Friday, September 19, 2003
The richest of the rich are getting... richer. And fast. The
Independent responds to the Forbes 400 fortune fetish list.
Unemployment:
6.2% in July 2003; (conservative numbers) or
10.2% (broader definition incl. underemployment)
Real Wages change:
+2%/year for the past several years; and
0.0%/year 2002: "stopped growing entirely in 2002."
Net Worth change in Top400:
+10%/year
"The latest Forbes 400 list is further evidence that the affluent are thriving under President Bush even as unemployment continues to rise and the income of average workers remains stagnant."
In 2000 and 2001, the ultra rich lost money with us ($80 Billion). In 2002, they made mad money without us. : (
Independent responds to the Forbes 400 fortune fetish list.
Unemployment:
6.2% in July 2003; (conservative numbers) or
10.2% (broader definition incl. underemployment)
Real Wages change:
+2%/year for the past several years; and
0.0%/year 2002: "stopped growing entirely in 2002."
Net Worth change in Top400:
+10%/year
"The latest Forbes 400 list is further evidence that the affluent are thriving under President Bush even as unemployment continues to rise and the income of average workers remains stagnant."
In 2000 and 2001, the ultra rich lost money with us ($80 Billion). In 2002, they made mad money without us. : (
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Well, if you ever need an endpoint to this era in the rise and fall of CNN, now you have it: "The guy who was news director at WMAQ when the Chicago station hired Jerry Springer for its 10 p.m. newscast has been hired by CNN to oversee the cable news channel."
CNN Chases Fox Into the Abyss.
In the Beginning, since the dawn of time, there was Network News.
Watergate: News comes of age.
Post-Watergate: everybody wants their own watergate. X*gate becomes catch-all descriptor for story cum indictment.
Gotcha/Miami-Style: a local phenomenon at first, Miami-Style applies the motto "If it bleeds, it leads," while including entertainment crap as news. "Gotcha" is the obvious fractoid derivative of its Watergate predecessor. Say you're a beat reporter covering the school board. You covered Watergate endlessly in school (studying Journalism or "Communications"). You and 1,000 other reporters across the country are all trying to break LocalSchoolBoardGate. Gotcha incorporates the all the hidden camera, "X on your side", "Fraud Busters" stuff.
Cable News begins: MTV is cool, CNN is not.
24-Hour (Cable) News: Gulf War I, MTV and CNN are both cool now.
'96er and Syndicate-Miami News: O.J./Elian. Consolidation. You still get 24 hour news, just none of it matters to you. The Syndicate will tell you what you need to know: Local news is a cost to be minimized.
Fox NeoCon Jingo-Fascist News: "Reality" programming. Clinton/Lewinsky impeachment. Neither MTV nor CNN are cool. The Internet ownz your news now, not that CNN streaming is at all reliable, just that Microsoft and AOL are major providers.
We have officially reached the pre-Google period.
CNN Chases Fox Into the Abyss.
In the Beginning, since the dawn of time, there was Network News.
Watergate: News comes of age.
Post-Watergate: everybody wants their own watergate. X*gate becomes catch-all descriptor for story cum indictment.
Gotcha/Miami-Style: a local phenomenon at first, Miami-Style applies the motto "If it bleeds, it leads," while including entertainment crap as news. "Gotcha" is the obvious fractoid derivative of its Watergate predecessor. Say you're a beat reporter covering the school board. You covered Watergate endlessly in school (studying Journalism or "Communications"). You and 1,000 other reporters across the country are all trying to break LocalSchoolBoardGate. Gotcha incorporates the all the hidden camera, "X on your side", "Fraud Busters" stuff.
Cable News begins: MTV is cool, CNN is not.
24-Hour (Cable) News: Gulf War I, MTV and CNN are both cool now.
'96er and Syndicate-Miami News: O.J./Elian. Consolidation. You still get 24 hour news, just none of it matters to you. The Syndicate will tell you what you need to know: Local news is a cost to be minimized.
Fox NeoCon Jingo-Fascist News: "Reality" programming. Clinton/Lewinsky impeachment. Neither MTV nor CNN are cool. The Internet ownz your news now, not that CNN streaming is at all reliable, just that Microsoft and AOL are major providers.
We have officially reached the pre-Google period.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
BBC NEWS 'Horse bomb' hits Colombia town: That's the first I've seen of horse bombs. : (
I wonder if the horse is praised as a martyr.
I wonder if the horse is praised as a martyr.
Friday, September 12, 2003
Cash's voice seemed to come from Everyman's soul
Yesterday was September 11th, and last night Johnny Cash died. 71 years old. The Minneapolis / St. Paul Star Tribune speaks in epic terms:
"Love and lust, anger and despair, God and country - his songs touched every acre of landscape that is the human experience."
Cash recorded "1,500 songs found on some 500 albums." He played with Elvis when he was 20 years old. Bought his first guitar at 15. When Justin Timberlake dies, do you think they will write about him in the Bangkok Post and the BBC?
If only John Ritter could have waited a few more days to die. I've been disappointed to see people join reverent conversations about Cash with "yeah and John Ritter died too." Fuck John Ritter. You can't put Three's Company is the same league as American III.
Yesterday was September 11th, and last night Johnny Cash died. 71 years old. The Minneapolis / St. Paul Star Tribune speaks in epic terms:
"Love and lust, anger and despair, God and country - his songs touched every acre of landscape that is the human experience."
Cash recorded "1,500 songs found on some 500 albums." He played with Elvis when he was 20 years old. Bought his first guitar at 15. When Justin Timberlake dies, do you think they will write about him in the Bangkok Post and the BBC?
If only John Ritter could have waited a few more days to die. I've been disappointed to see people join reverent conversations about Cash with "yeah and John Ritter died too." Fuck John Ritter. You can't put Three's Company is the same league as American III.
Monday, September 08, 2003
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Michael Meacher: This war on terrorism is bogus
SET Conspiracy_Mode=HIGH
To summarize, this Brit says the US deliberately let the 9/11 attacks occur. Who is this fringe wacko? Michael Meacher, Minister of Parliament for the past 33 years, most experienced member of the ruling party, having served Prime Ministers Wilson, Callaghan and Blair, the latter for a 6 year stint and the former before I was born.
Digest this:
~ "five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s" (Newsweek, September 15 2001)
~ "Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate." And yet, the US couldn't get a fighter in the air anywhere in the country until *after* the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon?
~ Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October". (BBC September 18 2001)
How could that be possible to know that in July....?
Read it and weep... not for me, but for yourselves and your children yet to come....
SET Conspiracy_Mode=HIGH
To summarize, this Brit says the US deliberately let the 9/11 attacks occur. Who is this fringe wacko? Michael Meacher, Minister of Parliament for the past 33 years, most experienced member of the ruling party, having served Prime Ministers Wilson, Callaghan and Blair, the latter for a 6 year stint and the former before I was born.
Digest this:
~ "five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s" (Newsweek, September 15 2001)
~ "Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate." And yet, the US couldn't get a fighter in the air anywhere in the country until *after* the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon?
~ Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October". (BBC September 18 2001)
How could that be possible to know that in July....?
Read it and weep... not for me, but for yourselves and your children yet to come....
Saturday, September 06, 2003
The Guardian summarizes for us:
"Mr Hoon is exposed as being economical with the truth. If he were honourable, he would fall on his sword." [Scotsman]
"Nothing should save Mr Hoon now," agreed the Daily Mirror.
"Mr Hoon is exposed as being economical with the truth. If he were honourable, he would fall on his sword." [Scotsman]
"Nothing should save Mr Hoon now," agreed the Daily Mirror.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
David Walsh at the perennial pessimistic Worldwide Socialist WebSite writes:
"Media pundits and talk-show hosts regularly refer to the California recall vote, with its 135 candidates, as a "circus." Almost no one in the mainstream media has used this impolite term to describe the small mob of Christian fanatics in Montgomery."
Given the coincidence, you might find it interesting to read the Christian Science Monitor's article ("Commandments fray goes beyond Alabama") which concludes with just such a comparison:
Moore wiped sweat from his face during a statement Monday and quoted Patrick Henry: "Should I abandon my conscience now?" Protesters, mostly clad in shorts, shouted "No," as Moore and his blue-suited entourage left for a limousine.
Down the street on a shady bench, Thomas Green watched people come and go, asking for change for a Coke. "I'm a Christian, but God don't need defending," he says. "Between Alabama and California, they could put Barnum and Bailey out of business."
This article also offers other insights:
~ parallel activity of a group called "Faith and Action" installing 400 similar stone Commandments monuments;
~ the whipping up of fear and perception of oppression by elements of the Christian right, despite having conservative and Christian representatives throughout the state; and
~ contrast between historical civil rights activists (like King) and Judge Moore who "claims to represent a people who are in no way oppressed," in the words of one University of Alabama Dean.
Consider also the Washington Post article ("Two Tablets May Renew A High Court Headache") that explains the source of many existing 10 Commandments displays: "In the mid-1950s, the director Cecil B. DeMille and the Fraternal Order of Eagles service organization distributed several thousand sets of stone tablets to promote DeMille's film "The Ten Commandments." So here we have the perfect link, tens of thousands of commandments as studio advertisement, the premiere circus of Hollywood, and a dash of Charlton Heston for good measure.
I would further suggest that the actions of these monument "supporters" are indistinguishable in form and moral content from idolatry, elevating to a spiritual level the physical symbol itself in a purely self-gratifying and vapid demonstration. If there is anything in the world that is "Caesar's", it is the Government to whom we pay tax, and most obviously, the official buildings of Government itself. Are Moore's supporters wishing Christ had responded differently, to the effect of Keep for yourself what is Caesar's or Claim Caesar's for God?
"Media pundits and talk-show hosts regularly refer to the California recall vote, with its 135 candidates, as a "circus." Almost no one in the mainstream media has used this impolite term to describe the small mob of Christian fanatics in Montgomery."
Given the coincidence, you might find it interesting to read the Christian Science Monitor's article ("Commandments fray goes beyond Alabama") which concludes with just such a comparison:
Moore wiped sweat from his face during a statement Monday and quoted Patrick Henry: "Should I abandon my conscience now?" Protesters, mostly clad in shorts, shouted "No," as Moore and his blue-suited entourage left for a limousine.
Down the street on a shady bench, Thomas Green watched people come and go, asking for change for a Coke. "I'm a Christian, but God don't need defending," he says. "Between Alabama and California, they could put Barnum and Bailey out of business."
This article also offers other insights:
~ parallel activity of a group called "Faith and Action" installing 400 similar stone Commandments monuments;
~ the whipping up of fear and perception of oppression by elements of the Christian right, despite having conservative and Christian representatives throughout the state; and
~ contrast between historical civil rights activists (like King) and Judge Moore who "claims to represent a people who are in no way oppressed," in the words of one University of Alabama Dean.
Consider also the Washington Post article ("Two Tablets May Renew A High Court Headache") that explains the source of many existing 10 Commandments displays: "In the mid-1950s, the director Cecil B. DeMille and the Fraternal Order of Eagles service organization distributed several thousand sets of stone tablets to promote DeMille's film "The Ten Commandments." So here we have the perfect link, tens of thousands of commandments as studio advertisement, the premiere circus of Hollywood, and a dash of Charlton Heston for good measure.
I would further suggest that the actions of these monument "supporters" are indistinguishable in form and moral content from idolatry, elevating to a spiritual level the physical symbol itself in a purely self-gratifying and vapid demonstration. If there is anything in the world that is "Caesar's", it is the Government to whom we pay tax, and most obviously, the official buildings of Government itself. Are Moore's supporters wishing Christ had responded differently, to the effect of Keep for yourself what is Caesar's or Claim Caesar's for God?
