Yaourt Greque

Here is something that has become a part of our weekly lives. Making Yoghurt.
I eat yoghurt for lunch almost every day. In the last few years, the Greek
variety has been widely available. I like it because it is rich, thick and creamy.
Yoghurt is pretty cheap as far as dairy products go and the best is a very natural
product, just milk and the bifidus culture.
When I lived in New York, I started to make it myself. It was satisfying to save money by buying boxes of powdered milk and a using the yoghurt from one batch to start another. One day I had the bright idea to add a can of unsweetened condensed milk to my yoghurt and the results were superb! Now, here in France, for some reason and it might have to do with how the dairy industry is subsidised differently between the two countries, whole milk is cheaper than powdered milk....so we use whole milk.
The technique is very simple. Heat a liter of milk and the can of unsweetened condensed milk in an enameled pan. For some reason, I don't get the same consistent results when I use a metal pan. Heat the milk to just below the boiling point and let it cool, covered, to the point where it is comfortably warm on the skin. Like testing a babies formula, I suppose. Then add a container of fresh plain yoghurt.
There is a variety of yoghurt here called bifidus, but in America, the plain Dannon culture works just great.
Then I put the pan with the yoghurt milk mix in a basin of warm water, covered into the oven, which I have heated and let get warm, not hot!
Let it sit over night. In the morning, you will have yoghurt. I have a lot of the classic little glass yoghurt pots that I use over and over. I spoon the yoghurt into the pots and cover them with foil and find that after three days in the fridge, I have better yoghurt than I have have ever bought commercially. I don't have yoghurt containers to throw away and it works out to 1/4 the price of commercial Greek Yoghurt..
Try it.

SEX AND POLITICS

Again, I have to thank the BBC Television Series, Little Britain to put it all in perspective for me. This might have actuually worked for Senator Larry Craig instead of the pathetic spectacle he presented at his "I'm not gay" Press Conference yesterday.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present Sir Norman Fry, MP.

Mormon Theology for Children

Just in case you ever wondered, what the heck do Mormons believe anyway?

An Abusive History Lesson

I am a firm believer in the value of history. History is an essential tool to understanding our world and a knowledge of history put s us in a better position to shape our destiny. Those who are ignorant are indeed dangerous leaders. To me it is becoming more apparent that George Bush Jr. is a man without history, or worse, a man with a malicious understanding of history.

Bush's speechwriters understand tyhe emotive power of history. In his address last week, they used it as Pericles used his funeral oration, to draw political strength from soldiers who fell in battle and cannot speak for themselves. In the midst of this speech, comparing the Iraq War to Vietnam, he uses as his most dramatic point another historic element: The Stabbed In The Back rhetoric of Weimar politics. If you don't unquestionably follow my commands, says Bush, you will be betraying our soldiers in the fields. Their death will be on your hands!
As the United States staggers past the fourth anniversary of its misadventure in Iraq, the dagger is already poised, the myth is already being perpetuated. To understand just how this strategy is likely to unfold - and why this time it may well fail - we must turn to the birth of a legend.

This is an excerpt from an article published in 2006 in Harpers Magazine by the historian, Kevin Bacon:

"The stab in the back first gained currency in Germany, as a means of explaining the nation's stunning defeat in World War 1. It was Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg himself, the leading German hero of the war, who told the National Assembly, "An English general has very truly said, the German army was 'stabbed in the back."
Like everything else associated with the stab-in-the-back myth, this claim was disingeniuous. The "English general" in question was one Major General Neill Malcolm, head of the British Military Mission in Berlin after the war, who put forth this suggestion merely to poliitely summarize how Field Marshall Erich von Ludendorff - the force behind Hindenburg - was characterizing the Germanarmy's alleged lack of support from its civilian government.
"Ludendorffs's eyes lit up, and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone," wrote Hindeburgs biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett. "Stabbed in the back?" he repeated, "Yes, that's it exactly. We were stabbed in the back."
Ludendorffs enthusiasm was understandable, for, as he must have known, the phrase "dagger thrust" had been popularized almost fifty years before in Wagner's Gotterdammerung. After swallowing a potion that causes him to reveal a shocking truth, the invincible Teutonic hero, Siefried, is fatally stabbed in the back by Hagen, son of the archvillian, Alberich."

That the German Army had been "stabbed in the back" by the nations civilian leadership was an outright lie. The military had established a dictatorship by the last years of WW1. Nevertheless, leaders like Hindenburg and Ludendorff realized it was a powerful tool which could be wielded to hold liberals at bay and silence them.
Very few commentators have recognized of spoken of the obvious moral bankruptcy of Bush's speech. One did and he recognized the manipulation at its core of the theme that was used to murder democracy in Weimar Germany. It was not a liberal, interestingly enough, buut the conservative, Andrew Sullivan in his analysis in The Atlantic:

"To place all troops into the position of favoring one strategy ahead of us rather than another, and to accuse poliitical opponents of trying to "pull the rug out from under them," is a, yes, fascistic tactic designed to corral political debate into one possible patriotic course. It's beneath a president to adopt this role, beneath him to coopt the armed sevices for partisan purposes. It should be possiible for a president to make an impassioned case for continuing the his own policy in Iraq, without accusing critics of wanting to attack and betray the troops. But that would require class and confidence. The president has neither."

Donald Rumsfeld appeared before a few veterans groups about this time last year and gave speeches using the terms "appeasement", "Munich" and "1938". This malicious misuse of history seemed to be as bad as you could get, but this goes much further. The peculiar argument that Bush used and wants to make into a theme was used to demolish a democracy and install a totalitarian dictatorship.
Weimar fell because it was a democracy with too few democrats committed to its survival. Too few citizens had the courage to speak up for the values of a democratic state. That is the lesson of Weimar Germany we cannot afford to forget!

This post first appeared on The Men With Muckrakes, August 25, 2007

Saint-Bitochon, un monument bien monte

In today's Le Canard enchaine, the great French political muckraking journal, there was a little article on a little known touristic site in the Poitou-Charentes region. A grand monument to bad neighbors, the stele of Saint-Bitochon.
The 6 meter tall vaguely suggestive monument made of stone and covered in pink concrete was built in 1866 by Louis Bordier over a subterrenean grotto. He was inspired to do so when his neighbor, the Countess of Gue decided to build a Neo-Romantic Chateau. Louis thought that the style of the chateau was an outrage and he feuded with his neighbor over her right to build the monstrosity in his view.
She went ahead and built it but the next year, a strange turgescence rose from the earth right under the Countess's delicate nose, just over the property line.
Louis was making his statement. The 6 meter stele has a hollow pipe running up the center and Louis, ever the braggart, well into his 60's let it be known that the monument would spout smoke when ever he was entertaining his mistress.
The monumental shaft was smoking continuously, the fire stoked in the subterrenean chamber below. Whether Louis was the sexagenarian sexual athlete he claimed to be or just a nasty neighbor, we will never know.
This was too much for the delicate sensibilities of the Countess, who found it neccessary to block up all the windows on the side of her castle with a view of the naughty object.
Over the years, the property changed hands but the stele remained and became the site of a local pilgrimage by locals who invented the legend of Saint-Bitochon. Women would come to rub their bellies on the shaft to insure a pregnancy and was a popular trysting site for many couples over the century. Newly weds come to have their picture taken in front of the stele for good luck. Saint-Bitochon has entered the pantheon of the neo pagan deities still worshipped by the country folks as fertility Saints.
The owner of the property keeps it open and is very proud of the monument saying, "It's almost the same as having the Eiffel Tower."

An Un Natural Disaster

As I am not an expert in finance and economics, last weeks stock market crash, burp or what ever you want to call it, was just another part of the rollercoaster ride of that is free enterprise to me. Then I began to read about how this particular event was caused and how it is causing disruption and catastrophy in the lives of over 3,000,ooo Americans.
I learned about how the unregulated practice of sub prime lending put these people into massive debt. Millions of Americans were sold on the idea of financing their homes or refinancing their homes with loan deals that were too good to be real. You've heard the ads, little or no 100% financing! No money down! Low, low credit rates for the first 18 months! You could pretend your house was an giant ATM machine and refinamce and get a huge loan.
Of course these products should never have been offered, but the companies and banks proliferated and targeted the lower middle class who saw this as instant credit.
The other side of this golden egg was the black hole of unregulated interest rates charged after the initial period. Most people aren't able to get their credit in order to deal with this reality.
These loans were designed to appeal to people with bad credit. When, as it inevitably would happen, there were defaults, a lot of the agencies began to fail. The repossessions by the banks began, property values began to drop. With the high interest rates and dropping property values, most people owed more than they could ever sell their homes for.
Economists predict that the market will bottom out somewhere in 2009-10 as most of these loans will actually become due next year. This will cause a recession in the stock market somewhere in this time frame and affect markets all over the world.
The most tragic side of this story is a humanitarian disaster that will hit the social fabric of America like another man made Katrina, except the loss of homes, disrupted and destroyed lives are more likely to be blamed by those unaffected as the results of irresponsible choices. There is no inept FEMA ready to provide trailers. This is going to place a strain on the already gutted social services of America.
The unregulated, unethical practices which led to this won't be punished, most bankrupt agencies pick up the pieces and evolve into a new entity.
Another Un Natural Disaster in which the poor are blamed and the Rich have an opportunity to get richer..
I welcome the opinions of anyone who can explain this to me in more accurate terms!

WHAT IS ART?

What is art? That's my question, but I'm not going to really attempt to answer it.
Perhaps you can. I really would like to know who you think is the most
influential artist of the last century. The idea of what could be considered art
change radically in the first decades of the 20th Century.
The end of the 19th, brought the visual theorists, the impressionists, the pointillists, as well as the idea that a naive painter could produce profound work into the realm of what was considered academic "art" .
An artist like Seurat, the pointillist was able to to bring the idea of the humorous absurd pseudo science of Alfred Jarry into his work to explain the
visual/psychological effects that one experienced when looking at his paintings composed of dots of contrasting colors. There was the break through, Seurat painted images that demanded more than pure visual interpretation. You needed his "pataphysical" subtext to really appreciate the elaborate scheme he presented.
So with that as the back drop to stage of the turn of the century, I would like to
present my nomination for the most influential artist of the 20th Century,
Marcel Duchamp.
This is a painting he did around 1917 called T um', popularly translated in Art History books as You Bore Me, but more exactly, it is the utterance of one too bored to say "You are full of Shit" The painting has a false rip in it with a real pin. There are color swatches from a professional decorator, he hired a professional sign painter to paint the pointing hand, there are the traced graphite shadows of a bottle opener and a rack and a bicycle wheel. The wavy lines are arbitrary units of measurment that represent a a personal mockery of conventional science, math and reality.
While other artists are pursuing schools of style that publish manifestos such as cubism, futurism and minimalism, he has moved already way beyond any of those constraints into the world of pure synthesis and concepts! All filtered through is ironical humor, of course!
The painting, Nude Descending a Staircase caused riots in the art world and the popular press as well. It was painted in various versions from 1915 to 1917 and if you really look at it, you see an image that represents the ideas of cubism, futurism and much more sythesized into an image that must be considered on a conceptual level. This is a very large painting and to stand in front of it is over whelming to me. Marcel Duchamp soon realized that the academic media of oil painting was, um, boring. When he was commissioned to paint a picture for a space in a sitting room, T um' was perhaps the most perfect response he could come up with.
He had already turned his focus on the pure idea and the process becoming an intregral part of the art itself.
He began to do things and let things happen and record and explain the process that led to the object.
During this period, the Dada movement started. An anti-art, anti society, anti logic movement that still resonates strong today. Duchamp contributed much to the Dada movement, but he was never a true Dadaist. His piece, referred to as The Large Glass appeared at this time. The actual title is true Dada at first glance, a non sequiter,
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, even......This is a massive work. Never actually completed, it was left unfinished because Duchamp became bored with it.
It is a window. The image is trapped between two sheets of glass which broke at one time and the reparations became part of the work.
Duchamp published a small book to explain it.
I won't here, except to say that the explanation is pure pataphysical nonsense. A personal, poetic scientific mythology. A portion of the images were shaded by the process of allowing dust to settle on the glass and then varnished as it reached the desired shade. That process was recorded by time lapse film by Man Ray. Another portion, the floating circular images in the lower right hand corner, were achieved byhaving the glass silvered by a mirror maker and then scraping away the silvering and revealing the images.
Nothing like this had ever been done before. To finance his eccentric art life, Duchamp played chess, taught chess, traveled and gave French lessons. He also was very good at gambling and would print up his own scrip, sell subscriptions to his friends, take the money and go to Monte Carlo, win enough to pay everyone back and live for a year.
I have tried here to go beyond the common perceptions of Duchamp as a sensationalist and perhaps a charlatan because of the impression of his ready mades...found art.
Everyone knows that he entered a mens urinal titled Fountain into the Paris Biennial under the name R. Mutt, or the Bicycle Wheel mounted on a stool, or finding a bottle drying rack and calling it a sculpture. Sensationalist acts, but without his ironical humor at the time, the conceptual leap that would allow us to enjoy "found art" might not have taken place for quite a long time.
He moved to the United States and published a magazine called New York Dada. During the Second World War, he single handedly set up a scheme to outwit the Nazis. He was able to convince the Authorities that he was a legitimate cheese exporter and smuggled a lot of so called decadante art work out of Europe as well as helping artists who were in real trouble such as Max Ernst, who was imprisoned by the French at the beginning of the war for being a German National and then by the Germans for being a deviant artist.Max was able with false papers obtained by Duchamp to come to the USA where he married Peggy Guggenheim who was already an ex wife of Duchamps.

So the piece at the top of the page is pure Dada, as pure as Marcel ever got. He drew a mustache on a print of the Mona Lisa and penciled in the letters : LHOOQ.
Which seems to mean nothing, until you say them fast in French and it comes out,
Elle a chaud au cul........she has a hot ass!

Marcel Duchamp died in Paris in 1972. He had become an American citizen.
If you go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you can see his major works collected iin one place, including his last piece which he worked on for twenty years secretly.
He told the world he had given up art but when he died, there was a key to a hotel room and a book of instructions. The interior of the room was his last work, which was dismantled and installed behind a heavy wooden door in the museum. To see it, you have to look through a peephole in the door. In his will he designated that it could not be photographed for 20 years after his death.
Go there, step on the mat which activates the lighting system
and see the last work of the man I think was the most important artist
of the 20th Century.
(click on the pictures if you want to see them larger)

Don't Look Into Their Eyes....

I had to watch this twice....Is this for real?

Gateau au Riz

I haven't been posting very regularly lately and I realize that I haven't posted any recipes for a while. Today was a National Holiday here, The Assumption, the Quinze Aout! It was pretty hot, but then a very strong wind started blowing, clouds rolled in and there were some nice storms. I stepped out to see how the sky looked and between lightning and thunder crashes, I could hear the rythmic thuds of fire works from a number of villages in the region. People have been waiting around all day for the fireworks, can't let a little torrential downpour disappoint them!
So I made dessert today. A Gateau au Riz, this is a classic rice dessert, pretty simple and hard to mess up, you can even cheat and use premade caramel, but the one I made used real caramel and that's part of the recipe below.
You need a nice pan you can put in the oven, a ribbed angel food or charlotte mold will work nicely .

In a saucepan on the stove over low heat, make the caramel with 75 grams of sugar and three soupspoons of water. Cook them until you have a golden brown caramel.

Next, lightly wipe the mold with some oil, then pour in the caramel and try to coat the inside evenly as it gets thick and sticky.

Take a cup (200 grams) of rice, preferably arborio and rinse in cold water. Then put in a saucepan, cover with cold water and cook a few minutes, then rinse in cold water.

Heat a liter of milk with a vanilla bean or a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. As the milk reaches the boiling point, add the rice. Stir with a wooden spoon and as the mixture reaches boiling again, reduce the heat and cover. Cook over a low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a bowl, whip together: 2 entire eggs, 1/4 cup of milk and 150 grams of sugar.
Mix this with the rice and pour it all into the carmalized mold. Cover the mold with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven. Take it out and let it cool a bit. While it is still warm, take off the foil, cover the top with a serving plate and turn it over. It should just slip out of the mold with the caramel coating glistening enticingly!

You can add raisins and a variation, I have made this with rice that has been cooked in milk instead of water.

Bon Apetit, bien sur!

blogpower

I'm actually still reeling from the stupid brutal insanity of the fascist Stu Brykofsky blog I reprinted in my last post. How could the Philadelphia Inquirer be so irresponsible as to allow him to print it without any disclaimer? I was an eyewitness to the World Trade Center destruction. Me and millions of other New Yorkers watched the death of thousands and dealt with it. I am most angry about how it has been politically highjacked.
This is the first time I feel justified in wondering, why isn't Mr. Bryofsky's scalp hanging from the outhouse wall? Why is this guy still an employee of The Inquirer? Why is the outrage confined to a small portion of Americans who see him for the fascist demagogue he truly is?

Okay, I got that off my chest! Now I have to figure out what I can do to make it happen! And, I'm not heartened by the "Resignation" of Karl Rove today! It's just musical chairs, public relations window dressing. Now he is free to get back behind the curtains and groom the next new model dictator!

The Stench of Freedom

This is a picture of Stu Bykofsky. This was his column in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday.
I'm reprinting it in it's entirety because to me it is beyond belief. This guy is dangerously insane and makes me sick!

Stu Bykofsky | To save America, we need another 9/11

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the enemy is.

It is not Bush and it is not Hillary and it is not Daily Kos or Bill O'Reilly or Giuliani or Barack. It is global terrorists who use Islam to justify their hideous sins, including blowing up women and children.

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

Most Americans today believe Iraq was a mistake. Why?

Not because Americans are "anti-war."

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don't have the patience for a long slog. We've been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century. In contrast, Britain just pulled its soldiers out of Northern Ireland where they had been, often being shot at, almost 40 years.

That's not the American way.

In Iraq, we don't believe our military is being beaten on the battleground. It's more that there is no formal "battleground." There is the drip of daily casualties and victory is not around the corner. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war.

Americans loved the 1991 Gulf War. It raged for just 100 hours when George H.W. Bush ended it with a declaration of victory. He sent a half-million troops into harm's way and we suffered fewer than 300 deaths.

America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

Bush I did everything right, Bush II did everything wrong - but he did it with the backing of Congress.

Because the war has been a botch so far, Democrats and Republicans are attacking one another, when they aren't attacking themselves. The dialog of discord echoes across America.

Turn back to 9/11.

Remember the community of outrage and national resolve? America had not been so united since the first Day of Infamy - 12/7/41.

We knew who the enemy was then.

We knew who the enemy was shortly after 9/11.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

Alone Again Or......

I haven't posted any music for a while and I remembered that about the time I started this blog, the American musician Arthur Lee died. Arthur Lee was the lead singer for the band LOVE. He and Brian McLean wrote the music, but it was mainly the writing and charisma of Arthur Lee that made this band one of the most intelligent and at the same time punky and dangerous groups of all time.
Arthur Lee tragically was too hip and too intelligent at a time when it was dangerous for a black man to be so in a white world. His music transcended genres. Truly violent manic proto punk like 7+7 is coexisted with the dreamy bossa nova of Orange Skies on the same side of their second album. The other side of the album is a free wheeling 27 minute psychedelic blues piece called Revelations that contained a classical harpsichord riff.
In 1967 they released their masterpiece, Forever Changes full of haunting music, intelligent rock with a grand orchestral vision. This piece, Alone again or....
becomes a mariachi influenced piece with a string section in the break.
Arhtur Lee released some great records after the original band broke up. He was friends with Hendrix but it was too late for either of them. Hendrix dies and Lee lost years in legal fights and drugs. He spent a few years in prison iin the 90's because of a few incidents with guns, but after his release, with a clear sense of vision, he put together a band and started to perform again for an audience hungry for the great music they had never been able to see him make before.
This is from 2002 and for the life of me, when I close my eyes and listen, he recreates the album cut made in 1967 perfectly.
I was such a fan of LOVE, I saw them in 1968 in Detroit and was floored by Lees on stage presence. I still play My Little Red Book.
Arthur Lee died broke of leukemia last year.

American Plumbing

Le petit Nicolas is installed in the 8 bedroom, 11 bedroom Michael Appe vacation playhouse on Lake Winnepesaukee outside of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Eager to get a taste of real American style plumbing as there are m more toilets in that house than all of Versailles!
Yesterday, after a "People" style photo shoot, the trigger tempered micro potentate flipped out and flipped the bird at two AP Photographers who followed him out on the Lake in another boat. Unfortunately, the photographers didn't speak French and there was no one around who would translate the torrent of invectives he let loose.
Hey, Sarko, if you're gonna use foul language in America, at least speak English!
And the French people would like to know, who is paying the $30,000 plus per week rent on this house? You say you were invited by a "friend" and flew on a regular jet with your family....I hope Cecilia doesn't decide to go on one of her security nightmare shopping sprees and shut down Wolfesboro trying to buy cheese.
Who is paying for the security anyway?
I hear Bush is coming down to jog and share a hot tub...watch out for him, he's learned a bit about massage techniques from Vladimir Putin, but you've met Vlad too as I remember...Vashe zdrov'ye!

Encouraging Bad Behavior

Hmmm, I don't think it's a very healthy thing to celebratean obsession, do you?
It's just encouraging bad behavior to draw attention to it.
So, instead of congratulating myself and having a party because thebrainpolice is one year old, I would like to draw attention to other people misbehaving and causing a scene!
First a few of the more recent blogs I have linked to:
The Man With The Muck Rake
A NorthWestern Ohio blog by a fellow who casts a weary x-ray eye on the political landscape of Ohio and has no more patience with the idiots in charge of America can explain it all in a way that even I can understand!
What would Bobble Headed Jesus Say?
Another rather newish blog of social and political essays by another bass guitar playing writer from the Toledo area....the other one is me. Intelligent, progressive thinking with some great Star Wars philosophical links that make everything perfectly clear. Such behavior can only be encouraged!
Torapamavoa le blog anti Sarko
This brave blogger is rabidly and surrealistically taking on le petit Nicolas the first with a fist full of DaDa! It's written in French, but it will self translate itself for you into most major languages. Be fore warned, auto translated French into English may not neccesarily accurately be what the author intended, but it makes for some more DaDa!
Trouble Every Day
This is my favorite place where nothing will ever make any sense, but incredible inspired outflowing grade A idiocy bordering on brilliance! Brain cleaning micro scrubbing action will leave you empty headed and squeaky clean!

There will be more recommendations and product plugs........This is a once a year uncelebration of my own bad behavior!

What A Spine Looks Like

Here is a picture of a spine. A backbone. This is what we expect of the representatives we elect. The Congress caved in to the president and their perception of what they felt the public wanted them to do to save their sorry asses and voted to ratify the amended FISA Bill which in effect okays the government electronic eaves dropping that has outraged so many Americans.
Dave, of the blog, intomyown is asking for our participation to let your reps know how youu feel about their spineless behaviour!

This Friday (8/10), everyone needs to call their Congressperson's home office (since they're on recess) and express their outrage over this FISA bill. Let them know how we feel. If they voted the right way, tell 'em good job. If they didn't, tell 'em what you think. It's not hard. Go to house.gov or senate.gov and find your Senator or Representative, and look for their contacts. Call their home office, since they're on recess. It takes 2 minutes or less. And it takes about that long to call, or you can find a comment form on their site if you would rather do that. We have to make our voices heard.

REALITY TV

This is my Sunday evening meditation piece
about media and reality in America.
Last week, Condaleeza Rice doled out 62 billion
dollars in arms deals to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Was this reported on major American media?
Supposedly these arms will be used to confront and contain Iran.
How does that saying go again? The enemy of my friend is my...
no, that's not it....The friend of my enemy is my enemies.....
No, that's not it....uhhh, the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's friend?
No, that's not it either, wait, we'll get it right eventually.

Our Toxic Technology

There is so much important stuff that isn't reported in the news in America. We have been amazed at the amount of time spent on the recall of potentially toxic painted toys from China.
4 nights this week on NBC devoted the largest part of their reporting time to this issue. The last two nights it shared equal time with the Minneapolis Bridge tragedy, but the war in Iraq? The 62 billion dollars doled out to our Middle Eastern "Allies" by Condoleeza Rice in Arms Deals which supposedly was to put them deeper into our moth eaten pockets for our war of words with Iran?
A passing mention and disingeniuos disinformation at the best.
As far as the Poison Paint scare goes, very little has been said in the xenophobic reporting about the base issue here.
Where did the poison pigments come from? It's more than lead, an entire array of heavy metal pigments are used .
In an interview last week in the Wall Street Journal, Ted Smith, the founder of Silicone Valley Toxics Coalition identified the source of the pigments as recycled products of our own waste. We have a huge industry that purports to deal with the problem of disposal of used computers and technological components that contain lead and other heavy metals too toxic for safe disposal in America's landfills.
They make it go away by shipping it to China and other countries where a very unsafe but lucrative for poor people recycling industry has started harvesting materials from our used toxic technology.
Our Xenophobic reporting does us a greater disservice by ignoring the chain of pollution and the tragic trail of victims leading from and back again to our door.

24 Hour Party President

You read it here first! Nikolas Sarkozy is going to be spending his vacation time this month in the house of a retired Microsoft Executive , Michael Appe on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee out side of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
So far this is all very low key, no official announcements have been made and there iis so far no ulterior political motive to the trip.
Residents of Wolfeboro, fair warning! Sarkozy's wife has been declared persona non grata by the mayor of San Tropez after shutting the town down with security so she could do a little personal shopping.
Last week in Tripoli, little Nicolas wanted to go jogging and Kahdaffy had to curfew half the city.
You have to ask yourself, why would the hyperactive president of France choose a small New England town for his vacation spot. Nicolas is not a simple man, there is never a simple answer to his actions. There is always an ulterior motive.
Here is the link in the Boston Globe. They make a big point of telling him where he can go to buy imported French Cheese and that no restaurants in Wolfeboro ever renamed French Fries during the anti French furor of a few years ago.
Maybe he needs a little low profiling after his deal to sell Nuclear Technology and arms to Libya...and a chance for the dust to settle here.

Cheney Predicts!..again...

Yesterday, Dick Cheney gave his first interview since his battery replacement operation over the weekend. Eager to appear upbeat and alert, he blissfully pronounced again that this time the War had definitely turned the corner and we had the insurgents on the run for sure and mentioned that he wasn't wrong actually the last time he said it, his timing was just a little off, but his new pace maker battery should take care of everything!
He also made the prediciton that George W. Bush's approval ratings would take a drastic upswing for the better after his death, citing the really great funeral we just had for Ex President Gerald Ford.
I don't know what you think, but I personally feel this is a very drastic method to try to turn around bad opinion polls.

Rights? You don't have any..anymore.......

I recieved this article in my email yesterday. A few months ago, there was mention of the executive order giving the president the right to assume emergency powers and take command of National Guards in times of percieved crisis. Most bloggers were alarmed but the consensuus seemed to be that this order didn't really go any farther than the emergency powers claimed by other presidents.
I believe this piece by Michael Chossudovsky shows that we've gone way beyond the limits of what was previously thought to be what the Executive Branch was claiming.
I believe that this is the the tip of the administrations new aggressive attitude to destroy the American peoples right and will to protest.
A case in question is the over the top prosecution of two protestors in Downers Grove, Illinois. Jeff Zurawski and Saraf Hartfield were charged originally with disorderly conduct for displaying a banner which read "Impeach Bush and Cheney! Liars!" on May 6th over a freeway overpass on Interstate 355. This charge, if guilty would have resulted in a 3 month maximun sentence.
Last week, the charges were upped to reckless conduct and unauthorized display of a sign on a highway each of which carries a 1 year sentence.
The opinion is that the augmented charges are a purely political move to discourage protest. Read more about this case here and the way it is being fought!
There is also a manual of instructions for counter demonstrations and dealing with protest that has been issued by the Presidents Office.

I will continue to document this disturbing trend in the coming weeks. Below is Michael Chussodovskys article printed in its entirety:

Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 20 July 2007


The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of whoever opposes the US led war.

A presidential Executive Order issued on July 17th, repeals with the stroke of a pen the right to dissent and to oppose the Pentagon's military agenda in Iraq.

The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of "certain persons" who oppose the US led war in Iraq:

"I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act.

The Executive Order criminalizes the antiwar movement. It is intended to "blocking property" of US citizens and organizations actively involved in the peace movement. It allows the Department of Defense to interfere in financial affairs and instruct the Treasury to "block the property" and/or confiscate/ freeze the assets of "Certain Persons" involved in antiwar activities. It targets those "Certain Persons" in America, including civil society organizatioins, who oppose the Bush Administration's "peace and stability" program in Iraq, characterized, in plain English, by an illegal occupation and the continued killing of innocent civilians.
The Executive Order also targets those "Certain Persons" who are "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction", or who, again in plain English, are opposed to the confiscation and privatization of Iraq's oil resources, on behalf of the Anglo-American oil giants.

The order is also intended for anybody who opposes Bush's program of "political reform in Iraq", in other words, who questions the legitimacy of an Iraqi "government" installed by the occupation forces.
Moreover, those persons or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), who provide bona fide humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians, and who are not approved by the US Military or its lackeys in the US sponsored Iraqi puppet government are also liable to have their financial assets confiscated.
The executive order violates the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution. It repeals one of the fundamental tenets of US democracy, which is the right to free expression and dissent. The order has not been the object of discussion in the US Congress. Sofar, it has not been addressed by the US antiwar movement, in terms of a formal statement.

Apart from a bland Associated Press wire report, which presents the executive order as "an authority to use financial sanctions", there has been no media coverage or commentary of a presidential decision which strikes at the heart of the US Constitution..

Broader implications

The criminalization of the State is when the sitting President and Vice President use and abuse their authority through executive orders, presidential directives or otherwise to define "who are the criminals" when in fact they they are the criminals.

This latest executive order criminalizes the peace movement. It must be viewed in relation to various pieces of "anti-terrorist" legislation, the gamut of presidential and national security directives, etc., which are ultimately geared towards repealing constitutional government and installing martial law in the event of a "national emergency".

The war criminals in high office are intent upon repressing all forms of dissent which question the legitimacy of the war in Iraq.

The executive order combined with the existing anti-terrorist legislation is eventually intended to be used against the anti-war and civil rights movements. It can be used to seize the assets of antiwar groups in America as well as block the property and activities of non-governmental humanitarian organizations providing relief in Iraq, seizing the assets of alternative media involved in a reporting the truth regarding the US-led war, etc.

In May 2007, Bush issued a major presidential National Security Directive (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20), which would suspend constitutional government and instate broad dictatorial powers under martial law in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency" ( e.g. Second 9/11 terrorist attack).

On July 11, 2007 the CIA published its "National Intelligence Estimate" which pointed to an imminent Al Qaeda attack on America, a second 9/11 which, according to the terms of NSPD 51, would immediately be followed by the suspension of constitutional government and the instatement of martial law under the authority of the president and the vice-president. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran? June 2007)

NSPD 51 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. It allows the sitting president to declare a "national emergency" without Congressional approval. The implementation of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.

"The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government...."

Were NSPD 51 to be invoked, Vice President Dick Cheney, who constitutes the real power behind the Executive, would essentially assume de facto dictatorial powers, circumventing both the US Congress and the Judiciary, while continuing to use President George W. Bush as a proxy figurehead.

NSPD 51, while bypassing the Constitution, nonetheless, envisages very precise procedures which guarantee the powers of Vice President Dick Cheney in relation to "Continuity of Goverment" functions under Martial Law:

"This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions." ( NSPD 51, op cit.)

The executive order to confiscate the assets of antiwar/peace activists is broadly consistent with NSPD 51. It could be triggered even in the absence of a "Catastrophic emergency" as envisaged under NSPD 51. It repeals democracy. It goes one step further in "criminalizing" all forms of opposition and dissent. to the US led war and "Homeland Security" agenda.




ANNEX

TEXT OF THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

July 17, 2007

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:

(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.

Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 17, 2007.


Below is the text of the Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act

[There has been no response by the US congress or commentary by individual Senators or Representatives.]

Office of the Press Secretary July 17, 2007

Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act

White House News

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.

I issued this order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004.

In these previous Executive Orders, I ordered various measures to address the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in that country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq.

My new order takes additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315 by blocking the property and interests in property of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.

The order further authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to designate for blocking those persons determined to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person designated pursuant to this order, or to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

I delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, the authority to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of my order. I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The White House,

July 17, 2007

We Don't Need Your Stinkin' Help!

Yesterday, the CREW Organization (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) released a comprehensive report detailing the assistance offers made by foreign governments to the USA after Hurricane Katrina.
CREW recieved 25,0000 documents detailing the governments acceptance and handling of these offers after a CREW lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act in December 2005.
The documents reveal a very disturbing pattern of arbitrary rejections and mishandling of aid from 145 foreign governments and 12 International Organizations.
For example, here is an email from Jeffrey Goldstein, a US Embassy official in Estonia:
"It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief. And now I see from the staff meeting notes that the task force may disband soon. We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even “thanks but no thanks” is better than deafening silence."

Another email responding to an offer from Argentina to DOS officials reads “All, The (sic) word here is that doctors of any kind are in the 'forget about it' category. Human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list....It’s all about goods, not people, at this point.”

Another email describes how the transport of Israeli relief supplies loaded on a C-130 aircraft was delayed for over 48 hours on the tarmac while Israeli officials waited for clearance from the U.S. government. The unidentified author states: “I’ve been on the phone with the [Israeli] attache every couple of hours since noon . . . they’re patient, but not amused by our delay, obviously.” The documents do not reveal if or how the issue was resolved.

All foreign medical personell help was turned down due to arbitrary adherence to bureaucratic regulations about licensing in the USA.

A ban on British Beef because of mad cow disease fears kept thousands of British Army field meals stored in warehouuses at a cost of $16,000 a month.

All offers of post Katrina clean up aid from foreign governments were turned down systematically. The clean up was and is still being ineptly done by no bid contracts awarded to firms with administration ties making astronomical fees..

It has been 2 years since Katrina and the nightmare is with most of the victims anew every day as they try to wade through the inept corruptness of the American Governments and the evasive insurance companies response.
The Bush Goverment has shown itself incapable of and not caring about the plight and future of the poor Katrina victims. If they wait for goverment assistance, the ravaged neighborhoods of New Orleans will never be rebuilt.
Next month, something unique will happen, members of the Southeast Asian Coalition for Housing are coming to New Orleans with a group of Indonesian Tsunami survivors from Bandeh Aceh. They are going to hold meetings and work shops with groups of New Orleans survivors to show them how to do it themselves!
They are going to learn to rebuld their lives inspite of having a goverment which couldn't care less if they lived or died.

Bush Will Briefly Be "President"

This weekend is the scheduled battery replacement operation date for Dick Cheney.
As I have reported before, this is a serious procedure, the battery in in the defillabrator implant in Mr. Cheneys chest. The battery is not simply replaced, the entire unit has to be replaced. Consequently, Mr. Cheney will be under anesthesia for a few hours and in intensive care for a while.
During this period, George Bush will actually be president of the United States for a short period of time. During the duration, Mr. Bush plans to play with the dog, go mountain bike riding and build a fort in the backyard.

Freedom

I have not posted afor a few days and feel a little guilty as there is so much to write about.
Excuse? Well, it's summer, visitors. Our niece came for a week long visit and we went out a lot and had a big barbecue here! Actually, I want to digest the things I learned from the niece, she is the Senior Policy Director for Mayor Bloombergs Greening of New York City Project. It's an incredible bold initiative that will make New York City the most ecologically progressive major metropolis on the planet by 2030. They are working with technology that already exists and there are a lot of creative ideas already being put into action. Experts from all disciplines are involved.
I will write more on this.

Earlier, I wrote on the immenent release of the Bulgarian Health Care Workers and earlier this week, it happened. After 8 years of unspeakable fear and raised and lowered hopes, they are on Bulgarian soil and officially pardoned by the President of Bulgaria.
They were shown landing in the official French Presidential Jet in a deal that was painfully hammered out and finalized by many people. President Sarkozy of France tried to highjack the Public Relations aspect of it and as far as the French press is concerned, he did.
The only thing I saw in the rest of the world press was surprisingly enough, a line in an article in the New York Times attributing the release to the special relationship that Cecilia Sarkozy had instantly developed with Khadafy.
It seems though, the rest of the world isn't buying it and the credit is going to the the tireless supporters who never let this issue disappear from the public eye.
Khadafy got his 450 million dollar ransom, though I would think that most of it was accounting magic. A lot of Libya's debt will be forgiven.
France on the other hand was doing a lot more than getting hostages released. Now that Libya is allowed to become a part of the civilized world and relationships are normalized, Sarkozy was representing the big French Corporations and negotiated a deal for a new major French built Autoroute and surprise! France is going to build a nuclear plant for Libya. It's a "safe, nice" nuclear plant to be used only for the desalinization of water...................
Is it me, or is there some kind of hypocrisy on the part of the western world going on here?
I am truly over joyed with the release of the health workers and want to congratulate everyone involved with this feat!

Back On The Chain Gang

Last summer, Colorado passed some of the most repressive laws against illegal farm laborers in the country. As a result, thousands of immigrants here illegally who have been working as seasonal farm laborers are in hiding or have left the state.
These people have done the labor that most Americans would never do for wages that have helped the farmers to reap profits and pass down to the consumers.

Last fall was a disaster for the farmers of Colorado. Without their traditional base of illegal cheap labor, the crops rotted in the fields. This year in an attempt to remedy this situation, the state legislature came up with the plan to use the inmates of the state penitentiaries as a source of farm labor.

The farmers are paying the Department of Corrections $10.00 an hour per inmate plus a negotiated charge for prison guards to overseers. The inmates make 60 cents a day.

The legislature claims that the program was started to keep the farmers from going out of business and the cost of the program per farmer is much more that he would have paid if he had his tradidional source of illegal labor.

The program was put into action this month and I saw a report about it on the ARTE Network international news here in France. They showed the inmates chained iin the fields and the guards armed watching them work. One woman was interviewed who said that she was unfit for the work but was being forced to do it anyway.

There are critics on both sides of the immigration issue. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigrattion Studies in Washington said, "If they can't get slaves from Mexico, they want them from the jails."
Ricardo Martinez of the Denver immigrant rights group, Padres Unidos asked, "Are we going to pull inmattes to work in the service industry too? You won't have enough inmates, unless you start importing them from Texas."

Farmers are not happy about this situation, but they are on the edge of fiinancial collapse. This is tantamount to slavery, but the anti slavery provisions of the Constitution leave open a loophole which permitted the Southern States to operate slave labor chain gangs for many years until they were abolished as inhuman.

If immigrant labor didn't exist, firms would start paying higher wages and offering benifits to entice Americans into picking lettuce and plucking chickens. Decent wages come from collective bargaining. The influx of immigrant labor has kept that possibility out of the question.
During the last 25 years, Hispanic and Black union membership has dropped more than half. The bargaining status of the working man in America is becoming less and less of a possibility as rights are trampled on.
If we put half as much energy into supporting the status of the working man as America puts into hating immigrants, we might accomplish something.

Tripoli 6...latest status

Over the last few months, I have commented on the fate of the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor wrongfully accused and condemned to death in Libya. They were charged with willfully infecting hundreds of children with the HIV virus.
This has been disproven time and time again by the concerned world health officials in France and Italy. Declan Butler of Science Magazine has played an especially prominent role in keeping this issue in the public eye. It is a news item here in France, but it has hardly been a speck on the windscreen in the United States.
The EU has been negotiating with Libya to raise the $1,000,000 per child ransom that Libya hinted it would accept to free the accused after reimposing the death penalty last week.
In the midst of all this serious negotiation and action, the wife of French President Nikolas Sarkozy, Celia, flew to Libya last week and tried to milk the deal for personal gain. It seems the French Press isn't buying it but it was a blatant attempt to seem as if she had personally brokered the deal.
The families, under Islamic law, have the right to to forgive the accused and let them go. Today it was announced that that the families accepted the payment and the 6 will be flown to Bulgaria soon. This does not mean that their names have been cleared. The death sentence has been tranmuted to life imprisonment and the tacit agreement is that it will be carried out in Bulgaria. The Palestinian doctor had to take Bulgarian citizenship for this deal to be worked out. No one expects the Bulgarians to imprison the 6 and they should be freed when they get to Bulgaria.
This has been a very horrible piece of political theater with Ghadafy playing to the xenophobic elements in Libya in an effort to placate the mob and extract the most in concessions from the rest of the world.
No one is resting easy until the 6 are safe on Bulgarian soil!
Curiously enough, the payment is equivalent to the damages Libya paid for the Lockerbie aircraft bombing. For more information and latest details, please check out
the Effects Measure Science Blog which has been covering this passionately.

Take Away The Car Keys

The days of summer begin to shorten on the Potamac and the sun sets earlier and
earlier each day on the Bush/Cheney Administration. The time grows even shorter for Mr. Cheney as he begins to feel the confines of mere mortality again.
So much to do and so little time to do it. So many great ideas left sinking in the
Iraqi desert sand.....
Soon, Mr. Cheney will be out of action for an unspecified period of time
while he has his pacemaker power unit replaced. Not as simple as
changing a battery, this procedure involves open heart surgery. This is scheduled to take place at the end of this summer.
Eager to make the most of his fading political capitol before he is out of action,
this over medicated, mastermind of doom is anxious to have his last
great project come to pass before it is too late and his influence wanes
irrepairably.
Attack Iran, do it now is his constant mantra...you can only imagine the
nonstop harangue he is giving his little buddy, George Jr.
As reported in this mornings Guardian, for the time being, he seems to have the presidents ear over Condileeza Rice, who continually presses for
a diplomatic solution to a problem which has been inflated by the attitude and actions of the administration.
The rest of the sane world knows that military action against Iran would be the
the crowning tactical folly of this bungling criminally inept administration.
These guys are repeat offenders and their obsession with their "legacy"
is going to destroy America in their single minded quest for the domination of the
world's petroleum energy resources.
Lot's of grand ideas that have all failed beyond miserably.
Time to take away the car keys.
It's too late for Impeachment!
(the illustration is one of the original drawings (Bats Over Barstow) by the marvellously manevolent master, Ralph Steadman for the original publication in Rolling Stone Magazine for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

This Just In!

Between storms, that moment when the last blast of the sun
blazes between the cloud layer and the horizon.
Double Rainbow
Double Joy
Double Happiness!

Your Tax Dollars at Work!

This from Saturdays New York Post:

IRAQ'S ambassador to the United Nations, Hamid al Bayati, likes the high life. Bayati, who's been on the job for just over a year, is said to be living in a $22,000-a-month apartment at Trump World Tower on First Avenue. He's renting while the Iraqi U.N. Mission and official ambassador's residence on East 79th Street undergo a $40 million renovation. Where did the Iraqis get the cash? Newsmax.com reports the U.N. Security Council is paying with funds it once used to finance the now-terminated U.N. Iraq arms inspectors. When asked about the lavish use of the cash, Bayati refused comment. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad shrugged off the Iraqis' lush lifestyle by telling reporters, "$40 million is not a lot of money." According to U.N. documents, the U.S. delegation approved the transfer of the cash from the Security Council to Iraq. All of this comes as the federal Government Accounting Office reported the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers $12 billion monthly.

BLOG TAGGED!

I have been totally out of touch for the last 2 weeks only being able to listen to French radio at night and sometimes the BBC came in clearly. The one time I was able to look at a computer, I saw to my chagrin,that History Mike had "severely blog tagged" me!
This involves the process of revealing 8 facts about yourself and I had to consult my lawyer over the statutes of limitations, so I left out some the more salient incidents and details.

The rules are:
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players strt with 8 random facts about themselves
3. Those who are tagged must post the rules and the 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and let them know they have been tagged.

Here are my sordid details:

1. In the early 80's I played lead guitar and sang in a band called Mr. Bubble. We were actually kind of popular in the East Village in NYC...sort of Grunge/Punk/Noise with a health dose of funk. There was a lot of humor, I let anyone on stage who would agree to wear a mylar hula skirt to be back up singers and dancers...one night we had 14 hula skirt attired singers and dancers on stage at the Pyramid Club on Ave. A and the stage broke. Another fun filled evening ended with a call to the fire department when one of the inspired dancers set fire to the stage curtains at the 8/BC Club.

2. I finished High School at Scott High Night School and my Lab Partner was the Jazz Guitarist Bernie Nix who went on to play with Ornette Coleman's Prime Time Band.

3. Every day I give thanks that I cannot buy white chocolate coated miniature pretzels here in France....I want one now!

4. I spent a week in the Lucas County Jail.

5 I posed nude for a life drawing class with the understanding that others in the class were willing to bare it all for art. Unfortunately, I was the only one who did it. I found some of my class mates drawings quite "imaginative".

6. This is pre 9/11...I was getting on a plane in Toulouse, France and when I went through the metal detector, it went off. I suddenly realized I was carrying my pocketknife. I pulled it out of my pocket and excaimed "but it's just my Laguiolle!"
(Laguiolles are the popular knife that every French hick carries and are made in Toulouse.) To my surprise everyone started to laugh and they let me carry it on.
It was not an international flight......

7.I love mowing the lawn. It is one of those zen activities. You become one with the lawn mower and it is as if you are still 16 doing things just the way you always have. I also have many great ideas while lawn mowing.

8. After approximately 40 or so years of thinking of myself as an artist and actually making my living in the arts for many years, I still don't think I can draw for shit!

et voila! Are you happy now Mr. History Mike? I will now take great pleasure in bestowing this onorous task on 8 other unfortunates!

Commadante Agi at This Blog Will Self-Destruct In 5 Seconds
WhyNot at PourquoiPas
Jinbon H. Wong at Trouble Every Day
Long Live the Village Green
Uncommon squalor
toledolefty
A Spork in the Drawer
and of course, Steve, at what would bobble headed jesus do

Okay, these folks will probably ban me forever from posting on their pages again, but that's later, now, YOU'RE IT!

Blog Vacation

Well, my last post for about 2 weeks! I'm going to work in Libourne on the grape vines.
No computer and not much else....
So for your enjoyment, I found this video of Big Mama Thorton performing her original song Hound Dog. It was her hit first. This video is from 1965 and features the man who is probably the greatest blues guitarist in America, Buddy Guy!
This Rocks!

I Must Try Harder

Mingle² - Online Dating

This is pretty funny. There is a web site which will rate your blog. All you do is enter your URL and a few seconds later, you get a sticker.
I was shocked and surprised when mingle
gave me a PG rating, I was hoping for something stiffer...I must try harder!
I have to start working on the photoshop picture of John McCains upcoming nude macho stroll through the streets of Bagdahd!

Guitar Monsters

Here's something they don't do on stage anymore! These are Guitar Monsters, Les Paul and Chet Atkins playing a duet of Avalon. Les is the greatest inovater of modern guitar. He designed the modern electric guitar, invented multi tracking and echo effects.
His first echo chamber was in his home studio, an 80 foot shaft drilled into solid rock.
He still plays every Monday night at the Irridium Jazz Club up by Lincoln Center in New York City. I've seen him a few times when he played on Mondays down at Fat Tuesdays.
How old is he now? 85? 90? He claims he discovered and lost Jimi Hendrix at a bar in New Jersey. In the early 60's he was in a terrible car accident and made the choice to have his practically destroyed fretting arm set permanently in "playing position".
A self taught musical and sonic genius, he is an American Treasure. If you go to New York,check him out, his stories between songs are hilarious.

In this piece, he duets with his life long pal, Chet Atkins. Chet invented the Nashville style finger picking. He could play two songs at the same time on one guitar.
His style was the sound of Nashville for decades. Check out his solo on this piece, it doesn't get any sweeter than this!
Gretsch still makes Chet Atkins Country Gentlemen guitars, I used to have one like George Harrisons in the early Beatles. A thin line hollow body instrument with gold plated hardware and a snap on belt buckle protecter on the back. That model also sported painted on f holes to reduce the feedback of hollow bodies at high volume.
These are Guitar Monsters!