genocide of helpless civilians.
Around the same time that several members of Congress got themselves arrested at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, Afshin Rattansi, a reporter and broadcaster for Al Jazzera, CNN, The Guardian, Bloomberg News and other outlets toured Sudan, speaking to Africans as well as the representatives of western womens organizations in the country who attested that they were able to travel and speak freely and had seen “no evidence” of genocide.
Even USAF General Scott Gration, traveling in the region as US special envoy returned to Washington last week saying that the situation in Darfur was at worst “the remnants of genocide,” clearly implying that the worst violence had been over for some time. Gration's remarks may have exposed a divide in the administration, since UN ambassador Susan Rice stoutly maintained only two days before that genocide was “ongoing” in Darfur. Clearly, the genocide story is becoming less and less tenable.
But Save Darfur is all about advertising, and in the US, advertisers are under no obligation to tell the truth. Save Darfur is in fact, not a mass movement, but an advertising campaign, headed by the CEO of a PR company that boasts such clients as Dupont, the company responsible for murdering tens of thousands when one of its chemical plants exploded at Bhopal, India , and sent a cloud of poison gas rolling downhill into a city.
As BAR revealed in a 2007 story, Ten Reasons Why Save Darfur Is A PR Scam to Justify Oil and Resource Wars In Africa
According to a copyrighted Washington Post story this summer (in 2007)
"The "Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country - the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum...
"The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year...
"Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars."
Though the "Save Darfur" PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as were the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique a generation ago. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is clearly an establishment affair, a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manfacture consent for US military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.
The construct of genocides, “problems from hell” popping up around the world in which the US is obliged to intervene is a very useful one. It appears to be the successor to the so-called “war on terror” as the justification for American military adventures around the world. Hear it from the lips of UN Ambassador Susan Rice herself;
The Responsibility to Protect or, as it has come to be known, R2P represents an important step forward in the long historical struggle to save lives and guard the wellbeing of people endangered by conflict. It holds that states have responsibilities as well as interests and that states have particularly vital duties to shield their own populations from the depraved and the murderous. This approach is bold. It is important. And the United States welcomes it...
The Responsibility to Protect is rooted in the principle that states have a fundamental responsibility to protect their populations from such atrocities as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. It holds that other states, in turn, have a corollary responsibility to assist, if a state cannot meet its fundamental responsibility to its citizens or to take collective action, if a state will not meet that fundamental responsibility...
Like the war on terror, stopping genocides real or imagined is above politics. It's a cause that absolves Americans of any responsibility to understand either their own history or that of the countries they intervene in.
The real Darfur is a complicated place with complicated politics that Save Darfur does not help us understand. What Save Darfur doesn't tell us is that there is a many-sided civil confict of insurgency and counterinsurgency, not a one-sided slaughter in progress. Save Darfur never mentions how the area was flooded with arms by the US, France and Israel on one side, and by Libya and the Soviet Union during Chad's decade of civil war. And in volumes of briefing papers and advertising copy, Save Darfur invariably forgets to tell us that the lines between which Darfuris are “black” and which are “Arab” have been fluid for centuries, and as Mahmood Mamdani in his book Saviors and Survivors explains, have more to do with culture and status than with “race” in Western terms.
The stark and horrific picture painted by the Save Darfur Coalition in fact prolongs the civil conflict in that unhappy country, encouraging one faction or another to avoid negotations for a settlement in the hope that Western intervention will put them on top. The “right to protect” doctrine espoused by Ambassador Rice ensures that regardless of the facts, Save Darfur will have the ear of policymakers for some time to come, as they look to sweeten the public excuses to intervene in other countries, and to spoil America's appetites for unpleasant truths in which it is not always the good guy.
Is the party over for Silvio Berlusconi?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5599641/Is-the-party-over-for-Silvio-Berlusconi.htmlIs the party over for Silvio Berlusconi?
As sex scandals escalate around him, the Italian prime minister is looking increasingly vulnerable, says Nick Squires.
By Nick Squires22 Jun 2009
For years, millions of hot-blooded Italian men have secretly wished they could gatecrash one of the parties hosted by their ebullient prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, featuring scantily-clad starlets and models, and endless bottles of expensive wine.
But now the bacchanalian gatherings are coming back to haunt Mr Berlusconi. The billionaire businessman, 72, is trying desperately to fend off allegations that an acquaintance paid call girls, wannabe actresses and models to attend the parties. Uncharacteristically, the scandal seems to be getting to him. He is tired, flustered – and worried, because it is threatening to overshadow his hosting of the G8 summit in L'Aquila next month. A national joke is turning into an international humiliation.
Attention is focused on a party that the prime minister held at his Rome palazzo on the evening of November 4 last year – the night of the US presidential election. A couple of days ago, one of the young women who attended the event, former Miss Italy contestant Barbara Montereale, 23, dropped a bombshell by claiming that Mr Berlusconi went to bed with another of the women in attendance, Patrizia D'Addario, 42, who was allegedly promised 2,000 euros (£1,700), and who herself claimed that when she saw the gathered women, she thought: "But this is a harem."
Then, yesterday a third young woman came forward, claiming to have details of the candlelit soirée. Lucia Rossini alleged that her invitation to Mr Berlusconi's palazzo, near Rome's Piazza Venezia, came from a businessman and acquaintance of the prime minister, Giampaolo Tarantini, 35, whom she claimed she knew from her home town of Bari. "Why don't you come with me to a party in Rome?" Mr Tarantini allegedly had asked her at the end of October last year. The three women were supposedly paid to fly to the capital and put up at the exclusive Hotel de Russie.
It is claimed they were driven to Mr Berlusconi's home, Palazzo Grazioli, in a car with tinted windows, arriving there around 11pm. They were greeted by Mr Berlusconi, who is said to have told Miss D'Addario: "I'm happy to see you again." She claimed he was wearing a large amount of orange make-up.
Over the next two or three hours, he reportedly entertained them with bawdy jokes, songs – the former cruise-ship crooner is well known for his love of belting out traditional Neapolitan ballads such as O Sole Mio – and video footage of a meeting with President George W Bush at the White House, which Miss D'Addario described as painfully dull.
At one point Mr Berlusconi excused himself from his glamorous guests – he had to go off and make a statement on Obama's historic victory. "He told me to wait around because he wanted to have breakfast with me," Miss D'Addario claimed. At the end of the evening the three women were allegedly given presents – pendants and brooches in the shape of butterflies and tortoises. Miss Rossini and Miss Montereale, who was pictured in Italian newspapers in a low-cut top showing off the jewellery and claiming that the pieces were designed by the prime minister himself, said goodnight and were taken back to their hotel. But Miss D'Addario stayed behind.
Miss Rossini claimed she was too discreet to ask why. "The things that I imagined had happened, I kept to myself," she said coyly. But her companion, Miss Montereale, had no such inhibitions, claiming that there was a sexual encounter between the call girl and the prime minister.
Miss D'Addario, a single mother who claims she once worked as an assistant to the American television magician David Copperfield, allegedly described what happened that night to prosecutors in Bari. As happens so often in Italy, the details were leaked to the press.
"Go and wait for me in the big bed," the prime minister allegedly said, telling her he was going to take a shower. While he was away she claims to have used her mobile phone to film herself in the room, which contained a framed photograph of Mr Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario. This was six months before she accused him of "consorting with minors" and said she wanted a divorce.
The scandal, which now threatens to engulf Italy's centre-Right government, erupted last week following a corruption investigation in the southern port of Bari which had nothing to do with Il Cavaliere, as Italians call Mr Berlusconi.
In the course of wire-tapping Mr Tarantini and his brother over allegations that they had engaged in corruption in winning contracts for supplying equipment to hospitals, Italy's Guardia di Finanza, or Fraud Squad, allegedly overheard them talking about recruiting young women for the prime minister's parties. As a result, chief prosecutor Giuseppe Scelsi launched an investigation into Giampaolo Tarantini for allegedly abetting prostitution. He has denied the accusation, saying any money the women received was reimbursement for "expenses" such as travel and hotel bills. The government has been under siege ever since.
Mr Berlusconi appears to think he can ride out the scandal, despite the daily revelations of alleged sleaze, and has angrily described the stories that have dominated the Italian press this week as "rubbish". Yesterday, asked what his response was to the latest allegations, he told journalists: "I'll hang tough."
Mr Berlusconi has said that the allegations are part of a Left-wing plot to discredit him. But there is also speculation that they have surfaced to torpedo his suspected ambitions to alter the constitution so he can become president.
The prime minister, who is not under investigation himself, has told his closest supporters to draw a veil of silence over the affair, and not talk to the press. But stonewalling will fail to stem the growing clamour of criticism against him, not only from his political opponents, who have said he should explain his conduct or resign, but also from conservative newspaper editors and the Catholic Church.
The unfolding scandal has revealed intriguing insights into how Mr Berlusconi weaves the spider's web of gorgeous young women that surround him. Attractive girls flock to Mr Berlusconi's court in the hope of launching careers on the variety television programmes that Italians are so fond of, or as presenters, weather girls or even politicians. Berlusconi's party touted a former Miss Italy entrant, Barbara Matera, and a busty Big Brother contestant as candidates for the recent European elections.
Several women, including the 18-year-old underwear model Noemi Letizia whose birthday party he attended, have said they refer affectionately to Mr Berlusconi as "Papi", or Daddy.
It is not yet clear to what extent the scandals are denting Mr Berlusconi's popularity. Many Italians – particularly men – are unfazed by the shenanigans. "What do you expect him to do when all these gorgeous girls are throwing themselves at him?" said a well-dressed businessman enjoying a cappuccino in the Piazza Navona yesterday.
But observers say the affair is taking its toll on the elderly politician. "He is flustered, because he hasn't been able to control the narrative that has been pushed against him," said James Walston, a professor at the American University in Rome. Senior ministers have rallied round, but some of his own party members worry that Mr Berlusconi may finally have pushed the tolerance of Italians too far.
The big test, of course, will come early next month, when the world's most powerful leaders, including the US President and Gordon Brown, will gather at the G8 summit in L'Aquila. With more unseemly revelations about the prime minister's private life expected to emerge, it is an event that the squeaky-clean American President, and even the beleaguered Mr Brown, are probably dreading.
Silvio: Sex is no fun if you have to pay!
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Silvio:_Sex_is_no_fun_if_you_have_to_pay!&in_article_id=690894&in_page_id=34Silvio: Sex is no fun if you have to pay!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Silvio Berlusconi has hit back at rumours that he has used escort girls, saying he has 'never paid for sex'.
Breaking his silence over rumours of debauched parties held at his villas, the Italian prime minister also said he had 'nothing to apologise for'.
'I have never paid for a woman – I have never understood what satisfaction one gets from that if there is no pleasure of conquest,' he added.
The 72-year-old has been under intense pressure since the weekend when it emerged that escort girls had been guests at parties held in his luxury villas.
Model Barbara Montereale, 23, claimed escort girl Patrizia D'Addario, 42, told her she had been paid to have sex with the billionaire politician . But Mr Berlusconi insisted he was the victim of a smear campaign. 'Behind Patrizia D'Addario is someone who is out to get me and she (Patrizia) has been paid well, they have a precise mandate against me,' he told glossy Italian news weekly Chi.
Asked if he suspected the escorts had been part of a honey trap, the premier replied: 'If I had any idea I would have stayed well away from such a person.
'I have nothing to be sorry about, I don't have to apologise.'
Mr Berlusconi also spoke about his divorce from his wife Veronica Lario, 52, and said it was a 'deep wound' but they had had a 'fantastic love story'.
'True love stories are never forgotten. I am fine, sad but fine. I just think about my mother every day and how she taught me never to be afraid of anyone,' he added.
Silvio Berlusconi keeps smiling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/22/silvio-berlusconi-italy-sex-scandal
Silvio Berlusconi keeps smiling as sex scandal gets deeper by the day
Prime minister attempts to carry on as normal despite further revelations
Tom Kington in Rome
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 June 2009
If Silvio Berlusconi fears four years of being a lame duck prime minister as a result of the sex scandal engulfing him, he was not showing it at the weekend as he went on a walkabout in Milan, kissing babies, discussing which AC Milan players he might sell and sketching out his political agenda to a crowd of admirers.
"He was talking about what plans he has for 2010; he clearly intends to ignore everything, waiting for it to blow over," said Raffaele De Mucci, a professor of political science at Luiss University in Rome.
Tom Kington: 'There is distinct unease among many of his allies' Link to this audio It is unlikely that it will blow over by the time the world's leaders arrive in Italy next month for the G8 conference. Magistrates in the southern city of Bari are pushing on with an investigation into a possible prostitution racket and are getting ready to question 30 women, some of whom are suspected to have been paid by a local businessman to attend five parties held by Berlusconi, La Repubblica reported yesterday.
One of the guests already questioned – model Barbara Montereale – has alleged that a paid escort, Patrizia D'Addario, slept with the prime minister on 4 November. Yesterday, Montereale released photographs she alleges she took as souvenirs in Berlusconi's bathroom and described the large number of eastern European women she says she met during a visit to his villa in Sardinia.
"They seemed at home, were on familiar terms with the prime minister and all called him Papi," she told La Repubblica, adding that she saw the girls dressed as Father Christmas in a video shown of an earlier party. "They were a bit jealous of each other and in competition to see who could get closer [to Berlusconi]."
Berlusconi's troubles with the opposite sex have advanced since May, when he fought against accusations of consorting with minors after attending the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, an aspiring model who called the 72-year-old "Papi" during private conversations on the phone.
That was enough to push Berlusconi's wife to ask for a divorce. The Bari inquiry could go further and rattle the foundations of the Italian government, said De Mucci. "The fewer votes Berlusconi got in the EU elections, the noisy protests at his recent rallies, all showed a drop in his support because of the scandal," he said.
"Now his allies are disoriented, the electorate's faith in the governing class will be further weakened and he risks losing the political capital he built up with his handling of the Abruzzo earthquake and the Naples rubbish crisis."
De Mucci added that he was not surprised by Berlusconi's recent denouncements of the number of Chinese living in Prato, near Florence, and the number of Africans he saw in Milan.
"The shakier his authority, the more he will lean on the Northern League for support," he said, referring to the anti-immigrant party with which Berlusconi's Freedom People party is allied. "But I doubt he is on his way out. His own party would not continue to exist without him. They would have to reinvent itself and I don't see them doing that."
For the Italian opposition, the question is how vulnerable Berlusconi is to the girls to whom he has thrown open his doors open. Unsatisfied with being named a candidate in local elections for a party in Bari allied to Berlusconi, D'Addario revealed all to the Italian press, reportedly telling Montereale: "This is our moment; I will make him pay and we will become famous like Noemi."
Luigi Zanda, of the opposition Democratic party, said: "Berlusconi has said nothing about how blackmailable he is and the government is ignoring the question."
Judging by his baby kissing at the weekend, Berlusconi feels the scandal will wither. Sandro Bondi, his culture minister, went on the counterattack yesterday, saying that La Repubblica, the left-leaning newspaper that has kept the prime minister under pressure, was "the largest threat to our democracy".
In Rome, the result of the scandal appeared to be an equal stiffening of resolve among the Italians who love Berlusconi and those who loathe him.
"He's got skeletons in his cupboard, but scandals don't count here and he will stay put for his whole five years," said tobacconist Roberta Canini bitterly.
"What scandal?" retorted retired civil servant Eliza Baciocchi at a corner bar on the busy Corso Francia. "Berlusconi is a gentleman when it comes to the ladies and only magistrates and the left see fit to pry into his private life."
Carlo Maschi, a legal assistant, said Berlusconi should be forgiven for his behaviour because he was a businessman, not a politician. "Look at how he kept Angela Merkel waiting when he was on his cellphone. He is made like that and that is fine by me," he said.
It was left to a young women to challenge Berlusconi in Milan. "Ask him about the prostitutes," she yelled at the crowd surrounding the prime minister, before she was hustled away by police.
Silvio Berlusconi keeps smiling as sex scandal gets deeper by the day
Prime minister attempts to carry on as normal despite further revelations
Tom Kington in Rome
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 June 2009
If Silvio Berlusconi fears four years of being a lame duck prime minister as a result of the sex scandal engulfing him, he was not showing it at the weekend as he went on a walkabout in Milan, kissing babies, discussing which AC Milan players he might sell and sketching out his political agenda to a crowd of admirers.
"He was talking about what plans he has for 2010; he clearly intends to ignore everything, waiting for it to blow over," said Raffaele De Mucci, a professor of political science at Luiss University in Rome.
Tom Kington: 'There is distinct unease among many of his allies' Link to this audio It is unlikely that it will blow over by the time the world's leaders arrive in Italy next month for the G8 conference. Magistrates in the southern city of Bari are pushing on with an investigation into a possible prostitution racket and are getting ready to question 30 women, some of whom are suspected to have been paid by a local businessman to attend five parties held by Berlusconi, La Repubblica reported yesterday.
One of the guests already questioned – model Barbara Montereale – has alleged that a paid escort, Patrizia D'Addario, slept with the prime minister on 4 November. Yesterday, Montereale released photographs she alleges she took as souvenirs in Berlusconi's bathroom and described the large number of eastern European women she says she met during a visit to his villa in Sardinia.
"They seemed at home, were on familiar terms with the prime minister and all called him Papi," she told La Repubblica, adding that she saw the girls dressed as Father Christmas in a video shown of an earlier party. "They were a bit jealous of each other and in competition to see who could get closer [to Berlusconi]."
Berlusconi's troubles with the opposite sex have advanced since May, when he fought against accusations of consorting with minors after attending the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, an aspiring model who called the 72-year-old "Papi" during private conversations on the phone.
That was enough to push Berlusconi's wife to ask for a divorce. The Bari inquiry could go further and rattle the foundations of the Italian government, said De Mucci. "The fewer votes Berlusconi got in the EU elections, the noisy protests at his recent rallies, all showed a drop in his support because of the scandal," he said.
"Now his allies are disoriented, the electorate's faith in the governing class will be further weakened and he risks losing the political capital he built up with his handling of the Abruzzo earthquake and the Naples rubbish crisis."
De Mucci added that he was not surprised by Berlusconi's recent denouncements of the number of Chinese living in Prato, near Florence, and the number of Africans he saw in Milan.
"The shakier his authority, the more he will lean on the Northern League for support," he said, referring to the anti-immigrant party with which Berlusconi's Freedom People party is allied. "But I doubt he is on his way out. His own party would not continue to exist without him. They would have to reinvent itself and I don't see them doing that."
For the Italian opposition, the question is how vulnerable Berlusconi is to the girls to whom he has thrown open his doors open. Unsatisfied with being named a candidate in local elections for a party in Bari allied to Berlusconi, D'Addario revealed all to the Italian press, reportedly telling Montereale: "This is our moment; I will make him pay and we will become famous like Noemi."
Luigi Zanda, of the opposition Democratic party, said: "Berlusconi has said nothing about how blackmailable he is and the government is ignoring the question."
Judging by his baby kissing at the weekend, Berlusconi feels the scandal will wither. Sandro Bondi, his culture minister, went on the counterattack yesterday, saying that La Repubblica, the left-leaning newspaper that has kept the prime minister under pressure, was "the largest threat to our democracy".
In Rome, the result of the scandal appeared to be an equal stiffening of resolve among the Italians who love Berlusconi and those who loathe him.
"He's got skeletons in his cupboard, but scandals don't count here and he will stay put for his whole five years," said tobacconist Roberta Canini bitterly.
"What scandal?" retorted retired civil servant Eliza Baciocchi at a corner bar on the busy Corso Francia. "Berlusconi is a gentleman when it comes to the ladies and only magistrates and the left see fit to pry into his private life."
Carlo Maschi, a legal assistant, said Berlusconi should be forgiven for his behaviour because he was a businessman, not a politician. "Look at how he kept Angela Merkel waiting when he was on his cellphone. He is made like that and that is fine by me," he said.
It was left to a young women to challenge Berlusconi in Milan. "Ask him about the prostitutes," she yelled at the crowd surrounding the prime minister, before she was hustled away by police.
Why Silvio Berlusconi is the world's coolest leader
Why Silvio Berlusconi is the world's coolest leader...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5610944/Wives-of-G8-leaders-urged-to-boycott-summit-over-sexist-Berlusconi.html
Wives of G8 leaders urged to boycott summit over 'sexist' Berlusconi
The wives of world leaders who are due to attend the G8 summit in Italy next month have been urged to boycott the event in protest over Silvio Berlusconi's "offensive" attitude to women.
By Nick Squires in Rome
23 Jun 2009
Photo: Lucia Rossini and Barbara Montereale (rt) taking photographs of each other in what they claimed was a bathroom at Silvo Berlusconi's private residence in Rome in 2008
Three Italian female academics are calling on Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, President Obama's wife, Michele and other leaders' spouses not to attend the gathering in L'Aquila, which will be hosted by the Italian prime minister.
The academics have written an open "Appeal to the First Ladies" and said they were appalled, "as citizens of Italy and Europe", by the attitude displayed towards women by Mr Berlusconi, 72, who is engulfed in scandal over his private life.
They were "profoundly indignant" over his treatment of women "both in public and in private," they said.
In the past two months he has been accused of "consorting with minors" by his wife, Veronica Lario, of having an inappropriate relationship with an 18-year-old underwear model and of sleeping with a high-class call-girl during a private party at his residence in Rome in November.
A businessman acquaintance of the prime minister is being investigated by police and prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, on suspicion of "abetting prostitution" by allegedly supplying escorts to parties thrown by Mr Berlusconi at his mansion in Rome and his villa in Sardinia.
Mr Berlusconi denies the claims.
The academics accused the prime minister of sexism over plans drawn up by his party, People of Freedom, to promote actresses, a former Big Brother contestant and a Miss Italy model as candidates for the European Parliament elections earlier this month. The proposal was later shelved after Mr Berlusconi's wife called it "shamelessly trashy".
The letter was drawn up by Anne Maass, associate professor of social psychology at Padua University, Chiara Volpato, lecturer in social psychology at Bicocca University, Milan and Angelica Mucchi Faina, lecturer in social psychology at Perugia University.
Clippers stay true to word and draft Blake Griffin
http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/basketball/la-sp-clippers-nba-draft26-2009jun26,0,7652786.story
Clippers stay true to word and draft Blake Griffin
The consensus college player of the year from Oklahoma, who had 30 double-doubles last season and was considered by some to be the only sure thing in this draft, is taken No. 1 overall
By Lisa Dillman
June 26, 2009
Reporting from New York -- There would be no last-minute plot twist for the often-surprising Clippers.
The Clippers said May 19 after winning the draft lottery that they would take Oklahoma power forward Blake Griffin with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and today, , their actions followed their words.
This time, the predictable course was the right one at the glitzy NBA draft tonight at Madison Square Garden. Griffin shook hands with NBA Commissioner David Stern and started his Clippers career.
Griffin, the consensus college player of the year, led the nation in double doubles, recording 30 of them, and averaged 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds.
He was considered the only sure thing in what had been called an unpredictable draft. Griffin worked out for just one team: the Clippers, and the Clippers, who don't have a second-round choice, did not bring in any other players for an individual workout.
Clippers General Manager and Coach Mike Dunleavy made a trip to Europe in May to watch dynamic point guard Ricky Rubio, and happened to be in Spain the night the team won the draft lottery. That made his long journey a moot point.
The Clippers won only 19 games last season and have missed the playoffs in 11 of the last 12 seasons.
Griffin was asked earlier in this week about the Clippers poor history, and he said: "I am not worried about anything that has happened in the past. I wasn't a part of that and a lot of the guys that are there now weren't a part of it.
"So, I mean, we're only looking forward to the future."
lisa.dillman@latimes.com
Clippers stay true to word and draft Blake Griffin
The consensus college player of the year from Oklahoma, who had 30 double-doubles last season and was considered by some to be the only sure thing in this draft, is taken No. 1 overall
By Lisa Dillman
June 26, 2009
Reporting from New York -- There would be no last-minute plot twist for the often-surprising Clippers.
The Clippers said May 19 after winning the draft lottery that they would take Oklahoma power forward Blake Griffin with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and today, , their actions followed their words.
This time, the predictable course was the right one at the glitzy NBA draft tonight at Madison Square Garden. Griffin shook hands with NBA Commissioner David Stern and started his Clippers career.
Griffin, the consensus college player of the year, led the nation in double doubles, recording 30 of them, and averaged 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds.
He was considered the only sure thing in what had been called an unpredictable draft. Griffin worked out for just one team: the Clippers, and the Clippers, who don't have a second-round choice, did not bring in any other players for an individual workout.
Clippers General Manager and Coach Mike Dunleavy made a trip to Europe in May to watch dynamic point guard Ricky Rubio, and happened to be in Spain the night the team won the draft lottery. That made his long journey a moot point.
The Clippers won only 19 games last season and have missed the playoffs in 11 of the last 12 seasons.
Griffin was asked earlier in this week about the Clippers poor history, and he said: "I am not worried about anything that has happened in the past. I wasn't a part of that and a lot of the guys that are there now weren't a part of it.
"So, I mean, we're only looking forward to the future."
lisa.dillman@latimes.com
Strip search of teen was unconstitutional
Robalini's Note: In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the strip search of a 13-year-old girl by Arizona school officials violated the Fourth Amendment. In his solitary dissent, Clarence Thomas wrote: "If a guy can't check out a teenage bitch naked, then what's the point of becoming a principal in the first place?"
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-strip-search26-2009jun26,0,5149828.story
Strip search of teen was unconstitutional, Supreme Court rules
The high court says the search of a 13-year-old girl at an Arizona middle school was unjustified. But justices reject the suit against school employees, saying the law had not been clear.
By David G. Savage
June 25, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The strip search of a 13-year-old school girl who was suspected of hiding pain-relief pills was unreasonable and unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled today, setting new legal limits on how far school officials may go to inspect for drugs on campus.
In an 8-1 decision, the high court called a strip search at school "categorically distinct" from other inspections for drugs and so degrading that it usually cannot be justified.
The justices said a search of a student's backpack or outer clothing was reasonable whenever a school employee had sufficient suspicion that the student was hiding something illegal, such as drugs or a weapon.
But requiring a student to remove her clothes required a "quantum leap" of suspicion and wrongdoing to be justified, the court said.
Its ruling was a partial victory for Savana Redding and her mother, April, who sued the vice principal of her Arizona middle school over a strip search in 2003. The vice principal was told by another girl that Savana had brought extra-strength ibuprofen pills to school and planned to give them to other students.
She was questioned and denied having the pills. Her backpack was searched as well. When no pills were found, the vice principal sent her to a nurse's office, where she was ordered to remove her clothes.
No pills were found, but school officials did not apologize to the girl or her mother. The two sued the employees and the Safford Unified School District, contending the strip search violated Savana's rights under the 4th Amendment, which forbids "unreasonable searches" by the government.
In today's ruling, the justices agreed the search itself was unconstitutional, but they also rejected the suit against the school employees because the law had not been clear.
The decision sets a standard for all future school searches, but it may result in no compensation for Savana and her mother. The court sent the case back to Arizona to consider whether the school district itself may face some liability.
In Safford vs. Redding, Justice David H. Souter said the vice principal had reasonable grounds for questioning the students about drugs, but he went way too far.
"In sum, what was missing," Souter said, "was an indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable," he wrote.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He complained the ruling "grants judges sweeping authority to second guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge."
Meanwhile, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have gone further and upheld a liability ruling against the school officials in this case. "I have long believed that it does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude," Stevens wrote.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-strip-search26-2009jun26,0,5149828.story
Strip search of teen was unconstitutional, Supreme Court rules
The high court says the search of a 13-year-old girl at an Arizona middle school was unjustified. But justices reject the suit against school employees, saying the law had not been clear.
By David G. Savage
June 25, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The strip search of a 13-year-old school girl who was suspected of hiding pain-relief pills was unreasonable and unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled today, setting new legal limits on how far school officials may go to inspect for drugs on campus.
In an 8-1 decision, the high court called a strip search at school "categorically distinct" from other inspections for drugs and so degrading that it usually cannot be justified.
The justices said a search of a student's backpack or outer clothing was reasonable whenever a school employee had sufficient suspicion that the student was hiding something illegal, such as drugs or a weapon.
But requiring a student to remove her clothes required a "quantum leap" of suspicion and wrongdoing to be justified, the court said.
Its ruling was a partial victory for Savana Redding and her mother, April, who sued the vice principal of her Arizona middle school over a strip search in 2003. The vice principal was told by another girl that Savana had brought extra-strength ibuprofen pills to school and planned to give them to other students.
She was questioned and denied having the pills. Her backpack was searched as well. When no pills were found, the vice principal sent her to a nurse's office, where she was ordered to remove her clothes.
No pills were found, but school officials did not apologize to the girl or her mother. The two sued the employees and the Safford Unified School District, contending the strip search violated Savana's rights under the 4th Amendment, which forbids "unreasonable searches" by the government.
In today's ruling, the justices agreed the search itself was unconstitutional, but they also rejected the suit against the school employees because the law had not been clear.
The decision sets a standard for all future school searches, but it may result in no compensation for Savana and her mother. The court sent the case back to Arizona to consider whether the school district itself may face some liability.
In Safford vs. Redding, Justice David H. Souter said the vice principal had reasonable grounds for questioning the students about drugs, but he went way too far.
"In sum, what was missing," Souter said, "was an indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable," he wrote.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He complained the ruling "grants judges sweeping authority to second guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge."
Meanwhile, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have gone further and upheld a liability ruling against the school officials in this case. "I have long believed that it does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude," Stevens wrote.
Shaquille O’Neal Traded to Cleveland Cavaliers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/sports/basketball/26shaq.htmlShaquille O’Neal Traded to Cleveland Cavaliers
By HOWARD BECK
Published: June 25, 2009
For the third time in four years, Shaquille O’Neal is on the move, rumbling across the N.B.A. landscape, forcing adjustments, reassessments and revisions from coast to coast.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, in a bold stroke aimed at winning the championship, acquired O’Neal from the Phoenix Suns, in a multiplayer trade that will have ramifications across the league.
O’Neal, a 15-time All-Star, will join LeBron James, the league’s reigning most valuable player, to form one of the most powerful tandems in the league. The Cavaliers were already an elite team — winning an N.B.A.-best 66 games last season — but one that was missing any star power, or reliable scoring, beyond James.
That will no longer be a problem. Even at 37, O’Neal remains a fearsome threat in the low post. He averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds for the Suns last season, played in 75 games — his highest total in four years — and was named to the all-N.B.A. third team.
With O’Neal, Cleveland now has an answer to Orlando’s Dwight Howard, who bulldozed through the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals.
James’s championship dreams were crushed in Game 6 of that series, and he left the arena in a deep funk, without congratulating the Magic or speaking to the news media.
The depression that settled over Cleveland in late May has now cleared.
The Suns and Cavaliers had been discussing parameters of a deal since before the February trading deadline. At the time, it was deemed too great a risk by the Cavaliers, given their dominant season and their enviable chemistry. What appeared like a gamble then looks essential now.
Although the Suns initially held out for a better package, they settled for a deal that gives them financial relief, and little else. Phoenix will receive two marginal rotation players, the past-his-prime center Ben Wallace and the swingman Sasha Pavlovic, plus $500,000 and a future second-round pick.
If the Suns waive Pavlovic, whose contract is only partially guaranteed, they can save around $9 million in salary and luxury-tax payments. They could save millions more if Wallace decides to retire and accept a buyout, a possibility he has entertained.
Where that leaves the Suns is unclear. They have been dangling Amare Stoudemire, their other All-Star big man, in trade discussions all year. Their All-Star point guard, Steve Nash, is entering the last year of his contract and has been notably disconcerted by the team’s direction.
Once a perennial contender in the West, Phoenix has traded away three essential players — O’Neal, Boris Diaw and Raja Bell — since December. They traded Shawn Marion, once a core player, 16 months ago, in the deal for O’Neal.
If the Suns embark on a wholesale rebuilding effort, Stoudemire and Nash could be the next to go. Nash has openly entertained the idea of reuniting with Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni — with whom he had his best years in Phoenix — if not via trade then as a free agent in 2010.
The trade also has implications for Orlando and the Boston Celtics, the last two Eastern Conference champions, who will now be revisiting their defensive schemes to cope with O’Neal, the most dominant big man of his era, and James, perhaps the best all-around player in the league.
“It’s a great move for Cleveland,” said D’Antoni, who coached O’Neal for a half-season in Phoenix, “and I think that Shaq being closer to New York, playing four times against us, it’s not good for us.”
Although O’Neal is not the powerhouse he was earlier in the decade, when he led the Los Angeles Lakers to three straight titles, “he’s still one of the better players in the league,” D’Antoni said.
The trade could reverberate right into next summer. James is expected to become a free agent in July 2010. At least a dozen teams — including the Knicks — have been clearing salary-cap space to pursue James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, among others.
If O’Neal, who won titles with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Wade in Miami — can help James secure his first ring, it will make it harder for James to leave his home state. At a minimum, the Cavaliers’ owner, Dan Gilbert, and General Manager Danny Ferry have again demonstrated to James that they will go to great lengths to win a title and keep James happy.
The Cavaliers will be O’Neal’s fifth team in his 17-year career, and his fourth since 2004, when the Lakers traded him to Miami. He has been partners with some of the best perimeter players of the modern era, including Bryant, Wade and Penny Hardaway. Now O’Neal will wind down his career next to one of the most talented players in N.B.A. history.
In Cleveland, James is known as the Chosen One and the fans as “witnesses.” O’Neal will now be the most significant face in the crowd, The Big Witness.
June 24, 1947: They Came From ... Outer Space?
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0624
June 24, 1947: They Came From ... Outer Space?
By Tony Long
06.24.08
1947: Pilot Kenneth Arnold sights a series of unidentified flying objects near Washington's Mt. Rainier. It's the first widely reported UFO sighting in the United States, and, thanks to Arnold's description of what he saw, leads the press to coin the term flying saucer.
Arnold was an experienced pilot with more than 9,000 hours of flying time. He had diverted from his flight plan -- Chehalis to Yakima, Washington -- to search for a Marine Corps C-46 transport plane reported down in the Cascades near the southwest slope of Mt. Rainier. A sweep of the area revealed nothing, and Arnold resumed his original course.
As Arnold recalled, the afternoon was crystal clear, and he was cruising at an altitude of 9,200 feet. A minute or two after noting a DC-4 about 15 miles behind and to the left of him, he was startled by something bright reflecting off his plane. At first he thought he had nearly hit another aircraft but as he looked off in the direction the light had come from, he saw nine "peculiar-looking" aircraft flying rapidly in formation toward Mt. Rainier.
As these strange, tailless craft flew between his plane and Mt. Rainier and then off toward distant Mt. Adams, Arnold noted their remarkable speed -- he later calculated that they were moving at around 1,700 mph -- and said he got a pretty good look at their black silhouettes outlined against Rainier's snowy peak. He later described them as saucer-like disks … something the gentlemen of the press glommed on to very quickly.
At the time, Arnold said, the appearance of these flying saucers didn't particularly alarm him, because he assumed they were some kind of experimental military aircraft. If they were, nobody in the War Department (soon to be merged into the Department of Defense) was saying.
In fact, the official Army Air Corps position was that Arnold had either seen a mirage or was hallucinating. He insisted he was perfectly alert and lucid, adding that he was not a publicity hound, either. He also invited both the Army and the FBI to investigate. The Army sent a couple of officers out to talk with Arnold. Even though they concluded that "a man of [his] character and apparent integrity" almost certainly saw what he claimed to have seen, the Army's initial verdict remained unchanged.
As Arnold's story leaked out, other people stepped forward to say they had seen the objects, too. The most-credible report may have come from a United Airlines crew, which reported seeing nine similar disk-like objects over Idaho only 10 days after Arnold's sighting.
Whether Arnold actually saw something or not, the resulting publicity touched off a worldwide spate of UFO sightings. Barely two weeks after Arnold's flight, the Roswell story broke, and UFO hysteria was on.
Was it the power of suggestion that led to all these sightings, or was 1947 a peak travel year for little green men? You decide.
Source: History.com, Project 1947
June 24, 1947: They Came From ... Outer Space?
By Tony Long
06.24.08
1947: Pilot Kenneth Arnold sights a series of unidentified flying objects near Washington's Mt. Rainier. It's the first widely reported UFO sighting in the United States, and, thanks to Arnold's description of what he saw, leads the press to coin the term flying saucer.
Arnold was an experienced pilot with more than 9,000 hours of flying time. He had diverted from his flight plan -- Chehalis to Yakima, Washington -- to search for a Marine Corps C-46 transport plane reported down in the Cascades near the southwest slope of Mt. Rainier. A sweep of the area revealed nothing, and Arnold resumed his original course.
As Arnold recalled, the afternoon was crystal clear, and he was cruising at an altitude of 9,200 feet. A minute or two after noting a DC-4 about 15 miles behind and to the left of him, he was startled by something bright reflecting off his plane. At first he thought he had nearly hit another aircraft but as he looked off in the direction the light had come from, he saw nine "peculiar-looking" aircraft flying rapidly in formation toward Mt. Rainier.
As these strange, tailless craft flew between his plane and Mt. Rainier and then off toward distant Mt. Adams, Arnold noted their remarkable speed -- he later calculated that they were moving at around 1,700 mph -- and said he got a pretty good look at their black silhouettes outlined against Rainier's snowy peak. He later described them as saucer-like disks … something the gentlemen of the press glommed on to very quickly.
At the time, Arnold said, the appearance of these flying saucers didn't particularly alarm him, because he assumed they were some kind of experimental military aircraft. If they were, nobody in the War Department (soon to be merged into the Department of Defense) was saying.
In fact, the official Army Air Corps position was that Arnold had either seen a mirage or was hallucinating. He insisted he was perfectly alert and lucid, adding that he was not a publicity hound, either. He also invited both the Army and the FBI to investigate. The Army sent a couple of officers out to talk with Arnold. Even though they concluded that "a man of [his] character and apparent integrity" almost certainly saw what he claimed to have seen, the Army's initial verdict remained unchanged.
As Arnold's story leaked out, other people stepped forward to say they had seen the objects, too. The most-credible report may have come from a United Airlines crew, which reported seeing nine similar disk-like objects over Idaho only 10 days after Arnold's sighting.
Whether Arnold actually saw something or not, the resulting publicity touched off a worldwide spate of UFO sightings. Barely two weeks after Arnold's flight, the Roswell story broke, and UFO hysteria was on.
Was it the power of suggestion that led to all these sightings, or was 1947 a peak travel year for little green men? You decide.
Source: History.com, Project 1947
$1.92 Million Fine For Illegal File Sharing
Robalini's Note: In case anyone forgot how creepy the recording industry is, here's a reminder...
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/06/19/minnesota-mom-hit-with-192-million-fine-for-illegal-file-sharing/
Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.92 Million Fine For Illegal File Sharing
6/19/09
In the second file-sharing copyright-infringement trial against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota jury ruled that the 32-year-old mother of four owes $1.92 million to the four major labels after downloading and sharing 24 songs, Billboard.biz reports. The staggering ruling comes out to a cost of $80,000 per track illegally shared, a massive amount that the RIAA hopes will finally convince people to stop downloading music illegally.
“We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement. Thomas-Rasset was previously found guilty in 2007 for similar charges and was hit with $222,000 in damages, a figure that seemed astronomical at the time. In what turned out to be an unfortunate turn of events for Thomas-Rasset, the verdict in the 2007 trial was thrown out because of an error in jury instructions, paving the way for a retrial and yesterday’s ruling.
As Rock Daily reported in 2007, Thomas used peer-to-peer network Kazaa to download the files in question. Despite housing roughly 1,702 songs in her folder, Thomas’ trial only focused on 24 of them, including tracks by Green Day, Janet Jackson, Godsmack and Richard Marx. Following yesterday’s ruling, Thomas will essentially have to pay $80,000 for illegally downloading a Richard Marx song. That is, if the RIAA chooses to collect the $1.92 million Thomas doesn’t have.
“Since day one, we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so,” RIAA’s Duckworth said, while Thomas’ lawyer Kiwi Camara indicated she hopes to find a settlement. For the RIAA, the ruling sends a firm message to illegal downloaders, which may be enough of a reward.
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/06/19/minnesota-mom-hit-with-192-million-fine-for-illegal-file-sharing/
Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.92 Million Fine For Illegal File Sharing
6/19/09
In the second file-sharing copyright-infringement trial against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota jury ruled that the 32-year-old mother of four owes $1.92 million to the four major labels after downloading and sharing 24 songs, Billboard.biz reports. The staggering ruling comes out to a cost of $80,000 per track illegally shared, a massive amount that the RIAA hopes will finally convince people to stop downloading music illegally.
“We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement. Thomas-Rasset was previously found guilty in 2007 for similar charges and was hit with $222,000 in damages, a figure that seemed astronomical at the time. In what turned out to be an unfortunate turn of events for Thomas-Rasset, the verdict in the 2007 trial was thrown out because of an error in jury instructions, paving the way for a retrial and yesterday’s ruling.
As Rock Daily reported in 2007, Thomas used peer-to-peer network Kazaa to download the files in question. Despite housing roughly 1,702 songs in her folder, Thomas’ trial only focused on 24 of them, including tracks by Green Day, Janet Jackson, Godsmack and Richard Marx. Following yesterday’s ruling, Thomas will essentially have to pay $80,000 for illegally downloading a Richard Marx song. That is, if the RIAA chooses to collect the $1.92 million Thomas doesn’t have.
“Since day one, we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so,” RIAA’s Duckworth said, while Thomas’ lawyer Kiwi Camara indicated she hopes to find a settlement. For the RIAA, the ruling sends a firm message to illegal downloaders, which may be enough of a reward.
Life Inc.
http://lifeincorporated.net/
This didn’t just happen.
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from a convenient legal fiction to the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it.
This fascinating journey reveals the roots of our debacle, from the late Middle Ages to today. From the founding of the chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace; the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401k plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.
Most of all, Life Inc. shows how the current financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reverse this 600-year-old trend, and to begin to create, invest and transact directly rather than outsourcing all this activity to institutions that exist solely for their own sakes.
Corporatism didn’t evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living - the operating system on which we are now running our social software - was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self-sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.
Rushkoff illuminates both how we’ve become disconnected from our world, and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc. shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.
In Life Inc, Douglas Rushkoff presents the unnerving, unbelievable, but ultimately undeniable proof that our world has been overtaken by an absolutely artificial economy.
He shows how our most fundamental assumptions about money and commerce are actually false ones - artifacts of a 400-year-old plan by a waning aristocracy to maintain control of Western Europe. Although the architects of this corporatism have long since passed on, we still live in a landscape defined by their plans and have internalized their values as our own.
Taking on some of the biggest assumptions of our age, this is a book filled with dangerous ideas and rather unspeakable heresies:
Money is not a part of nature, to be studied by a science like economics, but an invention with a specific purpose.
Centralized currency is just one kind of money - one not intended to promote transactions but to promote the accumulation of capital by the wealthy.
Banking is our society’s biggest industry, and debt is our biggest product.
Corporations were never intended to promote commerce, but to prevent it.
The development of chartered corporations and centralized currency caused the plague; the economic devastation ended Europe’s most prosperous centuries, and led to the deaths of half of its population.
The more money we make, the more debt we have actually created.
Most importantly, Rushkoff shows how this moment of financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reinstate commerce and communities based in creating value for one another, rather than continuing to extract it for the benefit of institutions that no longer exist.
This didn’t just happen.
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from a convenient legal fiction to the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it.
This fascinating journey reveals the roots of our debacle, from the late Middle Ages to today. From the founding of the chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace; the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401k plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.
Most of all, Life Inc. shows how the current financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reverse this 600-year-old trend, and to begin to create, invest and transact directly rather than outsourcing all this activity to institutions that exist solely for their own sakes.
Corporatism didn’t evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living - the operating system on which we are now running our social software - was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self-sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.
Rushkoff illuminates both how we’ve become disconnected from our world, and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc. shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.
In Life Inc, Douglas Rushkoff presents the unnerving, unbelievable, but ultimately undeniable proof that our world has been overtaken by an absolutely artificial economy.
He shows how our most fundamental assumptions about money and commerce are actually false ones - artifacts of a 400-year-old plan by a waning aristocracy to maintain control of Western Europe. Although the architects of this corporatism have long since passed on, we still live in a landscape defined by their plans and have internalized their values as our own.
Taking on some of the biggest assumptions of our age, this is a book filled with dangerous ideas and rather unspeakable heresies:
Money is not a part of nature, to be studied by a science like economics, but an invention with a specific purpose.
Centralized currency is just one kind of money - one not intended to promote transactions but to promote the accumulation of capital by the wealthy.
Banking is our society’s biggest industry, and debt is our biggest product.
Corporations were never intended to promote commerce, but to prevent it.
The development of chartered corporations and centralized currency caused the plague; the economic devastation ended Europe’s most prosperous centuries, and led to the deaths of half of its population.
The more money we make, the more debt we have actually created.
Most importantly, Rushkoff shows how this moment of financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reinstate commerce and communities based in creating value for one another, rather than continuing to extract it for the benefit of institutions that no longer exist.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
In Praise of Indecency
http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Indecency-Investigative-Censorship-Expression/dp/1573443506/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245270940&sr=8-2In Praise Of Indecency: The Leading Investigative Satirist Sounds Off on Hypocrisy, Censorship and Free Expression
by Paul Krassner
Product Description
Paul Krassner's style of personal journalism constantly blurs the line between observer and participant. Nowhere is this more apparent than this collection of essays and interviews culled from his columns at AVN Online. Whether being interviewed by Susie Bright, or imagining a conversation between Pee-Wee Herman and Pete Townshend about their busts by overzealous cops, or reminiscing about his friend Lenny Bruce, Krassner shines his keen satirical mind on the so-called taboos of today’s society and breaks them down to show the hypocrisy of the world’s "culture warriors." With a biting wit and tongue firmly planted in cheek, Mr. Krassner reveals the absurdity of our oppressive social mores in this stark, funny, and ultimately thought-provoking collection.
About the Author
Paul Krassner is the founder, editor and frequent contributor to the free-thought magazine The Realist. A key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s, he edited Lenny Bruce's autobiography How To Talk Dirty and Influence People. He currently writes columns for AVN Online and High Times Magazine and publishes the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster at paulkrassner.com. In 2004 he received an ACLU Upton Sinclair Award for dedication to freedom of expression. His books include Pot Stories for the Soul, Tales of Tongue Fu, One Hand Jerking, and Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut. He continues to perform and lecture at college campuses, theaters and art galleries across the country.
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Product Details
Paperback: 110 pages
Publisher: Cleis Press (May 19, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1573443506
ISBN-13: 978-1573443500
The following are excerpts from In Praise of Indecency by Paul Krassner. Copyright 2009 by Paul Krassner:
The late Harry Reasoner, who was an ABC News anchor and a Sixty Minutes correspondent, wrote in his 1981 memoir, Before the Colors Fade:
“I’ve only been aware of two figures in the news during my career with whom I would not have shaken hands if called to deal with them professionally. I suppose that what Thomas Jefferson called a decent respect for the opinion of mankind requires me to identify those two. They were Senator Joseph McCarthy and a man named Paul Krassner or something like that who published a magazine called The Realist in the 1960s. I guess everyone knows who McCarthy was. Krassner and his Realist were part of a ‘60s fad -- publications attacking the values of the establishment -- which produced some very good papers and some very bad ones. Krassner not only attacked establishment values; he attacked decency in general, notably with an alleged ‘lost chapter’ from William Manchester’s book, The Death of a President.”
I appreciated Reasoner’s unintentional irony -- I had started as a political satirist in college, poking fun at McCarthyism -- but now I resented being linked with McCarthy. He had senatorial immunity for his libels. I risked lawsuits for what I published. What I really wanted to do was crash a party where Reasoner would be. “Excuse me, Mr. Reasoner,” I would have said, “I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your work on Sixty Minutes.” And then, as a photographer captured us shaking hands, I would add, “I’m glad to meet you. My name is Paul Krassner or something like that.” Instead, in 1984, when my one-person show opened, I decided to call it Attacking Decency in General. It ran for six months, and I received awards from the L.A. Weekly and Drama-Logue. That was my kind of revenge.
Decency is, of course, a sublimely subjective perception. And so arbitrary. In 1964, Lenny Bruce was found guilty of an “indecent performance” at the Café Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. In 2003, New York Governor George Pataki granted Bruce a posthumous pardon -- but it was in the context of justifying the invasion of Iraq. “Freedom of speech is one of the great American liberties,” Pataki said, “and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terrorism.”
Earlier that year, when rock-star/activist Bono received an award at the Golden Globes ceremony, he said, “This is really, really fucking brilliant.” The FCC ruled that he had not violated broadcast standards, because his use of the offending word was “unfortunate,” but “isolated and nonsexual.” You see, it was merely an “exclamative” adjective. The FCC did not consider Bono’s utterance to be indecent because, in context, he obviously didn’t use the word “fucking” to “describe sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
But in 2004, Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s breast during the halftime extravaganza at the Super Bowl. I had never seen the media make such a mountain out of an implant. A few years later, a CBS lawyer would argue that the network shouldn’t be fined $550,000 for Janet’s half-second “wardrobe malfunction” because it was fleeting, isolated and unauthorized. Nevertheless, that half-second of Nipplegate provided a perfect excuse to crack down on indecency during an election year. And so the FCC reversed their own decision, contending that Bono’s utterance of “fucking brilliant” was “indecent and profane” after all.
On the radio in 2003, the word “fuck” was censored out of such songs as “Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back),” “A Toast to Men (Fuck the Men)” and “She Hates Me,” with a chorus of “She fuckin’ hates me.” Although the lyrics were bleeped in these songs, disc jockeys were forced to be creative when it came to announcing the titles. The FCC had declared “fuck” to be “one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language,” no matter the context. Conservative pundit Dennis Prager characterized the fight over “fuck” as central to civilization’s “battle to preserve itself.”
Then, in 2005, a ray of light. The FCC ruled that isolated use of words describing private body parts -- including “ass,” “penis” and “testicle” -- were not indecent if aired as scripted dialogue. As a self-taught semanticist, Lenny Bruce would’ve been intrigued by the changing attitudes toward the use of previously taboo words. He wouldn’t have been able to perform on TV his classic analysis of Las Vegas, because the heart of it was about the exploitation of “tits and ass.” But at the 2006 Emmy Awards, Helen Mirren and Calista Flockhart both proudly revealed that they were “ass over tits.”
“If a joke is just as funny saying ‘penis’ rather than ‘pecker,’ that’s fine,” said Greg Garcia about his NBC sitcom, My Name Is Earl, “but sometimes it’s funnier to say ‘pecker’ and that’s what you have to do because it’s our job to make people laugh.”
In a report on NPR about Voodoo Doughnuts, a shop in Portland, Oregon, the following was deleted for fear of complaints about indecency and bad taste: “The doughnut store is holding a ‘Cockfest’ contest next week. Contestants, all male, will see who can put the most doughnuts on their unit. Last year’s record was five. No pre-competition training -- that is, Viagra -- allowed.” And fast-food chain Jack in the Box was sued by rival Carl’s Jr. for implying in TV commercials that its Angus beef hamburgers are made with cow anuses.
At the request of defense lawyers, a Nebraska judge ordered a college student who was raped not to use the words “rape,” “victim,” “assailant” or “sexual assault” on the witness stand for fear of prejudicing the jury. Perhaps she could testify, “He stuck his thing in my thing against my will.” Next, can we expect George Carlin to introduce a new routine in his HBO special about “The five words you can’t say in court”?
A prudish school librarian tried to have an award-winning children’s book, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, banned because a ten-year-old orphan, who overhears someone say that he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog on the scrotum, thinks it sounded “like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much. It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”
In March 2007, on International Women’s Day, a public high school in Westchester, New York suspended three 16-year-old girls for saying the word “vagina” during a reading from The Vagina Monologues. Principal Richard Leprine said the girls were punished for disobeying orders not to say the word, which he referred to on the school’s homepage as “specified material.” Writer Brigitte Schoen suggested calling the play Elastic Muscular Tube Monologues. And an episode of 30 Rock revolved around the use of a euphemism for “cunt.” That show was titled “The C-Word.”
At the 2007 Emmy Awards, when Katherine Heigl heard her name announced, she mouthed the word “shit.” It didn’t take a professional lip-reader to ascertain that. Late-night TV show hosts and sitcom characters use this “lip flap” method to say forbidden words because they want to be bleeped. The live studio audience laughs when they hear the uncensored version, and the home viewers figure out what’s being said as if they’re doing a dirty-crossword puzzle.
(I once published a cartoon in The Realist by an artist who knew the New Yorker wouldn’t touch it. The guest on a TV show was saying, “Frankly, I didn’t give a damn about it!” A family watching at home heard him say, “Frankly, I didn’t give a bleep about it!” Thought balloons showed that the mother was thinking “Fuck?” The father was thinking “Piss?” The grandmother was thinking “Shit?” And the child was thinking “Crap?”)
When Sally Field accepted the best dramatic actress award for her role in Brothers & Sisters, her acceptance speech concluded, “Let’s face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no g-[bleeped starting at this point]oddamned wars in the first place.” Ray Romano -- referring to Patricia Heaton, who had played his wife on Everybody Loves Raymond and now had a new sitcom partner, Kelsey Grammer on Back to You -- said, “Frasier is fucking my wife.” Bleeped, of course.
Not bleeped, but apologized for on-air: Diane Keaton on Good Morning America, fawning over Diane Sawyer’s plump lips, said she’d love to have had lips like that, because then she wouldn’t have had to “work on my fucking personality.” And Jane Fonda on the Today Show, talking about The Vagina Monologues, told Meredith Viera, “I was asked to do a monologue called ‘Cunt.’”
The award for hardcore irreverence without resorting to four-letter words goes to Kathy Griffin. When she received an Emmy for her reality show, My Life on the D-List, she declared, “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. [Holding up the trophy] This award is my god now. Suck it, Jesus!” Entirely deleted.
In 2006, Isaiah Washington, a black actor on Grey’s Anatomy, referred to fellow cast member T. R. Knight as a “faggot.” Next January, at the Golden Globe Awards, he uttered the same slur while denying that he had used it previously. Faggot has become the second f-word in the evolution of euphemisms. Now, regarding the euphemism for fuck, “somebody said the f-word” is morphing into “somebody dropped the f-bomb.” Of course, a multi-bigoted person could easily say “no s-word, that m-f-n-f ought to try out a g-d-c,” meaning “no shit, that motherfucking nigger faggot ought to try out a goddam cunt.” But one thing you never hear anybody say is “the n-h-h-word.” It’s still okay just to say “nappy-headed ho.”
During the 2007 Muscular Dystrophy telethon on Labor Day, Jerry Lewis was doing a bit about imaginary family members, and he started to say to one of the show’s crew members that his son, “the illiterate faggot,” but stopped before reaching the g-letters, saying “no” instead, and he apologized the next day for his “bad choice of words.” He was not wearing the T-shirt that says “Marriage Is For Fags.” Nor, for that matter, the T-shirt that says “Fuck Yoga.” Or the one that says “Fuck Frank Gehry.” Or the T-shirt with a slogan “Fuck da Eagles” that Fox apologized for showing in prime time.
Camille Paglia dissed Al Gore for his “prissy, lisping, Little Lord Fauntleroy persona” that “borders on epicene.” Ann Coulter called Gore “a total fag” and John Edwards a “faggot,” explaining that the word “has nothing to do with gays -- it’s a schoolyard taunt, meaning ‘wuss’” -- which, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, applies to men who are “unmanly.” She said that Bill Clinton’s promiscuity proves his “latent homosexuality,” and she wrote that the odds of Hillary Clinton “coming out of the closet” in 2008 were “about even money.” Hillary denied in The Advocate, a gay magazine, that she was a lesbian. Oh, yes, and John Gibson called Rosie O’Donnell a “fat lesbian vampire bat bully.”
At the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002, Cher responded to her critics with a minimalist “Fuck ‘em.” Next year on that same awards show, the relatively verbose Nicole Richie recounted her Simple Life experience: “Have you ever tried to get cowshit out of a Prada purse? It’s not so fucking simple.” The FCC ruled that Fox TV had violated their standards.
But, in what would turn out to be a pivotal decision, the FCC in 2005 reversed an indecency ruling against CBS’ The Early Show, determining that a Survivor contestant calling another player a “bullshitter” did not constitute indecency because it was used in the context of a news show.
I recalled that in 1984, when I was a guest on the Today Show, they wouldn’t reimburse my airfare or hotel bill, because “We’re a news show, not an entertainment show like Good Morning, America.” This, from Today, a program which once featured Willard Scott delivering the weather in Carmen Miranda drag and justifying it as entertainment. But, had NBC paid my way, it would’ve been “checkbook journalism.” Preceding me was a segment about private corporations running prisons. During my interview, Jane Pauley asked what kind of material I would include if I were publishing The Realist then (a year before I re-launched it). “Oh,” I replied, “I’d probably have a satire about private corporations running prisons.” I later learned that the Today Show had paid the expenses of the guest who was a corporate executive in the prison business. The line between news and entertainment was blurring.
In September 2007, a three-judge panel in a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Fox TV’s challenge against the FCC for indecent and profane language. During the live court hearing, C-Span viewers were treated to such uncensored words and phrases as “motherfucker,” “eat shit” and “fuck the USA.” Judge Peter Hall posed a hypothetical to FCC attorney Eric Miller: “This is being fed out by cable here, and presumably the broadcast media can pick it up. Let’s say they pick up a portion of [Fox lawyer Carter Phillips’] argument, and the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are actually broadcast over six o’clock news tonight. Is that going to be the subject of FCC hand-slapping?”
Miller: “I think plainly not.”
Hall: “Because?”
Miller: “For the reasons stated in this very order with respect to The Early Show case. The commission has emphasized that it will exercise great restraint when it comes to news programs.”
Hall: “Let me expand the hypothetical, to where Fox -- wanting to air, so its viewers are reminded of exactly what’s at issue here -- pulls up the clips from the Billboard Music Awards and shows those two instances of Cher and Nicole Richie, as background or in conjunction with reporting on what’s happening in this courtroom here today.”
Miller: “To be indecent, the use of the language has to be patently offensive, which under the commission’s analysis requires that it be presented -- ”
Hall: “So how is a rebroadcast of the clip in the context of news any less offensive than it is in the Billboard Awards?”
Miller: “Because in that context, as the commission explained in The Early Show order, it’s not being presented to pander or titillate or for shock value. It’s being presented to inform viewers what the case is about.”
The court reasoned that, “In recent times, even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced ‘sexual or excretory organs or activities.’” The decision cited examples that had been set by the White House. It was acceptable to broadcast George Bush, captured by a live microphone, saying to Tony Blair while chewing on a mouthful of butter roll, “See, the irony is what they [the UN] need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.”
Similarly, it was acceptable to broadcast Dick Cheney, also caught by a live mike on the Senate floor, saying, in response to Patrick Leahy -- who complained about Halliburton profiteering on the Iraq war without competitive bidding for contracts, and about Bush’s judicial nominees -- ”Go fuck yourself.” This was on the same day that the senate passed legislation, 99-1, described as “the Defense of Decency Act.” The Washington Times reported that Cheney “responded with a barnyard epithet, urging Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility.”
Finally, the court reversed the FCC’s reversal in the Bono case, and suddenly he was, once again, not guilty of indecency. It will now be retroactively acceptable to broadcast Bono saying, “This is really, really fucking brilliant.” Otherwise, Governor Pataki would surely have revoked his posthumous pardon of Lenny Bruce.
Women and Porn
Along with everything else, the marketing of porn continues to evolve. In the course of an interview with Susie Bright, editor of The Best American Erotica, I asked, “What aspect of online porn do you like?”
“The democratic nature of it,” she replied, “that you can search and you shall find. That its basis was all free, a free exchange. That it brought such authentic, first person networking and connection with it. Before the commercialization of online porn, there were years and infinite relationships and conversations that had built up. This was before ‘spam’ was something besides a Hawaiian loaf with cloves.”
“And what aspect of online porn do you dislike?”
“The con job of it, like everywhere else. The dominance of big, boring, uncreative monoliths like the rest of mainstream entertainment. Blech.”
But adult films aren’t just for men any more. That’s so 1970s. One survey showed that about 16% of men who have access to the Internet at work acknowledged having seen porn while on the job. Eight percent of women said they had. Another survey indicated that 20% of men and 13% of women watch porn at work.
And what about the women who produce porn? Writer/director Candida Royalle confesses, “I have absolutely no time for my sex life any more -- I’m just working too much -- and I’m engaged.” Certainly those who participated in an AVN panel about porn have a vested interest in it. Shirley Isaacson, co-creater of Impulse TV, used to be with the Spice Network, where subscribers viewing habits were monitored.
“After the kids went to school, the buys came in very heavily,” she recalls. “Around noon they started coming in again. They stopped around four when the kids started coming home from school. So we know that women watch by themselves.”
Carol Queen, president of Good Vibrations, says, “Fifteen years ago you really had to give women a lot of encouragement. Today there is a sub-category of more diverse, sex-positive college-age women who wouldn’t think twice about liking porn. Women would like to know just why these people are fucking. They often love that they’re fucking, but they think that plot devices are fairly stupid, and they would like to see a little discernment in the way that the plot, if there is a plot at all, is set up.”
Susie Bright adds, “Men wouldn’t enjoy movies featuring men with limp dicks. Well, women don’t like dry pussies either. They like to see women obviously getting off. I can’t repeat that enough. What’s funny to me are the producers who make hot stuff that women would like, who don’t have a clue how to reach women about it. The production values [of female-ejaculation videos like Cum Rain Cum Shine and Flower’s Squirt Shower] are terrible, the men are red-faced clowns, but the women’s orgasmic raindown is irresistible. Every woman I know who sees them has to go excuse herself and beat off.”
Susie has reported on her interview with porn director Tristan Taormino, whose Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women won AVN’s “Best Anal Sex Release” award:
“Tristan has a knack for arguing with powerful men in the movie business. Spike Lee asked her to be his sex/dyke consultant for his movie, She Hate Me, a comedy about -- among other things -- predatory lesbians on the Baby-Making March. Spike would tell her things like, ‘I really don’t know any lesbians that well,’ and then she’d look around at everyone who was working in his office and blink -- ’Hello! Are you blind?’
“He was flabbergasted at what she suggested, that vaginal orgasms are not the primary way women orgasm. She fought sooooo hard to get some realistic female sexiness in this movie, and after I saw the film, I was impressed with the battles she won and biting my lip at the ones she lost. Thank god she got a real vibrator in. She lost the strap-on dildo debate, though.
“But from a ‘this-is-worth-noticing’ perspective, the sheer numbers of black, Latin, Asian and bi-racial dykes in this film singlehandedly smashes the cliché that lesbian is for white college girls. There are so many heretofore ‘unseen women’ traipsing in and out of the sperm donor’s apartment (this is the comedy part) that their very presence is inspiring.”
On the AVN panel, Tristan said about porn flicks, “It’s frustrating, because there’s a segment of the industry that is still hanging on to the fact that only a tiny percentage of their customers are women and couples. I want to see people who clearly love sex, I want to see them having a good time. I want to see a lot of amazing real female orgasms. I want to see toys. I want to see vibrators.”
According to historian Rachel Maines in The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, the vibrator was originally developed to perfect and automate a function that doctors had long performed for their female patients -- the relief of physical, emotional and sexual tension through external pelvic massage, culminating in orgasm.
“Most of them did it,” said Dr. Maines, “because they felt it was their duty. It wasn’t sexual at all.”
Which brings us to Sherri Williams, a casualty of the war on pleasure. She was acquitted of the heinous crime of selling non-prescription vibrators. She had violated an Alabama statute, which bans the sale of vibrators and other sex toys. The law prohibited “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”
But the not-guilty verdict in her case was overturned by a 2-1 decision. In the Court of Appeals, the state’s attorney general defended the statute, arguing that, “a ban on the sale of sexual devices and related orgasm-stimulating paraphernalia is rationally related to a legitimate interest in discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex.” Rationally related? Moreover, he said, “There is no constitutional right to purchase a product to use in pursuit of having an orgasm.” There isn’t?
Ironically, the FDA has approved a device specifically designed to help women achieve orgasm, marking the first time that the federal government has licensed an aid for women with sexual dysfunction. “The Eros,” which uses the same basic principle as Viagra to promote sexual arousal -- stimulating blood flow to the genital area -- is a battery-operated vacuum attached to a suction cup that fits over the clitoris. The device, available only by prescription, costs $359. However, fingers, tongues and penises are all free. And still legal.
This country was founded by pioneers with a lust for freedom and by puritans with a disdain for pleasure. The problem is that those who are still burdened by that streak of anti-pleasure keep trying to impose unnecessary restrictive laws upon those who are pro-pleasure. What ever happened to “the pursuit of pleasure” mentioned in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence?
Ironically, journalist Gita Smith wrote in August 2007, “In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner but you can’t sell sex toys. In other words, we are free to blow ourselves up at will. We just can’t blow up a dolly with big red lips and openings in her lifelike vinyl self.
“Alabama is a vibrator-free state. Well, technically you can go across state lines and buy sex toys in Georgia and Tennessee and carry them home. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has shown a gleam of interest in this controversial state law. At the very least, this case seems to be a restraint-of-trade case as much as anything else, since the devices are sold in all the neighboring states. I would like to be a fly on the wall when oral arguments are heard.
“Justice Antonin Scalia: You say that the sale of the Twizzler-Twister should be banned?
“Alabama Guy: Yes, Your Honor.
“Justice Samuel Alito: And the Buzzer-Master?
“Alabama Guy: Yes, that too.
“Justice Clarence Thomas: What about the Coke can with the fake pubic hair?
“Alabama Guy: That one doesn’t vibrate, so that one’s okay.
“There is, and always has been, a strong strain of paternalism among lawmakers down here. And that paternalistic attitude makes them believe that they are the keepers of the Moral Keys. Us wee folk need protecting from sexual pleasures derived from plastic thingies made in China.”
But, on the first Monday of October 2007, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Alabama’s ban on the sale of sex toys. A three-judge panel had upheld the guilty verdict of the appeals court on February 14. Happy Valentine’s Day to the roots of fascism in the private parts of America.
Sherri Williams, who faces a $10,000 fine and one year of hard labor, called the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the law “further evidence of religion in politics.” She plans to sue again, this time on First Amendment free speech grounds.
“My motto,” she says, “has been they are going to have to pry this vibrator from my cold, dead hand. I refuse to give up.”
Jackson, Bryant put Lakers back on top
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AgoO5eIBBlSL8DoMJZbTddG8vLYF?slug=ap-championlakers&prov=ap&type=lgns
Jackson, Bryant put Lakers back on top
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jun 15, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—The coach stood to the side and watched as his team executed its final play of the NBA season to perfection. It’s the one that had worked nine previous times. This wasn’t his famed triangle offense, this was the celebration circle.
Phil Jackson, the architect, smiled as his Los Angeles Lakers, each of them armed with a champagne bottle, popped corks and doused each other with bubbly late Sunday night after winning their 15th title—and first since 2002—with a 99-86 win over the Orlando Magic in Game 5.
United all year, the Lakers screamed as one.
Kobe Bryant then dragged Jackson into the frothy fray.
“It’s been a long time since he had a champagne bath,” said the brilliant Bryant, who enriched his legacy as one of the game’s all-time greats with a fourth title and finals MVP award. “I knew that so I made sure he became part of our circle and we got him pretty good.”
The Zen Master had his 10th title, one more than Red Auerbach.
Call him The Ten Master.
The Lakers, who drifted between disinterested and divine during stretches this season, put it all together in their final game, a no-doubt-about-it rout that was sealed with a 16-0 spurt in the second quarter that showcased the club’s depth, versatility and Bryant’s sheer will.
Jackson, who has been vague about his plans beyond this season, delighted in his teams’ development. Borrowing one of the mantras of his meditative training, he preached to them about staying in the moment. Don’t look back. Don’t look too far ahead. Don’t waste opportunity. Enjoy the journey.
The Lakers listened and learned.
“They came together this year and were self-motivated, and for a coach that’s a positive sign,” said Jackson, who won six titles in Chicago before taking over the Lakers in 1999. “When a team is ready, they’re aggressive, their learning curve is high and they wanted to win.”
Though he may not have shown it outwardly, Jackson wanted it too.
“You can see it in his eyes,” Bryant said.
Jackson sidestepped questions about his place in history and comparisons to Auerbach throughout the finals. The 64-year-old, has had both hips surgically replaced and struggles getting around, is at a time in his life when basketball, though still a passion, doesn’t burn as it once did.
The drive is still there, but it’s in a lower gear. With this Lakers squad, he would instruct and observe. Those days of getting out on the floor for demonstrations are few. He deferred to his assistants and to Bryant, his coach on the court.
“I’ve always felt as a coach you have to push your team,” Jackson said, “and I told them they had to push themselves. I wasn’t at the stage of my life where I could get out and do things that I had done 10 or 15 years ago to push a team. They pushed themselves and I feel really strongly that this is about them.”
During the postgame celebration, Jackson wore a gold Lakers cap—a gift from his children—with the Roman numeral “X” on the front to signify his double-digit titles.
“Almost incomprehensible,” Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said of Jackson’s perfect 10.
Bryant can’t imagine playing for anyone but Jackson, his coach for nine seasons in L.A. Following Game 5, guard Derek Fisher(notes), who won his fourth ring, couldn’t picture the Lakers’ luxury liner without Jackson as its captain.
“I know it’s part of the business and it can happen, but to take away the chef who stirs the pot—it’ll be a different batch of stew, I’ll tell you that much,” Fisher said. “I have no idea what his plans are, and how tonight makes him feel, or where he feels he wants to go from here. I know for a fact that I want to play for him, next season and for as long as I’m capable of playing.
“That’s who I want to play for.”
As for Bryant, he may be just hitting his stride.
Now that he silenced all those who said he couldn’t win it all without former teammate Shaquille O’Neal(notes), Bryant can take aim at loftier goals.
He has become a true leader, hardly the “uncoachable” player as he was once labeled in a book by Jackson when their relationship was on the rocks. Bryant is driven to win championships, and just this side of his 31st birthday, he is just two away from matching Jordan.
Could Bryant eclipse Jordan as the modern game’s greatest player?
Such talk once seemed unfathomable. Not anymore. Bryant is beginning to make his case.
As long as they can sign free agents Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza, the Lakers have enough talent to string together several championships over the next few years. If Bryant stays healthy and hungry, the Larry O’Brien Trophy could be settling out West for a while.
Bryant has two years remaining on a $136 million contract he can option out of beginning next month. He’s not going anywhere and said as much when his contract situation was raised a few days ago.
The Lakers are the only team he has known, and Los Angeles, which has waited seven years to celebrate another hoops title, is his town. Again.
The City of Angels can be unforgiving, even for the blessed.
“They won’t see us as losers,” Bryant said. “L.A. is brutal, man. Now when I go to Disneyland, I can enjoy the moment. I don’t have to answer questions about, ‘What the hell happened to you guys.’ From that standpoint, the summer is much more enjoyable.”
Jackson, Bryant put Lakers back on top
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Jun 15, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—The coach stood to the side and watched as his team executed its final play of the NBA season to perfection. It’s the one that had worked nine previous times. This wasn’t his famed triangle offense, this was the celebration circle.
Phil Jackson, the architect, smiled as his Los Angeles Lakers, each of them armed with a champagne bottle, popped corks and doused each other with bubbly late Sunday night after winning their 15th title—and first since 2002—with a 99-86 win over the Orlando Magic in Game 5.
United all year, the Lakers screamed as one.
Kobe Bryant then dragged Jackson into the frothy fray.
“It’s been a long time since he had a champagne bath,” said the brilliant Bryant, who enriched his legacy as one of the game’s all-time greats with a fourth title and finals MVP award. “I knew that so I made sure he became part of our circle and we got him pretty good.”
The Zen Master had his 10th title, one more than Red Auerbach.
Call him The Ten Master.
The Lakers, who drifted between disinterested and divine during stretches this season, put it all together in their final game, a no-doubt-about-it rout that was sealed with a 16-0 spurt in the second quarter that showcased the club’s depth, versatility and Bryant’s sheer will.
Jackson, who has been vague about his plans beyond this season, delighted in his teams’ development. Borrowing one of the mantras of his meditative training, he preached to them about staying in the moment. Don’t look back. Don’t look too far ahead. Don’t waste opportunity. Enjoy the journey.
The Lakers listened and learned.
“They came together this year and were self-motivated, and for a coach that’s a positive sign,” said Jackson, who won six titles in Chicago before taking over the Lakers in 1999. “When a team is ready, they’re aggressive, their learning curve is high and they wanted to win.”
Though he may not have shown it outwardly, Jackson wanted it too.
“You can see it in his eyes,” Bryant said.
Jackson sidestepped questions about his place in history and comparisons to Auerbach throughout the finals. The 64-year-old, has had both hips surgically replaced and struggles getting around, is at a time in his life when basketball, though still a passion, doesn’t burn as it once did.
The drive is still there, but it’s in a lower gear. With this Lakers squad, he would instruct and observe. Those days of getting out on the floor for demonstrations are few. He deferred to his assistants and to Bryant, his coach on the court.
“I’ve always felt as a coach you have to push your team,” Jackson said, “and I told them they had to push themselves. I wasn’t at the stage of my life where I could get out and do things that I had done 10 or 15 years ago to push a team. They pushed themselves and I feel really strongly that this is about them.”
During the postgame celebration, Jackson wore a gold Lakers cap—a gift from his children—with the Roman numeral “X” on the front to signify his double-digit titles.
“Almost incomprehensible,” Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said of Jackson’s perfect 10.
Bryant can’t imagine playing for anyone but Jackson, his coach for nine seasons in L.A. Following Game 5, guard Derek Fisher(notes), who won his fourth ring, couldn’t picture the Lakers’ luxury liner without Jackson as its captain.
“I know it’s part of the business and it can happen, but to take away the chef who stirs the pot—it’ll be a different batch of stew, I’ll tell you that much,” Fisher said. “I have no idea what his plans are, and how tonight makes him feel, or where he feels he wants to go from here. I know for a fact that I want to play for him, next season and for as long as I’m capable of playing.
“That’s who I want to play for.”
As for Bryant, he may be just hitting his stride.
Now that he silenced all those who said he couldn’t win it all without former teammate Shaquille O’Neal(notes), Bryant can take aim at loftier goals.
He has become a true leader, hardly the “uncoachable” player as he was once labeled in a book by Jackson when their relationship was on the rocks. Bryant is driven to win championships, and just this side of his 31st birthday, he is just two away from matching Jordan.
Could Bryant eclipse Jordan as the modern game’s greatest player?
Such talk once seemed unfathomable. Not anymore. Bryant is beginning to make his case.
As long as they can sign free agents Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza, the Lakers have enough talent to string together several championships over the next few years. If Bryant stays healthy and hungry, the Larry O’Brien Trophy could be settling out West for a while.
Bryant has two years remaining on a $136 million contract he can option out of beginning next month. He’s not going anywhere and said as much when his contract situation was raised a few days ago.
The Lakers are the only team he has known, and Los Angeles, which has waited seven years to celebrate another hoops title, is his town. Again.
The City of Angels can be unforgiving, even for the blessed.
“They won’t see us as losers,” Bryant said. “L.A. is brutal, man. Now when I go to Disneyland, I can enjoy the moment. I don’t have to answer questions about, ‘What the hell happened to you guys.’ From that standpoint, the summer is much more enjoyable.”
Sammy Sosa and Phony Outrage
When Nuance Dies: Sammy Sosa and Phony Outrage
By Dave Zirin
ESPN’s Howard Bryant is without question one of my favorite sports writers. His book Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball is one of the finest pieces of journalism I’ve ever encountered. That’s why his frothing take on revelations that retired Major League baseball slugger Sammy Sosa tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003 was both shocking and depressing. Call it “shock-pressing.”
In a piece titled, “Sosa news calls for special outrage,” Bryant writes, “This news should be greeted with the kind of outrage reserved for the worst breaches of trust because you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, have been taken for a very special kind of ride.”
In a world of economic implosion and war, one might not ascribe “outrage” to the six-year-old drug test of a retired player, but Bryant has no patience for those of us who greeted the Sosa “revelations” with a yawn.
He goes on to mock those who would describe the steroid hysteria as a “witch hunt.” This despite the fact that people like Bonds and Roger Clemens are facing prison terms and track star Marion Jones did hard time, all of which certainly has at least the fragrance of a good old fashioned Salem bonfire.
Bryant also sneers at those who would ascribe steroid use to players "caught up in a culture." This despite the fact that Bryant wrote a 500-page book painstakingly outlining how that culture came into existence.
While he takes a passing shot at the “lazy” writers who let it happen, Bryant reserves perhaps his toughest condemnation for his good friends, “Mr. and Mrs. Fan.” “The fan has been the greatest enabler of the steroids era. Face it: Had the paying customer revolted, the institutional reaction would have been decidedly different.” There you have it sports fans. According to Bryant, you were both taken for a ride and you let it happen. I bet you didn’t know you had that much power.
For the man who wrote the profoundly nuanced Juicing the Game, this is painful analysis. It’s like seeing a great surgeon dispense with the scalpel and go right for the saw. It’s like seeing a ballerina go at it with clogs. It’s like seeing Michael Jordan swing a bat.
The greatest flaw in the piece is not what Bryant writes but what he consciously neglects exploring. Zero accountability is placed on the front office, ownership or management. Who was the General Manager of the Cubs when Sosa was hitting moon shots in Wrigley? Who were his managers? What did they know and when did they know it? Reading Bryant’s screed against spoiled stars, you would think Sosa had his own pharmacy.
Then there is the absent of any kind of context for why players made the decisions to put pharmaceuticals into their bodies. There is no look at the home of Sammy Sosa, the Dominican Republic, where most play without shoes, using cut-out milk cartons for gloves, rolled-up cloth for balls, and sticks and branches for bats. They dream of making it to the baseball academies, places where many Dominican kids first encounter three meals a day or an indoor toilet.
The Dominican Republic is attractive to Major League execs for more reasons than its sunny beaches and never ending supply of prospects. Steroids in the DR are legal. Top prospects can find ways to supplement their skill with a no-risk supply. But those not in the top-tier often take cheaper animal steroids. Minor leaguer Lino Ortiz took this route, went into shock and died.
The entire setup involves billionaires – or their emissaries - telling people from desperately poor backgrounds what to do or have fun in the cane fields. Sure they’re free not to juice. They are also free to go back to the ghetto or back to the island.
Sammy Sosa, before he was even a teenager, stitched soles in a shoe factory for, as he remembered “pennies, just enough to survive.” His choices, as he said, were the cane fields, the army or baseball.
I learned that fact from reading the book Juicing the Game. I learned it from reading Howard Bryant. Whoever wrote this piece, should do the same.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
By Dave Zirin
ESPN’s Howard Bryant is without question one of my favorite sports writers. His book Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball is one of the finest pieces of journalism I’ve ever encountered. That’s why his frothing take on revelations that retired Major League baseball slugger Sammy Sosa tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003 was both shocking and depressing. Call it “shock-pressing.”
In a piece titled, “Sosa news calls for special outrage,” Bryant writes, “This news should be greeted with the kind of outrage reserved for the worst breaches of trust because you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, have been taken for a very special kind of ride.”
In a world of economic implosion and war, one might not ascribe “outrage” to the six-year-old drug test of a retired player, but Bryant has no patience for those of us who greeted the Sosa “revelations” with a yawn.
He goes on to mock those who would describe the steroid hysteria as a “witch hunt.” This despite the fact that people like Bonds and Roger Clemens are facing prison terms and track star Marion Jones did hard time, all of which certainly has at least the fragrance of a good old fashioned Salem bonfire.
Bryant also sneers at those who would ascribe steroid use to players "caught up in a culture." This despite the fact that Bryant wrote a 500-page book painstakingly outlining how that culture came into existence.
While he takes a passing shot at the “lazy” writers who let it happen, Bryant reserves perhaps his toughest condemnation for his good friends, “Mr. and Mrs. Fan.” “The fan has been the greatest enabler of the steroids era. Face it: Had the paying customer revolted, the institutional reaction would have been decidedly different.” There you have it sports fans. According to Bryant, you were both taken for a ride and you let it happen. I bet you didn’t know you had that much power.
For the man who wrote the profoundly nuanced Juicing the Game, this is painful analysis. It’s like seeing a great surgeon dispense with the scalpel and go right for the saw. It’s like seeing a ballerina go at it with clogs. It’s like seeing Michael Jordan swing a bat.
The greatest flaw in the piece is not what Bryant writes but what he consciously neglects exploring. Zero accountability is placed on the front office, ownership or management. Who was the General Manager of the Cubs when Sosa was hitting moon shots in Wrigley? Who were his managers? What did they know and when did they know it? Reading Bryant’s screed against spoiled stars, you would think Sosa had his own pharmacy.
Then there is the absent of any kind of context for why players made the decisions to put pharmaceuticals into their bodies. There is no look at the home of Sammy Sosa, the Dominican Republic, where most play without shoes, using cut-out milk cartons for gloves, rolled-up cloth for balls, and sticks and branches for bats. They dream of making it to the baseball academies, places where many Dominican kids first encounter three meals a day or an indoor toilet.
The Dominican Republic is attractive to Major League execs for more reasons than its sunny beaches and never ending supply of prospects. Steroids in the DR are legal. Top prospects can find ways to supplement their skill with a no-risk supply. But those not in the top-tier often take cheaper animal steroids. Minor leaguer Lino Ortiz took this route, went into shock and died.
The entire setup involves billionaires – or their emissaries - telling people from desperately poor backgrounds what to do or have fun in the cane fields. Sure they’re free not to juice. They are also free to go back to the ghetto or back to the island.
Sammy Sosa, before he was even a teenager, stitched soles in a shoe factory for, as he remembered “pennies, just enough to survive.” His choices, as he said, were the cane fields, the army or baseball.
I learned that fact from reading the book Juicing the Game. I learned it from reading Howard Bryant. Whoever wrote this piece, should do the same.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Six Flags Files for Chapter 11
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124489639859012503.html
BUSINESS JUNE 13, 2009
Six Flags Files for Chapter 11
By MIKE SPECTOR
Six Flags Inc., one of the largest regional amusement-park companies, filed for bankruptcy protection Saturday.
The theme-park company, shouldering more than $2 billion in debt, had been negotiating with lenders, selling parks and laying off staff in a race to restructure outside of bankruptcy court. But it couldn't outrun the deteriorating economy and a looming $288 million payment due preferred shareholders this August, along with $31 million in unpaid dividends.
Six Flags hopes to exit bankruptcy quickly through a prearranged reorganization plan. It struck a deal with senior secured lenders that would allow it convert $1.8 billion in debt to equity.
The plan was backed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the agent for the facility, and a steering committee of lenders, according to court documents. The support represents half the facility's obligations, the company said. The plan would also wipe out more than $300 million in preferred stock obligations.
Six Flags listed assets of $3 billion and liabilities of $3.4 billion, including $2.4 billion in debt at the end of March. Among its largest unsecured creditors were HSBC Bank USA with $400 million in bond debt and Bank of New York Mellon, holding more than $500 million in the company's debt.
The filing marked another highly-leveraged company falling victim to the deep recession. Six Flags' 20 parks dot North America, with operations in Chicago, San Antonio and Mexico City. Revenue in the first quarter fell 24% and the company delayed certain debt payments. Several of the park company's subsidiaries also filed for protection from creditors.
The Chapter 11 filing is a setback for investor Daniel Snyder, the Washington Redskins football team owner who took control of the theme-park company in a contentious proxy fight in 2005 and installed his own management team. The bankruptcy would likely wipe out Mr. Snyder's 6% stake.
In the midst of his battle to wrest control of the company, Mr. Snyder wrote a letter to Six Flags stockholders saying they "would have been better off hiding their money under a mattress" than investing in the company under its prior management.
"The current management team inherited a $2.4 billion debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenging financial markets," said Mark Shapiro, Six Flags' chief executive, in a statement. He said operations of the company's parks would be unaffected by the filing and that Chapter 11 protection was sought solely to "clean up the balance sheet."
Also losing out on Six Flags' financial rollercoaster: Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, whose Cascade Investment LLC owned about 10.2 million shares, or an 11% stake. Other big equity holders include Dwight Schar, a Six Flags board member and part-owner of the Redskins alongside Mr. Snyder with a 5% stake; Citigroup Inc. with 9%; Barclays PLC with 6.7%; and hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC with 5.5%.
Six Flags warned earlier this year it could file for bankruptcy if it failed to reap concessions from lenders. Since April, it had been in discussions with lenders about a debt-for-equity swap, but failed to get enough takers.
A deadline for debt holders to swap certain notes for equity expired Friday night. Six Flags had extended that deadline by more than two weeks after falling well short of a 95% targeted acceptance rate.
Mr. Snyder's team, led by Mr. Shapiro, a former ESPN executive, had made some progress of late. Six Flags sold 10 parks and laid off about 300 workers. It tried to make its parks more family friendly, banning smoking in most areas.
Last year, Six Flags brought in more cash than it spent for the first time. Its losses narrowed in 2008 to $112.9 million, about half those of a year earlier. Sales nudge 5% higher to about $1.02 billion.
But last summer's record fuel prices, plunging consumer confidence and deteriorating credit markets weighed on Six Flags' balance sheet. The company lost even more money when the recent swine flu outbreak forced a temporary closure of its park in Mexico City.
A few months ago, Six Flags hired law firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP to prepare for a bankruptcy filing. It also hired Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to negotiate with creditors.
Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com
BUSINESS JUNE 13, 2009
Six Flags Files for Chapter 11
By MIKE SPECTOR
Six Flags Inc., one of the largest regional amusement-park companies, filed for bankruptcy protection Saturday.
The theme-park company, shouldering more than $2 billion in debt, had been negotiating with lenders, selling parks and laying off staff in a race to restructure outside of bankruptcy court. But it couldn't outrun the deteriorating economy and a looming $288 million payment due preferred shareholders this August, along with $31 million in unpaid dividends.
Six Flags hopes to exit bankruptcy quickly through a prearranged reorganization plan. It struck a deal with senior secured lenders that would allow it convert $1.8 billion in debt to equity.
The plan was backed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the agent for the facility, and a steering committee of lenders, according to court documents. The support represents half the facility's obligations, the company said. The plan would also wipe out more than $300 million in preferred stock obligations.
Six Flags listed assets of $3 billion and liabilities of $3.4 billion, including $2.4 billion in debt at the end of March. Among its largest unsecured creditors were HSBC Bank USA with $400 million in bond debt and Bank of New York Mellon, holding more than $500 million in the company's debt.
The filing marked another highly-leveraged company falling victim to the deep recession. Six Flags' 20 parks dot North America, with operations in Chicago, San Antonio and Mexico City. Revenue in the first quarter fell 24% and the company delayed certain debt payments. Several of the park company's subsidiaries also filed for protection from creditors.
The Chapter 11 filing is a setback for investor Daniel Snyder, the Washington Redskins football team owner who took control of the theme-park company in a contentious proxy fight in 2005 and installed his own management team. The bankruptcy would likely wipe out Mr. Snyder's 6% stake.
In the midst of his battle to wrest control of the company, Mr. Snyder wrote a letter to Six Flags stockholders saying they "would have been better off hiding their money under a mattress" than investing in the company under its prior management.
"The current management team inherited a $2.4 billion debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenging financial markets," said Mark Shapiro, Six Flags' chief executive, in a statement. He said operations of the company's parks would be unaffected by the filing and that Chapter 11 protection was sought solely to "clean up the balance sheet."
Also losing out on Six Flags' financial rollercoaster: Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, whose Cascade Investment LLC owned about 10.2 million shares, or an 11% stake. Other big equity holders include Dwight Schar, a Six Flags board member and part-owner of the Redskins alongside Mr. Snyder with a 5% stake; Citigroup Inc. with 9%; Barclays PLC with 6.7%; and hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC with 5.5%.
Six Flags warned earlier this year it could file for bankruptcy if it failed to reap concessions from lenders. Since April, it had been in discussions with lenders about a debt-for-equity swap, but failed to get enough takers.
A deadline for debt holders to swap certain notes for equity expired Friday night. Six Flags had extended that deadline by more than two weeks after falling well short of a 95% targeted acceptance rate.
Mr. Snyder's team, led by Mr. Shapiro, a former ESPN executive, had made some progress of late. Six Flags sold 10 parks and laid off about 300 workers. It tried to make its parks more family friendly, banning smoking in most areas.
Last year, Six Flags brought in more cash than it spent for the first time. Its losses narrowed in 2008 to $112.9 million, about half those of a year earlier. Sales nudge 5% higher to about $1.02 billion.
But last summer's record fuel prices, plunging consumer confidence and deteriorating credit markets weighed on Six Flags' balance sheet. The company lost even more money when the recent swine flu outbreak forced a temporary closure of its park in Mexico City.
A few months ago, Six Flags hired law firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP to prepare for a bankruptcy filing. It also hired Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to negotiate with creditors.
Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com
Ode to Stacia of Hawkwind
Thanks to Richard Metzger for forwarding the following:"Stacia was six feet tall, 'happily bisexual', an attractive and imposing figure of a woman by any standard, and often augmented her visual impact by performing clad only in iridescent or luminescent paint. In a 2007 BBC Four documentary Motörhead's Lemmy described her as 6 ft 2 inches tall with a 52 inch bust..."
Hawkwind's Silver Machine (featuring Stacia):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoZ_Lg21b14
Fox reporter: Scientologists wanted him fired
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/15/fox-reporter-scientologists-fired/
Ex-Fox reporter says celebrity Scientologists pushed to have him fired
By Stephen C. Webster
June 15, 2009
Former Fox entertainment columnist Roger Friedman said Monday that he plans to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against his prior employer.
Friedman, who was supposedly fired for reviewing a pirated copy of Wolverine, alleges that celebrity Church of Scientology members Tom Cruise and John Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, pressured network management to shake loose the columnist, who has been a critic of Scientology for some time.
“Last August, Friedman went to Memphis for the funeral of his friend and R&B legend Isaac Hayes, who was a Scientologist,” reported the New York Daily News. “Preston was also in town for the funeral. Friedman, who now writes for The Hollywood Reporter, tells us that when Preston saw him at the Peabody Hotel, Mrs. John Travolta loudly blasted him for his columns criticizing Scientology.”
“After [an] alleged meeting between Preston and the Fox executives, Friedman was forbidden from reporting on the death of Travolta’s son Jett, and was also told to take it easy on Tom Cruise’s film Valkyrie,” National Post noted.
“A source” told the Daily News that Tom Cruise may have pushed to have Friedman fired as a condition of his appearance in the upcoming 20th Century Fox comedy “Wichita.” Friedman added that once his review of “Wolverine” was published — which was approved by an editor before publication — Fox’s film studio began dictating the news operation’s next moves.
“Preston and Cruise’s lawyers both issued outright denials. Fox refused to comment,” Gawker noted. “And we might have a ball game.”
The suit will be filed in a New York federal court next week, Friedman’s attorney reportedly said.
Ex-Fox reporter says celebrity Scientologists pushed to have him fired
By Stephen C. Webster
June 15, 2009
Former Fox entertainment columnist Roger Friedman said Monday that he plans to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against his prior employer.
Friedman, who was supposedly fired for reviewing a pirated copy of Wolverine, alleges that celebrity Church of Scientology members Tom Cruise and John Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, pressured network management to shake loose the columnist, who has been a critic of Scientology for some time.
“Last August, Friedman went to Memphis for the funeral of his friend and R&B legend Isaac Hayes, who was a Scientologist,” reported the New York Daily News. “Preston was also in town for the funeral. Friedman, who now writes for The Hollywood Reporter, tells us that when Preston saw him at the Peabody Hotel, Mrs. John Travolta loudly blasted him for his columns criticizing Scientology.”
“After [an] alleged meeting between Preston and the Fox executives, Friedman was forbidden from reporting on the death of Travolta’s son Jett, and was also told to take it easy on Tom Cruise’s film Valkyrie,” National Post noted.
“A source” told the Daily News that Tom Cruise may have pushed to have Friedman fired as a condition of his appearance in the upcoming 20th Century Fox comedy “Wichita.” Friedman added that once his review of “Wolverine” was published — which was approved by an editor before publication — Fox’s film studio began dictating the news operation’s next moves.
“Preston and Cruise’s lawyers both issued outright denials. Fox refused to comment,” Gawker noted. “And we might have a ball game.”
The suit will be filed in a New York federal court next week, Friedman’s attorney reportedly said.
Real `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdGEEEGffIx73nK_7uxNa7FvlYoQD98P69IG0
Real `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill
By GREGORY KATZ
6-12-9
LONDON (AP) — They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck.
Not so unusual, really.
Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic classic "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon.
They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school and told his father, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."
Just the sort of cute phrase lots of 3- or 4-year-olds produce — but not many have a father like John Lennon, who used it as a springboard for a legendary song that became a centerpiece on the landmark album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
"Julian got in touch with me out of the blue, when he heard how ill I was, and he said he wanted to do something for me," said the 46-year-old Vodden, who has lupus, a chronic disease where the immune system attacks the body's own tissue.
Lennon, who lives in France, sent his old friend flowers and vouchers she could use to buy plants at a local gardening center, since working in her garden is one of the few activities she is still occasionally well enough to enjoy. More importantly, he has offered her friendship and a connection to more carefree days. They communicate mostly by text message.
"I wasn't sure at first how to approach her. I wanted at least to get a note to her," Julian Lennon told The Associated Press. "Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I'd help with something she's passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face."
Vodden admits she enjoys her association with the song, but doesn't particularly care for it. Perhaps that's not surprising. It was thought by many at the time, including BBC executives who banned the song, that the classic was a paean to LSD because of the initials in the title. Plus, she and Julian were 4 years old in 1967, the "Summer of Love" when "Sgt. Pepper" was released to worldwide acclaim. She missed the psychedelic era to which the song is indelibly linked.
"I don't relate to the song, to that type of song," said Vodden, described as "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" in the lyrics. "As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, 'No, it's not you, my parents said it's about drugs.' And I didn't know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself."
There's no doubt the fanciful lyrics and swirling musical effects draw heavily on the LSD experiences that were shaping Lennon's artistic output at the time — although many of the musical flourishes were provided by producer George Martin, who was not a drug user.
"The imagery in the song is partly a reflection of John's drug experiences, and partly his love of `Alice in Wonderland,'" said Steve Turner, author of "A Hard Day's Write," a book that details the origins of every Beatles song. "At the time it came out, it seemed overtly psychedelic, it sounded like some kind of trip. It was completely new at the time. To me it is very evocative of the period."
Turner said his research, including interviews with Vodden and Julian Lennon, confirm that she is the Lucy in the song. He said it was common for John Lennon to "snatch songs out of thin air" based on a simple phrase he heard on TV or an item he read in the newspapers. In this case, Turner said, it was the phrase from Julian that triggered John's imagination.
Veteran music critic Fred Schruers said Julian Lennon's reaching out to help Vodden as she fights the disease is particularly moving because of the childlike nature of the song.
"It's enormously evocative but with a tinge of poignancy," he said. "It's the lost childhood Julian had with that little Lucy and the lost innocence we had with the psychedelic era, an innocence we really cherished until it was snatched away."
Vodden was diagnosed with lupus about five years ago after suffering other serious health problems. She has been struggling extreme fatigue, joint pain, and other ailments.
"She's not given up, she's a fighter, and she has her family backing her, that's a good thing," said Angie Davidson, campaign director for St. Thomas' Lupus Trust, which funds research. "We need more people like her, more Lucys."
Davidson, who also has the disease, said it affects each person differently, typically causing exhaustion and depression. When the disease kills, she said, it does so by attacking the body's internal organs.
It has become difficult for Vodden to go out — most of her trips are to the hospital — but recently she and her husband went to a bookstore and heard the song playing over the store's music system. When they went to another shop, the song was on there as well.
"That made me giggle," she said.
Real `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill
By GREGORY KATZ
6-12-9
LONDON (AP) — They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck.
Not so unusual, really.
Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic classic "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon.
They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school and told his father, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."
Just the sort of cute phrase lots of 3- or 4-year-olds produce — but not many have a father like John Lennon, who used it as a springboard for a legendary song that became a centerpiece on the landmark album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
"Julian got in touch with me out of the blue, when he heard how ill I was, and he said he wanted to do something for me," said the 46-year-old Vodden, who has lupus, a chronic disease where the immune system attacks the body's own tissue.
Lennon, who lives in France, sent his old friend flowers and vouchers she could use to buy plants at a local gardening center, since working in her garden is one of the few activities she is still occasionally well enough to enjoy. More importantly, he has offered her friendship and a connection to more carefree days. They communicate mostly by text message.
"I wasn't sure at first how to approach her. I wanted at least to get a note to her," Julian Lennon told The Associated Press. "Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I'd help with something she's passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face."
Vodden admits she enjoys her association with the song, but doesn't particularly care for it. Perhaps that's not surprising. It was thought by many at the time, including BBC executives who banned the song, that the classic was a paean to LSD because of the initials in the title. Plus, she and Julian were 4 years old in 1967, the "Summer of Love" when "Sgt. Pepper" was released to worldwide acclaim. She missed the psychedelic era to which the song is indelibly linked.
"I don't relate to the song, to that type of song," said Vodden, described as "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" in the lyrics. "As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, 'No, it's not you, my parents said it's about drugs.' And I didn't know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself."
There's no doubt the fanciful lyrics and swirling musical effects draw heavily on the LSD experiences that were shaping Lennon's artistic output at the time — although many of the musical flourishes were provided by producer George Martin, who was not a drug user.
"The imagery in the song is partly a reflection of John's drug experiences, and partly his love of `Alice in Wonderland,'" said Steve Turner, author of "A Hard Day's Write," a book that details the origins of every Beatles song. "At the time it came out, it seemed overtly psychedelic, it sounded like some kind of trip. It was completely new at the time. To me it is very evocative of the period."
Turner said his research, including interviews with Vodden and Julian Lennon, confirm that she is the Lucy in the song. He said it was common for John Lennon to "snatch songs out of thin air" based on a simple phrase he heard on TV or an item he read in the newspapers. In this case, Turner said, it was the phrase from Julian that triggered John's imagination.
Veteran music critic Fred Schruers said Julian Lennon's reaching out to help Vodden as she fights the disease is particularly moving because of the childlike nature of the song.
"It's enormously evocative but with a tinge of poignancy," he said. "It's the lost childhood Julian had with that little Lucy and the lost innocence we had with the psychedelic era, an innocence we really cherished until it was snatched away."
Vodden was diagnosed with lupus about five years ago after suffering other serious health problems. She has been struggling extreme fatigue, joint pain, and other ailments.
"She's not given up, she's a fighter, and she has her family backing her, that's a good thing," said Angie Davidson, campaign director for St. Thomas' Lupus Trust, which funds research. "We need more people like her, more Lucys."
Davidson, who also has the disease, said it affects each person differently, typically causing exhaustion and depression. When the disease kills, she said, it does so by attacking the body's internal organs.
It has become difficult for Vodden to go out — most of her trips are to the hospital — but recently she and her husband went to a bookstore and heard the song playing over the store's music system. When they went to another shop, the song was on there as well.
"That made me giggle," she said.
Pyrasphere
The following is courtesy of Maggie Rowe, cult leader of Pyrasphere...
http://www.pyrasphere.com/Pyrasphere has become the 10th most watched video in the world. All effort really does come back 21fold. Please check it out. This is YOUR journey.
Thanks for all your hard work and luminosity.
It would be marvelous if you could check out the videos, make a comment, and send links to your friends. Bright day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJtlEmur4To
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUcQS2veJdY
Felix Pole Dancing
Miss Pole Dance World 2009Tonight, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, check out Felix Cane, the world's greatest pole-dancer. Her act is incredible. And if you are a woman out there, don't be turned off by the fact she's pole-dancing, it's such amazing art to watch you don't have to be a horny guy to appreciate. Of course, it doesn't hurt either...
http://www.felixpoledancing.com.au
And here's a YouTube link to her winning routine at the Miss Pole Dance World 2009. It's so great, I'm ready to give GnR's Chinese Democracy another chance. Sadly, Ms. Cane no longer works at strip clubs, but she is part of the Zumanity show in Las Vegas...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9bFHGyhm7I
And here's some more YouTube clips of Felix:
http://www.youtube.com/user/felixpoledancing
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=felixpoledancing&view=favorites
Message from Felix:
Felix Pole Dancing on the Tonight Show Thurs 25th June
That’s right boys and girls, I will be doing a Zumanity (Cirque du Soleil) performance with all my boys on Thursday 25th June on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brian. I was originally told I would have an interview as well, but talk on that seems to have quietened down. The show is confirmed though, be sure to keep an eye out. If anyone can record TV on their computer, I would love to have a copy! For all my fans back in Australia, I’m not sure if/when this will air on Australian TV. They do have a Full Episode section and Short Video Clip section on the Tonight Show website though, so hopefully it will be put on there as well. I’ll update this post with the link if it appears on their website anyhow.
Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G & Borat) will also be on the show as his new charachter, Bruno. I wonder if he’s going to end up on my pole?! I can just see something rediculous happening.
Love,
Felix xo
Is there a Life On Mars Conspiracy?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/06/is-there-a-mars-conspiracy.html
06/11/2009
Is there a Life On Mars Conspiracy?
Michael Brooks, consultant for New Scientist and the author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, sends us a new perspective on the riddle of the empty planet next door
Some pesky scientists have just pointed out an appalling design error in NASA’s latest attempts to find life on Mars. This is beginning to look like a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to find life on Mars?
NASA has tried looking for signs of life on Mars precisely once, in the 1976 Viking mission. The result was positive. The reason nobody says there is life on Mars is that another experiment, part of the same mission, couldn’t find any carbon-based “organic” chemicals in Martian soil. This, NASA decided, overruled the other result: with no carbon present, there could be no microbes living on or under the surface of Mars.
Last year, the Phoenix lander repeated the carbon search and failed to find organic molecules. The problem is, we know that there ought to be organic molecules on Mars. Asteroid and comet impacts will have put them there. So what’s going on?
Both of the searches for organic molecules, it turns out, have been deeply flawed. In 2000, the chief engineer on the 1976 experiment finally admitted that his experiment was simply not sensitive enough to overrule anything. Put bluntly, it didn’t work properly – and it never had, even during testing on Earth.
Now a handful of brave NASA scientists have exposed a problem with the latest attempt to pronounce that Mars was dead.
The best argument for why no one has even found carbon brought in on asteroids and comets is that chemicals called perchlorates, also thought to be in the Martian soil, have destroyed it all. When perchlorates get hot, they burn up carbon-based molecules. That’s why NASA uses them in rocket fuel.
The problem is, as NASA's Douglas Ming (the Merciless) has pointed out in a recent paper, the experiments to search for carbon involve heating soil samples to a few hundred degrees and sniffing the vapours. If the soil contains carbon molecules and perchlorates, the carbon molecules will simply burn up. No wonder they couldn’t find any.
Gilbert Levin, who ran the 1976 experiment to search for life, the one that got a positive result, thinks it’s all down to a religious conspiracy dating back to the early 1960s. When I was researching my book 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, I travelled to Levin’s Maryland offices and listened to his account of the run-up to Viking. In 1961, he told me, the Executive Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, invited him to attend a meeting in Washington. When Levin arrived, he found himself among fifteen of the top scientific minds in the US. None of them knew what the meeting was about until John Olive told them he had been charged by NASA with directing an effort to look for life on other planets.
“Phil Abelson, editor of Science magazine, was sitting next to Dean Cowie, a nuclear physicist,” Levin told me. “He grabbed Dean by the arm and audibly said, “Dean, let’s get out of here. The Bible says there can be no life on Mars.”
I was skeptical at first. No one likes a conspiracy theory more than I, but John Olive died in 1974, Dean Cowie died in 1977, and Philip Abelson died in 2004. There is no independent written source on this secret Washington meeting. And it’s not like the search for life didn’t go ahead.
But I have to admit there is a troubling history here. Rocket scientists joke about the “curse of Mars” because the success rate of spacecraft bound for Mars is lower than 50 per cent. The most famous failure is perhaps the 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter mission, which crashed onto the surface because one team of engineers used imperial units in their design, while the other team used metric.
So, the question remains: have attempts to explore Mars been secretly scuppered by religious scientists keen to keep planet Earth “special”? Have they been hiding their sabotage under a veil of incompetence? Or is it that scientists really can be astonishingly incompetent without any outside help? Only Dan Brown’s next novel can tell us.
06/11/2009
Is there a Life On Mars Conspiracy?
Michael Brooks, consultant for New Scientist and the author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, sends us a new perspective on the riddle of the empty planet next door
Some pesky scientists have just pointed out an appalling design error in NASA’s latest attempts to find life on Mars. This is beginning to look like a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to find life on Mars?
NASA has tried looking for signs of life on Mars precisely once, in the 1976 Viking mission. The result was positive. The reason nobody says there is life on Mars is that another experiment, part of the same mission, couldn’t find any carbon-based “organic” chemicals in Martian soil. This, NASA decided, overruled the other result: with no carbon present, there could be no microbes living on or under the surface of Mars.
Last year, the Phoenix lander repeated the carbon search and failed to find organic molecules. The problem is, we know that there ought to be organic molecules on Mars. Asteroid and comet impacts will have put them there. So what’s going on?
Both of the searches for organic molecules, it turns out, have been deeply flawed. In 2000, the chief engineer on the 1976 experiment finally admitted that his experiment was simply not sensitive enough to overrule anything. Put bluntly, it didn’t work properly – and it never had, even during testing on Earth.
Now a handful of brave NASA scientists have exposed a problem with the latest attempt to pronounce that Mars was dead.
The best argument for why no one has even found carbon brought in on asteroids and comets is that chemicals called perchlorates, also thought to be in the Martian soil, have destroyed it all. When perchlorates get hot, they burn up carbon-based molecules. That’s why NASA uses them in rocket fuel.
The problem is, as NASA's Douglas Ming (the Merciless) has pointed out in a recent paper, the experiments to search for carbon involve heating soil samples to a few hundred degrees and sniffing the vapours. If the soil contains carbon molecules and perchlorates, the carbon molecules will simply burn up. No wonder they couldn’t find any.
Gilbert Levin, who ran the 1976 experiment to search for life, the one that got a positive result, thinks it’s all down to a religious conspiracy dating back to the early 1960s. When I was researching my book 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, I travelled to Levin’s Maryland offices and listened to his account of the run-up to Viking. In 1961, he told me, the Executive Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, invited him to attend a meeting in Washington. When Levin arrived, he found himself among fifteen of the top scientific minds in the US. None of them knew what the meeting was about until John Olive told them he had been charged by NASA with directing an effort to look for life on other planets.
“Phil Abelson, editor of Science magazine, was sitting next to Dean Cowie, a nuclear physicist,” Levin told me. “He grabbed Dean by the arm and audibly said, “Dean, let’s get out of here. The Bible says there can be no life on Mars.”
I was skeptical at first. No one likes a conspiracy theory more than I, but John Olive died in 1974, Dean Cowie died in 1977, and Philip Abelson died in 2004. There is no independent written source on this secret Washington meeting. And it’s not like the search for life didn’t go ahead.
But I have to admit there is a troubling history here. Rocket scientists joke about the “curse of Mars” because the success rate of spacecraft bound for Mars is lower than 50 per cent. The most famous failure is perhaps the 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter mission, which crashed onto the surface because one team of engineers used imperial units in their design, while the other team used metric.
So, the question remains: have attempts to explore Mars been secretly scuppered by religious scientists keen to keep planet Earth “special”? Have they been hiding their sabotage under a veil of incompetence? Or is it that scientists really can be astonishingly incompetent without any outside help? Only Dan Brown’s next novel can tell us.
Oil and Indians Don't Mix
by Greg Palast
Friday, June 12, 2009
For Air America Radio's Ring of Fire
There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.
If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.
But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government's murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.
Again and again I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud. Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:
In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly's oil tank in Oklahoma. Here's the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.
Stanlee Ann wasn't Koch's only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.
Koch, according to the tape, would, "giggle" with joy over the records of the theft. Koch's own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the Native lands.
The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.
Then there are the Chugach Natives of Alaska. The Port of Valdez, Alaska, is arguably one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on Earth, the only earthquake-safe ice-free port in Alaska that could load oil from the giant North Slope field. In 1969, Exxon and British Petroleum companies took the land from the Chugach paid them one dollar. I kid you not.
Wally Hickel, the former Governor of Alaska, dismissed my suggestion that the Chugach deserved a bit more respect (and cash) for their property. "Land ownership comes in two ways, Mr. Palast." explained the governor and pipeline magnate, "Purchase or conquest. The fact that your granddaddy chased a caribou across the land doesn't make it yours." The Chugach had lived there for 3,000 years.
No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when Natives are on top of Exxon's or BP's glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: lands can be seized for The Public's Need for Oil.
Some Natives are "re-located" through legal flim-flam, some at gunpoint. The less lucky are left to wallow, literally, in the gunk left by the drilling process.
Take a look at this photo here, taken in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. It's from an investigation that I conducted for BBC TV, now in the film "Palast Investigates." I'm holding up a stinking, black glop of crude oil residue pulled from an abandoned Chevron-Texaco waste pit. A pipe runs from the toxic pit right into the water supply of Cofan Indians.
Chief Emergildo Criollo told me how oil company executives helicoptered into his remote village and, speaking in Spanish - which the Cofan didn't understand - "purchased" drilling rights with trinkets and cheese. The Natives had never seen cheese. ("The cheese smelled funny, so we threw it in the jungle.")
After drilling began, Criollo's son went swimming in his usual watering hole, came up vomiting blood, and died.
I asked Chevron about the wave of poisonings and deaths. According to an independent report, 1,401 deaths, mostly of children, mostly from cancers, can be traced to Chevron's toxic dumping.
Chevron's lawyer told me, "And it's the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States? ... They have to prove that it is our crude," which, he noted with glee, "is absolutely impossible."
Big Oil treats indigenous blood like a cheap gasoline additive. That's why the Peruvians are up in arms. The Cofan of Ecuador, unlike their brothers in Peru, have taken no hostages. Rather, they have heavily armed themselves with lawyers.
But Chevron and its Big Oil brethren remain dismissive of the law. This week, Shell Oil, to get rid of a nasty PR problem by paying $15 million to the Ogoni people and the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa for the oil giant's alleged role in the killing of Wiwa and his associates, activists who had defended these Nigeria Delta people against drilling contamination. Shell pocketed $31 billion last year in profits and hopes the payoff will clear the way for a drilling partnership with Nigeria's government.
Congratulations, Shell. $15 million: For a license to kill and drill, that's a quite a bargain.
***
Your donation supports this important work. Forget the ties and stop the lies - Palast Investigates. "Stories so relevant they threaten to alter history." (Chicago Tribune.) "The All-Time Greatest Moment in [Film] History." - Op-Ed News.
www.GregPalast.com
Friday, June 12, 2009
For Air America Radio's Ring of Fire
There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.
If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.
But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government's murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.
Again and again I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud. Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:
In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly's oil tank in Oklahoma. Here's the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.
Stanlee Ann wasn't Koch's only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.
Koch, according to the tape, would, "giggle" with joy over the records of the theft. Koch's own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the Native lands.
The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.
Then there are the Chugach Natives of Alaska. The Port of Valdez, Alaska, is arguably one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on Earth, the only earthquake-safe ice-free port in Alaska that could load oil from the giant North Slope field. In 1969, Exxon and British Petroleum companies took the land from the Chugach paid them one dollar. I kid you not.
Wally Hickel, the former Governor of Alaska, dismissed my suggestion that the Chugach deserved a bit more respect (and cash) for their property. "Land ownership comes in two ways, Mr. Palast." explained the governor and pipeline magnate, "Purchase or conquest. The fact that your granddaddy chased a caribou across the land doesn't make it yours." The Chugach had lived there for 3,000 years.
No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when Natives are on top of Exxon's or BP's glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: lands can be seized for The Public's Need for Oil.
Some Natives are "re-located" through legal flim-flam, some at gunpoint. The less lucky are left to wallow, literally, in the gunk left by the drilling process.
Take a look at this photo here, taken in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. It's from an investigation that I conducted for BBC TV, now in the film "Palast Investigates." I'm holding up a stinking, black glop of crude oil residue pulled from an abandoned Chevron-Texaco waste pit. A pipe runs from the toxic pit right into the water supply of Cofan Indians.
Chief Emergildo Criollo told me how oil company executives helicoptered into his remote village and, speaking in Spanish - which the Cofan didn't understand - "purchased" drilling rights with trinkets and cheese. The Natives had never seen cheese. ("The cheese smelled funny, so we threw it in the jungle.")
After drilling began, Criollo's son went swimming in his usual watering hole, came up vomiting blood, and died.
I asked Chevron about the wave of poisonings and deaths. According to an independent report, 1,401 deaths, mostly of children, mostly from cancers, can be traced to Chevron's toxic dumping.
Chevron's lawyer told me, "And it's the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States? ... They have to prove that it is our crude," which, he noted with glee, "is absolutely impossible."
Big Oil treats indigenous blood like a cheap gasoline additive. That's why the Peruvians are up in arms. The Cofan of Ecuador, unlike their brothers in Peru, have taken no hostages. Rather, they have heavily armed themselves with lawyers.
But Chevron and its Big Oil brethren remain dismissive of the law. This week, Shell Oil, to get rid of a nasty PR problem by paying $15 million to the Ogoni people and the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa for the oil giant's alleged role in the killing of Wiwa and his associates, activists who had defended these Nigeria Delta people against drilling contamination. Shell pocketed $31 billion last year in profits and hopes the payoff will clear the way for a drilling partnership with Nigeria's government.
Congratulations, Shell. $15 million: For a license to kill and drill, that's a quite a bargain.
***
Your donation supports this important work. Forget the ties and stop the lies - Palast Investigates. "Stories so relevant they threaten to alter history." (Chicago Tribune.) "The All-Time Greatest Moment in [Film] History." - Op-Ed News.
www.GregPalast.com
Hollywood’s attention unwelcome
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/15/hollywoods-attention-unwelcome/National Defense:
Hollywood’s attention unwelcome
Retired colonel expects film to give short shrift to military’s exploration of the paranormal
Retired Col. John Alexander of Las Vegas is loosely the basis for a character played by George Clooney in the upcoming movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”
By Joe Schoenmann
Mon, Jun 15, 2009
George Clooney portrays a character loosely based on Las Vegas resident John Alexander in a movie coming out this year. But being played by a Hollywood heartthrob isn’t enough to make the retired Army colonel happy with the film.
Alexander’s 32-year military career included a stint as an intelligence officer with an “X Files” mission: exploring the use of psychokinesis and psychic abilities to create better soldiers and enhance intelligence collection.
The movie, “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” is based on a book with the same title, a reference to a belief that some military researchers were experimenting with the use of the mind to kill or injure goats.
Alexander criticizes the 2004 book as “5 percent true and the rest extrapolated beyond belief.”
The movie, expected to be released in December, is being described as a “dark comedy.”
Moviegoers will likely see, for instance, a scene in which the commanding general of the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command tries to walk through a wall.
But for Alexander the areas the book touches upon — psychokinesis and psychic spying, or remote viewing — are no laughing matter.
“Reality is of no interest” to Hollywood, Alexander complains.
Exploring the mind’s potential has long drawn the interest of military and intelligence organizations. Much of the military’s experimentation with remote viewing has been declassified, and many of those who say they were involved in it have written books or been interviewed about it. In fact, many of those people will meet Friday through Sunday at Green Valley Ranch Station Casino for the 10th Anniversary Convention of the International Remote Viewing Association.
Las Vegas is home to many retired military and intelligence officers, but Alexander, 71, said that isn’t why the conference is held here. It started here because Las Vegas is convenient for everyone to fly into, and it has become tradition.
Alexander moved to Las Vegas in 1995 to be closer to Robert Bigelow, the millionaire founder of Budget Suites of America. Bigelow used some of his fortune to found the National Institute of Discovery Science, devoted to the study of the paranormal and UFOs.
Las Vegas is the retired colonel’s base for frequent travels around the world. As a senior fellow for the Joint Special Operations University at the U.S. Air Force’s Hurlburt Field in Florida’s panhandle, he conducts studies and writes position papers.
His books include “Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First Century Warfare,” and “Winning the War: Advanced Weapons, Strategies and Concepts for the Post-9/11 World.”
In a September, he’ll make a presentation based on his essay, “Africa: Irregular Warfare on the Dark Continent,” to the Las Vegas chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers at Nellis Air Force Base.
At this week’s convention, Alexander will be the only the only Las Vegas-based presenter, though he is hardly the only person in the area familiar with remote viewing.
A few years ago, remote viewing lessons were available from a woman in Boulder City. (This month she is giving talks about astral travel and telepathy at Aura Sutra, a shop that sells aromatherapy candles and other such wares.)
Alexander uses a sports analogy to explain that while everyone can probably do remote viewing, some can do it better than others.
“I can run all I want, but I’m never going to break a 4-minute mile. But some will. I see it as there are superstars in every endeavor, from art to athletics to science, and the same is true of remote viewing.”
It has been widely reported that in the 1970s, the U.S. Army actively sought psychic superstars to spy on the Russians. Over the next 20 years, the “Star Gate” program was developed with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and other governmental entities involved. The program was disbanded in the mid-1990s, Alexander said, because budgets were tighter and for a host of other possible reasons.
“There is a contingent who think it was so good that it must have gone ‘deep black ops,’?” or was erased from public and governmental view while secretly kept alive, Alexander said. “I argue that’s not the case because the talent pool is small and everybody knows each other.”
In the scores of books about remote viewing, some of the same declassified examples are brought up time and again as evidence of its effectiveness.
Paul Smith, a retired Army major who spent seven years with the Star Gate program, wrote in his 2005 book, “Reading the Enemy’s Mind,” about the discovery of a massive hangar near the Baltic Sea in the northern Soviet Union. A remote viewer was asked to investigate.
Psychic spy Joe McMoneagle described and drew a double-hulled submarine “bigger by a significant factor than any other submarine known to man.”
It also had missile tubes “in front of the conning tower ... (which) ran contrary to known submarine design standards.”
Smith wrote that analysts thought McMoneagle’s data “made no sense.” But months later, Smith noted, satellite photos confirming McMoneagle’s “viewing” as a Typhoon-class submarine, the largest in the world, were revealed.
“While scientists argued about the viability of any theory supporting remote viewing, U.S. Army intelligence was already employing it on successful operations,” Alexander contends.
Another question the scientists pondered was: Where does a remote viewer pull the information from?
Steven Schwartz, 67, one of the earliest proponents of remote viewing and one of the scheduled speakers at the upcoming conference, says “it’s rather like a daydream. It’s a part of your consciousness that you have available to you all the time. There’s nothing weird about it. It’s not rare. We call it a woman’s intuition, a man’s gut hunch.”
The problem is that remote viewing “has become enmeshed in occultism, supernaturalism ... but this is really just normal human functioning,” Schwartz said before launching into what sounds like a sales pitch: “It can make CEOs so much more successful. It can make investors better. It has many applications.”
If that’s the case, say critics such as Ray Hyman, University of Oregon psychology professor emeritus, then where are all the people who got rich using psychic abilities to, oh say, win big in Las Vegas? Where is the evidence?
Hyman was hired by the CIA in the mid-1990s to look at more than 20 years of remote viewing data to determine whether it works and whether it’s practical.
Hyman said no to both.
“It’s a matter of evidence and data,” Hyman says. “The evidence has never been very good.”
Now 80, Hyman spent his academic career studying “why people believe things that aren’t so.”
“And unfortunately, I spent a lot of my time debunking parapsychology.”
Believers in remote viewing, he said, “know it must be true but it’s very frustrating that their evidence will never withstand scientific scrutiny. As long as you don’t have good scientific control, it all looks good.”
Alexander says the real life examples abound. In Vietnam, for example, every platoon had one soldier who seemed to have an ability to sense danger before the platoon was attacked.
Alexander is convinced that what remote viewers do, or sense, is related to shamanism and near-death experiences. Shamans, whom he has studied all over the world, might tap into an information stream when they enter herb-induced trances that allow them to find game or locate enemies.
“Now to be able to quantify and make that a trainable skill and understand some of the premises behind it,” Alexander said. “That would be very valuable.”
Schwarzenegger wants to kill shelter dogs and cats
URGENT
Help stop murder for money scheme of California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger who wants to balance the CA budget by killing shelter dogs and cats after only 3 days. While all shelters should be no kill, the new 3 day kill rule isn't enough time for owners to find lost pets or animals to find new homes. You don't have to live in CA to help.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2009_holdingperiod/usxx3w42jnwn8kw
Please... take a second to send an email to the asshole governor, and your local reps (if you're in CA), it's just a simple form and took me less than a minute. It doesn't matter if you live in CA, or even the US...!
I don't understand... I'm a native of this state. We're last in education. We overthrew gay marriage. If we'd legalize weed (which I don't even smoke!) we'd have no budget deficit. Who are these morons running my state? It's enough to make me fucking move, out of the state, out of the country, just to be spiteful!
He's already closing our state parks, and cancelled summer school. One out four latino girls drops out of high school to have a kid in CA. WTF??????????
Thanks for hearing me out,
Skylaire
--
Skylaire Alfvegren
"yellow journalism, elfin magic"
P.O. Box 291842
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.873.3627 (cell)
www.Skylaire.com
www.forteanswest.com
Help stop murder for money scheme of California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger who wants to balance the CA budget by killing shelter dogs and cats after only 3 days. While all shelters should be no kill, the new 3 day kill rule isn't enough time for owners to find lost pets or animals to find new homes. You don't have to live in CA to help.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2009_holdingperiod/usxx3w42jnwn8kw
Please... take a second to send an email to the asshole governor, and your local reps (if you're in CA), it's just a simple form and took me less than a minute. It doesn't matter if you live in CA, or even the US...!
I don't understand... I'm a native of this state. We're last in education. We overthrew gay marriage. If we'd legalize weed (which I don't even smoke!) we'd have no budget deficit. Who are these morons running my state? It's enough to make me fucking move, out of the state, out of the country, just to be spiteful!
He's already closing our state parks, and cancelled summer school. One out four latino girls drops out of high school to have a kid in CA. WTF??????????
Thanks for hearing me out,
Skylaire
--
Skylaire Alfvegren
"yellow journalism, elfin magic"
P.O. Box 291842
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.873.3627 (cell)
www.Skylaire.com
www.forteanswest.com
Robbing the Cradle Makes Men Live Longer
Thanks to Remy Chevalier for the following...
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/new-study-says-robbing-the-cradle-makes-men-live-longer-women-die-sooner.php
New Study Says, Robbing the Cradle Makes Men Live Longer, Women Die Sooner!
by Eric Leech, New York, NY
06.02.09
The fountain of youth is one of the ultimate legends made famous by Juan Ponce de Leon, who was only 53 at the time of setting out to find the mystical fountain. Since then, men and women have tried everything to make themselves look and feel younger, such as trying out a new Corvette, Porsche, hair transplant, beauty product, younger woman, older man. So far only one of the above mentioned items actually seems to hold any promise... and the women sure aren't going to like this one!
A (Serious) Study by the Max Planck Institute in Germany has reported that men who marry women seven to twenty years younger, enjoy longer, presumably healthier lives. A man who marries a women 7 to 9 years younger will live 11 percent longer, or up to 20 percent longer, if he can snag one up to 17 or 19 years his junior.
Here's the kicker...
Women who follow the same equation (a man 7 to 20 years her junior) die sooner! Sorry ladies, but the research also found that a Sugar Daddy (older husband) was no better. In fact, women who marry either seven to nine years older or younger reduced their lifespan by 20 percent. Oh but wait, it gets worse. A woman who marries a man 15 to 17 years, either her junior or senior, has a 30 percent chance of dying early. If it makes you feel any better ladies, the men who married older women were also destined to the same early death.
The reasoning behind these findings could be many, but one thought is that the younger women are choosing these older men on behalf of natural selection, which states he must exude cues he is going to be a healthy, virile, and successful choice. So in fact, these women would be purposely choosing healthy older men who are predestined to live longer. The other thought is that because these women are younger, they are better able to take care of an older husband, thus the result of them living longer.
There were no thoughts or suggestion offered by the researchers as to why the women were dying earlier, but perhaps some of you Treehuggers might like to hazard a guess. The good news, women, is you can reduce your chance of mortality by up to 30 percent if you take on a vegetarian lifestyle, or perhaps better yet... buy a cat instead!
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/new-study-says-robbing-the-cradle-makes-men-live-longer-women-die-sooner.php
New Study Says, Robbing the Cradle Makes Men Live Longer, Women Die Sooner!
by Eric Leech, New York, NY
06.02.09
The fountain of youth is one of the ultimate legends made famous by Juan Ponce de Leon, who was only 53 at the time of setting out to find the mystical fountain. Since then, men and women have tried everything to make themselves look and feel younger, such as trying out a new Corvette, Porsche, hair transplant, beauty product, younger woman, older man. So far only one of the above mentioned items actually seems to hold any promise... and the women sure aren't going to like this one!
A (Serious) Study by the Max Planck Institute in Germany has reported that men who marry women seven to twenty years younger, enjoy longer, presumably healthier lives. A man who marries a women 7 to 9 years younger will live 11 percent longer, or up to 20 percent longer, if he can snag one up to 17 or 19 years his junior.
Here's the kicker...
Women who follow the same equation (a man 7 to 20 years her junior) die sooner! Sorry ladies, but the research also found that a Sugar Daddy (older husband) was no better. In fact, women who marry either seven to nine years older or younger reduced their lifespan by 20 percent. Oh but wait, it gets worse. A woman who marries a man 15 to 17 years, either her junior or senior, has a 30 percent chance of dying early. If it makes you feel any better ladies, the men who married older women were also destined to the same early death.
The reasoning behind these findings could be many, but one thought is that the younger women are choosing these older men on behalf of natural selection, which states he must exude cues he is going to be a healthy, virile, and successful choice. So in fact, these women would be purposely choosing healthy older men who are predestined to live longer. The other thought is that because these women are younger, they are better able to take care of an older husband, thus the result of them living longer.
There were no thoughts or suggestion offered by the researchers as to why the women were dying earlier, but perhaps some of you Treehuggers might like to hazard a guess. The good news, women, is you can reduce your chance of mortality by up to 30 percent if you take on a vegetarian lifestyle, or perhaps better yet... buy a cat instead!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A most bizarre encounter with Marilyn Manson
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6432653.eceFrom The Times
June 5, 2009
A most bizarre encounter with Marilyn Manson
A friendly, forthcoming Marilyn Manson, conspicuous by his absinthe, talks about loose women, drugs and role models
Hugo Rifkind
Hopeless naif that I am, I don’t immediately realise that Marilyn Manson is totally wasted on absinthe. I can see he’s drinking the stuff, but I assume it’s just for show. By the end, though, when he’s showing me the picture on his iPhone of the swastika freshly shaved into his new girlfriend’s pubic hair, I know differently.
“I drew it on,” he’s saying as his publicist ushers him from the room, “with blue eyeliner. I had to call the hotel: ‘Can I have a protractor, please?’ It was 6am. But you gotta, uh, line it up properly. You know?”
Sort of. But that was later. For now, we’re just getting started in a room at the London Metropolitan Hotel. Manson, the self-proclaimed Antichrist Superstar and God of F*** and the major reason why Americans tend to be scared of their goths and not just snigger at them as we do, has an album to promote.
He didn’t want to come in here with me. He wanted to stay next door with that statuesque blonde, the one with the enormous heels and tiny Lycra dress. I don’t know who she is. I do know that she’s not the new girlfriend, the one with the unusual pelvic topiary. I checked. Different face.
Manson was out last night, downstairs in the Met Bar. I have a hunch that last night might not have ended yet. Today he is wearing huge sunglasses, streaky make-up, black lipgloss and a black hooded top with the hood up at which he keeps pushing, as though it were hair. He has leather trousers on and black platform boots. The window behind us keeps rattling, and he keeps thinking it is gunfire. Little details of his evening filter out.
“Somebody left a knife in my room,” he growls, in that crackly, gravelly voice. “Like, a proper small knife? I almost used it. On a woman. But then I thought . . . no. I didn’t have a shovel or anything. And the airport, immigration, can’t bury her in the shower curtain . . .” Like all the horrible things that Manson says, this is said with a disarmingly sweet smile. You laugh. There’s wit here, peeking out through the aniseed haze. Later he’ll feel his side, and frown. “I caused . . . I have a bruise. It goes from here to here. I don’t know where it came from. That means I had a good night. Loose women. Intoxicated on loose women.”
Manson has his own brand of absinthe, dubbed Mansinthe. That’s not what he’s drinking at the moment. “I don’t drink my own absinthe,” he says. “I drink this. It’s Serpis. I based the taste of mine on it. It’s like black liquorice, which I f***in’ hate. Try it,” he adds, passing me the glass. “Mmmm,” I say, sniffing deeply. I pass it back.
The High End of Low is Manson’s seventh album. It’s funny, you’ll almost certainly have heard of him, but could you could name any of his songs? It’s 15 years since he burst on to the public consciousness on MTV, with the video of his death metal cover of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams. Remember that? Him painted black, riding a pig? “That pig,” he says, “did not want to be ridden. And I did not want to ride it. I have ridden no other pigs. That sounds like such a misogynist statement.”
Manson was born plain Brian Warner in Ohio in 1969, and was actually not, contrary to the best showbiz hoax ever, the geeky one out of The Wonder Years. What he was, briefly, was a rock journalist, before starting his first band, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. He finally emerged, all those years ago, from under the wing of the producer Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails. The debut album, Portrait of an American Family (1994), sold two and a half million copies.
The next, Smells Like Children (1995), sold four million. The third, Antichrist Superstar (1996), has sold nearly eight million. Musically speaking, none were exactly ground-breaking, but look behind the bondage, Nazis, Satanism, death fetishism and long black fingernails and you’ll find a perfectly respectable sort of industrial metal, maybe halfway between Reznor himself and Guns N’ Roses. Manson, though, was always about the whole package.
“I’m not trying to be something that is simply a clown,” he rasps. “I’m a role villain. Role models are mannequins. I want to be the person who f***s shit up.” Then he flinches. “Is that guns?” he says. It’s the window, I tell him again.
Britain, I think, struggles a bit with Marilyn Manson. He’s all-American in his own way, and we don’t really get the references. Most crucially, we just don’t think he really means it. We just see a sort of zombie Boy George, pretending. He knows this, and minds it. “This has always been the most cynical and calculating country,” he says, “and the country I most want to impress. All my heroes are British, whether it’s Aleister Crowley or Bowie. All the best art has come from your godforsaken island. And it makes me mad.”
Just because we don’t get it, that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to get. In America Manson remains a poster boy for the disaffected. A fortnight ago Justin Doucet, a schoolboy in Louisiana, forced a teacher to say “Hail Marilyn Manson” before shooting at him and then shooting himself. Manson brings this up himself. “What do I say?” he says. “Thanks for hiring that kid to promote the record? No! It’s f***ed up. I didn’t say do it. But I get blamed for it.”
Ten years ago, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher in the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, it was swiftly reported that both were Manson fans. Two years later, when he next played in the state capital, Denver, he was still receiving death threats. “I had, like, 30 undercover cops escorting me to the stage,” he says. “Everyone was telling me not to do it. My girlfriend, my friends. I had my mother on the phone, Hunter S. Thompson going ‘F*** ’em! Come to my house! I got a tank!’ And onstage, at every moment, I thought it was the last thing I’d do.”
Fifteen minutes before going on he was being interviewed by the film-maker Michael Moore. “Boning for Concubines,” says Manson now, meaning Bowling for Columbine, Moore’s documentary about gun control. To almost everybody’s surprise, Manson came across as a calm, lucid voice, discussing the problems of a society that celebrated war and consumption. When Moore asked him what he would have said to the killers, Manson replied that he wouldn’t say anything. “I’d listen to what they had to say,” he said. “And that’s what nobody did.”
“I don’t like that movie,” he says now. “But I like the fact that it opened a window for me, to have people go, ‘Oh wow, you’re smart.’ Because they saw me in that movie and I could form two sentences. And last week . . . you hear that? Is it firecrackers?”
Window, I tell him. “Oh yeah,” he says, and carries on. Doucet, the schoolboy, is in a coma now. “And of course,” Manson says, “he was 15. Because that’s my number. Marilyn Manson, 15. Brian Hugh Warner, 15. Look.” He pulls down his T-shirt and there, below his neck, is tattooed the number 15. Why? God knows. I ask. He just says “15” again, and I count the letters in “Marilyn Manson”. That’s when I ask him how much absinthe he’s had today. He replies with a diagram, drawn on my notebook. It’s a rectangle, coloured in. “Is that glass,” I ask, “or a bottle?” “It’s life,” he says.
Marilyn Manson isn’t 15. He turned 40 in January. It looks a bit different, all this dark lord of gothic angst business, when you’re 40, doesn’t it? “The 40 part doesn’t matter,” he says, although he sounds a bit annoyed. “God decided to forsake me so I became a vampire, sold my soul to the Devil and f*** off, good luck to the rest of you.”
He says he’s not slowing down as he gets older, not at all, and still takes drugs whenever he can. “I learnt a new lesson,” he says. “Do drugs and drink when you are in a good mood, not in a bad mood. And you’ll be happier.” This failure to calm down reportedly had a lot to do with the breakup of his marriage in 2007 to Dita Von Teese, the burlesque artist.
They went to court, famously, over who was to get custody of their three cats. “I saw her two days ago,” he says. “At a bar. And I was like, ‘Hey, you’re my ex-wife!’ And we got along well. So that was nice.” And who got the cats in the end? “She got the boy cats. I got the virgin girl cat.” He pauses. “Did you know that if you say ‘in the end’ it infers anal sex?”
No, I say, and I ask him if he has a girlfriend at the moment. “No,” he says, and thinks. “Yes,” he says, “but I’m single.” After Von Teese he was involved with the actress Evan Rachel Wood, but that’s not who he is talking about. That’s when he starts hunting for the swastika picture. He won’t tell me her name out loud, but he writes it down on my notebook. Stoya. Later I Google her. She’s a Serbo-Scottish porn star, aged 22.
He’s fun to chat to, Marilyn Manson, absinthe or not. But I just don’t think the Antichrist Superstar and God of F** is in a particularly good place right now. Maybe it’s an existential panic. The corpse-in-black-lipstick look, it’s getting old. He must know that. Who wears black platforms in 2009? And also, I just keep thinking about that swastika. At a push, I can see how a certain kind of guy might find it exciting. But at 40? Still? I suppose he does really mean it, and always has. Poor guy.
The High End of Low is released by Polydor. Manson plays the Download Festival, Donington Park, Derby, on June 13
Chastity Bono -- Becoming a Man
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=87881013562&h=aT3dB&u=o9ezR&ref=nfChastity Bono -- Becoming a Man
Jun 11th 2009
Chastity Bono, civil rights advocate, journalist, author and musician, is in the early stages of changing his gender -- transitioning from female to male, TMZ has learned.
Bono, the child of legendary entertainers Sonny and Cher, began the process earlier this year, shortly after his 40th birthday.
"Yes, it's true -- Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity," confirmed Bono's publicist, Howard Bragman.
"He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by his loved ones. It is Chaz's hope that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue, just as his 'coming out' did nearly 20 years ago.
We ask that the media respect Chaz's privacy during this long process as he will not be doing any interviews at this time."
Roger Federer’s win stirs debate about best ever
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=txfrenchopen
Roger Federer’s win stirs debate about best ever
6-8-9
By STEVEN WINE AP Sports Writer
PARIS(AP)—With his first French Open title, Roger Federer strengthened the argument he’s the best tennis player ever.
He completed a career Grand Slam, something only five other men have done. He won his 14th major title to tie Pete Sampras’ record. He played in his 19th Grand Slam final to match Ivan Lendl’s record.
The stylish Swiss caught a break in Paris and made the most of it, winning the title by beating the man who beat Federer’s nemesis, Rafael Nadal. Federer swept surprise finalist Robin Soderling 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4 on Sunday.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever know who was the greatest of all time, but I’m definitely happy to be right up there,” said the 27-year-old Federer, who plans to play into his 30s. “I think it should be judged at the very end, you know. How well did I do? Good? Great? Very good? Or medium? I don’t know. It’s for other people to decide.”
On his fourth try in a Paris final, and first against someone other than Nadal, Federer came through. The list of Grand Slam champions who never won the French Open includes Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Sampras.
“I’m obviously happy for Roger,” Sampras told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he lives. “Now that he has won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion.”
But is Federer - who acknowledged relief to avoid facing Nadal in the final - even the best player of his generation?
With the career Slam complete, the biggest blemish on Federer’s resume is a poor record versus Nadal. Federer is 7-13 against the Spaniard and has lost the past three times they’ve met in Grand Slam finals.
Soderling, a Swede seeded 23rd, eased Federer’s title path at Roland Garros by upsetting four-time defending champion Nadal in the fourth round.
“I knew the day Rafa won’t be in the finals, I will be there and I will win,” Federer said. “I always knew that, and I believed in it. That’s exactly what happened.”
Andre Agassi, the most recent man to complete the career Grand Slam when he won at Roland Garros 10 years ago, presented Federer with the trophy. The other men to win all four major titles were Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Don Budge and Fred Perry.
The championship came after Federer lost to Nadal at the French Open and Wimbledon last year, and at the Australian Open in February. Federer also lost the No. 1 ranking to Nadal last August.
“Sounds like an Achilles’ heel, but at the same time, what (Federer) has done is unmatched,” Agassi said. “We’re watching two guys in the prime of their years compete against each other - and Nadal has an answer for him. But what criteria do you use to judge best ever? Roger’s numbers - it’s hard to disagree with. His domination on different surfaces - hard to disagree with.”
Federer was in top form Sunday, gliding across the court and whacking winners from all angles as he raced to a quick lead. Soderling’s strokes steadied, but Federer played a brilliant tiebreaker, hitting aces on all four serves.
“One of greatest tiebreakers in my career,” Federer said.
He broke again to start the third set and kept that lead the rest of the way, although it wasn’t as easy as he made it look.
“It was very hard mentally for me to stay within the match during the match, because my mind was always wondering, `What if?”’ Federer said. “`What if I win this tournament? What does that mean? What will I possibly say?’
“I was very nervous at the beginning of the third set because I realized how close I was. The last game, obviously you can imagine how difficult that game was. It was almost unplayable for me.”
Still, Federer managed to hold in the final game. When he hit a service winner on championship point, he fell to his knees and was teary by the time he met Soderling at the net.
Debates about the greatest player ever usually include Laver, who swept the Grand Slams in 1962 and 1969. Sampras is another contender, even though he never reached the French Open final.
Soderling’s vote: Federer.
“I never played anyone playing that fast,” said Soderling, who is 0-10 against Federer. “He doesn’t have any weaknesses at all. He really deserves to be called the best player of all time.”
Roger Federer’s win stirs debate about best ever
6-8-9
By STEVEN WINE AP Sports Writer
PARIS(AP)—With his first French Open title, Roger Federer strengthened the argument he’s the best tennis player ever.
He completed a career Grand Slam, something only five other men have done. He won his 14th major title to tie Pete Sampras’ record. He played in his 19th Grand Slam final to match Ivan Lendl’s record.
The stylish Swiss caught a break in Paris and made the most of it, winning the title by beating the man who beat Federer’s nemesis, Rafael Nadal. Federer swept surprise finalist Robin Soderling 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4 on Sunday.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever know who was the greatest of all time, but I’m definitely happy to be right up there,” said the 27-year-old Federer, who plans to play into his 30s. “I think it should be judged at the very end, you know. How well did I do? Good? Great? Very good? Or medium? I don’t know. It’s for other people to decide.”
On his fourth try in a Paris final, and first against someone other than Nadal, Federer came through. The list of Grand Slam champions who never won the French Open includes Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Sampras.
“I’m obviously happy for Roger,” Sampras told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he lives. “Now that he has won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion.”
But is Federer - who acknowledged relief to avoid facing Nadal in the final - even the best player of his generation?
With the career Slam complete, the biggest blemish on Federer’s resume is a poor record versus Nadal. Federer is 7-13 against the Spaniard and has lost the past three times they’ve met in Grand Slam finals.
Soderling, a Swede seeded 23rd, eased Federer’s title path at Roland Garros by upsetting four-time defending champion Nadal in the fourth round.
“I knew the day Rafa won’t be in the finals, I will be there and I will win,” Federer said. “I always knew that, and I believed in it. That’s exactly what happened.”
Andre Agassi, the most recent man to complete the career Grand Slam when he won at Roland Garros 10 years ago, presented Federer with the trophy. The other men to win all four major titles were Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Don Budge and Fred Perry.
The championship came after Federer lost to Nadal at the French Open and Wimbledon last year, and at the Australian Open in February. Federer also lost the No. 1 ranking to Nadal last August.
“Sounds like an Achilles’ heel, but at the same time, what (Federer) has done is unmatched,” Agassi said. “We’re watching two guys in the prime of their years compete against each other - and Nadal has an answer for him. But what criteria do you use to judge best ever? Roger’s numbers - it’s hard to disagree with. His domination on different surfaces - hard to disagree with.”
Federer was in top form Sunday, gliding across the court and whacking winners from all angles as he raced to a quick lead. Soderling’s strokes steadied, but Federer played a brilliant tiebreaker, hitting aces on all four serves.
“One of greatest tiebreakers in my career,” Federer said.
He broke again to start the third set and kept that lead the rest of the way, although it wasn’t as easy as he made it look.
“It was very hard mentally for me to stay within the match during the match, because my mind was always wondering, `What if?”’ Federer said. “`What if I win this tournament? What does that mean? What will I possibly say?’
“I was very nervous at the beginning of the third set because I realized how close I was. The last game, obviously you can imagine how difficult that game was. It was almost unplayable for me.”
Still, Federer managed to hold in the final game. When he hit a service winner on championship point, he fell to his knees and was teary by the time he met Soderling at the net.
Debates about the greatest player ever usually include Laver, who swept the Grand Slams in 1962 and 1969. Sampras is another contender, even though he never reached the French Open final.
Soderling’s vote: Federer.
“I never played anyone playing that fast,” said Soderling, who is 0-10 against Federer. “He doesn’t have any weaknesses at all. He really deserves to be called the best player of all time.”
The Burger Lounge
The Burger LoungeNick Hamilton
Here’s my new favorite burger joint. Good place for yuppies in La Jolla to drive to in their Prius and feel okay about eating a burger:
http://www.burgerlounge.com/
We elevate the hamburger to an art form. Starting with organic grass-fed Tallgrass Beef directly from the grower, fresh cut French fries, house-made onion rings, and home-style-baked buns—we create a food experience you will want to experience again and again. Enjoy our fresh-tossed salads, turkey burgers with fresh basil and our own vegetarian burger made from organic Quinoa. We also offer premium milkshakes, mirco-brews and premium wines.
HOW WE MADE IT: THE PINK FAMILY
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-himi-pink7-2009jun07,0,4145997.story
HOW WE MADE IT: THE PINK FAMILY
At Pink's hot dog stand in Hollywood, keeping it in the family
Richard Pink and his wife and sister don't plan to franchise the nearly 70-year-old landmark, a big celebrity and tourist draw. They'll stick to its original location at La Brea and Melrose.
By Hugo Martín
June 7, 2009
The gig: Co-owners of the Pink's hot dog stand. Richard Pink, 65, his sister, Beverly Pink Wolfe, and his wife, Gloria Pink, inherited the stand near the corner of Melrose Avenue and La Brea Boulevard in Hollywood from Richard and Beverly's parents. Richard Pink, a real estate lawyer for ING Real Estate, holds the title of president. His wife oversees operations and promotions. The family took the business from a humble pushcart in a weed-choked lot to a Hollywood landmark.
The eatery seats a maximum of 80 people but serves as many as 2,500 hot dogs and nearly 170 pounds of chili a day. The wait time to order a meal ranges from a few minutes to two hours or more, depending on the time of day.
How did it all start? When Romanian immigrant Isadore Pinkowitz landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900s, immigration officials shortened and "Americanized" his name to Pink. Fast forward to the Great Depression. Isadore's son, Paul Pink, and his wife, Betty, bought a pushcart for $50 and began a hot dog business on the corner of La Brea and Melrose. When the landlord raised the monthly rent from $15 to $25, the couple bought the land and, in 1946, built the eatery that sits on that same corner today.
How did Pink's get the Hollywood crowd to line up for the dogs? Richard Pink, his wife and sister were sitting around a kitchen table in 1998 trying to devise ways to drum up publicity for the upcoming 60th anniversary. They decided to invite celebrities to work behind the counter, with all the profit going to charity.
"Anything in L.A. that is connected to Hollywood is very important," Richard Pink said.
The family tried a dress rehearsal on the 59th anniversary. They got actors Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi and Billy Dee Williams and honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant to sling the dogs.
For the 60th anniversary, the grill was worked by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, TV personalities Huell Howser and Tawny Little, actor Eric Estrada, former Laker Jamaal Wilkes and producer Aaron Spelling. The idea paid off big. Since then Pink's has been featured on television shows such as "The Martha Stewart Show," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and Huell Howser's "California Gold."
Favorite Hollywood moment? Jay Leno filmed a skit for "The Tonight Show" in which the rock band Aerosmith played cooks at Pink's.
"When you get exposed to 2 or 3 million people, you get a lot of curiosity going," Richard Pink said.
Pink trivia: In the mid-1980s, actor Bruce Willis proposed marriage to actress Demi Moore by the glow of Pink's fluorescent lights.
What's the secret to Pink's success? Consistent quality is the first priority, Richard Pink said. The typical hot dogs are 9-inch, all-beef wieners with natural casing, made for Pink's since 1939 by Hoff's Quality Meats. The dogs are steamed and doused in a chili made specially for Pink's. Richard Pink refuses to divulge the maker of the chili.
Value is the next priority, he said. The basic chili dog costs $3.10. The most expensive entree is the "Three Dog Night," a sloppy beast with three dogs wrapped in a tortilla with cheese, bacon and chili, for $7.15. No charge for extra chili or onions.
Good service and atmosphere are also important, Pink said. Half of his employees have worked for Pink's for at least 10 years. Pink's offers 12 varieties of hamburgers and 21 types of hot dogs, including "The Martha Stewart Dog" (10-inch dog smothered in relish, onions, bacon, chopped tomatoes, sauerkraut and sour cream) and the "Rosie O'Donnell Long Island Dog" (a 10-inch topped with mustard, onions, chili and sauerkraut).
Why not franchise Pink's? Richard Pink admits that the family is "averse to risk." If they sought to open Pink's hot dog stands across the country, he said, they would lose control of the quality and pricing.
"We've never trusted anyone to preserve it," he said. "We believe we know the formula to make Pink's hot dogs right."
Still, the Pink family has allowed its hot dogs to be sold outside of the stand, on a limited basis. The family has accepted deals to operate booths at the Greek Theatre, Hollywood Park Casino and the Los Angeles County Fair. Pink's hot dogs will be sold at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas in August and at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in December.
The next big challenge? The family is now planning the 70th-anniversary celebration in November. The Pinks already have a commitment from comedian Bill Cosby and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve up some dogs, with more celebrities likely to sign up in the next few months.
hugo.martin@latimes.com
HOW WE MADE IT: THE PINK FAMILY
At Pink's hot dog stand in Hollywood, keeping it in the family
Richard Pink and his wife and sister don't plan to franchise the nearly 70-year-old landmark, a big celebrity and tourist draw. They'll stick to its original location at La Brea and Melrose.
By Hugo Martín
June 7, 2009
The gig: Co-owners of the Pink's hot dog stand. Richard Pink, 65, his sister, Beverly Pink Wolfe, and his wife, Gloria Pink, inherited the stand near the corner of Melrose Avenue and La Brea Boulevard in Hollywood from Richard and Beverly's parents. Richard Pink, a real estate lawyer for ING Real Estate, holds the title of president. His wife oversees operations and promotions. The family took the business from a humble pushcart in a weed-choked lot to a Hollywood landmark.
The eatery seats a maximum of 80 people but serves as many as 2,500 hot dogs and nearly 170 pounds of chili a day. The wait time to order a meal ranges from a few minutes to two hours or more, depending on the time of day.
How did it all start? When Romanian immigrant Isadore Pinkowitz landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900s, immigration officials shortened and "Americanized" his name to Pink. Fast forward to the Great Depression. Isadore's son, Paul Pink, and his wife, Betty, bought a pushcart for $50 and began a hot dog business on the corner of La Brea and Melrose. When the landlord raised the monthly rent from $15 to $25, the couple bought the land and, in 1946, built the eatery that sits on that same corner today.
How did Pink's get the Hollywood crowd to line up for the dogs? Richard Pink, his wife and sister were sitting around a kitchen table in 1998 trying to devise ways to drum up publicity for the upcoming 60th anniversary. They decided to invite celebrities to work behind the counter, with all the profit going to charity.
"Anything in L.A. that is connected to Hollywood is very important," Richard Pink said.
The family tried a dress rehearsal on the 59th anniversary. They got actors Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi and Billy Dee Williams and honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant to sling the dogs.
For the 60th anniversary, the grill was worked by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, TV personalities Huell Howser and Tawny Little, actor Eric Estrada, former Laker Jamaal Wilkes and producer Aaron Spelling. The idea paid off big. Since then Pink's has been featured on television shows such as "The Martha Stewart Show," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and Huell Howser's "California Gold."
Favorite Hollywood moment? Jay Leno filmed a skit for "The Tonight Show" in which the rock band Aerosmith played cooks at Pink's.
"When you get exposed to 2 or 3 million people, you get a lot of curiosity going," Richard Pink said.
Pink trivia: In the mid-1980s, actor Bruce Willis proposed marriage to actress Demi Moore by the glow of Pink's fluorescent lights.
What's the secret to Pink's success? Consistent quality is the first priority, Richard Pink said. The typical hot dogs are 9-inch, all-beef wieners with natural casing, made for Pink's since 1939 by Hoff's Quality Meats. The dogs are steamed and doused in a chili made specially for Pink's. Richard Pink refuses to divulge the maker of the chili.
Value is the next priority, he said. The basic chili dog costs $3.10. The most expensive entree is the "Three Dog Night," a sloppy beast with three dogs wrapped in a tortilla with cheese, bacon and chili, for $7.15. No charge for extra chili or onions.
Good service and atmosphere are also important, Pink said. Half of his employees have worked for Pink's for at least 10 years. Pink's offers 12 varieties of hamburgers and 21 types of hot dogs, including "The Martha Stewart Dog" (10-inch dog smothered in relish, onions, bacon, chopped tomatoes, sauerkraut and sour cream) and the "Rosie O'Donnell Long Island Dog" (a 10-inch topped with mustard, onions, chili and sauerkraut).
Why not franchise Pink's? Richard Pink admits that the family is "averse to risk." If they sought to open Pink's hot dog stands across the country, he said, they would lose control of the quality and pricing.
"We've never trusted anyone to preserve it," he said. "We believe we know the formula to make Pink's hot dogs right."
Still, the Pink family has allowed its hot dogs to be sold outside of the stand, on a limited basis. The family has accepted deals to operate booths at the Greek Theatre, Hollywood Park Casino and the Los Angeles County Fair. Pink's hot dogs will be sold at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas in August and at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in December.
The next big challenge? The family is now planning the 70th-anniversary celebration in November. The Pinks already have a commitment from comedian Bill Cosby and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve up some dogs, with more celebrities likely to sign up in the next few months.
hugo.martin@latimes.com
Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2009-06-08-uso_N.htm
Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops
Sunday, June 7, 2009
By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Apparently, all it took for victory in Iraq was a visit by late-night funnyman Stephen Colbert.
"By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!" the mock pundit joked before a cheering crowd of about 300 U.S. servicemembers who gathered here on Sunday for a taping of his TV show, The Colbert Report.
The show, which will air tonight on cable's Comedy Central, did have (slightly more modest) real-life historic implications: It was the first non-news television show to be produced, taped and transmitted to the U.S. from a combat zone, according to John Hanson, a senior vice president for the United Service Organizations (USO), which brings entertainment and other programs to troops in the field.
In the past, performers such as Bob Hope, who made several famed visits with troops in Vietnam, would film and a crew would bring footage to the U.S. to edit and repackage. The performance would not be shown on television until months later. Colbert and a crew of about 20 are shooting and beaming back by satellite four episodes that will air this week, Hanson said.
Colbert taped the first of four shows dubbed "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" in the gaudy rotunda of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on this sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport.
Colbert, who has been raising money for charitable organizations that support U.S. troops, had been trumpeting his plan to tape his show before U.S. servicemembers in an undisclosed location. Taking heed of Defense Department security precautions, Colbert would only say in recent shows that, where he was going, "there will be sand and people that wish we would leave."
Before the show, some soldiers wondered whether Colbert, whose TV persona pokes fun at conservative punditry, would dial it down for a military audience.
No way. "He went totally all out," said 1st Lt. Virginia Brickner, 29, of Van Wert, Ohio.
The man who invented the word "truthiness" joked that Iraq must be a pretty nice place, considering many of the servicemembers in the audience "keep coming again, again and again."
"The good news is you have enough frequent flier miles for a trip to Afghanistan," Colbert told the troops, who responded with hearty laughter.
Colbert might have gotten his biggest laughs during his interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq. Before he brought Odierno on stage, Colbert showed a video sketch of his attempt at boot camp at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
After a semiserious interlude in which Odierno told Colbert his declaration of victory might be a bit premature, Colbert asked the general how he thought Colbert would fare in his Army.
Odierno responded that Colbert had too much hair to be a soldier. At that point, President Obama was beamed in on a large projection screen and ordered Odierno to give Colbert a trim.
Colbert will be sporting a buzz cut for the rest of his stay in Iraq.
Things That Are Awesome: Maya Rudolph
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/06/maya-rudolph-brilliant-and-beautiful-in-away-we-go.html
Maya Rudolph: Brilliant and beautiful in 'Away We Go'
Jun 6, 2009
Missy Schwartz
Those of you who've read the reviews for Sam Mendes' new dramedy Away We Go -- or maybe even saw it on opening day yesterday -- know that Maya Rudolph is something of a revelation in it. As one half of a directionless, thirtysomething couple searching for a place to drop their roots before the birth of their first child, Rudolph gives a wonderfully quiet, sincere performance that, to quote my colleague Owen Gleiberman, "anchors the quirkiness of Away We Go and transcends it, too." It's quite something to behold the former SNL powerhouse who once bellowed "GET OUT!!" as Donatella Versace convey leagues and fathoms of emotion with such economy. John Krasinski, who plays Rudolph's partner and baby daddy, is terrific, too. But for me, the movie's all about Maya. So please join me in applauding the brilliant and beautiful Ms. Rudolph.
Maya Rudolph: Brilliant and beautiful in 'Away We Go'
Jun 6, 2009
Missy Schwartz
Those of you who've read the reviews for Sam Mendes' new dramedy Away We Go -- or maybe even saw it on opening day yesterday -- know that Maya Rudolph is something of a revelation in it. As one half of a directionless, thirtysomething couple searching for a place to drop their roots before the birth of their first child, Rudolph gives a wonderfully quiet, sincere performance that, to quote my colleague Owen Gleiberman, "anchors the quirkiness of Away We Go and transcends it, too." It's quite something to behold the former SNL powerhouse who once bellowed "GET OUT!!" as Donatella Versace convey leagues and fathoms of emotion with such economy. John Krasinski, who plays Rudolph's partner and baby daddy, is terrific, too. But for me, the movie's all about Maya. So please join me in applauding the brilliant and beautiful Ms. Rudolph.
Phil Spector, Un-Wigged
Thanks to Richard Metzger for the following…
http://gawker.com/5286184/phil-spector-un%20wigged
Phil Spector, Un-Wigged
By Hamilton Nolan
Wed Jun 10 2009
Producer extraordinaire Phil Spector killed somebody and went to jail and now he's not allowed to wear his wig. How unfortunate for everyone involved.
http://gawker.com/5286184/phil-spector-un%20wigged
Phil Spector, Un-Wigged
By Hamilton Nolan
Wed Jun 10 2009
Producer extraordinaire Phil Spector killed somebody and went to jail and now he's not allowed to wear his wig. How unfortunate for everyone involved.
David Carradine's Family Calls For FBI Investigation
http://www.usmagazine.com/news/david-carradines-family-calls-for-fbi-investigation-into-death-200966
David Carradine's Family Calls For FBI Investigation Into Actor's Death
Saturday June 6, 2009
The family of David Carradine has called upon the FBI to further investigate the mysterious death of the Oscar-nominated actor.
Mark Garagos, an attorney for Carradine's brother Keith, appeared on CNN's Larry King Live Friday to speak on behalf of the star's family, who is distraught over reports David took his own life.
Citing unidentified police sources, local Bankok, Thailand newspaper The Nation reported that the actor, 72, was found hanged in his luxury hotel room in the Thai capital Thursday and is believed to have committed suicide.
The Carridines -- along with the actor's co-manager, Tiffany Smith -- are refuting those reports.
"The cause of death is still under investigation in Bangkok," Smith told Us Thursday. "All I can tell you is that David did not commit suicide. I can tell you that 100 percent. He would never commit suicide."
Garagos told King the family is desperate for answers.
"They want an investigation," Geragos said. "I would think that the people in Bangkok would want to support an investigation and allow the FBI to go over there and assist in the investigation so we can get the answers to the questions."
Thai police told the Associated Press they have not been contacted by the FBI.
The results of an autopsy performed Friday in Bankok are not expected for three weeks, Dr. Nanthana Sirisap, director of Chulalongkorn Hospital's Autopsy Center, told the AP. Carradine's body was flown from Bankok to Los Angeles early Saturday, an unnamed airport official revealed, though the report remains unconfirmed by the U.S. Embassy.
David Carradine's Family Calls For FBI Investigation Into Actor's Death
Saturday June 6, 2009
The family of David Carradine has called upon the FBI to further investigate the mysterious death of the Oscar-nominated actor.
Mark Garagos, an attorney for Carradine's brother Keith, appeared on CNN's Larry King Live Friday to speak on behalf of the star's family, who is distraught over reports David took his own life.
Citing unidentified police sources, local Bankok, Thailand newspaper The Nation reported that the actor, 72, was found hanged in his luxury hotel room in the Thai capital Thursday and is believed to have committed suicide.
The Carridines -- along with the actor's co-manager, Tiffany Smith -- are refuting those reports.
"The cause of death is still under investigation in Bangkok," Smith told Us Thursday. "All I can tell you is that David did not commit suicide. I can tell you that 100 percent. He would never commit suicide."
Garagos told King the family is desperate for answers.
"They want an investigation," Geragos said. "I would think that the people in Bangkok would want to support an investigation and allow the FBI to go over there and assist in the investigation so we can get the answers to the questions."
Thai police told the Associated Press they have not been contacted by the FBI.
The results of an autopsy performed Friday in Bankok are not expected for three weeks, Dr. Nanthana Sirisap, director of Chulalongkorn Hospital's Autopsy Center, told the AP. Carradine's body was flown from Bankok to Los Angeles early Saturday, an unnamed airport official revealed, though the report remains unconfirmed by the U.S. Embassy.
Friend Doubts Carradine Committed Suicide
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/05/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main5065214.shtml
Friend Doubts Carradine Committed Suicide
Actor Michael Madsen: "Depression Wasn't Really A Part Of His Personality"
June 5, 2009
(CBS) A longtime friend of actor David Carradine says it "doesn't make sense" that the star killed himself.
Actor Michael Madsen said on The Early Show Friday depression "wasn't really a part of Carradine's makeup.
Carradine was found dead Thursday in a luxury hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. The star, best-known for the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," was alone in a closet with ropes around his neck and genitals, tied together, Thai police say.
At first, they speculated that Carradine had committed suicide, but backed away from that on Friday and are now saying Carradine's death may have resulted from accidental suffocation or heart failure.
Autopsy results were pending.
Madsen called Carradine's death "kind of shocking." He told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen he "could never have imagined anybody like David, (who) was so full of life and so happy and working (would commit suicide). You figure somebody might do something like that when they're unemployed or destitute. He was working hard and having a good time, and it doesn't make sense."
"I spoke to his wife this morning," Madsen added, "and she really wants everybody to know that David was not suicidal. Certainly, I would have known about something like that. Depression wasn't really a part of his personality. Whatever causes people to have that emotion, he seems to have -- seemed to have gotten over it."
Madsen says Carradine was in "really good spirits" when he saw him recently. "He was very happy that he was going back to work. He had three pictures lined up. ... Anybody who's working that much, I don't... He was very happy."
Asked how he'd remember his friend, Madsen recalled being told Carradine was playing piano at a recording studio as he sang, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
"That side of David, I don't think too many people knew about," Madsen noted. "I think he'd like to be remembered as somebody who was -- he was a great talent and a wonderful friend."
Friend Doubts Carradine Committed Suicide
Actor Michael Madsen: "Depression Wasn't Really A Part Of His Personality"
June 5, 2009
(CBS) A longtime friend of actor David Carradine says it "doesn't make sense" that the star killed himself.
Actor Michael Madsen said on The Early Show Friday depression "wasn't really a part of Carradine's makeup.
Carradine was found dead Thursday in a luxury hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. The star, best-known for the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," was alone in a closet with ropes around his neck and genitals, tied together, Thai police say.
At first, they speculated that Carradine had committed suicide, but backed away from that on Friday and are now saying Carradine's death may have resulted from accidental suffocation or heart failure.
Autopsy results were pending.
Madsen called Carradine's death "kind of shocking." He told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen he "could never have imagined anybody like David, (who) was so full of life and so happy and working (would commit suicide). You figure somebody might do something like that when they're unemployed or destitute. He was working hard and having a good time, and it doesn't make sense."
"I spoke to his wife this morning," Madsen added, "and she really wants everybody to know that David was not suicidal. Certainly, I would have known about something like that. Depression wasn't really a part of his personality. Whatever causes people to have that emotion, he seems to have -- seemed to have gotten over it."
Madsen says Carradine was in "really good spirits" when he saw him recently. "He was very happy that he was going back to work. He had three pictures lined up. ... Anybody who's working that much, I don't... He was very happy."
Asked how he'd remember his friend, Madsen recalled being told Carradine was playing piano at a recording studio as he sang, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
"That side of David, I don't think too many people knew about," Madsen noted. "I think he'd like to be remembered as somebody who was -- he was a great talent and a wonderful friend."
The Jigglewatts
Check out the best Burlesque act on the planet with The Jigglewatts of Austin, Texas:
http://www.thejigglewattsburlesque.com
And here are the Jigglewatts individually...
Ruby Joule
Coco Lectric
Cherry Zapp
Violet Voltage
Champagne ShockTopless Photos of Britney Spears
Britney may no longer be the Queen of Pop after a decade run, but any story involving her and her breasts will still be newsworthy in The Konformist book. The following pics are from TMZ.com, though they were originally found on Newsoftheworld.co.uk. The pictures were taken during the video shoot for Gimme More. Sadly, TMZ chose to star out her temporarily tattoed nipples and News of the World pulled the pics from their site, but no doubt any desperately horny guy with a connection to Google or Yahoo can pull up her boobs with a little creativity. Get to work, boys!!!
Oil price leaps to year's high
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/10/oil-market-reserves
Oil price leaps to year's high
Predictions of $250 a barrel on fears for oil reserves, hopes of economic recovery and hedging against weak dollar
Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Oil will last for decades, according to BP, but advocates of 'peak oil' believe reserves are dwindling
The price of oil burst through the $71 a barrel mark today amid revelations that proven reserves had fallen for the first time in 10 years and predictions that the price could eventually hit $250.
The latest high – from lows of $30 only four months ago – came on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where the cost of July deliveries rose by $1.35 to $71.36.
This comes on top of a $2 rise the day before as investors rushed into the market on the back of lower stockpile figures, higher demand estimates and speculation against further falls in the dollar.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we're testing $80 in a week or two," said one analyst, while BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, questioned whether $90 could be the "right" value.
Kuwait's oil minister, Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, put some of the rise down to signs of recovery in Asia but warned that overall demand was still weaker than last year. Opec would not raise supply at current oil prices but did not rule it out "if it reached $100", he said.
Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy group Gazprom, raised the stakes further when he reiterated last year's estimates of $250 a barrel. "This forecast has not become reality yet, given that the [credit] crisis gained momentum and exerted a powerful impact on the global energy market. But does this mean that our forecast was unrealistic? Not at all."
The latest surge has also raised fears that higher energy costs could snuff out the nascent economic recovery. Shares on Wall Street's Nasdaq index fell 1%.
The febrile atmosphere in oil markets was fed by the publication of BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, which showed that the world's proven crude reserves had fallen by 3bn barrels to 1.258tn by 2008 from a revised 1.261tn in 2007.
Declines in important producers such as Russia and Norway offset rises in new areas such as Vietnam, India and Egypt. The figures did not include Canada's tar sands, which are put at 150bn barrels.
The drop is partly attributed to a drop in exploration drilling due to the precipitous fall in oil prices last year but also to the end of "easy" oil. Conflict this week in the Amazon and speculation about Arctic drilling underlined how oil companies are pushing into environmentally sensitive places to find new reserves.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, insisted there was enough crude to last 42 years at current consumption levels, roughly the same as last year. Adherents of "peak oil" – the theory that the maximum rate of oil production has been reached – believe supplies will run out much sooner because of growing demand.
The BP boss said: "Our data confirms that the world has enough proved reserves of oil, natural gas and coal to meet the world's energy needs for decades to come." Higher prices allowed companies to invest in finding further reserves while not choking off demand, he said.
"There is a rational argument to say that somewhere between $60 to $90 a barrel is the right sort of level," he said.
Global oil consumption fell 0.6% to 81.8m barrels a day in 2008, the first decline since 1993 and the largest drop for 27 years. North Sea output dropped 6.3% to its lowest level for three decades.
By contrast, gas use rose by 2.5% globally and 16% in China. The use of coal, the heaviest emitter of climate-changing carbon, rose 3.1%, with Chinese demand up 6.8%, leaving it with a market share of 43% despite more high-profile announcements about its commitment to renewables.
BP says it is difficult to compare "primary" carbon fuels with renewable sources of electricity. BP notes that globally solar capacity rose nearly 70% and wind by 30% year on year but says renewables only generated 1.5% of global electricity and therefore began at a low base.But it notes these sources are playing an increasingly important role in some countries with wind power providing 20% of total electricity generation in Denmark, 11% in Spain and 7% in Germany.
Despite the 2008 rise in coal consumption, the BP data showed growth in the use of the fuel continued to decline compared with 2007 when it rose 5% and five years ago when it went up by 8%.
But the coal figures will alarm environmentalists and increase the calls for companies and governments to speed up trials on "clean coal" technology and the use of carbon capture and storage.
China has promised to increase its use of renewables: Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of the China's national development and reform commission, says the country may produce as much as 20% of its energy from wind and solar by 2020.
Oil price leaps to year's high
Predictions of $250 a barrel on fears for oil reserves, hopes of economic recovery and hedging against weak dollar
Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Oil will last for decades, according to BP, but advocates of 'peak oil' believe reserves are dwindling
The price of oil burst through the $71 a barrel mark today amid revelations that proven reserves had fallen for the first time in 10 years and predictions that the price could eventually hit $250.
The latest high – from lows of $30 only four months ago – came on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where the cost of July deliveries rose by $1.35 to $71.36.
This comes on top of a $2 rise the day before as investors rushed into the market on the back of lower stockpile figures, higher demand estimates and speculation against further falls in the dollar.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we're testing $80 in a week or two," said one analyst, while BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, questioned whether $90 could be the "right" value.
Kuwait's oil minister, Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, put some of the rise down to signs of recovery in Asia but warned that overall demand was still weaker than last year. Opec would not raise supply at current oil prices but did not rule it out "if it reached $100", he said.
Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy group Gazprom, raised the stakes further when he reiterated last year's estimates of $250 a barrel. "This forecast has not become reality yet, given that the [credit] crisis gained momentum and exerted a powerful impact on the global energy market. But does this mean that our forecast was unrealistic? Not at all."
The latest surge has also raised fears that higher energy costs could snuff out the nascent economic recovery. Shares on Wall Street's Nasdaq index fell 1%.
The febrile atmosphere in oil markets was fed by the publication of BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, which showed that the world's proven crude reserves had fallen by 3bn barrels to 1.258tn by 2008 from a revised 1.261tn in 2007.
Declines in important producers such as Russia and Norway offset rises in new areas such as Vietnam, India and Egypt. The figures did not include Canada's tar sands, which are put at 150bn barrels.
The drop is partly attributed to a drop in exploration drilling due to the precipitous fall in oil prices last year but also to the end of "easy" oil. Conflict this week in the Amazon and speculation about Arctic drilling underlined how oil companies are pushing into environmentally sensitive places to find new reserves.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, insisted there was enough crude to last 42 years at current consumption levels, roughly the same as last year. Adherents of "peak oil" – the theory that the maximum rate of oil production has been reached – believe supplies will run out much sooner because of growing demand.
The BP boss said: "Our data confirms that the world has enough proved reserves of oil, natural gas and coal to meet the world's energy needs for decades to come." Higher prices allowed companies to invest in finding further reserves while not choking off demand, he said.
"There is a rational argument to say that somewhere between $60 to $90 a barrel is the right sort of level," he said.
Global oil consumption fell 0.6% to 81.8m barrels a day in 2008, the first decline since 1993 and the largest drop for 27 years. North Sea output dropped 6.3% to its lowest level for three decades.
By contrast, gas use rose by 2.5% globally and 16% in China. The use of coal, the heaviest emitter of climate-changing carbon, rose 3.1%, with Chinese demand up 6.8%, leaving it with a market share of 43% despite more high-profile announcements about its commitment to renewables.
BP says it is difficult to compare "primary" carbon fuels with renewable sources of electricity. BP notes that globally solar capacity rose nearly 70% and wind by 30% year on year but says renewables only generated 1.5% of global electricity and therefore began at a low base.But it notes these sources are playing an increasingly important role in some countries with wind power providing 20% of total electricity generation in Denmark, 11% in Spain and 7% in Germany.
Despite the 2008 rise in coal consumption, the BP data showed growth in the use of the fuel continued to decline compared with 2007 when it rose 5% and five years ago when it went up by 8%.
But the coal figures will alarm environmentalists and increase the calls for companies and governments to speed up trials on "clean coal" technology and the use of carbon capture and storage.
China has promised to increase its use of renewables: Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of the China's national development and reform commission, says the country may produce as much as 20% of its energy from wind and solar by 2020.
Japanese Vegetarian Cuisine Explained
http://www.naturalnews.com/026338_soy_vegetarian_soybeans.html
Japanese Vegetarian Cuisine Explained
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Kirk Patrick, citizen journalist
Key concepts: Soy, Vegetarian and Soybeans
(NaturalNews) Even if you don't like seafood, your local sushi restaurant features an array of medicinal plant-based foods that regularly accompany each meal. This article will highlight ten healthy vegetarian items commonly found in Japanese cuisine along with their key health properties.
Part I - Seaweed Products
* Dulse - Palmaria palmata (Palmariacea)
A red seaweed, dulse contains calcium, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, protein and zinc. Dulse also contains vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, C and E. Useful in treating an underactive thyroid, dulse is also low in sodium. Dulse is a seasoning and is often used in seaweed salad.
* Nori - Porphyra (Bangiaceae)
Available in red and green pigment, nori is a seaweed that contains the polysaccaraide Galactan along with choline, eicosapentanoic acid, inositol and taurine. Nori contains copper, iodine, magnesium, selenium and zinc. Nori helps treat ulcers, fights cancer and lowers cholesterol. Sheets of nori are used to wrap rice and ingredients in sushi rolls.
* Wakame - Undaria pinnatifida (Alariaceae)
Available in both brown and green varieties, wakama is a seaweed collected off the coast of Japan. Wakame contains the antioxidant fucoxanthin, a pigment known to boost the metabolism. Wakame reduces cholesterol, stimulates the liver, fights diabetes and helps treat prostate cancer. Used in miso soup, wakame is an invasive weed in New Zealand and California.
________________________
Part II - Soybean Products
* Soy - Glycine max (Fabaceae)
Soy contains lecithin which protects against mental fatigue. Soy contains vitamins A, B, and C, along with iron, phosphorous, potassium and protein. Soy boosts the immune system, helps treat diabetes, improves kidney function and promotes healthy vision and strong cardiovascular health.
Note: There has been much recent controversy regarding soy and there are several important considerations:
1) Soybeans should be organically grown. Non-organic soybeans are often bathed in solvents such as hexane.
2) Soybeans should be locally grown if possible (versus grown in China and shipped 12,500 miles). At least find companies who are willing to reveal their actual sources of their soybeans along with proof of certification. Recent studies have shown that this is easier said than done.
3) Soybeans should be fermented. Unfermented soy such as soy milk and tofu contain higher levels of estrogen-mimicking chemicals called phytoestrogens. These cause boys to exhibit female traits and cause breast cancer in women. Choose fermented soy products such as the ones outlined next.
* Tamari (Soy Sauce)
A concentrated, fermented soy product, tamari has been used in China for about 3000 years. Tamari contains antioxidants along with vitamin B6, iron, phosphorous, protein and the amino acid tryptophan. Soy sauce should be refrigerated after opening.
* Tempeh
Made by fermenting soybeans with the Rhizopus mold, tempeh contains antioxidants, isoflavones, saponins, fiber, protein and every required amino acid. Tempeh aids digestion and boosts the immune system.
* Miso
Miso is a product made from soybeans (or other grains) fermented with the Koji mold. Miso contains vitamin K, B6, B12, calcium, copper, iron, phosphorous and zinc along with protein and amino acids. Miso comes in several varieties including Genmai, Hacho, Mugi, and Shiro. A must for those building a storable food supply, 12 ounces of miso paste is enough to make several gallons of soup. Unlike canned and processed foods, miso is a living food.
________________________
Part III - Condiments
* Wasabi - Wasabia japonica (Cruciferae)
A plant that contains antioxidants called isothiocynates, wasabi also contains calcium and potassium. Wasabi stimulates digestion, detoxifies the liver, and fights prostate cancer. Wasabi is the spicy green paste served alongside most sushi orders. However, most restaurants do not serve real Wasabi which is rare and expensive, opting for dyed Horseradish instead.
* Ginger (Pickled) - Zingiber officinale (Zingiberaceae)
Ginger contains soothing compounds called Gingerols. Ginger also contains vitamin B6, copper, magnesium, manganese, and potassium. Ginger stimulates digestion, relieves arthritis, treats nausea, and is safe for pregnant women. Ginger helps fight cancer of the ovaries and colon, and has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
* Tekka
A blend of miso, burdock, carrot, lotus root and sesame, tekka is a little-known but delicious condiment that has the look and feel of chewing tobacco and the flavor of soy sauce. Highly concentrated, tekka is the perfect companion for rice. A good source of iron, tekka contains lotus root which helps sooth stomach and colon inflammation, along with burdock root that is known to help purify the blood.
________________________
References
The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants - Dorling Kindersley and Andrew Chevallier
Japanese Vegetarian Cuisine Explained
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Kirk Patrick, citizen journalist
Key concepts: Soy, Vegetarian and Soybeans
(NaturalNews) Even if you don't like seafood, your local sushi restaurant features an array of medicinal plant-based foods that regularly accompany each meal. This article will highlight ten healthy vegetarian items commonly found in Japanese cuisine along with their key health properties.
Part I - Seaweed Products
* Dulse - Palmaria palmata (Palmariacea)
A red seaweed, dulse contains calcium, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, protein and zinc. Dulse also contains vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, C and E. Useful in treating an underactive thyroid, dulse is also low in sodium. Dulse is a seasoning and is often used in seaweed salad.
* Nori - Porphyra (Bangiaceae)
Available in red and green pigment, nori is a seaweed that contains the polysaccaraide Galactan along with choline, eicosapentanoic acid, inositol and taurine. Nori contains copper, iodine, magnesium, selenium and zinc. Nori helps treat ulcers, fights cancer and lowers cholesterol. Sheets of nori are used to wrap rice and ingredients in sushi rolls.
* Wakame - Undaria pinnatifida (Alariaceae)
Available in both brown and green varieties, wakama is a seaweed collected off the coast of Japan. Wakame contains the antioxidant fucoxanthin, a pigment known to boost the metabolism. Wakame reduces cholesterol, stimulates the liver, fights diabetes and helps treat prostate cancer. Used in miso soup, wakame is an invasive weed in New Zealand and California.
________________________
Part II - Soybean Products
* Soy - Glycine max (Fabaceae)
Soy contains lecithin which protects against mental fatigue. Soy contains vitamins A, B, and C, along with iron, phosphorous, potassium and protein. Soy boosts the immune system, helps treat diabetes, improves kidney function and promotes healthy vision and strong cardiovascular health.
Note: There has been much recent controversy regarding soy and there are several important considerations:
1) Soybeans should be organically grown. Non-organic soybeans are often bathed in solvents such as hexane.
2) Soybeans should be locally grown if possible (versus grown in China and shipped 12,500 miles). At least find companies who are willing to reveal their actual sources of their soybeans along with proof of certification. Recent studies have shown that this is easier said than done.
3) Soybeans should be fermented. Unfermented soy such as soy milk and tofu contain higher levels of estrogen-mimicking chemicals called phytoestrogens. These cause boys to exhibit female traits and cause breast cancer in women. Choose fermented soy products such as the ones outlined next.
* Tamari (Soy Sauce)
A concentrated, fermented soy product, tamari has been used in China for about 3000 years. Tamari contains antioxidants along with vitamin B6, iron, phosphorous, protein and the amino acid tryptophan. Soy sauce should be refrigerated after opening.
* Tempeh
Made by fermenting soybeans with the Rhizopus mold, tempeh contains antioxidants, isoflavones, saponins, fiber, protein and every required amino acid. Tempeh aids digestion and boosts the immune system.
* Miso
Miso is a product made from soybeans (or other grains) fermented with the Koji mold. Miso contains vitamin K, B6, B12, calcium, copper, iron, phosphorous and zinc along with protein and amino acids. Miso comes in several varieties including Genmai, Hacho, Mugi, and Shiro. A must for those building a storable food supply, 12 ounces of miso paste is enough to make several gallons of soup. Unlike canned and processed foods, miso is a living food.
________________________
Part III - Condiments
* Wasabi - Wasabia japonica (Cruciferae)
A plant that contains antioxidants called isothiocynates, wasabi also contains calcium and potassium. Wasabi stimulates digestion, detoxifies the liver, and fights prostate cancer. Wasabi is the spicy green paste served alongside most sushi orders. However, most restaurants do not serve real Wasabi which is rare and expensive, opting for dyed Horseradish instead.
* Ginger (Pickled) - Zingiber officinale (Zingiberaceae)
Ginger contains soothing compounds called Gingerols. Ginger also contains vitamin B6, copper, magnesium, manganese, and potassium. Ginger stimulates digestion, relieves arthritis, treats nausea, and is safe for pregnant women. Ginger helps fight cancer of the ovaries and colon, and has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
* Tekka
A blend of miso, burdock, carrot, lotus root and sesame, tekka is a little-known but delicious condiment that has the look and feel of chewing tobacco and the flavor of soy sauce. Highly concentrated, tekka is the perfect companion for rice. A good source of iron, tekka contains lotus root which helps sooth stomach and colon inflammation, along with burdock root that is known to help purify the blood.
________________________
References
The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants - Dorling Kindersley and Andrew Chevallier
Latest Rense Ads
Thanks to Rense.com for the following...
http://www.heartandbody.com/
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http://www.heartandbody.com/
Learn The Secrets of an Effective Natural 100% Organic Nutritional Supplement for a Healthy Heart and Circulation
Dear Friend,
Are you suffering from issues related to angina pain, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, unbalanced cholestrol, irregular heart beat, clogged arteries? If so you are not alone. Millions of people are suffering from one or more of these problems.
If you'd like to Live your life free of sickness, pain and fear, Live your life with increased vitality, energy and youthfulness, and experience your body healing itself from anything out of balance concerning cardiovascular or diabetic circulation problems, then this might be the most important letter you'll ever read. It is now possible to acquire an 100% organic nutritional supplement, which works! An effective 100% organic nutritional supplement is now available to be shipped out to you RUSH DELIVERY.
Here's why:
Heart And Body Extract is an exclusive formula of wild crafted and organic herbs. It is specially formulated. Great care has been put into the unique balance, synergy and proportion of the herbs. It is extremely effective and starts to work within days. It is an adaptogen type of product, which will identify the most important areas to work on, in the body first. Everyone is unique, so everyone's experience will be different on Heart And Body Extract. For example if you are suffering from high blood pressure your body is out of balance. Your body always strives to be in balance. So when it gets what it needs nutritionally from Heart And Body Extract it starts to repair itself and balances the body back to normal blood pressure. It is amazing how the body fixes itself up with the proper nutrition. We guarantee Heart And Body Extract will work for you or your money back! It will work for 98% of the people and is truly a healthy heart breakthrough.
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Real News - Real Talk - Real People - Because You CAN Handle The Truth!
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The Monroe Institute
iPhone 3G is now only $99!
Dear Mac friends,
Apple just made a serious of staggering announcements today, and I'm still blinking like a deer in the headlights trying to process it all!
Here are a few of today's most important announcements:
- First of all, the iPhone 3G is now only $99! This is an unbelievable new price!
- Next, Apple introduced the new iPhone 3G S (the "S" is for "Speed") for $199. Not only is the new iPhone 3G S significantly faster than the iPhone 3G, but it comes with built-in video recording, video editing, complete voice control, and compass. You can learn all about the new iPhone 3G S here:
Apple just made a serious of staggering announcements today, and I'm still blinking like a deer in the headlights trying to process it all!
Here are a few of today's most important announcements:
- First of all, the iPhone 3G is now only $99! This is an unbelievable new price!
- Next, Apple introduced the new iPhone 3G S (the "S" is for "Speed") for $199. Not only is the new iPhone 3G S significantly faster than the iPhone 3G, but it comes with built-in video recording, video editing, complete voice control, and compass. You can learn all about the new iPhone 3G S here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/
- The MacBook Pro line is now SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER, FASTER, and has new features -- such as a built-in SD Card Reader for your SD Cards that you use inside your digital cameras. As an example of the new lower pricing, the 15" MacBook Pro used to start at $1,999, but now it starts at $1,699. You can read more about the new MacBook Pro line here:
- The MacBook Pro line is now SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER, FASTER, and has new features -- such as a built-in SD Card Reader for your SD Cards that you use inside your digital cameras. As an example of the new lower pricing, the 15" MacBook Pro used to start at $1,999, but now it starts at $1,699. You can read more about the new MacBook Pro line here:
- Snow Leopard is coming! Snow Leopard is coming! And it's only going to cost $29! Later this year, we will be upgrading all of you to Snow Leopard, since it is the faster and more refined version of the Leopard operating system that you currently use & love. At a price of only $29, Apple clearly wants everyone to be using Snow Leopard. You can read more about Snow Leopard here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
- iPhone OS 3.0 software update is coming on June 17th! If you already own an iPhone, in just 9 days, you'll get a bevy of new features delivered right to your current iPhone! Features like cut/copy/paste, a landscape keyboard in more applications, MMS messages, spotlight searching, voice memos, holiday subscriptions in your calendar, buying movies & TV shows & audiobooks from your phone, sync your notes between your iPhone and your Mac, and much much more. You can read about all these new improvements here:
- iPhone OS 3.0 software update is coming on June 17th! If you already own an iPhone, in just 9 days, you'll get a bevy of new features delivered right to your current iPhone! Features like cut/copy/paste, a landscape keyboard in more applications, MMS messages, spotlight searching, voice memos, holiday subscriptions in your calendar, buying movies & TV shows & audiobooks from your phone, sync your notes between your iPhone and your Mac, and much much more. You can read about all these new improvements here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/
- Oh, and ScottWorld has a brand new logo. This is the first step in what will soon be a complete overhaul of the ScottWorld website, along with an introduction of brand new ScottWorld services -- such as Mac training bootcamp weekends! Stay tuned for more details....
Best,
Scott Rose
(323) 954-1978
President, ScottWorld
Certified FileMaker & Mac Experts. Since 1992.
http://www.scottworld.com/
Contributing Editor, MacLife Magazine
http://www.maclife.com/
My blog about life + technology:
http://scottworldblog.wordpress.com/
- Oh, and ScottWorld has a brand new logo. This is the first step in what will soon be a complete overhaul of the ScottWorld website, along with an introduction of brand new ScottWorld services -- such as Mac training bootcamp weekends! Stay tuned for more details....
Best,
Scott Rose
(323) 954-1978
President, ScottWorld
Certified FileMaker & Mac Experts. Since 1992.
http://www.scottworld.com/
Contributing Editor, MacLife Magazine
http://www.maclife.com/
My blog about life + technology:
http://scottworldblog.wordpress.com/
Lisa Pease on Voting Laws
Dear Voting Activists,
I wanted to bring a couple of important items to your attention—one good, and one horrific.
First, Holt’s bill is better than ever, in the latest version. Clear language expressly forbids the use of DRE (direct recording electronic) voting machines. Paperless machines have to be replaced by 2010, if the bill passes, and machines that currently produce a paper record have to be replaced by 2014. But again, that’s assuming the bill PASSES in time. You can read the latest version of the Holt bill via the link at the end of this message.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that, separately, there’s a very concerted effort afoot to enable Internet voting in this country. Internet voting presents a completely insecure system that has no paper trail and no way to be audited by hand.
Just as the disabled community was the excuse for bringing us unauditable DRE machines, Internet voting is being put forward as a way of helping the troops.
So our efforts have reached a crossroads. If we fail to see Holt’s bill through the door this time around, we won’t get another chance. Internet voting will be ushered in, and our power to ‘vote out’ the people who don’t want to help us will be seriously compromised, if not gone altogether. That’s an unthinkable option, for me, and I hope for all of you as well. Please understand the push for Internet voting is a very serious effort with a real chance of succeeding if we do not act promptly.
The only bill already written, vetted, familiar to the membership, and ready to be passed is Holt’s bill. It doesn’t have a number yet, and won’t until it’s introduced.
And that’s where you come in.
Rep. Holt wants to get as many co-sponsors as possible before the bill is introduced.
Will you please call your Congressperson in the next few days and find out where they stand re Holt’s latest bill? If they are already a co-sponsor, thank them mightily for their political will and courage. If they are not yet a co-sponsor, please encourage them, with all the passion you feel about this issue, to support this last firewall against truly unaccountable, unauditable voting.
Time is of the essence. If we want this bill to be in effect for the 2010 election, we’d need to get this bill on the House floor for a vote by the end of July.
Here are some key points you can mention:
Holt’s bill will require mandatory voter-marked paper records and a mandatory audit of those records, while still providing for accessible options for the disabled.
Holt’s bill has already been vetted by the House Administration committee and is essentially ready to go, with very few changes from the last session, but with the key change of banning DREs by requiring that the paper ballot must be marked by the voter before it is counted.
By requiring both machine and hand counts (via manual audits), we dramatically reduce the possibility of a rigged vote. It’s easier to rig a fully hand-counted vote or a fully machine-counted vote than it is to rig a vote that is counted by two entirely separate systems.
Holt’s bill will implicitly ban Internet voting before it gets off the ground because it requires a paper record marked by the voter, something which would be impossible to do using the Internet alone.
I don’t want to sound alarmist. But truly, we are at the end of the line. Each time the bill fails to come to a vote, the DRE and Internet voting vendors (one and the same) grow bolder. We need to completely cut them off at this pass before Internet voting becomes a reality. If that happens, our only recourse will be in the streets. And that’s a battle I hope none of us have to fight, because that one will be much more costly to all of us.
Although some states have been moving to paper-based elections, seven states still have fully paperless, unauditable elections. Many other states have numerous counties still using paperless voting systems. How many more jurisdictions will succumb to aggressive efforts to implement Internet voting? Many people still don’t get it. Most people are decent enough and innocent enough to believe Internet voting would be both convenient and safe. After all, they bank online, right? That’s why the burden falls on those few of us who really do understand the dangers to do all we can while we still have a chance to make a difference.
While I’m thrilled Obama is our president, the fact that he got elected made a lot of activists complacent, feeling that our vote really isn’t at risk. But it is, and more than ever before.
Please. Call your Representative and Senators this week and ask if they are supporting Rush Holt’s bill banning paperless voting. (Ask your Senator to support Sen. Bill Nelson’s clone of Holt’s bill when it is introduced.) Talk to their staff and make the strongest case you can. Ask for an answer. Try not to just pass a comment along. Get your Congressperson on the record regarding their support, or opposition, to this bill.
If you don’t know who your Representative is, you can find out at www.house.gov/writerep. By entering your address and ZIP, you can find out who represents you in Washington.
Please share this message with your friends who are politically aware. We all need to help push this one over the top. No legislation passes without a groundswell of grassroots activity behind it. The other side is working overtime to stop this legislation. It’s up to us to counter their efforts.
Thank you, as always, for being such a good patriot and supporting an honest, accountable vote. I’m grateful for all you continue to do.
Lisa Pease
Author and activist
Resources
The latest version of Holt’s bill:
http://voteraction.org/files/HOLT_VOTERCONFIDENCE_FINAL4-14-09xml%20(2).pdf
Voter Action’s strong endorsement of Holt’s bill:
http://www.voteraction.org/news-article/2009/voter-action-statement-support-holt-voter-confidence-and-increased-accessibility-a
List of Internet voting bills being proposed:
http://voteraction.org/news-article/2009/track-internet-voting-legislation-your-state
One of the arguments has been that Internet voting would increase participation. That’s the opposite of what happened in Hawaii with their recent Internet voting experiment. Voting participation dropped 83%:
http://www.kitv.com/news/19573770/detail.html
List of various systems used by various states (seven have fully paperless systems, with key congressional and senate seats being determined):
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/
If you get pushback re allowing the military to vote, point them to Holt’s separate bill providing express mail services for soldiers to mail paper ballots back, at taxpayer expense. The text of this short bill is here:
http://voteraction.org/news-article/2009/track-internet-voting-legislation-your-state
I wanted to bring a couple of important items to your attention—one good, and one horrific.
First, Holt’s bill is better than ever, in the latest version. Clear language expressly forbids the use of DRE (direct recording electronic) voting machines. Paperless machines have to be replaced by 2010, if the bill passes, and machines that currently produce a paper record have to be replaced by 2014. But again, that’s assuming the bill PASSES in time. You can read the latest version of the Holt bill via the link at the end of this message.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that, separately, there’s a very concerted effort afoot to enable Internet voting in this country. Internet voting presents a completely insecure system that has no paper trail and no way to be audited by hand.
Just as the disabled community was the excuse for bringing us unauditable DRE machines, Internet voting is being put forward as a way of helping the troops.
So our efforts have reached a crossroads. If we fail to see Holt’s bill through the door this time around, we won’t get another chance. Internet voting will be ushered in, and our power to ‘vote out’ the people who don’t want to help us will be seriously compromised, if not gone altogether. That’s an unthinkable option, for me, and I hope for all of you as well. Please understand the push for Internet voting is a very serious effort with a real chance of succeeding if we do not act promptly.
The only bill already written, vetted, familiar to the membership, and ready to be passed is Holt’s bill. It doesn’t have a number yet, and won’t until it’s introduced.
And that’s where you come in.
Rep. Holt wants to get as many co-sponsors as possible before the bill is introduced.
Will you please call your Congressperson in the next few days and find out where they stand re Holt’s latest bill? If they are already a co-sponsor, thank them mightily for their political will and courage. If they are not yet a co-sponsor, please encourage them, with all the passion you feel about this issue, to support this last firewall against truly unaccountable, unauditable voting.
Time is of the essence. If we want this bill to be in effect for the 2010 election, we’d need to get this bill on the House floor for a vote by the end of July.
Here are some key points you can mention:
Holt’s bill will require mandatory voter-marked paper records and a mandatory audit of those records, while still providing for accessible options for the disabled.
Holt’s bill has already been vetted by the House Administration committee and is essentially ready to go, with very few changes from the last session, but with the key change of banning DREs by requiring that the paper ballot must be marked by the voter before it is counted.
By requiring both machine and hand counts (via manual audits), we dramatically reduce the possibility of a rigged vote. It’s easier to rig a fully hand-counted vote or a fully machine-counted vote than it is to rig a vote that is counted by two entirely separate systems.
Holt’s bill will implicitly ban Internet voting before it gets off the ground because it requires a paper record marked by the voter, something which would be impossible to do using the Internet alone.
I don’t want to sound alarmist. But truly, we are at the end of the line. Each time the bill fails to come to a vote, the DRE and Internet voting vendors (one and the same) grow bolder. We need to completely cut them off at this pass before Internet voting becomes a reality. If that happens, our only recourse will be in the streets. And that’s a battle I hope none of us have to fight, because that one will be much more costly to all of us.
Although some states have been moving to paper-based elections, seven states still have fully paperless, unauditable elections. Many other states have numerous counties still using paperless voting systems. How many more jurisdictions will succumb to aggressive efforts to implement Internet voting? Many people still don’t get it. Most people are decent enough and innocent enough to believe Internet voting would be both convenient and safe. After all, they bank online, right? That’s why the burden falls on those few of us who really do understand the dangers to do all we can while we still have a chance to make a difference.
While I’m thrilled Obama is our president, the fact that he got elected made a lot of activists complacent, feeling that our vote really isn’t at risk. But it is, and more than ever before.
Please. Call your Representative and Senators this week and ask if they are supporting Rush Holt’s bill banning paperless voting. (Ask your Senator to support Sen. Bill Nelson’s clone of Holt’s bill when it is introduced.) Talk to their staff and make the strongest case you can. Ask for an answer. Try not to just pass a comment along. Get your Congressperson on the record regarding their support, or opposition, to this bill.
If you don’t know who your Representative is, you can find out at www.house.gov/writerep. By entering your address and ZIP, you can find out who represents you in Washington.
Please share this message with your friends who are politically aware. We all need to help push this one over the top. No legislation passes without a groundswell of grassroots activity behind it. The other side is working overtime to stop this legislation. It’s up to us to counter their efforts.
Thank you, as always, for being such a good patriot and supporting an honest, accountable vote. I’m grateful for all you continue to do.
Lisa Pease
Author and activist
Resources
The latest version of Holt’s bill:
http://voteraction.org/files/HOLT_VOTERCONFIDENCE_FINAL4-14-09xml%20(2).pdf
Voter Action’s strong endorsement of Holt’s bill:
http://www.voteraction.org/news-article/2009/voter-action-statement-support-holt-voter-confidence-and-increased-accessibility-a
List of Internet voting bills being proposed:
http://voteraction.org/news-article/2009/track-internet-voting-legislation-your-state
One of the arguments has been that Internet voting would increase participation. That’s the opposite of what happened in Hawaii with their recent Internet voting experiment. Voting participation dropped 83%:
http://www.kitv.com/news/19573770/detail.html
List of various systems used by various states (seven have fully paperless systems, with key congressional and senate seats being determined):
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/
If you get pushback re allowing the military to vote, point them to Holt’s separate bill providing express mail services for soldiers to mail paper ballots back, at taxpayer expense. The text of this short bill is here:
http://voteraction.org/news-article/2009/track-internet-voting-legislation-your-state
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Conclusive 911 Harley Shirt Guy Comparison
Giants' Johnson wins No. 300
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/04/SPQK181507.DTL
Giants' Johnson wins No. 300
Henry Schulman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 5, 2009
Washington -- As Randy Johnson hugged his teammates and family in a cool late-spring drizzle, he understood he was relishing a feeling that only 23 other men in baseball have enjoyed. Many of those pitchers, some he knows personally, some just regal names in the lore of the game, were on his mind as he celebrated his 300th win Thursday night.
As difficult as this careerlong accomplishment was, Johnson said, others accomplished so much more. With age comes the perspective that while he resides in baseball's highest aerie, he does not live there alone.
"It sounds funny," Johnson said after his 300th win came in a 5-1 victory against the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader, "but I've played 21, 22 years. I'm 45 and I've come upon 300 wins and I'm thinking, 'I only have 211 more to catch Cy Young.' "
The Big Unit was raised in Livermore, cut his teeth as a Montreal Expo, became a star as a Seattle Mariner and won a championship as an Arizona Diamondback. All of that, though, was relegated to the musty pages of a history book when he wrote a defining chapter at Nationals Park and joined the 300-win club as its sixth left-hander.
Johnson pitched six dominating innings before leaving with a bruised shoulder caused when he hit the turf to grab a ball and fling it to first baseman Travis Ishikawa for the first out of the sixth inning - "my senior moment when I thought I was only 25," Johnson joked. Manager Bruce Bochy said Johnson is not expected to miss a start.
The Unit retreated to the clubhouse to watch Brandon Medders, Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson get through the seventh and eighth innings then returned to the dugout to watch Wilson finish the ninth.
The game was far more tense than the final score. The Giants led 2-1 until they added three runs in the ninth inning, on a two-run double by Randy Winn and a Pablo Sandoval sacrifice fly.
Lisa Johnson surely spoke for her husband in the dugout and Giants fans the world over when she said, "It was a little scary for a while. I liked having those extra few runs."
Johnson became the first pitcher since Tom Seaver in 1985 to earn his 300th win on his first try. He also became the second-oldest pitcher to win 300, at 45 years and 267 days. Phil Niekro was the oldest at 46 years, 188 days.
The milestone occurred in front of a few thousand fans in a chilly gloom between storms, with a large contingent of ticket holders behind the visiting dugout rising and cheering for every positive Giants development. They included Johnson's wife and daughters Samantha, Willow and Lexi. His 13-year-old son, Tanner, served as a batboy and seemed more nervous than Dad during the ninth.
Randy Johnson sat stoically in the dugout, cracking a smile only when some fans started chanting his name, as Tanner nearly pulverized the baseball he was holding.
When Wilson struck out Wil Nieves to end it, Johnson emerged from the dugout and hugged his teammates in the handshake line. He seemed emotional as he hugged his children and tipped his cap to the sparse crowd before heading into the clubhouse, where the celebration was muted for obvious reasons.
"We're in a doubleheader right now," Bochy said. "It's hard to toast him when there's another game to play. We'll get to that point soon enough."
So Johnson munched on some pizza before walking into a news conference. Catcher Bengie Molina had handed him the ball from the final out, and Johnson handed it to his wife in the front row before he tried to describe his feelings.
He thanked the hundreds of teammates who helped him win each of those 300 games, acknowledged that this was special in light of the back injuries that nearly derailed his career and expressed relief that he did not prolong the wait.
"Some of the guys in the locker room have seen a lot in the last few years with Barry (Bonds') accomplishments and this accomplishment," he said. "I think I'm happy that it happened early enough. Like I said all along, I'm not here just to win five games. I'm here to help turn this team around."
Nobody can accuse Johnson of backing into his 300th win. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and left after allowing one unearned run on two hits with 78 pitches thrown.
Then, he needed a controversial call from home-plate umpire Tim Timmons to preserve the win.
The Giants still led 2-1 in the eighth inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, Timmons called strike three on a 3-2 Wilson fastball to Adam Dunn on a pitch that looked low. Ball four would have tied the game and given the Unit a no-decision.
"You really don't want to see a 300th win lost on a walk," Wilson said. "Nor did I want to see it."
Dunn argued with Timmons over the pitch, but Wilson, smiling, said, "I liked it. It worked out. I pretty much just wanted to throw it down the middle and see what he could do with it."
The Giants then scored their three precious insurance runs, and Wilson struck out the side in the ninth for his 13th save. He has saved all five of Johnson's wins this year.
Johnson's teammates presented him a 2-0 lead in the first inning when Fred Lewis singled, Ishikawa shot a double past first base, Juan Uribe grounded out to score Lewis and, with two outs, Emmanuel Burriss lined an 0-2 pitch from Jordan Zimmermann up the middle for a single.
Burriss and Aaron Rowand contributed excellent defensive plays, and the Johnson made a nice play of his own as he hurt his shoulder in the sixth inning. He knocked down Anderson Hernandez's leadoff grounder, chased the ball as it rolled to the right side and made a barehanded flip to Ishikawa as his 6-foot-10 body hit the turf.
Alberto Gonzalez, the next hitter, reached on an error by Edgar Renteria, who gloved a routine grounder and threw a slider to Ishikawa at first. The error was costly, as Nick Johnson then doubled to the gap in right-center and Gonzalez scored.
But the Unit preserved his 2-1 lead by retiring Ryan Zimmerman and Dunn, his last hitter on his momentous night.
"It just goes to show you what these great athletes are capable of doing when they put their mind to it," Bochy said. "He set his mind on 300 wins - I don't know when - and he did it."
Giants' Johnson wins No. 300
Henry Schulman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 5, 2009
Washington -- As Randy Johnson hugged his teammates and family in a cool late-spring drizzle, he understood he was relishing a feeling that only 23 other men in baseball have enjoyed. Many of those pitchers, some he knows personally, some just regal names in the lore of the game, were on his mind as he celebrated his 300th win Thursday night.
As difficult as this careerlong accomplishment was, Johnson said, others accomplished so much more. With age comes the perspective that while he resides in baseball's highest aerie, he does not live there alone.
"It sounds funny," Johnson said after his 300th win came in a 5-1 victory against the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader, "but I've played 21, 22 years. I'm 45 and I've come upon 300 wins and I'm thinking, 'I only have 211 more to catch Cy Young.' "
The Big Unit was raised in Livermore, cut his teeth as a Montreal Expo, became a star as a Seattle Mariner and won a championship as an Arizona Diamondback. All of that, though, was relegated to the musty pages of a history book when he wrote a defining chapter at Nationals Park and joined the 300-win club as its sixth left-hander.
Johnson pitched six dominating innings before leaving with a bruised shoulder caused when he hit the turf to grab a ball and fling it to first baseman Travis Ishikawa for the first out of the sixth inning - "my senior moment when I thought I was only 25," Johnson joked. Manager Bruce Bochy said Johnson is not expected to miss a start.
The Unit retreated to the clubhouse to watch Brandon Medders, Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson get through the seventh and eighth innings then returned to the dugout to watch Wilson finish the ninth.
The game was far more tense than the final score. The Giants led 2-1 until they added three runs in the ninth inning, on a two-run double by Randy Winn and a Pablo Sandoval sacrifice fly.
Lisa Johnson surely spoke for her husband in the dugout and Giants fans the world over when she said, "It was a little scary for a while. I liked having those extra few runs."
Johnson became the first pitcher since Tom Seaver in 1985 to earn his 300th win on his first try. He also became the second-oldest pitcher to win 300, at 45 years and 267 days. Phil Niekro was the oldest at 46 years, 188 days.
The milestone occurred in front of a few thousand fans in a chilly gloom between storms, with a large contingent of ticket holders behind the visiting dugout rising and cheering for every positive Giants development. They included Johnson's wife and daughters Samantha, Willow and Lexi. His 13-year-old son, Tanner, served as a batboy and seemed more nervous than Dad during the ninth.
Randy Johnson sat stoically in the dugout, cracking a smile only when some fans started chanting his name, as Tanner nearly pulverized the baseball he was holding.
When Wilson struck out Wil Nieves to end it, Johnson emerged from the dugout and hugged his teammates in the handshake line. He seemed emotional as he hugged his children and tipped his cap to the sparse crowd before heading into the clubhouse, where the celebration was muted for obvious reasons.
"We're in a doubleheader right now," Bochy said. "It's hard to toast him when there's another game to play. We'll get to that point soon enough."
So Johnson munched on some pizza before walking into a news conference. Catcher Bengie Molina had handed him the ball from the final out, and Johnson handed it to his wife in the front row before he tried to describe his feelings.
He thanked the hundreds of teammates who helped him win each of those 300 games, acknowledged that this was special in light of the back injuries that nearly derailed his career and expressed relief that he did not prolong the wait.
"Some of the guys in the locker room have seen a lot in the last few years with Barry (Bonds') accomplishments and this accomplishment," he said. "I think I'm happy that it happened early enough. Like I said all along, I'm not here just to win five games. I'm here to help turn this team around."
Nobody can accuse Johnson of backing into his 300th win. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and left after allowing one unearned run on two hits with 78 pitches thrown.
Then, he needed a controversial call from home-plate umpire Tim Timmons to preserve the win.
The Giants still led 2-1 in the eighth inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, Timmons called strike three on a 3-2 Wilson fastball to Adam Dunn on a pitch that looked low. Ball four would have tied the game and given the Unit a no-decision.
"You really don't want to see a 300th win lost on a walk," Wilson said. "Nor did I want to see it."
Dunn argued with Timmons over the pitch, but Wilson, smiling, said, "I liked it. It worked out. I pretty much just wanted to throw it down the middle and see what he could do with it."
The Giants then scored their three precious insurance runs, and Wilson struck out the side in the ninth for his 13th save. He has saved all five of Johnson's wins this year.
Johnson's teammates presented him a 2-0 lead in the first inning when Fred Lewis singled, Ishikawa shot a double past first base, Juan Uribe grounded out to score Lewis and, with two outs, Emmanuel Burriss lined an 0-2 pitch from Jordan Zimmermann up the middle for a single.
Burriss and Aaron Rowand contributed excellent defensive plays, and the Johnson made a nice play of his own as he hurt his shoulder in the sixth inning. He knocked down Anderson Hernandez's leadoff grounder, chased the ball as it rolled to the right side and made a barehanded flip to Ishikawa as his 6-foot-10 body hit the turf.
Alberto Gonzalez, the next hitter, reached on an error by Edgar Renteria, who gloved a routine grounder and threw a slider to Ishikawa at first. The error was costly, as Nick Johnson then doubled to the gap in right-center and Gonzalez scored.
But the Unit preserved his 2-1 lead by retiring Ryan Zimmerman and Dunn, his last hitter on his momentous night.
"It just goes to show you what these great athletes are capable of doing when they put their mind to it," Bochy said. "He set his mind on 300 wins - I don't know when - and he did it."
Whitney Houston's new album due in September
http://new.music.yahoo.com/whitney-houston/news/whitney-houstons-new-album-due-in-september--61989537
Whitney Houston's new album due in September
AP, Jun 4, 2009
The date for Whitney Houston's comeback has been set. Arista Records says her long-awaited album will be released Sept. 1. Houston hasn't released a CD in seven years.
So far, there's no word on a title for the album.
The 45-year-old superstar is one of the best-selling artists of all-time, but in recent years, she's been defined more by drug problems, marital woes and erratic behavior than by her Grammy-winning voice.
But lately, Houston has appeared to return to her pop princess form. She wowed the crowd when she performed at her mentor Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party in February.
On the Net:
http://www.whitneyhouston.com
Whitney Houston's new album due in September
AP, Jun 4, 2009
The date for Whitney Houston's comeback has been set. Arista Records says her long-awaited album will be released Sept. 1. Houston hasn't released a CD in seven years.
So far, there's no word on a title for the album.
The 45-year-old superstar is one of the best-selling artists of all-time, but in recent years, she's been defined more by drug problems, marital woes and erratic behavior than by her Grammy-winning voice.
But lately, Houston has appeared to return to her pop princess form. She wowed the crowd when she performed at her mentor Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party in February.
On the Net:
http://www.whitneyhouston.com
The yin-yang of David Carradine
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-carradine5-2009jun05,0,5358019.storyThe yin-yang of David Carradine
He seemed at once calm and explosive.
By Reed Johnson
June 5, 2009
As an actor, and possibly as a human being, David Carradine was a walking yin-yang symbol, a bundle of opposites tightly stitched together.
As a younger man, his lean, taut frame suggested both graceful self-possession and a capacity for explosive violence. Several of his best roles, both in film and television, cast him as a thinking-person's action hero, poised in perpetual tension between contemplative inner peace and outward aggression and hostility.
In his most iconic role, Kwai Chang Caine, the philosophy-spouting, butt-kicking hero of ABC's drama "Kung Fu" (1972-75), he played a half-Chinese man who was raised by Shaolin monks. On the lam in the American Old West, in search of his half-brother, Caine (like his biblical namesake) was a man divided against himself: a soft-spoken, flute-playing martial arts demon; a wandering loner who reached deep into prairie folks' souls by uttering Zen-like paradoxes.
The show caught the tenor of its times. It arrived toward the tail-end of the hippie counterculture movement, when Americans were questioning "Establishment" authority and dabbling in Eastern mysticism, reading books such as Robert Pirsig's novel, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." A year earlier, the cult film "Billy Jack" had fused karate-macho antics with the figure of a rebellious antihero.
Caine, a kind of bareheaded, bare-footed, 19th century beatnik poet, reflected a national mood of vague spiritual yearning, mixed with unease over the durability of Western values, and partially prompted by the United States' dispiriting experience with the Vietnam War.
Three decades later, Quentin Tarantino would seize on Carradine's dualistic (and dueling) star persona when he cast him as the title character in "Kill Bill." The sprawling, two-part epic drew on Hong Kong martial arts movies and Italian spaghetti westerns, and was shaped by contrasting Eastern and Western notions of the aesthetics and metaphysics of violence.
The actor, who made more than 100 films over a more than 40-year career, was found dead on June 3 in his hotel room in Bangkok, where he had been on location shooting a movie. Details remain murky. Police reported that the actor had been found by a hotel maid, dead in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck and body. But Carradine's manager said the actor had died of natural causes.
A member of the dynastic Carradine acting clan, which also includes family patriarch John Carradine and half-siblings Keith and Robert, David Carradine studied music and served in the Army before taking up stage acting. He landed his first bit-part film role in an adaptation of Louis L'Amour's western novel "Taggart."
Carradine's rugged, hard-to-place features and his terse, sometimes laconic manner gave him the ability to be cast in roles as varied as Caine, folk troubadour Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby's "Bound for Glory" (1976), and as a renegade driver in Paul Bartel's 1975 apocalyptic thriller “Death Race 2000,” which prefigured George Miller's "Mad Max" films.
Destructive impulses, and the individual's struggle to master them and bend them toward good, was a recurring motif in Carradine's film and TV roles. Good men, in Carradine's acting universe, may harbor brutal instincts and yield to primitive reflexes. Bad men, despite their flaws, may adhere to their own rigid, if twisted, codes of honor.
In Walter Hill's 1980 western “The Long Riders,”, Carradine was cast with his brothers Keith and Robert as members of the outlaw Younger gang. The movie included a memorable scene in which Carradine squares off in a saloon knife fight, a riveting piece of cinematic choreography that invited viewers simply to enjoy the actor's physicality and calculated stoicism.
Carradine could evince a very convincing, sinewy toughness, one that he used in other roles to memorable effect. Caine's gently quizzical manner had been replaced by an insinuating, softly menacing voice and a hard stare. You wouldn't want to mess with this guy.
Carradine's martial arts proficiency was largely faked in "Kung Fu." But the actor later took up these skills and even turned out a video series in martial arts training that he produced and starred in. In fact, Carradine dined out on this martial-arts-guru image for years, even deploying it for tongue-in-cheek television commercials. And while his résumé kept growing, many of his late-career roles were forgettable lower-end features.
Married five times, Carradine had a personal life as volatile as any of his film roles. One reviewer described Carradine's autobiography, "Endless Highway," as a "dreary catalog of human disaster," i.e. the actor's own life. Characteristically candid in public -- sometimes disarmingly, sometimes abrasively -- he acknowledged struggling with both drug and alcohol abuse.
His complex nature flared up in public this spring during an American Cinematheque screening and discussion of "Bound for Glory," at which Carradine got into an extended shouting match with audience members and Haskell Wexler, the esteemed cinematographer who won an Oscar for "Bound for Glory." According to a lengthy account of the evening by entertainment writer Chris Willman, Carradine lashed out against labor unions and publicly berated Wexler for making "Bound for Glory" look too beautiful.
"I would have said, turn up the contrast, show the grit under the fingernails, don't make any beauty about it, make it [expletive] ugly," Willman quotes Carradine declaring to the stunned audience and the visibly (and understandably) infuriated Wexler.
Carradine will be remembered for his grittiness, to be sure, but also for imparting a certain strange beauty to ugly acts and dark arts.
reed.johnson@latimes.com
Conspiracy Convention Raises Web of Theories
http://www.metroactive.com/metro/06.03.09/alleys-0922.html
Silicon Alleys
Conspiracy Convention Raises Web of Theories in Santa Clara
By Gary Singh
06.03.09
WITH CELEBRATORY TALK about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock reverberating throughout the land, no one seems to be bringing up the darker side of that era, especially since August will also mark the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders. There exist several local connections I could perhaps explore: Charles Manson spent time in San Jose on his way from the Haight-Ashbury to Los Angeles; Susan Atkins, a.k.a. Sadie, spent part of her childhood in Cambrian Park and, like me, went to Leigh High School; and local Homestead alumnus-turned–conspiracy theorist Jeffrey Deane Turner claims that factions of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, to which Manson may have had connections, eventually morphed into a more secret and sinister operation with tentacles still operating here in the South Bay. Whether or not there's any such thing as an accident — and since the Conspiracy Convention 2009 just happens to hit the Santa Clara Convention Center this weekend — I think I must probe a few seemingly connected spheres of influence. I originally met Turner in order to consider his claims that '60s sexpot Tuesday Weld is a descendant in a bloodline of druidic witches who indoctrinated her into the Illuminati, with whom she secretly unleashed nearly everything we currently know about the '60s counterculture. According to Turner, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, the Who and many more were actually Weld's secret protégés, functioning as entertainment-industry fronts in her elaborately networked battle against the both the worldwide fascist network and another secret society, the All Nations Group, puppeteered by '80s pop star Tiffany.
I was introduced to Turner by his pal Douglas Hawes, a San Jose native who had appeared with Turner on Untamed Dimensions, an Internet radio show hosted by freelance investigative journalist Adam Gorightly. Originally writing for Steamshovel Press, Gorightly had been the first to break the story of Turner's paradigm-shattering claims. The essay, "Tiffany Overtakes Tuesday Weld," later appeared in Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History Into the 21st Century (Feral House), as well as Gorightly's own compendium, The Beast of Adam Gorightly: Collected Rantings (1992–2004). Gorightly will infiltrate Silicon Valley this weekend to cover Conspiracy Con 2009 for Paranoia Magazine. He will also be hawking an updated version of his book The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos, to be released Aug. 8 by Creation Books, just in time for the 40th anniversary. According to the hype, it takes "readers on a black magic carpet ride from the Hollywood 'Beautiful People' scene of the late '60s through to the vast desert landscapes of a Death Valley gone mad—;with all the love-ins and murderous creepy-crawls that happened along the way." The book contains all the time-tested free-form 666-degrees-of-separation-alia: Manson's connection to the Beach Boys, the Hollywood S&M scene in the '60s, UFOs, Sammy Davis Jr.'s involvement in the Church of Satan, the Beatles' White Album, the Second Coming of Christ, Yul Brynner, the CIA and good old-fashioned satanic hippie love. The updated version contains new information on the possible whereabouts of Steve Grogan, a.k.a. "Clem," the only Manson Family member who was actually released from prison.
And getting back to the Process Church, Feral House will soon release Love Sex Fear Death: The Inside Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, written by former church member Timothy Wyllie. Judging by publisher Adam Parfrey's foreword, it looks to provide a more rational, thinking man's approach to the whole ball of wax, disproving the more hysterical fear-fueled sensationalism previously written on this cult.
How's that for a few meaningful coincidences? Seems like more sleuthing is in order, methinks. In the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path."
Silicon Alleys
Conspiracy Convention Raises Web of Theories in Santa Clara
By Gary Singh
06.03.09
WITH CELEBRATORY TALK about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock reverberating throughout the land, no one seems to be bringing up the darker side of that era, especially since August will also mark the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders. There exist several local connections I could perhaps explore: Charles Manson spent time in San Jose on his way from the Haight-Ashbury to Los Angeles; Susan Atkins, a.k.a. Sadie, spent part of her childhood in Cambrian Park and, like me, went to Leigh High School; and local Homestead alumnus-turned–conspiracy theorist Jeffrey Deane Turner claims that factions of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, to which Manson may have had connections, eventually morphed into a more secret and sinister operation with tentacles still operating here in the South Bay. Whether or not there's any such thing as an accident — and since the Conspiracy Convention 2009 just happens to hit the Santa Clara Convention Center this weekend — I think I must probe a few seemingly connected spheres of influence. I originally met Turner in order to consider his claims that '60s sexpot Tuesday Weld is a descendant in a bloodline of druidic witches who indoctrinated her into the Illuminati, with whom she secretly unleashed nearly everything we currently know about the '60s counterculture. According to Turner, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, the Who and many more were actually Weld's secret protégés, functioning as entertainment-industry fronts in her elaborately networked battle against the both the worldwide fascist network and another secret society, the All Nations Group, puppeteered by '80s pop star Tiffany.
I was introduced to Turner by his pal Douglas Hawes, a San Jose native who had appeared with Turner on Untamed Dimensions, an Internet radio show hosted by freelance investigative journalist Adam Gorightly. Originally writing for Steamshovel Press, Gorightly had been the first to break the story of Turner's paradigm-shattering claims. The essay, "Tiffany Overtakes Tuesday Weld," later appeared in Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History Into the 21st Century (Feral House), as well as Gorightly's own compendium, The Beast of Adam Gorightly: Collected Rantings (1992–2004). Gorightly will infiltrate Silicon Valley this weekend to cover Conspiracy Con 2009 for Paranoia Magazine. He will also be hawking an updated version of his book The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos, to be released Aug. 8 by Creation Books, just in time for the 40th anniversary. According to the hype, it takes "readers on a black magic carpet ride from the Hollywood 'Beautiful People' scene of the late '60s through to the vast desert landscapes of a Death Valley gone mad—;with all the love-ins and murderous creepy-crawls that happened along the way." The book contains all the time-tested free-form 666-degrees-of-separation-alia: Manson's connection to the Beach Boys, the Hollywood S&M scene in the '60s, UFOs, Sammy Davis Jr.'s involvement in the Church of Satan, the Beatles' White Album, the Second Coming of Christ, Yul Brynner, the CIA and good old-fashioned satanic hippie love. The updated version contains new information on the possible whereabouts of Steve Grogan, a.k.a. "Clem," the only Manson Family member who was actually released from prison.
And getting back to the Process Church, Feral House will soon release Love Sex Fear Death: The Inside Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, written by former church member Timothy Wyllie. Judging by publisher Adam Parfrey's foreword, it looks to provide a more rational, thinking man's approach to the whole ball of wax, disproving the more hysterical fear-fueled sensationalism previously written on this cult.
How's that for a few meaningful coincidences? Seems like more sleuthing is in order, methinks. In the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path."
Project Censored is in a major transition year...
June 5, 2009
Dear Friends of Project Censored,
Project Censored is in a major transition year and we need your support to continue and to expand our work of bringing forth the most important news stories that the corporate mainstream media fails to cover.
Effective July 1, 2009, Dr. Ben Frymer will assume responsibility for the Project Censored work at Sonoma State University.
Dr. Frymer has a Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA and is a professor in Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University. He will be working with our students, faculty and staff to produce the annual Censored yearbooks of the most important under covered news stories in the US http://www.projectcensored.org/.
In addition to training over 100 university students annually, we are doing many important activities that support media democracy, open-transparent news, and the public’s right to know what is being done in our name.
Because of Project Censored’s work millions of people are aware of the massive death rates of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (Story #1, 2009) and the continuing undermining of American civil liberties (Story #1, 2008). You will soon see the emerging stories for the Censored 2010 yearbook. The list includes how $3.2 billion was spent on lobbying Congress in 2008, and how the Obama administration, despite contrary campaign promises, is continuing much of the same global military agenda we saw the last eight years.
Eight years ago the Project Censored team formed the Media Freedom Foundation (MFF) to serve as a 501-c-3 non-profit corporation for the perpetuation of Project Censored’s work. The Board of Directors of Media Freedom Foundation recently held a quarterly board meeting and set out plans to continue to prioritize fund raising for Project Censored at Sonoma State University, and to also support the creation of Media Freedom International with affiliate Colleges/Universities all over the world modeled after Project Censored.
May 9, 2009, Media Freedom Foundation Board of Directors (B) and PC Staff (S): Left to Right: Cynthia Boaz-B, Dennis Bernstein-B, Adam Armstrong-S-Web, Mary Lia-B, Peter Phillips-B, Ben Frymer-B, Trish Boreta-S, Carl Jensen-B, Kate Sims-S, Gary Evans-B, Mickey Huff-B, Miguel Molina-B, Bill Simon-B, Board members not shown: Noel Byrne, Judith Volkart, and David Mathison.
We will soon be launching the new Media Freedom International (MFI) website http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/ that will feature daily news validated by college/university research teams. Presently we know that only 5% of college students under 30 read a daily newspaper. Most young people get all their news from corporate television, and increasingly from the Internet. One of the biggest problems with independent media sources on the Internet is that people are often suspicious of the truthfulness and accuracy of news postings from non-corporate media sources. We will address this problem by having hundreds of university professors and students research and validate news stories and sources to reinsure Internet users of the trustworthiness of stories and sites. We are already on our way with over 30 affiliate colleges participating. College instructors who would like to include their students in this process should contact us at censored@sonoma.edu. Together, we can make a difference.
You may already be aware of our daily Validated Independents News (VIN) feeds on our website from nineteen trustworthy news sources http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources. Or just click on the PNN button, which can also be accessed from the PC homepage http://projectcensored.org to see daily VIN news.
We are already producing a weekly VIN radio news program airing on the Flashpoints program on KPFA and numerous other stations every Friday at 5:00 P.M. PST.
After 13 years, I am transitioning from being Project Censored director to taking a more active role with Mickey Huff http://www.dvc.edu/biopage/MHuff/ in coordinating our college affiliate Media Freedom International VIN efforts.
I would like to personally ask each one of you to consider making a special gift of support. Our collective efforts require us to raise $50,000 per year through donor appeals, and special fund raising events. Your continuing support is needed to make this transition year a success and continue this work for freedom of information.
We have set a fund raising target of $25,000 for the next five weeks. You can donate and watch our progress towards that goal on-line at http://projectcensored.org. If we are able to raise $25,000 twice a year from you, our supporters, with our other resources—book royalties, special events, speaking fees, direct Censored yearbook sales, web advertising & sales, instructional related activities fees, and the occasional foundation grant—we will be able to sustain and expand our work for years to come.
Please consider making a special gift to support this important work in difficult times. Any amount is perfectly fine. Our average donation is $30. But for this special fund drive anyone gifting $100 or more, will receive an autographed copy of Censored 2010 by the end of the summer signed to you by the editors, Mickey Huff and myself. A free media with open public information brings back the old saying of the 1960s—Power to the People. We know you agree.
Sincerely,
Peter Phillips and Project Censored 2009
Mail Tax Deductible Checks to:
Media Freedom Foundation
P.O. Box 571
Cotati, CA 94931
Dear Friends of Project Censored,
Project Censored is in a major transition year and we need your support to continue and to expand our work of bringing forth the most important news stories that the corporate mainstream media fails to cover.
Effective July 1, 2009, Dr. Ben Frymer will assume responsibility for the Project Censored work at Sonoma State University.
Dr. Frymer has a Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA and is a professor in Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University. He will be working with our students, faculty and staff to produce the annual Censored yearbooks of the most important under covered news stories in the US http://www.projectcensored.org/.
In addition to training over 100 university students annually, we are doing many important activities that support media democracy, open-transparent news, and the public’s right to know what is being done in our name.
Because of Project Censored’s work millions of people are aware of the massive death rates of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (Story #1, 2009) and the continuing undermining of American civil liberties (Story #1, 2008). You will soon see the emerging stories for the Censored 2010 yearbook. The list includes how $3.2 billion was spent on lobbying Congress in 2008, and how the Obama administration, despite contrary campaign promises, is continuing much of the same global military agenda we saw the last eight years.
Eight years ago the Project Censored team formed the Media Freedom Foundation (MFF) to serve as a 501-c-3 non-profit corporation for the perpetuation of Project Censored’s work. The Board of Directors of Media Freedom Foundation recently held a quarterly board meeting and set out plans to continue to prioritize fund raising for Project Censored at Sonoma State University, and to also support the creation of Media Freedom International with affiliate Colleges/Universities all over the world modeled after Project Censored.
May 9, 2009, Media Freedom Foundation Board of Directors (B) and PC Staff (S): Left to Right: Cynthia Boaz-B, Dennis Bernstein-B, Adam Armstrong-S-Web, Mary Lia-B, Peter Phillips-B, Ben Frymer-B, Trish Boreta-S, Carl Jensen-B, Kate Sims-S, Gary Evans-B, Mickey Huff-B, Miguel Molina-B, Bill Simon-B, Board members not shown: Noel Byrne, Judith Volkart, and David Mathison.
We will soon be launching the new Media Freedom International (MFI) website http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/ that will feature daily news validated by college/university research teams. Presently we know that only 5% of college students under 30 read a daily newspaper. Most young people get all their news from corporate television, and increasingly from the Internet. One of the biggest problems with independent media sources on the Internet is that people are often suspicious of the truthfulness and accuracy of news postings from non-corporate media sources. We will address this problem by having hundreds of university professors and students research and validate news stories and sources to reinsure Internet users of the trustworthiness of stories and sites. We are already on our way with over 30 affiliate colleges participating. College instructors who would like to include their students in this process should contact us at censored@sonoma.edu. Together, we can make a difference.
You may already be aware of our daily Validated Independents News (VIN) feeds on our website from nineteen trustworthy news sources http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources. Or just click on the PNN button, which can also be accessed from the PC homepage http://projectcensored.org to see daily VIN news.
We are already producing a weekly VIN radio news program airing on the Flashpoints program on KPFA and numerous other stations every Friday at 5:00 P.M. PST.
After 13 years, I am transitioning from being Project Censored director to taking a more active role with Mickey Huff http://www.dvc.edu/biopage/MHuff/ in coordinating our college affiliate Media Freedom International VIN efforts.
I would like to personally ask each one of you to consider making a special gift of support. Our collective efforts require us to raise $50,000 per year through donor appeals, and special fund raising events. Your continuing support is needed to make this transition year a success and continue this work for freedom of information.
We have set a fund raising target of $25,000 for the next five weeks. You can donate and watch our progress towards that goal on-line at http://projectcensored.org. If we are able to raise $25,000 twice a year from you, our supporters, with our other resources—book royalties, special events, speaking fees, direct Censored yearbook sales, web advertising & sales, instructional related activities fees, and the occasional foundation grant—we will be able to sustain and expand our work for years to come.
Please consider making a special gift to support this important work in difficult times. Any amount is perfectly fine. Our average donation is $30. But for this special fund drive anyone gifting $100 or more, will receive an autographed copy of Censored 2010 by the end of the summer signed to you by the editors, Mickey Huff and myself. A free media with open public information brings back the old saying of the 1960s—Power to the People. We know you agree.
Sincerely,
Peter Phillips and Project Censored 2009
Mail Tax Deductible Checks to:
Media Freedom Foundation
P.O. Box 571
Cotati, CA 94931