NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Wed, 30 Jun 2004
Tour de Force
The Poor Man has done us all an enormous service.
Without further ado, an excerpt discussing Nicolas Kristof's latest column:
[...] Largely unexplored, however, is the issue of whether or not
Bush is a liar. Let's explore it:
He has lied about his time in the National Guard, and lied about his criminal history. He lied about his relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem cells. He lied about his visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied about reading the EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies constantly about how he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how he loves New York, and he lied about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about finding WMD in Iraq, he lied about making his decision to go to war, he lied about the CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about the IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program. He lied about funding the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when the recession started, and he lied about seeing the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his deficit spending, and now my wrist hurts.
These are all lies, told by the President himself. This doesn't
include any distortions, half-truths, or exaggerations, or any lies
told by senior figures in the administration. These lies are big and
small. Together, these lies involve trillions of dollars and at least
tens of thousands of deaths, and Nicolas Kristof is terribly concerned
about sharp words and Michael Moore movies. It is indeed too bad that
the "political cesspool" is becoming polarized, but I don't think that
the solution to this is to shoot the messenger and agonize over
ever-finer definitions of falsehood. It shouldn't be this difficult to
get your priorities in order.
Posted at 16:34 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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RTK NET Releases 2002 Toxic Release Inventory Data
Washington, D.C., June 24, 2004 -- The Right-to-Know Network (RTK NET) published the 2002 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data today, providing public access to important Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data on the release and transfer of toxic chemicals in the U.S. The 2002 data shows an overall increase of 5 percent in toxic releases -- the first year in which this measurement increased since 1997.
The TRI data is reported by individual facilities, which send their reports to the federal EPA every year. On RTK NET, users can search the data by geographic area, facility, industry, parent company, and offsite waste transfer data, to learn which toxic chemicals are present, and in what amounts, in their local communities, states, regions, and the entire nation.
For example, Motorola in Oak Hill released 16,000 lbs of Ozone, 17,422 lbs of Sulphuric Acid and 520 lbs of Nitric Acid into the air in 2002, among other bad things.
This is a great public service by the Right To Know folks.
Posted at 09:39 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 29 Jun 2004
Unprecedented
From Reuters:
DENVER (Reuters) - Democrat John Kerry picked up the endorsement on Monday of 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists who attacked President Bush for "compromising our future" by shortchanging scientific research.
"The Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare," the 48 scientists, who have won Nobels in chemistry, physics and medicine dating back to 1967, said in an open letter released by the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign.
Posted at 09:26 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 28 Jun 2004
Quote of the day
"He's never really been pro-Republican," said Suzanne Defree, 26, of East Northport, "but I certainly trust Michael Moore more than I trust the president."
Over at Newsday.
Posted at 07:52 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A bit of perspective (updated)
From the Borgen Project:
Annual Amount Needed To Address The World's Top Issues
- Eliminate Starvation and Malnutrition ($19 billion)
- Provide Shelter ($21 billion)
- Remove Landmines ($4 billion)
- Eliminate Nuclear Weapons ($7 billion)
- Refugee Relief ($5 billion)
- Eliminate Illiteracy ($5 billion)
- Provide Clean, Safe Water ($10 billion)
- Provide Health Care and AIDS Control ($21 billion)
- Stabilize Population ($10.5 billion)
- Prevent Soil Erosion ($24 billion)
- Retire Developing Nations Debt ($30 billion)
...or a total of $156.5 billion a year, give or take.
U.S. Defense Budget: $401 Billion
U.S. Defense Contracts: $165 Billion
And the projected U.S. Corporate profits for this year? $1.2 trillion
(Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
tax analysis spreadsheet)
Posted at 14:20 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 24 Jun 2004
Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it...
Today's reading comes from John B. Judis in Foreign Policy Magazine.
It's a preprint excerpt
from his forthcoming book "Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson."
A couple of selections from the front of the article:
The United States invaded a distant country to share the blessings of democracy. But after being
welcomed as liberators, U.S. troops encountered a bloody insurrection. Sound familiar? Don’t think
Iraq—think the Philippines and Mexico decades ago. U.S. President George W. Bush and his advisors
have embarked on a historic mission to change the world. Too bad they ignored the lessons of history.
On October 18, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush landed in Manila as part of a six-nation
Asian tour. The presidential airplane, Air Force One, was shepherded into Philippine airspace by
F-15 fighter jets due to security concerns over a possible terrorist attack. Bush's speech to the
Philippine Congress was delayed by what one reporter described as “undulating throngs of protestors
that lined his motorcade route past shantytowns and rows of shacks.” Outside the Philippine House of
Representatives, several thousand more demonstrators greeted Bush, and several Philippine legislators
staged a walkout during his 20-minute address.
and
As many Philippine commentators remarked afterward, Bush's rendition of Philippine-American history
bore little relation to fact. True, the U.S. Navy ousted Spain from the Philippines in the Spanish-American
War of 1898. But instead of creating a Philippine democracy, the McKinley administration, its confidence
inflated by victory in that "splendid little war," annexed the country and installed a colonial administrator.
The United States then waged a brutal war against the same Philippine independence movement it encouraged to
fight against Spain. The war dragged on for 14 years. Before it ended, about 20,000 U.S. troops were deployed,
more than 4,000 were killed, and more than 200,000 Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. Resentment
lingered a century later during Bush's visit.
As for the Philippines' democracy, the United States can take little credit for what exists and some
blame for what doesn't. The electoral machinery the United States designed in 1946 provided a democratic
veneer beneath which a handful of families, allied to U.S. investors—and addicted to kickbacks—controlled
the Philippine land, economy, and society. The tenuous system broke down in 1973 when Philippine politician
Ferdinand Marcos had himself declared president for life. Marcos was finally overthrown in 1986, but even
today Philippine democracy remains more dream than reality. Three months before Bush's visit, a group of
soldiers staged a mutiny that raised fears of a military coup. With Islamic radicals and communists
roaming the countryside, the Philippines is perhaps the least stable of Asian nations. If the analogy
between the United States' "liberation" of the Philippines and of Iraq holds true, it will not be to
the credit of the Bush administration, but to the skeptics who charged that the White House undertook
the invasion of Baghdad with its eyes wide shut.
I wonder what it would be like in this world if our government would represent the best interests of the average
American? It seems to me that virtually every military adventure that we've undertaken (excepting WWs I and II)
have been driven, ultimately, by the profit motives of big business. And these same people are screeching the
shrillest of songs about high taxes.
Well, too bad. Pay me back for underwriting your market expansions.
Posted at 10:36 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 22 Jun 2004
Iraq and al-Qaeda
Kevin Drum has a pretty good unraveling
of the current "Yeah? Sez you!" banter coming from the Bush administration today.
But I am tired of everyone getting sucked in by this infantile crap. I wrote the following to him today;
I think that it's good advice for all of us.
I enjoyed your dismantling of the Iraq/Al Qaeda question today, but the
huge elephant in the room that no one seems to mention still remains: the
Bush administration never corrected the public record in the run-up to the
war, and they did everything in their power to make sure that public
"knowledge" of the facts remained flat-out wrong.
Whatever percentage of the public (high 60's, I think?) that believed that
Iraqis were the 9/11 hijackers, and that Saddam was behind the attacks,
could have been corrected *at any time* with a statement from the executive
branch of our government. The parsing of words taking place right now
consists of one long "we never *said* that they were..." from the
administration.
The point is, they never *SAID* the widely known truth that Iraq was *not
involved* until a couple of months ago, and they both allowed and
encouraged misconceptions to persist because it allowed them to manipulate
public opinion and served their political purposes, completely unrelated to
the facts of the matter. They still are. We are now stupidly arguing about
whether an Iraqi and an Al Qaeda member ever said hello on a street corner
anywhere. Idiocy!
This whole argument is barely worthy of a kindergarten sandbox, and someone
needs to inject some intellectual honesty back into this. Why in the world
are we letting the Bush administration control the talking points at this
late date? The foundational fact is that they cannot be trusted to tell the
truth. They are *way* beyond disingenuous. They are flat dishonest, and
they are such in a premeditated, Machiavellian way.
Say so. Don't spend your time in the Rove tar pit - he is the best in the
world at that stupid game. If you want to do an illuminating piece, grab
fifteen or twenty quotes from administration officials of the period and
write a side by side comparison of the same sentence, if they were telling
the whole truth as known at the time. You have the talent and the breadth
of knowledge to do something like this.
It's said that one can't prove a negative, but in this case, that is flat
out wrong. This is a criminal sin of omission, easily illustrated. Make 'em
answer "why didn't you correct the record?" The whole world knew by October
15th, 2001 that Iraq was not involved in the attack.
THAT would make for a compelling study, and a devastating bit of
journalism. The fact of the matter is that they can't answer facts. The
bottom line is that they are either manifestly incompetent or criminally
dishonest, and either one disqualifies them from the game.
Exit their game board. Make 'em come to your turf.
Posted at 14:41 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 21 Jun 2004
On corporate personhood
William Rivers Pitt has an extraordinarily good editorial
today. It concerns the history of corporations and how we got into this mess. This has long been an interest of mine; you might go over to
Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy site and have a look around if you are interested.
It continues to amaze me that one small sentence in
an obscure Supreme Court ruling from 1886 so profoundly affects our lives. And it is a sentence of omission at that.
Read the paragraph that contained your destiny:
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE said: The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.
The immediate repeal of "Corporate Personhood" is probably the single most important thing that we could do
to regain our country as citizens.
Posted at 10:39 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A 500 year drought, right now.
The Associated Press reports that the drought in the Western United States, specifically the Colorado river basin,
has been determined to be the worst in 500 years.
Some excerpts:
The report said the drought has produced the lowest flow in the Colorado River on record,
with an adjusted annual average flow of only 5.4 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry, Arizona,
during the period 2001-2003. By comparison, during the Dust Bowl years, between 1930 and 1937,
the annual flow averaged about 10.2 million acre-feet, the report said.
[...]
Scientists use tree-ring reconstructions of Colorado River flows to estimate what
conditions were like before record-keeping began in 1895. Using that method, the lowest
five-year average of water flow was 8.84 million acre-feet in the years 1590-1594. From
1999 through last year, water flow has been 7.11 million acre-feet.
Posted at 10:19 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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How odd can it get?
From a Salon article by John Gorenfeld:
You probably imagine your congressman hard at work in the Capitol debating legislation, making laws
-- you know, governing. But your newspaper probably didn't tell you that one night in March, members
of Congress hosted a crowning ritual for an ex-convict and multibillionaire who dressed up in maroon
robes and declared himself the Second Coming.
On March 23, the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev.
Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was
given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience
of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and
Stalin -- the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said
the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him "none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah,
Returning Lord and True Parent."
There's an excellent, more detailed followup on this available at
Politics1.com. The attendance list is a long string of familiar names of both parties.
The Dirksen Senate Office Building. Your tax dollars at work.
Posted at 09:49 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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The Republican Party of Texas
I'll likely be commenting soon in depth, but the preamble to this year's Texas GOP platform is
here, and a pdf of the whole of the thing is
available here.
Can you say "Unrestricted Capitalistic Coercive Christian Fundamentalist?"
Drop in some other diety in place of "God" (who appears 13 times) and you have a document that
would have every non-secular person in the state howling in a frothing, screaming outrage.
The religious hypocrisy is most amusing.
There are even some occasional good things in there, too. All in all, it's a pretty rich study of the people who
currently control Texas government, and their ultimate plans for all of us.
Posted at 08:34 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sun, 20 Jun 2004
Two years too late, but...
The New York Times finally
reports the news. On its op/ed page:
[I]t's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it
more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between
Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
[...]
There are two unpleasant alternatives: either Mr. Bush knew he was not telling the truth,
or he has a capacity for politically motivated self-deception that is terrifying in the post-9/11 world.
"All the news that's fit to print -- when politically convenient."
Posted at 08:10 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sat, 19 Jun 2004
A new form of recreation
Ever want to watch a favorite movie again, but don't want to go rent it and sit through two hours? I just found several
sites out there that have movie scripts online. In many cases, they have multiple drafts, alternate endings, and
other Neat Stuff. A good site that links lots of others is
Script-o-rama.com.
I just "watched" The Hustler
in about 45 minutes, in my mind's eye. How very cool. I think I'll go watch Highlander now...
Posted at 22:15 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Just FYI...
I've added a large number of quotes to the collection this week.
Posted at 22:13 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Grand juries and the accused
This comes from TalkLeft today. It speaks for itself.
While grand juries in most jurisdictions are easily led to indict by the prosecutors who control them,
the experience in New York may point the way to welcome reform of the grand jury system. The target of a
grand jury investigation in New York has the right to testify. By telling their side of the story and
explaining away circumstantial evidence, many have been able to avoid indictment.
He then quotes the Times article:
[I]n Brooklyn alone this year, nearly 14 percent of felony suspects have testified before grand
juries investigating their cases this year, and slightly more than half of those cases have ended with
no charges, according to the district attorney's office.
...and then finishes up with commentary:
It's risky for an accused to talk to anyone but a lawyer before trial, but testifying before a
grand jury might be a risk worth taking for someone who can credibly rebut weak or circumstantial
evidence. That means grand juries in New York are doing their jobs -- saving the innocent from needless
prosecutions -- when given a chance. The New York procedure deserves to be adopted everywhere.
I absolutely agree.
Posted at 15:32 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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More background on AMN and the future
Michele Deradune has a very good interview with AMN general manager Louis Meyers over at
AustinActors.net.
Posted at 11:08 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 18 Jun 2004
World Financial Market Watch
Just in case you hadn't noticed, the Shanghai Composite
has been crashing for three months. This is not a trivial stock exchange.
Posted at 09:12 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A good month for movies
Two movies worth seeing have trailers available on the net now.
Of course, there's Farenheit 9/11,
which goes national on June 25th. But an equally interesting study is Joe Conason's
The
Hunting Of The President. Joe (and Gene Lyons) have spent years studying every angle of the impeachment drama of
attempted coup d'etat against Bill Clinton,
and this'll prove to be perhaps the most useful lesson in realpolitik since Theodore White's "Making of the President"
and Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
books a generation ago. College courses will be taught around this movie. Enjoy.
Posted at 07:23 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 17 Jun 2004
More musician humor
Q: What happens if you play blues music backwards?
A: Your wife returns to you, your dog comes back to life, and you get out of prison.
Q: What does it say on a blues singer's tombstone?
A: "I didn't wake up this morning..."
Q: How many sound men does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. Upon finding no replacement, he takes the original apart, repairs it with a chewing gum
wrapper and duct tape, changes the screw mount to bayonet mount, finds an appropriate patch cable,
and re-installs the bulb fifty feet from where it should have been.
Son: "Mother, I want to grow up and be a rock-n-roll musician."
Mother: "Now, son, you have to pick one or the other. You can't be both."
Q: What's the difference between an Appalachian dulcimer and a hammered dulcimer?
A: A hammered dulcimer burns hotter; an Appalachian dulcimer burns longer.
Q: How do you get a guitar player to play softer?
A: Give him some printed music.
Q: What's a bassoon good for?
A: Kindling for an accordion fire.
Q: What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
A: You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.
Q: How are a banjo player and a blind javelin thrower alike?
A: Both command immediate attention and alarm; and force everyone to move out of range.
Posted at 23:19 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Jobless numbers don't reflect reality. Details at 11:00.
I've been railing about this for two years. And, frankly, I think that 9.7%
is still low. Anyway, a
Reuters story
finally comes close to getting it right. Here's a bit of it:
NEW YORK -- Buried inside the official U.S. employment report each month is a little-known figure that
gives a much less rosy picture of the labor market than the headlines.
The government agency that produces the data also publishes an alternative measure that tries to
capture the hidden unemployed, those who are not included in the official unemployment rate for
various statistical reasons.
That broader measure is dramatically higher, at 9.7 percent in May, compared with the official
level of 5.6 percent.
That's an extra 5.96 million people, in addition to the 8.2 million "officially" unemployed,
who are waiting on the sidelines and may at some point step back into the labor force.
And:
The Labor Department's adjusted measure of unemployment adds in people it describes as "marginally attached" to the labor force. These are workers who have not actively looked for work in the past four weeks, including "discouraged workers" who have given up altogether. They also include those who have given up looking for full-time jobs and have settled for part-time work instead.
None of the unemployment measures include the 1.7 percent of the male wage-earning population who are in prison, or another 1.36 million men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
"We have had this unprecedented withdrawal from the labor force over the past three years," said Lee Price, research director at the independent Economic Policy Institute. "The traditional measure of labor market slack, the unemployment rate, is giving us a misleadingly tight picture."
Indeed, the labor force participation rate is at its lowest level since 1988 -- lower even than in the last recession.
Well, duh...
Posted at 22:22 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A report on the Telecom Subcommittee Meeting
I didn't get to stay for the entire thing on Wednesday, but that's okay, because it didn't happen. Kind of.
Let me explain.
This is mostly hearsay, but it appears to be on the mark because the visible portion of things happened this way;
everyone who attended had this story on their lips on Wednesday. I am told that Toby Futrell (Austin City Manager)
sent out an e-mail on Tuesday night in which she (A) cancelled the Telecom Subcommittee meeting, and (B) informed
council that she was taking all city staff off of any work associated with the future of AMN and the proposition by AMP.
Later Tuesday, Council member Jackie Goodman reinstated the meeting, but with the knowledge that they would not have a quorum.
The Subcommittee met for about ten minutes, with City Attorney represented and Council member Betty Dunkerley attending.
They then adjourned due to lack of quorum (Council Member Alverez being absent), and the fun began. Ms. Goodman
told all present that they were going to discuss issues related to AMN/AMP in a civil and open manner, in no uncertain terms.
She asked that all recording devices be turned off excepting public meeting minutes, and invited all of the players to have
a seat at the table.
And players there were. Connie Wodlinger and Kevin Conner of KGSR representing Austin Music Partners; Louis Meyers of AMN;
virtually the entire board of ACTV; Music Commission members Teresa Ferguson, Angela Gillen, and Natalie Zoe. Former Mayor
Bruce Todd was there in his aspect as chief lobbyist for Time-Warner. Grande Communications had a representative there.
I won't go into all of the discussion; I didn't take notes, and I didn't stay for the full 3 1/2 hours. But this was big.
As far as I can discern, the AMP proposal is all-but dead. It is certainly off of the council agenda until after the July break,
and Council member Goodman made it clear to AMP that sometimes it ain't about money and back room access. Sometimes it is about
procedure, politics, and what is best for the citizens of Austin. Essentially, IMO, Connie and Kevin and Time-Warner got their heads handed to them.
After a very long and very civil discussion in which all parties were finally allowed to air their concerns at length.
I am not qualified to do any real analysis here; I don't have any connections at all. But
something huge happened this week behind the scenes. There was a
tectonic plate shift out of the City Manager's office, and in the earthquake that followed, political support for AMP evaporated.
I strongly suspect that
it had to do with Hank Sinatra's Open Meeting Request for material related to all of this, and I also suspect that it may
cost the City Financial Officer his job. I do know that Time-Warner's material involvement in all of this is now documented and in the
public record, and that this fact has seriously p*ssed off exactly the wrong people. What once was a beautiful back-room plan for
Time-Warner to get its channel 15 "real estate" back has now turned into serious proposals to make them light up another first-tier
access channel -- which they have to do if the City asks, and which they are horrified at the prospect of doing. They, no doubt,
are trying to get out of this in any manner that they can, and as soon as they can.
Readers here know my opinions of all of this. I think that my letter
to the Music Commission and Council may have helped simply by articulating questions. The heroes here, though, are Louis Meyers and Hank Sinatra.
In my opinion.
I'd be watching the Chronicle and the metro pages in the daily for tidbits; but keep your eyes on the front page, too. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, "Something is going to happen.
Something wonderful."
Posted at 21:26 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Music stuff
Wow; it's already Thursday. It's been a busy week, and I haven't been at my normal blogging location.
I'll try to keep things a little more regular in the future. Thanks for the impatient email.
Let's see here. Let's talk about Greezy Wheels,
one of the bands with which I have the good fortune to be associated. We released a new CD, "HipPOP" a couple
of weeks ago, and I am happy to report that it is apparently going to do very well.
The release has been added by a satisfying number of stations, considering that the "add" date is not
until June 28th. Among them: KUT Austin (#5 on their
weekly play list, WKZE in upstate New York, WDIY in Allentown, WOCM in Ocean City Delaware, KPFT in Houston,
stations in Duluth and Victoria and Carbondale, California. This is a lot of fun to watch happen. It's a good record.
Shameless plug: Buy a copy if you feel like it.
Posted at 20:30 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 14 Jun 2004
Some history on the AMN situation
Don't forget about tonight's Music Commission meeting. The meeting is tonight, Monday, June 14 at
City Hall (Municipal Building) 124 West Eighth St. (just west of Congress) beginning at 6 p.m. in
Room 304.
The following was written May 21st By Louis Meyers; it is as good an overview as any about this situation.
May 21, 2004
Dear friend of the Austin Music Network,
As all of you are aware, a group of investors called the Austin Music
Partners led by Time Warner, Connie Wodlinger and KGSR's Kevin Conner have
been plotting a takeover of AMN for quite some time now. This was brought
to light several months ago in the Austin American Statesman and recently
confirmed by that same newspaper.
Their goal is to create a regional commercial channel that they describe to
be much like the News 8 meets KGSR. This will provide a great service for
the top 5% of the music, filmmakers and organizations in Austin and
absolutely nothing for the other 95%.
The reality is that there is NO reason for them to kill AMN in order for
Time Warner to have a new station. Time Warner has no shortage of open
station options.
We are prepared to take AMN off assigned City funding on October 1. As you
know, our funding was cut from $700,000 to $150,000 last November and will
be cut completely on October 1st of this year. Since November, AMN has
revamped both the programming and business model and created a television
station that provides a true service to the Austin music, film and arts
community.
Now is when we really need your help. If you feel that AMN serves a true
purpose for you or your organization, please take a couple of minutes and
let the Mayor, City Council and local media know how you feel. If past
experience holds true, the Statesman will ignore any positive letters
regarding AMN, but please try anyway. At this time, the Austin Music
Partners are using their presence in the Austin media market (News 8, KGSR,
Statesman) to lobby the citizens of Austin before they have even
presented a written proposal.
The current media slag campaign underway by the Austin Music Partners has
already caused several major sponsors to pull back until the storm is over.
So, at the same time that we are being instructed that to survive, AMN must
be self-sufficient, we are also being hit by a major media attack that is
designed to do nothing but harm AMN. When Kevin Conner called the media in
on April 28 to see the "future of AMN," we were only 5 months into our
current contract and ahead of our numbers. There is no reason for us to be
defending our contract at this time. There is no RFP process in place, we
are not in default of the contract and a Council decision on our future
would normally not be debated or decided on until August. Mayor Pro tem
Goodman said very clearly that this was the time for ideas, not proposals.
Some refused to listen.
We have been exploring all options that might be available to continue
without the current dogfight we find ourselves in. I am not bold enough to
think that we can really beat Time Warner in the longrun and they have shown
no signs of letting up trying to kill us off since the day I walked into AMN
almost ten months ago.
The very nice people on the ACTV Board of Directors have offered to help
keep the network alive regardless of what happens with Time Warner. I have
been extremely impressed at the current efforts to create new identity for
their three channels and I expect to see huge changes in the overall look
and feel of ACTV. We would welcome the chance to be part of those changes.
What is important to me is that the people in Austin that we now serve on a
daily basis are not left out in the cold. AMN is where you can still come
in and promote your show, film or event on the day of the show. We are here
to help. This weekend we are filming the Women in Jazz show at the State
Theater for future broadcast, filming the fundraiser for the Victory Grill
for part of a DVD series, finishing a short documentary on the kids programs
conducted by the Austin Symphony Orchestra and we are releasing our first
DVD, Texas Rollergirls 2004 Finals. Our first High School Battle of the
Bands CD featuring 21 local area high school rock bands recorded live at the
Flamingo Cantina hits the street next week and we are developing several
more DVD projects for release this year. We will be filming the Austin
Civic Orchestra on June 11-12 at the Zilker Hillside Theater for broadcast
July 4th week. AMN will produce the annual Soberfest Festival on June 11-12
at the Travis County Farmers' Market. More festivals will soon be announced
at that location and if you are interested in using the Farmers' Market for
an event, please let me know. As you can see, we are involved in all kinds
of music, film and arts on a daily basis. That is what AMN is all about.
AMN is working overtime to insure that our future is not dependent on City
funding. We are always trying to create new ways of generating revenue for
both AMN and other community organizations. We welcome your ideas.
[Irrelevant past meeting info expurgated.]
Some of our problems with the Austin Music Partners are:
1. They are not from Austin.
2. They have yet to turn in a proposal on paper to the City
3. They claim regional signal distribution, but Time Warner cannot make
this happen
4. They will offer little to no airtime to local indie music and film
5. They will offer little to no airtime to Latino, hard rock, world,
country or most other forms of non mainstream music
6. They have made no commitments to the local film and music street level
organizations or non-profits
7. Does Time Warner need AMN just to promote Road Runner?
8. They claim to want nothing from AMN or the City, but we do not believe
that.
8. Let Time Warner do their thing, just without killing AMN. Please.
Louis Jay Meyers
General Manager, Austin Music Network
4209 Airport Blvd.
Austin, TX 78722
Direct: 512/974-1809
Posted at 16:27 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sun, 13 Jun 2004
Humor
Q: What's the difference between musicians and government bonds?
A: Government bonds eventually mature and earn money.
Posted at 12:43 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Voting machine trouble in Florida
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Touchscreen voting machines in 11 counties have a software flaw that could make
manual recounts impossible in November's presidential election, state officials said.
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state called the problems "minor technical hiccups"
that can be resolved, but critics allege voting officials wrongly certified a voting system they knew had a bug.
The electronic voting machines are a response to Florida's 2000 presidential election fiasco, where
thousands of punchcard ballots were improperly marked. But the new machines have brought concerns that
errors could go unchecked without paper records of the electronic voting.
Read the whole thing here.
Posted at 09:04 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sat, 12 Jun 2004
Was it good for you?
Functional Ambivalent
does the numbers and lets us know that Reagan's State Funeral cost us, conservatively, about $400 million dollars.
...and I didn't even get a T-shirt. Feh.
Posted at 16:55 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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The Austin Music Network Needs You.
Hot off of the presses... and you have my personal assurance that this will be a very, um,
"interesting and spirited" meeting.
Dear friends,
There will be a special session of the Austin Music Commission this Monday
evening @ 6pm in order for the Commission to make its final recommendation
to the
Austin City Council on the future of the Austin Music Network.
We encourage all of you to utilize this opportunity to be heard by your
peers. If you feel that the Austin Music Network has had an impact on you
or your business, please sign up to speak up now, before it is too late.
The City Council will meet to possibly decide the fate of the Network on
Thursday, June 24.
If you are unable to attend and want to show you support for AMN, please
send an email to the Mayor, Council and Music Commission to let them know
how you feel. You can also send a letter to us at AMN and we will deliver
it to these fine people for you.
If you are a video producer, local artist, local label, local venue, local
filmmaker, local television maker, then we urge you to attend this meeting.
The meeting is Monday, June 14
at City Hall (Municipal Building)
124 West Eighth St. (just west of Congress)
beginning at 6 p.m. in Room 304.
Thank you for your attention and continued support. Help keep Austin
Austin!
Louis Jay Meyers
General Manager, Austin Music Network
4209 Airport Blvd.
Austin, TX 78722
louis@austinmusicnetwork.org
You can easily send e-mail to the Austin Mayor and all Council members with one click
right here.
May as well hit the Austin Music Commission homepage as well.
Posted at 16:55 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 11 Jun 2004
A (revised) final farewell to Ronald Wilson Reagan
Well, after nearly a week of watching fawning hagiographers ply their trade and raise an untalented B-movie hack
to heights normally reserved for lesser deities, we're going to put you in the ground today, Ronnie.
Twenty five years ago, you went around asking people "are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
Let's ask that question from the perspective of the last quarter century. Indeed, are we better off now than
we were twenty five years ago?
Let's see. You created Osama bin Ladin for one. You funded him, trained him, equipped his troops and taught him
military logistics and planning techniques. Your folly has cost this country immeasurably. He even used the Semtex
explosives that you gave him to blow up United States embassies in Africa.
You created Saddam Hussein. You turned him from a tin-horned laughingstock into what we see today.
You funded him, gave him stocks of botulism, mustard gas, anthrax and other
nerve agents. You sent military advisors to teach him how to use these tools. He used 'em, all right.
You turned our country from the greatest creditor nation in the world into the greatest debtor nation in the world.
You ignored a nascent pandemic because it was called "gay cancer." You did not even fund the most basic early research on the disease.
And in doing so millions continue to die gruesome deaths unnecessarily -- because you let it get out of control.
You eliminated the long-standing fairness doctrine for our public airwaves. They are no longer public.
Your deregulation policies have resulted in a situation wherein six corporations own 90% of the news outlets in the world.
The idiocies that came from your mouth still astound us a quarter of a century later. "Ketchup is a vegetable."
Nuclear war is "winnable." People are "homeless by choice." "The bombing begins in five minutes." "Facts are stupid things."
"Most air pollution is caused by trees." "Mistakes were made."
Our national debt today is $7,214,624,032,891.61, and a huge chunk of that can be laid directly at your feet.
Maybe worst of all, you made it acceptable for a President of the United States of America to be stupid, to lie, and
to appeal to the worst in all of us, as long as the words were delivered in a genial, avuncular style and the makeup and
hair was correct. In doing so, you diminished our expectations of our leaders, and you diminished our country.
No, Mr. Reagan, the world is not a better place twenty five years later. The world is a much, much worse place,
and it would have been a much better place today if you had never been president.
Randy Kirchhof
Posted at 17:43 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 10 Jun 2004
Et tu, Houston Chronicle?
Man. Even the Bushie Op/Ed homeboys are
piling on now.
The United States' moral authority to call for the rule of law and respect for human rights
has been undermined by legal machinations the Bush administration undertook to justify torturing
prisoners taken in the war on terror.
Administration officials have attempted to downplay the significance of a March 6, 2003,
Justice Department memorandum that concluded that, as commander in chief in time of war,
President George W. Bush is bound neither by federal law nor the tenets of the Geneva
Conventions that ban torture as a means of extracting information from detainees.
Posted at 16:32 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Planet Reagan
William Rivers Pitt has a wonderful editorial at
Truth Out.
Some excerpts:
The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people
today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration.
It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye.
[...]
Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies.
Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital
to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources
and perspectives.
You really ought to read the whole thing.
Posted at 16:23 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Wed, 09 Jun 2004
How terrible for them...
From Newsweek:
Federal investigators are frantically trying to determine what happened to a missing laptop computer
that contains sensitive data on as many as 100 Drug Enforcement Administration investigations around
the country, including a wealth of information about many of the agency's confidential informants,
NEWSWEEK has learned.
Posted at 09:57 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tough on crime
Reproduced in its entirety from Respectful of others:
Controlled studies show that it results in 54% fewer juvenile arrests and 69% fewer juvenile convictions and probation violations. And for every dollar it costs, four dollars are saved in future costs. Why aren't tough-on-crime conservatives all over it?
Probably because it doesn't involve more cops or more juvenile detention centers or harsher punishments or religious indoctrination. Instead, it's all about nurses.
The program started in my hometown - my mother is now the program coordinator; yay Mom! - and has since spread to 22 other states. It's a simple concept: "high-risk" prospective parents get visited at home by a nurse, beginning as early in pregnancy as possible and continuing until the baby is two years old. The nurses provide prenatal care, support, advice, and parenting education. It's a voluntary program, but more than 90% of parents approached recognize a good deal when they see one.
In a 13-year follow-up of the program, researchers found that it reduced child abuse and neglect by 79 percent. Treated mothers (most of them teenagers) had 33% fewer additional pregnancies. The kids, at age 15, were not only less likely to commit crimes (as cited in the first paragraph), but had 58% fewer sexual partners. As someone who has read a lot of intervention studies, let me assure you that these numbers are phenomenal. They're almost unheard-of. This is a program that works, and it has snowball effects long after the active intervention is over.
It also languishes in obscurity, with barely enough funding to keep the doors open. The registered nurses (who, keep in mind, have a 79% effectiveness rate at preventing the extremely expensive social problem of child abuse) get paid salaries more appropriate for nurse's aides. They cast apprehensive eyes towards Albany every time the Republican governor is looking for new ways to trim the budget. Strangely enough, budget-trimming time never seems to affect the prison guards at the Supermax prison down the road.
No matter how much "compassionate conservative" rhetoric comes out of the White House, we remain a country much more comfortable with punishment than prevention. We're also more comfortable with quick fixes than with long-term social changes, and more comfortable with the rhetoric of personal responsibility than we are with creating a genuine social safety net.
How else to explain the chronic neglect of a program that effectively fights some of our most pernicious and recalcitrant social problems? We do, genuinely, deplore child abuse and adolescent promiscuity and juvenile crime - and yet there is somehow never enough money and resources for programs to prevent them, even when those programs have been proven to pay for themselves.
Posted at 08:53 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thank you, Josh...
The heretofore classified "torture document" is now online (as a big pdf), at,
of all places, the Wall Street Journal.
Read it and weep for your country. I am quite sure that your President didn't take the time.
Posted at 00:01 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 08 Jun 2004
Enough is enough...
I sent out the following to the Austin Music Commission, the Austin City Council, and selected local
media outlets today. Enjoy.
Dear Music Commission Members -
I attended the June 7th meeting. Most interesting.
As background, I was born and raised in Austin; in fact, I am a sixth
generation Austin-area resident. I have been involved in the Austin music
business since the early seventies, including work as stage manager at
Armadillo World Headquarters and chief engineer at Lone Star Recording for
a number of years. I currently play in several bands, and I occasionally do
audio engineering for the Austin Music Network (at a small fraction of my
normal engineering rate; that's my contribution to AMN.) I have been
involved in Austin politics for over two decades (oh, say, since the
Friedman council) as an advertisement engineer/producer, copywriter, and
occasional political consultant.
For what it's worth, I used to be a boy scout, I sometimes listen to KGSR,
and I always clean my plate and say "please" and "thank you" too.
Full disclosure having been offered, I stress emphatically that I speak only
for myself here.
Having watched this whole AMP thing unfold over the last few months
(somewhat from the inside, although I am not hard-wired into all of this),
I have a few thoughts on the matter. Most are simple, common sense questions.
1) Why do you not require a formal RFP? This is a paramount question, and
it immediately negates all of the controversial tactics that we are seeing
here. If AMP wants channel 15 (and, according to their spokesperson, it's a
"deal killer" if they don't get it) then let them formally tell us who they
are, disclose all players, and propose how they will do it, how they will
finance it, how they will operate it, what city oversight they will accede
to, how their plan is better for Austin music, what their vision is, what
their sales and growth projections are, what their distribution model is,
how the cable franchisees are involved, and, very important, what their
programming format will be.
This will obviously and automatically bring Time Warner and Grande into the
mix and get personal relationships out of the mix. It is mathematically
demonstrable that AMPs tactics have gravely injured AMN in the last three
months, and this situation is *exactly* what formal process is designed to
obviate. AMP has no formal proposal, no proof of resources, no detailed
plan, no visible letter of credit, no articulated detailed vision, no
demonstrable distribution beyond the current *at all*, and has produced no
detailed information after repeated requests. The only thing that they
appear to have are a former Chair of the Music Commission and the City
Finance Officer in their camp, and it would seem to me that both of these
individuals are well on their way to ethics inquiries. Why are you even
talking to AMP? Get a formal Request For Proposals up and let the chips
fall where they may. From what I've seen, AMN is quite capable of following
through on formal procedural requirements. AMP shows no such ability or
intent to date.
2) How long has AMP been talking to "the city" (to quote their
spokesperson?) To whom in the city have they been talking? Have city
resources been used to materially assist AMP in their pursuit of channel
15? What is the nature of discussions (if any) with Time-Warner, and when
did these take place? What are the nature of discussions (if any) with
Grande, and when did these take place? What are the nature of any
discussion with the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, and when did
these take place? What are the nature of discussions (if any) with Mayoral
or Council officers/offices, and when did these take place? Have public
meeting laws been violated in any way? Have ethics laws been violated? Can
the city finance officer's actions vs. his seat on the board of ACVB be
considered a conflict of interest with respect to this situation,
considering ACVB's formal position on AMN?
I'll refrain from the other 50 or 60 salient questions in this area; I would
instead proffer the personal opinion that this whole thing reeks of
cronyism, secrecy, intrigue and clumsy end-runs around process, and at best
represents an abuse by a former Chair of the Music Commission (and Director
of AMN) who stands to gain a great deal personally, financially and
professionally. This, perhaps more than anything else, offends my sense of
fair play, and it is my personal opinion that this deserves formal ethical
scrutiny by the City.
I would again urge you to waste no time in recommending the drafting of a
formal RFP.
In closing, I would like to observe that the Austin Music Commission (and
the Telecom Committee) have been seriously discussing a major and
controversial change in a beloved -- and, now, extraordinarily well managed
-- asset of the City of Austin based upon nothing more concrete than a
verbal song-and-dance and a prettily formatted piece of paper. If I come to
the next Commission meeting with my own impressive resume and *say* that I
have $100 million dollars available, can I get listened to as well?
Just a thought. I don't think that I can raise even half of that amount by
your next meeting. But I do have a word processor that could make it look
*really* pretty on paper. :-)
Thanks for your kind attention. You may feel free to enter this into the
public record if you so desire.
Sincerely,
Randy Kirchhof
Posted at 21:26 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 07 Jun 2004
Humor:
Tornado Safety
Posted at 09:02 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Bush off his wheels? Very scary, if true...
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls
of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
[...]
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record,
a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions
to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
[...]
"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it,"
says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an
election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the
President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation
and I want it now."
Read the rest.
Shades of the final days of Nixon.
Posted at 09:02 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Oh, by the way..
Apparently Ronald Wilson Reagan died this weekend.
Nice guy. Good politician. Horrible mathematician. Terrible manager. Dim-bulb ideologue. Mediocre actor. Excellent hair.
This fellow did untold damage to this country, not the least of which is the legacy of a total lack of accountability
in the executive branch of our government, and the strangely tolerated situation wherein a President of the
United States of America can now be publicly stupid, even willfully uninformed, and not be laughed out of office.
Let's quote David Corn from 1998 for a moment:
66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan
The firing of the air traffic controllers, winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees
that cause pollution, Elliott Abrams lying to Congress, ketchup as a vegetable, colluding with Guatemalan
thugs, pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, public
housing cutbacks, redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement, James Watt.
Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals, tax credits for segregated schools, disinformation campaigns,
"homeless by choice," Manuel Noriega, falling wages, the HUD scandal, air raids on Libya, "constructive engagement"
with apartheid South Africa, United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers, attacks on OSHA and
workplace safety, the invasion of Grenada, assassination manuals, Nancy's astrologer.
Drug tests, lie detector tests, Fawn Hall, female appointees (8 percent), mining harbors, the S&L scandal,
239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut, Al Haig "in control," silence on AIDS, food-stamp reductions, Debategate,
White House shredding, Jonas Savimbi, tax cuts for the rich, "mistakes were made."
Michael Deaver's conviction for influence peddling, Lyn Nofziger's conviction for influence peddling,
Caspar Weinberger's five-count indictment, Ed Meese ("You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime"),
Donald Regan (women don't "understand throw-weights"), education cuts, massacres in El Salvador.
"The bombing begins in five minutes," $640 Pentagon toilet seats, African-American judicial appointees
(1.9 percent), Reader's Digest, C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed),
200 officials accused of wrongdoing, William Casey, Iran/contra. "Facts are stupid things," three-by-five cards,
the MX missile, Bitburg, S.D.I., Robert Bork, naps, Teflon.
Indeed, "Mistakes were made."
Nevertheless, may he rest in peace, and may his family be comforted. However extraordinarily misguided,
I don't think that anyone can argue with the fact that he loved his country. And one can have only compassion
for sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease and their families. A truly horrible thing.
Posted at 09:02 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Ahh, our Texas Baptists Republicans...
Kevin Drum has a piece
today about the new Texas Republican Platform.
An excerpt:
A plank in a section titled "Promoting Individual Freedom and Personal Safety" proclaims the
United States a "Christian nation."
...Also new this year is a section declaring that the Ten Commandments "are the basis of our
basic freedoms and the cornerstone of our Western legal tradition."
"We therefore oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit or remove public display of the
Decalogue or other religious symbols."
....As delegates prayed and sang, oversized religious images, including Jesus on the cross,
were displayed on the hall's giant video screens. Christian clergymen took turns leading the prayers,
some with political overtones.
An amazing collection of religious fanatics, sociopaths, ward heelers and authoritarians. No wonder comedy clubs are struggling.
Why pay when it comes for free in the morning news?
The Texas GOP site is "closed for several days"
as a tribute to Reagan, but I'll follow up on this once I get a chance to read the new platform.
Posted at 06:08 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sun, 06 Jun 2004
"Something is up."
I talked a couple of days ago about the housing refinancing bubble burst. Not to get too chicken-littleish,
but I ran across a snippet of news observing that the Fed has infused an extraordinary amount of cash into the money supply
recently -- $155 billion. After a bit o' Googling, I ran across this piece
by Robert McHugh, Ph.D. It gives me pause, and now I am more than a little worried over something that
was just an interesting speculation a few days ago. Here's an excerpt:
Let me just say from the outset that the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast
by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week.
What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe
M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over
the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!!
There must be a crisis of historic proportions coming, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United
States is making sure that there is enough liquidity in place to protect our nation's fragile
financial system. The amazing thing is, the Fed's actions mean they know what is about to happen.
They are aware of a terrible, horrific imminent event. What could it be?
Pretty strong stuff. Worth a read.
Posted at 11:50 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Speechless...
This strikes me as one of the most important pieces of work that I've ever read.
Thanks for the pointer, Mike. The original from May 10th is at In These Times.
Cold Turkey
By Kurt Vonnegut
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
-------------------------
When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.
Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.
I have to say that’s a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.
The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.
But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who’ve said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:
Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:
As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?
How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …
And so on.
Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
-------------------------
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!
I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does “A.D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.
Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?
No problem. That’s entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.
During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.
Mel Gibson’s next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
-------------------------
And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”
The same can be said about this morning’s edition of the New York Times.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
So there’s another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.
Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:
I often think it’s comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.
If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.
If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.
If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.
What could be simpler?
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My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.
Other drunks have seen pink elephants.
And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”
How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.
So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.
Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.
About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.
I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.
But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.
And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.
When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.
Posted at 10:45 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Wed, 02 Jun 2004
Extremely good news on the electronic voting front
USA Today says:
SACRAMENTO (AP) — Electronic voting machine manufacturers, already facing a July 1, 2005, deadline in California to make touch-screen machines that provide paper backup copies of votes, would face an even tighter deadline under a bill that passed the state Senate Tuesday.
The Senate voted 32-0 to move up the deadline by six months, to Jan. 1. After that date, cities or counties could not buy or use electronic machines that lack a paper printout of every vote.
The bill passed Tuesday would make voting machine makers print a paper backup copy on which voters could visually verify their electronic vote. Voters would not be able to take the copy with them.
If Califormia pulls this off, the entire nation will follow. Great news. What is unclear is whether the paper ballots are (a) machine readable, and (b) archived for recount purposes; that is the key.
Posted at 09:35 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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It's all beginning to unravel. Finally.
From the
Washington Post:
Shortly before the Pentagon awarded a division of oil services contactor Halliburton Co. a sole-source contract to help restore Iraqi oil fields last year, an Army Corps of Engineers official wrote an e-mail saying the award had been "coordinated" with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive.
The March 5, 2003, e-mail, disclosed over the weekend by Time magazine, noted that Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official, had signed off on the deal "contingent on informing WH [the White House] tomorrow."
"We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's office," it continued.
Three days later, Halliburton subsidiary KBR was granted the contract, which was worth as much as $7 billion, according to information on the Army Corps of Engineers Web site. The first job under the contract was putting out oil fires. It was later expanded to include shipping fuel to Iraq, which led to Pentagon auditor charges that KBR had overbilled the government.
Posted at 06:18 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A nice little home project...
Make your own biodiesel. For $0.44 a gallon.
Posted at 06:09 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Perle or Wolfowitz?
From the New York Times...
American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.
According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.
American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" — a reference to an American — had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.
The Iranians sent what American intelligence regarded as a test message, which mentioned a cache of weapons inside Iraq, believing that if the code had been broken, United States military forces would be quickly dispatched to the specified site. But there was no such action.
The account of Mr. Chalabi's actions has been confirmed by several senior American officials, who said the leak contributed to the White House decision to break with him.
It could not be learned exactly how the United States broke the code. But intelligence sources said that in the past, the United States has broken into the embassies of foreign governments, including those of Iran, to steal information, including codes.
The F.B.I. has opened an espionage investigation seeking to determine exactly what information Mr. Chalabi turned over to the Iranians as well as who told Mr. Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken, government officials said. The inquiry, still in an early phase, is focused on a very small number of people who were close to Mr. Chalabi and also had access to the highly restricted information about the Iran code.
Posted at 06:05 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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