http://abcnews.go.com/Business/BusinessTravel/story?id=3543005&page=1
The New Mile-High Club: Forget the Hotel Room
Airlines Race to Upgrade Lie-Flat Seats and TVs and Even Add Private Rooms
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ABC News Business Unit
Aug. 31, 2007 —
For most of us, the thought of flying conjures images of long lines, cramped seats and questionable food choices if we are lucky enough to get some food.
But for those who can afford it, airlines are going out of their way to add amenities in their first-class and business-class cabins. New seats, new entertainment systems and a bevy of additional services unheard of just a few years ago are popping up as airlines battle each other for lucrative customers.
Welcome to the latest round of airline seat wars.
International airlines have long prided themselves on having an extra level of service. But now some American carriers, fearing that they might lose some of their most-profitable customers, are starting to step up their own efforts.
In October 2006, Delta announced its intention to be the first U.S. carrier to offer lie-flat seats in its international business class. American Airlines introduced its plans for upgraded seats in March of this year and United unveiled its plans last month.
United's "First Suite" offers a 180-degree lie-flat seat, a five-course meal, a laptop power source, a personal video screen with nine channels and a videotape player with a choice of 14 feature films.
Sound nice right?
Yes, but it is nothing compared to what some international carriers are doing.
Emirates Airlines plans to spend $50 million in the next 18 months to upgrade its first-class product. Its new in-flight entertainment system, which will also be available in coach, will offer more than 600 channels of entertainment on demand. First-class screens will be a whopping 23 inches.
Singapore Airlines has a news system called KrisWorld. Passengers can choose from 100 movies, 150 television shows, 700 CDs, 22 radio stations and 65 games.
Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst and consultant in Port Washington, N.Y., said that airlines are putting their money where the profit is. On some routes, a first-class ticket can go for $10,000 or more. Airlines will do anything to attract those types of customers.
That said, Mann is still not convinced that it is the best business model for airlines all the games, videos and toys are nice, but they are not what the business traveler needs.
"You didn't go to play, you went to work," Mann said.
As for the beds, Mann believes that they "give you the appearance" that you will get a good night's sleep and be fresh for your meeting. But that it's still not a great night's sleep.
The airlines choose to roll out their best amenities on the most-profitable routes.
"It's basically the very, very long hauls and the very, very deep pockets," Mann said.
That means flights to the world's financial markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, London and Paris.
The latest trend is to go to big pods with privacy screens or even private rooms with sliding doors.
"It's everything that an airplane doesn't want to be. These things are incredibly heavy. They are cumbersome," Mann said. "It guess it's exclusivity. I think first-class gets you there, but I guess some people think you need to go to walls until you really get it."
Change Takes Time
Upgrading seats is not an easy task.
First, an airline has to come up with a concept and design it, but designing something for an airplane has many extra hurdles. Cost and size are factors, but so is weight and compatibility with the rest of the aircraft's systems.
Airplane seats also need to clear a rigorous set of flammability and safety tests.
It can then take several months or even more than a year to manufacture the seats.
But even once the airline gets the seats it doesn't mean passengers will immediately see the benefits.
Airlines only make money when their planes are in the sky so they prefer to upgrade seats and other amenities only when an aircraft comes in for its routine maintenance. That means it can take months for new seats to appear throughout an airline's fleet.
Joe Ferry, the head of design for Virgin Atlantic, said a constant struggle when designing new seats is to make sure that there are still the same number of paying passengers in a section.
"It's easy to just take off seats and give them more space," Ferry said.
But it isn't that easy.
When Ferry and his team of 15 designers work on a new concept, they test ideas with the flight crew and with some of their frequent fliers.
The seat must also go through rigorous crash tests, flammability tests and a list of other checkoffs.
Virgin's upper-class service - something it calls a first-class product at a business-class price - is not just about being comfortable, but about being hip. There are sharp colors on the plane, massages, meals on demand and for customers who don't want to spend the entire flight in their seats, there is a bar on its 747s to mingle at.
So how much does Virgin watch out for its competition's latest products?
"We keep an eye on what they are doing," Ferry said, "but it certainly doesn't dictate what we're doing because we like to think we're so much further in advance of all the other airlines that our own driving factor should be ourselves."
The Next Step?
Singapore Airlines, one of the leaders in service and amenities, used to upgrade its seats every seven years or so.
"That cycle has become shorter," said James Boyd, vice president of public relations for the airline.
The airline has new seats on its long-haul routes such as New York-to-Singapore or Los Angeles-to-Singapore - the longest distance and duration flights available today.
But many airline watchers are waiting for Oct. 15 when Singapore takes delivery of the first Airbus A-380.
Boyd won't say much about it except that "this is going to be a complete rethink of air travel."
Airbus recommends installing 555 seats on the new jumbo jet. Singapore will have fewer than 480.
But there's more to a flight than a good seat. Singapore Airlines prides itself on its service.
While most airline flight attendants undergo six weeks of training, Singapore Airlines has a five-month program. It is so rigorous, Boyd said, that only 10 percent of those who apply graduate from the training.
The Ego Play
Mann said when it comes down to it, "I don't think anybody really chooses" an airline because of the amenities.
"They're really chosen because they're the only guys that fly nonstop to Doha or Dubai or wherever it may be," he said. "You're buying based upon nonstop service and to some degree global [frequent flier] alliance affiliation."
Some of the newer Middle-Eastern airlines, such as Qatar Airways and Emirates, are "spending a ton on image," Mann said.
"There's some ego stuff involved here. It is a highly visible industry. If you're going to try to play in a game where you expect people to drop $10,000 one way to fly some place, you really have to have - at least what you think - is a top quality product," he said.
But the irony of all of this is that the people who buy these sorts of tickets are opting out of the scheduled airline system all together, according to Mann. Instead they are buying time on private jets where they don't have to deal with airport security, lost baggage or lengthy delays at major airports.
"What [the airlines are] really trying to do," Mann said, "is make a last gasp at people who are on the fence ready to jump for the business jet."
Monday, September 3, 2007
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus29aug29,1,4499027.column?coll=la-utilities-business
From the Los Angeles Times
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T
David Lazarus
Consumer Confidential
August 29, 2007
It's the end of time, at least as far as AT&T is concerned.
The brief note in customers' bills hardly does justice to the momentousness of the decision. "Service withdrawal," it blandly declares. "Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued."
What that means is that people throughout Southern California will no longer be able to call 853-1212 to hear a woman's recorded voice state that "at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be . . ." with the recording automatically updating at 10-second intervals.
"Times change," said John Britton, an AT&T spokesman. "In today's world, there are just too many other ways to get this information. You can look at your cellphone or your computer. You no longer have to pick up the telephone."
Indeed, time already has stopped in 48 other states, he said. California and Nevada are the two remaining holdouts.
In Northern California, the prefix for calling time is 767, or P-O-P on a telephone keypad. For decades, locals up there have dialed POPCORN any time they have had to reset their watches or reprogram electronic gadgets after a power failure.
"In California, our equipment has gotten old," Britton said. "It's reached the end of its life span."
Time's up statewide Sept. 19. Britton said Nevada service would live on borrowed time for an unspecified period, until the equipment in that state similarly starts breaking down.
One upside: AT&T says doing away with time would enable the creation of about 300,000 new phone numbers in California beginning with the 853 or 767 prefixes. (No such numbers have been issued to date because, when coupled with any four other digits, you get time.)
To be sure, time marches on. Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteelera, when we all had time to share.
"It was always there," said Orlo Brown, 70, who for many years kept Pacific Bell's (and subsequently SBC's) time machines running in a downtown Los Angeles office building. "Everybody knew the number."
Richard Frenkiel was assigned to work on the time machines when he joined Bell Labs in the early 1960s. He described the devices as large drums about 2 feet in diameter, with as many as 100 album-like audio tracks on the exterior. Whenever someone called time, the drums would start turning and a message would begin, with different tracks mixed together on the fly.
"The people who worked on it took it very seriously," Frenkiel, 64, recalled. "They took a lot of pride in it."
In a twist of historical irony, Frenkiel went on to play a leading role in development of the technology that makes cellphones possible -- the very device that's now instrumental in killing time.
Phone companies have been providing the time to callers since the 1920s. In the early days, live operators read the time off clocks on the wall.
In the 1930s, an Atlanta company called Audichron devised a system for the time to be provided automatically. Audichron leased its technology to phone companies nationwide, often with sponsorship from local businesses.
Time ladies -- and a few gentlemen -- came and went over the years. Then, in the 1950s, a woman named Mary Moore emerged as the nation's leading time-teller.
Her reading of hours, minutes and seconds was delivered in a distinctive if somewhat prissy tone. Moore's odd pronunciation of the numbers 5 ("fiyev") and 9 ("niyun") influenced a generation of operators, much as flying ace Chuck Yeager's West Virginia drawl is said to have been adopted by innumerable airline pilots.
By far the most prominent time lady was Jane Barbe, who succeeded Moore at Audichron in the 1960s. A former big band singer, Barbe (pronounced "Barbie") went on to become the voice of recorded telephone messages in the 1970s and '80s in the United States and elsewhere.
Along with her interpretations of the time and current temperature, Barbe delivered the bad news too, telling you that circuits in a specific area were busy, please try again later, or that your call cannot be completed as dialed.
And who will ever forget her heartbreaking rendition of "I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service"?
Barbe died of cancer-related complications in 2003 at age 74. It's estimated that at the height of her fame, Barbe's voice was heard worldwide about 40 million times a day.
AT&T's Britton said the company started using Audichron's machines in 1948 and then switched to a different system manufactured by rival Weatherchron, also of Atlanta, in the 1960s. He was unable to identify the current time lady, saying that perhaps no one at AT&T knows who she is.
Ellis Bryant, the 83-year-old president of Weatherchron, also was unsure whose voice Californians hear when they call time. So he dialed 853-1212 and listened to the recording.
"Oh, that's Joanne," Bryant said without hesitation. "Joanne Daniels. No doubt about it."
He said Daniels started recording the time for Weatherchron about 25 years ago. At some point after Pacific Bell switched to his company's system, Daniels became California's time lady.
Reached at her Atlanta home, Daniels, 65, estimated that her reach was once nearly as extensive as that of Barbe, who was a friend. Daniels is now retired.
"I've done the time in many areas -- Eastern Standard Time, central time, Pacific time," she said. "The fun part was doing the temperatures for places like Alaska."
Daniels switched to her professional voice, her soft Southern accent instantly vanishing. "At the tone," she said, "the temperature is minus 12 degrees." She laughed and her accent returned. "I liked that."
No one had told her that AT&T was about to stop time.
"I think that's very sad," Daniels said. "I was told at one time that my voice would last until well into the 21st century. Now it looks like I'm about to be laid to rest."
When that day comes, Daniels said, she knows what her epitaph will be: "She knew the time."
Consumer Confidential runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Send tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
From the Los Angeles Times
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T
David Lazarus
Consumer Confidential
August 29, 2007
It's the end of time, at least as far as AT&T is concerned.
The brief note in customers' bills hardly does justice to the momentousness of the decision. "Service withdrawal," it blandly declares. "Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued."
What that means is that people throughout Southern California will no longer be able to call 853-1212 to hear a woman's recorded voice state that "at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be . . ." with the recording automatically updating at 10-second intervals.
"Times change," said John Britton, an AT&T spokesman. "In today's world, there are just too many other ways to get this information. You can look at your cellphone or your computer. You no longer have to pick up the telephone."
Indeed, time already has stopped in 48 other states, he said. California and Nevada are the two remaining holdouts.
In Northern California, the prefix for calling time is 767, or P-O-P on a telephone keypad. For decades, locals up there have dialed POPCORN any time they have had to reset their watches or reprogram electronic gadgets after a power failure.
"In California, our equipment has gotten old," Britton said. "It's reached the end of its life span."
Time's up statewide Sept. 19. Britton said Nevada service would live on borrowed time for an unspecified period, until the equipment in that state similarly starts breaking down.
One upside: AT&T says doing away with time would enable the creation of about 300,000 new phone numbers in California beginning with the 853 or 767 prefixes. (No such numbers have been issued to date because, when coupled with any four other digits, you get time.)
To be sure, time marches on. Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteelera, when we all had time to share.
"It was always there," said Orlo Brown, 70, who for many years kept Pacific Bell's (and subsequently SBC's) time machines running in a downtown Los Angeles office building. "Everybody knew the number."
Richard Frenkiel was assigned to work on the time machines when he joined Bell Labs in the early 1960s. He described the devices as large drums about 2 feet in diameter, with as many as 100 album-like audio tracks on the exterior. Whenever someone called time, the drums would start turning and a message would begin, with different tracks mixed together on the fly.
"The people who worked on it took it very seriously," Frenkiel, 64, recalled. "They took a lot of pride in it."
In a twist of historical irony, Frenkiel went on to play a leading role in development of the technology that makes cellphones possible -- the very device that's now instrumental in killing time.
Phone companies have been providing the time to callers since the 1920s. In the early days, live operators read the time off clocks on the wall.
In the 1930s, an Atlanta company called Audichron devised a system for the time to be provided automatically. Audichron leased its technology to phone companies nationwide, often with sponsorship from local businesses.
Time ladies -- and a few gentlemen -- came and went over the years. Then, in the 1950s, a woman named Mary Moore emerged as the nation's leading time-teller.
Her reading of hours, minutes and seconds was delivered in a distinctive if somewhat prissy tone. Moore's odd pronunciation of the numbers 5 ("fiyev") and 9 ("niyun") influenced a generation of operators, much as flying ace Chuck Yeager's West Virginia drawl is said to have been adopted by innumerable airline pilots.
By far the most prominent time lady was Jane Barbe, who succeeded Moore at Audichron in the 1960s. A former big band singer, Barbe (pronounced "Barbie") went on to become the voice of recorded telephone messages in the 1970s and '80s in the United States and elsewhere.
Along with her interpretations of the time and current temperature, Barbe delivered the bad news too, telling you that circuits in a specific area were busy, please try again later, or that your call cannot be completed as dialed.
And who will ever forget her heartbreaking rendition of "I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service"?
Barbe died of cancer-related complications in 2003 at age 74. It's estimated that at the height of her fame, Barbe's voice was heard worldwide about 40 million times a day.
AT&T's Britton said the company started using Audichron's machines in 1948 and then switched to a different system manufactured by rival Weatherchron, also of Atlanta, in the 1960s. He was unable to identify the current time lady, saying that perhaps no one at AT&T knows who she is.
Ellis Bryant, the 83-year-old president of Weatherchron, also was unsure whose voice Californians hear when they call time. So he dialed 853-1212 and listened to the recording.
"Oh, that's Joanne," Bryant said without hesitation. "Joanne Daniels. No doubt about it."
He said Daniels started recording the time for Weatherchron about 25 years ago. At some point after Pacific Bell switched to his company's system, Daniels became California's time lady.
Reached at her Atlanta home, Daniels, 65, estimated that her reach was once nearly as extensive as that of Barbe, who was a friend. Daniels is now retired.
"I've done the time in many areas -- Eastern Standard Time, central time, Pacific time," she said. "The fun part was doing the temperatures for places like Alaska."
Daniels switched to her professional voice, her soft Southern accent instantly vanishing. "At the tone," she said, "the temperature is minus 12 degrees." She laughed and her accent returned. "I liked that."
No one had told her that AT&T was about to stop time.
"I think that's very sad," Daniels said. "I was told at one time that my voice would last until well into the 21st century. Now it looks like I'm about to be laid to rest."
When that day comes, Daniels said, she knows what her epitaph will be: "She knew the time."
Consumer Confidential runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Send tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Radical Cartesian doubt
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2358.shtml
Radical Cartesian doubt
By David Cogswell
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 29, 2007
I've spent so much of my life traveling, incessantly moving, that I don't even pretend to myself anymore that it is about any particular destination. It's just all this movement.
When I'm driving across the country, I exist in a sort of meditative state, usually with something playing on the sound system. The car interior provides a great sound booth for music I have brought, or audio books, or for exploring the radio landscape of the place I am driving through.
The other day driving through New England, I put on a recent audio book by New York Times Columnist Frank Rich, called The Greatest Story Ever Sold. It's a history of how the Bush administration sold its war to the American people just enough to push it over. It's very recent history as history goes, but it doesn't have the sizzle of Rich's commentary on last week's events. It's a very different form. It's a summary and analysis of events within the last five years.
I like to read Rich's columns and I find that I usually more or less agree with him. But I found myself drifting from the audio book. One might think it was from the fact that it's "old news" in the Internet age of 24/7 news. But that wasn't really the root problem for me. Obviously a history has to accomplish different ends than a column does because the material no longer has the novelty of today's news. But in addition to that, the analysis, the framing of the story has to resonate with the reader. And as I observed my own reactions and tried to understand why I found myself suppressing the impulse to turn it off, I think I finally came to why I could not commit myself for long to it. It's because I don't quite buy into the narrative, or more accurately the worldview from which it is posited.
Rich, like many other successful mainstream political writers has a kind of sureness, a kind of security that I do not share. He is comfortable with certain beliefs, to the extent that he can accept them as premises from which he can then reason to reach a certain level of understanding. But I find myself in a much less sure world than he is in. I cannot accept on faith many of the things that are dealt with as facts in the mainstream. I find myself in a state of radical Cartesian doubt regarding information that comes to me from The Corporate State.
When Rich uses the clause, "When al Qaeda attacked us . . ." I start to drift and he loses me, because I have many questions before I can reach that state of certitude and then begin to build on that premise. I still don't feel like I really know what happened, who attacked whom, and who or what al Qaeda even is. Much of this is my own fault, obviously, I should know much more. But I do see people proceeding with premises and beliefs that to me remain unproven, unestablished. I do know that I do not believe much of what the administration says, and have no reason to. It has zero credibility, really a negative number. So any information that comes from the administration, or is filtered by the administration, is not reliable unless it is confirmed by relatively neutral sources.
That can't be said about much of anything that is considered to be known about 9/11 in the official reality. It is relatively unfiltered, unprocessed, untested information. The 9/11 report was produced under the least advantageous circumstances for finding the truth. Even without reading the whole thing, one can read many assertions that are worse than false, just ridiculous. It is certainly no Bible of the truth of 9/11. Even its authors have said as much.
The 9/11 case is reminiscent of the JFK assassination case in this regard. For example, William Manchester's The Death of a President, was the history of the assassination that was authorized by the Kennedy family. Manchester worked under some duress to produce the history in fairly short order and he worked with the information that was available at the time. Without the benefit of hindsight, and without the experience of the new sort of government that was taking shape at that time, Manchester was fairly trusting of the information he was given, I would say too trusting. He took the official story and extrapolated on it to recreate moments to which there were no known, living witnesses. He used his imagination as any historian, historical novelist or screenwriter must to fill in blanks. But the information was not reliable, and if he'd been strictly rigorous in his testing of it, he could have avoided the errors even at that stage.
In later years information that became available to the public discredited much of what Manchester believed was known at the time. As a result he described what he imagined Oswald to be doing and looking like and thinking on the sixth floor of the book depository, when there is strong evidence to suggest he was not even there, and there is a great deal of other evidence to discredit many other details of the narrative. Certainly the event did not proceed the way it was initially described. Too much is known now for that theory to stand. Establishment voices like the New York Times still cleave loyally to the Warren Commission's conclusions, even though a later congressional committee determined that there had to have been more than one shooter. The Times forgot that.
Quite a lot of the official story of 9/11 just does not add up, even to rudimentary principles of science, so it makes it very difficult to draw any conclusions about what happened. We certainly don't know enough answers to the thousands of unanswered questions about the event to accept the conclusions being foisted on us by the Bush administration. When they say "9/11 changed everything" they are stating a fundamentally untrue assertion, but what the event did change we still can't be very sure.
The History Channel's conspiracy theory debunking show on Saturday night, August 25 ("The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction"), veered off from consideration of the questions raised by the 9/11 Truth Movement, into a sort of analysis of the supposed personality type of the "conspiracist," which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as "one holding a conspiracy theory." That's especially funny in light of the fact that the official story is by definition a conspiracy theory.
In the History Channel film, one of the people presented as an expert said that these conspiracy theorists all "think they are right and everyone else is wrong." This may apply to some people on any side of any question, but there is no logical basis for making that assumption about everyone who questions the official story of 9/11. Essentially the 9/11 Truth Movement represents people who are asking questions, challenging an established view. That does not mean they necessarily think they know the answers and no one else does. It may be true of some of them, but it's a mischaracterization of many of them, and not only is it a false generalization, it's a distraction from the issues being discussed. By that logic it is wrong to question at all. Asking questions about that makes one a sick, abnormal person. And that was the dominant underlying message of the show.
I for one am a doubter, but I don't enter the debate believing that I have the truth and "everyone else" is wrong. I come not from a position of sureness, but one of inquiry. Descartes' radical doubt was designed to use doubt as a method for finding reliable truth. To sift through the confusion, the lies, the snares in any criminal case, it is important to start from a place with as few assumptions as possible, and then proceed carefully, applying principles of logic and science and not calling something true until there is very strong evidence that it is true. That was Descartes' method, and it may not lead to total understanding of the universe, but it's a good way to think clearly through a set of issues.
That which cannot be securely established using fundamental principles of logic needs to be kept in the category of the unknown, with judgment suspended. For many people it's very uncomfortable to carry around unknowns in their heads. Loose ends, unresolved questions can be disturbing, so many would rather accept an untested idea than to exist in a prolonged state of uncertainty. Unfortunately in 21st century America, that is our lot. There are many unknowns and many uncertainties.
I believe that the state of radical doubt is the appropriate one for the scientist, the reporter, the judge or even just the rational person. The old journalistic maxim, "If your ma tells ya she loves ya, check it out," describes the appropriate attitude for a journalist. Only through disciplined processing and testing of information can any facts be established as reliable. As little should be taken for granted as possible. In the mainstream corporate media, it is not the attitude of skepticism that prevails, it is more an attitude of belief, of respect, almost of reverence, or as close to it as we get in the Land of the Almighty Buck.
The great power of ubiquity and repetition enables the corporate media to frame the debate, to create the vessel through which we view the world. In regard to 9/11, as in the case of the JFK assassination and many other incidents, an official story line was locked into place in the first hours after the incident and that narrative never changed in the official media. What was reported as known in the first unfolding hours was never changed by the official voices. It has been steadfastly held to and any deviating points of view were ignored or somehow bent to fit into the original theory. Any questions are considered strange, unacceptable behavior. The information in the public domain, however, has expanded rapidly since the beginning and much of it tears those initial conclusions asunder. But never mind. Those establishment voices will never budge an inch. The original story must be held very rigidly. Any atom that moves may bring down the whole house of cards. That's why even speculation is discouraged violently.
This is the attitude of a religious organization toward its doctrine, its truth. But it is not the appropriate attitude of scientists or jurists or journalists. Nevertheless, it is primarily what we are stuck with in our mainstream media at the moment.
It is deeply fascinating, however, to see the changes taking place in the public domain. One by one people are removing the barrier and asking questions. Robert Fisk became one of the most recent voices of reason to suddenly ask unacceptable questions. But when the contradictions pile so high that it becomes very difficult to move at all without having to step around them, some rational people are going to give up the effort of trying to maintain a belief system which no longer has logical integrity. First it is the questions. The answers come later.
David Cogswell publishes HeadBlast.
Radical Cartesian doubt
By David Cogswell
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 29, 2007
I've spent so much of my life traveling, incessantly moving, that I don't even pretend to myself anymore that it is about any particular destination. It's just all this movement.
When I'm driving across the country, I exist in a sort of meditative state, usually with something playing on the sound system. The car interior provides a great sound booth for music I have brought, or audio books, or for exploring the radio landscape of the place I am driving through.
The other day driving through New England, I put on a recent audio book by New York Times Columnist Frank Rich, called The Greatest Story Ever Sold. It's a history of how the Bush administration sold its war to the American people just enough to push it over. It's very recent history as history goes, but it doesn't have the sizzle of Rich's commentary on last week's events. It's a very different form. It's a summary and analysis of events within the last five years.
I like to read Rich's columns and I find that I usually more or less agree with him. But I found myself drifting from the audio book. One might think it was from the fact that it's "old news" in the Internet age of 24/7 news. But that wasn't really the root problem for me. Obviously a history has to accomplish different ends than a column does because the material no longer has the novelty of today's news. But in addition to that, the analysis, the framing of the story has to resonate with the reader. And as I observed my own reactions and tried to understand why I found myself suppressing the impulse to turn it off, I think I finally came to why I could not commit myself for long to it. It's because I don't quite buy into the narrative, or more accurately the worldview from which it is posited.
Rich, like many other successful mainstream political writers has a kind of sureness, a kind of security that I do not share. He is comfortable with certain beliefs, to the extent that he can accept them as premises from which he can then reason to reach a certain level of understanding. But I find myself in a much less sure world than he is in. I cannot accept on faith many of the things that are dealt with as facts in the mainstream. I find myself in a state of radical Cartesian doubt regarding information that comes to me from The Corporate State.
When Rich uses the clause, "When al Qaeda attacked us . . ." I start to drift and he loses me, because I have many questions before I can reach that state of certitude and then begin to build on that premise. I still don't feel like I really know what happened, who attacked whom, and who or what al Qaeda even is. Much of this is my own fault, obviously, I should know much more. But I do see people proceeding with premises and beliefs that to me remain unproven, unestablished. I do know that I do not believe much of what the administration says, and have no reason to. It has zero credibility, really a negative number. So any information that comes from the administration, or is filtered by the administration, is not reliable unless it is confirmed by relatively neutral sources.
That can't be said about much of anything that is considered to be known about 9/11 in the official reality. It is relatively unfiltered, unprocessed, untested information. The 9/11 report was produced under the least advantageous circumstances for finding the truth. Even without reading the whole thing, one can read many assertions that are worse than false, just ridiculous. It is certainly no Bible of the truth of 9/11. Even its authors have said as much.
The 9/11 case is reminiscent of the JFK assassination case in this regard. For example, William Manchester's The Death of a President, was the history of the assassination that was authorized by the Kennedy family. Manchester worked under some duress to produce the history in fairly short order and he worked with the information that was available at the time. Without the benefit of hindsight, and without the experience of the new sort of government that was taking shape at that time, Manchester was fairly trusting of the information he was given, I would say too trusting. He took the official story and extrapolated on it to recreate moments to which there were no known, living witnesses. He used his imagination as any historian, historical novelist or screenwriter must to fill in blanks. But the information was not reliable, and if he'd been strictly rigorous in his testing of it, he could have avoided the errors even at that stage.
In later years information that became available to the public discredited much of what Manchester believed was known at the time. As a result he described what he imagined Oswald to be doing and looking like and thinking on the sixth floor of the book depository, when there is strong evidence to suggest he was not even there, and there is a great deal of other evidence to discredit many other details of the narrative. Certainly the event did not proceed the way it was initially described. Too much is known now for that theory to stand. Establishment voices like the New York Times still cleave loyally to the Warren Commission's conclusions, even though a later congressional committee determined that there had to have been more than one shooter. The Times forgot that.
Quite a lot of the official story of 9/11 just does not add up, even to rudimentary principles of science, so it makes it very difficult to draw any conclusions about what happened. We certainly don't know enough answers to the thousands of unanswered questions about the event to accept the conclusions being foisted on us by the Bush administration. When they say "9/11 changed everything" they are stating a fundamentally untrue assertion, but what the event did change we still can't be very sure.
The History Channel's conspiracy theory debunking show on Saturday night, August 25 ("The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction"), veered off from consideration of the questions raised by the 9/11 Truth Movement, into a sort of analysis of the supposed personality type of the "conspiracist," which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as "one holding a conspiracy theory." That's especially funny in light of the fact that the official story is by definition a conspiracy theory.
In the History Channel film, one of the people presented as an expert said that these conspiracy theorists all "think they are right and everyone else is wrong." This may apply to some people on any side of any question, but there is no logical basis for making that assumption about everyone who questions the official story of 9/11. Essentially the 9/11 Truth Movement represents people who are asking questions, challenging an established view. That does not mean they necessarily think they know the answers and no one else does. It may be true of some of them, but it's a mischaracterization of many of them, and not only is it a false generalization, it's a distraction from the issues being discussed. By that logic it is wrong to question at all. Asking questions about that makes one a sick, abnormal person. And that was the dominant underlying message of the show.
I for one am a doubter, but I don't enter the debate believing that I have the truth and "everyone else" is wrong. I come not from a position of sureness, but one of inquiry. Descartes' radical doubt was designed to use doubt as a method for finding reliable truth. To sift through the confusion, the lies, the snares in any criminal case, it is important to start from a place with as few assumptions as possible, and then proceed carefully, applying principles of logic and science and not calling something true until there is very strong evidence that it is true. That was Descartes' method, and it may not lead to total understanding of the universe, but it's a good way to think clearly through a set of issues.
That which cannot be securely established using fundamental principles of logic needs to be kept in the category of the unknown, with judgment suspended. For many people it's very uncomfortable to carry around unknowns in their heads. Loose ends, unresolved questions can be disturbing, so many would rather accept an untested idea than to exist in a prolonged state of uncertainty. Unfortunately in 21st century America, that is our lot. There are many unknowns and many uncertainties.
I believe that the state of radical doubt is the appropriate one for the scientist, the reporter, the judge or even just the rational person. The old journalistic maxim, "If your ma tells ya she loves ya, check it out," describes the appropriate attitude for a journalist. Only through disciplined processing and testing of information can any facts be established as reliable. As little should be taken for granted as possible. In the mainstream corporate media, it is not the attitude of skepticism that prevails, it is more an attitude of belief, of respect, almost of reverence, or as close to it as we get in the Land of the Almighty Buck.
The great power of ubiquity and repetition enables the corporate media to frame the debate, to create the vessel through which we view the world. In regard to 9/11, as in the case of the JFK assassination and many other incidents, an official story line was locked into place in the first hours after the incident and that narrative never changed in the official media. What was reported as known in the first unfolding hours was never changed by the official voices. It has been steadfastly held to and any deviating points of view were ignored or somehow bent to fit into the original theory. Any questions are considered strange, unacceptable behavior. The information in the public domain, however, has expanded rapidly since the beginning and much of it tears those initial conclusions asunder. But never mind. Those establishment voices will never budge an inch. The original story must be held very rigidly. Any atom that moves may bring down the whole house of cards. That's why even speculation is discouraged violently.
This is the attitude of a religious organization toward its doctrine, its truth. But it is not the appropriate attitude of scientists or jurists or journalists. Nevertheless, it is primarily what we are stuck with in our mainstream media at the moment.
It is deeply fascinating, however, to see the changes taking place in the public domain. One by one people are removing the barrier and asking questions. Robert Fisk became one of the most recent voices of reason to suddenly ask unacceptable questions. But when the contradictions pile so high that it becomes very difficult to move at all without having to step around them, some rational people are going to give up the effort of trying to maintain a belief system which no longer has logical integrity. First it is the questions. The answers come later.
David Cogswell publishes HeadBlast.
Rooney Off Base With 'Racist' Baseball Column?
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003631355
Andy Rooney Off Base With 'Racist' Baseball Column?
By E&P Staff
Published: August 27, 2007
NEW YORK Andy Rooney, the writer and "60 Minutes' humorist is known for being crotchety. But a Tribune Media Services column last week has drawn the ire of some who claim it crossed the line into racism.
In explaining why he didn't really like baseball, Rooney admitted, “I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me....They’re apparently very good but they haven’t caught my interest.”
Latino players now make up a high proportion of big leaguers.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said it,” Mr. Rooney, 88, tells The New York Times for a story today. “It’s a name that seems common in baseball now. I certainly didn’t think of it in any derogatory sense.”
He added, “That’s what I do for a living, I write columns and have opinions, and some of them are pretty stupid.”
The Times notes: "The column drew immediate criticism in the blogosphere. One sports blog, http://www.foulballs.net/, called Mr. Rooney a 'senile idiot,' while another, firejoemorgan.com, blasted both 'the racism' and 'the wrong-ness' of what he wrote. Mary Elson, managing editor for Tribune Media Services, said Mr. Rooney’s editor did not think the comment touched Imus territory. 'We try to give our columnists a great deal of latitude. This just wasn’t considered going over the line,' she said."
Andy Rooney Off Base With 'Racist' Baseball Column?
By E&P Staff
Published: August 27, 2007
NEW YORK Andy Rooney, the writer and "60 Minutes' humorist is known for being crotchety. But a Tribune Media Services column last week has drawn the ire of some who claim it crossed the line into racism.
In explaining why he didn't really like baseball, Rooney admitted, “I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me....They’re apparently very good but they haven’t caught my interest.”
Latino players now make up a high proportion of big leaguers.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said it,” Mr. Rooney, 88, tells The New York Times for a story today. “It’s a name that seems common in baseball now. I certainly didn’t think of it in any derogatory sense.”
He added, “That’s what I do for a living, I write columns and have opinions, and some of them are pretty stupid.”
The Times notes: "The column drew immediate criticism in the blogosphere. One sports blog, http://www.foulballs.net/, called Mr. Rooney a 'senile idiot,' while another, firejoemorgan.com, blasted both 'the racism' and 'the wrong-ness' of what he wrote. Mary Elson, managing editor for Tribune Media Services, said Mr. Rooney’s editor did not think the comment touched Imus territory. 'We try to give our columnists a great deal of latitude. This just wasn’t considered going over the line,' she said."
DePaul Cancels Class Taught By Professor
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C294902%2C00.html
DePaul University Cancels Class Taught By Professor Critical of Israel
Associated Press
Tuesday , August 28, 2007
DePaul University canceled the one remaining class taught by a controversial professor who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust.
Norman Finkelstein, whose work led to a long-running public feud with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, says he may respond by committing civil disobedience when classes resume Sept. 5.
Finkelstein, 53, was denied tenure in June after six years on the DePaul faculty, but he was permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.
On Friday, however, the university e-mailed students saying that Finkelstein's sole political science course had been canceled. By Monday, the books for the course had been pulled from the DePaul bookstore's shelves.
Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.
Dershowitz, who threatened to sue Finkelstein's publisher for libel, urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid in June.
The American Association of University Professors is preparing a letter to the university protesting Finkelstein's treatment as a serious violation of academic ethics, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Finkelstein told the newspaper that he planned to wage his own campaign against the administration.
"I intend to go to my office on the first day of classes and, if my way is barred, to engage in civil disobedience," Finkelstein said. "If arrested, I'll go on a hunger strike. If released, I'll do it all over again. I'll fast in jail for as long as it takes."
After he was denied tenure, Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors, posted a letter on his Web site explaining the school officials' reasons, including Finkelstein's "deliberately hurtful" scholarship along, lack of involvement with the school and tendency for public clashes with other scholars.
"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," school President Dennis Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8. DePaul at the time verified the letter was authentic.
Denise Mattson, the university's associate vice president for public affairs, released a statement saying Finkelstein was on administrative leave with full pay for the academic year.
"Administrative leave relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities. He was informed of the reasons that precipitated this leave last spring," the statement said.
DePaul University Cancels Class Taught By Professor Critical of Israel
Associated Press
Tuesday , August 28, 2007
DePaul University canceled the one remaining class taught by a controversial professor who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust.
Norman Finkelstein, whose work led to a long-running public feud with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, says he may respond by committing civil disobedience when classes resume Sept. 5.
Finkelstein, 53, was denied tenure in June after six years on the DePaul faculty, but he was permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.
On Friday, however, the university e-mailed students saying that Finkelstein's sole political science course had been canceled. By Monday, the books for the course had been pulled from the DePaul bookstore's shelves.
Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.
Dershowitz, who threatened to sue Finkelstein's publisher for libel, urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid in June.
The American Association of University Professors is preparing a letter to the university protesting Finkelstein's treatment as a serious violation of academic ethics, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Finkelstein told the newspaper that he planned to wage his own campaign against the administration.
"I intend to go to my office on the first day of classes and, if my way is barred, to engage in civil disobedience," Finkelstein said. "If arrested, I'll go on a hunger strike. If released, I'll do it all over again. I'll fast in jail for as long as it takes."
After he was denied tenure, Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors, posted a letter on his Web site explaining the school officials' reasons, including Finkelstein's "deliberately hurtful" scholarship along, lack of involvement with the school and tendency for public clashes with other scholars.
"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," school President Dennis Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8. DePaul at the time verified the letter was authentic.
Denise Mattson, the university's associate vice president for public affairs, released a statement saying Finkelstein was on administrative leave with full pay for the academic year.
"Administrative leave relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities. He was informed of the reasons that precipitated this leave last spring," the statement said.
CBGB founder Hilly Kristal dies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070829/ap_en_mu/obit_hilly_kristal
CBGB founder Hilly Kristal dies
By CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 29, 2007
Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was 75.
Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.
Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith, Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the infamous venue that opened in 1973.
"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."
While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord thrash of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.
The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last October.
Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of country, bluegrass and blues — called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandisers" — but found few bands to book. It instead became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.
"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass," his son said Wednesday.
Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years became legendary — including Smith, Blondie and Television.
Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and in those days, there were very few."
Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless people.
In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become part museum and part barroom.
At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat — an apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."
Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.
__
On the Net:
http://www.cbgb.com/
CBGB founder Hilly Kristal dies
By CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 29, 2007
Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was 75.
Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.
Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith, Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the infamous venue that opened in 1973.
"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."
While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord thrash of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.
The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last October.
Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of country, bluegrass and blues — called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandisers" — but found few bands to book. It instead became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.
"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass," his son said Wednesday.
Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years became legendary — including Smith, Blondie and Television.
Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and in those days, there were very few."
Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless people.
In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become part museum and part barroom.
At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat — an apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."
Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.
__
On the Net:
http://www.cbgb.com/
China's Wall becoming less and less Great
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070829/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_china_wall
China's Wall becoming less and less Great
Wed Aug 29, 2007
Sand storms in northwest China are reducing sections of Great Wall to mounds of dirt and may cause them to disappear in about 20 years, state media said on Wednesday.
The Great Wall, which was chosen last month as top of the new seven wonders of the world, snakes its way across more than 6,400 km (3,980 miles) and receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year.
More than 60 km of the wall in Minqin county in Gansu province, built in the Han Dynasty which lasted from 206 BC to 220 AD, had been "rapidly disappearing", Xinhua said, citing the head of the local museum, Zhou Shengrui.
"This section of Great Wall was made of mud rather than brick and stone, so is more prone to erosion," it quoted Zhou as saying, adding the wall had become brittle and the mud sanded down and blown away over time.
"Similar erosion happened to the Great Wall in other places, but the situation is much worse here," he was quoted as saying.
Extensive farming since the 1950s had sapped underground water in Minqin and destroyed the local ecology, which made the county a major source of sand storms in northwest China, the agency said.
More than 40 km of the wall had disappeared in the past 20 years and only about 10 km remained, it said.
The height of the wall had been reduced from five metres to less than two metres in places and the square lookout towers had disappeared completely, it added.
The Great Wall, which the United Nations listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987, has been rebuilt many times through the centuries, and many sections of it have suffered serious damage from weather erosion and human destruction.
Visitors climb wilder, crumbling sections that are not officially open to the public and stretches have become popular sites for summer raves.
China's Wall becoming less and less Great
Wed Aug 29, 2007
Sand storms in northwest China are reducing sections of Great Wall to mounds of dirt and may cause them to disappear in about 20 years, state media said on Wednesday.
The Great Wall, which was chosen last month as top of the new seven wonders of the world, snakes its way across more than 6,400 km (3,980 miles) and receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year.
More than 60 km of the wall in Minqin county in Gansu province, built in the Han Dynasty which lasted from 206 BC to 220 AD, had been "rapidly disappearing", Xinhua said, citing the head of the local museum, Zhou Shengrui.
"This section of Great Wall was made of mud rather than brick and stone, so is more prone to erosion," it quoted Zhou as saying, adding the wall had become brittle and the mud sanded down and blown away over time.
"Similar erosion happened to the Great Wall in other places, but the situation is much worse here," he was quoted as saying.
Extensive farming since the 1950s had sapped underground water in Minqin and destroyed the local ecology, which made the county a major source of sand storms in northwest China, the agency said.
More than 40 km of the wall had disappeared in the past 20 years and only about 10 km remained, it said.
The height of the wall had been reduced from five metres to less than two metres in places and the square lookout towers had disappeared completely, it added.
The Great Wall, which the United Nations listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987, has been rebuilt many times through the centuries, and many sections of it have suffered serious damage from weather erosion and human destruction.
Visitors climb wilder, crumbling sections that are not officially open to the public and stretches have become popular sites for summer raves.
Conservative Newspaper Teaches Dems A Lesson
http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/08/americas_most_conservative_new.html
Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
America’s Most Conservative Newspaper Teaches Dems A Lesson
The Colorado Springs Gazette is one of the two most conservative papers in America (the other being the Waterbury Republican-American). This is no secret to anyone who has either read the paper, or who is in the journalism industry. But the political continuum is a circle, not a line, meaning that on some issues, ultraconservatives and progressives can make common cause. Today's Gazette editorial on the bipartisan support for warrantless domestic wiretapping and spying is a good example - and a good lesson for Democratic "strategists" cloistered in Washington with their weak-kneed and self-defeating pathologies.
Here's an excerpt:
"What do you do when critics call the legality of your secret spying program into question? If you’re the Bush administration, you defend it, by becoming ever more secretive and by claiming to be above the law. The legal basis for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which was launched soon after 9/11 to capture conversations of potential terrorists, has always been shaky. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 outlawed warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and in 2005 it was revealed that the Terrorist Surveillance Program did just that. Though supposedly altered so as to operate within the law, the surveillance program continues to be defended on alarming and seemingly contradictory grounds — that its legality depends on operational details too secret to be revealed, and that legality isn’t an issue, anyway, since President Bush’s powers as commander in chief cannot be so bound by law...We see the justifications of executive privilege as little more than weak excuses. Earlier this month, this same logic of secrecy, which plays on people’s fears, helped excuse a further weakening of the law as Congress, in the Protect America Act, effectively gutted FISA protections against warrantless surveillance...Now that Congress has promised to revise this temporary measure, Bush and Cheney’s continued excuses are all the more intolerable, obstructing Congress’ ability to examine the genesis of the Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Pundits and Democratic "strategists" in Washington, D.C. clearly have absolutely no concept that issues of privacy, civil liberties and government intrusion do not fit conveniently on their preconceived - and childishly ignorant - notions of "red" and "blue." They dismiss the vast American heartland as just a Republican Party monolith that supposedly supports all efforts to strip citizens of their freedom, and they believe that in order to start winning in this heartland, they just have to out-Republican the Republicans on these issues.
We know this not just because they capitulated last month by rubber-stamping Bush's warrantless domestic spying program, but because they all but run out and tell reporters just how totally out of touch they really are when it comes to these issues. Remember how Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) claimed that his efforts to preserve the most odious parts of the Patriot Act were designed to protect "our Democrats in red states?" Remember how the insulated Washington media fawned all over him when he said this, billing him as an amazing political guru? And remember how, at the very same time, Montana's Jon Tester was campaigning against the Patriot Act as a way to attract support from libertarian-leaning voters? Yeah - in a race that was decided by a tiny margin, had Schumer's drumbeat been any louder, it may have lost Tester the Montana senate seat and Democrats might not be in the majority today.
I learned the lesson inherent in the Gazette's spot-on editorial when I watched my friend Bernie Sanders in the House. As Rolling Stone's terrific profile showed, he worked closely with people like Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and then-Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID) to forge left-right coalitions that passed legislation reforming the Patriot Act over the objections of Republican congressional leaders. Paul and Otter, you may recall, are among the most conservative elected officials in America. They know - sadly, more than many Democratic "strategists" in Washington - that there is nothing "weak" or "politically dangerous" about standing up for privacy and personal freedom and against government power grabs.
In fact, its the other way around: Democrats are exuding weakness and are walking into political peril by subscribing to the cartoonish "red" vs. "blue" outlook of those Washington insiders who claim expertise in a national political topography they clearly do not or do not want to understand. The panoply of privacy and civil liberties issues poses great opportunity for Democrats - but only if they show a shred of foresight and reject the absurd Washington conventional wisdom that says helping the most unpopular president in modern history trample Americans' freedoms is somehow "good politics."
Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
America’s Most Conservative Newspaper Teaches Dems A Lesson
The Colorado Springs Gazette is one of the two most conservative papers in America (the other being the Waterbury Republican-American). This is no secret to anyone who has either read the paper, or who is in the journalism industry. But the political continuum is a circle, not a line, meaning that on some issues, ultraconservatives and progressives can make common cause. Today's Gazette editorial on the bipartisan support for warrantless domestic wiretapping and spying is a good example - and a good lesson for Democratic "strategists" cloistered in Washington with their weak-kneed and self-defeating pathologies.
Here's an excerpt:
"What do you do when critics call the legality of your secret spying program into question? If you’re the Bush administration, you defend it, by becoming ever more secretive and by claiming to be above the law. The legal basis for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which was launched soon after 9/11 to capture conversations of potential terrorists, has always been shaky. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 outlawed warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and in 2005 it was revealed that the Terrorist Surveillance Program did just that. Though supposedly altered so as to operate within the law, the surveillance program continues to be defended on alarming and seemingly contradictory grounds — that its legality depends on operational details too secret to be revealed, and that legality isn’t an issue, anyway, since President Bush’s powers as commander in chief cannot be so bound by law...We see the justifications of executive privilege as little more than weak excuses. Earlier this month, this same logic of secrecy, which plays on people’s fears, helped excuse a further weakening of the law as Congress, in the Protect America Act, effectively gutted FISA protections against warrantless surveillance...Now that Congress has promised to revise this temporary measure, Bush and Cheney’s continued excuses are all the more intolerable, obstructing Congress’ ability to examine the genesis of the Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Pundits and Democratic "strategists" in Washington, D.C. clearly have absolutely no concept that issues of privacy, civil liberties and government intrusion do not fit conveniently on their preconceived - and childishly ignorant - notions of "red" and "blue." They dismiss the vast American heartland as just a Republican Party monolith that supposedly supports all efforts to strip citizens of their freedom, and they believe that in order to start winning in this heartland, they just have to out-Republican the Republicans on these issues.
We know this not just because they capitulated last month by rubber-stamping Bush's warrantless domestic spying program, but because they all but run out and tell reporters just how totally out of touch they really are when it comes to these issues. Remember how Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) claimed that his efforts to preserve the most odious parts of the Patriot Act were designed to protect "our Democrats in red states?" Remember how the insulated Washington media fawned all over him when he said this, billing him as an amazing political guru? And remember how, at the very same time, Montana's Jon Tester was campaigning against the Patriot Act as a way to attract support from libertarian-leaning voters? Yeah - in a race that was decided by a tiny margin, had Schumer's drumbeat been any louder, it may have lost Tester the Montana senate seat and Democrats might not be in the majority today.
I learned the lesson inherent in the Gazette's spot-on editorial when I watched my friend Bernie Sanders in the House. As Rolling Stone's terrific profile showed, he worked closely with people like Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and then-Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID) to forge left-right coalitions that passed legislation reforming the Patriot Act over the objections of Republican congressional leaders. Paul and Otter, you may recall, are among the most conservative elected officials in America. They know - sadly, more than many Democratic "strategists" in Washington - that there is nothing "weak" or "politically dangerous" about standing up for privacy and personal freedom and against government power grabs.
In fact, its the other way around: Democrats are exuding weakness and are walking into political peril by subscribing to the cartoonish "red" vs. "blue" outlook of those Washington insiders who claim expertise in a national political topography they clearly do not or do not want to understand. The panoply of privacy and civil liberties issues poses great opportunity for Democrats - but only if they show a shred of foresight and reject the absurd Washington conventional wisdom that says helping the most unpopular president in modern history trample Americans' freedoms is somehow "good politics."
“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
http://www.gregpalast.com/“they-wanted-them-poor-niggers-out-of-thereâ€/
“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
New Orleans two years after
by Greg Palast
[Thurs August 30] “They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain’t had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that’s just the bottom line.”
It wasn’t a pretty statement. But I wasn’t looking for pretty. I’d taken my investigative team to New Orleans to meet with Malik Rahim. Pretty isn’t Malik’s concern.
We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes. But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your home and we’ll arrest you.”
These aren’t just any homes. They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others. But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.
Raised up on high ground, with floors and walls of concrete, they were some of the only houses left salvageable after the Katrina flood.
Yet, two years later, there’s still bars on the windows, the doors are welded shut and the residents banned from returning. On the first anniversary of the flood, we were filming this odd scene when I saw a woman on the sidewalk, sobbing. Night was falling. What was wrong?
“They just messing all over us. Putting me out our own house. We come to go back to our own home and when we get there they got the police there putting us out. Oh, no, this is not right. I’m coming here from Texas seeing if I can get my house back. But they said they ain’t letting nobody in. But where we gonna go at?”
Idiot me, I asked, “Where are you going to go tonight?”
“That’s what I want to know, Mister. Where I’m going to go - me and my kids?”
With the help of Patricia Thomas, a Lafitte resident, we broke into an apartment. The place was gorgeous. The cereal boxes still dry. This was Patricia’s home. But we decided to get out before we got busted.
I wasn’t naïve. I had a good idea what this scam was all about: 89,000 poor and working class families stuck in Homeland Security’s trailer park gulag while their good homes were guarded against their return by mercenaries. Two decades ago, I worked for the Housing Authority of New Orleans. Even then, the plan was to evict poor folk out of this very valuable real estate. But it took the cover of a hurricane to do it.
Malik’s organization, Common Ground, wouldn’t wait for permission from the federal and local commissars to help folks return. They organized takeovers of public housing by the residents. And, in the face of threats and official displeasure, restored 350 apartments in a destroyed private development on the high ground across the Mississippi in the ward called, “Algiers.” The tenants rebuilt their own homes with their own sweat and their own scraps of cash based on a promise of the landlords to sell Common Ground the property in return for restoring it.
Why, I asked Malik, was there this strange lock-out from public housing?
Malik shook his dreds. “They didn’t want to open it up. They wanted them closed. They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
For Malik, the emphasis is on “poor.” The racial politics of the Deep South is as ugly as it is in Philadelphia, Pa. But the New Orleans city establishment has no problem with Black folk per se. After all, Mayor Ray Nagin’s parents are African-American.
It’s the Black survivors without the cash that are a problem. So where New Orleans once stood, Mayor Nagin, in connivance with a Bush regime more than happy to keep a quarter million poor folk (i.e. Democrats) out of this swing state, is creating a new city: a tourist town with a French Quarter, loose-spending drunks, hot-sheets hotels and a few Black people to perform the modern version of minstrel shows.
Malik explained, “It’s two cities. You know? There’s the city for the white and the rich. And there’s another city for the poor and Blacks. You know, the city that’s for the white and rich has recovered. They had a Jazz Fest. They had a Mardi Gras. They’re going to have the Saints playing for those who have recovered. But for those who haven’t recovered, there’s nothing.”
So where are they now? The sobbing woman and her kids are gone: back to Texas, or wherever. But they will not be allowed back into Lafitte. Ever.
And Patricia Thomas? Patricia found work sweeping up tourists’ vomit and beer each morning at a French Quarter karioke joint. Not much pay, no health insurance, of course. A few months ago, Patricia died - in a city bereft of health care. New Orleans has closed all its public hospitals but for one “charity” make-shift emergency ward in an abandoned department store.
And the one bright star, Malik’s housing project? The tenants’ work was done this past December. By Christmastime, they received their eviction notices - and all were carried out of their rebuilt homes by marshals right after the New Year, including a paraplegic resident who’d lived in the Algiers building for decades.
Hurricane recovery is class war by other means. And in this war of the powerful against the powerless, Mr. Bush can rightly land his fighter plane in Louisiana and declare that, unlike the war in Iraq, it is, indeed, “Mission Accomplished.”
*****
This report is based on Greg Palast’s film, Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans. [1] You may purchase a copy of the DVD [click here], watch an [2] excerpt, catch the hour-long broadcast on [3] Link TV tonight, or read the new chapter on New Orleans in Palast’s New York Times bestseller, [4] Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports at [5] http://www.gregpalast.com/
URLs in this post:
[1] You may purchase a copy of the DVD [click here]: http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/19
[2] excerpt: http://bigeasytobigempty.wordpress.com/view-the-trailer/
[3] Link TV tonight: http://www.linktv.org/programs/bigeasy
[4] Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.: http://www.gregpalast.com/order-the-book/
[5] www.GregPalast.com : http://www.gregpalast.com/
“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
New Orleans two years after
by Greg Palast
[Thurs August 30] “They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain’t had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that’s just the bottom line.”
It wasn’t a pretty statement. But I wasn’t looking for pretty. I’d taken my investigative team to New Orleans to meet with Malik Rahim. Pretty isn’t Malik’s concern.
We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes. But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your home and we’ll arrest you.”
These aren’t just any homes. They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others. But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.
Raised up on high ground, with floors and walls of concrete, they were some of the only houses left salvageable after the Katrina flood.
Yet, two years later, there’s still bars on the windows, the doors are welded shut and the residents banned from returning. On the first anniversary of the flood, we were filming this odd scene when I saw a woman on the sidewalk, sobbing. Night was falling. What was wrong?
“They just messing all over us. Putting me out our own house. We come to go back to our own home and when we get there they got the police there putting us out. Oh, no, this is not right. I’m coming here from Texas seeing if I can get my house back. But they said they ain’t letting nobody in. But where we gonna go at?”
Idiot me, I asked, “Where are you going to go tonight?”
“That’s what I want to know, Mister. Where I’m going to go - me and my kids?”
With the help of Patricia Thomas, a Lafitte resident, we broke into an apartment. The place was gorgeous. The cereal boxes still dry. This was Patricia’s home. But we decided to get out before we got busted.
I wasn’t naïve. I had a good idea what this scam was all about: 89,000 poor and working class families stuck in Homeland Security’s trailer park gulag while their good homes were guarded against their return by mercenaries. Two decades ago, I worked for the Housing Authority of New Orleans. Even then, the plan was to evict poor folk out of this very valuable real estate. But it took the cover of a hurricane to do it.
Malik’s organization, Common Ground, wouldn’t wait for permission from the federal and local commissars to help folks return. They organized takeovers of public housing by the residents. And, in the face of threats and official displeasure, restored 350 apartments in a destroyed private development on the high ground across the Mississippi in the ward called, “Algiers.” The tenants rebuilt their own homes with their own sweat and their own scraps of cash based on a promise of the landlords to sell Common Ground the property in return for restoring it.
Why, I asked Malik, was there this strange lock-out from public housing?
Malik shook his dreds. “They didn’t want to open it up. They wanted them closed. They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
For Malik, the emphasis is on “poor.” The racial politics of the Deep South is as ugly as it is in Philadelphia, Pa. But the New Orleans city establishment has no problem with Black folk per se. After all, Mayor Ray Nagin’s parents are African-American.
It’s the Black survivors without the cash that are a problem. So where New Orleans once stood, Mayor Nagin, in connivance with a Bush regime more than happy to keep a quarter million poor folk (i.e. Democrats) out of this swing state, is creating a new city: a tourist town with a French Quarter, loose-spending drunks, hot-sheets hotels and a few Black people to perform the modern version of minstrel shows.
Malik explained, “It’s two cities. You know? There’s the city for the white and the rich. And there’s another city for the poor and Blacks. You know, the city that’s for the white and rich has recovered. They had a Jazz Fest. They had a Mardi Gras. They’re going to have the Saints playing for those who have recovered. But for those who haven’t recovered, there’s nothing.”
So where are they now? The sobbing woman and her kids are gone: back to Texas, or wherever. But they will not be allowed back into Lafitte. Ever.
And Patricia Thomas? Patricia found work sweeping up tourists’ vomit and beer each morning at a French Quarter karioke joint. Not much pay, no health insurance, of course. A few months ago, Patricia died - in a city bereft of health care. New Orleans has closed all its public hospitals but for one “charity” make-shift emergency ward in an abandoned department store.
And the one bright star, Malik’s housing project? The tenants’ work was done this past December. By Christmastime, they received their eviction notices - and all were carried out of their rebuilt homes by marshals right after the New Year, including a paraplegic resident who’d lived in the Algiers building for decades.
Hurricane recovery is class war by other means. And in this war of the powerful against the powerless, Mr. Bush can rightly land his fighter plane in Louisiana and declare that, unlike the war in Iraq, it is, indeed, “Mission Accomplished.”
*****
This report is based on Greg Palast’s film, Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans. [1] You may purchase a copy of the DVD [click here], watch an [2] excerpt, catch the hour-long broadcast on [3] Link TV tonight, or read the new chapter on New Orleans in Palast’s New York Times bestseller, [4] Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports at [5] http://www.gregpalast.com/
URLs in this post:
[1] You may purchase a copy of the DVD [click here]: http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/19
[2] excerpt: http://bigeasytobigempty.wordpress.com/view-the-trailer/
[3] Link TV tonight: http://www.linktv.org/programs/bigeasy
[4] Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.: http://www.gregpalast.com/order-the-book/
[5] www.GregPalast.com : http://www.gregpalast.com/
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Sen. Craig's record on gay and lesbian issues
http://mediamatters.org/items/200708280013?f=h_latest
NY Times, networks ignored Sen. Craig's record on gay and lesbian issues
Summary: In reporting on Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea on disorderly conduct charges, the nightly network news broadcasts and The New York Times all ignored Craig's positions on legislation concerning gay and lesbian rights, including voting against legislation to ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In reporting on Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) August 8 guilty plea on misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges following his June 11 arrest during an investigation of "lewd conduct in the main men's public restroom" at a Minnesota airport, the nightly network news broadcasts and The New York Times all ignored Craig's record on legislation concerning gay and lesbian rights. Craig voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and, in 2006, voted to cut off debate on a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He also voted against a 1996 bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by one vote in the Senate.
Roll Call first reported Craig's arrest on August 27. According to the article: "On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8." Roll Call also provided details of the arrest report:
According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men's public restroom in which Craig was arrested.
Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men's restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.
Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see "an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall."
The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.
"I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes," the report states.
Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia's and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.
"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall," Karsnia stated in his report. "From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me."
Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.
"At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area," the report states.
Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that "I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider."
However, The New York Times did not note Craig's record on gay rights issues in its August 28 article on Craig's arrest. Similarly, Craig's anti-gay positions went unmentioned on the August 27 broadcasts of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
By contrast, an August 28 CNN.com article noted his votes on gay and lesbian issues and reported that "Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups." According to the article:
In recent years, Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
In 1996, Craig also voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages and prevents states from being forced to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples legally performed in other states.
Craig also has opposed expanding the federal hate crimes law to cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias and, in 1996, voted against a bill that would have outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by a single vote in the Senate.
The Los Angeles Times reported on August 28:
But the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement calling attention to Craig's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and his opposition to legislation that would expand the federal hate crime law to cover violent acts based on a victim's sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity or disability.
From the August 27 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
KATE SNOW (guest anchor): We learned today that a Republican member of the Senate, Larry Craig of Idaho, was arrested back in June and has now pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge. The newspaper Roll Call reports Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport and accused of lewd conduct. His office calls it a misunderstanding, and late today, Craig said he should not have pled guilty.
From the August 27 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams:
BRIAN WILLIAMS (anchor): There is late world today that Senator Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, was arrested in June by a plainclothes police officer in Minnesota for what's being called lewd conduct in the presence of a plainclothes police officer in a men's room. That was at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call obtained the arrest report. The senator later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. He paid more than $500 in fines and was given one year of probation.
But a short time ago this evening, Senator Craig issued a statement saying, "At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct." Craig's statement goes on to say, quote, "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty." Close quote.
From the August 27 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:
KATIE COURIC (anchor): Meanwhile, there is word tonight that Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty this month to disorderly conduct charges. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call says Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport by police investigating complaints of lewd conduct. But tonight, the senator says he told the police his actions were misconstrued, and he denies doing anything wrong. Craig was fined $1,000.
— S.S.M.
NY Times, networks ignored Sen. Craig's record on gay and lesbian issues
Summary: In reporting on Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea on disorderly conduct charges, the nightly network news broadcasts and The New York Times all ignored Craig's positions on legislation concerning gay and lesbian rights, including voting against legislation to ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In reporting on Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) August 8 guilty plea on misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges following his June 11 arrest during an investigation of "lewd conduct in the main men's public restroom" at a Minnesota airport, the nightly network news broadcasts and The New York Times all ignored Craig's record on legislation concerning gay and lesbian rights. Craig voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and, in 2006, voted to cut off debate on a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He also voted against a 1996 bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by one vote in the Senate.
Roll Call first reported Craig's arrest on August 27. According to the article: "On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8." Roll Call also provided details of the arrest report:
According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men's public restroom in which Craig was arrested.
Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men's restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.
Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see "an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall."
The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.
"I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes," the report states.
Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia's and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.
"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall," Karsnia stated in his report. "From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me."
Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.
"At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area," the report states.
Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that "I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider."
However, The New York Times did not note Craig's record on gay rights issues in its August 28 article on Craig's arrest. Similarly, Craig's anti-gay positions went unmentioned on the August 27 broadcasts of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
By contrast, an August 28 CNN.com article noted his votes on gay and lesbian issues and reported that "Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups." According to the article:
In recent years, Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
In 1996, Craig also voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages and prevents states from being forced to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples legally performed in other states.
Craig also has opposed expanding the federal hate crimes law to cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias and, in 1996, voted against a bill that would have outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by a single vote in the Senate.
The Los Angeles Times reported on August 28:
But the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement calling attention to Craig's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and his opposition to legislation that would expand the federal hate crime law to cover violent acts based on a victim's sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity or disability.
From the August 27 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
KATE SNOW (guest anchor): We learned today that a Republican member of the Senate, Larry Craig of Idaho, was arrested back in June and has now pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge. The newspaper Roll Call reports Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport and accused of lewd conduct. His office calls it a misunderstanding, and late today, Craig said he should not have pled guilty.
From the August 27 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams:
BRIAN WILLIAMS (anchor): There is late world today that Senator Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, was arrested in June by a plainclothes police officer in Minnesota for what's being called lewd conduct in the presence of a plainclothes police officer in a men's room. That was at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call obtained the arrest report. The senator later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. He paid more than $500 in fines and was given one year of probation.
But a short time ago this evening, Senator Craig issued a statement saying, "At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct." Craig's statement goes on to say, quote, "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty." Close quote.
From the August 27 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:
KATIE COURIC (anchor): Meanwhile, there is word tonight that Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty this month to disorderly conduct charges. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call says Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport by police investigating complaints of lewd conduct. But tonight, the senator says he told the police his actions were misconstrued, and he denies doing anything wrong. Craig was fined $1,000.
— S.S.M.
Craig says he made 'mistake' in guilty plea
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-28-craig-fallout_N.htm
Craig says he made 'mistake' in guilty plea
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
Sen. Larry Craig said Tuesday he "made a mistake" in pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge involving a June 11 arrest in a Minneapolis airport restroom, saying he made the plea "in hopes it would go away."
"Let me be clear. I am not gay. I never have been gay," Craig, an Idaho Republican, said in a brief appearance with his wife in Boise. He entered the guilty plea earlier this month, several weeks after an undercover officer arrested him at the airport and filed a complaint that said the three-term senator had engaged in actions "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct." The plea first became widely known Monday.
The senator also disclosed that he hid the guilty plea from his wife and friends, and said he had retained counsel to advise him on legal options. He said he would decide by next month whether to seek re-election to his seat.
Craig made the statement minutes after Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics review of the events surrounding his guilty plea. Republican leaders also are "examining other aspects of the case to see if additional action is required," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other top GOP lawmakers said in a written statement.
Craig, 62, a three-term senator up for re-election in 2008, first denied any improper behavior in a statement released by his office on Monday.
Earlier Tuesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.
Craig has stepped down as Senate liaison for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, according to Matt Rhoades, communication director for the Romney campaign.
"This definitely makes the race more competitive," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Hannah August said.
Craig's seat was considered among the safest of 20 Republican Senate seats up in next year's election.
Craig's likely Democratic opponent, Larry LaRocco, a former member of Congress, said Monday he wouldn't comment on Craig's troubles but insisted he can beat the senator based on issues such as veterans' assistance, immigration and Iraq.
"There are a lot of vulnerabilities regardless of what happened," LaRocco told USA TODAY in a phone interview from Coeur d'Alene.
The Idaho Statesman reported that Mike Crapo, Idaho's other Republican senator, told reporters he spoke to Craig on Monday and takes Craig at his word that he did nothing inappropriate.
"I was very concerned," Crapo said. "I made a phone call and visited with Larry, and he explained to me as he has to everyone. I take him at his word."
When asked whether Craig should run for re-election, Crapo said: "That is really Larry's decision. He has been deciding whether to run already. This is a very tough decision to make under any circumstance. Whatever Larry decides, I will support."
The Statesman, the biggest newspaper in Idaho, carried a lengthy story Tuesday describing its investigation of alleged homosexual activity by Craig. In the story, which the newspaper said was inconclusive, Craig vigorously denied engaging in homosexual activity.
In the hour-long interview with the newspaper, conducted on May 14, Craig was accompanied by his wife, Suzanne.
The Statesman article said its reporter played Craig an audiotape of a man claiming that he and Craig had sex in the Union Station restroom in Washington, D.C. Like the Minnesota airport restroom, the Union Station restroom is known as a place where men can find anonymous sex.
Craig denied the man's account. "I am not gay and I have never been in a restroom in Union Station having sex with anybody," he said. "There's a very clear bottom line here. I don't do that kind of thing. I am not gay, and I never have been."
Likewise, Craig, in his statement Monday, also denied any inappropriate behavior connected with the arrest in Minneapolis.
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said in the statement. "I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct."
Craig said he regrets his guilty plea. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter," he said. "In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
Although the police report of the incident is titled "lewd conduct," a Hennepin County court docket showed Craig pleaded guilty only to a charge of disorderly conduct, and the court dismissed a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy, according to the Associated Press.
The docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the "county workhouse" was stayed.
The report, filed by Sgt. Dave Karsnia, said he was working a "plainclothes detail involving lewd conduct" in the airport restroom when the incident occurred. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, broke the story Monday.
Karsnia said he made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. He described Craig tapping his foot, which the officer said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."
After the arrest, the report said, Craig handed the officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate. "What do you think about that?" Craig said, according to the report.
Eleven days later, according to a second police report, Craig returned to the airport police center in Minneapolis to find out the status of his case.
The officer on duty, Adam Snedker, said Craig appeared "agitated and demeaning" and explained that he had been involved in an incident where he was "drug down to this office" and was handcuffed, fingerprinted and interviewed. Craig was directed to call Karsnia, the arresting officer.
In a subsequent report, Karsnia said he gave Craig an update on the case and provided contact information on the attorney assigned to the case. Karsnia also said that "contrary to what Craig stated" he had not handcuffed Craig during the initial incident, even though he was under arrest.
Contributing: Douglas Stanglin and Randy Lilleston in McLean, Va.; Associated Press.
Craig says he made 'mistake' in guilty plea
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
Sen. Larry Craig said Tuesday he "made a mistake" in pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge involving a June 11 arrest in a Minneapolis airport restroom, saying he made the plea "in hopes it would go away."
"Let me be clear. I am not gay. I never have been gay," Craig, an Idaho Republican, said in a brief appearance with his wife in Boise. He entered the guilty plea earlier this month, several weeks after an undercover officer arrested him at the airport and filed a complaint that said the three-term senator had engaged in actions "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct." The plea first became widely known Monday.
The senator also disclosed that he hid the guilty plea from his wife and friends, and said he had retained counsel to advise him on legal options. He said he would decide by next month whether to seek re-election to his seat.
Craig made the statement minutes after Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics review of the events surrounding his guilty plea. Republican leaders also are "examining other aspects of the case to see if additional action is required," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other top GOP lawmakers said in a written statement.
Craig, 62, a three-term senator up for re-election in 2008, first denied any improper behavior in a statement released by his office on Monday.
Earlier Tuesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.
Craig has stepped down as Senate liaison for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, according to Matt Rhoades, communication director for the Romney campaign.
"This definitely makes the race more competitive," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Hannah August said.
Craig's seat was considered among the safest of 20 Republican Senate seats up in next year's election.
Craig's likely Democratic opponent, Larry LaRocco, a former member of Congress, said Monday he wouldn't comment on Craig's troubles but insisted he can beat the senator based on issues such as veterans' assistance, immigration and Iraq.
"There are a lot of vulnerabilities regardless of what happened," LaRocco told USA TODAY in a phone interview from Coeur d'Alene.
The Idaho Statesman reported that Mike Crapo, Idaho's other Republican senator, told reporters he spoke to Craig on Monday and takes Craig at his word that he did nothing inappropriate.
"I was very concerned," Crapo said. "I made a phone call and visited with Larry, and he explained to me as he has to everyone. I take him at his word."
When asked whether Craig should run for re-election, Crapo said: "That is really Larry's decision. He has been deciding whether to run already. This is a very tough decision to make under any circumstance. Whatever Larry decides, I will support."
The Statesman, the biggest newspaper in Idaho, carried a lengthy story Tuesday describing its investigation of alleged homosexual activity by Craig. In the story, which the newspaper said was inconclusive, Craig vigorously denied engaging in homosexual activity.
In the hour-long interview with the newspaper, conducted on May 14, Craig was accompanied by his wife, Suzanne.
The Statesman article said its reporter played Craig an audiotape of a man claiming that he and Craig had sex in the Union Station restroom in Washington, D.C. Like the Minnesota airport restroom, the Union Station restroom is known as a place where men can find anonymous sex.
Craig denied the man's account. "I am not gay and I have never been in a restroom in Union Station having sex with anybody," he said. "There's a very clear bottom line here. I don't do that kind of thing. I am not gay, and I never have been."
Likewise, Craig, in his statement Monday, also denied any inappropriate behavior connected with the arrest in Minneapolis.
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said in the statement. "I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct."
Craig said he regrets his guilty plea. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter," he said. "In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
Although the police report of the incident is titled "lewd conduct," a Hennepin County court docket showed Craig pleaded guilty only to a charge of disorderly conduct, and the court dismissed a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy, according to the Associated Press.
The docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the "county workhouse" was stayed.
The report, filed by Sgt. Dave Karsnia, said he was working a "plainclothes detail involving lewd conduct" in the airport restroom when the incident occurred. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, broke the story Monday.
Karsnia said he made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. He described Craig tapping his foot, which the officer said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."
After the arrest, the report said, Craig handed the officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate. "What do you think about that?" Craig said, according to the report.
Eleven days later, according to a second police report, Craig returned to the airport police center in Minneapolis to find out the status of his case.
The officer on duty, Adam Snedker, said Craig appeared "agitated and demeaning" and explained that he had been involved in an incident where he was "drug down to this office" and was handcuffed, fingerprinted and interviewed. Craig was directed to call Karsnia, the arresting officer.
In a subsequent report, Karsnia said he gave Craig an update on the case and provided contact information on the attorney assigned to the case. Karsnia also said that "contrary to what Craig stated" he had not handcuffed Craig during the initial incident, even though he was under arrest.
Contributing: Douglas Stanglin and Randy Lilleston in McLean, Va.; Associated Press.
Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator's Future
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082800122.html
Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator's Future
By MATTHEW DALY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is a conservative Republican who has voted against gay marriage and opposes hate crimes legislation that would extend special protections to gay and lesbian crime victims.
In the wake of Craig's guilty plea on misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis airport, his political future is in question.
The three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall.
A spokesman, Sidney Smith, was uncertain late Monday if Craig's guilty plea would affect his re-election plans.
"It's too early to talk about anything about that," Smith said.
A political science professor in Idaho said Craig's political future was in jeopardy. And a spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, Hannah August, said Craig's guilty plea "has given Americans another reason not to vote Republican" next year.
The married Craig, 62, has faced rumors about his sexuality since the 1980s, but allegations that he has engaged in gay sex have never been substantiated. Craig has denied the assertions, which he calls ridiculous.
The arrest changes that dynamic, said Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho in Caldwell, Idaho. He cited the House page scandal that drove Florida Rep. Mark Foley from office.
"There's a chance that he'll resign over this," LiCalzi said. "With the pressure on the Republican Party, he could be pressured to resign. If they think this is going to be something that's the same as Mark Foley _ the sort of 'drip, drip, drip, there's more information that's going to come out' _ they may try to push him out."
Already Craig has stepped down from a prominent role with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. He had been one of Romney's top Senate supporters, serving as a Senate liaison for the campaign since February.
"He did not want to be a distraction and we accept his decision," said Matt Rhoades, a Romney campaign spokesman.
According to a Hennepin County, Minn., court docket, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge on Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.
The court docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.
Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which first reported the case, said on its Web site Monday that Craig was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the airport.
Minneapolis airport police declined to provide a copy of the arrest report after business hours Monday.
Roll Call, citing the report, said Sgt. Dave Karsnia made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."
Roll Call quoted the Aug. 8 police report as saying that Craig had handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate.
"What do you think about that?" Craig is alleged to have said, according to the report.
Craig said in a statement issued by his office Monday that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
Craig joins other GOP senators facing ethical and legal troubles.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is under scrutiny for his relationship with a contractor who helped oversee a renovation project that more than doubled the size of the senator's home.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., acknowledged that his phone number appeared in records of a Washington-area business that prosecutors have said was a front for prostitution.
Craig, a rancher and a member of the National Rifle Association, lives in Eagle, Idaho, near the capital of Boise. He was a member of the House for 10 years before winning election to the Senate in 1990. He was re-elected in 1996 and 2002.
Last fall, Craig called allegations from a gay-rights activist that he's had homosexual relationships "completely ridiculous."
Mike Rogers, who bills himself as a gay activist blogger, published the allegations on his Web site, http://www.blogactive.com/, in October 2006.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, an advocacy group, on Monday called Craig a hypocrite.
"What's up with elected officials like Senator Craig? They stand for so-called family values and fight basic protections for gay people while furtively seeking other men for sex," Foreman said.
___
Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and John Miller in Boise contributed to this story.
Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator's Future
By MATTHEW DALY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is a conservative Republican who has voted against gay marriage and opposes hate crimes legislation that would extend special protections to gay and lesbian crime victims.
In the wake of Craig's guilty plea on misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis airport, his political future is in question.
The three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall.
A spokesman, Sidney Smith, was uncertain late Monday if Craig's guilty plea would affect his re-election plans.
"It's too early to talk about anything about that," Smith said.
A political science professor in Idaho said Craig's political future was in jeopardy. And a spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, Hannah August, said Craig's guilty plea "has given Americans another reason not to vote Republican" next year.
The married Craig, 62, has faced rumors about his sexuality since the 1980s, but allegations that he has engaged in gay sex have never been substantiated. Craig has denied the assertions, which he calls ridiculous.
The arrest changes that dynamic, said Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho in Caldwell, Idaho. He cited the House page scandal that drove Florida Rep. Mark Foley from office.
"There's a chance that he'll resign over this," LiCalzi said. "With the pressure on the Republican Party, he could be pressured to resign. If they think this is going to be something that's the same as Mark Foley _ the sort of 'drip, drip, drip, there's more information that's going to come out' _ they may try to push him out."
Already Craig has stepped down from a prominent role with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. He had been one of Romney's top Senate supporters, serving as a Senate liaison for the campaign since February.
"He did not want to be a distraction and we accept his decision," said Matt Rhoades, a Romney campaign spokesman.
According to a Hennepin County, Minn., court docket, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge on Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.
The court docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.
Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which first reported the case, said on its Web site Monday that Craig was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the airport.
Minneapolis airport police declined to provide a copy of the arrest report after business hours Monday.
Roll Call, citing the report, said Sgt. Dave Karsnia made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."
Roll Call quoted the Aug. 8 police report as saying that Craig had handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate.
"What do you think about that?" Craig is alleged to have said, according to the report.
Craig said in a statement issued by his office Monday that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
Craig joins other GOP senators facing ethical and legal troubles.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is under scrutiny for his relationship with a contractor who helped oversee a renovation project that more than doubled the size of the senator's home.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., acknowledged that his phone number appeared in records of a Washington-area business that prosecutors have said was a front for prostitution.
Craig, a rancher and a member of the National Rifle Association, lives in Eagle, Idaho, near the capital of Boise. He was a member of the House for 10 years before winning election to the Senate in 1990. He was re-elected in 1996 and 2002.
Last fall, Craig called allegations from a gay-rights activist that he's had homosexual relationships "completely ridiculous."
Mike Rogers, who bills himself as a gay activist blogger, published the allegations on his Web site, http://www.blogactive.com/, in October 2006.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, an advocacy group, on Monday called Craig a hypocrite.
"What's up with elected officials like Senator Craig? They stand for so-called family values and fight basic protections for gay people while furtively seeking other men for sex," Foreman said.
___
Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and John Miller in Boise contributed to this story.
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh08272007.html
August 27 2007
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2
ADL's Foxman's Forges Impossible Alliance of Armenians, Turks and Boston-Area Jews
By JOHN V. WALSH
Last week CounterPunch was the only national outlet, to the best of our knowledge, to report the disturbances caused in the Boston suburb of Watertown over denial of the Armenian genocide by the national Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its director, Abe Foxman. The brouhaha was set off by an investigation into Watertown's participation in "No Place for Hate," an "anti-bigotry" program of uncertain origin. Mirabile dictu, the program turned out to be sponsored by the national ADL which denies that the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks from 1915 to 1923 amounted to a genocide. This was quite disconcerting to the town mothers and fathers since Watertown boasts an Armenian-American population in excess of 8000. The town council met to consider the program and the local director of ADL, one Andrew Tarsey, showed up to implore them not to withdraw from the program. Met with boos and hisses by the duly assembled Watertown citizenry, Tarsey beat a hasty retreat from the Council chambers. The Watertown mothers and fathers then unanimously voted to drop the ADL program.
The next day Tarsey, now in full rout, reversed his position, labeling the killing of 1.5 million Armenians a genocide after all. Problem is that this local ADL position contradicts the position of national ADL headed by Abe Foxman, which persists in denying the Armenian genocide. Foxman's solution fire local ADL leader Tarsey. And for good measure, he labeled the Watertown position as "bigoted," thus playing the "race card." Obviously the Watertownians must be anti-Semites, a charge Foxman cannot resist, if they will not sponsor an ADL program. However, in a challenge to Foxman, the local ADL and Jewish establishment, seeing their credibility slip sliding away here in the Athens of America, decided to affirm the Armenian genocide.
But the House of Reps. in US Congress has a resolution pending with 227 co-sponsors (a clear majority) recognizing the Armenian genocide, much to the consternation of Turkey, an ally of Israel's and also an avid buyer of Israeli arms and an ally of the U.S. So what was Foxman to do? Like Solomon, Foxman opted for a split decision, but unlike Solomon, Foxman has tried to execute it. He said in Boston that he has reversed his decision and the ADL now considers the Armenian massacre "tantamount to genocide." ("Tantamount"?) But in Washington national ADL will continue to oppose the Congressional resolution, recognizing the Armenian genocide. So in Boston the massacre of Armenians is genocide but in Washington it is not. What the status will be in NYC or Baltimore, Foxman has yet to decide.
The Armenians, both locally and nationally, will have none of this. They want the ADL to support the Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide or else stand accused as genocide deniers. So now both the Armenians and the local Boston ADL are at odds with Foxman and national ADL.
Enter the Turks. They too have denounced Foxman for admitting genocide in Boston even if he has not done so in Washington. And they are angry about it. Foxman laid his original genocide denial at the feet of the Turks, saying he feared for the safety of Jewish Turks if he crossed the Turks. Friday the Turkish Foreign Ministry responded, "The Jewish community in Turkey is part of our society, and its members do not have any reason to worry." Clearly the Turks do not like Foxman's accusations of anti-Semitism, any more than the Watertownians did. The Turks then one-upped Foxman, claiming that his Boston recognition of the Armenian genocide denies the special nature of the Holocaust. "We consider the statement of the ADL as an injustice to the unique character of the Holocaust, as well as to the memories of its victims," the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Washington said in a statement. "We expect it to be rectified." There you have it, Abe Foxman, Holocaust denier! So Foxman now has accomplished what has eluded diplomats for nearly a century, bringing Armenians and Turks together in this case in opposition to national ADL. And he has even brought down a Turkish charge against his own proper respect for the Holocaust!
Foxman of course is little more than an intellectual bully, sliming with charges of anti-Semitism whomever dares challenge the policies of Isreal. But his defamatory, anti-defamation league is in trouble. Foxman's actions now put the fabled and hitherto invincible Isreali Lobby on the line. The Turks certainly must have thought that the Lobby could "deliver" Congress on genocide denial, and Foxman's ADL is a key component of that Lobby. The Turks have already complained to Israel about the ADL's Boston-Washington split decision. This is very important to them, having hired both Dick Gephardt, former House Majority Leader and Bob Livingston (Remember him?) former Speaker of the House at considerable cost to get Congress on their side. So the battle lines are drawn. CounterPunch will keep you posted.
John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com.
August 27 2007
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2
ADL's Foxman's Forges Impossible Alliance of Armenians, Turks and Boston-Area Jews
By JOHN V. WALSH
Last week CounterPunch was the only national outlet, to the best of our knowledge, to report the disturbances caused in the Boston suburb of Watertown over denial of the Armenian genocide by the national Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its director, Abe Foxman. The brouhaha was set off by an investigation into Watertown's participation in "No Place for Hate," an "anti-bigotry" program of uncertain origin. Mirabile dictu, the program turned out to be sponsored by the national ADL which denies that the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks from 1915 to 1923 amounted to a genocide. This was quite disconcerting to the town mothers and fathers since Watertown boasts an Armenian-American population in excess of 8000. The town council met to consider the program and the local director of ADL, one Andrew Tarsey, showed up to implore them not to withdraw from the program. Met with boos and hisses by the duly assembled Watertown citizenry, Tarsey beat a hasty retreat from the Council chambers. The Watertown mothers and fathers then unanimously voted to drop the ADL program.
The next day Tarsey, now in full rout, reversed his position, labeling the killing of 1.5 million Armenians a genocide after all. Problem is that this local ADL position contradicts the position of national ADL headed by Abe Foxman, which persists in denying the Armenian genocide. Foxman's solution fire local ADL leader Tarsey. And for good measure, he labeled the Watertown position as "bigoted," thus playing the "race card." Obviously the Watertownians must be anti-Semites, a charge Foxman cannot resist, if they will not sponsor an ADL program. However, in a challenge to Foxman, the local ADL and Jewish establishment, seeing their credibility slip sliding away here in the Athens of America, decided to affirm the Armenian genocide.
But the House of Reps. in US Congress has a resolution pending with 227 co-sponsors (a clear majority) recognizing the Armenian genocide, much to the consternation of Turkey, an ally of Israel's and also an avid buyer of Israeli arms and an ally of the U.S. So what was Foxman to do? Like Solomon, Foxman opted for a split decision, but unlike Solomon, Foxman has tried to execute it. He said in Boston that he has reversed his decision and the ADL now considers the Armenian massacre "tantamount to genocide." ("Tantamount"?) But in Washington national ADL will continue to oppose the Congressional resolution, recognizing the Armenian genocide. So in Boston the massacre of Armenians is genocide but in Washington it is not. What the status will be in NYC or Baltimore, Foxman has yet to decide.
The Armenians, both locally and nationally, will have none of this. They want the ADL to support the Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide or else stand accused as genocide deniers. So now both the Armenians and the local Boston ADL are at odds with Foxman and national ADL.
Enter the Turks. They too have denounced Foxman for admitting genocide in Boston even if he has not done so in Washington. And they are angry about it. Foxman laid his original genocide denial at the feet of the Turks, saying he feared for the safety of Jewish Turks if he crossed the Turks. Friday the Turkish Foreign Ministry responded, "The Jewish community in Turkey is part of our society, and its members do not have any reason to worry." Clearly the Turks do not like Foxman's accusations of anti-Semitism, any more than the Watertownians did. The Turks then one-upped Foxman, claiming that his Boston recognition of the Armenian genocide denies the special nature of the Holocaust. "We consider the statement of the ADL as an injustice to the unique character of the Holocaust, as well as to the memories of its victims," the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Washington said in a statement. "We expect it to be rectified." There you have it, Abe Foxman, Holocaust denier! So Foxman now has accomplished what has eluded diplomats for nearly a century, bringing Armenians and Turks together in this case in opposition to national ADL. And he has even brought down a Turkish charge against his own proper respect for the Holocaust!
Foxman of course is little more than an intellectual bully, sliming with charges of anti-Semitism whomever dares challenge the policies of Isreal. But his defamatory, anti-defamation league is in trouble. Foxman's actions now put the fabled and hitherto invincible Isreali Lobby on the line. The Turks certainly must have thought that the Lobby could "deliver" Congress on genocide denial, and Foxman's ADL is a key component of that Lobby. The Turks have already complained to Israel about the ADL's Boston-Washington split decision. This is very important to them, having hired both Dick Gephardt, former House Majority Leader and Bob Livingston (Remember him?) former Speaker of the House at considerable cost to get Congress on their side. So the battle lines are drawn. CounterPunch will keep you posted.
John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com.
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh08222007.html
August 22, 2007
Bombing in Boston
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show
By JOHN WALSH
It seemed innocuous enough at first. Watertown, a suburb of Boston, sported a sign on the Town Hall, proclaiming the town a participant in an anti-bigotry program "No Place for Hate." But one of the good citizens of Watertown with libertarian inclinations objected that the sign seemed like some kind of PC thought control. His objections set in motion investigations by the town mothers and fathers into the program. Lo and behold, it was sponsored by Abe Foman's Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
In itself this sponsorship might not be a problem, unless you are a Muslim, an Arab or a Palestinian and know full well the ADL's positions on bigotry. But there are over 8000 Armenian-Americans in Watertown, and the ADL has long denied that the Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 amounted to genocide. Turkey is of course an ally and arms purchaser of Israel's, but the denial antedates this alliance. A good friend of mine, an Israeli expatriate, tells me that when he went to school in Israel, mention of the Armenian genocide was verboten so as not to detract from the "uniqueness" of the Jewish genocide under the Nazis and to maintain a "monopoly on suffering," as he puts it. Shoah business does not like the competition.
The whole matter in Watertown was given added urgency by a resolution now pending in Congress calling on Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide. This resolution is supported by the Armenian community and opposed by the national ADL.
Anger began to mount in Watertown and the citizens called on the city mothers and fathers to withdraw from the ADL-sponsored program. (ADL Dollars and awards flow to participating towns.) The Watertown Town Council called a meeting which was packed with a lot of angry Armenians. Regional ADL director Andrew Tarsey came to the meeting to defend the ADL genocide denial, (as had the ADL's national director, Abe Foxman, in an interview with the Boston Globe,) and to call on the town to stick with the "No Place for Hate" program. Tarsey was booed out of the hall with hisses and catcalls. At that the town mothers and fathers voted unanimously to quit the program, and at the cost of overtime for two city workers the sign was gone before dawn.
Tarsey was unable to prevail with his genocide denial and couldn't move Foxman and the national ADL to reverse course. Tarsey then reversed his position and agreed that Armenians had indeed endured a genocide.They then cut through the Gordian Knot by firing Tarsey. Two local ADL board members duly resigned in protest. The rest stood by their man, Foxman. Tarsey is now hailed repeatedly as a "hero" by local Jewish leaders. If armies were composed of such heroes, every battle would culminate in mutual mass retreat. Notably and unusually, the city of Watertown and its council were not labeled anti-semitic by the ADL and its assorted acolytes. Even Alan Dershowitz did not raise a peep. This seems to be a kind of sea change, and it may have something to do with the Lobby's weaker position now that it is more widely seen. post Mearsheimer and Walt, as a principal instigator of the disastrous war on Iraq.
At this point the Boston Jewish community was divided. Foxman was under pressure, and Armenian-Americans from across the country were getting involved. How to respond? With a big expensive newspaper ad of course. And how did Foxman's ad make his case? By blaming it on the Jews! Specificially the Jews of Turkey whom Foxman and company claim would be endangered by a change in the ADL position. But there have been many reports of the tolerance shown to Jews in Turkey, as one letter writer to the Boston Globe noted. The Foxman ad also let the Israeli cat out of the bag, saying, "We are also aware that Turkey is a key strategic ally and friend of the United States and a staunch friend of Israel." (Some staunch friend if it were true that Turkey was persecuting Turkish Jews. What a tangled web has been woven by ADL.) But of course the ADL was only stating its long-time position that Israel comes first way before any consideration of human rights.
Two days ago, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC) known for its pro-Iraq war stance, its Iran bashing and its opposition to Palestinian rights joined the fray. It sent out a letter repudiating Foxmam's genocide denial and claiming it recognized the Armenian genocide long long ago in fact in 2005, although this received scant notice until now. Let's see; the genocide happened in 1915 and the JCRC recognized it in 2005 after the passage of 90 years. By that logic Holocaust denial should be OK for another 13 years.
Today Foxman and his national ADL, hastily joining the local ADL in full retreat, have pronounced the Armenian slaughter is a genocide after all. Upon reflection and with the help of that great humanitarian, Elie Wiesel, who seems to be acting as a kind of Jewish Billy Graham and who has never acknowledged the injustice done the Palestinians, Foxman thinks that it was a genocide after all. (Of course according to their newspaper ad of several days back this means that the national ADL is now abandoning Turkish Jewry to a horrible fate.) ADL was in fact founded in 1913 just before the onset of the Armenian genocide, so ADL's acknowledgement is not overly hasty. Perhaps the ADL's new slogan could be "Building on 100 years of Genocide Denial."
But Foxman and company have not given up yet. National ADL still refuses to support the Congressional resolution put forward by Rep. Adam Schiff of California to recognize the Armenian genocide. (ADL in fact has lobbied against the resolution.) But the Armenian community is not buying it. Schiff wants ADL to support the resolution. And Watertown Councilor Marilyn Pettito Devaney said that she and others will accept nothing less than full ADL support for the resolution. Meanwhile she said that she and others will lobby other towns to pull out of the ADL's bigoted, "anti-bigotry" No Place for Hate" program. (You may want to look at that site to see whether you can find any statement about the slow genocide being wrought on the Palestinians.) This program is found in cities and towns all over the United States. Do you have one in your town?
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. This story continues to develop with Foxman making a personal visit to Beantown today. CounterPunch will keep an eye on the situation as it unwinds.
August 22, 2007
Bombing in Boston
Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show
By JOHN WALSH
It seemed innocuous enough at first. Watertown, a suburb of Boston, sported a sign on the Town Hall, proclaiming the town a participant in an anti-bigotry program "No Place for Hate." But one of the good citizens of Watertown with libertarian inclinations objected that the sign seemed like some kind of PC thought control. His objections set in motion investigations by the town mothers and fathers into the program. Lo and behold, it was sponsored by Abe Foman's Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
In itself this sponsorship might not be a problem, unless you are a Muslim, an Arab or a Palestinian and know full well the ADL's positions on bigotry. But there are over 8000 Armenian-Americans in Watertown, and the ADL has long denied that the Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 amounted to genocide. Turkey is of course an ally and arms purchaser of Israel's, but the denial antedates this alliance. A good friend of mine, an Israeli expatriate, tells me that when he went to school in Israel, mention of the Armenian genocide was verboten so as not to detract from the "uniqueness" of the Jewish genocide under the Nazis and to maintain a "monopoly on suffering," as he puts it. Shoah business does not like the competition.
The whole matter in Watertown was given added urgency by a resolution now pending in Congress calling on Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide. This resolution is supported by the Armenian community and opposed by the national ADL.
Anger began to mount in Watertown and the citizens called on the city mothers and fathers to withdraw from the ADL-sponsored program. (ADL Dollars and awards flow to participating towns.) The Watertown Town Council called a meeting which was packed with a lot of angry Armenians. Regional ADL director Andrew Tarsey came to the meeting to defend the ADL genocide denial, (as had the ADL's national director, Abe Foxman, in an interview with the Boston Globe,) and to call on the town to stick with the "No Place for Hate" program. Tarsey was booed out of the hall with hisses and catcalls. At that the town mothers and fathers voted unanimously to quit the program, and at the cost of overtime for two city workers the sign was gone before dawn.
Tarsey was unable to prevail with his genocide denial and couldn't move Foxman and the national ADL to reverse course. Tarsey then reversed his position and agreed that Armenians had indeed endured a genocide.They then cut through the Gordian Knot by firing Tarsey. Two local ADL board members duly resigned in protest. The rest stood by their man, Foxman. Tarsey is now hailed repeatedly as a "hero" by local Jewish leaders. If armies were composed of such heroes, every battle would culminate in mutual mass retreat. Notably and unusually, the city of Watertown and its council were not labeled anti-semitic by the ADL and its assorted acolytes. Even Alan Dershowitz did not raise a peep. This seems to be a kind of sea change, and it may have something to do with the Lobby's weaker position now that it is more widely seen. post Mearsheimer and Walt, as a principal instigator of the disastrous war on Iraq.
At this point the Boston Jewish community was divided. Foxman was under pressure, and Armenian-Americans from across the country were getting involved. How to respond? With a big expensive newspaper ad of course. And how did Foxman's ad make his case? By blaming it on the Jews! Specificially the Jews of Turkey whom Foxman and company claim would be endangered by a change in the ADL position. But there have been many reports of the tolerance shown to Jews in Turkey, as one letter writer to the Boston Globe noted. The Foxman ad also let the Israeli cat out of the bag, saying, "We are also aware that Turkey is a key strategic ally and friend of the United States and a staunch friend of Israel." (Some staunch friend if it were true that Turkey was persecuting Turkish Jews. What a tangled web has been woven by ADL.) But of course the ADL was only stating its long-time position that Israel comes first way before any consideration of human rights.
Two days ago, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC) known for its pro-Iraq war stance, its Iran bashing and its opposition to Palestinian rights joined the fray. It sent out a letter repudiating Foxmam's genocide denial and claiming it recognized the Armenian genocide long long ago in fact in 2005, although this received scant notice until now. Let's see; the genocide happened in 1915 and the JCRC recognized it in 2005 after the passage of 90 years. By that logic Holocaust denial should be OK for another 13 years.
Today Foxman and his national ADL, hastily joining the local ADL in full retreat, have pronounced the Armenian slaughter is a genocide after all. Upon reflection and with the help of that great humanitarian, Elie Wiesel, who seems to be acting as a kind of Jewish Billy Graham and who has never acknowledged the injustice done the Palestinians, Foxman thinks that it was a genocide after all. (Of course according to their newspaper ad of several days back this means that the national ADL is now abandoning Turkish Jewry to a horrible fate.) ADL was in fact founded in 1913 just before the onset of the Armenian genocide, so ADL's acknowledgement is not overly hasty. Perhaps the ADL's new slogan could be "Building on 100 years of Genocide Denial."
But Foxman and company have not given up yet. National ADL still refuses to support the Congressional resolution put forward by Rep. Adam Schiff of California to recognize the Armenian genocide. (ADL in fact has lobbied against the resolution.) But the Armenian community is not buying it. Schiff wants ADL to support the resolution. And Watertown Councilor Marilyn Pettito Devaney said that she and others will accept nothing less than full ADL support for the resolution. Meanwhile she said that she and others will lobby other towns to pull out of the ADL's bigoted, "anti-bigotry" No Place for Hate" program. (You may want to look at that site to see whether you can find any statement about the slow genocide being wrought on the Palestinians.) This program is found in cities and towns all over the United States. Do you have one in your town?
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. This story continues to develop with Foxman making a personal visit to Beantown today. CounterPunch will keep an eye on the situation as it unwinds.
Russia suggests Berezovsky was behind killing
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2901005.ece
Russia suggests Berezovsky was behind journalist's killing
By Shaun Walker in Moscow
Published: 28 August 2007
Russian prosecutors have announced a breakthrough in the hunt for the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading journalist and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, who was murdered last year.
Conveniently for the Kremlin, the finger of suspicion points directly at President Vladimir Putin's main enemy, the exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
The announcement came three days before what would have been Politkovskaya's 49th birthday, and almost a year after she was shot dead in a hail of bullets in the lift of her Moscow apartment building early last October.
The Russian prosecutor-general, Yuri Chaika, said at a press conference in Moscow yesterday that 10 arrests had been made, including the direct organisers, accomplices and the assassin himself.
Figures within the Russian Interior Ministry and secret services have been arrested as accomplices to the crime, but it was hinted that the mastermind of the murder was the oligarch living outside Russia.
The person who ordered the crime, said Mr Chaika, was living outside Russia and wanted to "destabilise the situation in the country ... and return to the previous ruling system, when money and oligarchs decided everything."
This would suggest either the London-based Boris Berezovsky, or the former head of Yukos oil and gas company, Leonid Nevzlin, who lives in Israel. The Kremlin and Russian authorities have long suggested that Mr Berezovsky is behind the murder of both Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent poisoned in London last November.
Experts and former colleagues of the assassinated journalist expressed satisfaction that arrests had been made, but scepticism at Mr Chaika's conclusions.
"It's good that there has been progress in the case," said Igor Yakovenko, secretary-general of the Russian Union of Journalists. "If we believe everything that Chaika says then this is the end of the sad tradition of the murders of journalists in Russia going unsolved." But, he said, there were several doubts about the allegations. "It's worrying that, even before the investigation has been officially completed, they are pointing the finger at people abroad," he said.
Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, the opposition newspaper where Politkovskaya published her hard-hitting reports on Russian politics and the conflict in Chechnya, expressed similar doubts. "We have known about this for a while. We've worked together with their investigation and we trust their professionalism," said Mr Muratov. "But we are absolutely amazed that they have openly stated they know who ordered the crime before the investigation has even been completed."
Mr Muratov confirmed that a security services official had been arrested, and revealed that the FSB security-service operative in question was a Moscow-based lieutenant-colonel. "At this stage, I don't want to reveal any more," he said. "Let's wait first for the court case."
Mr Chaika stated that the killing was carried out by a Chechen criminal gang operating in Moscow that specialises in professional hits. He also linked the group to the killings of Andrei Kozlov, the corruption-fighting banker who was shot dead last year, and the Forbes magazine editor Paul Klebnikov, killed in 2004.
He refused to name the mastermind, but separately stated that Russia's long-standing efforts to have Boris Berezovsky brought before a Russian court could bear fruit soon, if the former oligarch is extradited from Britain to Brazil, where he is wanted on charges of financial irregularity, and from there to Russia.
If all of Mr Chaika's claims are to be believed, it would mean that members of Russia's security services are under the command of Boris Berezovsky. " The level of corruption in Russia can bring many unpleasant surprises," said Gennady Gudkov, a former FSB colonel and now a member of the security committee of the Duma, or parliament. Mr Gudkov said he was certain the London-based exile was behind the killing: "My information leads me to believe that Berezovsky himself, or people controlled by him, are behind both this act and many acts of terrorism."
Others were sceptical. "We have no guarantees the names of those who really ordered the killing and the names of those who will be accused of it will be the same," said a statement from Novaya Gazeta's editorial team. "We have no complaints about the investigative team. We're working together ... But we want to be certain that nothing 'expedient', with no actual relation to the crime, influences this joint work."
Many might wonder if it is a little too convenient that Mr Chaika's statement neatly confirms the Kremlin's allegations from the start. "It makes you wonder if we are dealing not only with an 'ordered' killing but with an 'ordered' investigation too," said Mr Yakovenko.
Mr Berezovsky did not comment last night.
A passionate critic of Putin
* Born in New York in 1958 to Soviet Ukrainian parents - both UN diplomats - Anna Politkovskaya graduated as a journalist from Moscow State university and went on to report for the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya for over 10 years. In 1999, she became a national figure when she joined the relatively liberal Novaya Gazeta, a paper which took a consistently critical line against the Kremlin.
* She travelled regularly to Chechnya and the north Caucasus, reporting especially on the deaths of innocent civilians caught up in the war there with Russia.
* In 2002, she tried to help negotiate at the scene after becoming one of the few journalists to enter the theatre in Moscow seized by Chechen militants who held hundreds of people hostage.
* In 2004, she reported that she had been poisoned by a cup of tea on a flight.
* In the same year, she wrote Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy, a book attacking Mr Putin's human rights record. Her final article was about pro-Kremlin militias operating a policy of "Chechenisation" in the region. She was shot dead in her Moscow apartment block on 7 October 2006.
Russia suggests Berezovsky was behind journalist's killing
By Shaun Walker in Moscow
Published: 28 August 2007
Russian prosecutors have announced a breakthrough in the hunt for the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading journalist and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, who was murdered last year.
Conveniently for the Kremlin, the finger of suspicion points directly at President Vladimir Putin's main enemy, the exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
The announcement came three days before what would have been Politkovskaya's 49th birthday, and almost a year after she was shot dead in a hail of bullets in the lift of her Moscow apartment building early last October.
The Russian prosecutor-general, Yuri Chaika, said at a press conference in Moscow yesterday that 10 arrests had been made, including the direct organisers, accomplices and the assassin himself.
Figures within the Russian Interior Ministry and secret services have been arrested as accomplices to the crime, but it was hinted that the mastermind of the murder was the oligarch living outside Russia.
The person who ordered the crime, said Mr Chaika, was living outside Russia and wanted to "destabilise the situation in the country ... and return to the previous ruling system, when money and oligarchs decided everything."
This would suggest either the London-based Boris Berezovsky, or the former head of Yukos oil and gas company, Leonid Nevzlin, who lives in Israel. The Kremlin and Russian authorities have long suggested that Mr Berezovsky is behind the murder of both Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent poisoned in London last November.
Experts and former colleagues of the assassinated journalist expressed satisfaction that arrests had been made, but scepticism at Mr Chaika's conclusions.
"It's good that there has been progress in the case," said Igor Yakovenko, secretary-general of the Russian Union of Journalists. "If we believe everything that Chaika says then this is the end of the sad tradition of the murders of journalists in Russia going unsolved." But, he said, there were several doubts about the allegations. "It's worrying that, even before the investigation has been officially completed, they are pointing the finger at people abroad," he said.
Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, the opposition newspaper where Politkovskaya published her hard-hitting reports on Russian politics and the conflict in Chechnya, expressed similar doubts. "We have known about this for a while. We've worked together with their investigation and we trust their professionalism," said Mr Muratov. "But we are absolutely amazed that they have openly stated they know who ordered the crime before the investigation has even been completed."
Mr Muratov confirmed that a security services official had been arrested, and revealed that the FSB security-service operative in question was a Moscow-based lieutenant-colonel. "At this stage, I don't want to reveal any more," he said. "Let's wait first for the court case."
Mr Chaika stated that the killing was carried out by a Chechen criminal gang operating in Moscow that specialises in professional hits. He also linked the group to the killings of Andrei Kozlov, the corruption-fighting banker who was shot dead last year, and the Forbes magazine editor Paul Klebnikov, killed in 2004.
He refused to name the mastermind, but separately stated that Russia's long-standing efforts to have Boris Berezovsky brought before a Russian court could bear fruit soon, if the former oligarch is extradited from Britain to Brazil, where he is wanted on charges of financial irregularity, and from there to Russia.
If all of Mr Chaika's claims are to be believed, it would mean that members of Russia's security services are under the command of Boris Berezovsky. " The level of corruption in Russia can bring many unpleasant surprises," said Gennady Gudkov, a former FSB colonel and now a member of the security committee of the Duma, or parliament. Mr Gudkov said he was certain the London-based exile was behind the killing: "My information leads me to believe that Berezovsky himself, or people controlled by him, are behind both this act and many acts of terrorism."
Others were sceptical. "We have no guarantees the names of those who really ordered the killing and the names of those who will be accused of it will be the same," said a statement from Novaya Gazeta's editorial team. "We have no complaints about the investigative team. We're working together ... But we want to be certain that nothing 'expedient', with no actual relation to the crime, influences this joint work."
Many might wonder if it is a little too convenient that Mr Chaika's statement neatly confirms the Kremlin's allegations from the start. "It makes you wonder if we are dealing not only with an 'ordered' killing but with an 'ordered' investigation too," said Mr Yakovenko.
Mr Berezovsky did not comment last night.
A passionate critic of Putin
* Born in New York in 1958 to Soviet Ukrainian parents - both UN diplomats - Anna Politkovskaya graduated as a journalist from Moscow State university and went on to report for the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya for over 10 years. In 1999, she became a national figure when she joined the relatively liberal Novaya Gazeta, a paper which took a consistently critical line against the Kremlin.
* She travelled regularly to Chechnya and the north Caucasus, reporting especially on the deaths of innocent civilians caught up in the war there with Russia.
* In 2002, she tried to help negotiate at the scene after becoming one of the few journalists to enter the theatre in Moscow seized by Chechen militants who held hundreds of people hostage.
* In 2004, she reported that she had been poisoned by a cup of tea on a flight.
* In the same year, she wrote Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy, a book attacking Mr Putin's human rights record. Her final article was about pro-Kremlin militias operating a policy of "Chechenisation" in the region. She was shot dead in her Moscow apartment block on 7 October 2006.
French fans want Diana memorial in Paris
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_eu/france_diana_monument
French fans want Diana memorial in Paris
By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 28, 2007
At a golden statue of a flickering flame, fans of Princess Diana pay homage to her in Paris, leaving behind poems and prayers even now, 10 years after she died nearby.
A French child's collage proclaims her "unforgettable." An Italian fan scrawls, "I still love you."
But contrary to popular belief, the statue wasn't built for Diana; it was merely appropriated by her fans.
With the 10th anniversary of her death on Friday, a few fans say it's time she had a Paris monument in her honor — something permanent, unlike the memorabilia swept away regularly by trash collectors — and they have begun a fundraising drive.
Dominique de Fontenay says he thinks about Diana every day as he passes through the Pont d'Alma traffic tunnel where she died in a car crash, and he is always struck by the lack of a monument.
"That seems shocking and flagrant, given Diana's notoriety and the love that most people all over the world felt for her," said de Fontenay, a 34-year-old event planner who conceived the project.
De Fontenay teamed up with a jeweler and sculptor, Xavier de Fraissinette, who sketched out ideas for a bronze statue of a suit-clad Diana reaching out to a small child holding a bouquet.
"The hardest thing will be getting her expression, her smile, her face right," said de Fraissinette, who designed a sculpture for the Lyon, France, meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in 1996. "It must not be a mortuary monument, she must be natural."
After a few mentions in the local press, about 150 people have donated a total of $9,500, the two said. Building the statue will require $240,000, said de Fontenay, a Diana fan who remembers joining up with crowds to mourn the princess after the Aug. 31, 1997, crash that killed her, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their chauffeur, Henri Paul.
"I think everyone on the planet who had a heart was depressed that day, or at least filled with a great sadness," said de Fontenay, who named his cat "Princess" in Diana's honor.
The plans by de Fontenay and de Fraissinette are in the early stages and do not have approval from Paris City Hall, where the press office said officials were not aware of their campaign. The process could be long, and they will need approval from the city council.
For now, the torch statue near the traffic tunnel remains the de facto memorial. A replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch, it was donated in 1987 by the International Herald Tribune newspaper as a symbol of French-American friendship.
Ten years later, mourners turned the torch into a Diana shrine, which seemed fitting because Elton John sang "Candle in the Wind" at her funeral in London's Westminster Abbey.
On any given afternoon, dozens of tourists crowd around the torch, snapping pictures and leaving behind cellophane-wrapped roses. After posing for a snapshot, 29-year-old Arijit Ray of London said he wished de Fontenay and de Fraissinette luck.
"There should be a statue," he said.
De Fontenay already has a spot picked out — a grassy garden right above the tunnel where the crash took place.
"It's all ready. There are flowers. All that's missing is Diana," he said.
___
On the Net:
http://www.myspace.com/amemorialfordiana
http://www.xavierdefraissinette.fr/
French fans want Diana memorial in Paris
By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 28, 2007
At a golden statue of a flickering flame, fans of Princess Diana pay homage to her in Paris, leaving behind poems and prayers even now, 10 years after she died nearby.
A French child's collage proclaims her "unforgettable." An Italian fan scrawls, "I still love you."
But contrary to popular belief, the statue wasn't built for Diana; it was merely appropriated by her fans.
With the 10th anniversary of her death on Friday, a few fans say it's time she had a Paris monument in her honor — something permanent, unlike the memorabilia swept away regularly by trash collectors — and they have begun a fundraising drive.
Dominique de Fontenay says he thinks about Diana every day as he passes through the Pont d'Alma traffic tunnel where she died in a car crash, and he is always struck by the lack of a monument.
"That seems shocking and flagrant, given Diana's notoriety and the love that most people all over the world felt for her," said de Fontenay, a 34-year-old event planner who conceived the project.
De Fontenay teamed up with a jeweler and sculptor, Xavier de Fraissinette, who sketched out ideas for a bronze statue of a suit-clad Diana reaching out to a small child holding a bouquet.
"The hardest thing will be getting her expression, her smile, her face right," said de Fraissinette, who designed a sculpture for the Lyon, France, meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in 1996. "It must not be a mortuary monument, she must be natural."
After a few mentions in the local press, about 150 people have donated a total of $9,500, the two said. Building the statue will require $240,000, said de Fontenay, a Diana fan who remembers joining up with crowds to mourn the princess after the Aug. 31, 1997, crash that killed her, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their chauffeur, Henri Paul.
"I think everyone on the planet who had a heart was depressed that day, or at least filled with a great sadness," said de Fontenay, who named his cat "Princess" in Diana's honor.
The plans by de Fontenay and de Fraissinette are in the early stages and do not have approval from Paris City Hall, where the press office said officials were not aware of their campaign. The process could be long, and they will need approval from the city council.
For now, the torch statue near the traffic tunnel remains the de facto memorial. A replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch, it was donated in 1987 by the International Herald Tribune newspaper as a symbol of French-American friendship.
Ten years later, mourners turned the torch into a Diana shrine, which seemed fitting because Elton John sang "Candle in the Wind" at her funeral in London's Westminster Abbey.
On any given afternoon, dozens of tourists crowd around the torch, snapping pictures and leaving behind cellophane-wrapped roses. After posing for a snapshot, 29-year-old Arijit Ray of London said he wished de Fontenay and de Fraissinette luck.
"There should be a statue," he said.
De Fontenay already has a spot picked out — a grassy garden right above the tunnel where the crash took place.
"It's all ready. There are flowers. All that's missing is Diana," he said.
___
On the Net:
http://www.myspace.com/amemorialfordiana
http://www.xavierdefraissinette.fr/
Venetian aims to make Macau resort city
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_bi_ge/macau_venetian_opening
Venetian aims to make Macau resort city
By SYLVIA HUI, Associated Press Writer
8-28-7
American billionaire Sheldon Adelson opened what he says is the world's largest casino floor, housed in Asia's largest building Tuesday, adding credence to this coastal Chinese city's stature among major gambling centers.
Adelson and his wife Miriam inaugurated the $2.4 billion Venetian by smashing a bottle of champagne against the front of one of the casino and hotel complex's gondolas.
Casinos like the Wynn and Adelson's Sands have led this small city in southern China past the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gambling center.
Las Vegas Corp. Chairman Adelson wants to take it a step further with the 10.5 million square foot Venetian.
He hopes the complex will transform Macau from a gambling pit stop for Chinese tourists to a vacation and business convention destination, where visitors shop, watch shows — and roll the dice.
"Today is the beginning of what has been a dream of mine for some time — to reproduce the capital of entertainment in Asia for Asians," Adelson said Tuesday at a news conference.
Macau's casinos are currently scattered across the territory, a peninsula connected to mainland China and two outlying islands by a reclaimed strip of land called Cotai.
Adelson said his Venetian Macao Resort Hotel on Cotai is the cornerstone of what will become a concentrated resort area he calls the Cotai Strip.
Las Vegas Sands claims the 10.5 million square foot Venetian — twice the size of the Las Vegas original — is the largest building in Asia and the second largest in the world. Boeing Co. claims it has the world's largest building — a plant in Washington state.
The Venetian boasts what it claims to be the world's largest gaming space of 550,000 square feet, housing 3,400 slot machines — with room to expand to 6,000 — and more than 800 gambling tables.
It has 3,000 rooms, a 15,000-seat sports arena, retail space for 350 stores, 1.2 million square feet of convention space, fine dining and a Cirque du Soleil-produced show.
Its decor is Venice inspired — with a Chinese touch. Chinese-style sampans as well as gondolas will sail down canals. The resort also features a replica of Venice's St. Mark's Square.
Adelson also plans to open more hotels under brands such as Four Seasons, Sheraton and St. Regis. In all, his Las Vegas Sands Corp., which also runs the Sands Macao on the Macau peninsula, plans to invest up to $12 billion and build 20,000 hotel rooms on the Cotai Strip by 2010.
Some analysts say Adelson is smart in trying to lure new tourists to Macau. The convention business — a specialty of the Las Vegas Sands — is a lucrative one, they say.
"The Venetian will get new customers who are right now not going to Macau at all," analyst Billy Ng at JPMorgan Securities said.
Las Vegas Sands President William Weidner said 44 major conventions have already been scheduled at the Venetian over the next two years.
He also said he expects the Venetian Macao to lengthen the average guest stay to three to four days, from 1.2 days in other Macau hotels.
But it may take time to make Macau a major tourist destination.
Rob Hart at Morgan Stanley said Macau will never be Las Vegas.
"It's going to be slow transition ... it's never going to happen to the same extent," Hart said.
Venetian aims to make Macau resort city
By SYLVIA HUI, Associated Press Writer
8-28-7
American billionaire Sheldon Adelson opened what he says is the world's largest casino floor, housed in Asia's largest building Tuesday, adding credence to this coastal Chinese city's stature among major gambling centers.
Adelson and his wife Miriam inaugurated the $2.4 billion Venetian by smashing a bottle of champagne against the front of one of the casino and hotel complex's gondolas.
Casinos like the Wynn and Adelson's Sands have led this small city in southern China past the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gambling center.
Las Vegas Corp. Chairman Adelson wants to take it a step further with the 10.5 million square foot Venetian.
He hopes the complex will transform Macau from a gambling pit stop for Chinese tourists to a vacation and business convention destination, where visitors shop, watch shows — and roll the dice.
"Today is the beginning of what has been a dream of mine for some time — to reproduce the capital of entertainment in Asia for Asians," Adelson said Tuesday at a news conference.
Macau's casinos are currently scattered across the territory, a peninsula connected to mainland China and two outlying islands by a reclaimed strip of land called Cotai.
Adelson said his Venetian Macao Resort Hotel on Cotai is the cornerstone of what will become a concentrated resort area he calls the Cotai Strip.
Las Vegas Sands claims the 10.5 million square foot Venetian — twice the size of the Las Vegas original — is the largest building in Asia and the second largest in the world. Boeing Co. claims it has the world's largest building — a plant in Washington state.
The Venetian boasts what it claims to be the world's largest gaming space of 550,000 square feet, housing 3,400 slot machines — with room to expand to 6,000 — and more than 800 gambling tables.
It has 3,000 rooms, a 15,000-seat sports arena, retail space for 350 stores, 1.2 million square feet of convention space, fine dining and a Cirque du Soleil-produced show.
Its decor is Venice inspired — with a Chinese touch. Chinese-style sampans as well as gondolas will sail down canals. The resort also features a replica of Venice's St. Mark's Square.
Adelson also plans to open more hotels under brands such as Four Seasons, Sheraton and St. Regis. In all, his Las Vegas Sands Corp., which also runs the Sands Macao on the Macau peninsula, plans to invest up to $12 billion and build 20,000 hotel rooms on the Cotai Strip by 2010.
Some analysts say Adelson is smart in trying to lure new tourists to Macau. The convention business — a specialty of the Las Vegas Sands — is a lucrative one, they say.
"The Venetian will get new customers who are right now not going to Macau at all," analyst Billy Ng at JPMorgan Securities said.
Las Vegas Sands President William Weidner said 44 major conventions have already been scheduled at the Venetian over the next two years.
He also said he expects the Venetian Macao to lengthen the average guest stay to three to four days, from 1.2 days in other Macau hotels.
But it may take time to make Macau a major tourist destination.
Rob Hart at Morgan Stanley said Macau will never be Las Vegas.
"It's going to be slow transition ... it's never going to happen to the same extent," Hart said.
Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece
Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11
Robert Fisk, Independent
25 August 2007
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.
Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?
Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11. "We disrupted al-Qa'ida, causing them to run," Colonel David Sutherland said of the preposterously code-named "Operation Lightning Hammer" in Iraq's Diyala province. "Their fear of facing our forces proves the terrorists know there is no safe haven for them." And more of the same, all of it untrue.
Within hours, al-Qa'ida attacked Baquba in battalion strength and slaughtered all the local sheikhs who had thrown in their hand with the Americans. It reminds me of Vietnam, the war which George Bush watched from the skies over Texas – which may account for why he this week mixed up the end of the Vietnam war with the genocide in a different country called Cambodia, whose population was eventually rescued by the same Vietnamese whom Mr Bush's more courageous colleagues had been fighting all along.
But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".
Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard "explosions" in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let's claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA's list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.
But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.
Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.
Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11
Robert Fisk, Independent
25 August 2007
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.
Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?
Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11. "We disrupted al-Qa'ida, causing them to run," Colonel David Sutherland said of the preposterously code-named "Operation Lightning Hammer" in Iraq's Diyala province. "Their fear of facing our forces proves the terrorists know there is no safe haven for them." And more of the same, all of it untrue.
Within hours, al-Qa'ida attacked Baquba in battalion strength and slaughtered all the local sheikhs who had thrown in their hand with the Americans. It reminds me of Vietnam, the war which George Bush watched from the skies over Texas – which may account for why he this week mixed up the end of the Vietnam war with the genocide in a different country called Cambodia, whose population was eventually rescued by the same Vietnamese whom Mr Bush's more courageous colleagues had been fighting all along.
But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".
Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard "explosions" in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let's claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA's list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.
But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.
Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.
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