Howard Zinn

                                           August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010

Ok, I know I'm supposed to think this guy is a nut, but I sure agree with him on this one..

Ron Paul last weekend at a Libertarian conference:
"There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA."

A Saturday Outing

If you think going to the movies from Stinson is an all day event, try it from Happy Camp.

 Saturday George, Casey & I went to Medford to see Avatar.  The noon show was sold out so we bought tickets for the 3:30 and repaired to the RoxyAnn winery for wine* tasting and cheese plate, then to Barnes and Noble. Barnes & Noble had a buy 2 get one free on paperbacks and I went away with a volume of Portrait of The Artist as an etc etc and The Dubliners in one volume; a collection of Emily Dickinson and a Willa Cather novel "My Antonia".  I've never read any Willa Cather so I considered that my free mystery book**.  And I have wanted the Joyce books.  Cool.   Great afternoon!  I liked Avatar, but did not love it.  WAAAY too long for a cliched and predictable plot.  But I loved the visuals and liked the way the 3-D was used to enhance rather than scream boo like the 3d movies we saw as kids. It is, as Casey's friend said, an "archetypical" story line (which amused my sister and me). You might want to see it as I don't think it is going to be worth so much on the small screen (you know, the one in your house).  Had a very nice dinner in Ashland.

* Our favorite was a Red Lily Tempranillo.  (The winery makes its own Tempranillo but it was sold out.  They didn't make very much.)  I'd never heard of this Spanish varietal have you?  

**But am now slogging my way through Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children" --Have you read any of her novels?  I read an article (of hers) in the NY Review of Books on an Iranian woman activist who had been imprisoned; it was a good article.  But this book of fiction --I find her sentence structure exhausting -- precise (I think) , not convoluted, but certainly more complex than her (self absorbed rescue-seeking) characters deserve.

The Importance of Being Not-Bush

Among the Obama apologists, there are two (among other) pillars that are so not working for me at this point (if they ever did).  First is the he-did-not-really-promise-that argument, implying that what I see as failure to perform is really a matter of conflating his ideas with a conception that he might act upon any of them.  Closing Guantanamo, for example, was an idea; chiding him for not actually doing it is being naïve and – well – petulant. Since Obama did not actually say he would be a rabid crusader for Universal Health Care, it would be unfair to be disappointed that he (and his pit bull Rahm) instead orchestrated a giveaway to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.  He didn’t say he would do the former and he didn’t promise not to do the latter. 

Second – well, at least he isn’t Bush.  The technical argument to that should be that Not-Being- Bush is setting the bar so low that a snake could crawl over it.  Unfortunately, the argument is now more like  - in what way is he Not-Bush?

My apologies to residents of halfway houses.

I think the FBI does their recruiting out of halfway houses.

FBI’s ‘cutting edge’ photo of

 bin Laden doctored from Spain

 lawmaker’s portrait

I didn't know that was an option...

Have finally gotten around to reading Nick Paumgarten's piece on Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (The New Yorker, Jan. 4 2010) and found this particularly telling:

"Before his [Mackey's] senior year, he was cut from the varsity basketball team, and he persuaded his parents to move so that he could switch schools and play."  

Are atheists supposed to hope there really IS a hell?

I'm not much on joining up, but couldn't resist this one.


Dear God: If you really exist please tell Pat Robertson to SHUT THE F**K UP

I hope the US is as efficient at getting aid to Haiti as it has been about overthrowing their governments. Oh and by the way Obama — New Orleans still needs help. Comments like this probably make JC at Balloon Juice tar me “FDL.” That would be an honor, John.

Mortgage meltdown.  Financial Collapse.  As I recall, the Savings and Loan Scandal in the late '80s was called just that -- a scandal.  Prison terms were served.  Complicit lawmakers were investigated and exposed.  Were those the good old days, or are these?  Depends on whether you are the screwer or the screwee.

My new label is certainly coming in handy.

Foul/Fail

Watching Mark McGwire trying to 'splain himself and doing a Glenn Beck sobbing routine.  Guess I need a new label for my blog.

How Bushian!

From WAPO:
John E. McLaughlin, a former deputy CIA director, will lead a review of missteps by U.S. intelligence agencies and assess proposals for correcting weaknesses in a system that did not respond to warnings about terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair


Goodman's take (from truthout)
President Obama, the CIA and the Master of the Cover-Up

Saturday 11 December 2010

by: Melvin A. Goodman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(excerpt)

In addition to being one of the ideological drivers for the CIA's policies of torture and abuse, secret prisons and extraordinary renditions, McLaughlin demonstrated early in his career that he was a company man willing to do what was necessary to advance his career. In the 1980s, when CIA Director William Casey and his Deputy Robert Gates were "cooking the books" on intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, Central America and Southwest Asia, McLaughlin offered no dissent.

Saturday Rock & Roll Edition

I was surprised to feel an earthquake in Happy Camp -- and meant to ask if this was unusual but by the time I got to the Big House I had forgotten and didn't even think about it til I came back and saw the info crawling around on my tv screen.  (I googled it at the time, but there was nothing that early.)  Later I saw it was felt in Medford and Shasta.  How about you???

Crusty Nautilus at a cool new-to-me Website

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

More stuff Obama will not bother to consider....

Counterterrorism in Shambles; Why?

Tuesday 05 January 2010

by: Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Excerpt:

2 – Has the new intelligence bureaucracy created 
after the Sept. 11th attacks functioned correctly?
 How could it be improved, or was it a good idea
 to create it?

The creation of the post of Director of National Intelligence, the 
National Counterterrorism Center, and the 170,000-person 
Department of Homeland Security was the mother of 
all misguided panaceas.

Bear in mind that the general election of 2004 was just
 months away when the 9/11 report was published, and
 lawmakers and administration functionaries desperately 
needed to be seen to be DOING SOMETHING. And, as is 
almost always the case in such circumstances, they made things 
considerably worse.

The 9/11 Commissioners had been fretting over the 
fact that, in their words, “No one was in charge of
coordination among intelligence agencies.” That was
 true, but only because George Tenet preferred to 
cavort with foreign potentates and thugs, than to do 
the job of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

A balmy forty degrees so I walked down to the pond and was pleased to see a Hooded Merganser (yes, I did have to look it up).