Think you're up on the news? If you're like me, you wonder where to find the other news ... the real news & opinions that the major news outlets have no interest in disseminating. I mean besides the Daily Show / Colbert Report
Alternet is my current favorite

http://www.alternet.org

As example, here are a few of the headlines posted on their website today. (And if you like, you can have Alternet delivered to your email box.)

"Conservatives Cost a Lot of Money"

"Building an Embassy Fit for an Empire" The United States is building a massive embassy complex in the heart of Baghdad that is already becoming a symbol of America's imperial ambitions in the Middle East. ...

"What Lessons Can Progressives Learn from Evangelicals?"

"Family Values Begin at Home, but Who's Home?"

"Bush's Shadow Army"

"Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again"

"Neocons in Cheney's Office Fund al Qaeda-Tied Groups ... and No One Cares?"

"According to U.S. Military Theory, We Can't Win in Iraq" War on Iraq: Bush's new top commander in Iraq says he thinks the war in Iraq is winnable, but his recent manual on counterinsurgency suggests otherwise.

http://www.alternet.org

So you've seen An Inconvenient Truth (or not) and you're wondering what can one do about it ....
Well there's lots of course, but the point of this posting is just to point out a cool organization, Trees for The Future that plants millions of trees worldwide.

Check them out at
www.plant-trees.org

We'll all feel better if you pass this on (our kids will too) ...

What's the deal with illegal immigrants? Why is there suddenly all this fuss?

I won't say that there's no problem, but I'm very suspicious that our Politicians-in-charge have decided to make a lot of noise about it to switch our focus away from the important things. And why is it, that Mr. Chief Politician still thinks he can solve all our problems by throwing troops at them?

Okay, so they're playing their usual games. Why is the media once again playing into it.

From where I'm sitting, absolutely nothing happened to suddenly create all this noise. The administration decided it was tired of taking the heat for it's bad policies in Iraq, it's incompetence in response to Katrina, the runaway oil prices, the environmental consequences of the free market, and worst of all its drooping poll numbers. Oh, and did I mention that the senior citizen voting block is none too happy with all the confusion around the new Medicare plan.

But don't you worry. We'll drop the taxes of the richest so that this mess gets even more expensive for the succeeding generations. I've got news for you. When the time comes for you young 'uns who will have to carry the burden, you WILL wish that the illegal aliens had been allowed to settle and become legal.

One last thought - to each preceding generation, the new immigrants are the unwanted ones. With few exceptions, the odds are good that your ancestors were resented for landing on these shores.

When toons can kill ...

All this murder and mayhem over some tasteless cartoons.

Who am I to tell muslims what constitutes a visual image, but it seems to me that no one has actually made an image of the prophet Muhammad, because no one knows what he looks like. Further writing his name constitutes an icon as much as hanging his name on a badly drawn tasteless sketch.

But then what do I know of these things. Only that people all around the world are strange. And only a few of us recognize it in ourselves and are able to laugh at it.

The Painted Logs of Manassus & Bagdad

I'm currently reading "Lincoln & The Radicals" about a group of senators who worked to influence Lincoln and the outcome of the Civil War. They were for emancipation of the slaves but they often used unsavory means to achieve their cause.

I'm finding some interesting parallels to politics and war today and will post a few thoughts as I proceed in my reading.

At the beginning of the war, the Union troops were unprepared for battle and General McLellan who was in charge of the Union Army was conservative in action (& possibly in politics too). He was reluctant to sacrifice his troops to what he believed to be a large confederate Army fortified across the Potomac from Washington DC. He delayed an offensive for over a year and when he finally started to move, the rebel forces evacuated their positions. It turned out that the information that he used was quite faulty.

When he took over their fortifications they had created a number of ruses to make it seem like they were a large force. In fact the guns and cannons that were aimed toward Washington were nothing more than logs painted black. This embarassment cost McLellan his position as general over the entire Union forces.

Now jump ahead to today's quagmire in Iraq. Due to faulty information, the US took the unusual step of unilaterally attacking the government of Saddam Hussein. As we know today there were no weapons of Mass Destruction. My theory on why Saddam never came clean and allowed thorough inspections is that considering him to be paranoid, and probably depressed after losing the first US led invasion, he didn't want his enemies to know how vulnerable he really was. And I don't believe he considered the US his primary enemy. That would more likely be Iran and other neighboring forces. So was Saddam painting logs to appear stronger than he really was? I wonder

Don't Argue with Your Vegetables

A year ago we were in a heated debate trying to point out that no matter how bad, the dem. candidate was, he couldn't possibly be as bad as the current guy. But the voters did not agree. Now as we see the polls, people have obviously changed their minds.

WHAT TO DO IN THE MEANTIME

Keep reading. Don't trust the tv news. It covers such a small aspect of what really affects us all. Sometimes I get emails from someone who thinks that democrats are tree huggers and would bring us back to cave days. Actually environmentalism crosses all political boundaries. It's not a social movement. It's a scientific one.

There has not been a scientific debate on global warming for over 6 years. Politicians whose pockets get padded by wealthy industrials who benefit from the current wasteful practices try to build a smoke screen and call for more studies. But the studies can only show how quickly the environment has changed, not how long it will take to recover. Consider that studying tree rings can show the weather patterns for the past 5,000 years, guess which have been the warmest? Studying the types of snow & air trapped in the ice in the arctic regions also gives data.

But like those emails we get, don't forget you're arguing with a vegetable.

For more info on what you can do check out these websites:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/

Light Bulb

I'd been thinking about how mad I am that people, especially politicians can never admit they're wrong. Maybe I'll get around to writing that rant some day.
In the meantime, the following is from an email that's been going around the web. I have no idea where it originated. But it illustrates the problem of just plain wrongheadedness in the current administration, and it's probably better than having to read my rant anyway.


How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to change a
light bulb?

Ten

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the lightbulb needs
to be changed
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb
4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for
changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the
new light bulb
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing
on a step ladder under the banner "Mission Accomplished"
7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush
was literally "in the dark" the whole time
8. One to viciously smear no. 7
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has
had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along
10. Finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between
screwing a light bulb and screwing the country

news on the lighter side this time

Which Came First - Life or Art?

August 19, 2005

When Marc Ecko made plans for a NYC block party for Wed. Aug. 24, 2005 he got his permit for 20 graffiti artists to recreated their art on mockups of subway cars. These artists had gotten their start by tagging and spraying NYC subway cars more than 20 years ago. This party would acknowledge their place in the pantheon of art in the hip-hop culture - clearly a case of art imitating life. One of Ecko's ulterior motives was to promote the new game, "Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure."  So when NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Peter Vallone had the permit revoked, they were doing their bit to imitate art. After all, the game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is  a story that has artists use their graffiti to fight the corrupt government of the city of New Radius.

I don't know about you, but it strikes me as pretty funny. Now I don't mean to imply that either Bloomberg or Vallone are corrupt  (I wouldn't know), but they are doing their part to suppress free speech. Keep in mind that there is no vandalism involved in this planned event.

Here are some of their quotes.

Marc Ecko (event planner, graffiti artist, fashion designer, game developer)

• "Graffiti is without question the most powerful art movement in recent history and has been a driving inspiration throughout my career,"
  
  
• "I am well aware that drawing graffiti in public places is a crime, and I do not condone or encourage it. At the same time, however, graffiti is a legitimate and historical part of the great art history of our city."
  
  
• "I have retained legal counsel who will vigorously and zealously represent my First Amendment interests, and those of my fellow artists and the community at large."
  
  
• Ecko spokesman Clint Caldwell, "(this event is) an art exhibition celebrating the history of Hip-Hop and in particular street art."
  
  
• Caldwell told the New York Sun. "We're trying to showcase these 20 graffiti artists who are established artists now." (some have pieces in museums or work for major corporations (Time Incorporated and Pepsi)
  

Meanwhile the following statements have been coming out of the mayor's office:

• "The city isn't obligated to permit an event on a public street that encourages the vandalism of subway cars in the name of selling T-shirts and video games," mayoral spokesman Ed Skyler.
  
  
• Mayor Michael Bloomberg "Graffiti is just one of those things that destroys our quality of life, and why anybody thinks that it's funny or cute to encourage kids to go do that, I don't know. We have talked to them and asked them to not have a subway car motif to write graffiti. This is not really art or expression. This is - let's be honest about what it is - it's trying to encourage people to do something that's not in anybody's interest."
  
  
• Bloomberg offered, "Look, there is a fine line here between freedom of expression and going out and encouraging people to hurt this city. Defacing subway cars is hardly a joke."
  

So let's look at this from the short historical perspective. Back in the 1970s & '80s. when graffiti artists did something no one had done before, they took the public surfaces in their own hands and inspired people like Marc Ecko to become good public citizens and make gazillions of dollars. If we look no further than this one example, we can see that Bloomberg's argument is all wet, when he says "something that's not in anybody's interest.". If Bloomberg wants us to believe that their objection is to the commercialism, then he should refrain from comments about what constitutes art. Further he should keep his comments about this being a promotion of vandalism, when he knows that Ecko is spending $100,000 plus to provide simulated subway cars for these artists to paint, not to mention the security forces he's paying to keep things legit. And finally to imply that commercialism cannot coexist with art, we'd have to spin the wayback machine to life prior to Andy Warhol. He let that genie out of the bottle over 40 years ago. And finally, if you ask me, I thought those painted subway cars were pretty cool! Made life and the commute much more interesting. God knows the daily grind is not half so much fun. If that's not art, then I'm out of here.

August 22
On Monday, Aug. 22, Judge Jed Rakoff of Manhattan federal court ruled that the city must allow the exhibition, calling the city's action as a "flagrant violation" of First Amendment's free-speech rights. He stated that by the city's argument, ""Such heavy-handed censorship would, moreover, fall particularly hard on artists, who frequently revel in breaking conventions or tweaking the powers that be. ... A street performance of `Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder." The city can still appeal.

August 24th
We went. They painted. It was fun. Everyone was polite. So is it art? You be the judge. Click this link to find a slide show of the event.

The following is from an email that brings up an interesting point. Feel free to pass it along.

Keep this going until 2008 !
 
In case you didn't already know this about Soc. Sec. - read on

Subject: If You are A Working Person

Who Had To Earn The Money You'll Be Paid Read This

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008  Election Issue!!
GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.
This must be an issue in "2008 ". Please! Keep it going.
----------------------------------
SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point)
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Look at our Senators' and Congressmen's own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congress person has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand! Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.
Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00 

So, if we make them subject to the same retirement plan that we are on instead, there's a chance that they might have a stake in fixing it properly!

Timely quote from half a century ago...

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor
laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are ...Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.

Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954