The Indomitable Spirit of Progress
As the very waters that have infused the splendid city of New Orleans with so much life throughout her storied history now threaten her very existence, I am reminded of another great American city that was utterly devastated nearly a century ago, not by water but by fire.
On April 18, 1906, San Francisco, as much the jewel of the Pacific Coast as New Orleans has been of the Gulf Coast, quaked and crashed and burned to the ground.
“It was the death of the old city.”
And the re-birth of the new.
Like Chicago before her, San Francisco arose from the ashes an arguably grander and more vibrant city than before.
During these days when we are inundated by images from Louisiana, Mississippi, and beyond that threaten to drown us in depression, let us grieve and pray but also have hope and faith — faith in the indomitable spirit of progress that wells up within every human mind and soul.
We “progressives” recognize and cherish and nurture the potential within every individual, community, and nation to advance.
Even if the obstacles sometimes seem insurmountable.
Help however you can (Note also the many resources posted by Mike, above).
Wizbong 2!
The good news of the day, The Houseman survived the destruction of New Orleans…
New Orleans
Tipitina’s bust
Like a Buddha belly charm
Rub Longhair for Luck
Media Cleansing - The War As (NOT) Seen On TV
A day does not go by without claims of media bias coming from America’s left and the right. As a matter of fact there are full blown organizations dedicated to monitoring this so called bias around the clock. On the right we have the Media Research Center whose tagline reads: The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias. On the left we have Media Matters for America who describes themselves as “a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”
For the most part both of these organizations pride themselves on exposing the lurid underbelly of the grand media conspiracy to brainwash us all into being moonbats/wingnuts. Unfortunately, the one thing neither organization seems to talk much about is the reality of our current media situation. That reality, in my opinion, is represented by an ultra-competitive business (particularly the broadcast media) more concerned about ratings and selling commercials than they are about reporting the truth to the American public. As a result, we tend to see more man-bites-dog stories and less real reporting.
A perfect example of this is the coverage the war receives in both the print and broadcast media. With the exception of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the images and video coming back from the war in Iraq are completely and totally sanitized. We never see the real effects of war on our televisions or in our magazines, instead we see war filtered through a media lens that does just enough to keep up the support from the masses.
It is my belief that the role of the media is not to clean up the pictures coming back from the war, but to show them in all their gore and glory, however horrific this may be, so the American people can at least have an understanding of what they are supporting. War is a brutal, disgusting, and ugly truth very few of us are really willing to look at. I think my opinion about war is best exemplified by the following quote from Amy Goodman, host of the independent radio and television news program DemocracyNOW!
“I think if the media broadcast the true images of war, if the media showed us the sheared-off limbs of Iraqi children, of U.S. soldiers, of women and innocent civilians killed in Iraq, I think we would eradicate war.”
With this in mind I bring you a few photo galleries of the war without the media filter applied.
- Iraq’s Unseen War: The Photo’s Washington Doesn’t Want You To See (Spiegel Online)
- Uncensored News Pictures — Middle East — Crisis Pictures
- Images From the War in Iraq: Fallujah Photos
- Pictures from Iraq - CCMEP
A Cyclonic Taste of Things to Come
As Hurricane Katrina — now a Category 5, the most powerful force on the planet — bears down on New Orleans, threatening the largest American city below sea-level with the cataclysmic flooding long feared, we cannot help but feel humbled by the awesome power of nature.
The other night, guest-hosting for Barry Gordon on “NewsRap”, I discussed with my good friend Steven R Kutcher, a world-class environmentalist, and our audience the physical and psychological benefits from appreciating and respecting nature (I highly recommend a new book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louv).
While such discussions among “tree huggers” rarely make for exciting, provocative debates — the whole point is that if we learn to love the world around us (field and stream, birds and bees, flowers and heaven forbid our fellow human beings) when we’re young, we’ll tend to love ‘em when we’re older — disrespecting nature can have profoundly disastrous consequences.
I hope I’m not the only one old enough to remember those old margarine commercials where the lady warned, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” — right before the thunder and lightning hit.
Disregarding those words to the wise, my fellow fossil fuel-addicts, our insatiable jonesing for those combustible hydrocarbons is going to be the death of us yet.
Every million barrels of petroleum, million cubic feet of natural gas, or million tons of coal we burn add just that much more sunlight-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere of the Greenhouse we call Earth, getting just that much hotter year after ever less temperate year.
Not that every place on Earth will see this rise in temperature worldwide; in fact, some places will experience — and, arguably, have experienced — record severe winter weather because of this phenomenon: Global Warming aggravated by our burning fossil fuels is fundamentally altering the climate of the entire Planet Earth by adding more energy to the global weather systems.
And that brings us back to the uneasy situation in The Big Easy.
As Katrina’s fury is fed by the warm waters of the Gulf — as we remember how NOAA predicted that, after a record-breaking start, this could be one of the worst hurricane seasons ever recorded — we should take grave notice of this dire warning, based upon the best meteorological modeling, about the effect of Global Warming on hurricanes:
“The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth’s climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricane will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions.”
Remember that. Remember that when we see the devastation that we unfortunately, undoubtedly will in the days ahead.
Remember that when the Bush Administration tries to stop the world from dealing with the problem of Global Warming.
And remember that when we see scores, hundreds, or thousands more Americans die atop the world’s second largest known oil reserves, in Iraq.
Wizbong!
Thanks to Newshog for noticing a while back, some folks aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid anymore, they’re smoking the powder!
Sound Science Initiative
Do you believe in sound science? Are you disturbed by the current assault on science from the religious right? If so, head over to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Sound Science Initiative (SSI) and get involved.
Hat tip to Daniel from A Concerned Scientist.
Name that Quote
When I heard this quote I thought it rang profoundly true to the business of politics. What movie is it from? Don’t cheat, no googling now.
“Well, folks like to keep things small, …. Fit you into one pocket or the other. Give a man a label, and you never really need to get to know him.”
Rendell Helps Philly…Again
Hey, surprise, it looks like Governor Rendell has succeeded once again in helping out the city he used to run.
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Pentagon had broken the law in seeking to close down the 111th Fighter Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard without first obtaining the governor’s approval.The ruling was a victory for Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who challenged the Pentagon’s plan to close the fighter wing at a naval base near Philadelphia. The disputed closure, which would cost more than 1,200 jobs, is part of round of planned domestic military base reductions.
Just a quick question, does he know that Pittsburgh is also in the state of Pennsylvania?
Poll: Casey vs. Pennacchio
KOS diarist GregNYC has a poll up pitting Casey vs. Pennacchio. Click here and cast your vote for the democratic process in PA (be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page to get to the poll).
Occupational Hazards of Being A Cartoonist
I had an Idea for a cartoon about Pat Robertson and Bill O’Reilly.I’ve never drawn a caricature of either one before, so I went looking for a clear image of Pat Robertson. Not wanting to Google “Pat Robertson”, I first checked out the old blogroll to see who had something I could work with, and I eventually ended up at Bartcop . Here is the first attempt, a ballpoint pen sketch…
The problem with trying to create a good likeness of Pat Robertson, is you have to keep looking at a picture of Pat Robertson.I had to take a break and shower off. Maybe I need to invest in one of those “Eye Wash Stations” that they have in High School Science Labs.Well, it was back to the drawing board to rework the image, and I got this far before I had to stop.I’m not satisfied… The hair is off, the forehead is off, but a person can only look at a picture of Pat for so long before it is toxic to the eyebones….
Not wanting to abandon the whole idea for the cartoon, I checked in at Sweet Jesus, I hate Bill O’Reilly to look for a clear image. They had a picture that was sufficient, so I started sketching. I’m not sure which is worse, staring at a picture of Pat Robertson or staring at a picture of Bill O’Reilly…I’m not completely satisfied with the likeness, but I can’t look at their mugshots anymore today…
Now you know why I haven’t drawn any caricatures of Tom Delay yet!
"God" Vs. "Country"
Let me play the Devil’s Advocate and defend a man of God.
The Irreverend Pat Robertson has predictably caught a lot of flak from a lot of quarters for suggesting that the U.S. assassinate Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, a leading critic of the war in Iraq and a vocal opponent of market “reforms” in developing nations.
From the State Department to the Defense Department, the Bush Administration quickly distanced itself from such sentiments. Why, no less than Donald Rumsfeld weighed in with the following:
“Certainly it’s against the law. Our department doesn’t do that type of thing.”
Heaven forbid! Although…in April, 2002, the White House did do everything but break out Geo. Dubya’s old Yale cheerleading outfit when there was a coup against President Chavez — democratically elected President Chavez.
But aren’t we killing and dying by the thousands in Iraq to spread demo… My mistake.
And from my warped perspective, dear readers, it gets even juicier than that.
While it’s all too easy to simply condemn the assassin-mongering Reverend Robertson out of hand, just listen carefully to all he said.
“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
OK, so the Gospel according to St. Pat doesn’t exactly jibe with the King James version — then again, to be perfectly frank, Jesus didn’t explicitly sanction any war or killing, justified or not (when it comes to twisting our ethics to suit our purpose, we’re all contortionists at some point or another) — but just listen to the follow-through.
“It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war,” Robertson continued, “and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
Ah, I almost forgot — Venezuela’s got more oil than anybody else this side of the Sahara. A little piece of heaven in our very own hemisphere. How deliciously tempting! You know, the more I think about it, the more that Chavez character sounds like a communist or a terrorist or some sorta Godless -ist!
But hold the phone, Holy Rollers! Did I detect a little “jab” at the President? A man charged by the Almighty Himself to wage a crusade against the infidels? What was that bit about “a whole lot cheaper than starting a war”? Just a slip of the well-oiled tongue? Or is the Coalition of the Willing becoming somewhat less willing?
Robertson expounded and expanded:
“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion dollar war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.”
One, you know, strong-arm dictator like the guy in his underwear we pulled out of the spiderhole?
Hey, now, Pat — it’s one thing to call for the assassination of a duly elected head of state (although guess whose President would be at the top of the hit parade if we encouraged such means of “diplomacy”?) but it’s quite another to criticize the President’s war of choice while we still have troops in the field!
Pat, just listen to what Thomas Cadmus, National Commander of the American Legion, had to say the other day at the Legion’s National Convention, in Honolulu (and it’s quite a lulu):
“For many of us, the visions of Jane Fonda glibly spouting anti-American messages with the North Vietnamese and protestors denouncing our own forces four decades ago is forever etched in our memories. We must never let that happen again…“We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm’s way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies.”
You listening, Pat? Sounds pretty much like the Constitutional definition of “treason” to me. Now, don’t you feel just plain petty and ashamed of yourself, crying about the price tag of the war in Iraq? How can you put a price on freedom, Reverend? (Hmm, shouldn’t a man of God be a tad more concerned about the price of the war in terms of human lives and limbs than in terms of the Almighty Dollar, as costly as that truly is? But I digress)
Pat, just listen to what else Commander Cadmus had to say:
“The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples.”
You hear that, Reverend? Maybe it wasn’t all those goddamned homosexuals and feminists and evolutionists who brought fire and damnation down on New York on 9/11 but rather ye of little faith in our Crusader in Chief.
Commander Cadmus concluded his sermon:
“No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies.”
Amen. So there you have it, Pat. Just sit down, shut up, and make like those three little monkeys: You know — See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.
I suppose if you must criticize the Prez, just send him an e-mail or a Candygram (R) or something. But why must you make waves, Pat? Didn’t Geo. Dubya get permission from his Father in Heaven to go to war (even though his wussy listen-to-Colin Powell-and-the-U.N.-and-not-finish-business-in-the-first-Gulf War poppa counseled against it)?
Just who the heck do you think you are, Reverend Robertson? Cindy Sheehan?!
Not quite. Ms. Sheehan mourns the dead.
(Hat Tip to Scott Levison, loyal Barry Gordon fan, for the American Legion link)
Pat Robertson, Angel of Mercenary
Drinking Liberally Tonight
Don’t forget that tonight our weekly Drinking Liberally get together is moving to the alternate location, The Church Brew Works, since the Pirates are in town. It would be nice to see some of you jokers out there. We will gather to the left of the door when you enter the church as usual.
7:00 PM
The Church Brew Works
3525 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
Very Revealing Post by Chuck Pennacchio at Daily KOS
Folks, if you have any question about the fight that is underway in the State of Pennsylvania to have a true Democratic Primary in the 2006 Senate election you need to read the following post by PA Senate candidate Chuck Pennacchio.
Casey Surrogate vs. Casey SurrogateA funny thing happened on my way to speaking before the Dauphin County Democrats this past Sunday in Harrisburg. I had just arrived for my 3:30 p.m. speaking engagement when a campaign volunteer told me that my stage time would be delayed for a few minutes. Lieutenant Governor Catherine Baker Knoll had unexpectedly shown up and was addressing the 75 or so Democrats who were enduring the summer swelter along the Susquehanna River.
After Ms. Knoll’s discussion of her good works on behalf of Pennsylvanians and Governor Ed Rendell, I approached her to introduce myself and to present her with my campaign card. “Nice to meet you, Lieutenant Governor, my name is Chuck Pennacchio and I’m running for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat in 2006.” Her only words for me were, “Why are you running against Bobby Casey?”
Before I could respond to Ms. Knoll, County Chair Jim Young started to introduce me to the assembled crowdBut Lt. Gov. Knoll interrupted Mr. Young and offered to speak on behalf of Robert Casey Jr.’s Senate campaign.
Okay, I thought to myself, this could be interesting. I was not to be disappointed.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Anatomy of a Smear
This piece appears today at the Unpaid Punditry Corps.
With President Bush dead in the middle of a full blown PR push to try and regain support for his Iraq adventure I thought I would take a quick look at what the right-wing blogosphere is doing to help facilitate this effort. As you are all aware, the main reason for this PR push stems from the ground swell of support one Cindy Sheehan has received in her efforts to gain an audience with the President. I have generally remained neutral on this subject, only touching on it in one post that pointed out the sheer inhumanity of a comment made by “entertainer” Rush Limbaugh and one post about the hypocrisy of the newly minted pro-war rally hitting Crawford this Saturday. The main reason for my neutrality is that I am not a military man and have not lost a loved one in this war so I can not possibly comprehend the pain and suffering this woman has had to endure.
I am fairly certain that the majority of bloggers out there are in the same situation as myself; keyboard quarterbacks with little to no real world experience other than pouring over articles and anecdotal information about it’s effects. Sadly, this does not seem be an issue to those on the right intent on playing their part in this pathetic American tragedy. A quick scan of my right wing blogmarks proves beyond a doubt that their main objective is to ensure that Cindy Sheehan’s character is smeared beyond recognition.
In a piece entitled Cindy Sheehan II, Mark Noonan of Blogs for Bush first attacks Sheehan as anti-American then draws the conclusion that the left will pay dearly for supporting Sheehan in her efforts.
“What have we learned about Cindy Sheehan since she exploded on to the national scene?Well, we’ve learned that she doesn’t believe America is worth dying for…in short, what we’ve learned is that if it weren’t for Casey Sheehan, who died bravely for America, then Cindy Sheehan would just be another in a long line of resolutely ignored crackpots. It is a strange world in which a man who dies a hero in the service of America becomes the mechanism whereby anti-Americans can spread their slanders to a larger audience.
What is actually happening is that more and more people are getting a good look at the so-called “anti-war” movement - and finding out that they are far less anti-war than they are anti-American.
Our friends over at Little Green Footballs have taken a different approach in their latest smear, posting a photo of a smiling Sheehan being escorted by a U.S. Marine with the caption,
Does that guy with the USMC T-shirt look embarrassed or what? “Come on, Cindy. They’re taking your picture. How many of those little bottles of Smirnoff did you have on the plane, anyway?”
Powerline takes a more traditional approach to destroying the credibility of Sheehan, it is that damned liberal media’s fault.
No one has contributed more to the enshrinement of Cindy Sheehan as an antiwar icon than AP reporter Angela Brown. Tonight, however, Brown stepped over the line with an outright misrepresentation of Sheehan’s history. Brown’s article, which likely will appear in hundreds of newspapers, describes Sheehan’s return to Crawford, Texas.
Not to be outdone the good folks over at Wizbang bring us more liberal media bias.
The premise of this article is pretty much an outright lie on the part of AFP. This is yellow journalism at its worst.
The queue of righty pundits willing to throw in their two cents in an effort to discredit Sheehan seems never ending. Unfortunately there are very few voices, right or left, willing to look at this thing for what it really is, a personal tragedy that is being taken advantage of for political gain. Interestingly enough, the sanest comment about this situation that I have come across also comes from the right winger who just so happens to be one of our former UPC members:
A patriotic camp with a “God Bless Our President!” banner sprung up downtown Saturday, countering the anti-war demonstration started by a fallen soldier’s mother two weeks ago near President Bush’s ranch.The camp is named “Fort Qualls,” in memory of Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, who died in Iraq last fall.
Now isn’t this special? The war of the dead children. That is just great, isn’t it?? Is this what Cindy Sheehan wants? Parents of fallen soldiers fighting with each other?? One infuriating the other? Adding to an uspeakable grief?
…
Put down your signs, your candles, and your banners and go home. This isn’t Vietnam. The people who support our troops are going to be out there too. It will always be one opinion against another. No one is going to win this.
No one.
I could not agree more on at least one point, no one can benefit from this circus.
Note to the Anti War Movement…
George W. Bush just told you exactly how to achieve your goal of a full withdrawl from Iraq:
“So long as I’m the president, we will stay, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror.”
Bottom line, your best chance of getting our troops out of Iraq is to elect as many Democrats as possible in ‘06, returning control of either the House, the Senate or both to the opposition and allowing real investigations into the scandals that have been simmering just under the surface of this adminstration. Of course that does not mean squat but at least it would be a move in the right direction.