Shrub's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

WhyIsEverbodyAlwaysPickin'OnMe
CodpieceShrinkingVille.


It was bad enough when the UN thumbed its nose at John Bolton and announced that an American report on Iran was little more than a baseless smear:

The UN's nuclear watchdog has made a stinging attack on the US Congress over an "outrageous and dishonest" report on Iran's nuclear programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that the congressional report published last month contained "erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information", and that it took "strong exception" to "incorrect and misleading" claims in the report that the IAEA was covering up some of its doubts about Iran's nuclear intentions.

But then, suddenly, even a few congress-critters, some of them Republicans, went off the reservation:

A rebellious Senate committee defied President Bush on Thursday and approved terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block, deepening Republican conflict over terrorism and national security in the middle of election season.

Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats. The vote set the stage for a showdown on the Senate floor as early as next week.

And just to top it all off, even Mr. Irrefutable Evidence' himself jumped on the top of the pile:

The internal GOP struggle intensified along other fronts, too, as Colin Powell, Bush's first secretary of state, declared his opposition to the president's plan.

``The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,'' Powell, a retired general who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a letter.

Powell said that Bush's bill, by redefining the kind of treatment the Geneva Conventions allow, ``would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.''

Of course, there's very likely a whole lotta post-facto, I-didn't-do-anything-wrong butt-protecting going on here. And maybe even a little bit of envelope pushing as well to make the previously unthinkable look palatable down the road. But the thing I find perhaps most interesting is the possibility that tiny, teensy-tiny quasi-rebellions like these just might be an indication that the 10,000 pound craphammer that Mr. Rove has been holding above the head of all US Pols, Dem and GOP alike, for the last six years just may be starting to disintegrate.

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Title refers to one of the two E.'s favorite books when they were little, by Judith Viorst.

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The Progs Are, Indeed, Rockin'

DippersGoingDeep
CenterOfTheUniverseVille


The always reliable Democratic Space is calling it early for DiNovo:

DiNovo Wins Parkdale-High Park
8:52pm. DemocraticSPACE has seen enough. We are declaring Cheri DiNovo the winner of Parkdale-High Park By-Election. With more than 50% of the votes counted, Cheri DiNovo led her closest rival, Liberal Sylvia Watson by 40.5% to 33.1%.

Looks like there'll be good rockin' round midnight (EDT) in Parkdale.

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Another Prog Rockin'?

DippersGoingDeep
CenterOfTheUniverseVille

It's a little bit off the LotusLand radar, but there is an interesting provincial by-election taking place in Ontario today:

The departure of former education minister Gerard Kennedy to contest the federal Liberal leadership forced McGuinty to call a by-election in a west-end riding the Grits won with almost 58 per cent of the vote in 2003 — versus roughly 16 per cent apiece for the Tories and New Democrats.

Winning today should be a snap for Liberal candidate Sylvia Watson, a first-term city councillor, except it probably won't be.

As a powerful provincial Liberal confided the other day: "We're starting to think this was a Gerard Kennedy riding more than it was a Liberal riding. Half the folks there probably thought Gerard was a New Democrat."

Fearful of losing a high-profile seat less than 13 months before a general election, Watson's campaign — with the full blessing of McGuinty and his office — has aggressively attacked NDP candidate Cheri DiNovo, a local United Church minister.

DiNovo, a former "street kid" who admitted she smuggled LSD in her youth, has written and sermonized about some radical things over the years and the Liberals have helpfully supplied reporters with many of her controversial statements.These include criticizing the late Pope John Paul II for Catholic Church inaction on AIDS and in the Rwandan genocide.

Education Minister Sandra Pupatello said the other day DiNovo's views make her unfit for the Legislature, a curious observation given some of the eccentrics already sitting as MPPs.

And the very strange, and I would suggest distressing, thing is that Ms. DiNovo has also been visciously smeared in the bloggodome for no good reason at all.

So, Ms. DiNovo a progressive?

No question.

But is she a radical?

Open to debate, but clearly she cares about people.

Does any of this make her unfit to sit in the Ontario legislature?

That's just ridiculous.

Me, I've got my fingers crossed for her today.

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Ms DiNovo's views, in her own words, can be found here.

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Who Am I, Anyway?

KarmaKarmaKarmaKarmaDharmaChameleon
ItComesAndGoesVille

These are not the best of days to be a science geek who also teaches for a living.

Deadlines of all manner and type are fast approaching.

And then there is this small matter of all these students everywhere.

And even worse, yesterday, a data cluster turned from something that was supposed to be crisp and clean into a mass of soggy, rotten, stinking backbacon just as a grant application was about to be submitted.

You get the idea.

Anyway, this morning I'm standing in a very long line at the 'Beans Around the World' place located on outer 10th and I'm speed reading the shop's copy of the Globe and (nolonger) Empire Mail when I come across two rather bizarrely juxtaposed front page stories. One is about how millions have been duped by a PR firm's subterfuge that had them thinking a carefully crafted promotion campaign spread virally via 'You Tube' was actually the work of an shty and innocent 16 year old girl. The other story was about a whacked out Republican congress-critter who has decided that his path to re-election is straight down a 12,000 National Guardsmen strong border fortification......with Canada.

Suddenly, in my sleep-deprived, caffeine hangover-induced daze I started to wonder......

Who the heck am I?

Am I really a middle-aged, not-quite activist, actually academic with a penchant for digressive wordsmithing and a wife and kids?

Or.

Am I in truth a bongo-playing, former Moxy Fruvous roadie who mules hundreds and hundreds of pounds of not quite contraband cheese and old, but highly servicable, Stompin' Tom albums back and forth across the 49th parallel everyday on a, oh, I dunno, bilingual Llama named Pierre with bells on its feet?


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*Then, just as suddenly I snapped out of it and finished riding into work.

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Conflation Nation.....

.......What's Our Station?

FrameItBaby,FrameIt!
OttaWash.

So when Condi came to Canada I couldn't help but wonder if we were going all in with the Rovians.

And while I found her "The Canadian contribution to helping build stability in Afghanistan is absolutely critical to the war on terror," statement rather bizarre as she dragged Peter McKay around on a leash yesterday, that was nothing compared to the stuff that Mr. Harper read directly from the teleprompter a little later in the day.

The following, in italics, is directly from the 'official' prop-a-gannon website:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today marked the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by paying tribute to those who lost their lives on that tragic day.

So far so good (ie. no problems there)

Joined by Canadians who lost family members in the attacks on the World Trade Centre, and by those with family members serving with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, the Prime Minister outlined the consequences of that fateful day five years ago.

Hang on a second..... Were the Canadians killed in the World Trade Center on an official state-sponsored mission like those killed more recently in Afghanistan? What could that be all about?

“As the events of September 11 so clearly illustrate, the horrors of the world will not go away if we turn a blind eye to them, no matter how far off they may be. These horrors cannot be stopped unless some among us are willing to accept enormous sacrifice and risk to themselves,” said the Prime Minister.

Oh..... How could I have been so thick?....Now I get it..... We are in Afghanistan, not as an exercise in nation building, as Ms. Rice kinda/sorta suggested, but instead because of 9/11. Sure, I remember that grand and sweeping national discussion and all those debates in the House of Commons on the latter point.

Sheesh.

So, now that the great national game of false equivalencies has begun in earnest, who long will it be before Canned West and/or a David Frum-led CBC airs a schlock-u-mentary blaming Mr. Dithers for the 24 Canadian deaths on 9/11?

And when we go into Anbar province to chase down the TalibaniQuedistJUIguys who have set up their new nuclear-armed fortresses on the eastern border with Syria, will it be Jean Chretien's fault because he didn't bomb Damascus in 1997?

Ridiculous questions?

Sure they are.

But the point is, once this crap starts, where does it all end?

Clearly nobody knows - just ask those Americans with a conscience that cannot believe what is being done in their name.


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PhotoCredit: Andrew Vaughan, CP/TorStar

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The L Girl's Story

SheMovedToCanada
AndTookUsAllToNewYork.

Laura, the L Girl, is the proprietor of 'We Move To Canada'.

It's a truly fine blog.

I always enjoy her wit, her wisdom, and is my want, her wordsmithing.

And here is her very personal 9/10 story:

September 10, 2001. The date has a certain poignancy, doesn't it? For many people, it was the last day of peace, the last day without the pain that they'll live with for the rest of their lives. For all of us, it was the last day our illusion of safety and invulnerability was in full working order. It was our moment before knowing.

I can recall my own moment before knowing, when the landscape of my life changed permanently. I can picture it in the same vivid relief that I imagine September 11th families can recall the bright blue sky that Tuesday morning.

It was August, 1982. I was hanging out with two good friends, cooking, talking, laughing, drinking wine, being young women together. Later, I changed into an oversized t-shirt, got in my pull-out sofa bed, under the covers, read the little Modern Library edition of a Thomas Hardy novel I had found in a used bookstore. Then - and here I pause, achingly, wistfully, watching that former self, the young woman I was - I switched off the light. I see the tensor lamp with the red metal shade, my finger on the switch. It was my September 10th.......


Go read the rest.

And then go thank her.

OK?

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The Central Dupes

TheWorldIsNotAsFlatAsAPancake
SelfDelusionVille.

You know, one of the things that I have found most disturbing about ABC's schlockumentary 'The Path to 911' is not so much the fact that the people who made it just made stuff up, or that there was clearly a propagandist slant given to the stuff that they just made up, or that the makers, backers, movers and shakers all have connections to avowed propagandists for the Bush regime, or even the fact that the Bush regime itself has already been nailed for manipulating the media while playing its InfoDom games.

No.

What really bugs me is how the great majority of the mainstream media has chosen to ignore all of those things, not by explaining them away with logic and reason, but instead by delegitimizing those who raised these points in first place.

And for me, it all came to a head when I read the Alessandra Stanley's piece in Friday's New York Times.

ABC has been under assault by bloggers and former officials who claim the film paints an unfairly censorious portrait of the Clinton administration, with a lobbying campaign reminiscent of the one that drove CBS to cancel “The Reagans” biopic in 2003. (CBS’s parent company, Viacom, kicked it to the cable channel Showtime.) Some kind of reaction was inevitable this time.

Yup, under assault for sure. But, is there anything to all of this? Well, according to Ms. Stanley, not really, because:

All mini-series Photoshop the facts. “The Path to 9/11” is not a documentary, or even a docu-drama; it is a fictionalized account of what took place. It relies on the report of the Sept. 11 commission, the King James version of all Sept. 11 accounts, as well as other material and memoirs. Some scenes come straight from the writers’ imaginations. Yet any depiction of those times would have to focus on those who were in charge, and by their own accounts mistakes were made.

Leaving aside the fact that 'it relies upon the report of the Sept 11 commission' and 'some scenes come straight from the writer's imaginations' are not in anyway remotely equivalent, what, we ask, would it take for someone like Ms. Stanley to take umbrage at those scenes that came 'straight from the writers' imaginations' being used for propaganda purposes in the middle of an election campaign, the outcome of which hinges upon how the public comes to perceive the actions of the people in said imaginary scenes?

Would some truth telling from a fellow columnist at the Times like, say, Paul Krugman do it?

Of course not because, while he may not be a heinous blogger, he is a liberal so anything he says doesn't count. And the same goes double for Bob Herbert.

But what about that avowed centrist Thomas Friedman?

What if he became unhinged and started babbling things like:

"(W)e are in trouble in Iraq now not because of what the 'fringes' there, or here, believe, but because of what the center in both places has been willing to tolerate or unwilling to change.

We have a 'center problem.'

Let me explain: We are stalled in Iraq not because of something some fringe antiwar critics said, or did, but because of how the Bush team, the center of U.S. policy, approached Iraq from the start. While it told the public - correctly, in my view - that building one example of a tolerant, pluralistic, democratizing society in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world was really important in the broader war of ideas against violent radical Islam, the administration acted as though this would be easy and sacrifice-free.

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, and let's have an unprecedented wartime tax cut and shrink our armed forces. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but let's send just enough troops to topple Saddam - and never control Iraq's borders, its ammo dumps or its looters. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but rather than bring Democrats and Republicans together in a national unity war coalition, let's use the war as a wedge issue to embarrass Democrats, frighten voters and win elections. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism - which is financed by our own oil purchases - but let's not do one serious thing about ending our oil addiction.

Donald Rumsfeld demonizes war critics as 'morally confused.' But it is the 'moral confusion' at the heart of the Bush policy - a confusion between its important ends and insufficient means - that has hobbled us from the start."

Which of course, he did, on Friday, in the very same edition that contained Ms. Stanley's piece in a column titled 'The Central Truth'.

The only problem is, that even when he takes off the pinhole glasses and lets his eyes see everything that is right in front of them, a guy like Friedman still can't go all the way:

"It truly, truly baffles me why a president who bet so much of his legacy on this project never gave it his best shot and tolerated so much incompetence."

Which of course gets right to the heart of the matter, because when people see the truth for what it really is and still won't allow themselves to understand what it really means, well, that means that they themselves are the 'Central Dupes'.

And, most importantly, it also means that the Duping is self-inflicted.

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And just as an aside, the little site that archived columns by the likes of Krugman and Herbert et al. has been order to cease and desist by the NYT.

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Who Loves Ya' Canada?

ACountryForAll
ToleranceVille

Clearly, it's not the Pope, who Friday, amongst other things, told a bunch of Bishops that we, with our tolerant ways, have turned our back on God.

But compare that to the Dalai Lama who came to Vancouver on the same day and told thousands of teenagers that we, with our tolerant ways, are a model for the entire world.

I'm putting my money on the teenagers.

****

Speaking of money, according to Simon Beck* the Lord that once renounced Canada, is in (il?)legality-induced insolvency trouble again:

U.S. prosecutors are mad because Lord Black is allegedly behind on a $10-million (U.S.) loan, making him in violation of his bail conditions. The loan is apparently racking up interest payments of $7,430 per day -- that's almost as much as our cable bill -- yet his Lordship is probably having trouble finding the cash to deal with it since an Ontario court has frozen all his assets.



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*Mr. Beck is fast becoming one of the only Globe and Mail non Op-Ed page columnists who is still worth reading. Case in point: compare his non-conventional nuggets and razor-like wit to the flaccid flocculence of fantabulous obviousness served up by, say, Jane Taber, whose lead item this week was the fact that Brian Mulroney got a cheer from the well-prepped audience when he appeared on the set of Canadian Idol. Who woulda thunk it.


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Questionable Period

ThePeople'sCourt
NoLedgeVille

Well, it looks like there really will be no legislative session in British Columbia this fall because our esteemed Premier, Mr. Gordon Campbell, and his BC Liberal government have decided to ignore their own legislation.

It's kind of a 'Now You See Us, Now You Don't' deal.

Or, put another way, "If We're Not Here The Opposition Can't Ask Us Questions" gambit.

But none of this means that we can't ask questions ourselves, and, boy, do we have a few.

So here goes......


Question: Mr. (absent)Speaker: Given that the Govenment made a commitment, in its Throne Speech of 2003, to have an offshore oil and gas industry up an running by the year 2010, could the (also absent)Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources please update British Columbians on the status of that commitment?

Answer: None........

Question: Perhaps, then, the (really absent)Minister could update us on the research that has been done to date to ensure that this drilling will be done in, to use the government's own words, 'an environmentally and scientifically sound' manner?

Answer: Silence......

Question: Alright then. Could the (super absent)Minister inform us of any and all (or even a single) peer-reviewed publication relating to research that was undertaken regarding this environmentally and scientifically sound drilling, and that includes any and all (or even a single) peer-reviewed paper that was generated by the 'Northern Coastal Information and Research Program' given that its website states:

"Final reporting is required to the provincial Ministry of Energy and Mines, which funded the project. The B.C Offshore Oil and Gas Team is kept apprised of news and progress and its scientific director is one of the advisors on the program's Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee."

Answer: Nothing from nothing means nothing.....

Question: That is most unfortunate. Perhaps then the (super duper absent)Minister could tell us the accumulated budget of the 'Oil And Gas Team' cited above whose job, at least as it was described by the Globe and Mail, was to act as:

"A B.C. government "swat team" is devising detailed policies for oil and gas drilling near the Queen Charlotte Islands, hoping to entice energy giants to exploit offshore riches."

Answer: No flack-hacks even whispering in anyone's ear.......

Question: Does six million dollars a year ring a bell? Thank-you Mr. (supremely absent) Speaker.




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For more information from the side that is not supported by millions upon millions from oil industry lobbies, astroturf groups, and government swat teams, please visit the Oil Free Coast Website.

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Working For The Clampdown

TheyWillTeachTheirTwistedSpeech
ToTheYoungBelieversVille


What could it be, you might be asking.

Why is there, apparently, going to be no fall legislative sitting in British Columbia?

Could it be that the government of Premier Gordon Campbell can't take the heat of question period now that there is a real opposition in the Ledge to ask about things like the twinning of the Port Mann, all those rosey budget projections now that natural gas prices are showing signs of softening, offshore gas explo(it)ration, the paving of the parks, the continuing disaster at the Ministry of Children and Families, and the privatization of everything.

Or is it really true that there is just nothing to do?

Could be a combination of all of the above I suppose.

But I can't help but wonder if maybe it has just as much to do with the possibility that a fall session would result in daily media scrums just as the premier (all puns intended) of the new reality show titled 'The Basi/Virk Trial' is set to begin Sept 18th?

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Original Clampdown link source from Alison at Creekside.
And for continuous Basi/Virk updates and Trial of the Century backgrounders don't forget to visit BC Mary's site early and often.
Update: Paul Willcocks has a good analysis of the situation up and he concludes that, regardless the reasons, the public is ill-served by the cancellation.

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Dismantling The Catapault

PushBack
RealityVille


It's amazing how easily and quickly the Bloggodome was able to push back the veil just enough to give mainstream media access to a number of principles involved so that they could emphatically point out a number of the outright falsehoods that are in ABC's schlock-u-drama called the 'Path To 9/11'. One of those is former Whitehouse counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke whose statement to Thinkprogress.org was quoted in the NY Times:

In a posting on ThinkProgress.org, and in a phone interview, Mr. Clarke said no military personnel or C.I.A. agents were ever in position to capture Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, nor did the leader of the Northern Alliance get that near to his camp.

“It didn’t happen,” Mr. Clarke said. “There were no troops in Afghanistan about to snatch bin Laden. There were no C.I.A. personnel about to snatch bin Laden. It’s utterly invented.”

Mr. Clarke, an on-air consultant to ABC News, said he was particularly shocked by a scene in which it seemed Clinton officials simply hung up the phone on an agent awaiting orders in the field. “It’s 180 degrees from what happened,” he said. “So, yeah, I think you would have to describe that as deeply flawed.” …


And now ABC is clearly backpeddling, given that they have been exposed as a purveyor of what is clearly G.O.P. TV. But why they agreed to be used as a propaganda catapault for dung flung by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Far Right Screamers in the first place is still not clear, although there is some interesting speculation floating around, some of which helps 'consolidate' things, like this from Billmon:

I find it much easier to believe that somebody -- maybe lots of people -- saw a chance to cash in on the Disney-ABC-Capital Cities axis of weevils. Limbaugh, after all, is an extremely lucrative franchise for the rodent. The ABC Radio Network has over 4,000 affiliate stations. I don't know how many of them are fully or partially dedicated to the conservative propaganda (slap) talk show format, but I'm guessing it's a substantial number.

As I recall, a few months back various lefty bloggers were debating the political impact of media consolidation, with the majority opinion seeming to be that it was no big deal.

Guess again.

All of which just goes to show, especially given the fact that Edward R. Murrow is still dead, that it is imperative that all liberal democracies have a truly independent, arms length public broadcaster that does it's best to deliver real perspective, not Prop-A-Gannon.

And, unlike the current situation with the Corporation For Public Broadcasting south of the 49th, we Canuckistanis can thank our lucky stars that we still have that, at least to a degree in the CBC*.

As such we have an alternative to ABC's crappolafest, which is Terrance McKenna's 'Secret History of 9/11' which will be aired this Sunday Sept 10th @ 7pm on the main network.

Now, the thing about McKenna's piece is that it appears to have nuance. Thus, unlike what ABC tried to do, it does not lay the blame at the feet of Bill Clinton and exonnerate George Bush, at least according to this interview McKenna gave to Anna Maria Tremonti on 'The Current' this morning (see Part I) or this excerpt that the CBC has released (RAudio clip). Neither does it do the opposite. Instead, what McKenna does do is allow people like Richard Clarke to make the point that by the late 1990's Clinton clearly understood the threat and tried to do something about it whereas Bush did everything he could to demonstrate the exact opposite in the months before the event occurred.

OK?

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*At least as long as Mr. Harper doesn't make, say, David Frum, the Mother Corp's President.
Oh, ya -In addition to ABC, it looks like Scholastic Books, which, as we noted in the previous post, was also doing quite a bit of catapaulting of it's own, has retreated from the ramparts. Our good friend Richard Cranium of Allspin Zone has that story.
Finally, pretty bizarre 'eh how much things have changed when you realize the the NY Times now goes to lefty fact-check blogs for source material. The critical thing now will be for such sites to be as rigorous as possible and not go tit-for-tat with the Rovian Prop-A-Gammon. After all, as has been amply demonstrated here, reality is powerful enough stuff on its own.

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Catapaulting The Kids

IndoctrinationForTheNation
InfoDomVille

When I was a kid I went completely googlie over those Scholastic book flyers.

And getting the packages a few weeks later was even better.

And for a while, I even enjoyed going through them with my own kids.

But increasingly, I have become dismayed with all the outright junk that they cram in those things these days.

And now?

Well, it looks like they've started to peddle outright crapola:

To spread the word about “Path to 9/11,” ABC is sending 100,000 high school educators a letter from 9/11 Commission co-chair Tom Keane informing them of the various platforms on which the mini is available. ABC and Scholastic have pacted to produce an online study guide.


I guess it's like the PropMasters always say.....'Get 'em young, get 'em forever'.

Sheesh.

Where Has All The Summer Gone?

ShortTimePassing
PeteVille


I can't believe it.

Seems like just a couple of months ago that the summer was so young as it galloped across the horizon that we were chasing.

And now it's all gone and I still owe Bev a story and images from our holiday, which are coming, I promise.

But for now I'm more occupied with tomorrow because that's when little E. starts grade 2. And she is happier than any kid can possibly be.

Bigger E., on the other hand, starts grade 8 - highschool and all that entails. She's taking it pretty well, but she's nervous beyond all get out, and asked this evening if I had any tricks for getting to sleep when I'm all wound up too.

Regardless though, no matter what, just like always, in the morning we will take our going off to school picture in front of the sunflowers we've been growing all summer long.

****

I'm not sure if it's just the business I'm in or what, but I always feel like the day after Labour Day is the real time for New Year's resolutions, because for me this is the real time to start fresh again.

So, this past weekend I've been mulling it all over. What should I resolve to do?

Spend more time with the kids? Of course, that's a given....... Try to help out more around the house and be more supportive of C.'s song and dance stuff? Of course, again....... How about try to be more efficient in my work and not digress into spending hours and hours reading and figuring out how things like how the cAMP-Response-Element Binding Protein jumps on and off the promoter elemnts when cells are overlaid with extracellular matrix molecules? Well, who could possibly argue with that?

But all that stuff is self-evident.

So by the time this morning rolled around I was starting to get ancy because I hadn't come up with anything really new that would mean something.

And by this afternoon I was back at work trying to hammer out a grant that will hopefully keep me from having to think about laying off people (that's the dark side of the science world, which runs perpetually on soft-money). Luckily, though, all the usual suspects on the wireless were either running junk or re-runs today so I turned to Amy Goodman instead and listened to a full, one hour interview with Pete Seeger.

It was unbelievably entertaining. I loved what he had to say about technology - that it might just save us if it doesn't wipe us out first...... And I loved what he had to say about fighting with CBS to get his anti-war songs on the Smothers Brothers TV show in 1968.....and I loved what he had to say about his roll in standing up to Joseph McCarthy in the '50's......and I loved hearing about what really happened at the Newport Folk festival when Dylan went electric in 1965....And I loved hearing about how he discovered 'We Shall Overcome' and came to write 'Where have all the Flowers Gone?' (and the back story of almost losing the copyright to the Kingston Trio).....And I loved hearing him talk about how he developed his talk-ahead-to-tell the-verse sing-a-long style that Arlo loved so much and how it has come to mean so much more as his own singing voice fades....And I loved hearing him describe how, with age 90 fast approaching he still goes skiing because he's just fine from the ears down.....And always it seemed to come back to the Weavers and Woodie, even when he wasn't saying it explicitly.....

But mostly I loved to hear him speak about how we will always win as long as we keep trying.

So, when he said the following, I paid attention:

"I honestly believe that the future is going to be millions of little things saving us. I imagine a big seesaw, and at one end of this seesaw is on the ground with a basket half-full of big rocks in it. The other end of the seesaw is up in the air. It's got a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons, and we're trying to fill up sand.

A lot of people are laughing at us, and they say, "Ah, people like you have been trying to do that for thousands of years, and it's leaking out as fast as you're putting it in." But we're saying, "We're getting more people with teaspoons all the time." And we think, "One of these years, you'll see that whole seesaw go zooop in the other direction." And people will say, "Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?"


So now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go find me some spoons.


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Almost forgot: The Goodman/Seeger interview can be found here.


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Gangster Tag

TrampledByBeavers
LitVille


Dana over at the very fine Galloping Beaver smacked me up the side of the head with this one. Usually I ignore these things, but this one looks kind of fun........


A Book That Changed My Life:
Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut.
I read it when I was 12. It was the first time I really understood that pathos and hope could be all mixed up, together, in one big bottle of syrup. And Vonnegut was the first author who made me, like young Mr. Caulfield, want to call him up on the phone.

A Book I've Read More Than Once:
Chip Hilton, Touchdown Pass by Claire Bee.
My brother and I read it over and over and over again when we were kids. I think he still wants to be Speed Morris. It's kind of like a 'Boys' Sporting Life' version of Frank Capra's best known film.

A Book I Would Take With Me If I Were Stuck On A Desert Island:
Animals Without Backbones, by Ralph Buchsbaum.
This is actually a textbook that changed my life in my second year of college when it helped push me down the bizarre 15 year long twisty slide that ended at a place called biology career. Actually, come to think of it, I may still be on that slide. Anyway, on that desert island and in the water around it there are sure to be thousands of species of invertebrates and I figure I'd have enough time to try and find and identify all of 'em.

A Book That Made Me Laugh:
Tales Of The City by Armistead Maupin.
C. and I both read it when we first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Amongst the serialized great fun narrative I just couldn't believe all of the crazy, whacked-out uproariously funny stuff, like cruising the Marina Safeway or, living undetected as a hobo in a cabin in Golden Gate park, or having a flamboyant landlordess that was actually your long, lost father. That book helped C. and me fall in love with the place. Not that we wouldn't have anyway.

A Book That Made Me Cry:
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
It just did. And it still does.

A Book That I Wish Had Been Written
The Second Third by Neal Cassady
After I became obsessed with all things Kerouac and the 'origins of spontaneous prose' I always wanted to read Cassady (ie. the real Dean Moriarity) unleashed like he was in 'The Great Sex Letter' which was, apparently, one of Sad Paradise's main inspirations. Alternatively, I would have have gone for Kesey's version of the history of the Merry Pranksters, and Cassady's role in it, rather than the one we got from Tom Wolfe.

A Book I Wish Had Never Been Written:
Better Than Sex by Hunter S. Thompson
Like that neighbour and women-friend in the 'World According To Garp' he just should have sstthhoppped.

I'm Currently Reading
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Magnificent. And behind the humanity of it all are the constant reminders of how important, and how fragile, being a nation of laws, not men, truly is.

A Book I've Been Meaning To Read:
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Her first, 'White Teeth', was one of the most astonishing things I've ever read. And what was even more astonishing was the fact that she was only 26 when she finished it. I liked her second, 'The Autograph Man', well enough, but thought it was tinged with the sophomore slump. Thus, I'm really looking forward to seeing what she's gotten up to with her third.

What Turned Me Onto Fiction:
A pup tent I had between the ages of 11 to 14. I would go in there late at night, with the campfire still flickering, and read until dawn. I can still remember everything about it, right down to the tiniest detail, even the smell.


OK?

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Where Will All That Slush Go?

It'sMine, AllMine
ShrubberyVille

So, the date for announcing the list of all the ' meritorious initiatives' to be paid out of the SLA's $450 million dollar Fund of the Slushies has come and gone and Lambert of the Corrente wire has some interesting speculation as to why there has been nothing but silence.

Remember, the original example of a “meritorious initiative” Katrina reconstruction. So, you’d think the Bush administration would do everything possible to end their Katrina public relations nightmare by making half a billion dollars available to the citizens of New Orleans. But apparently not.

So, why hasn’t the list been published?

1. They forgot. $450 million, they forgot?

2. They don’t want to tell anybody where the $450 million is going.

Call me crazy, but I’ll pick door #2.


And while Lambert may be right, I'm still looking for that door #3. After all, Monty Hall never offered to make a deal without giving a sucker a third choice.

Right?

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And don't forget, ol' Monty was once a Canuckistani before the game show (fool's) gold dust started getting in his eyes. Not sure about Carol Merrill though.

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