Well, let's take a trip around Google and Alternet and catch up with recent developments in The George W. Bush World Conquest Tour, Shall we?
Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a right-wing power grab
The Federal Communications Commission will meet in Washington on Monday for a historic vote on the future of media ownership in the United States. By all accounts, the Republican-dominated commission will ease long-standing rules so that more and more of the nations newspapers and broadcast stations can be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Underlying that agenda, Clinton-era FCC chairman Reed Hundt sees something more primal unfolding: an extraordinary conservative power grab that could shape the political landscape for generations.
For all the philosophical conflict over diversity in the media and the efficiency of the free market, Hunt told Salon this week, the vote is really about an alliance of interests between the political right and the corporate media. "Conservatives," he said, "hope � that the major media will be their friends."
- Salon -
According to The Center for Public Integrity Bush's FCC is already pretty friendly with the media:
Well Connected: FCC and Industry Maintain Cozy Relationship on Many Levels
Those findings come from the Center for Public Integrity�s unprecedented examination of the telecommunications industry, the centerpiece of which is a first-of-its-kind, 65,000 record, searchable database containing ownership information on virtually every radio station, television station, cable television system and telephone company in America.
The database reveals that broadcasting and cable behemoths such as Viacom, Clear Channel and Comcast already dominate many of the nation�s media markets, even as the Federal Communications Commission moves to further relax media ownership rules at a meeting scheduled for June 2.
*
The report also explores the close relationship between the FCC and the interests it regulates. FCC officials have taken more than 2,500 trips paid for by companies and trade groups from the telecommunications and broadcasting industries, and the agency increasingly relies on industry-generated data to justify sweeping deregulation proposals.
- The Center for Public Integrity -
The loss of the ether to the corporate Beast will be experienced by the oft evoked entity known as The American People as nothing but a burst of data from the flickering, ever flashing TV screen. A tiny fact, maybe, passing soon into memory and then into nothing at all. If The American People happen to read about the passage of what is rightfully theirs into the hands of The Wealthy Elite in a newspaper, the memory may linger a bit via the medium of newsprint smudged blackly on the fingers. Perhaps they will experience the tragic loss of information as nothing more than a slight touch of dyspepsia disturbing, a moment only, dreams of Freedom.
Ah yes, freedom . . .
Privacy wanes with Patriot Act
Under the USA Patriot Act, signed in 2001 by President Bush in the aftermath of Sept. 11, police agencies now can pry, sometimes without legal probable cause, into personal computer hard drives, request private and personal business and bank records and can solicit a patron's list of library books.
*
The act states that the person under investigation does not have to be a suspect in a crime or the target of an investigation. The act requires that all requested records must be rendered to investigators without a court hearing.
Domestic and international intelligence agencies have these surveillance powers. The act also allows the FBI and CIA to tap into telephones and computers without a court order.
- Venicegondolier.com -
Your Rights: Use 'Em or Lose 'Em
Under current legislation, if you are "suspected" of terrorist activity, you can be picked up and held indefinitely, without charges and without access to a lawyer. If your loved ones call to find out where you are or if you are okay, they will be told nothing. After all, to disclose your whereabouts would infringe on your right to privacy. Don't bother clutching your passport to your chest; this law applies to all U.S. citizens.
And, if currently proposed legislation � PATRIOT Act II � passes, you may no longer even be a citizen. Under PATRIOT II, if you attend a legal protest sponsored by an organization the government has listed as "terrorist," you may be deported and your citizenship revoked. This is true even if you are only suspected of terrorist activity and nothing has been proven. More specifically, according to FindLaw's Anita Ramasastry, a U.S. citizen may be expatriated "if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a 'terrorist organization.'"
*
If all this weren't enough, currently proposed legislation would increase the PATRIOT Act's powers. The Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org) lists the full provisions of the act, which include, beside the deportation of citizens who are suspected of consorting with or supporting terrorists:
Immunity from liability for law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people;
Immunity from liability for businesses and employees that report "suspected terrorists" to the federal government, no matter how unfounded, racist, or malicious the tip may be.
Furthermore, PATRIOT II explicitly allows the indefinite detention of citizens, incommunicado, without charges, and without releasing their names to their own family members.
- Alternet -
Bullets and bombs liberated many Iraqis from Saddam Hussein and some from their lives. Fearmongering and sneaky politics (is that redundant?) are the order of the day here in The Homeland, where The American People, that oft quoted but seldom seen creature, are being liberated from Democracy while they dream of protecting it, all the time not even knowing what it means.
Stone upon stone I see piled upon the fair chest of Lady Liberty.
But wait, what is this I see? Ah, it is that one last in Pandora's box, Hope. . .
100th Civil Liberties Safe Zone!
Hawaii Is the First State to Defy Ashcroft
On May 6, the commissioners of Broward County, Florida, in a unanimous vote, passed the 100th local resolution in the United States proclaiming "a civil liberties safe zone."
These resolutions are directed at the Bush-Ashcroft war on the Bill of Rights. However, the undeterred Attorney General is planning to introduce in Congress USA Patriot Act II, which would much more radically reduce individual liberties in the holy name of national security.
*
In the spirit of Jefferson, on the same day that Broward County became part of the Resistance, it was joined by San Mateo, Marin, and Sausalito counties, all in California. On April 25, Hawaii's legislature passed the first statewide resolution to preserve and protect the Bill of Rights. Alaska followed on May 22. On May 29, Philadelphia became the 116th town or city to pass one of these resolutions.
According to Nancy Talanian, director of the original Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Northampton, Massachusetts�where this grassroots renewal of constitutional democracy started�the term civil liberties zone means "a locale whose local government has passed a resolution declaring its commitment to protect the civil liberties of its residents."
- Nat Hentoff, The Village Voice -
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Proof of Providence?
53 years ago -
your very first breath.
Happy birthday, Sarah.
I was born for you and you for me.
(sorry I was 17 years late but who am I to argue with Fate?)
53 years ago -
your very first breath.
Happy birthday, Sarah.
I was born for you and you for me.
(sorry I was 17 years late but who am I to argue with Fate?)
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
I wonder. . .
Am I a poet?
Or merely a stringer together,
as glass beads on a wire,
of all too gaudy words?
Though the metaphor is none too sure
it occurs to me that airplanes
and bats (on leathery wings!)
fly but are not birds.
Hah!
I have cast my baubles before she who sings,
I have struck pen over the flint of paper,
played with fire.
Word against word spitting sparks,
sentences glowing like tapers
in the dark
in the dark
in
the
dark. . .
Am I a poet?
Or merely a stringer together,
as glass beads on a wire,
of all too gaudy words?
Though the metaphor is none too sure
it occurs to me that airplanes
and bats (on leathery wings!)
fly but are not birds.
Hah!
I have cast my baubles before she who sings,
I have struck pen over the flint of paper,
played with fire.
Word against word spitting sparks,
sentences glowing like tapers
in the dark
in the dark
in
the
dark. . .
Saturday, May 24, 2003
It's beginning to appear more and more as if the Bush Administration were rather creative with the data they presented concerning Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction".
CIA to review Iraq intelligence for bias, accuracy; House lawmakers question whether data was manipulated to justify war
The CIA review, coupled with the letter sent to Tenet by the House intelligence panel, follows criticism that the Defense Department, particularly a new Pentagon intelligence office, and other parts of the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.
- Washington Post via SF Gate-
*
Blix suspects there are no weapons of mass destruction
Dr Blix, who retires next month, has previously condemned as "shaky" the evidence presented by British and American intelligence before the war, and said that it was "conspicuous" that they had failed to make significant discoveries after the war.
But in yesterday's interview, he went further. He said: "The main justification for the war was weapons of mass destruction, and it may turn out that in this respect the war was not justified."
-Guardian-
If there is such a thing as a just war, Bush's Iraq adventure was not it. The invoking of weapons of mass destruction as a justification for the invasion of Iraq was clearly a tactic employed to frighten and deceive. I'm sure this space has seen me denouncing the flimsily manufactured "evidence" for these weapons before. I am not even the tiniest bit surprised that these frightening weapons of mass destruction have yet to be unearthed. What surprises me is that no "evidence" of this dissipating justification for war has been planted in the Iraqi sand by the US or it's agents. Yet.
Meanwhile, as the story of Saddam's arsenal unravels, the Bush administration mounts a stunning campaign of military hypocrisy.
House approves GOP plan for nukes
The House vote followed Senate approval late Tuesday for a nuclear bunker buster dubbed the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, and for loosening a 1993 ban on development of low-yield nuclear weapons.
While the provisions won't be signed into law for weeks, the House and Senate votes within two days granted the Bush administration the most aggressive change in U.S. nuclear policy since the Cold War.
-Tri-Valley Herald-
*
Tiny nukes: big problem- Itsy bitsy Armageddons
The US Senate has bowed to the Dr. Strangelove dream of Donald Rumsfeld, and lifted a ten-year-old ban on research and development of smaller battlefield nuclear weapons. The action paves the way for the creation of a whole new range of numerous small, "usable" nuclear weapons.
-Greenpeace-
The sheer gall of Bush and his gang never ceases to amaze me. Invade a sovereign nation on the pretense that they possess weapons dangerous to the world and then propose the development of nuclear weapons. But perhaps there is no hypocrisy there, really. Saddam, after all, might have had weapons of mass destruction, Bush is rallying for weapons of limited destruction. Tiny little warheads much like his own.
Little Guns
Tiny people, with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny soldiers, with little guns
Little tanks, no bigger than your thumb
They want you
Little people, with tiny brains
Little bullets flowing, in their veins
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny people with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
They want you, you
You, you, you, you
Little airplanes, with tiny bombs
Little squadrons, dropping thimbles of Napalm
They want you
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny people, with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
You, you
You, you, you, you
Tiny people, little guns
Tiny people, little guns
Tiny people, little guns
-Oingo Boingo-
CIA to review Iraq intelligence for bias, accuracy; House lawmakers question whether data was manipulated to justify war
The CIA review, coupled with the letter sent to Tenet by the House intelligence panel, follows criticism that the Defense Department, particularly a new Pentagon intelligence office, and other parts of the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.
- Washington Post via SF Gate-
*
Blix suspects there are no weapons of mass destruction
Dr Blix, who retires next month, has previously condemned as "shaky" the evidence presented by British and American intelligence before the war, and said that it was "conspicuous" that they had failed to make significant discoveries after the war.
But in yesterday's interview, he went further. He said: "The main justification for the war was weapons of mass destruction, and it may turn out that in this respect the war was not justified."
-Guardian-
If there is such a thing as a just war, Bush's Iraq adventure was not it. The invoking of weapons of mass destruction as a justification for the invasion of Iraq was clearly a tactic employed to frighten and deceive. I'm sure this space has seen me denouncing the flimsily manufactured "evidence" for these weapons before. I am not even the tiniest bit surprised that these frightening weapons of mass destruction have yet to be unearthed. What surprises me is that no "evidence" of this dissipating justification for war has been planted in the Iraqi sand by the US or it's agents. Yet.
Meanwhile, as the story of Saddam's arsenal unravels, the Bush administration mounts a stunning campaign of military hypocrisy.
House approves GOP plan for nukes
The House vote followed Senate approval late Tuesday for a nuclear bunker buster dubbed the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, and for loosening a 1993 ban on development of low-yield nuclear weapons.
While the provisions won't be signed into law for weeks, the House and Senate votes within two days granted the Bush administration the most aggressive change in U.S. nuclear policy since the Cold War.
-Tri-Valley Herald-
*
Tiny nukes: big problem- Itsy bitsy Armageddons
The US Senate has bowed to the Dr. Strangelove dream of Donald Rumsfeld, and lifted a ten-year-old ban on research and development of smaller battlefield nuclear weapons. The action paves the way for the creation of a whole new range of numerous small, "usable" nuclear weapons.
-Greenpeace-
The sheer gall of Bush and his gang never ceases to amaze me. Invade a sovereign nation on the pretense that they possess weapons dangerous to the world and then propose the development of nuclear weapons. But perhaps there is no hypocrisy there, really. Saddam, after all, might have had weapons of mass destruction, Bush is rallying for weapons of limited destruction. Tiny little warheads much like his own.
Little Guns
Tiny people, with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny soldiers, with little guns
Little tanks, no bigger than your thumb
They want you
Little people, with tiny brains
Little bullets flowing, in their veins
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny people with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
They want you, you
You, you, you, you
Little airplanes, with tiny bombs
Little squadrons, dropping thimbles of Napalm
They want you
What do they want?
What do they want?
Tiny people, with little guns
Little armies march, to little drums
You, you
You, you, you, you
Tiny people, little guns
Tiny people, little guns
Tiny people, little guns
-Oingo Boingo-
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Friday, May 16, 2003
The thought that Sarah and myself ought to avail ourselves of local parks and resources more than we do has been gaining momentum in my head for some time now. We were going to investigate a local farmer's market and walk around Lake Merritt tomorrow but those activities have been scaled down to make room for a matinee screening of The Matrix:Reloaded at the historic Grand Lake Theater.
Ironic, isn't it, that I'm pushing back the real world to enter a fantasy one? Hah! At least the theater (and it is a fairly grand one) is within walking distance of the farmer's market and at least a portion of the lake (fairly grand too).
The Matrix, as you know if you read my last post, has been occupying my mind these days. I couldn't help but think of Agent Smith, for instance, when I caught up on some recent news:
Big-Fish Stocks Fall 90 Percent Since 1950, Study Says
"The impact we have had on ocean ecosystems has been vastly underestimated," said co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and the University of Kiel in Germany. "These are the megafauna, the big predators of the sea, and the species we most value. Their depletion not only threatens the future of these fish and the fishers that depend on them, it could also bring about a complete re-organization of ocean ecosystems, with unknown global consequences."
- from NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM -
Humans Are Driving Birds to Extinction, Group Warns
Humans are singled out in a recent report as the cause of what many scientists believe is the biggest mass extinction of animals in 65 million years. Published by the Worldwatch Institute, a U.S.-based environmental research organization, the report says scientists' fears are backed up by plummeting bird populations.
- also from NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM -
Great ape populations are declining at an alarming rate world-wide. The continuing destruction of habitat, in combination with the growth in the commercial bushmeat trade in Africa and increased logging activities in Indonesia, have lead scientists to suggest that the majority of great ape populations will be extinct in the next ten to twenty years.
- from The Great Ape Survival Project -
What was it Agent Smith said to Morpheus in The Matrix about we humans?
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation I had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify
your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a
natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply
until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is
another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are
a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
- Agent Smith sharing his ideas about humanity in The Matrix (1999, Warner Bros.) -
I must admit that during my more pessemistic moods/modes I have entertained thoughts about humanity very much like those of that sentient program and oppressor of humanity, Agent Smith. But, honestly, I will be rooting for Neo and the humans tomorrow in that darkened room, pictures flashing before my eyes. . .
Ironic, isn't it, that I'm pushing back the real world to enter a fantasy one? Hah! At least the theater (and it is a fairly grand one) is within walking distance of the farmer's market and at least a portion of the lake (fairly grand too).
The Matrix, as you know if you read my last post, has been occupying my mind these days. I couldn't help but think of Agent Smith, for instance, when I caught up on some recent news:
Big-Fish Stocks Fall 90 Percent Since 1950, Study Says
"The impact we have had on ocean ecosystems has been vastly underestimated," said co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and the University of Kiel in Germany. "These are the megafauna, the big predators of the sea, and the species we most value. Their depletion not only threatens the future of these fish and the fishers that depend on them, it could also bring about a complete re-organization of ocean ecosystems, with unknown global consequences."
- from NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM -
Humans Are Driving Birds to Extinction, Group Warns
Humans are singled out in a recent report as the cause of what many scientists believe is the biggest mass extinction of animals in 65 million years. Published by the Worldwatch Institute, a U.S.-based environmental research organization, the report says scientists' fears are backed up by plummeting bird populations.
- also from NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM -
Great ape populations are declining at an alarming rate world-wide. The continuing destruction of habitat, in combination with the growth in the commercial bushmeat trade in Africa and increased logging activities in Indonesia, have lead scientists to suggest that the majority of great ape populations will be extinct in the next ten to twenty years.
- from The Great Ape Survival Project -
What was it Agent Smith said to Morpheus in The Matrix about we humans?
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation I had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify
your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a
natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply
until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is
another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are
a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
- Agent Smith sharing his ideas about humanity in The Matrix (1999, Warner Bros.) -
I must admit that during my more pessemistic moods/modes I have entertained thoughts about humanity very much like those of that sentient program and oppressor of humanity, Agent Smith. But, honestly, I will be rooting for Neo and the humans tomorrow in that darkened room, pictures flashing before my eyes. . .
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Morpheus: . . . Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix?
- Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) introducing Neo (Keanu Reeves) to The Matrix (Warner Bros., 1999) -
I�m talking about The Matrix too. Often these days with the imminent release of Reloaded across millions and millions of movie screens and the simultaneous download of the movie into millions and millions of brains. It�s been many years since I have been so. . . well. . . excited about a big Hollywood movie. Or, as I think more accurately describes Hollywood�s typical fare these days, big commercial product. The Matrix, while certainly a money making venture for all or most involved is, I think, something more than typical big movie fare.
I never thought I would find myself saying such a thing about a movie starring Keanu Reeves but there you have it.
I did not see The Matrix during its theatrical release in �99 but soon after the film appeared at my friendly neighborhood video shop. Sarah and me watched and each of us was left with the same impression as the end credits rolled - what great ideas left cowering undeveloped in the shadows of mind warping special effects and adrenaline rush action scenes. Or something to that effect. Still, something drew me back to the beginning of the M�s in the Science Fiction section of my video rental place (in Orlando at the time) and I watched The Matrix a second time.
This second viewing was some weeks after the first and I happened to be reading at the time Joseph Campbell�s classic study of mythology, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell�s book illuminated the movie for me. I recognized myriad mythological motifs and archetypes not only threading the film but weaving it into being, the essence of the story itself.
Neo�s journey in The Matrix is one of awakening � what Campbell termed The Hero�s Journey. It is a journey we all must make and will take if we are following the true paths of our respective lives. Neo becomes a new, awakened man capable of amazing things within The Matrix and the most amazing thing of all is that, like a real Bohdisattva, he will remain within the illusion of The Matrix and point the way toward the real world for the rest of us:
Neo: . . . I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible.
- Neo promising to liberate the mind from the machine in The Matrix (Warner Bros., 1999) �
The fact that this particular version of The Hero�s Journey includes eye bending, mind popping, envelope pushing special effects and catch your breath action sequences does not, of necessity, diminish the message of redemption, liberation and ultimate atonement at the heart of the story. Contrary, it is this fact that makes the movie such a potent and viable medium in this day and age for the tale of the hero within each of us.
There is much more going on in The Matrix than gee whiz effects and catch your breath action sequences. But don�t take my word for it. . .
Matrix Essays
Philosophy and The Matrix
Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix
These movies are stimulating a lot of action and most of it is not, fortunately, gun play or Kung Fu fighting but the energy created by brains firing and hearts stirring toward the greater truth pointed to by the Wachowski Brothers and countless tellers of tales before them.
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix?
- Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) introducing Neo (Keanu Reeves) to The Matrix (Warner Bros., 1999) -
I�m talking about The Matrix too. Often these days with the imminent release of Reloaded across millions and millions of movie screens and the simultaneous download of the movie into millions and millions of brains. It�s been many years since I have been so. . . well. . . excited about a big Hollywood movie. Or, as I think more accurately describes Hollywood�s typical fare these days, big commercial product. The Matrix, while certainly a money making venture for all or most involved is, I think, something more than typical big movie fare.
I never thought I would find myself saying such a thing about a movie starring Keanu Reeves but there you have it.
I did not see The Matrix during its theatrical release in �99 but soon after the film appeared at my friendly neighborhood video shop. Sarah and me watched and each of us was left with the same impression as the end credits rolled - what great ideas left cowering undeveloped in the shadows of mind warping special effects and adrenaline rush action scenes. Or something to that effect. Still, something drew me back to the beginning of the M�s in the Science Fiction section of my video rental place (in Orlando at the time) and I watched The Matrix a second time.
This second viewing was some weeks after the first and I happened to be reading at the time Joseph Campbell�s classic study of mythology, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell�s book illuminated the movie for me. I recognized myriad mythological motifs and archetypes not only threading the film but weaving it into being, the essence of the story itself.
Neo�s journey in The Matrix is one of awakening � what Campbell termed The Hero�s Journey. It is a journey we all must make and will take if we are following the true paths of our respective lives. Neo becomes a new, awakened man capable of amazing things within The Matrix and the most amazing thing of all is that, like a real Bohdisattva, he will remain within the illusion of The Matrix and point the way toward the real world for the rest of us:
Neo: . . . I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible.
- Neo promising to liberate the mind from the machine in The Matrix (Warner Bros., 1999) �
The fact that this particular version of The Hero�s Journey includes eye bending, mind popping, envelope pushing special effects and catch your breath action sequences does not, of necessity, diminish the message of redemption, liberation and ultimate atonement at the heart of the story. Contrary, it is this fact that makes the movie such a potent and viable medium in this day and age for the tale of the hero within each of us.
There is much more going on in The Matrix than gee whiz effects and catch your breath action sequences. But don�t take my word for it. . .
Matrix Essays
Philosophy and The Matrix
Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix
These movies are stimulating a lot of action and most of it is not, fortunately, gun play or Kung Fu fighting but the energy created by brains firing and hearts stirring toward the greater truth pointed to by the Wachowski Brothers and countless tellers of tales before them.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
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