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News that Caught My Eye

News that Caught My Eye

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But eventually let it go….

A child diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes? I have to wonder at what point and for what reasons doctors started giving so many vaccines at once anyway. How would they be able to determine which of the vaccines caused a negative reaction if there was a problem? And parents – are adults so cowed by physician authority that that would so easily allow so many shots at one visit? I refused that plan for psychological reasons. One, two – that’s fine. But three, four, five, six? That’s too much for a baby or little child. Ben never had more than two vaccines in a single visit. It’s just too much. I always suspected that so many vaccines at once might have created immune-system overload, too – just too much information at once. The question of preservatives (possibly with mercury?) raised the bar – all the more reason not to create a toxic load.

Here’s an interesting interview about one of my pet peeves. Doesn’t it just make sense that our diet ought not to rely so heavily upon foods that never rot? What about moderation in all things? I favor a varied diet. I tend to use olive oil or butter, not margarine or sprays. I prefer whole milk, and I use real unbleached sugar. I’m not an earthy-crunchy fanatic – I also eat some junk food and some fake food. But don’t offer me any of that non-dairy cream or no-calorie candy. I’ll drink a Coke – but not a diet Coke. I eat what I want – in moderation. I have deep suspicions about what some of the chemicals do to our bodies.

So, President Bush is going to veto the anti-torture bill that has passed both the Senate and the House? I don’t know how Republicans maintain this mythology about how they are the patriotic party…

Job Loss for February Much Higher than the 63,000: The actual employment report suggests “a comprehensive job loss of 113,000 and in terms of dollars earned, a whole lot more.” They’ve been misrepresenting these numbers for a while now. If you lose a professional job and take a part-time position at Walmart or Home Depot, you don’t affect the job numbers at all as far as I can see…

Defense contractor United Technologies has made a sudden buyout offer for the Diebold company, at 66% more than the current stock value. In the face of Diebold’s refusal, United is insisting that the deal will go through in 60 days. “Hmmm. Defense contractor attempts a takeover of the major manufacturer of hackable voting machines with the stated plan of closing the deal before the November national elections. What could their intention possibly be?”

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a “Signing Statement”, the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed. As a people, we seem beyond twitching an eyelash over items like these. Sigh.

Some people are starting to do more than twitch, however. The military recruiting station in Times Square was bombed. The news reports say that the bomber was on a blue 10-speed bike, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. I’ve read a lot of theories, but personally I’ve been wondering about whether it might have been an Iraq veteran – no-one else would have more reason, or more skill. The target was pretty specific, with only property damage; in other words, it was a statement, not an attack. There are some efforts to tie the event with Canada border crossing incident in which a backpack containing a picture of Times Square was left behind. I think that’s pushing it… I would be very surprised if it wasn’t an American, but we’ll see how the investigation goes. Meanwhile, start rolling your eyes now. On Fox News (where else?) the infamous Oliver North was given a forum for his opinion on the matter. It’s all Pelosi’s fault. Uh-huh…

Right-wing misogyny is raising its head evident in the latest attempt to control the sexuality of the American female. Amanda Marcotte’s post on The Great Texas Dildo Wars is a must-read. “So this is completely, 100 percent about babies. No misogyny, control issues or wariness of female sexuality has any part to play in this.”

Don’t miss Colbert video on the AT&Treason immunity deal. It’s deliciously fun.

Last, there is the latest Iraq cost sheet:

U.S. military killed in Iraq: 3,973
Number of U.S. troops wounded in combat since the war began: 29,203
Iraqi Security Force deaths: 7,924
Iraqi civilians killed: Estimates range from 81,632-1,120,000

Internally displaced refugees in Iraq: 3.4 million
Iraqi refugees living abroad: 2.2-2.4 million
Iraqi refugees admitted to the U.S.: 3,222

Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 155,000
Number of “Coalition of the Willing” soldiers in Iraq:
February 2008: 9,895
September 2006: 18,000
November 2004: 25,595

Army soldiers in Iraq who have served two or more tours: 74%
Number of Private Military Contractors in Iraq: 180,000
Number of Private Military Contractors criminally prosecuted by the U.S. government for violence or abuse in Iraq: 1
Number of contract workers killed: 917

What the Iraq war has created, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council: “A training and recruitment ground (for terrorists), and an opportunity for terrorists to enhance their technical skills.”

Effect on al Qaeda of the Iraq War, according to International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Accelerated recruitment”

The bill so far: $526 billion
Cost per day: $275 million
Cost per household: $4,100
The estimated long-term bill: $3 trillion

What $526 billion could have paid for in the U.S. in one year:
Children with health care: 223 million or
Scholarships for university students: 86 million or
Head Start places for children: 72 million

Cost of 22 days in Iraq could safeguard our nation’s ports from attack for ten years.
Cost of 18 hours in Iraq could secure U.S. chemical plants for five years.

Iraqi Unemployment level: 25-40%
*U.S. unemployment during the Great Depression: 25%
70% of the Iraqi population is without access to clean water.
80% is without sanitation.
90% of Iraq’s 180 hospitals lack basic medical and surgical supplies.

79% of Iraqis oppose the presence of Coalition Forces.
78% of Iraqis believe things are going badly in Iraq overall.
64% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.

Rooms in the George W. Bush Museum

Rooms in the George W. Bush Museum

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Thanks to Memere’s email delivery service…. with a couple of slight corrections…

The George W Bush Presidential Museum is now in the planning stages. It was supposed to be a library, but the planners kept resigning. You’ll want to be one of the first to make a contribution to this great man’s legacy.

The Museum will include:

  • The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
  • The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can’t remember anything.
  • The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don’t have to even show up.
  • The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don’t let you in.
  • The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don’t let you out.
  • The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one will be able to find.
  • The Iraq War Room, where they make you go back. After you complete your first tour, they make you return for second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tours.
  • The Dick Cheney Room, in an undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery. If you have the right connections, you might get there, but there are no promises about your location in relation to the gun.
  • The K-Street Project Gift Shop, where you can buy – or just steal – an election.
  • The Airport Men’s Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators in an informal location.
  • Last, but not least, there will be an entire floor devoted to a 7/8 scale model of the President’s ego.

To help you find the President’s accomplishments, the museum will have an electron microscope.

President Bush said that he didn’t care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better than his father’s.

American Unreason and Anti-Intellectualism

American Unreason and Anti-Intellectualism

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When I was an undergraduate, I thought it would be a good idea to get high school teaching certification as a backup. I had an amazing teacher – I hated him at the time – who asked everyone in the room why they wanted to teach. Most of the undergrads said things like “I want to help people.” Sheesh.

When he got to me, I said that I was an intellectual, and that curiosity, analysis and debate were essential for every American. He said something dismissive, and my previously-timid self stopped going to the class.

To save my grade, I finally went in to talk to him. We came to an agreement. I had to read Richard Hofstadter’s classic book “Anti-intellectualism in America,” write a report, and discuss it with him. The book provided a clear clear picture of what I would be facing in this country – pretty much for the rest of my life. Nothing else has been so accurate. I thank my professor with all my heart for forcing me to read it. The first effect it had was that I decided that I would never teach at a high school.

Now there’s a book that continues Hofstader’s insights into the contemporary situation, and I am looking forward to reading it.



Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason argues that “the scales of American history have shifted heavily against the vibrant and varied intellectual life so essential to a functioning democracy.”

Dismayed by the average U.S. citizen’s political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation’s current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society. Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists. Through historical research, Jacoby breaks down popular beliefs that the 1950s were a cultural wasteland and the 1960s were solely a breeding ground for liberals. Though sometimes partial to inflated prose (America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism), Jacoby has assembled an erudite mix of personal anecdotes, cultural history and social commentary to decry America’s retreat into junk thought. – from the Publisher’s Weekly Review

Laura Miller’s review at Salon is a good read in itself.

Although Jacoby scolds culture warriors like Allan Bloom, author of “The Closing of the American Mind,” for both misunderstanding and misrepresenting the upheavals on American campuses during the 1960s and ’70s, she also deplores many of the leftist remedies for those conflicts. Women’s and African-American studies departments, she argues, only “ghettoize” the subject matter they champion, and further Balkanize and provinicalize university students. Not coincidentally, the creation of those departments generated more faculty jobs without pressuring traditional professors to reassess their curricula: “Too many white professors today could not care less whether most white students are exposed to black American writers, and some of the multicultural empire builders are equally willing to sign off on a curriculum for African-American studies majors that does not expose them to Henry James and Edith Wharton.”

There are some quibbles – and it looks like I might agree with them – but this is a definite add to my Amazon wishlist!

“Jacoby has written a brilliant, sad story of the anti-intellectualism and lack of reasonable thought that has put this country in one of the sorriest states in its history.” – Helen Thomas

Liar! Last Ditch Fearmongering for Spying and Telecom Immunity

Liar! Last Ditch Fearmongering for Spying and Telecom Immunity

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Keith Olbermann Countdown Special Comment on FISA: “President Bush Is A Liar And A Fascist”

The lot of you, are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic, to whom “Freedom” is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for, when you want to get away with its opposite.

Thus, Mr. Bush, your panoramic invasion of privacy is dressed up as “protecting America.”Thus, Mr. Bush, your panoramic invasion of privacy is dressed up as “protecting America.”

Thus, Mr. Bush, your indiscriminate domestic spying becomes the focused monitoring, only of “terrorist communications.”

Thus, Mr. Bush, what you and the telecom giants have done, isn’t unlawful, it’s just the kind of perfectly legal, passionately patriotic thing for which you happen to need immunity!

Richard Clarke is on the money, as usual.

That the President was willing to veto this eavesdropping, means there is no threat to the legitimate counter-terror efforts underway.

As Senator Kennedy reminded us in December:

“The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity.

No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he’s willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.”


[youtube width=”400″ height=”330″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEcBjpsP1bU[/youtube]

McCain Sells His Soul

McCain Sells His Soul

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As cynical as I have become about politics, this one surprises even me. I never would have thought that John McCain would vote this way on torture. Disgusting.

Arianna Huffington: John McCain Sells His Soul to the Right: Backs Off on Torture Ban – Politics on The Huffington Post

Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment?

“When I was imprisoned, I took heart from the fact that I knew my North Vietnamese captors would never be treated like I was treated by them. There are much better and more effective ways to get information. You torture someone long enough, he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to know.” And there was this pithy and powerful summation of why torture should never be an option: “It’s not about who they are, it’s about who we are.”

Well, Senator McCain, this vote demonstrates very clearly who you are. How will you sleep at night?

Reject Bush’s Cuts to Public Broadcasting

Reject Bush’s Cuts to Public Broadcasting

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Take Action: Tell Congress: Reject Bush’s Cuts to Public Broadcasting

Once again, President Bush is trying to cripple the public broadcasting system by slashing its funding.

I just signed a petition to Congress to reject these proposed cuts, and I hope you will too.

Mr. Rogers would be proud of you.

In 1969, Richard Nixon attempted to cut PBS funding by 50%. A senate hearing chaired by “hatchetman” Senator John Pastori couldn’t push it through as long as there was someone like Fred Rogers to speak for at least some of the reasons that public broadcasting is important.