Tonight, Jack Benny! This is a great one, featuring Mel Blanc as Professor LeBlanc, Benny's violin teacher, and Ronald and Bonita Colman as his next door neighbors. Turn up the treble, the sound is a little murky. "Jack's violin practice drives Ronnie crazy" (4-14-46).
Update: Call Petrillo!
Update II: Listen for Jack's announcement about the USS Saratoga at the end of the program. Maybe newspapers are the first rough draft of history, but radio was the first medium to cover history live.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sand Creek to be dedicated as national historic site
The Rocky:
A remote southeastern Colorado streambed where a day of horror still echoes will be dedicated Saturday as the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.
On Nov. 29, 1864, more than 700 U.S. Army troops attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho who were sleeping under a U.S. flag on the stream's sandy banks.
By day's end, about 150 were killed - mostly women and children - and the volunteer militia had mutilated the corpses for "trophies" that were later paraded on Denver's streets.
Media manipulation exposed!
During the Emergencia! Foro! Nacional! Saturday, organizer Ken Bonetti told me there were no (accredited) media people covering the event (though I'm sure I saw one; she was right in front of me with her laptop running) because of the information blackout imposed by the usual corporate-governmental powers-that-be (I'm paraphrasing, of course).
Naturally I scoffed (ha-ha!) at Bonetti's charge. Now I'm not so sure. None of the three dailies (the Rocky, Post and Boulder Daily Camera) has said a word about the forum. And remember how hopefully they turned out for the Churchill rally?
No, I think there was a blackout. The F!E!N! (and, of course, Churchillpalooza as a whole) was a disaster of such monumental (or rather, minuscule) proportions, was so unspinnable as anything but, that the papers feared the wrath of the Defend Critical Thinking crowd and the CU professoriate (to commit a Sowell-ecism) if they printed the truth. Best alternative? Say nothing!
Update: And now I shall take artwork from Peter Kirstein's blog--and provide no link! Bwah--I'm so tired:
Eet ees not the first time zee Dronkoobloge has done thees.
(credit: drawing of revolutionary students in sweatervests via radical doofus Peter Kirstein)
Update: No idea why pictures are disappearing again. Out, damn'd Blogspot! out, I say!
Update II: Here's what Ernest Hopf (whose drawing Kirstein borrows without acknowledgement) was actually drawing about. Fascinating.
Naturally I scoffed (ha-ha!) at Bonetti's charge. Now I'm not so sure. None of the three dailies (the Rocky, Post and Boulder Daily Camera) has said a word about the forum. And remember how hopefully they turned out for the Churchill rally?
No, I think there was a blackout. The F!E!N! (and, of course, Churchillpalooza as a whole) was a disaster of such monumental (or rather, minuscule) proportions, was so unspinnable as anything but, that the papers feared the wrath of the Defend Critical Thinking crowd and the CU professoriate (to commit a Sowell-ecism) if they printed the truth. Best alternative? Say nothing!
Update: And now I shall take artwork from Peter Kirstein's blog--and provide no link! Bwah--I'm so tired:
(credit: drawing of revolutionary students in sweatervests via radical doofus Peter Kirstein)
Update: No idea why pictures are disappearing again. Out, damn'd Blogspot! out, I say!
Update II: Here's what Ernest Hopf (whose drawing Kirstein borrows without acknowledgement) was actually drawing about. Fascinating.
Progressives' laments
FrontpageMag runs the 16 messages of solidarity for Ward Churchill read at the Forum! Emergency! National! almost without comment (besides the headline "The worst of the worst"), and, as PB (who spotted it) notes, Peter Kirstein is unhappy!! (two exclamation points) that they took the letters from his site without linking to him.
Update: I thought Frontpage might have finally let "Comanche Patriot" David Yeagley go after he was exposed repeatedly as a racist of the most gutterworthy sort. But he has a piece up in April, so, guess not. Ironically, it's on the Cherokee Nation's recent decitizenizing of 2800 descendants of blacks who were held as slaves by the Cherokee. No linkie.
Update: I thought Frontpage might have finally let "Comanche Patriot" David Yeagley go after he was exposed repeatedly as a racist of the most gutterworthy sort. But he has a piece up in April, so, guess not. Ironically, it's on the Cherokee Nation's recent decitizenizing of 2800 descendants of blacks who were held as slaves by the Cherokee. No linkie.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
I need a break
Don't know how I missed it, but Revolution, "the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA," weighed in on the Churchill case last week:
Update II: Over at Pirate Ballerina, National! Emergency! Forum! survivor Laurie gives an excellent account in comments of the afternoon portion of the N!E!F! Quote (among several good ones):
Update: Our Leader is Chairman Avakian!The decision by the appeals committee is unacceptable! It gives credence to the whole campaign to drag Churchill's name through the mud, by saying there is something wrong with his scholarship deserving of disciplinary measures.
Update II: Over at Pirate Ballerina, National! Emergency! Forum! survivor Laurie gives an excellent account in comments of the afternoon portion of the N!E!F! Quote (among several good ones):
Most [forum speakers and attendees] seem to believe they stand for academic freedom. Sure, there were some young and stupid people (I was young and stupid back in the stone age, so I felt some empathy). It seemed clear that this battle was soundly lost and I sensed sadness. The snake oil salesman had robbed them of their loyalty to save his own sorry ass.Laurie seems way more sympathetic to the N!E!F!ers than I am. You got to want to be conned to let somebody like Churchill con you.
Wow
Rockies rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki pulled off an unassisted triple play in the team's 9-7 win today over the Braves. Man, I knew they were rare, but it was only the 12th in major league history (regular season):
Update: ESPN has it up. The play looks almost routine. Boink, boink, boink, as baseball experts say.
Tulowitzki pulled off one of the baseball's rarest plays in the seventh inning. With Kelly Johnson on second and Edgar Renteria on first, Chipper Jones smoked a line drive at Tulowitzki. He snared it, stepped on second to double up Johnson, then tagged Renteria for the third out.Looking for video.
Update: ESPN has it up. The play looks almost routine. Boink, boink, boink, as baseball experts say.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Turned, Part 2: The Speakers
First up was Tom Mayer with his standard overview, for which they gave him five minutes and he took at least 15. Hack. He was one of those who expressed disappointment with the turnout, and criticized CU students for not being more hep to the jive. [Update: He did depart from his usual spiel long enough to dismiss the plagiarism charges, as well, as "deeply flawed." I'm not sure, though, if it was him or someone else who brought up the Dam the Dams plagiarism, and excused it using the "we worked so closely together" argument, aka, "we were a collective and nobody owned anything, especially copyright."]
Next, God help us, were the "youth":
Aaron Smith, who had a class with Churchill in 2005, said nothing interesting: "He doesn't brainwash us! He's a great professor. If you had the facts he would agree with you," etc. Was he the guy who used the phrase "one of our most distinguished professors"? He has Ace Ventura hair.
Dave Staub, the student-Churchill gink-security guard who told El Presidente and me to quit recording at the colloquium. He didn't have much either, except at the end when he yelled something like: "And for all you Ballerinas out there, fuck you, and I don't care what you think!" [Update: this drew applause.] (I yelled, "The Drunkablog!")
And finally, Ann-erika White Bird, who, as a "media liaison" at the colloquium, also told us to quit recording. Remarkable how that works. She endorsed Staub's remark, also referring sneeringly to "Ballerinas." (I yelled, "The Drunkablog!" again).
You know what they were doing, of course: insinuating that Jim Paine and every male who reads his blog is gay (NTTAWWT). How PC.
White Bird verged on being interesting, however, when she mentioned being Ward's "legal assistant" during his hearing before the Privilege & Tenure Committee. But all she said about it was that Ward asked for an extension and was cruelly denied. She also said "June, or July, I forget which, June," for the school's decision on Churchill. We knew that.
Oooh! Oooh! I forgot to say! Not long after I first sat down Ben Whitmer came over (I yelled out, "Benny Boy! How's it going!") and asked if I was me. I hesitated, surprised he wasn't sure who I was, then said yes. He said, "I want to shake your hand," or something along those lines, and stuck said appendage out. Naturally I replied: "I don't want to shake your hand," and he turned and walked away, muttering something about "not meaning to scare me."
So that will be the line. I was sweating in my Keds at his approach, too afraid even to shake his hand.
Finally the parade of academics began. First up was CU's own Elisa Facio, who knew all the words ("empire"; "genocide"; "death squads"; "Koo-bah,"), but could barely get them out. Disturbing.
Next was our own Dean Saitta, professor of anthro at the University of Denver and former erratic commenter on the Ballerina's blog. Today he talked of consilience and lonely silos of knowledge and the value of intellectual "outliers" like Ward and all that there, intellectualizing like crazy. He's good at that. He's also a nice guy (we chatted for about 8.5 seconds after he spoke) but, as PB readers know, negligently naive about Ward and his pals.
Last before lunch was Chris Mato Nunpa, "assoc. prof of Dakota and Indigenous Nations Studies, Southwest Minnesota State Univ." (as the flyer says). All I remember about him was his claim that knowledge of Thomas Jefferson's slaveowning is routinely suppressed by historians, and his mention of Jefferson's successor as president: "Who was it? Buchanan?" Be interesting to see if that stays in the DVD.
(more tomorrow, you lucky Drunkablog readers!)
Update: PB asks:
Update III: El Presidente, who definitely would know, says in comments that Muenzinger Auditorium holds 400 people.
Next, God help us, were the "youth":
Aaron Smith, who had a class with Churchill in 2005, said nothing interesting: "He doesn't brainwash us! He's a great professor. If you had the facts he would agree with you," etc. Was he the guy who used the phrase "one of our most distinguished professors"? He has Ace Ventura hair.
Dave Staub, the student-Churchill gink-security guard who told El Presidente and me to quit recording at the colloquium. He didn't have much either, except at the end when he yelled something like: "And for all you Ballerinas out there, fuck you, and I don't care what you think!" [Update: this drew applause.] (I yelled, "The Drunkablog!")
And finally, Ann-erika White Bird, who, as a "media liaison" at the colloquium, also told us to quit recording. Remarkable how that works. She endorsed Staub's remark, also referring sneeringly to "Ballerinas." (I yelled, "The Drunkablog!" again).
You know what they were doing, of course: insinuating that Jim Paine and every male who reads his blog is gay (NTTAWWT). How PC.
White Bird verged on being interesting, however, when she mentioned being Ward's "legal assistant" during his hearing before the Privilege & Tenure Committee. But all she said about it was that Ward asked for an extension and was cruelly denied. She also said "June, or July, I forget which, June," for the school's decision on Churchill. We knew that.
Oooh! Oooh! I forgot to say! Not long after I first sat down Ben Whitmer came over (I yelled out, "Benny Boy! How's it going!") and asked if I was me. I hesitated, surprised he wasn't sure who I was, then said yes. He said, "I want to shake your hand," or something along those lines, and stuck said appendage out. Naturally I replied: "I don't want to shake your hand," and he turned and walked away, muttering something about "not meaning to scare me."
So that will be the line. I was sweating in my Keds at his approach, too afraid even to shake his hand.
Finally the parade of academics began. First up was CU's own Elisa Facio, who knew all the words ("empire"; "genocide"; "death squads"; "Koo-bah,"), but could barely get them out. Disturbing.
Next was our own Dean Saitta, professor of anthro at the University of Denver and former erratic commenter on the Ballerina's blog. Today he talked of consilience and lonely silos of knowledge and the value of intellectual "outliers" like Ward and all that there, intellectualizing like crazy. He's good at that. He's also a nice guy (we chatted for about 8.5 seconds after he spoke) but, as PB readers know, negligently naive about Ward and his pals.
Last before lunch was Chris Mato Nunpa, "assoc. prof of Dakota and Indigenous Nations Studies, Southwest Minnesota State Univ." (as the flyer says). All I remember about him was his claim that knowledge of Thomas Jefferson's slaveowning is routinely suppressed by historians, and his mention of Jefferson's successor as president: "Who was it? Buchanan?" Be interesting to see if that stays in the DVD.
(more tomorrow, you lucky Drunkablog readers!)
Update: PB asks:
Update II: Ben Whitmer has posted his take on the event. I won't link to it, not because it's mostly (and very weirdly) about me but because I almost never link to Try-Works. Go read it, though, and remind yourself as you do that this man teaches college students.Do you have WCBS [Ward Churchill By Proxy Syndrome]? Check yourself for these Five Early Warning Signs:
1. Extreme gullibility.
2. Advanced degree(s) is any field of study for which a useful purpose has yet to be discovered (examples: Literature, Ethnic Studies, pre-Education, Sociology).
3. Rich fantasy life wherein everything Ward Churchill says is universally accepted as prima fasciae evidence of its veracity.
4. Often find yourself supporting your arguments with "Ward says so, and Chomsky agrees."
5. Own two copies of the "Pacifism As Pathology" CD—one for home, one for the Prius.
Update III: El Presidente, who definitely would know, says in comments that Muenzinger Auditorium holds 400 people.
Turned
Hello, my relatives. I bring you greetings from the elders of my people, the Self-satisfied Band of Radical Intellectuals. My colonial name is John G. Martin, but my indigenous name is Drunkablog.
Back from the Forum! National! Emergency! And have I got the "dish"!
First, the fine folks of Students and Faculty for "True" Academic Freedom did indeed prohibit recording except by "credentialed media" (of which there might have been one or two).
This time, however, they actually mentioned the prohibition in their flyer, which, of course, they've failed to do a couple of times in the past. Unfortunately, the flyer was put together only last night (or maybe even this morning--it's still not up on the internets that I can find. This one came off a door in the building):
The veeerrrrrrrry last line of the teeny-tiny text at the bottom reads (in italics): "*Recording Policy: Recording and photography by credentialed media and event staff. Audio and video recordings of the event will be available at a later date."
Not having read this (it was dim in the auditorium and I'd been filming and taking pictures freely until the announcement) I went over and remonstrated with Bonetti. We went out in the hall and he pointed out the itty-bitty type and, with another organizer there, Daniel Kim, repeated that they wanted me not to record. Fine. I quit arguing about it, even though (as I believe) they're still in violation of CU regulations.
But I asked Kim why they put the tiny-type on THIS flyer in (they think) observance of CU rules, but not on the flyers for the colloquium or the teach-in? Wasn't that an acknowledgement of wrongdoing? He sputtered and said, "I don't have to answer your questions!"
He had me there. I went back to my seat.
Videographer Peter Fotopoulos, whom I'd arranged to meet at the forum (he actually volunteered to be there), wisely took off when he learned the score. It was an incredibly beautiful day in Colorado.
And I'm an idiot. N!E!F!
Glad you asked! Well sir, there were never more than 45 souls, including speakers and "security." This, remember, was the crowning event of Churchillpalooza, and the organizers clearly expected many more, because they'd reserved Muenzinger Auditorium, which holds about 300. If further evidence were needed, several speakers mentioned how disappointed they were (very) at the turnout for both the N!E!F! and the walkout yesterday.
This is what it looked like in the auditorium at close to 10:30, a half hour after the announced start time:
Sorry, I was using a borrowed camera.
A view the other way:
How embarrassing.
And, delightful to relate, one of the attendees (after eating the sweet rolls and drinking the milk and coffee provided by the N!E!F!) slept through the whole morning session. He was right behind me, but didn't snore at all. (He was a "non-disruptive" sleeper.)
End part 1 of "Turned."
Update: Yes, part 1. If you have more constructive things to do (and who doesn't?), I urge you to go do them. Don't worry about me. Save yourself.
Update: Forgot to say, I also asked Bonetti why Churchill's supporters needed so much control over the information they allegedly wanted to get out there. He disagreed with the word "control," and told me how the corporate media were twisting and/or suppressing the real story and etc. Bill Moyers country. Academics like Bonetti can't understand why nobody but other academics agrees with them, so they believe that a) people are dumb; and 2) the media trains all the oafs to be clueless pig American consumers who don't care if their government pollutes and kills the whole world as long as they can keep their microwave ovens. (They always use microwave ovens as the height of bourgeois wastefulness and uselessness. Straight out of the 70s.)
Update: Sorry, Ken Bonetti. (I was saying his last name was Bonelli, not Bonetti. Fixed now.)
Back from the Forum! National! Emergency! And have I got the "dish"!
First, the fine folks of Students and Faculty for "True" Academic Freedom did indeed prohibit recording except by "credentialed media" (of which there might have been one or two).
This time, however, they actually mentioned the prohibition in their flyer, which, of course, they've failed to do a couple of times in the past. Unfortunately, the flyer was put together only last night (or maybe even this morning--it's still not up on the internets that I can find. This one came off a door in the building):
The veeerrrrrrrry last line of the teeny-tiny text at the bottom reads (in italics): "*Recording Policy: Recording and photography by credentialed media and event staff. Audio and video recordings of the event will be available at a later date."
Not having read this (it was dim in the auditorium and I'd been filming and taking pictures freely until the announcement) I went over and remonstrated with Bonetti. We went out in the hall and he pointed out the itty-bitty type and, with another organizer there, Daniel Kim, repeated that they wanted me not to record. Fine. I quit arguing about it, even though (as I believe) they're still in violation of CU regulations.
But I asked Kim why they put the tiny-type on THIS flyer in (they think) observance of CU rules, but not on the flyers for the colloquium or the teach-in? Wasn't that an acknowledgement of wrongdoing? He sputtered and said, "I don't have to answer your questions!"
He had me there. I went back to my seat.
Videographer Peter Fotopoulos, whom I'd arranged to meet at the forum (he actually volunteered to be there), wisely took off when he learned the score. It was an incredibly beautiful day in Colorado.
And I'm an idiot. N!E!F!
N!E!F!
Many people will want first to ask, Hey, you skinny, balding, muscle-shirt wearing piece of trailer trash, how many people attended this jamboree, anyhoo?Glad you asked! Well sir, there were never more than 45 souls, including speakers and "security." This, remember, was the crowning event of Churchillpalooza, and the organizers clearly expected many more, because they'd reserved Muenzinger Auditorium, which holds about 300. If further evidence were needed, several speakers mentioned how disappointed they were (very) at the turnout for both the N!E!F! and the walkout yesterday.
This is what it looked like in the auditorium at close to 10:30, a half hour after the announced start time:
Sorry, I was using a borrowed camera.
A view the other way:
How embarrassing.
And, delightful to relate, one of the attendees (after eating the sweet rolls and drinking the milk and coffee provided by the N!E!F!) slept through the whole morning session. He was right behind me, but didn't snore at all. (He was a "non-disruptive" sleeper.)
End part 1 of "Turned."
Update: Yes, part 1. If you have more constructive things to do (and who doesn't?), I urge you to go do them. Don't worry about me. Save yourself.
Update: Forgot to say, I also asked Bonetti why Churchill's supporters needed so much control over the information they allegedly wanted to get out there. He disagreed with the word "control," and told me how the corporate media were twisting and/or suppressing the real story and etc. Bill Moyers country. Academics like Bonetti can't understand why nobody but other academics agrees with them, so they believe that a) people are dumb; and 2) the media trains all the oafs to be clueless pig American consumers who don't care if their government pollutes and kills the whole world as long as they can keep their microwave ovens. (They always use microwave ovens as the height of bourgeois wastefulness and uselessness. Straight out of the 70s.)
Update: Sorry, Ken Bonetti. (I was saying his last name was Bonelli, not Bonetti. Fixed now.)
Off!
To the National! Emergency! Forum! to support Ward Churchill!
Hope I can find it. Aw, no problem. I'll just follow the crowds.
Hope I can find it. Aw, no problem. I'll just follow the crowds.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Walk this way
Thought I'd see how the "nationwide walkout in support of Ward Churchill" went today at the epicenter of Churchillian activism, the University of Colorado. Picture it: almost high noon, and there I am, wanderin' around campus in the only way a man knows how--aimlessly. Soon though, I spot a likely walking-out point, and sure enough:
Two minutes before noon.
Two minutes after.
It was amazing.
Not quite noon: Supersoaker fun!
Just after noon: "The All-Colorado Union of Poor College Students proclaims its solidarity with Ward Churchill! Long live critical thinking! Long live true academic freedom!"
Two minutes before: gentle artistic bronze person.
Two minutes after: Lenin.
This guy? Don't think so. (Not walking.)
Maybe this girl? Wait, is that McDonald's she's carrying? Sorry, but nobody does a walkout carrying a bag of quarter-pounders.
Then I spotted these freaks. They had to be steppin' out for Ward:
Fanatical cadres of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. Or maybe a high school band visiting the big college. Both are known to wear matching red sweatervests (source: FBI files).
But let's put a good spin on this. Maybe nobody walked out today because they still weren't quite recovered from the last protest:
The sidewalk remembers.
Two minutes before noon.
Two minutes after.
It was amazing.
Not quite noon: Supersoaker fun!
Just after noon: "The All-Colorado Union of Poor College Students proclaims its solidarity with Ward Churchill! Long live critical thinking! Long live true academic freedom!"
Two minutes before: gentle artistic bronze person.
Two minutes after: Lenin.
But seriously
Truth is, in 40 or so minutes of plodding around I didn't see anybody I could tell was a walker-outer for Ward.
This guy? Don't think so. (Not walking.)
Maybe this girl? Wait, is that McDonald's she's carrying? Sorry, but nobody does a walkout carrying a bag of quarter-pounders.
Then I spotted these freaks. They had to be steppin' out for Ward:
Fanatical cadres of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. Or maybe a high school band visiting the big college. Both are known to wear matching red sweatervests (source: FBI files).
But let's put a good spin on this. Maybe nobody walked out today because they still weren't quite recovered from the last protest:
The sidewalk remembers.
Weird Bird Friday
The Bird Who Thought He was a Camera . . . Or, What a Poor Guy has to do to Get a Girl
Courtesy, once again, of David Attenborough and, once again, the weird birds of Australia.
--Drunkawife
Courtesy, once again, of David Attenborough and, once again, the weird birds of Australia.
--Drunkawife
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Thursday Night at the Radio!
Anybody who likes their dialogue hard-boiled is going to love Pat Novak: For Hire. This is Jack Webb years before he created Dragnet, and he's like the mutant child of Raymond Chandler and the Marx Brothers. Novak and Hellmann, his cop arch-enemy, are standing over a body:
Hellmann: You know how I feel--
Novak: Yeah, you feel flabby to anybody else, but to yourself I suppose you feel good.
This is the first show, "Dixie Gillian" (11-24-46).
Update: Great commercials, too. Slippers for the little nipper!
Hellmann: You know how I feel--
Novak: Yeah, you feel flabby to anybody else, but to yourself I suppose you feel good.
This is the first show, "Dixie Gillian" (11-24-46).
Update: Great commercials, too. Slippers for the little nipper!
The big time
The Silver & Gold Record notes the nine professors' attack on the Churchill report--and mentions an incident a couple of weeks ago:
In any case, a small light is shone on a dethspicable act of censorship. Wonder if the National! Emergency! Forum! organizers will be dumb enough to try the same stunt this weekend? According to CU regs (para. V), since it's a public meeting and they didn't announce any conditions on recording "at the time of scheduling" (just as with the "colloquium"), they can't prohibit anyone from doing so. We'll see.
Meanwhile over at the Try-Works, Churchill doppelganger "Charley Arthur" replies to my comment, "Public meeting, no flyer, and no announced prohibition against recording. Good deal," with this:
Update: "'Bloggers,'" in quotes, and capitalized. (Sub-up: but he did say we "authored" the things, so I guess we'll call it even. Look ma, I'm a author!)
Update II: Somehow I have trouble believing Cheyfitz himself requested that recording be prohibited at the colloquium. Why would he? He'd been yacking all over the place before the event. What made this occasion different? Could Tom Mayer have been forced into a little ad lib lying? A professor? Perish the thought.
Sheet. Almost got it right, except that I didn't say the videographer at the teach-in, Peter Fotopoulos, was "ejected"--mainly because he wasn't. Ben Whitmer just had the cops make him shut down his camera. The S & G R reporter said he'd clarify this in next week's issue. Oh, and my "fascists" comment was also directed at the audience, not just the organizers (see you all Saturday!).In related news, two "Bloggers" who author anti-Churchill Web sites say they were ejected from an April 12 speech by Cheyfitz because they were recording the event. According to Lt. Brad Wiesley of the UCB police, officers were called to the public meeting in the Duane Physics Building after event organizers repeatedly asked the two individuals to stop recording. Organizer Tom Mayer of sociology told S&GR that at Cheyfitz's request, those allowed to record the event were only credentialed media and those who had made arrangements beforehand. Wiesley said officers asked the two individuals to step out into the hallway to discuss the matter, and the two volunteered to leave.
But John Martin, who writes thedrunkablog. blogspot.com, and an individual who writes slapstickpolitics. blogspot.com and identified himself only as "El Presidente" and a 2001 UCB alum, say the regulations on recording were never announced and that the two did not leave the event voluntarily. Martin told S&GR that his reported comment about "fascists" was directed at event organizers, not the officers, and that another videographer was ejected from a recent "teach-in" organized by Churchill backers.
In any case, a small light is shone on a dethspicable act of censorship. Wonder if the National! Emergency! Forum! organizers will be dumb enough to try the same stunt this weekend? According to CU regs (para. V), since it's a public meeting and they didn't announce any conditions on recording "at the time of scheduling" (just as with the "colloquium"), they can't prohibit anyone from doing so. We'll see.
Meanwhile over at the Try-Works, Churchill doppelganger "Charley Arthur" replies to my comment, "Public meeting, no flyer, and no announced prohibition against recording. Good deal," with this:
Ain’t no announced prohibition against grabbing you by the wiggly part of that scrawny little chicken neck of yours and leadin’ you out of the room either, is there?Um, yes, Charley, I'm afraid there is. Charley also says he's a regular on Ward Churchill's "security detail," which would explain a lot.
Update: "'Bloggers,'" in quotes, and capitalized. (Sub-up: but he did say we "authored" the things, so I guess we'll call it even. Look ma, I'm a author!)
Update II: Somehow I have trouble believing Cheyfitz himself requested that recording be prohibited at the colloquium. Why would he? He'd been yacking all over the place before the event. What made this occasion different? Could Tom Mayer have been forced into a little ad lib lying? A professor? Perish the thought.
Editor makes sense
The Rocky's Vince Carroll on the perfessers of doom and their late defense of Ward Churchill:
A last-ditch attempt to turn the tables? Of course, and from professors who in at least some cases share Churchill’s political outlook. But fear not: Even if the committee’s report were as rotten as this gaggle of Churchill defenders contends, it would still provide more than enough basis for the professor’s eventual, much-delayed firing. Indeed, the committee’s conclusion that Churchill is a serial plagiarist is not even challenged. Apparently that is now conceded by all sides.(via PB)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
MIMeographs
You have to be of a certain age to remember mimeograph machines, don't you? Oh well. The Maoist Internationalist Movement has been cutting up again, so let's not diddle-dawdle. First up, a "think piece": "White devils: 200 exonerations prove white evil":
MIM reviews some student publications in its Student Writing Roundup, including the Barnard Bulletin, which MIM says can be found daintily "chewing on many subjects" and "playing with MIM-type issues."
On the other hand, Vassar's The Miscellany News is a candidate for dekulakization:
Here's a page I hadn't noticed before--the Maoist Internationalist Movement's take (sorry, "line") on clothing:
The 200th exoneration by DNA evidence freed a Black man convicted of raping a white womyn. He had been out on parole awaiting his name to be cleared, when a judge cleared it April 23.Let's cut to the cheese:
People who want to do something about rape--emotional cheerleading for the court system is not productive. Putting police booths on streets corners does not work. Much pseudo-feminism goes into a fascist or monarchist direction appropriate for pre-1789 feudal Europe. Call for the abolition of pornography; make consent forms mandatory for all sex; even taking up Muslim or Eastern customs on a womyn's "place" (meaning if she shows up in certain places sex is assumed and unthinkable in other places)--these would be less extreme measures than our pseudo-feminist policies and injustice system now, despite the disruption to culture they would involve. Currently, some men go to prison so that other people can enjoy sex everywhere anytime with all the pornography and spontaneity with no forms to fill out [glavin!--ed.].This is not a joke. Well, yes it is. But MIM has long advocated consent forms for sex. The bureaucracy. The waiting in line. The graft. The shortages. Socialist paradise.
MIM reviews some student publications in its Student Writing Roundup, including the Barnard Bulletin, which MIM says can be found daintily "chewing on many subjects" and "playing with MIM-type issues."
On the other hand, Vassar's The Miscellany News is a candidate for dekulakization:
MIM has reported before that one is more likely to find an orgy advertised for a college building [huh?] than a serious revolutionary feminist discussion. Vassar College writers continue MIM's disappointment. One writer sees Nancy Pelosi as a victory. Another sees knocking down Bush administration "abstinence" officials as another feminist cause. "Truth is, feminists are making serious headway in challenging the blind ideology of abstinence--perhaps more so than at any other time during the Bush presidency. So, for the record, this is a perfectly legitimate reason to kick back and finally celebrate our victories," says [Miscellany News'] Carolyn Bradley. . . .Purge! Purge! Purge!
Here's a page I hadn't noticed before--the Maoist Internationalist Movement's take (sorry, "line") on clothing:
In the Socialist dawn, nobody will have potentially no new clothes at all.VOTE 2.a. A line on clothing styles and the bases of attraction
Under the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations, production of clothing should restrict the style of clothing.
If there is any economic difficulty in the world after the downfall of u.$. imperialism, the restriction of clothing may be from sheer economic necessity in an economy wrecked by global capitalist militarism. It goes without saying MIM is not going to favor having some people have mini-skirts and suits while others have potentially no new clothes at all.
You are not going to believe their solution to the "ho" question. It's brilliant, and totally original:It is unmistakable that wimmin spend more time on makeup and clothing than men and this is the pattern of facts that separates a Marxist approach from a Liberal one. MIM does not believe the difference in time spent by wimmin on appearance stems from some female gene for self-decoration. It may appear that way to people only because class society has existed so long and because wimmin have sold their whole outlook to men for so long with varying degrees of coercion over history.
In other words, the fascination with cosmetics and putting together clothing outfits stems from inequality and the difference in men's efforts at appearance and wimmin's is an important inequality in itself. . . .The problem with self-decoration is time and money spent. It is not impossible to wear makeup and have accomplishments, only less likely. We can also state the converse of this when we say that men want wimmin who put in the effort on their looks, because of holdovers of class society that are about to disappear. . . . On average, the pattern was for men to focus on their class advancement while wimmin can focus on life as private entertainers. This ancient pattern of behavior is the 'ho' question.
The simplest means of bringing about equality is the Mao suit. When everyone wears the same grey or blue suit, there is no time wasted and gender equality improves greatly. Instead of one style and two colors, perhaps wealthy socialist society can afford 20 styles and 10 colors, but the point is that individual distinction should disappear with an eye to evening out the disparity between men and wimmin. This approach will also eliminate the oppression of children where they have school uniforms and many adults have no formal uniforms. (All people have uniforms produced by the mega-corporations of imperialism.)
Conclusion: these people are nuts (I'm lookin' at you, Security Minister!).
Update: Never forget what our hero once said: "[T]he Maoist International Movement have used their weekly papers to advance some of the best analysis of my case and its implications yet published."
No!
Please! Not the walkout!
(via the cartoon scholars at the still-permalink-free Ward Churchill Solidarity Network)
Update: Again, would somebody mind telling me where the Emergency! National! Forum! (formerly the National! Emergency! Forum!) is to take place on Saturday?
Now there's a rallying cry: Stand up, come together, and--send out press releases. Convenient and efficient time to have a walkout, though, noon, since lots of people will already be doing so.Attention All Students and Faculty Nationwide
As some of you may know, the investigation and firing decision of University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill is coming to a close. Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom at CU (a group of committed people supporting dissent and
critical thinking as well as Academic Freedom) need YOUR help. We are hosting an Emergency National Forum this Saturday, April 28th, 2007 to discuss Ward’s case and its implications for students and faculty here at Boulder, its impact on indigenous Studies, and how it can be used to critique imperialism. We are reaching out to build an action network to stop the firing of Ward. If anyone can make it to Boulder, Colorado, we can put up 10 people in billets but beyond that we can tell you how to find cheap lodging in Boulder. If you cannot make it we need your support on Friday, April 27th. We are planning a national walk-out for students at noon to show that we will not be silenced and that we demand fair and equal respect for all professors. I urge you all to stand up, come together and send out press releases before the walk-out. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Kim Collins at kim4wardchurchill@yahoo.com or at 719-321-4343.
(via the cartoon scholars at the still-permalink-free Ward Churchill Solidarity Network)
Update: Again, would somebody mind telling me where the Emergency! National! Forum! (formerly the National! Emergency! Forum!) is to take place on Saturday?
Ouch
Missed this when it came out earlier this month. Profits plunge at DNA:
The Denver Newspaper Agency, which operates the business functions of The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, recorded declines in revenue and net income in 2006.Now the Post is offering buyouts to "around 90" of its 268 newsroom employees. Look out below.
A March 30 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that from 2005 to 2006, the DNA reported a 60.8 percent drop in net income and a 5.3 percent decline in operating revenue.
Net income fell from $47.2 million in 2005 to $18.5 million in 2006. During the same period, revenue dropped from $431.7 million to $409 million. Net income is profit, and operating revenue is made up of advertising and circulation sales. . . .
The DNA and The Post have cut staff in the past year, and the News said last month it aimed to trim 9 percent of its newsroom with voluntary buyouts.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tuesday Night at the Radio!
Two (15-minute) Vic and Sades: "Robert and Slobert Call Long Distance" (1/23/43) and "The Victor R. Gook Fontanelle" (10/11/43).
Wet
It's rained and snowed a couple inches over the last 12 hours, and still snowing wetly (though not sticking). It's beautiful. I blame Gerbil Warming.
Update: Just because I'm enjoying it doesn't mean everybody is.
Update: Just because I'm enjoying it doesn't mean everybody is.
More Sandhill Cranes
Been meaning to post a few pics the D-a-W got of cranes along the Platte outside Kearney ("Karney") Nebraska a few weeks ago:
Yupdate: The D-a-W also had a Weird Bird Friday on Sandhill Cranes not too long ago, with beautiful pics by others.
Yupdate: The D-a-W also had a Weird Bird Friday on Sandhill Cranes not too long ago, with beautiful pics by others.
Bogosity ramified
Saying it is full of errors and omissions, nine academics, including seven CU professors, have demanded retraction of the school's report on Ward Churchill's research misconduct and threatened charges against the investigative committee that issued the report, according to the Denver Post.
The Daily Camera has the profs' specific allegations, but as PB (from whom I got the story) points out, they charge for their stories after a while, so he has a copy.
Here's where one would normally say, "I question the timing," but there's no question at all: that the profs didn't make these charges at any point in the investigative process where, if true, they might have affected the outcome, betrays their knowledge of the charges' lack of substance. This is just another delaying and obfuscatory tactic on the part of Churchill's brains trust (aka the Dune Buggy Attack Battalion).
Update: A commenter at the Post's story links to a Frontpage piece on CU Prof Tom Mayer I hadn't seen before, but the link is messed up, so here it is. Nothing new for connoisseurs, probably, but informative.
Update II: Where the hell is the flyer announcing the time and place of the Churchillian National Emergency Forum supposedly "happening" at CU on Saturday? I'm a busy professional and need to plan my day.
Update III: The Rocky doesn't seem to have the story, so at least I beat them. They do, however, have the complaint filed against the randy judge and the young prosecutor.
Update IV: The Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors sticks its tiny boot in (pdf):
Update V: The AAUP has been both clueless and partisan on the Churchill case at every level.
Update VI: Commenters at PB are having fun pointing out that one of the authors the profs cite as backing up Churchill's "blood quantum" argument (too late to explain) relies solely on an article Churchill ghostwrote for his then-wife. They're also noting certain, er, similarities of language among various scholars as well.
The Daily Camera has the profs' specific allegations, but as PB (from whom I got the story) points out, they charge for their stories after a while, so he has a copy.
Here's where one would normally say, "I question the timing," but there's no question at all: that the profs didn't make these charges at any point in the investigative process where, if true, they might have affected the outcome, betrays their knowledge of the charges' lack of substance. This is just another delaying and obfuscatory tactic on the part of Churchill's brains trust (aka the Dune Buggy Attack Battalion).
Update: A commenter at the Post's story links to a Frontpage piece on CU Prof Tom Mayer I hadn't seen before, but the link is messed up, so here it is. Nothing new for connoisseurs, probably, but informative.
Update II: Where the hell is the flyer announcing the time and place of the Churchillian National Emergency Forum supposedly "happening" at CU on Saturday? I'm a busy professional and need to plan my day.
Update III: The Rocky doesn't seem to have the story, so at least I beat them. They do, however, have the complaint filed against the randy judge and the young prosecutor.
Update IV: The Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors sticks its tiny boot in (pdf):
In light of [today's charges by the professors] we believe that the request that the Report be rescinded . . . should be taken seriously. As outlined in the faculty letter, the flaws in the Report are so serious that no legitimate action can be taken on the basis of the information contained therein.(via the humorists at the Ward Churchill Solidarity Network)
If the Report is not rescinded, it is incumbent upon the University of Colorado to ensure that the Cheyfitz evidence is thoroughly examined for its validity and its mpact on the original Report. The integrity of scholarly practice and the procedures
governing reviews, due process, academic freedom and faculty governance at CU require that this examination be done by an independent, qualified, and unbiased panel, not by the investigating committee that made the apparent mistakes in the first place. Further, no action should be taken on the basis of the Report until this examination is completed.
Update V: The AAUP has been both clueless and partisan on the Churchill case at every level.
Update VI: Commenters at PB are having fun pointing out that one of the authors the profs cite as backing up Churchill's "blood quantum" argument (too late to explain) relies solely on an article Churchill ghostwrote for his then-wife. They're also noting certain, er, similarities of language among various scholars as well.
Monday, April 23, 2007
PSAs
A Transportation Security Administration effort to screen air travelers for suspicious behavior is on track to come to Denver International Airport this year, subjecting passengers to observation and small talk from agents looking for signs of deception.Small talk? Please, anything but that!
A Douglas County judge and a prosecutor who worked in the same courtroom could be disbarred as a result of an affair that included more than one rendezvous in the judge’s chambers and in the woman’s showers in court.No reason to include that one (besides its inherent fascination) except the judge's name: Grafton M. Biddle. Grafton! Your nanny requires spanking!
Grafton M. Biddle, 57, resigned his position as judge on Dec. 18, after rumors began circulating that he was having a romantic relationship with Laurie A. Steinman, 29.
Okay, maybe that's not true. Still, they're fairly disgusting.
The Drunkablog manse is at almost exactly 5,500 feet, but surely they can't mean it's going to snow only at that altitude? Can they? Maybe those computer models work better than I thought.A powerful storm is heading into Colorado tonight, with deep accumulations of snow predicted for the higher areas. The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for Denver, Adams and Arapahoe Counties until 9 p.m. tonight.
The metro area, around 5,500 feet altitude, can expect a mixture of rain and snow late tonight and into Tuesday, with snow accumulations of anywhere from 1 to 3 inches.
Update: Naaah.
Update II: And don't call me Shirley.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
"Teach-in" spy tape released!
Documentalist Grant Crowell has posted audio tape secretly recorded by his operative Peter Fotopoulos (such a cool word--operative) after Ben Whitmer made him shut down his video camera (and had the CU cops enforce the edict) at the Ward Churchill "teach-in" in March.
Ah, golden memories. Listen with me, won't you?
Hear the clapping for Natsu? Think I was being generous in saying there might have been 60 people in attendance. Now Natsu's telling me to ask permission of audience members before taking pictures. Then her paranoid warning about evil mini-tapers:
Notice also that Natsu makes no mention of Ben Whitmer's (who also spoke at the teach-in) ludicrous Billy Joe Shaver theory of recording rules at CU (in his drunkenly self-pitying "Contemptible Ben" post): "Refusing people the right to videotape whatever they want is not a denial of free speech. You go to a Billy Joe Shaver show, you don’t get the right to record without permission. Just as you don’t get the right to post entire books on the internet. The folks involved didn’t have permission to record, end of story."
Tom Mayer's up next--tedious. Oh, rats. Fotopoulos quit recording before Mayer's big finish, which was pretty funny. He indicated he'd synopsized the case for Chutch and paused for a second, obviously prefatory to beginning on his second handout, which he was holding. Unfortunately, people misread this as him saying he was finished, and began clapping. Mayer looked forlorn, but quit.
(via (duh) PB)
Ah, golden memories. Listen with me, won't you?
Hear the clapping for Natsu? Think I was being generous in saying there might have been 60 people in attendance. Now Natsu's telling me to ask permission of audience members before taking pictures. Then her paranoid warning about evil mini-tapers:
As always with these things, there are folks here who are . . . participating in the attempt to discredit Ward Churchill [noise] frequently been taken out of context but . . . if we let attempts to intimidate silence us to start with, then, the job is accomplished.Bwahahah--you get the idea. Remember, she's talking about someone making a recording, generally regarded as helpful in establishing context (not to mention accuracy). Breathtaking illogic. Purely intentional.
Notice also that Natsu makes no mention of Ben Whitmer's (who also spoke at the teach-in) ludicrous Billy Joe Shaver theory of recording rules at CU (in his drunkenly self-pitying "Contemptible Ben" post): "Refusing people the right to videotape whatever they want is not a denial of free speech. You go to a Billy Joe Shaver show, you don’t get the right to record without permission. Just as you don’t get the right to post entire books on the internet. The folks involved didn’t have permission to record, end of story."
Tom Mayer's up next--tedious. Oh, rats. Fotopoulos quit recording before Mayer's big finish, which was pretty funny. He indicated he'd synopsized the case for Chutch and paused for a second, obviously prefatory to beginning on his second handout, which he was holding. Unfortunately, people misread this as him saying he was finished, and began clapping. Mayer looked forlorn, but quit.
(via (duh) PB)
Update: Billy Joe Shaver, who was fine in a small part in Robert Duvall's wonderful The Apostle ("hug mah naick").
Update II: The Internet Archive wasn't working last night, and I really wanted to post an episode of I Was a Communist for the F.B.Iiiiyah here. Now it's working. This one's called, simply, "The Pit Viper" (5/21/52).
Fatuous wordage noted
Moonbat prof Peter Kirstein has posted some letters, including one from Howard Zinn, to be read at the CU "National Emergency Forum" in support of Ward Churchill next week. Pirate Ballerina has all the interesting facts and figures, thank God, so I won't bother. If you guessed that no one says anything new, you (don't) win a new Howard Zinn hoodie!
But check out the collage Kirstein posts with the letters:
Savio's flapping yap, Baez's don't-hurt-my-puppy eyes command: Recreate68!
These people are embarrasssing.
Update: PB calls Zinn "the Bertrand Russell of history." The Drunkablog, being a sub-genius, understands the reference, but some won't. In Radical Son, David Horowitz recounts how Russell, who like Zinn supported radical movements and people quite indiscriminately, became (in his 90s and senile) a puppet for New Leftists and other anti-Vietnam war radicals at his own Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
Update II: Speaking of puppets, isn't it about time Ken Bonetti and the folks at Students and Faculty for "True" Academic Freedom got that flyer out about Saturday's meet 'n' agiteet? Does CU specify that flyers must be posted a certain amount of time before an event? It's less than a week away now.
But check out the collage Kirstein posts with the letters:
Savio's flapping yap, Baez's don't-hurt-my-puppy eyes command: Recreate68!
These people are embarrasssing.
Update: PB calls Zinn "the Bertrand Russell of history." The Drunkablog, being a sub-genius, understands the reference, but some won't. In Radical Son, David Horowitz recounts how Russell, who like Zinn supported radical movements and people quite indiscriminately, became (in his 90s and senile) a puppet for New Leftists and other anti-Vietnam war radicals at his own Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
Update II: Speaking of puppets, isn't it about time Ken Bonetti and the folks at Students and Faculty for "True" Academic Freedom got that flyer out about Saturday's meet 'n' agiteet? Does CU specify that flyers must be posted a certain amount of time before an event? It's less than a week away now.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
So square
The Post:
Update: CU students agree! The crowd was in the thousands and the cops were much nicer at the 4/20 celebration on the Norlin Quad.
More than 700 people gathered in Denver's Civic Center Park today as part of the national "4/20" rally to protest laws against marijuana.Good for you, Joe. Now quit talking to that tree.
The Denver event held on April 20, or 4/20, at 4:20 p.m. drew high school and college students and others, mostly in their 20s.
"It's a weed smoking festival," said Joe Smith, 18, who recently moved to Denver from Nevada. "I believe in the medicinal benefits of marijuana."
"Everyone came together to smoke marijuana and chill," said G.K. Hoovers, 20, of Aurora. "It's been cool. There were no problems."Hoovers. That's funny.
It's does? Hard to believe Francine came from Sedona to smoke pot in Denver.The rally also drew about 100 Denver Police, including the SWAT team, the mounted patrol, undercover members of the vice and narcotics bureau, the gang unit and other departments, said police spokeswoman Virginia Quinones.
"Even though marijuana smoking isn't illegal in Denver, it's still illegal in Colorado," she said. Officers contacted people who were openly smoking marijuana and checked identification, said Quinones. Those with outstanding warrants for other crimes were arrested and the rest were given citations for possession and public consumption of marijuana. She said the number of arrests and citations wouldn't be available until later tonight.The crowd, many wearing leis of fabric marijuana leaves, was friendly and light-hearted.
"I came on vacation to Denver for this," said Francine Popovich, 18, of Sedona, Ariz. "All of my friends at home are so jealous. Look how many people showed up. It's shows how many people want marijuana legalized."
Some visitors to Denver wandered into the gathering by mistake, including Jim and Kathy Arthur of Iowa, who walked toward downtown after seeing the Art Museum. "It's our generation that started all of this," she said.Recreate68!
"We're just beer drinkers," he said. "It certainly adds to our adventure."Sure looks like more fun than the kind of protests I go to. Then again, a gathering of methheads in withdrawal would be more fun (and draw a bigger crowd) than a protest in support of Ward Churchill.
Update: CU students agree! The crowd was in the thousands and the cops were much nicer at the 4/20 celebration on the Norlin Quad.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Found
This was blowing around in the street when I had Billy Bob out today. It's a North High School kid's project on the women of Croatia:
A few of the student's observations before this is put away with my back issues of Foreign Policy:
Croatia has a population of 312.
Croatia's litracy rate for women is 97.8 percent.
If that's a modest Croatian woman, rrrrrrrrrowr, let's see an immodest one!
Croatian women are "still raised to be submisive to the men they are exposed to."
But despair not: "There are many feminist oraganizations that are trying to help the women of Croatia become more dominat!"
More student writings here.
A few of the student's observations before this is put away with my back issues of Foreign Policy:
More student writings here.
Deaths exaggerated
The British "progressive" columnist and semi-blogger Oliver Kamm, who can be very annoying (particularly in his dogmatic denigration of blogs), but who "gets" certain things (cough*Islamofascism*cough), can be good on the right subject, one of those being the world's favorite Holocaust denier, David Irving. The other day Kamm wrote about Irving's influence on a much more famous writer, Kurt Vonnegut, whom, Kamm notes, "anticipated his [own] death in an article in 1972," in which he said:
(Wrong. The NYT didn't. Or the LA Times. Or the Washington Post. Even the Grauniad failed to note Vonnegut's "loudly self-proclaimed" socialism.) Kamm continues:“I don’t console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar.” His talent as a novelist was to tell of bleakness with mordant humour. . . .
Throughout his life, he decried America’s social ills. “One wonders how many of the obituaries will note that he was a loudly self-proclaimed socialist?” wrote one commentator this week, describing Vonnegut as a “writer for our times”. I am guessing [Kamm says] but probably most of them.
Aesthetic quality is independent of politics, and it is a vulgar error to suppose that a character necessarily speaks for the author. With Vonnegut, however, the authorial voice is hardly subtly disguised. “Everything is going to become unimaginably worse, and never get any better again,” he declared in 1970. The constant insinuation of catastrophe, leavened by dark humour, is present in much of his work.Vulgar error. I love the Brits. Of course, that constant insinuation (and much, much more than insinuation) of catastrophe is present in the the work of every leftist--minus, of course, the humor, dark or otherwise. Kamm:
Vonnegut experienced one of the great traumas of 20th-century history. As a prisoner of war in the Second World War, he lived through the bombing of Dresden. He survived through being incarcerated in an underground locker in an abattoir. When he emerged he found “135,000 Hansels and Gretels . . . baked like gingerbread men”. The event became a central theme of Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and suffuses much of the rest of his work. . . .Unfortunately, as Kamm points out:
Vonnegut’s philosophy and history are simplistic. Dresden was hellish — but there were not 135,000 deaths. The true figure was probably no more than a fifth of that. Vonnegut’s number came directly from the now discredited work of the Holocaust denier David Irving.
In Slaughterhouse-Five, Irving is cited by name, and a long passage, by a retired air marshal, from the foreword to Irving’s book The Destruction of Dresden is reproduced. . . .
Dresden, whose beauty Vonnegut likened to Oz, became a sacrificial myth in a litany of Western crimes, unrelated to its industrial and political importance to the Nazis. In arguing in 2003 that “people are lying all the time as to what a murderous nation we are”, Vonnegut cited Nagasaki as “the most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery”. Yet, as an outstanding new book, Hiroshima in History, demonstrates, contemporary Japanese government records and memoirs confirm that the dropping of both A-bombs, Nagasaki as well as Hiroshima, was crucial to Japan’s decision to surrender.
These were catastrophic acts committed under the necessity of defeating barbarism. But man is not equally culpable, and history not a record of symmetry in brutality. It merely seemed that way to a particular generation at a historical moment: the Vietnam War. The critic Robert Alter in 1975 presciently attributed Vonnegut’s popularity to “the need of many readers over the past decade for a novelist who could write away history while seeming to write about it”.
Irving, who is quite proud of the fact he was cited by Vonnegut, replies to Kamm, sort of--no link, but you'll get the gist in Kamm's response. What's funny is that Irving also stupidly links to his most hated enemy, Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, the defendant in Irving's famous libel suit. Lipstadt has a surprisingly active (if somewhat hurried-looking) blog, History on Trial (the name, of course, of her book on the libel suit), and in the post Irving links to, she says:
People like Irving, i.e. Holocaust deniers, like to inflate the number of dead in Dresden as a means of engaging in "immoral equivalencies," i.e. arguing that while "some" Jews may have "died" [not murdered] in Auschwitz, this number pales by comparison to the number of "innocent" Germans killed in the bombing of Dresden.
Vonnegut helped perpetuate that myth and spread this form of denial. He probably did so initially unwittingly. But since the publication of that book enough has been written to show this is not true and he could have corrected it has he been so inclined.
And so it goes.... on and on and on.
Update: Meryl Yourish is more forgiving of Vonnegut.
Update II: More on Irving, Lipstadt and (groan) Ward Churchill here und here. Read!
Update: The Wapo's obituary of Vonnegut has this line:
Saturating [Dresden] with high explosives, followed by hundreds of thousands of incendiaries, the [British and American] bombers ignited a firestorm that claimed more than 100,000 victims. The city burned for a week.
Noam Chomsky was on Michael Medved's
program today. Couldn't listen to much of it, but Chimsky hasn't said anything original in 40 years, so it's not like I missed breaking news.
The part I heard was funny, though. C.H.O.M.P.S. had gone off on a two-minutes-Reagan-hate that included the wonderful line, "After he left office there was a concerted effort to turn Reagan into a divinity--one of the most disgusting events in American history . . ." and right away Medved offered him one of the Reagan posters he gives away to callers.
(Chomsky probably meant when Reagan died, by the way, not when he left office, but whatever.)
Sort of O/T: My father-in-law gives money to dominionist Christer types and Rethuglicans and in return gets (besides heaven and lucrative defense contracts) calendars. A couple American Vistas (barns at sunset, happy bustling city streets, the Grand Canyon), maybe a historical themer--Washington at Valley Forge, Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor--and a score that feature Ronald Reagan.
The one I got last year (fascist that he is, pa-in-law forces them on his family) was a beaut: black and white publicity shots from Reagan's acting days printed on glossy oversized stock--Reagan in front of a lifeguard tower, with his mom, dressed as a fireman and posed on the Dixon (IL) fire truck (surely there was only one), and with Nancy. Lots with Nancy.
I still can't warm to Nancy. In these photos she looks like a devil doll from an episode of Twilight Zone--one moment squealing "Hi! I'm Nancy!" the next gnawing on your leg or trying to cut your throat with the safety scissors.
But Chomsky's right: it's only what the media taught me. Did you know Reagan said that homosexuals deserved to die of AIDS?
Update:
Give me the knife, Mommy.
The part I heard was funny, though. C.H.O.M.P.S. had gone off on a two-minutes-Reagan-hate that included the wonderful line, "After he left office there was a concerted effort to turn Reagan into a divinity--one of the most disgusting events in American history . . ." and right away Medved offered him one of the Reagan posters he gives away to callers.
(Chomsky probably meant when Reagan died, by the way, not when he left office, but whatever.)
Sort of O/T: My father-in-law gives money to dominionist Christer types and Rethuglicans and in return gets (besides heaven and lucrative defense contracts) calendars. A couple American Vistas (barns at sunset, happy bustling city streets, the Grand Canyon), maybe a historical themer--Washington at Valley Forge, Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor--and a score that feature Ronald Reagan.
The one I got last year (fascist that he is, pa-in-law forces them on his family) was a beaut: black and white publicity shots from Reagan's acting days printed on glossy oversized stock--Reagan in front of a lifeguard tower, with his mom, dressed as a fireman and posed on the Dixon (IL) fire truck (surely there was only one), and with Nancy. Lots with Nancy.
I still can't warm to Nancy. In these photos she looks like a devil doll from an episode of Twilight Zone--one moment squealing "Hi! I'm Nancy!" the next gnawing on your leg or trying to cut your throat with the safety scissors.
But Chomsky's right: it's only what the media taught me. Did you know Reagan said that homosexuals deserved to die of AIDS?
Update:
Give me the knife, Mommy.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Title thought up, links added later
Just spoke to CU academic adviser Ken Bonetti, contact person for the Ward Churchill-supporting Students and Faculty for "True" Academic Freedom, and gleaned a little info:
The recording policy for the upcoming meeting on the 28th will be that "media," but no one else, can record. However! A DVD will be made. Thank God for small favors. The recording policy, by the way, will be announced on flyers (out soon!) and the internets.
This has apparently satisfied DU professor and co-founder of Teachers for a Democratic Society's (r68!) Dean Saitta, whom Bonetti said will speak as planned on the 28th.
No announcement was made of the recording restrictions supposedly in place at the colloquium from which El Presidente of Slapstick Politics and I were tossed, Bonetti said, because computer problems caused the person who was to make the announcement to "space it." But such restrictions are common, Bonetti said. Even last night's CU speech by Kofi Annan had them. (Now, if I'd said to Bonetti that that wasn't perhaps the best example to use, do you think he'd have understood?)
In any case, these restrictions are particularly necessary in the Churchill brouhaha, where people's words have often been taken out of context. Even his own writings in Churchill's defense, Bonetti said, had been distorted by the anti-Churchill blog Pirate Ballerina. He didn't cite examples, but there's only one post he could mean. Unfortunately, that post, utilizing context not at all, shows Bonetti to have drunk early and deep from the Kool-Aid Springs in the Flatirons above Boulder. Asked by a reporter (well, me) about CU ethnic studies instructor Ben Whitmer, Bonetti said he thought he'd heard of him, but that he, Bonetti, is not "integrated in that group" with Ward and Natsu Saito, each of whom he's met only "once or twice." Finally, and unsurprisingly, Bonetti said the Churchill case is a politically motivated crock, and that Churchill's supposed scholarly defugalties fall far short of grounds for dismissal. "Not even close," Bonetti said. "There should have been a conference," he added, on the merits of Churchill's arguments and why he's "nasty" in making them.
That's about it. Like Dean Saitta, Bonetti speaks reasonably and seems--reasonable. But as Saitta's example also shows, a surface reasonableness can disguise a badly distorted thought process.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
NorthDenverTribuneWatch!
As with almost every edition anymore, the first few pages of the NDT are devoted to neighborhood zoning issues. Let me summarize four or five of them for readers:
Kidding!
Pets of the Week are the uninteresting Sadie and Otis, big dogs of some sort. Otis is one of those one-blue-eye, one-brown-eye dogs. That's it. One of these days I'm going to submit a pic of Billy Bob, and Hollywood, here we come!
The "New Entrepreneur" is Gorilla Test Prep, which gets people ready for the GRE.
This week's "Historic photo of Denver":
Civic Center. The NDT neglects to say when the picture was taken.Some time in the 20s, it looks like.
Crime Beat!--by Security Min--I mean, "Denver Police," begins (I swear):
Update II: No idea why the pics in the "Civic Center" link suddenly decided to quit showing up. Even reposting doesn't work.
Kidding!
Pets of the Week are the uninteresting Sadie and Otis, big dogs of some sort. Otis is one of those one-blue-eye, one-brown-eye dogs. That's it. One of these days I'm going to submit a pic of Billy Bob, and Hollywood, here we come!
The "New Entrepreneur" is Gorilla Test Prep, which gets people ready for the GRE.
This week's "Historic photo of Denver":
Civic Center. The NDT neglects to say when the picture was taken.
Crime Beat!--by Security Min--I mean, "Denver Police," begins (I swear):
Recent weeks have looked good for crime in general . . .Update: Here's Jack Benny broadcasting from Denver for the March of Dimes in 1948 (1-18-48). Very funny show. Here's Tom Noel on Quigg Newton.
Update II: No idea why the pics in the "Civic Center" link suddenly decided to quit showing up. Even reposting doesn't work.
Famous movie quoted
Speaking of Ben Whitmer, his filthy Try-Works blog has taken on a new co-host, apparently to replace recently scarce co-host "Charley Arthur," who perhaps has figured out that it might be inconvenient, not to say dangerous, to blog while preparing for a lawsuit.
The new kid is "Mad Knitter," a half-literate, poorly medicated psychotic who sounds remarkably like OLD Try-Works blogger Wicked Witch (second to last graf), who started her own predictably pathetic and self-aggrandizing blog last July: FireWitchRising.
She came back gradually at the NEW! Try-Works, through comments both there and on anti-Churchill blogs, but her first post as a rehabilitated blogger is a doozy. In it, she accuses Pirate Ballerina's Jim Paine and me of being--one of the classics of the old, anonymous Try-Works, as the Rocky Mountain News' Vince Carroll could tell you--pedophiles.
Hate to do it, but the post is so wild I have to link.
Things must be falling apart for "Students and Faculty for 'True' Academic Freedom" if Benjie and crew are off the leash again.
Update: Now taking bets: who's more likely to be in attendance at the day-long Churchillpalooza event on the 28th (if it takes place): me, or Ben Whitmer?
Spade (to Gutman): "Let's give 'em the gunsel."
Update: Gutman: "That's ridiculous. I feel towards Wilmer here just exactly as I'd feel towards my own son."
Update II: Gutman: "Really I do."
Update III: Oh my God, I just noticed: Whitmer, Wilmer. Whoa.
Update IV: LGF links to a sick article in Counterpunch (Ward Churchill's favorite toilet paper) blaming the parents of Virginia Tech students--and, of course, the U.S., Bushitler, and "the Pentagon," for their children's murder.
The new kid is "Mad Knitter," a half-literate, poorly medicated psychotic who sounds remarkably like OLD Try-Works blogger Wicked Witch (second to last graf), who started her own predictably pathetic and self-aggrandizing blog last July: FireWitchRising.
She came back gradually at the NEW! Try-Works, through comments both there and on anti-Churchill blogs, but her first post as a rehabilitated blogger is a doozy. In it, she accuses Pirate Ballerina's Jim Paine and me of being--one of the classics of the old, anonymous Try-Works, as the Rocky Mountain News' Vince Carroll could tell you--pedophiles.
Hate to do it, but the post is so wild I have to link.
Things must be falling apart for "Students and Faculty for 'True' Academic Freedom" if Benjie and crew are off the leash again.
Update: Now taking bets: who's more likely to be in attendance at the day-long Churchillpalooza event on the 28th (if it takes place): me, or Ben Whitmer?
Spade (to Gutman): "Let's give 'em the gunsel."
Update: Gutman: "That's ridiculous. I feel towards Wilmer here just exactly as I'd feel towards my own son."
Update II: Gutman: "Really I do."
Update III: Oh my God, I just noticed: Whitmer, Wilmer. Whoa.
Update IV: LGF links to a sick article in Counterpunch (Ward Churchill's favorite toilet paper) blaming the parents of Virginia Tech students--and, of course, the U.S., Bushitler, and "the Pentagon," for their children's murder.
CU student's rights violated!
The Post:
Update: Free Max Karson! (With a "K" not a "C"!) Free Max Karson! (With a "K" not a "C"!)
Update II: Seems there's a bit of background to the Karson story, as Slapstick Politics points out.
(via PB)
Heck, everybody gets angry at fluorescent lights and unpainted walls once in a while.A University of Colorado student has been arrested after making "threatening" comments in class that seemed sympathetic toward the gunman who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech, authorities said.
Max Karson was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution. . . .
University police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said that during a class discussion of the Virginia Tech massacre, Karson "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people."Several witnesses told investigators Karson said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report.
Wiesley said others in the class interpreted Karson's statements as threats.Wonder what the class was?
"More than one student said they were afraid," Wiesley said.
"They said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him."
Hey, maybe the "CU-Boulder Chapter--Defend Critical Thinking Initiative, Department of English, Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom--CU-Boulder Chapter of the American Association of University Professors" could take on the case!Michael Karson, Max Karson's father, told the Camera newspaper of Boulder that his son's comments may have been misinterpreted.
The elder Karson questioned whether his son's free-speech rights had been violated.
"I would have hoped that state officials would know their First Amendment better than they seem to," he said.
Update: Free Max Karson! (With a "K" not a "C"!) Free Max Karson! (With a "K" not a "C"!)
Update II: Seems there's a bit of background to the Karson story, as Slapstick Politics points out.
(via PB)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Talkin' baseball!
Sometimes I listen to the Rockies on the radio. It's kind of cool because I can see the lights of Coors Field from my home office window.
There you go. Rockies just scored five in the eighth to take the lead from the Giants, 5-3.
They're playing only their second home night game of the season. The crowd must be cold. It's 49 degrees, not horrible but chilly for sitting still for three hours except for 14 trips through the beer line and standing up occasionally to yell, I'm fuckin' your wife, Ump!
Rocks win 5-3. Six and eight--.500 shall be soon be ours!
I was at an early season night game during the (triple-A) Denver Zephyrs era once where it snowed the whole game. Nothing stuck, but it was really wet, and there were several game delays. Maybe 38 degrees, something like that.
The Zephyrs, as you surely remember, played in the old 72,000-seat Mile High Stadium, which they never, ever, ever came close to even half filling during the regular season, he exaggerated slightly.
Maybe a hundred people had shown up for this game, but after five hours that had dwindled to about 25 hardy souls, all of whom, unfortunately, were Blackout™ drunk (including, of course, me).
But I was a survivalist drunk and they weren't. Book, radio, my own private booze supply--and I'd dressed warmly.
Finally the 7th inning came and went, and with it, beer sales, which by law are halted after that "frame" (inside baseball talk). Ominously, the eighth featured another long snow delay, and the crowd started getting restive. Picture it: an empty field, the snow spitting down in the lights, the humongous non-echoing stadium--and this little knot of drunks huddled under an overhang and cut off from alcohol.
It was pretty bad. There were arguments, and a fight broke out, maybe two. Some idiot tried to run down the stadium steps as fast as he could and slid on his face about four steps. A skinny 50ish woman danced up and down the aisles in a t-shirt soaked by freezing snow.
It was like Field of Dreams in hell.
Update: Bill Stern: Be sure to tune in next week for another Drunkablog! Baseball! Memory!
Update II: Be patient with the Bill Stern the Colgate Shave Cream Man link. You have to get through a couple of minutes of poorly recorded Radio Nostalgia Network garbage, but Bill Stern is easily bizarre enough to justify the annoyance. Americans! Notice how Paul Harvey stole his whole schtick from Stern.
Update III: It's frightening to learn that Paul Harvey began his broadcasting career in 1933--the same year Hitler rose to power!
There you go. Rockies just scored five in the eighth to take the lead from the Giants, 5-3.
They're playing only their second home night game of the season. The crowd must be cold. It's 49 degrees, not horrible but chilly for sitting still for three hours except for 14 trips through the beer line and standing up occasionally to yell, I'm fuckin' your wife, Ump!
Rocks win 5-3. Six and eight--.500 shall be soon be ours!
I was at an early season night game during the (triple-A) Denver Zephyrs era once where it snowed the whole game. Nothing stuck, but it was really wet, and there were several game delays. Maybe 38 degrees, something like that.
The Zephyrs, as you surely remember, played in the old 72,000-seat Mile High Stadium, which they never, ever, ever came close to even half filling during the regular season, he exaggerated slightly.
Maybe a hundred people had shown up for this game, but after five hours that had dwindled to about 25 hardy souls, all of whom, unfortunately, were Blackout™ drunk (including, of course, me).
But I was a survivalist drunk and they weren't. Book, radio, my own private booze supply--and I'd dressed warmly.
Finally the 7th inning came and went, and with it, beer sales, which by law are halted after that "frame" (inside baseball talk). Ominously, the eighth featured another long snow delay, and the crowd started getting restive. Picture it: an empty field, the snow spitting down in the lights, the humongous non-echoing stadium--and this little knot of drunks huddled under an overhang and cut off from alcohol.
It was pretty bad. There were arguments, and a fight broke out, maybe two. Some idiot tried to run down the stadium steps as fast as he could and slid on his face about four steps. A skinny 50ish woman danced up and down the aisles in a t-shirt soaked by freezing snow.
It was like Field of Dreams in hell.
Update: Bill Stern: Be sure to tune in next week for another Drunkablog! Baseball! Memory!
Update II: Be patient with the Bill Stern the Colgate Shave Cream Man link. You have to get through a couple of minutes of poorly recorded Radio Nostalgia Network garbage, but Bill Stern is easily bizarre enough to justify the annoyance. Americans! Notice how Paul Harvey stole his whole schtick from Stern.
Update III: It's frightening to learn that Paul Harvey began his broadcasting career in 1933--the same year Hitler rose to power!
MIA
Haven't seen hide nor hair of a couple of folks lately. One is "Charley Arthur," Ben Whitmer's even scuzzier "co-host" over at the Try-Works blog, who, as PB points out, still (after 16 days!) hasn't posted the video he said would prove Ward is a Cherokee, and who hasn't even commented at the blog for days. One supposes that the scholars of the hilariously named "Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom"--you know, the group that had the cops remove two bloggers from a public event--have advised Chur--I mean, Charley--to lie low while the problems caused by that impetuously totalitarian action are (they hope) worked out.
The other person who's gone MIA is one of those problems, Professor Dean Saitta of the University of Denver. Saitta, you'll remember, was scheduled to speak at an upcoming SFTAF event in support of Churchill, but recently said that:
The other person who's gone MIA is one of those problems, Professor Dean Saitta of the University of Denver. Saitta, you'll remember, was scheduled to speak at an upcoming SFTAF event in support of Churchill, but recently said that:
I will not participate unless this is an open event and there is an explicit policy governing recording devices that is even-handedly applied. I've emailed the event organizers asking about their intentions in these regards, and I trust that they will be made clear on whatever publicity finally appears for the event. If they aren't, then I'm gone.Are you gone yet, professor? Or have the geniuses and free-thinkers of the SFTAF assuaged your concerns? I'd love to see the e-mails going back and forth on that. Heh.
Understanding, Connecting, and Respecting
The Rocky's Vincent Carroll notes that it's time once again for the annual White Privilege Conference. How did another year go by so fast? See you all there! Or we'll call you racists!
Monday, April 16, 2007
Incivility discussed
Rocky editorial writer Linda Seebach has an interesting column on how the paper curbs "incivility" in comments at its internet Commentary section--and, by extension, how some are attempting this on blogs. Read whole thing, but one quotoid here:
Update: Ten whacks on the noggin with a steel-heeled patent-leather shoe for the first person who comes up with the movie that still came from.
Stop. I can't stand it. After the cruel things that have been said about your darling Drunkablog (l., er, r.) the last couple of days on a certain Ward Churchill-laving site (here's PB commenter Laurie's precis of comments), to have a jolly heckler inquire as to whether person or persons unknown had micturated in my breakfast cereal this a.m. would be like--a sunny day!We're concerned about vulgar language, not because we're unfamiliar with those words - it's a newsroom, after all - but because readers are put off by vulgarity. (And besides, I tend to think that people who can't talk without being vulgar are unlikely to have anything valuable to say, unless I have personal evidence to the contrary.)
After we admonished one commenter he (or she) replied, "Hey, Editor, did someone pee in your corn flakes this morning?"--
Update: Ten whacks on the noggin with a steel-heeled patent-leather shoe for the first person who comes up with the movie that still came from.
News stories to avoid reading! (bumped)
A new foature, croatures! Our first news story to avoid reading:
(via Drudge, who doesn't need the link)
Update: I've lost my will to live: "Kerry, wife call for eco-action"--in a new, resource-consuming book:
Update II: Choose!
Uriah!
JK & THK!
Update III: Shockingly, I couldn't find a review of This Moment Somewhere or Other in a real newspaper, so here's one from a Daily Kos diarrheaist.
Update IV: That's no Uriah Williams! It's a woman! Nancy Jean Jewett. They just ran the wrong pic with the story. It's still wrong in the original, too, but the Post says Jewett was arrested yesterday for an attempted arson in which she tried to kill four members of her own family. That's even worse than pulverizing your girlfriend's Betta fish.
DENVER - Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) reopened the door to a possible 2008 presidential campaign during a book signing in Denver and then again, in an interview with 9NEWS.I warned you.
(via Drudge, who doesn't need the link)
Update: I've lost my will to live: "Kerry, wife call for eco-action"--in a new, resource-consuming book:
Sen. John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, told a crowd Sunday at a downtown Denver bookstore to take steps in their own lives to clean up the environment and diminish the effects of climate change.How many houses do the Heinzs own, again? Five? Seven? One of them in France? How many miles do they travel every year by atmosphere-destroying aeroplanes? Bloody eco-warriors.
The couple were speaking before about 250 people at the LoDo Tattered Cover on Sunday to promote their new book, "This Moment on Earth." The speech and book-signing kicked off the LoDo Earth Action Festival, a series of environmentally conscious events leading up to Earth Day on Sunday.
Lodo. Earth. Action. Festival. LEAF! I'm getting paranoid. By the way, has everyone got their new Earth Day hat yet? I hear the beret is making a comeback.
"This book is a celebration of possibilities, not a doomsday book," Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, said. "It says we can win. We can make these changes."
Just what the times demand: an optimistic eco-disaster book.
In short speeches Sunday about their book, the couple tackled a wide array of environmental topics, from energy efficiency to pollution to toxins in everyday substances, such as shampoo and cosmetics. Kerry said individuals must take small steps - such a changing the light bulbs in their homes [sic]- to help the environment, as well as support eco-friendly businesses and technology. He promised to push Congress to pass legislation to protect the environment and arrest global warming.Why, if everybody in the country just took these small steps, we'd eliminate as much CO2, almost, as JK & THK emitted on their 10-city book tour.
Hogwash being, of course, a toxic chemical that contributes to environmental degradation.Heinz Kerry encouraged audience members to be vigilant about the products in their lives that may do them harm and to demand that companies produce safer products.
"What we must not buy is the argument that a tiny, little, inactive ingredient, a tiny, little particle, has no impact," Heinz Kerry said. "That's hogwash."
Or a good five-cent cigar.Though the couple addressed a crowd largely friendly to them and their message, they mostly steered clear of politics [sic]. At one point, though, Kerry addressed the Iraq war, calling it a "disastrous foreign policy choice."
When one woman shouted out that Kerry, D-Mass., should run for president again, he danced playfully [sic] around the issue.
"This book - you see how I'm ignoring that? - is our effort to sort of lay the marker down on where we stand," he responded.
Tom Cimino, a Boulder resident, asked Kerry whom he supports among the current group of presidential candidates. Kerry said, "a Democrat," then said he would wait to see who best embraces environmental issues in the campaign before deciding on his support.
"I want to get more actively involved in what's going on in the country," Cimino said, explaining his interest in the event. "And a lot of things, I just can't flat-out understand. I can't understand why we can't build a decent fuel-efficient car in this country."
Denver resident Annie Li said the event was a "shot in the arm" for her.Update II: The Boston Globe on the legendary couple's meet-Green:
"I loved it," she said. "I was moved by it. It helped rebuild some of my hope and my encouragement."
In retrospect, Kerry said, it's no accident that they would write about the environment.He may look like Lurch, but he knows where the chicks hang out.
They first met on Earth Day 1990 at a rally in Washington, when John Heinz was a Senate colleague of Kerry's, representing Pennsylvania.
Kerry and Heinz Kerry reconnected two years later at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro; Kerry was divorced and Heinz Kerry had lost her husband in an airplane crash a year earlier.
Update II: Choose!
Uriah!
JK & THK!
Update III: Shockingly, I couldn't find a review of This Moment Somewhere or Other in a real newspaper, so here's one from a Daily Kos diarrheaist.
Update IV: That's no Uriah Williams! It's a woman! Nancy Jean Jewett. They just ran the wrong pic with the story. It's still wrong in the original, too, but the Post says Jewett was arrested yesterday for an attempted arson in which she tried to kill four members of her own family. That's even worse than pulverizing your girlfriend's Betta fish.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Eco-notes
As if Gorbutt Burbling weren't already a religion:
Update: Yeah, there's only one note, so this post shouldn't be titled "Eco-notes." Go away.
Combining elements of a Sunday service and a political rally, Denver-area congregations gathered Saturday to call on Congress to reduce carbon emissions and fight global warming. Similar rallies took place statewide as part of the national "Step It Up" event. Activists gathered at more than 1,300 sites across the country to push for an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
At least our eco-hysterics seem to have settled on a percentage.
"The faith community has been pretty quiet about global warming, but it goes to the core of what we believe about taking care of each other and the Earth," said Monika Leaf, a United Methodist church member who attended Saturday's rally at First Plymouth Congressional Church.Monika Leaf? I like it.
Across town outside the state Capitol, the Climate Cats, an environmental group formed by Shae Whitney and Duncan Dotterrer, held another Step It Up event, featuring a band and a tent where participants signed petitions to Congress.But it's clear that if I ever hear the name "Climate Cats" again, I shall start screaming and never, never stop.
The Climate Cats also suggested changes that individuals could make, including washing clothes in cold water and unplugging unused chargers and computers to reduce energy costs.
"Some of these things are pretty easy to do," said Naomi Segel, a student at the University of Denver. "I try to be good, but I fly home all the time."Just unplug that charger and we'll call it even, Naomi.
The event at First Plymouth, organized by the Rev. Peter Sawtell of Eco-Justice Ministries, connected climate change to the moral responsibilities of people of faith and advocated pressuring Congress in addition to taking individual steps.Of course.
That's got to be one of the most breathtakingly cynical things I've ever read outside the speeches of Lenin.U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette urged the crowd to write to the rest of the Colorado congressional delegation to take an aggressive stance on climate change.
"It's important that it's not coming from an environmental group," said the Denver Democrat. "The faith-based perspective is more potent as a lobbying technique."
Update: Yeah, there's only one note, so this post shouldn't be titled "Eco-notes." Go away.
Love the sentence!
Or else:
A man fell ten feet when a chairlift on Aspen Mountain broke and tilted towards the ground because of metal fatigue, but was not hurt.Thank God the chairlift was only tired, and not injured. Wonder how the guy is.
Sunday night at the radio!
This one's pretty cool. Fibber McGee and Molly, December 9, 1941. Remember, at the time all radio was live. The show's still funny, too.
Update: Oh, my. I forgot how the audience sings "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the end of the show. How different the world was.
Update II: He said sententiously.
Update: Oh, my. I forgot how the audience sings "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the end of the show. How different the world was.
Update II: He said sententiously.
Saitta to Churchillpalooza organizers: have clear policy or "I'm gone"
In apparently his last comment at Pirate Ballerina before he sulks into the sunset, University of Denver professor Dean Saitta says he told the organizers of Churchillpalooza that
Update: PB has CU's policy on open meetings. Money quote:
"Unobtrusive use of still and motion picture cameras and recording devices is permitted during any open meeting."
So they harassed us and, worse, had the cops do the same, without having a legal leg to stand on.
Update II: On re-reading Saitta's comment, it's clear I misread it at first and that it was (probably) not his last. At least, I hope not, even though he wants to believe that vile Churchill supporter Ben Whitmer and I are just alike. Sooner or later you'll understand the difference, Dean. Maybe.
I will not participate unless this is an open event and there is an explicit policy governing recording devices that is even-handedly applied. I've emailed the event organizers asking about their intentions in these regards, and I trust that they will be made clear on whatever publicity finally appears for the event. If they aren't, then I'm gone.He also says some things about me from which I may never recover. So now the ball's in the Chutchophiles' court. Let's see what policy they come up with. Maybe this time they'll try at least to meet CU regs, if not Saitta's onerous demands.
Update: PB has CU's policy on open meetings. Money quote:
"Unobtrusive use of still and motion picture cameras and recording devices is permitted during any open meeting."
So they harassed us and, worse, had the cops do the same, without having a legal leg to stand on.
Update II: On re-reading Saitta's comment, it's clear I misread it at first and that it was (probably) not his last. At least, I hope not, even though he wants to believe that vile Churchill supporter Ben Whitmer and I are just alike. Sooner or later you'll understand the difference, Dean. Maybe.
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