Ruth: If you write to me care of common_ills@yahoo.com, C.I. does forward them to me.

There are so many wonderful e-mails. Most of you write along the lines of "I thought I was crazy. Anytime I complain about NPR, people look at me like I'm crazy." I'd argue those people aren't listening or they aren't listening closely. Possibly, they are getting all the news from NPR and are unaware of certain details that skew or get omitted.

A few e-mailed to ask if I hated NPR? No, I do not hate NPR. It is not what it used to be by a long shot. But there are still strong stories most days and there are some people who obviously care about what they do.

Do I hate Morning Edition? I thought hard on that one. I was a huge Morning Edition fan in the days of Bob Edwards. He was on top of each broadcast. These days, it's like we've got the kiddie patrol making jokes and asking their carefully rehearsed questions.

I noted The Diane Rehm Show this week and that's the example of a strong broadcaster. When people are speaking, she's not attempting to fire off her next question, she's actively listening and responding to what they are saying.

On Morning Edition, and this is most obvious when Cokie Roberts does her political "analysis," there is no listening. Cokie says whatever she wants to say and no one asks her to explain what she's talking about. She'll offer a bit of jargon and a good broadcaster would follow up by asking her to explain what that means? When she makes one of her "people are reporting . . ." statements, a good broadcaster would ask who is reporting?

Cokie Roberts is useless to me as a listener but she's made more useless by the fact that no one wants to get her to credit sources or to explain jargon.

But even with that, there is no excuse for her to get away with the claim that the Washington Post editorial board favors the Democrats. What world does Cokie live in?

Long before I ever started doing the Morning Edition Report, I heard Cokie say something that was so off base from what The Washington Post was reporting. I e-mailed C.I. and got sent back a thing from The Daily Howler by Bob Somerby where he noted that it appeared Cokie just read the headlines of The Washington Post and not the actual articles. That's a highly likely proposition.

But this week when she got off her charge that The Washington Post favored the Democrats, I really expected someone to call her on it.
For anyone who missed it, check Monday's post.

Here's the exchange from that post:

Renee: The Democrats have yet to come up with a solution to the long term problems that social security will face are they starting for-to feel any heat about-about that?
Cokie: Again, not so far. But they can't be happy that the usually friendly Washington Post editorial page is now saying that they will have to come up with some specifics given the fact that the *Bully Boy* has. And people do seem to be taking something of a serious look at the *Bully Boy*'s proposal.
[I've substituted any term such as "president" or his last name with "Bully Boy" and noted it with astericks.]

The usually friendly Washington Post editorial page is usually friendly, but to the Bully Boy. Cokie got that off unchallenged, pushed the unfounded myth of "the liberal media" on NPR, and no one appeared to notice.

That's what a great deal of the e-mails are about and usually end with, "Why didn't anyone notice?" I have to wonder if anyone pays that close attention to NPR, honestly.

Were Cokie fact checked, she'd fail more often than not.

I do support NPR (less so PBS) and that was another big question. But I find it very hard to support Morning Edition which grows more juvenile every day. What was an audio version of a daily paper has become a show filled with "happy talk" by the anchors. It's hard to take the show seriously when it doesn't appear to take itself too seriously.

Bob Edwards was not a grinch but he could set a relaxed mood and still bring you the news. These days, it seems more and more that two airheads have taken over two hours of NPR's time.

Now the NPR ombudsman would disagree. He recently wrote about how ratings were up for Morning Edition. Does it matter if the rise comes from dumbing down the show?

I still don't know if the story ("for balance") about a wildcat that was saved was a joke or for real? I'm not questioning that it happened but when NPR gets angry e-mail regarding a true story on wildcats and then decides to later "balance" it out with a happy story, you can call the show whatever you want, but don't call it Morning Edition.

I was honestly surprised that they even responded to the e-mails because I was one of the people e-mailing in October to complain that Robert Kagan was brought on to evaluate John Kerry. For those who are not aware of this, Robert Kagan's wife [Victoria Nuland] worked for Dick Cheney. So you had a man married to a woman working for one ticket critiquing the statements of the head of another ticket. How did that pass muster?

Where was the outcry? (I know The Common Ills dealt with this not long after it started up in November. But why did we have a month of silence before The Common Ills came along.) I e-mailed to the ombudsman who did what he usually does, ignored my e-mail. Then he wrote the column dealing with the complaints from listeners and wrote, basically, "Robert Kagan may be pro-war" or some such nonsense. But did Mr. [Jefferey] Dvorkin ever address the issue of conflict of interest due to Mr. Kagan's marriage? No, he didn't.

What is the purpose of the ombudsman if not to address something that serious? He didn't want to know about it. Robert Kagan was allowed to present himself on Morning Edition as an objective analyst because Morning Edition refused to inform their listeners who Mr. Kagan was married to. When the issue was raised with Mr. Dvorkin, he decided to ignore it.

I'm sure many listeners have no idea to this day how "questionable" (I'd call it wrong) the decision to bring Mr. Kagan on was.

Do I hate Morning Edition? I wish it were better. I wish it were worth listening to. Now that I keep my grandson each weekday, Morning Edition is often the only show I can pay full attention to on NPR. Sometimes, if I'm rocking him, I can hear a large segment of another show. But he's very active and we're all over the house. So I really count on Morning Edition to provide me with solid information and it is, frankly, no longer doing that.

The other big question this week was how did I miss the big scoop about the CIA plan to capture bin Laden, behead him, etc.? I missed it because I didn't think it was a story.

This wasn't a reporter breaking a story they had come across. This was a former agent revealing a plan. That has to be cleared with the CIA ahead of time.

Here is the summary from the first part of that two-part story:

Morning Edition, May 2, 2005 · Gary Schroen is one of the CIA's most respected and experienced spies. Two days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his bosses handed him a new mission targeting Osama bin Laden: "Bring his head back in a box" is the phrase Schroen remembers. Five days later, the veteran operative and his six-man team were on a plane.
They were the first Americans to enter Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Over the next few weeks, Schroen paid $5 million in bribes to Afghan commanders, paved the way for U.S. military forces to enter the country, and armed anti-al Qaeda fighters with silencer-equipped machine guns and grenades.
Schroen's work with the Northern Alliance and smaller groups led to some successes, but he says his team never got close to killing the al Qaeda leader -- or his top deputy, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was reportedly in the eastern section of Kabul.

That's a lot of information for the C.I.A. to allow Mr. Schroen to release. It struck me as "news management." I wasn't impressed with the story because I felt it was an attempt at manipulation. The administration has been very good about saying, "Look at this hand, not at that one!" To me, this was another example of a "release" that attempted to cover something else. I have no idea what.

Bully Boy is under a great deal of criticisim for not having found bin Laden all these years later. Perhaps this was an effort to get us to care that there was a "plan" or that people "tried?" I don't have the slightest clue.

But when I talked to my granddaughter Tracey about it and told her my concerns, she said, "Grandma, don't write about it then." If it was indeed an attempt to get this story to overwhelm something the administration found embarrassing, I didn't want to ignore my own suspicions and play into the administration's hands.

Agent Schroen had a great deal to say. My question was how he got clearence for his remarks?

Some e-mailed to ask if I could please do an NPR report or a Morning Edition report every day?

I would love to but time doesn't permit that. I'm not able to actively listen to all the NPR shows and if my grandson is sick or dropped off early, that cuts into the time I would have to write down a report.

I have no problem with someone else also doing a Morning Report report. They might pick up something I missed or they might offer a different perspective on the same story. But like everyone who wrote, I, too, feel that NPR has been overlooked. It needs to be examined and held accountable the same way that a newspaper like The New York Times is. NPR has a great deal of influence.

With friends my age who listen to NPR, I don't usually have to explain in great detail when NPR gets something wrong because we're old enough to remember when it was a first rate source of news. Back then, it earned it's reputation. You can still get quality reporting from Nina Totenberg. But more and more, the voices like Ms. Totenberg's are overwhelmed by people reporting silly stories. This may or may not attract more listeners but it weakens what NPR stood for.

Today [Thursday], we heard the tale of the runaway groom. That was apparently another "balance" story to even out the reports of the runaway bride. I listened to that story and wondered exactly who made the call that this was a story important enough to air on Morning Edition?

C.I. has written about how, especially on Sundays, "lifestyle stories" make the front page of The New York Times. The runaway groom was a "lifestyle story." It wasn't a news story.

I'm also bothered by the reading of listener's e-mails which focuses on grammar as opposed to serious issues with reporting. I certainly don't need mocking voices of the anchors rotating out line by line to tell me that "an" was used instead of "and" or something equally worthless. (This week it was that Bill Gates used "irregardless." Does anyone really care?)

People listen to Morning Edition while they're getting ready for their day, while they're eating breakfast or on their way to work, and I don't think they're hoping to hear a Bob Newhart comedy lp. (Tracey will reprimand me for that with, "Grandma! We call them CDS!") I believe they are hoping to get some solid news in that two hour period.

I also don't believe listeners want to hear Cokie play Carnac the Magnificent. Cokie makes far too many predicitions and offers far too little "analysis." Not to kick her when she's down, but if Cokie's E.S.P. was so good, wouldn't she have realized she was being dumped as the co-host of ABC This Week and done something to keep that job?

Rebecca e-mailed me that she thought Cokie was the Rona Barrett of NPR and I have to agree with that. It is like listening to a gossip maven as opposed to a reporter.

I'm an old woman and Mr. Dvorkin would probably dismiss me as such (though we may be around the same age). But I have children and grandchildren and I do worry about the world they're facing now. I support NPR and will do everything in my power to see that it remains free from attempts to turn it into an opinion-journal. But fighting that fight means also holding NPR accountable for what it is doing on air. (That's in response to a question about what I see my "mission" as.) I've also noted before how much I have received from the community in terms of insight and common sense so I hope I give back a little of that in each post.

With the C.I.A. story, I was specifically thinking back to reports that NPR did, strong reports, on the manipulation and back alley ways of the C.I.A. in the seventies. Maybe you have to be old enough to remember those to raise an eyebrow this week when the two-parter story about a plan, almost four-years-old, airs? Tracey's always after me to be funnier and more of a letz. She'll try to get me to work in some hip lingo or tell a joke she's heard on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. She'll say, "Don't come off like such a mensh." (I don't think she's learned the meanings of some of the Yiddish words she's picked up from me.)

But, to quote her quoting Kat, "It is what it is." I wonder if Kat realizes how popular that saying has become in my family? "The potato salad didn't turn out too good, did it?" "It is what it is."

Gina e-mailed (and I'm assuming it's okay to quote her here) that she really enjoys me adding my two-cents worth. I really enjoy adding it too. Before I started doing this, my children would have to hear from me about Morning Edition each Sunday at lunch. Now they're usually saying, "Mama, you got that right this week" or "Mama, you were so wrong." It's really nice to have this outlet (in answer to another question).

One of my favorite features at The Common Ills is when members sound off or ask questions. If I'd prepared ahead of time, I would have gotten permission from everyone who wrote so that I could name them here. But when I was reading over the e-mails, I realized this would be a nice thing to focus on and plunged right in. If you could note if you want to be named, I'll do that next time I do a response to the e-mails.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]


 

Elisabeth Bumiller rates a special entry for "Russia Objects to Bush Visit to Neighbors; Rice Replies." She's left the safety zone of her White House Letter but damned if she doesn't pack her fluffing kit. Proving once again that she doesn't merely serve on the Elite Fluff Patrol, but actually is the squad leader, Bumiller leaves behind her usual Sweet Valley High voice to
pursue a foul mouthed version of Duncan Watt's Wallace Boys.

Check out this crackling piece of machismo:

Americans who have seen the letter describe it as an audacious objection by Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov to the itinerary of the president of the United States. Ms. Rice promptly shot back, in effect, that Mr. Bush could visit whatever countries he wished.
"Rice doesn't scare worth a damn," said a senior Bush administration official who insisted on anonymity because he did not want to be identified as taunting Moscow.

"Audacious objection." Not just an objection, mind you, an "audacious one." That's what has elevated Bumiller to the top of the Elite Fluff Patrol. That and the fact that when unnamed sources are ready to dish, Bumiller is there with pad and pencil -- if not skepticism.

"Ms. Rice promplty shot back . . ." I just bet she did! Paint that picture, Bumillie. It's all so very Skulduggery in the South Atlantic.

". . . Mr. Bush could visit whatever countries he wished." Two-fisted he-man Condi don't back down!

"Rice doesn't scare worth a damn . . ." Didn't Bumiller just establish this? Repetitious, but on message! Flying high and blind, without a net, heading where few would ever dare to go, Bumiller's on a one-woman reconnaissance mission to bring back the manhood of the Bully Boy, and Condi, and by "damn" she will do so.

Why this ham-fisted Wallace Boys tale? Maybe Bumillie felt Laura's "funnies" had emasculated her poster boy and his administration?

Maybe she was afraid Condi would pimp slap her?

Who knows why Bumillie ever does what she does? But did the Times really think this action/adventure yarn passed for reporting? Did no one wonder if Bumillie might need to tone it down? (Or is it that when you're the Elite Fluff Patrol squad leader, you don't take orders, you "damn" well give them!)

Purple prose straining for Mike Hammer but, with Bummiler's arrested development, only achieving the level of "young adult reader," this is truly bad "reporting."

If this is what access brings, someone cut her off, she's had more than enough. Can we get a designated driver?

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.  Also note, there are additional items there and they'll be posted here this evening.]

In this morning's New York Times, we'll start off by noting Erik Eckholm's "Chinese Woman Fights Effort to Deport Her:"


A permanent resident of the United States and a scholar at American University in Washington, Ms. Gao had been arrested at the Beijing airport, tried in secret on seemingly dubious espionage charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison. That her son, an American citizen and only 5, was also seized and isolated for 26 days made the case seem all the more outrageous.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell publicly expressed dismay over her case, and members of Congress called for her release. To soothe relations with Washington, the Chinese put Ms. Gao on a plane after she served six months.
But since then, Ms. Gao and her husband have pleaded guilty to federal offenses and have been sentenced to prison terms. Today the family is again in a fix, caught in the grind of the justice and immigration systems, and the custody of the children is again in question.

Gao (and her husband) have pled guilty. Short of some evidence emerging that they were forced to cop a plea, presumption of innocence is over. Why are we starting off with this?
A lot of spying (and alleged spying) going on.

Kara e-mails to highlight Douglas Jehl's "Democrats, Seeking Files, Threaten to Stall Bolton Vote:"

Senate Democrats are threatening to abandon an agreement to move toward a swift vote on the nomination of John R. Bolton unless the State Department provides documents related to a clash between Mr. Bolton and intelligence officials over assessments of Syria.
The threat reflects growing tensions between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the handling of an inquiry into Mr. Bolton's qualifications to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.
The inquiry is scheduled to conclude on Friday, but the Republican chairman of the committee has refused to endorse a Democratic request for the Syria documents, and the State Department has not turned them over to the panel.

Krista e-mails to note Marc Lacey's "The New African Dream Is to Escape the Nightmare of Darfur:"


Most of the displaced people in western Sudan have settled just down the road in makeshift camps. Even those who crossed Sudan's western border into Chad remain within walking distance from their villages, though it is a rugged walk, through harsh desert terrain.
But some who are fleeing further afield. They are arriving in Ghana, more than 1,000 miles away. They are showing up in Britain and the United States. To get away from the bloodshed that began in 2003, they have trudged, hopped on the back of trucks, hidden in cargo ships, or, if they have had the means, settled into airplane seats - sometimes one or two or all of the above.

MR e-mails to note Felicity Barringer's "Bush Administration Rolls Back Rule on Building Forest Roads:"

The Bush administration on Thursday supplanted a Clinton-era rule banning road construction in nearly 60 million acres of national forest with a complex prescription for state-by state decisions on which areas should retain protections.
[. . .]
Spokesmen for such environmental groups and for possible Democratic presidential contenders, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, denounced the decision as a giveaway to industry that flouted the public will. Watersheds and wildlife habitats are now at risk, they said.

Billie e-mails to note James Brooke and Kate Zernike's "In Pacific Islands, Mixed Feelings About a Lobbyist's Work:"

Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist under criminal investigation, used to say that the government here needed his services because it was the only American territory without a nonvoting delegate to Congress.
But in previously unreleased documents, Mr. Abramoff described how he worked hard to kill a bill in Congress that would have given the islands a delegate. He did so by exploiting his ties to Republican House leaders, including Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority leader whose travels arranged by the lobbyist have raised ethical questions.
[. . .]
Over six years, he and his law firm collected nearly $9 million from the Marianas. He also obtained work for friends. A $67,000 contract for one friend, Rabbi David Lapin, chief executive of Strategic Business Ethics Inc. of Los Angeles, to perform eight days of ethics training ballooned to $1.2 million a year later.

Wally e-mails to note Carlotta Gall's "Afghan Rebels Step Up Attacks, Killing 9 Near Pakistani Border:"

Nine Afghan soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an ambush Thursday in southern Afghanistan, in the most deadly single attack by rebels against the newly trained Afghan National Army, a military spokesman said.
The soldiers were on patrol in a mountainous district called Shah Wali Kot, in Kandahar Province, when their vehicle hit a mine and immediately came under fire from gunmen, said Gen. Zaher Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman.

Wally: But Bully Boy called this one a win, right? This is winning?

Most people this morning have e-mailed about a certain reporter. If you've read this far and feel let down, don't feel that way. When Elite Fluff Patrols go fluffing, they deserve their own entry.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

This is half repost and half new to this site.

On Saturday an entry appeared and I posted Susan's reply to it at the mirror site but Blogger was having problems so the entry never went up here. (I'm nothing if not forgetful.) As the posts here were being relayed over to the mirror site, I realized Susan's reply never made it here. (Sorry, Susan.) Here's the entry and below it, Susan's reply:

Air America programming notes and the gone but never forgotten Lizz Winstead on the Bully Boy's press conference

Programming notes from Air America.
Politically Direct Airs Sunday
Politically Direct, Air America's latest progressive news and interview show, launches this Sunday, May 1 from 2:00-3:00pm EST directly from Washington, DC. Veteran activist David Bender hosts. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Byrd join him to discuss the "nuclear option."
In October, David Bender co-hosted the Sunday program Campaign Countdown with Rachel Maddow. (Link takes you to to the Air America Place archives for that show.)
Ring of Fire Expands to Two Hours with Callers
The new two-hour, call-in Ring of Fire debuts this Saturday from 5:00-7:00pm, with hosts Bobby Kennedy and Mike Papantonio. The Pap Attack returns as a featured segment.
The Pap Attack? Popular segment Papantonio did on Unfiltered. Kent Jones does "Kent Jones Now" on The Rachel Maddow Show these days which is also a revival of a popular segment that appeared on what show? Oh, yeah, Unfiltered. Rachel Maddow co-hosted what show? Unfiltered. That's not a slam at Papantonio, Jones or Maddow. It is noting that a network that was more than happy to pull the plug on Unfiltered continues to pick the bones of that program.
Chuck D and Lizz Winstead (co-hosts of Unfiltered)? I don't know. I hear Montel Williams and Sally Jesse may be interested in radio programs. (That's sarcasm.) No word yet on whether Rikki Lake will be replacing Randi Rhodes.
Let's jump over to Lizz Winstead's site to get her take on the Bully Boy's press conference since we won't get her voice from Air America these days:
Social Obscurity
Thank God the OC was preempted for that! Now I finally understand the Bush Strategy on Social Security.
I just needed to hear his overall plan for the future before I could comprehend it and because I am pretty sure I was blacklisted from his LieLapalooza Tour, I had to wait for last nights Network Television debut to see the show.
So let me lay out the four major points of his plan and then explain how he is gonna achieve it.In a nutshell: Create a world where the life expectancy rate is oh, say, 12. That way you can eventually do away with Social Security altogether. This is why he never talks about solvency. We dont neeeed solvency. Now you can shut up about it!
Combine that with the Rapture and you've got yourself a plan everybody can get behind and not be left behind.
Winstead goes over the points so click on the link.
Last programming note:
So What Else is News? Changes Hours
Marty Kaplan delivers his usual "un-spinning" of the days news, just an hour earlier. Tune in from 3:00pm-5:00pm this Saturday.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.


Now here's Susan's reply to that post (new to this site):

Susan keeps me honest

Susan keeps me honest.

Susan: I just read the thing you posted ["Air America programming notes and the gone but never forgotten Lizz Winstead on the Bully Boy's press conference"]. Sally Jesse? Rikki Lake? Montel? Come on now. That's two women and an African-American male! Air America is only interested in white male TV talk show hosts! They'd be much more likely to hire Maury. And while I like David Bender am I the only one still noticing that there's not one Hispanic voice as a host or co-host of a radio program?

Absolutely, Susan, you are correct that there's no way two women and an African-American male would get a show or shows currently. And no, you're not the only wondering why there are no Hispanic hosts on Air America. Wasn't that the hot new demographic? Wasn't that supposed to be what the Democrats were going to be working towards strengthing their outreach efforts to? Maybe Air America missed that memo?

As for your question (about what I'm listening to this morning), Judy Collins' In My Life just went off and Tori Amos' The Beekeeper is playing right now. I haven't had time to get the new Bruce Springsteen or the new Judy Collins yet, no.* Lastly, to Susan and others asking about a new addition to this site, it may or may not go up tomorrow. I agree that it would be best to start it on a Sunday.Whether it will be this Sunday or not, I don't know. Krista & Gina, in their "round-robin," mentioned it as a heads up, not to say that it was going up this Sunday.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

And for a change, members who read this site as their first choice and not the other version get a post before those at the other site because, once again, Blogger is acting up. This post will go up there sometime tonight.

--------------------
*As noted elsewhere, I was wrong. Get well bags contained three copies of Springsteen's latest CD and one had Judy Collins' latest CD. I didn't realize when I did the correction to that (there were also books and DVDs as well as other CDs) that it hadn't gone up here. So the mirror site's being visited by more than just our European members. (Thanks to the UK Computer Gurus for creating the mirror site to ensure that in one form or another, The Common Ills is always up.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry, as it currently is, originally appeared at The Common Ills.  See, people who visit here do sometimes get entries way ahead of the other site.  "Susan Keeps Me Honest" went up five days after it first appeared here.]

While reading the current issue of The Nation (Al Gore cover, link takes you to the site, not that issue), I saw a notice today about changes in the online site. They've already changed online. (And possibly that's why Katrina vanden Heuvel wasn't on The Majority Report tonight? They already have the new issue available online.) To be lazy, I'm copying and pasting the e-mail that arrived this afternoon and not typing up the note from the print issue:

The next time you visit The Nation online, you'll see some new things that we wanted to tell you about. We've made major changes to the homepage and added some new features.
These changes, developed with the help of the award-winning design team Brown & Ryan, debut today.
We'll still offer selections from the magazine and all our regular web features. But we're adding a news wire that will spotlight overlooked but important stories on other, mainly progressive sites as well as RadioNation PodCasts, a Sites We Like section, and, for the first time, the ability to interact with the writers of our online blogs and commentaries. And we have many more changes in store as part of a slow but steady re-conceptualization of our online presence.
Please check us out and click below to let us know what you think of what we've done. We'd love the feedback and we'll publish a sampling of this reader mail in the coming weeks.

Myself? It's very visual but as a dyslexic, I won't claim that the changes (when I went to the site for the previous entry) didn't create a panic as I searched (in vain) for the archive button. (I clicked on the cover of the new issue and once taken to it, clicked the "issues" between "home" and the date of the current issue. I'm sure there's an easier way to find it.

I don't see Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut or Ari Berman's Daily Outrage on the front page, but I've checked the permalinks we have for them (permalinks on the left, always on the left) and they still work. (KvH has a new photo as does Ari Berman who has had a hair cut since the old photo.) (I do like the photos, they're in color and they have bright backgrounds that are more inviting. Which isn't a slam on black & white photos. I love black & white photos. I just prefer the two photos that have been added here.)

I'm sure I'll get used to it as I play around on the web site more. It's more organized, or appears so. There are some articles (new issue) that I think we'll be interested in so hopefully there will be time to note them tonight.

Do yourself a favor and check out the new look to decide for yourself what you think.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

From DC Indymedia, Maggie e-mails regarding Pete's "Verdict in Anti-torture Protest Case Delayed:"

In February, three were charged for stepping onto the lower steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, during a protest against the US military's use of torture and the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. The judge has allowed the defense two weeks to present written arguments.
In an unusual maneuver, the judge suspends conviction pending further arguments
WASHINGTON -- Three anti-torture activists will have to wait for their verdict after the judge's surprise move Wednesday, suspending her not guilty finding until June 30 when she will hear further arguments from the prosecution and the defense.
The three pro se defendants were charged with violating a federal law when they stepped onto the marble lower steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in February as part of a protest against torture used by the military and the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general.
After two days of testimony, D.C. Superior Court Judge Patricia Wynn ruled in favor of the U.S. Government, but then said she was open to further arguments if there was case law she neglected in her ruling statement. Defendants pro se Peter Perry and Mitchell Potts then responded that there were further case law matters that needed to be addressed.

From Kansas IMC, Lori e-mails Gene W. DeVaux's "Bush World as we know it:"

In the last four years, our national debt has grown by over 2 trillion dollars. Today the Senate voted to raise the debt limit to over 8 trillion dollars. Our trade deficits have ballooned to around 600 billion ayear. Annual federal budget deficits have been around 600 Billion when Social Security surpluses are subtracted from the equation. Gasoline is at record highs. China has become our chief competitor in the market for oil suppliers. The situation in Iraq is continuing to indicate a failure of foreign policy.
Jobs are being created, not in the United States, but in foreign countries. China is flexing its military muscle over Taiwan as it grows rich on sales to the United States. Wage discrepancies are growing with low income Americans seeing their paycheck shrink in relation to the huge salaries of corporate executives.

For more click the link prior to the excerpt. We'll also note an editorial from The Nation on the same topic. It's called "The Dollar Doldrums" and is by Doug Henwood (it's only available to subscribers so if you don't subscribe to The Nation, check your local libraries):

The major reason for the dollar's weakness is the profound imbalance in America's dealings with the outside world: We import far more than we export. The trade accounts slipped into the red in 1976, and the deficit has been getting steadily larger. This is an unusual performance for a rich country, where rough balance or even large surpluses are the norm. Trade deficits are usually associated with countries undergoing impressive growth spurts, like South Korea in its glory days (though the country has since matured into surpluses)--or chronically troubled economies, like those of Africa or Latin America.
When imports greatly exceed exports, you must borrow vast gobs of money from abroad to make up the difference. During the late 1990s, most of our foreign money came from private investors, intoxicated by the New Economy miracle of the Clinton era. Lately, the task of financing American deficits has fallen to the central banks of Asia, whose dollar assets (mostly US government bonds) now collectively surpass $1 trillion. They acquire these dollars in two ways. First, when Americans import foreign-made goods, we pay in dollars, which then accumulate abroad. Since there is relatively little that we export to Asia, they don't spend those dollars on our products; they acquire our securities instead.

Please note, The Nation has a new look and we'll cover that in an entry shortly.

From Boston Indymedia, Terrence e-mails Pete Stidman's "Hate Crime Alleged on Tufts Campus:"

Riyadh Mohammed 20, an Economics Major in his Junior year at Tufts University, alleges that he was attacked by three fraternity brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon in front of their frat house early Saturday morning. He claims he was beaten unconscious, and subjected to a chain of racist epithets. Police confirm that he was in need of medical attention after the incident.
Never one to hold back his opinions, president of the Arab Students Association at the school, and one who friends say, “puts the fact that he is an Arab out there.” Mohammed is proud of who he is. According to Mohammed, he and his girlfriend were walking home from a party at about 2am Saturday morning. They passed in front of 114 Curtis, the SigmaPhi Epsilon house, and to his girlfriend, Riyadh commented, "Sig Ep f**king sucks."
Whether intended or not, the hostile comment was overheard. Insults were exchanged and a short, slight, scuffle ensued.

Terrance says he's trying to figure out what happened but isn't sure. Read the comments and you'll find a variety of opinions. (I wasn't there, I don't know.) We'll try to follow this story if it develops further.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Susan just e-mailed, regarding the last post, to advise members that at Daily Kos, you can find Pitviper's "Amazing Political Video on Leno - UPDATE: Video Back Up." Pitviper is noting Connor Oberst's appeareance on The Tonight Show. There's a link to the performance (for those who'd like to watch online) and Pitviper provides the lyrics to the song. Pitviper has the lyrics (in full). Here's a sample:

"When the President Talks to God"
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

Susan's really excited by the entry and feels Pitviper has really offered not just a link and the lyrics (in full) to the song, but a wonderful overview of Bright Eyes and of what just happened last night when "the truth went out over the airwaves" (Susan's words).

So please check it out.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Colorado IMC is still down. As members may remember, Arkansas IMC was also attacked but it was back up last week. This week, they have a note, on their home page, that we'll reprint in full because I really think these sort of attacks are shameful.

May 4:
As of today (Wednesday) we at Arkansas Indymedia are still having problems due to the damage inflicted by last week's hacking of our and many Indymedia websites. Perhaps the most obvious to the reader or contributor is that articles or comments will not be posted right away. Due to the damage done to our data base, editors must now search for posted material and put it on the site manually. This is a process which, for obvious reasons, will take some time. Rest assured however, that your contribution will eventually find itself in our newswire or in the comments section below the selected article.
While we hope to get these problems worked out soon, there is currently no realistic time frame in which we can eliminate these problems. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you bear with us while we work through this temporary situation.
Arkansas IMC

Again, the attacks on IMC are disgusting and we can show our support in a variety of ways. You can give money, you can become active in your local IMC (in some areas, that may mean supporting your state IMC but many have regional chapters as well), you can visit IMC sites and utilize them, you can pass them on to friends via e-mail or pulling friends over to your monitor.
But this is our media, the people's media, and if we don't find a way to support it, we may end up without having any.

Also from Arkansas IMC, Patriots for Civil Liberties have "Fayetteville Group Seeks To Pass City Resolution Against the Patriot Act:"

Patriots for Civil Liberties is a citizens organization working to ensure the United States Constitution is maintained as Fayetteville's basis in law. Patriots for Civil Liberties has written a resolution condemning many of the provisions of the Patriot Act. If you are concerned about this issue Patriots for Civil Liberties would like you to help us get the resolution passed by the Fayetteville city council.
Patriots For Civil Liberties
http://www.northwest-ark.com/pfcl/
Patriots for Civil Liberties is a citizens organization working to ensure the United States Constitution is maintained as Fayetteville's basis in law. Patriots for Civil Liberties has written a resolution condemning many of the provisions of the Patriot Act. If you are concerned about this issue Patriots for Civil Liberties would like you to help us get the resolution passed by the Fayetteville city council.
Right now there are three ways Patriots for Civil Liberties needs your help.
1. At the organization's website ( http://www.northwest-ark.com/pfcl/) Patriots for Civil Liberties needs your signature on the petition supporting the resolution that will be presented to the city council. (You don't need to do this if you have already signed a petition.)
2. Forward this email to your friends, co-workers and family.
3. Become involved in working with Patriots for Civil Liberties. The next meeting will be held May 2nd, at 7 pm, at the Presbyterian and Disciples Student Center, located at 902 W. Maple in Fayetteville.
The resolution that will be presented to the city council can be read at the Patriots for Civil Liberties web site. http://www.northwest-ark.com/pfcl/
Patriots for Civil Liberties welcomes your comments.
Send comments to patforcivlib (at) yahoo.com .
PfCL is a coalition of justice groups, including OMNI and the ACLU of NWA.

Good for them. If you live in the area, you can make a difference. Sometimes, these resolutions have passed by one vote from a council member. Your voice is needed. You'll meet a lot of people (some of the left, some of the center, some on the right) who are concerned about rule of law and the right to privacy. You'll be helping with a cause that's basic to what kind of a country do we want and do we want to live in a democracy or not. If you know anyone who lives in the area, please e-mail them about this.

Conner Oberst of Bright Eyes performed a song ("When a President Talks To God"?) on the Tonight Show last night. Janeane Garofalo highlighted it tonight on The Majority Report. I wanted to pass that on because besides Susan and myself, a number of members are Bright Eyes fans and because, for those asking where are the protest songs on network TV, you heard one last night if you watched The Tonight Show. (I don't. I saw Jane Fonda on David Letterman's show and prior to that, you'd have to drop way back for the last time I caught either show.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

If you're noticing a delay in posting tonight, you aren't mistaken. Blogger had some advice for several errors that were occurring here. UK Computer Gurus did as well.

You may notice that the archive section is now weekly and not monthly. The archives (starting with December) were becoming too much for the Blogger problem to handle on a monthly system.

Making that change has already resulted in the last week of April reappearing in the archives. There are other changes that are going on that shouldn't effect the look of the site.

But there have been publishing errors increasingly and we were apparently headed for a "fatal flaw" so time is being taken for mainteance. This wasn't planned and my apologies for anyone who's been put out by this.

The goal is to do an entry prompted by Dallas tonight. If there's not time for that, we'll do it tomorrow.

And while mainteance is going on, I'm working (with Ava's help, thank you Ava) on the Thursday Indymedia highlights.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching"):

Headlines for May 5, 2005
- Marine Faces No Charges For Shooting Unarmed Iraq
- Pentagon Analyst Arrested for Passing Secrets to AIPAC
- Small Explosion Occurs Outside UK Consulate in NYC
- Army Admits It Lied About Death of Pat Tillman
- FBI To Exhume Body of Emmett Till
- Venzuela Asks U.S. To Extradite Cuban to Face Terror Charges
- Gay Rights Pioneer Jack Nichols, 67, Dies

Ex-Haitian PM Yvon Neptune Near Death
We get an update on the condition of jailed former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune who has been on a hunger strike for 18 days and is reportedly near death. We go to Haiti to speak with human rights activist Patrick Elie who served as Haiti's Drug Czar and Undersecretary of State for Defense under Jean Bertrand Aristide and we speak with lawyer Brian Concannon.

The Christian Right and the Rising Power of the Evangelical Political Movement
We take a look at the rising power of the evangelical political movement in this country with journalist and author Chris Hedges and the Rev. Joseph Phelps, who led a counter-service to last month's "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith." [includes rush transcript]

Louisville Landscape: Politics, Race and Police Brutality
We take a look at local Louisville politics and the political landscape of Kentucky with professor Ricky Jones, a political science specialist in the department of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville.

At The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby tracks Bully Boy's lies and how he attempts to scare people in his tent revivals of late. I can't pull quote because Somerby's got strong transitions between his writing and the quotes and to pull from it would not do it any justice at all (and probably confuse anyone who just read the excerpt here), so instead, we'll note his last two concluding paragraphs:

POSTSCRIPT--WHERE IS THE PRESS CORPS: In the past week, Bush has conducted SS pep rallies in Falls Church, Virginia; in Canton, Mississippi; and in front of the Latino Coalition in Washington. During these events, he has baldly dissembled--and openly lied--about the future of Social Security. In Falls Church, he told five young workers that, absent major changes, there will be "nothing there" in Social Security when they retire in 2041. In Canton, he told Nissan employees that the system will be bankrupt that year: "In other words, it's out." And he told the Latino Coalition that there will be "nothing left" in Social Security by that time. These statements aren't simply misleading; according to Bush's own projections, these statements are blatantly, laughably false. And Bush kept pimping up the nonsense with that disgraceful old UFO tale. People who think they won't get a check "understand the math," this fake man disgracefully said.
Yep! Bush keeps dissembling and lying, wherever he goes--and the "press corps" hides beneath its desks. They refuse to discuss the endless dissembling that drives what amounts to a snake oil tour. On Mother's Day week, Bush even lies to 84-year-old grandmothers--and the press corps won’t even stir about that. Has any president ever offered such sustained nonsense about such a major domestic initiative? We don't know, but you can't get the press corps to care. And by the way--do you remember how much they used to care about the truthfulness of public figures? Did Al Gore lie about Love Story? For two solid years, these pious fakes pretended that they had to know. For two solid years, these pious frauds kept pretending that they deeply cared. Can't you see why liberals and Dems have to name names again and again?

Lynda e-mails to note Naomi Klein's "How to End the War" (from In These Times):

The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it’s a different kind of a lie in the sense that it’s a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful--because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it's absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas--they are too important.
In looking at democracy in Iraq, we first need to make the distinction between elections and democracy. The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.
Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war--control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy--would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don't want them and they don't agree with them. They have said it over and over again--first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion. I believe Paul Wolfowitz genuinely thought that Iraqis would respond like the contestants on a reality TV show and say: "Oh my God. Thank you for my brand-new shiny country."
They didn't. They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn't want permanent U.S. bases.
That's when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in--basically shackled--Iraq's future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008. This will make the humanitarian crisis in Iraq much, much deeper.
Here's just one example: The IMF and the World Bank are demanding the elimination of Iraq's food ration program, upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition, as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have been made in deals with an unelected government.
In these elections, Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. In addition to demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, this coalition party has promised that they would create 100 percent full employment in the public sector--i.e., a total rebuke of the neocons' privatization agenda. But now they can't do any of this because their democracy has been shackled. In other words, they have the vote, but no real power to govern.

Lynda's got an entry she's working on that she'd like to share with the community. Read this article (or at least the excerpt) to be prepared. If she's got it done by tonight, it will go up tonight. Otherwise, look for it tomorrow.

We have added some member since we last noted Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Year Zero" (published in Harper's Magazine). So I'll note it again and am more than willing to quote from it again (it's that important) if any members would like me to do so. (If you're confused by the remarks Klein's making in her In These Times article, I would strongly urge you to read "Baghdad Year Zero.")

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.