Undernews for January 13

Undernews for January 13

Since 1964, the news while there's still time to do something about it

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW

Right beginning to question Afghanistan war Huffington Post - A prominent conservative thinker is calling on Republicans to begin a serious debate about the war in Afghanistan, its costs and what Ronald Reagan would do in the same circumstances.

And while Grover Norquist stopped short of personally calling for a rapid withdrawal, he made it clear that he thinks an honest conversation on the right would inevitably lead to that conclusion.

Norquist said he was aiming his plea to "the people who voted for Ronald Reagan, or would have." And he pointed out that Reagan's response to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, which cost 241 American lives, was not to occupy Lebanon.

"His reaction to the Lebanon bombing was not to stay, it was to leave," Norquist said. "Ronald Reagan didn't decide to fix Lebanon. I think that's helpful in getting the conversation going on the right."

He scoffed at the notion that fighting two wars was making American stronger. "Being tied up there does not advance American power," he said. "If you've got a fist in the tar baby Iraq and you've got a fist in the tar baby Afghanistan, then who's afraid of you?"

Afghanistan Study Group - Conservatives and Tea Party supporters are worried about the costs of the war in Afghanistan. 71% of conservatives overall, and 67% of conservative Tea Party supporters, indicate worry that the costs will make it more difficult for the United States to reduce the deficit this year and balance the federal budget by the end of this decade.

Significant percentages of conservative men (67%) and women (75%) indicate concern about the costs of the war as do conservatives in all age groups. Those in active duty military or veteran households are as worried about the costs of the war (69%) as those in non-military households (72%). 61% of conservatives who believe the war has been worth fighting are worried about the current level of costs.

Two-thirds of conservatives support a reduction in troop levels in Afghanistan. When given a choice between three options, 66% believe we can either reduce the troop levels in Afghanistan, but continue to fight the war effectively (39%) or think we should leave Afghanistan all together, as soon as possible (27%). Just 24% of conservatives believe we should continue to provide the current level of troops to properly execute the war.

64% of Tea Party supporters think we should either reduce troop levels (37%) or leave Afghanistan (27%) while 28% support maintaining current troop levels. Among conservatives who don’t identify with the Tea Party movement, 70% want a reduction (43%) or elimination (27%) of troops while only 18% favoring continuation of the current level.

A majority of conservatives agree that the United States can dramatically lower the number of troops and money spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk.
How to sharpen our empathy and expand our moral imaginations In Tucson, President Obama said that we must "expand our moral imaginations" and "sharpen our instincts for empathy."

But as Paul Richmond notes, "I see no difference between violence that occurred in Arizona and violence our ruling class, including Obama and Gifford, promote every day. There has always been in the U.S., a belief that our lives our more important than anyone else's."

If Obama wants to sharpen our instincts for empathy, here are some good ways to start:

- End the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan

- Stop the torture of Private Manning

- End all CIA renditions

- Close Gitmo Press release of the day FIRST EVER CORPORATE WEDDING CONTEMPLATED BY SINGLE, FEMALE, 40.

THE SEARCH FOR A CORPORATE HUSBAND WILL COMMEMORATE THE 1ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE SUPREME COURT RULING RE-AFFIRMING CORPORATE PERSONHOOD.

On January 21st, 2010 the Supreme Court of the United States re-affirmed that Corporations have the same Constitutional rights as people (Citizens United v FEC). In commemoration of that decision there will commence a national search for the ideal corporate groom for a mere mortal, Ms. Sarah “echo” Steiner, who has made it clear that she intends to take the Supreme Court at its word and honor her marriage when she finds a suitable candidate.

The search is on. A press conference will kick off the event on Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. at the Little Owl in Lake Worth, Florida located at 527 N. Dixie Highway. At this time, Ms. Steiner is expected to announce her decision to search for a suitable corporation to marry. There have been rumors circulating that a number of potential corporate grooms are already in the running (including green colored corporate persons).

So mark you calendars, tell your friends, and spread the word: if corporations are persons, then let us celebrate the end of discrimination against them by permitting them to get married just like everyone else… well, almost everyone else. See you there!!!

This event is sponsored by Move to Amend Florida, PBC Green Party, and Progressive Democrats of America.For more on Move to Amend, go to www.movetoamend.org.

Contact: Ms. Suki DeJong 561-352-1108 or Ms. Bonnie Redding 561-762-8191. Underground tales of the subway Washington Examiner - Metro bus and train operators have had to resort to relieving themselves inside their trains and buses, say current and former workers. One operator said she twice found feces under piles of newspapers inside the cab of the trains assigned to her. A bus driver said he found bottles of urine in the bus trash can. One even admitted to heeding the call of nature on the buses and trains.

"I have. Oh, everybody has. I even soiled my clothes once," one longtime operator told The Washington Examiner. "That's why the trains smell like urine near where the operators are." The problem, they and their union say, is not enough time for breaks and not enough nearby bathrooms. . . One former bus operator said she used to go into a cup or bag at the back of her bus when a bathroom stop wasn't an option. But another worker said that practice stopped about a year ago after the agency started putting cameras into more of the buses. . .

Transit workers around the country fill chat boards with discussions of properly timing their bodies with their breaks. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 President Jackie Jeter said the issue has come up at conventions. And labor sites explain the health consequences of "voluntary dehydration" when operators try to avoid creating the problem. . .

Metro Inspector General's Report - Use of pocket tracks as a lavatory presents safety and health risks. Participants voiced concerns that employees use the pocket tracks (an area where the train can park and permit the train operator to reverse ends and travel in the opposite direction) as a lavatory at Mount Vernon Square, Southern Avenue, and Grosvenor. This safety and health hazard is the result of inadequate time being allowed at the end of the line for train operators to have bathroom breaks.
"Temporary" Patriot Act likely to be extended again Examiner - On January 5th, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) introduced a bill to add yet another year to the soon to be expiring Patriot Act. This would extend it until February of 2012, and passage is likely to happen with little debate or contention. If passed, this would be the second time the Obama administration has punted on campaign promises to roll back excessive surveillance measures allowed under the act passed in the wake of 9/11.

When the Patriot Act was first signed in 2001, it was billed as a temporary measure required because of the extreme circumstances created by the terrorist threat. The fear from its opponents was that executive power, once given, is seldom relinquished. In retrospect, that fear appears well founded. Not only has Obama not given the power back, but he has continued to abuse it to spy on citizens without due process.

In 2007, candidate Obama said during his Presidency there would be "no more National Security Letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime" because "that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists." The hope that he'll make good on that statement is seeming pretty audacious. Helping the mentally ill early on Maine Public Broadcasting - We've been working for 10 years to educate," says psychiatrist William McFarlane, head of the Portland Identification and Early Referral Program, or PIER. It's one in two programs in Maine -- the other is in Bangor -- which educates schools and the community to identify warning signs of mental disorders in young people, who are then referred to the program for treatment.

"We're currently really operating on the assumption that we can stop the progression of psychosis almost all the time."

Over the last decade, McFarlane's program has helped about 250 young people ages 12 to 25 -- a key time to intervene, he says. "A lot of the biochemical markers for particularly schizophrenia and psychosis in general increases pretty dramatically after they've undergone puberty."

The program has been deemed such a success that it's being replicated around the country and earned a $17 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But McFarlane says that even his program is not immune from the fate that has befallen other mental health programs, some of which have disappeared in Maine and elsewhere as a result of state budget cuts and other funding drying up.

"There's no effective lobby for people with mental illness," Seaver says. He used to serve on the board of Shalom House, a Portland mental health agency that provides services to people dealing with mental illness, and often substance abuse. "If I had some kind of cancer, I could wear a bracelet and really rally for the cause and no one wants to say that I support community-based services."

In his newspaper editorial, Seaver stressed the importance of ensuring that mental health services are available. Perhaps, he says, Loughner might have been able to taken advantage of them had they been more readily available. He also wanted to take the stigma off mental illness. "It affects one out of every five Americans, and if we don't start talking about and reducing the shame, reducing the stigma, then we're going to continually see people like Jared Loughner be reluctant to get help." Recovered history: the Israel's prime minister in 1989 Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam - For the life of me I don’t know why this 1989 statement from Bibi Netanyahu, when he a was a junior minister in the Shamir government, hasn’t received more play. The following is from Yaakov Lazar in the left-wing, now defunct Al Ha-Mishmar:

"Deputy Foreign Minister MK Bibi Netanyahu, the man who this week bitterly lamented the lack of Glasnost in the Arab states, is the same man who said this week: ‘Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China [Tiananmen Square], when the world’s attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose should be implemented.’. . .

"Alas, in those days Bibi was more inclined to speak what he really believes as opposed to now, when he’s learned how to speak with a forked tongue, saying nothing and meaning precisely the opposite of what comes from his mouth (or meaning nothing at all)." New winter sport: couch sledding
Mike Flugennock: A free voice in a captured city Mike Flugennock is a DC born and raised cartoonist whose work has blessedly appeared in the Review over the years. Recently he was interviewed by the Washington City Paper. A few excerpts:

Mike Rhode, Washington City Paper: What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

Mike Flugennock: Radical political cartoons¬really, really radical leftie cartoons, so left they even piss off the liberals. . .

WCP: What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
MF: There's really no single thing I do in this situation. Generally, what helps¬at least for me¬is to just kick back, let go, and not agonize too much. Smoking a bowl and watching Meet The Press (or something like it) also helps; there's nothing quite being pleasantly blazed while watching a bunch of self-important Washington "insiders" taking themselves far too seriously to break down my writer's block.

WCP: What do you think will be the future of your field?

MF: Y'know, I've been a serious cartoonist since the mid '70s, and it seems as if once every generation, someone has asked that question, and it's an easy one to answer: As long as there are smart-assed social misfits who can draw anywhere on Earth, the future of cartooning and comics will be assured.

If anything, the future of cartooning has been made even brighter by the Internet, as it allows any cartoonists out there with enough confidence in their work to take it straight to the people and achieve a measure of popularity¬and even earn a half-decent living¬without having to go through the newspaper and feature syndicate gatekeepers.

WCP: What's your favorite thing about D.C.?

MF: All that history¬the Bonus Marchers, Martin Luther King's 1963 mass march, the Vietnam Moratorium, the IMF/World Bank actions, the mass actions against the Iraq Wars¬especially the IMF/World Bank and Iraq mobilizations, because they were some history I actually had a hand in.

WCP: Least favorite?
MF: Jeez, where do I start? First of all, there's the fact that there's pretty much no real solid dissident activist community here. Almost all the activists and organizers seem to be as a big a bunch of shallow careerists as their establishment counterparts, except that their "power suits" consist of rag sweaters, blue jeans, and Birkenstocks instead of Brooks Brothers outfits. Lots of big-dollar NGOs and "progressive" outfits astroturfing for the Democratic Party, but no real viable peoples' movements.

There's also never been much of an arts community that I could see. There's lots of galleries and lots of museums, but little or no actual tangible support for local artists. The last neighborhood here that came close to being an actual arts district was cleared out so that everything could be converted into condos, dippy boutiques, overpriced restaurants, and galleries containing art that says nothing¬and then officially christened the "arts district" after the developers finished running all the artists out.

Washington also always seemed to have a sense of self-importance entirely out of proportion to its real importance. This is especially evident when you watch the Sunday morning news interview programs¬your Meet The Press, your Face The Nation, your This Week, your Washington Week In Review¬and check out all the politicians and pundits talking over our heads. The daily papers' op-ed columnists are like that, too; you can tell from the language they use that not only are they not talking so us regular folks can understand them, but are going out of their way to keep from being understood by anyone except fellow members of the chattering class.

And don't get me started on all that wretched architecture. I know this won't be a popular opinion, but I think the stretch between Capitol Hill and the Kennedy Center contains some of the most conceited and ugly architecture I've ever seen. I've been to a lot of cities¬New York City, San Diego, Caracas, Mexico City, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris¬and Washington, D.C., takes the prize as far as awful architecture goes. If I never had to look at another pompous, overwrought faux Classical Roman revivalist heap of marble again in my life, I'd be the happiest guy alive. Those grim-assed fascistic Roosevelt-era government buildings along Pennsylvania and Constitution sure as hell don't do me any good, either. Top ten legal drugs linked to violence Time - When people consider the connections between drugs and violence, what typically comes to mind are illegal drugs like crack cocaine. However, certain medications ¬ most notably, some antidepressants like Prozac ¬ have also been linked to increase risk for violent, even homicidal behavior.

A new study from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices published in the journal PloS One and based on data from the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System has identified 31 drugs that are disproportionately linked with reports of violent behavior towards others. 90,000 Americans die annually from infections that have become resistant to antibiotics Dan Rather - "Crisis" is not too strong a word for describing what has happened to antibiotics. As our use of the drugs rises every year in the United States, bacterial resistance has risen right alongside it: there isn't a single known antibiotic to which bacteria have not become resistant.

Every year, more than ninety thousand Americans die from infections that have become resistant to antibiotics. That stunning figure is higher than the death toll from AIDS, car accidents and prostate cancer combined.

Seven decades since the discovery of antibiotics, it's clear that science still cannot keep pace with bacteria. Dr. Stuart Levy, a professor of molecular biology at the Tufts School of Medicine and one of the world's leading medical authorities on antibiotics, says the cause of the crisis is not in dispute: we are simply using too many antibiotics.
For the first time in a century, US fishermen didn't take too much from the sea Huffington Post - For the first time in at least a century, U.S. fishermen won't take too much of any species from the sea, one of the nation's top fishery scientists says. The projected end of overfishing comes during a turbulent fishing year that's seen New England fishermen switch to a radically new management system. But scientist Steve Murawski said that for the first time in written fishing history, which goes back to 1900, "As far as we know, we've hit the right levels, which is a milestone."

"And this isn't just a decadal milestone, this is a century phenomenon," said Murawski, who retired last week as chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.

Murawski said it's more than a dramatic benchmark – it also signals the coming of increasingly healthy stocks and better days for fishermen who've suffered financially. In New England, the fleet has deteriorated since the mid-1990s from 1,200 boats to only about 580, but Murawski believes fishermen may have already endured their worst times.

"I honestly think that's true, and that's why I think it's a newsworthy event," said Murawski, now a professor at the University of South Florida. Worst house number in Britain Telegraph, UK - Superstitious home owners may balk at the idea of taking up residence at number 13, but an analysis of home insurance claimed someone living at number 243 would be more than twice as likely to make a claim. Some 45 per cent of people living at number 243 have made a claim in the past four years, while ahead of number 201 with 36 per cent and number one with 34 per cent. In comparison just 18 per cent of people living at number 13 claimed on their insurance during the same period.
National Parks police chief dumped during Bush years wins her case You'd think the Bush administration dumping a police chief would be news, but in Washington power beats facts, and the Chambers story stayed largely under the radar.

WTOP, DC - An appeals panel has ruled that fired U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers should be reinstated with back pay. The Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears civil service appeals, found the evidence against Chambers weak and that she was wrongly dismissed in 2004.

The board concluded the Interior Department retaliated against her.
The board ordered that Chambers be allowed to resume her old position in the next 20 days and that she is entitled to retroactive pay dating back to July 2004. The board said she should be reimbursed for her legal fees.

Chambers was fired in 2004 after speaking to WTOP and other media outlets about her understaffed department, saying she had been forced to cut back on patrols across the area because her officers were required to guard national monuments. She also talked about budget shortfalls.

In 2004, National Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy said Chambers' comments broke two federal rules, one against public comment about ongoing budget discussions, the other prohibiting lobbying by someone in Chambers' position.

"I don't know that we can ever adequately describe all that we've been through, emotionally and financially," Chambers tells WTOP.

"If this case will help other federal employees deserve the right to speak honestly and candidly and not be punished for that, then there's some greater good to all of this."

It's not clear whether the Interior Department will appeal. WikiLeaks accusers' lawyer helped CIA torture rendition Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project - Best-selling spy thriller author Thomas Bodstrom - an attorney who represents the two Swedish women making the notorious sex charges against WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange . . . helped his nation in 2001 secretly turn over to the Central Intelligence Agency two asylum-seekers suspected by the CIA of terror, according to materials recently obtained by the Justice Integrity Project and the Legal Schnauzer blog.

The CIA flew the terror suspects to Egypt for torture as part of the decade’s rendition effort requiring secret, high-level Swedish cooperation. Assange, the subject of a recent global manhunt by the Swedes seeking him for sex questioning and by the United States for spy charges, can take only cold comfort that Sweden eventually welcomed back the 2001 asylum seekers and awarded them damages for their torture. . . .

As a parallel development, the Obama administration has used the disclosures as rationale for a wide-ranging crackdown not simply against WikiLeaks but against anyone in government or the media, particularly the web-based, who might disclose secrets that the government regards as threatening national security. Our project summarized these developments this week in a column, “Whistleblower Says: Obama's DoJ Declares War on Whistleblowers.”

WikiLeaks Questions Bodström is sometimes described as “The John Grisham of Sweden.” He left his Social Democratic Party and his Parliament seat last fall to move to the United States for six months, citing a need for family time and to write another book, a curious posture for a lawyer at the center of one of the world’s most controversial cases.

Is Bodström again cooperating with U.S. authorities in their all-out effort to save the United States, Sweden – and perhaps Bodström himself – from further embarrassment caused by cables WikiLeaks might release from its still secret trove? Or are Swedish authorities proceeding normally, as they claim, in launching a global Interpol manhunt to capture Assange to question him about precisely how and why he engaged in sex-without-a-condom last summer with two women who invited him separately to stay with him in their beds while he was on a speaking tour? Former Israeli daily editor tells why he's so ashamed of his country Richard Silverstain, Tikun Olam - Amnon Danker, former editor of one of Israel's most popular dailies, Maariv, has written a scathing essay excoriating Israel and the current political situation there. The terms he uses are savage and unsparing. It's rare for such mainstream cultural and media figures to speak in such unconditional terms about the state of latter-day Israeli society. Here is my translation:

Amnon Danker - It's quite clear that if our [national] life continues in the manner it has been evolving, good, moderate, balanced and humane individuals will no longer be able to live here. Before our very eyes with results that grow every stronger, Israeli society is changing, the political culture is changing. Checks and balances are violated and are swept to the winds by this awful spirit which blows through our lives and dyes them with an ever-deepening shade of black.

It seems that things that were repressed within the Israeli soul and well-hidden through shame are suddenly bursting forth with a sense of liberation, dancing obscenely in the public square. It's now acceptable to be overtly racist and to be proud of it. It's acceptable to disparage democracy and be proud of that. Acceptable to steal and rob and trample on rights when it concerns Arabs. And acceptable to be proud of this. There are Knesset members for whom this is one of their specialties and they do it with smiles they don't even bother to conceal. There are entire parties whose tenor and tone arouse feelings of horror and terrifying memories.

How is it possible, for example, that there are people who sat and calculated the needs for feeding children and removed these necessities from the list of products permitted to enter Gaza? They sat and counted sweets and halva and toys and who the hell knows what else and crossed them out with an "x" and explained to us that this was a critical part of toppling Hamas' rule. And we took these wicked fools seriously and put our faith in them. After what happened with the Marmara we lifted the sweets siege and even permitted the import of coriander into Gaza. No disaster happened besides that we remained in this great exposed space loitering in front of the gates of Gaza though our own naked, wicked stupidity. . .

What adds to my sense of depression is the awareness that demographic processes are turning our society more and more religious, more and more racist and venomous, more and more withdrawn and violent.

For a man of my age who wasted serious parts of his life writing in newspapers about these issues, to see that I did all this out of great hope that has come to naught and was based on illusions and naivete; what happens now is a particular type of bitterness and disillusion. To see Israeli society change its nature so quickly, becoming something you never thought you'd see outside of nightmares, it breaks your heart. To begin to feel ashamed at being Israeli, and to know with not a small amount of confidence that such a feeling will grow, it depresses you utterly. Secret Service warned Obama that Palin's attacks were increasing threats Telegraph, UK - The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.

Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Word: Gun laws Dan Baum - In a country with 350 million privately owned guns, people who want guns are going to get them. A helpful way to think of gun laws is as analogous to marijuana laws. They make us feel like we're "doing something," but they are equally ineffective at doing what they purport to do. In the case of gun laws, though, what we're also doing is so alienating the 40 percent of Americans who own guns that progress on things like health care, women's rights, immigration reform, workers' rights, and climate change becomes nearly impossible. (I can't tell you how many working-stiff gun guys I've met while researching my book -- people whose wages haven't risen since 1978 and should be with us -- who won't even listen to Democrats because they're convinced Democrats want to take away their guns. Misguided? Maybe. But that's democracy for you.)
The student loan debt bubble Alan Nasser & Kelly Norman, Counterpunch - It was announced last summer that total student loan debt, at $830 billion, now exceeds total US credit card debt, itself bloated to the bubble level of $827 billion. And student loan debt is growing at the rate of $90 billion a year.

The data indicate that today's students are saddled with a burden similar to the one currently borne by their parents. Most of these parents have experienced decades of stagnating wages, and have only one asset, home equity. The housing meltdown has caused that resource either to disappear or to turn into a punishing debt load. The younger generation too appears to have mortgaged its future earnings in the form of student loan debt. Arne Duncan bullies Washington's mayor on school chancellor appointment Loose Lips, Washington City Paper - The Washington Post reports today that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told Mayor Vince Gray to install Kaya Henderson as the interim schools chancellor after Michelle Rhee announced she was leaving. "The day Michelle left, I called [Gray] and said, 'Let's put Kaya in there,'" Duncan told the Post, in an article focused on the fact that Duncan wants Henderson to stick around for the next ten years.

Duncan then laughably added that he doesn't "want to micromanage this thing." Umm, Arne, it's nice that you give lip service to not wanting to micromanage the District's business, but get real. You speak for the president . So when you say "let's put Kaya in there," did Gray really have a choice? The Post reports that Duncan also brought up the fact that the feds awarded $75 million to the District last year through the Race to the Top contest. "We're a partner," Duncan said, when he really meant, "You shall obey!" . . .

The WaPo editorial board praises Duncan's micromanaging, saying "Mr. Duncan cares passionately about the state of the District's school reforms
Stimulus outsourcing: Foreign countries eye big bucks in high speed rail Sacramento Bee- The Chinese want in on the state's fledgling high-speed rail project. They're eager to help bankroll and build the system and, eventually, provide the trains to operate on the tracks.China's not alone. Eight nations have agreements with the California High-Speed Rail Authority to share information about high-speed rail -- and each wants a piece of California's business.

"Other countries want to be a part of this because they know high-speed rail can be profitable," said Jeffrey Barker, the authority's deputy executive director. "Their ultimate interest is operating the system." Police blotter: Blurry picture of "Sound of Music" drives viewer crazy Boston Herald - The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge was alive with the sound of shattering glass when a local film buff went berserk over a blurry picture less than five minutes into “The Sound of Music,” cops and a still-rattled theater employee said yesterday.

“He said he was going to kill me,” said Brattle manager Gabe Moylan about the disgruntled patron, 56-year-old Michael Harrington of Cambridge. “He said “The Sound of Music” was very important to him.”

The credits were still rolling and Maria hadn’t even started her rounds in the convent during the Jan. 5 screening of the cult 1965 film when Harrington began shouting about a blurry image, Moylan said. Harrington then stormed to the lobby and demanded his $9.75 back.

“When I explained that we couldn’t do that, he pretty much flipped out,” Moylan said. “He used both arms to destroy everything on the counter.”

Police described finding “damaged debris including smashed Nantucket Nectar bottles, glass containers filled with coffee and tea, a cash register, credit card machine, U.S. currency and glass all over the floor.”

Sam Smith - One of my goals as a college student that I actually fulfilled was to avoid watching "Sound of Music." As a jazz musician and member of the offbeat subculture, the movie trailer seemed like everything we were trying to avoid. Decades later, my goal was soundly defeated when both my sons performed in elementary school versions of the musical. In the end, I think I saw it 12-15 times.

On the other hand, I was a steady Brattle Theater patron in the 1950s when it would have been ashamed to show the "Sound of Music," then playing at a nearby movie house on Harvard Square.

Instead, the Brattle had started showing Humphrey Bogart films during exam week, a practice that proved immensely popular and led to the revival of the Bogart cult nationwide. If I ever seem to be speaking without moving my lips you can blame Bogie and the Brattle for it.

Later It would write

|||| We gathered faithfully and repeatedly to learn from the master, mimicking such lines as "I stick my neck out for nobody." Later, in the sixties, when I was over thirty, it was said that people my age couldn't be trusted; It wasn't true, though. We could be trusted. We just couldn't be relied upon. Our cultural heroes didn't man the barricades. They hit the road. Our goal wasn't to overthrow the establishment, someone would say later, but to make it irrelevant. Or, like Miles Davis in concert, to play with your back to it. Some of us made Bogart an anti-hero in part, I think, because we already suspected that America was our own Casablanca, a place of seductive illusions and baroque deceptions, where nothing was as it appeared. Bogart, with skill and cool, knew how to adapt to the chaos and deceit without betraying his own code. It was a model we needed. ||||

Coincidentally, even as Harrington was expressing his fury at the Brattle, I was finally introducing my wife to "Beat the Devil," starring not only Bogie but Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee. It was written by director John Huston and Truman Capote day to day as the production proceeded. Bogart never like the film but then he lost a lot of money on it. Its copyright was not even renewed so you can download it for free.

My wife fell asleep during the movie, but then she went to the University of Wisconsin. Things started to go wrong when all we thought we had to do was manage them
GOOGLE NGRAM SEARCH OF BOOK MENTIONS Meanwhile. . .
MORE BANKSY
The online Jared Loughner

WALL STREET JOURNAL
To take your mind off of it all . . .

Opera Philadelphia raids a public market
The Ink Spots sing 'If I Didn't Care"

Political platform of the year

What are those sandals that he wore the other day?” Trump demands disbelievingly, reacting to the image of the vacationing president in a Hawaiian ice cream parlor, sporting swimming trunks and flip-flops. “I wouldn’t be wearing flip-flops,” Trump says of Obama. “I don’t like it. I don’t think that is what the president is supposed to be representing. You will not see me wearing flip-flops.

Great thoughts of the right

My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building - quoted i by George Gurley at The Observer in 2002. Tthe interviewer then told her that she should be careful, and she agreed: "You’re right, after 9/11, I shouldn’t say that." Later, in an interview with John Hawkins, she added, "Of course I regret it. I should have added, "after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters."

Wikileaks

Julian Assange says that he is holding back "insurance files" which could embarrass Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation and his international media empire at News Corporation.

MIKE FLUGENNOCK Assange's lawyers worried about execution on rendition to Gitmo

Wikileaks in financial squeeze

What vitriol?

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. -- Glenn Beck, May 17, 2005

Dead critter update. . .

Dozens of dead Romanian starlings owe their demise to being drunk on grape residue say scientists

100 dead birds on California Highway 101

Thousands of dead fish along Chicago waterfront

Seals mutilated in England . . .Dave Wood, National Trust head warden for the Norfolk coast, says: ‘We are at a total loss to understand what’s happened to these seals

30 dead Starlings in the middle of Rockridge Rd. near Frog Hollow in Cole County. In Missouri, at the time of the bird deaths, there was not any fire works, no colder than normal weather, or any explanation for 30 birds to fall dead

1000 dead turtle doves in Italy

Department of hmm. . .

Experts believe the dead birds in Italy suffered from indigestion after overeating

Vitriol that doesn't seem to bother the media

Mike Huckabee called for the execution of WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange on his Fox News program last November

Fox News commentator Bob Beckel, referring to Assange, called for people to "illegally shoot the son of a bitch."

Rush Limbaugh: "Give [Fox News President Roger] Ailes the order and [then] there is no Assange, I'll guarantee you, and there will be no fingerprints on it."

Washington Times columnist Jeffery T. Kuhner titled his column "Assassinate Assange" captioned with a picture Julian Assange overlayed with a gun site, blood spatters, and "WANTED DEAD or ALIVE" with the alive crossed out.

John Hawkins of Townhall.com: "If Julian Assange is shot in the head tomorrow or if his car is blown up when he turns the key, what message do you think that would send about releasing sensitive American data?"

Christian Whiton in a Fox News opinion piece said the US should "designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them."

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. -- Glenn Beck, May 17, 2005

On the other hand. . .

The LA Times call Private Manning's conditions "indefensible"

Joel Simon,executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists: ""If [Assange] is prosecuted, it will be because he is a journalist."

Media wimps of the day. . .

The freedom of the press committee of the Overseas Press Club of America in New York City declared Assange "not one of us." The Associated Press, which once filed legal briefs on Assange's behalf, refuses to comment about him. And the National Press Club in Washington, the venue less than a year ago for an Assange news conference, has decided not to speak out about the possibility that he'll be charged with a crime. With a few notable exceptions, it's been left to foreign journalism organizations to offer the loudest calls for the U.S. to recognize WikiLeaks' and Assange's right to publish under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says Julian Assange is not a journalist. Wonder if she would have said the same thing about Mark Twain or Frederick Douglass.

Bob Woodward, who has made a handsome profit exposing government secrets, has refused to coment on the situation.

Alarmed by Helen Thomas' charge that much of Washington was under Israeli influence, the executive committee of the Society of Professional Journalists responded forcefully by voting to recommend that a lifetime achievement award given in her name be abandoned. This puts America's professional journalist association somewhat to the right of the European Union which is drafting anti-apartheid policies aimed at Israel.

And you might think the SPJ might be as least as willing to talk about Israel honestly as, say, the former editor of one of that country's leading papers.

Palin pales

Our three poll moving average finds Sarah Palin 18 points behind Barack Obama. Normally a candidate doing that poorly wouldn't even be mentioned in the media.

Entropy update

Jerry Brown proposes eliminating state spending for libraries

Tucson billboard

Police blotter

Police were called last week to Mullets Sports Bar & Restaurant in Homer Glen to deal with an angry customer who allegedly shattered a framed photo of A.C. Slater, a fictional, mullet-wearing jock played by Mario Lopez in the 1990s television series Saved by the Bell. "I just don't like Slater," the man reportedly told the owner after allegedly yanking the photo from its place of pride above a urinal and smashing it on the floor. The owner told police the bathroom door also was damaged.

The cost of being small

A report by the Small Business Administration Advocacy Office showed that small firms -- those with 20 or fewer employees -- pay more than $10,500 per employee to comply with federal regulations. Companies with 500 or more workers. meanwhile. pay nearly $3,000 less per employee.

Unanswered question

Why does the media never mention that Sarah Palin is America's first governor of more than 1200 since 1900 to desert her office in the first term for other than reasons of impeachment, scandal, illness, or appointment to a higher office? If she were elected president she would be the first politcal deserter to hold that office.

ENDS

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