Rebecca and I both learned this week that Folding Star had reviewed Jane Fonda's My Life So Far as part of a Saturday Book Chat.

My apologies to Folding Star for missing that. In case anyone else missed it at A Winding Road, I'm providing it here. Lynda e-mailed to ask that we note again that the book is number one on the hardcover, non-fiction list of the New York Times (for the second week in a row). While it's not about the numbers, we will note it.

Here's Folding Star's review of Jane Fonda's My Life So Far:

The other great book I read since my last Book Chat was Jane Fonda's autobiography, My Life So Far.
I got so caught up in this book that hours would slip by unnoticed. I had several nights of little sleep because I'd pick it up to read in bed, just for a little while, and the next thing I'd know it would be close to four a.m.!
It's the most incredibly forthright autobiography I've ever read. Fonda opens herself up to the reader in very honest ways, exploring her difficult relationship with her father, her reaction to her mother's suicide, her three marriages, her film career, her struggles with bulima and low self esteem, and her actions during the Vietnam War in intimate detail.
The ultimate portrait is one of a human being who's made plenty of mistakes but who has come to know herself and believe in herself at last, not to mention someone who has the courage of her convictions and works to make this world a better place.
I picked up the book feeling I knew Fonda well enough. I'd liked her from the time I was a small kid, when 9 to 5 was one of my favorite movies. I didn't consciously get the very powerful message of the film at the time, of course, but I couldn't get enough of the movie itself. The humor of the movie appealed to me, even though, looking back, I realize how much of it was over my young head.
But after reading the book, I realized how little I'd known about this amazing woman, about her commitments to making a difference in the world, about her own personal struggles to know and love herself that are all too relatable to many of us and that I never would have imagined that someone like Jane Fonda had to deal with.
Every aspect of her story is told to help those who may be dealing with similar feelings and circumstances. Even in the telling of her life story, Fonda is reaching out to others, trying to help.
Her chapters on the Vietnam war and in particular the US Government's actions against her during that time are not to be missed, either, for anyone who may not be aware of that part of our country's history. It will also read as all too familiar a picture when compared to the current situation our country finds itself in.
I honestly think that, whatever your feelings for Fonda may be, if you give this book a chance you'll be shocked at what you take away from it.

If you haven't read the book yet, check your local library, local bookstore or Powell's Books online for a copy of Jane Fonda's My Life So Far.

We'll also note The Third Estate Sunday Review's review of Fonda's My Life So Far:

At 597 pages of text, Jane Fonda covers a lot of ground in My Life So Far and some of the more idiotic reviews (see Blog Spotlight this edition for comments on Janet Maslin) have picked through the book without reading it.
No surprise, it's a weighty volume. This is a book by someone that's lived several lifetimes (in a non-Shirley MacLaine way). This is a book by a woman who's been an activist, a model, a pin-up, an actress in films, television and on Broadway, married to three famous men (Ted Turner, Tom Hayden and Roger Vadim, in reverse order), the daughter of a famous actor (Henry Fonda), the sister of another famous actor (Peter Fonda), a business woman both in the entertainment world and the fitness world, someone who's traveled around the globe, someone who lived in France, a politician's wife, someone who made Nixon's enemies list, the mother of two children, and now a grandmother. The idea that 597 pages will cover every aspect of every year of such a public life is a bit inspid.
So we'll let the Janet Maslins carp that some movie another reviewer for The New York Times wasn't impressed with didn't make more than a page in the book. And while we might expect/hope for a tell all from Sharon Stone about on set antics, we were smart enough not to expect that from Fonda. The woman who never says "the end" but always views life as a journey has a bit more to write about.
Which isn't to say that movie buffs will be disappointed. She does address films and fills you in on details. For instance, if you've wondered about the turtle she picks up in The China Syndrome when, as Kimberly Wells, she listens to her phone messages, you'll find the answer here. You'll find out some advice that Lee Marvin gave her on the set of Cat Ballou.
We've been devouring it all week since Tuesday. And we're not alone. Folding Star of A Winding Road noted:
I'm exhausted, too, but for a far less interesting reason: insomnia. Which was aided and abetted by Jane Fonda!! I couldn't put the bloody book down! :) I'm really enjoying it. She was remarkably candid. I think so far I'd have to say it's the best autobiography I've ever read.I've had very little progress today myself, thanks to the Fonda book! lol. I keep going back to it, 'just for a few minutes' and I look up and it's an hour and a half later. :)
It is a book that's hard to put down. Two members (Dona and Jess) weren't happy about pulling themselves away from the book tonight to work on this edition. (Though they got into the spirit quickly.) Fonda's been on NPR's Morning Edition, Good Morning America and 60 Minutes this week. But our favorite appearence was on The David Letterman Show. She noted it makes a great mother's day gift and we'd agree that it makes a great gift, for anyone.
Here's an excerpt will quote both to lead in to the next section and also because we love exposing fools like George Will (from page 408):
The China Syndrome had been playing in theaters for about two weeks, with great box office success. Conservative columnist George Will had called us irresponsible for making a thriller that would scare people about nuclear power because, he said, it was based on fantasy, not fact. Then, on March 30, 1979, while I was in St. George, Utah, filming The Electric Horseman, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that high levels of radiation were leaking from inside the reactor of the Three Mile Island atomic power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Radioactive steam clouds were escaping. The commission admitted there was "the ultimate risk of a meltdown." and Pennsylvania's governor, Dick Thornburgh, asked that children and pregnant women within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility evacuate the area.
Probably one of the gifts of a long life is being able to be around long enough to be proven right. Fonda's been different from many in this regard, she's usually been proven right rather quickly.
Another gift is the ability to look back and reflect on your life. That Fonda's willing to do that is hardly surprisingly. At 64, she's not just still attractive or still alert, she's still growing. Some reviewers (Maslin?) may have embraced rigidity long ago and need the safety of boxes and labels but Fonda's life has been a search for meaning and the search continues.
For anyone living in the present tense, this is a book we would highly recommend.
C.I advises that The Guardian of London has excerpted the book. For those readers whose budgets might not allow an immediate purchase and whose libraries might not yet have the book, we'll steer you to The Guardian's final excerpt which contains links at the bottom to the previous excerpts. (There are four excerpts total.)

[For disclosure purposes, I may have assisted on the above review. I honestly don't remember and can't tell from the "A Note to Our Readers" from that edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. The "advises" mention indicates I read the review prior to it being published but pointing out that The Guardian was excerpting the book may have been my only input. It is clear, however, that Rebecca and Betty assisted Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava with the review. I'll also note that Betty's made Jane Fonda's book trumping Thomas Friedman's latest a running joke, including before the chart's came out, at her blog Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man.]

Thank you to Isaiah for the illustration (which is directly below this entry). And remember Jane Fonda's new film, Monster-in-Law, opens May 13th.

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

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

Here is the press release from the ACLU on the "Real I.D.:"

Congressional conferees have reportedly agreed on an appropriations bill to fund military operations, and attached the controversial Real ID Act to the bill. The Real ID Act will therefore likely be enacted without being scrutinized by any hearings or debate. The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed its disappointment that the final measure includes this sweeping legislation that rolls back asylum laws, attacks immigrants and sets the stage for
a national ID. The House is expected to vote on the underlying measure this week; the Senate is expected to vote next week.
The following can be attributed to Timothy Sparapani, an ACLU Legislative Counsel:
"The Real ID Act was sold as an illegal-immigration fix bill, when in fact it reduces every American's freedom. The provisions of this bill could not have passed on their own. Sadly, their inclusion in a 'mustpass' bill means that immigrants and citizens alike will face an unnecessary loss of freedom and privacy."
"The federalization of drivers' licenses, and the culling of all information into massive databases, creates a system ripe for identity theft. New standards could place our most private information - including photographs, address and social security numbers - into the hands of identity thieves. Worse still, an independent commission is currently studying the issue of license security, and, if enacted, Real ID would undermine their efforts."
"The Real ID Act would also unnecessarily harm immigrants. Some asylum seekers will be forced to produce written corroboration of their persecution from those who persecuted them. The act would also eliminate, in some cases, the right of habeas corpusas an avenue for court review for the first time since the Civil War. Such an overhaul of immigration laws shouldn't be slipped into a funding bill for the military."

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

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

As some of you have noticed (Rob, Liang, Wally, Erika, Ben, Valerie, Todd and Heath have e-mailed on this) Colorado IMC remains down.

Here's an article by Hack This Site.org (from Madison IMC) entitled "Right Wing Hackers Target IndyMedia Networks:"

CDTRight-wing hackers 'g00ns.com' are taking credit for attacking several IndyMedia websites posting anti-left rhetoric. This explains how to fix the bugs, who is responsible for the attacks, and how to prevent this kind of action in the future.
(http://www.hackthissite.org/news/view/207http://indymedia.us/en/2005/04/6718.shtml)
(http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/316502.shtml)
(http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/316466.shtml)
The hacker group 'g00ns' (g00ns.com andg00ns-forum.com) are taking credit for attacking various indymedia sites including nyc.indymedia.org, colorado.indymedia.org, michiganimc.org, arkansas.indymedia.org, newjersey.indymedia.org, and others.
On the website, they released a bunch of extreme right wing rhetoric, accusing indymedia of being 'anti-republican'.
Attacking an open publishing network means you're attacking freedom of speech itself. They do not want to participate in the political process through mature discussion or legal channels. These online fascists need to be exposed and confronted.
Before we go into who was responsible for these attacks, it is important to stay on the defensive and to prevent this sort of attack from happening again.
Each IMC needs to rebuild and patch their software, change passwords, go through server logs + remove backdoors, etc. The specific vulnerability that was exploited had to do with allowing the upload malicious PHP files to the media section of the website. This had been reported several months ago to the dada IMC support staff, who had been advised to keep it private until the tech staff of each IMC had patched their software. It was later published to the dada IMC web site which contains details of how it was vulnerable and how to fix it.
(http://www.dadaimc.org/mod/software/alerts/dadaIMC/index.php?alert=1)
Now let's dig some information up about who these g00nfascists are, and what we could do about it.

To read more click here.

And noted that the article itself "will be featured in the upcoming'notes from the hacker underground' zine availablefrom hackthissite.org"

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

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

Two upcoming conferences.

Lynda e-mails about NOW's conference in Nashville, July 1-3, and two announced speakers Dolores Huerta and Sara Paretsky:

Dolores Huerta is one the century's most powerful and respected labor movement leaders. Huerta left teaching and co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez in 1962: "I quit because I couldn't stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children." The mother of 11 children, Ms. Huerta has played a major role in the American civil rights movement.
Using tactics of non-violence, she organized a successful boycott of California table grapes that lasted five years but resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the UFW, and launched UFW into a period of fast-paced organizing, with Ms. Huerta negotiating contracts with growers, lobbying, organizing strikes and boycotts and well as spearheading farm worker political activities.
[. . .]
When Sara Paretsky introduced her private detective V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only in 1982, she revolutionized the mystery world. By creating a female investigator who uses her wits as well as her fists, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women traditionally were either vamps or victims. Hailed both by critics and readers, Indemnity Only was followed by ten more best-selling Warshawski novels. The Los Angeles Times says, "Paretsky is unique among the women writing about women," while Publishers Weekly claims, "Among today's P.I.'s, nobody comes close to Warshawski."
Paretsky's deep-rooted concern for social justice, the hallmark of her novels, has carried her voice beyond the world of crime fiction. As a frequent contributor to the New York Times and The Guardian, and a speaker at such places as the Library of Congress and Oxford University, she is an impassioned advocate for those on society's margins.

Gina e-mails to note the NAACP has their annual convention in July as well, July 9-14, in Milwaukee. I'm not seeing any other information on it at the web site (Gina, let me know if I missed it -- wouldn't be the first time).

But I do see information on this month's Leadership 500 Summit:

On May 26-29, 2005, the NAACP will host the Leadership 500 Summit at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin, Florida. The theme for the Summit is "Reaching in and Pulling Back." As the NAACP approaches its 100th Anniversary in 2009, we are gratified to record a steady and welcome membership growth among African-Americans of high school and college age, yet find a considerable gap in participation from those in the age cohort 35 - 45. Public opinion polls report the NAACP remains high in the estimation of African-Americans across all age ranges and is consistently rated the organization most trusted to carry on the battles for justice and fairness.
The Summit is the creation of NAACP Vice Chairman Roslyn Brock and is designed to attract professionals and entrepreneurs between 30-50 years old in the areas of health, religion, politics, law, media, entertainment, economic development and education to help shape the future direction of social justice advocacy efforts in our nation. An agenda has been planned to include a series of speeches, workshops, and plenary sessions as well as a Black Film Screening, Leadership Gala, Golf Tournament and Spa Treatments.

While we're noting the NAACP, we'll note "NAACP Mourns Death of Kenneth B. Clark, Psychologist and Educator Who Helped End School Segregation:"

The NAACP mourns the passing of Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, whose groundbreaking studies of African American children in the south influenced the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that school segregation was unconstitutional. Clark died yesterday at his home in Hastings-on-the Hudson, N.Y.
NAACP Interim President and CEO Dennis Courtland Hayes said: “Dr. Clark made a monumental contribution to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that has proven so important in this country. His research has been key to the understanding by African Americans that we are all created equal in the eyes of God and to value our heritage.”Clark’s research verified the damaging effect of racial segregation to black school children in the early 1950’s. This testimony was used by attorney Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to challenge the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine that violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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

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

 

Today's Daily Howler finds Bob Somerby addressing a number of issues. We'll emphasize an excerpt where Somerby's contrasting Kinsley and Will:


Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Michael Kinsley was raving hard about Bush's great honesty in Sunday's Post (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/2/05). "There was a remarkable amount of honesty and near-honesty," the fiery liberal columnist said, discussing last Thursday's presidential press conference. "Above all, Bush was honest and even courageous about Social Security." In fact, one day after Bush's conference, he journeyed out to Falls Church, Virginia--and baldly lied about his proposal. (And yes, the things Bush did and said that day can only be described as a "lie.") Good grief! We've really dumbed dishonesty down when we praise Bush, two days later, for his vast honesty on this subject. And we've really dumbed dishonesty down when our great "liberal spokesmen" do this.
But forget about that trip to Falls Church; despite the praise that Kinsley lavished, Bush wasn't especially honest about Social Security at his press conference, either. He continued to make his favorite misleading statement: "By 2041, Social Security will be bankrupt." He made the silly claim Dana Milbank later cited, about the 1983 reform: "They thought we had it fixed 22 years ago for 75 years, and here we are, 22 years later after the fix, talking about it again." (We're only talking about it because Bush brought it up. According to the CBO, that fix will hold for 47 more years.) Most important, he made another key statement, one that can easily mislead the public: "I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get." That claim creates a misleading picture in the mind of average viewers. Today's seniors get 36 percent of their previous income; with Bush, it may drop at low as 20 percent. But alas! Very few people would get that picture from the statement Bush made this evening. No, we wouldn't call Bush vile names for this, or say he was "lying" in this instance. But it's amazing to think that a fiery liberal would praise this outing as "remarkably honest and even courageous." And it's especially amazing when you think about what George Will later said.
Yep, that the way it now works in America's press corps. If you want to hear Bush's deepest motives examined, you can't turn to burned-out "liberals" like Kinsley; you may have to turn to a major conservative! On Sunday morning, Kinsley's column was telling the world how courageous and honest Bush had been. But on This Week, George Will was still functioning as a searching observer. The "liberal," Kinsley, praised Bush up and down. But on ABC, the conservative said this:
STEPHANOPOULOS (5/1/05): One other point on that--the personal accounts, if you take them, also require an extra cut in the guaranteed benefit.
WILL: Exactly. So what you're doing is you're making Social Security less and less relevant to a majority of the American people [under the provisions of Bush’s plan]. You're stigmatizing it, if you will, by means-testing. That's what this is. They're now means-testing Social Security so it becomes a poverty program.

From CounterPunch, Trevor e-mails John Walsh's "Al Franken is a Big Fat Phoney:"


At one point last December at the time of his last visit to "the troops," Franken exclaimed that he "did not know what to do" about Iraq. Several weeks ago Franken was in fine fettle over the first anniversary of his Air America program to which considerable time was devoted; but it was also about the time of the second anniversary of the war's beginning. The numerous anti-war demonstrations at that time received not a word of coverage
Franken himself is full of praise for "the troops." He does not say that these troops are being used as cannon fodder in a criminal war ­ simply that they are doing "a great job." There is no systematic tracking of either U.S. or Iraqi casualties. Each week the conservative, John McLaughlin, on his PBS program tracks the Iraqis killed and the Americans killed and wounded in Iraq. No such segment exists on Franken's program - nor on any other Air American Radio program as far as I know. It speaks volumes that the conservative McLaughlin provides a more biting critque of the war than Franken and his cronies can muster.
Adversaries of the war who call for immediate and total withdrawal, like Ralph Nader or Michael Moore, are not to be found on the Franken frequency. Surprisingly, a few days back Franken had as a guest Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, and a proponent of withdrawal from Iraq. Franken did not seem to know much about him. As Khalidi broached the subject of withdrawal form Iraq, Franken's co-host, Katherine Lanpher, interrupted with the observation that American troops might need to stay in Iraq "to make that part of the world safe for democracy." Ever on his toes, Franken changed the subject, a break ensued, and the subject was dropped. There was no further mention of withdrawal. Even after Ted Kennedy proposed immediate and prompt withdrawal, Democratic stalwart Franken did not take up this call. Like the rest of the Democratic establishment, he lent no support to Kennedy who has now fallen silent on the topic.

From Code Pink, "Mother's Day Call for Peace:"

Mother's Day is not a Hallmark holiday. It is a call to peace by women who lost their sons in the Civil War. Go to the bottom of this page to read the real history and intention in Julia Ward Howe's 1870 proclamation that created Mother's Day.This Mother's Day, let us transform Julia's words into action.
Here are several ideas:
1. Vigil or protest at your local recruiting station on Saturday, May 7th, the day before Mother's Day. We have created a guide for you that includes background information on the counter-recruitment movement and suggestions for actions, chants, banner ideas and educational links. Invite your mom, sister, children and other activists in your community to join. Please contact us with your plans so we can announce your action in our national press release. We hope to have 30 actions happening around the country on May 7th. Click here to see a list of actions happening nationwide!

There are three other ideas listed. Click the link to read more.

Code Pink has a book out entitled How to Stop the Next War Now. For more information, see Code Pink or BuzzFlash. The book contains contributions from a number of women this community has noted and highlighted. Among the contributors: Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, Maxine Hong Kinston, Barbara Lee, Naomi Klein, Eve Ensler, Janeane Garofalo and Arianna Huffington.

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 4, 2005
- 50 Die in Suicide Bombing in Iraqi City of Irbil
- Sunnis Boycott Swearing In Of New Iraqi Gov't
- Report: Insurgents Aided By Old U.S. Army Manual
- Families of Dead UK Soldiers Threaten to Sue Blair
- Report: Blair Committed to War in Iraq in July 2002
- U.S. Support For Iraq War At All-Time Low
- Civil Rights Commission To Close 1/3 of Offices
- Phoenix Man Shot w/ Taser Dies

Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo
We speak with former army sergeant, Erik Saar who served as an Arabic translator at Guantanamo Bay for six months. Among the abuses he says he witnessed was sexual abuse, mock interrogations, the use of dogs and a female interrogator smearing what looked like menstrual blood on a Muslim prisoner. He also says children were imprisoned at Guantanamo and that the military ordered them not to speak to the Red Cross.

Four Dead in Ohio: 35th Anniversary of Kent State Shootings
On May 4th, 1970 - 35 years ago today - National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of unarmed students at Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others wounded. We commemorate the 35th anniversary by airing an excerpt of the documentary, "Kent State: The Day the War Came Home" that includes interview with students and National Guardsmen who were there.

Matthew Rothschild has a new "This Just In:"

Jeb Bush's anti-abortion crusade reached a new low in the last few days when the Florida Department of Children and Families stepped in to try to prevent a thirteen year old girl in state custody from getting an abortion.
The agency made two arguments. First, that the girl was too young and immature to decide whether or not to have the baby. But did anyone consider the possibility that maybe she was too young and immature to have the baby and to raise it? Not that the department had taken much of an interest in the girl's well being before, since she had run away from state homes several times, including for more than a month recently, and the state did not bother to report her missing to the police. It was while she was out that she evidently got pregnant.
Second, the Florida Department of Children and Families cited a state statute that forbids it from consenting to "sterilization, abortion, or termination of life supports." According to the Palm Beach Post, however, girls in foster care have long been having abortions without state interference. But this time, the head of the department, Lucy Hadi, personally intervened.

Please note, yesterday, I wrongly called Rothschild's "McCarthyism Watch," "This Just In." Rothschild writes both. Today is "This Just In." Yesterday was "McCarthyism Watch." (Yesterday's entry has been corrected.)

Lewis notes Bill Scher's Liberal Oasis:

Both Sen. Joe Biden and columnist Nick Kristof recently turned in generally good pieces, in the W. Monthly and NY Times respectively, criticizing aspects of Dubya's foreign policy.
But both pulled back from hitting Bush where it hurts, his true interests and goals.
Instead, when faced with the glaring hypocrisies in Bush’s foreign policy, they sought to rationalize them, leaving the reader to think Bush is merely a decent guy facing some tough calls.
For example, Kristof, who has been admirably putting pressure on Bush to do something about the genocide in the Sudan, laid out why he thought Bush was hesitant.
Kristof called it a "legitimate" concern that "Sudan's leaders have increased their cooperation with the C.I.A. As The Los Angeles Times reported, the C.I.A. recently flew Sudan's intelligence chief to Washington for consultations about the war on terror, and the White House doesn't want to jeopardize that channel."
Uh, wouldn't that be completely illegitimate under the vaunted Bush Doctrine?
Instead of propping up one mass murderer to nab a second mass murderer (that was once harbored by the first, no less), shouldn't we be trying to lock up the first mass murderer too?

Trina e-mails to highlight Bruce A. Dixon's "Analysis Corporate Biopiracy and the Terminator Seed" (from The Black Commentator):

Ever since humans started farming about ten thousand years ago, farmers have saved the seed from one year's crop to produce the next, and freely exchanged seed with neighbors and friends. If the Bush administration and its friends at Monsanto and other "life-sciences" corporations get their way it will soon be illegal in much of the world.
"The problem with farmers exchanging seeds, and saving seeds and planting seeds," says Michael Dorsey, a professor of International Environmental Policy at Dartmouth University, "is that corporations don't make any money off it."
The latest move in the decades-long campaign by the corporate "life-science industry" to horn in on this ancient and unprofitable practice is the patenting and introduction of the so-called "terminator seed." Arguably the most fiendish product yet devised by corporate genetic engineers, and in the United States, the least known, terminator gene technology prevents this year's crop from producing next year's seed, thus obliging otherwise ungrateful farmers to return to distributors for each year's seed. As patent holder, the US Department of Agriculture intends to license and implement this obscene technology worldwide, applying it to food crops including maize, wheat and rice, which are the staples of much of the developing world. The aim of US corporate biopirates is eventually to make impossible the saving and preserving of next year’s seed from this year's crop anyplace on earth, while guaranteeing themselves a no-risk profit any time a farmer plants anywhere in the world.

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

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

Ruth: Forget Morning Edition and focus on The Diane Rehm Show. Tuesday's show was a topic the community will be interested in:

Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has reopened debates about bias and balance in public television and radio programming. Diane and her guests look at the latest questions
Guests
Paul Farhi, reporter, The Washington Post
Stephen Labatan, reporter, New York Times
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Diane Rehm addressed the issue that everyone is speaking of. Members who felt PBS or NPR was under attack and would not defend themselves might want to listen to this show. Diane was addressing the topic and had invited members of the CPB board to appear though they declined.

Among the points being made was that 90% of the monies provided by the government goes to TV (PBS) and only 10% goes to radio (NPR).

On the issue of where does the money go, I was most interested to learn that CPB was willing to hand over a $5 million dollar grant to Paul Gigot (Wall St. Journal) for his show. One of the "larger grants," it was noted and I'd question why so much was needed for a talking heads show.

The guest from The Washington Post noted that Bill Moyers was perceived as "anti-corporate which becomes avery interesting issue in terms of funding for PBS, PBS gets a lot of money from corporations to underwrite programming . . . By being so anti-corporate or being perceived as anti-corporate it's a somewhat self-defeating . . ." As many members noted, PBS is supposed to serve the public but very often comes off like it is serving corporations.

I would encourage community members to listen to this episode of Diane's show. I'd also suggest that the Morning Edition anchors do so as well because whether it's a name or a concept, when it comes up, Diane always asks her guests to explain. Morning Edition anchors would serve listeners better by doing the same when Cokie Roberts starts tossing out concepts and names that may be unfamiliar to the listeners.

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

We'll start with this morning's New York Times by noting Ginger Thompson's "With His Star Rising, Mexican Populist Faces New Tests." From this article that Francisco and Molly have both e-mailed to highlight:


"What we saw last Sunday was proof that this is a new society," the mayor said during an interview last week, referring to the protest march, "that the traditional structures of power are not in control, not even with all their money and media."
Indeed, while Mr. Lopez Obrador, a 51-year-old widower and father of three sons, has proven that he can motivate this country's vast underclass, what remains unclear is whether he will be able to keep pro-American businesspeople and the fragile middle class on his side.
[. . .]
At his core, the mayor said, he remains an underdog activist from the tropics, where politics can be a rough-and-tumble affair. But, he said, he has been a player in national politics for nearly a decade, having served as head of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party before becoming mayor in 2000.
He pointed to his record as mayor of this monster of a city, pulling out financial statements that showed the lowest debt increases in the last 20 years as proof that he is qualified to run the national economy. He pointed to the nearly one million people who marched on this city last month as a sign that a growing number of Mexicans think so too. "The mentality of the people has changed," he said. "They are willing to stand up for democracy. That's what we were betting on. And we bet right."

Francisco: Why does this report feel like a ruler coming down a wrist?

Molly too felt that the article "was less reporting and more editorializing with a primary underlying theme of 'Don't you be too liberal! Don't you piss of the U.S. business class!'"

Rob e-mails to note Alan Cowell's "Iraq Backlash in Britain May Affect Future Military Moves:"


"Politicians have to understand the degree of responsibility they hold in an era when they are committing troops to war more frequently," Col. Christopher Langton, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies here, said in an interview. "In the future there'll be more reticence about committing troops unless there's a direct threat to the national interest."
Even on Tuesday, with just two days left in the campaign, the Iraq war continued to cast a long shadow after the death on Monday night of Sgt. Anthony Wakefield, a 24-year-old soldier who became the 87th Briton to die in the war.
"What was the point of sending them all over there?" Sergeant Wakefield's estranged wife, Ann Toward, said through tears on Tuesday. "It's Tony Blair's fault. He sent all those troops out. If he hadn't sent them out, Anthony would still be here today."
Underscoring the emotional cost and pressures of the war, the families of 10 other British soldiers who died in Iraq lodged a petition at 10 Downing Street demanding an inquiry into the legality of the war and threatening legal action against Mr. Blair.
"Some of the families are seriously concerned that their children died in circumstances where the war was illegal," they said in a joint statement.

Brent, Wally and Liang all three e-mailed to highlight Abby Goodnough's "Florida Halts Fight to Bar Girl's Abortion:"


After first resisting a judge's order to allow a 13-year-old in state custody to get an abortion, Gov. Jeb Bush's administration changed course on Tuesday and said it would abandon the legal fight.
The reversal came a week after state lawyers went to Palm Beach County Circuit Court to stop the girl, identified as L.G., from having an abortion. Judge Ronald Alvarez agreed to delay the procedure while he weighed the facts, but ruled on Monday that the girl was competent to make decisions about her pregnancy and free to do so under the State Constitution.

Cedric e-mails to note James Dao's "Bill to Give Washington a House Vote Is Proposed:"

In what many experts consider the best opportunity in years for Washington to gain voting rights in Congress, Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, introduced legislation on Tuesday that would give District of Columbia residents a seat in the House of Representatives.
The bill tries to break the political inertia and partisan squabbling that has stalled Washington voting rights for two centuries by giving Utah, a Republican bastion, an additional House seat to balance the seat for Washington, which is overwhelmingly Democratic.
[. . .]
Ms. Pelosi's office said she opposed Mr. Davis's bill because it would require Utah to redraw its Congressional lines before the 2010 Census. Since Republicans dominate the Utah Legislature, those lines would probably endanger the state's lone Democratic representative, Jim Matheson of Salt Lake City.
Ms. Pelosi's concerns were echoed by Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington's nonvoting delegate to the House, who tepidly praised Mr. Davis as helping "raise awareness" but who stayed away from his news conference.

Billie e-mails to highlight Kate Zernike and Philip Shenon's "Papers Show Lobbyist Paid for Congressional Travel:"


Newly disclosed documents from an American territory in the Pacific show that the powerful Washington lobbyist at the center of federal corruption investigations here paid directly for travel to the islands by several members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, as well as two senior aides to Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, despite House rules that bar such payments.
The lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, submitted bills to his law firm for more than $350,000 in expenses for several trips to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1996 and 1997 on behalf of the congressmen, as well as several others including Edwin Buckham, Mr. DeLay's former chief of staff, and Tony Rudy, his former deputy chief of staff.
In letters and e-mail messages to the Marianas, Mr. Abramoff acknowledged that he had paid for the trips and asked the island government, which had hired him to lobby against proposed labor measures that would have affected the islands, to send him checks.
House travel rules bar lobbyists from paying for Congressional travel, even if the lobbyist is reimbursed by a group or government agency that is allowed to pay for travel.

Finally, Zach e-mails to note David C. Kirkpatrick's "House and Senate Reach Accord on $82 Billion for Costs of Wars."

Zach: The headline says it all.

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