U.S. vs. John Lennon

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives and I'm liable to put away as insane for expressing that."
- John Lennon

I want to see this movie.

It might give me some much needed hope.

"We came here to say to you, apathy isn't it. We can do something."
-John Lennon

U.S. vs. John Lennon

Why Our Media Sucks

We wouldn't want Americans to clutter their beautiful minds with the fact that we are losing Afghanistan.

Don't you worry your pretty little heads about Afghanistan. Here's Annie Liebovitz.

No wonder we have the most uninformed citizenry in the world.

Why Our Media Sucks

Bye Denny

Time to resign.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it." It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged e-mails between Foley and the boy.

Excerpt from the Post.

Bye Denny

Banned Books Week

Looking for something to read?

Here's a list.

Just picked up Catch-22. I didn't even know it was on the list. The book will be that much more enjoyable.

I also hear, if the Bush Administration gets its way, the Constitution may be added to the list soon.

Banned Books Week

Opposition Party

It would be nice if we had one.



Thank you, gutless wonders.

Opposition Party

Saviors of Democracy

McCain. Warner. Huckleberry Graham.

Not so much.

Saviors of Democracy

HR 6166

Check to see if your representative voted for HR 6166.

If so, I'd highly recommend not voting for that person, unless of course, you could care less about the writ of habeas corpus (which stops the government from holding you indefinitely without charging you of a crime), or whether it's a good idea to allow this President or any President to decide what is or isn't torture.

This isn't a partisan issue. It's an American issue.

The writ of habeas corpus is an American value.

Torture is not an American value.

HR 6166 stands in opposition to both.

HR 6166

Dear Congresswoman Bean

Dear Congresswoman Bean,

I am a committed and loyal Democrat, I cannot for the life of me figure out why a Democratic representative would support HR 6166.

Why would you support a law that would, in effect, give the President the right to declare me an enemy combatant, hold me indefinitely without charging me, and then subject me to whatever interrogation techniques he desires, as long as he believes the technique is not torture, even though according to the Geneva Conventions, the technique would be classified as torture?

Not only can he do this to me, an American citizen. He can also do this to anyone in the world. What must the world think of us? We can't fight terrorists without betraying our ideals? If we can't, haven't the terrorists already won?

I want a Democratic Congress as much as the next person, but aren't some values non-negotiable?

Aren't some things worth risking your Congressional seat for?

Is it that difficult to defend your support of the writ of habeas corpus and your opposition to torture against a radical Republican like David McSweeney?

Why be a representative if you can't stand up for the Constitution?

I'm tired of Democrats who run scared everytime Karl Rove says, "Boo!"

Why should I vote for you after you vote the same way that David McSweeney would on a bill as un-American as HR 6166?

It is a dark day for our country. I don't think I've ever been this discouraged. We've faced European fascism and Soviet communism without betraying the foundations of our democracy. Yet the terrorists go "Boo!", Karl Rove goes "Boo!", and representatives of what is supposed to be an opposition party, willingly surrender our liberties to the President, a President who's had a sub-40% approval rating for longer than any President, other than maybe Richard Nixon.

It's despicable and cowardly. No wonder Americans won't support Democrats. They can't be counted on to oppose. They cower in fear of an unpopular President.

I wonder if you heard what the President said today:

"Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing."
"The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

Congratulations. You supported President Bush's bill and he's still calling you and your fellow Democrats names. Did you really think that if you voted for Bush's bill, all of the sudden the political attacks would stop?

When will Democrats learn? The party of FDR and Harry Truman never would have supported HR 6166. They would have called this bill exactly what it is, un-American.

Supporters of the Democratic party are craving leadership that will stand up to an incompetent President and rubber stamp Republican Congress, and so are the American people.

See any Democrats around that fit that description? I see a few, including our senators from Illinois and many in the Illinois Congressional delegation, but not enough. I'm not sure if I see any in the Illinois 8th Congressional District race.

I see 2 candidates that would not support the writ of habeas corpus, while supporting the right of the President to determine exactly what torture is, instead of letting it be defined by the Geneva Conventions.

Believe me, I'm going to have a difficult time voting for you on November 7th.

The Constitution is all that stands between liberty and tyranny. Torture is not an American value. If I wanted a representative that would support HR 6166 and be rubber stamp for President Bush, I would have voted for Phil Crane in 2004.

Sincerely,

st3veh

Dear Congresswoman Bean

Why I Love Nomar

2 walk off HRs in one week.

#1.
#2.

Garciaparra provided the heroics for the second time in a span of seven games, hitting a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the ninth Sunday to give the Dodgers a much-needed 5-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

"I tried to get a good pitch, was able to get one. I'm just glad and thankful I was able to do this," said Garciaparra, who hit a 2-1 pitch from Luis Vizcaino over the left-center field fence for his 19th homer.

[...]

Just last Monday night, Garciaparra hit a two-run homer in the 10th inning to give Los Angeles an 11-10 victory over San Diego after the Dodgers matched a major league record by hitting four consecutive homers in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game.

"He could barely run," Dodgers manager Grady Little said. "With what he's giving us out there in his condition is just outstanding."

Unbelievable.

Why I Love Nomar

Why I Love Eddie Vedder

Call 'em out, Eddie.

John Roberts.
Dick Cheney.
Jerry Falwell.
Alberto Gonzalez.
George W.

All of you can find yourself another country to be part of, and find another Constitution to shred.

(note: to view the video, just click on one of the Video links (Windows Media or Quicktime) in the linked post.)

Why I Love Eddie Vedder

Dear Democrats, Pt. 2

One more thing. A gift from the Preznit himself.

The President has handed the Democrats a gift. They have to consistently and daily say:
"The President said that getting the guy who masterminded 9/11 is not a top priority, if you elect a Democratic Congress, we will make it a top priority. That is what is riding on this election. If you want Bin Laden captured or killed (need to use the word "killed"), you have to vote for a change." Over and over and over again.

Again, very simple. We will making capturing Bin Laden a top priority. You could also mention something about the President being more interested in quoting Bin Laden than capturing him.

love,

steve

Dear Democrats, Pt. 2

Dear Democrats

Here is how you should respond to the Republicans' desperate efforts to convince the American people that you are "more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people."

"I wouldn't mind if the president were politicizing 9/11 so much if he hadn't failed so badly at rounding up the people responsible for it. The president pulled our troops out of Afghanistan for Iraq when they had Osama in their grasp and he's still at large 5 years later. And he's still pretending that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. People need to make a decision on November 7th. Is five years of failure enough? If people think President Bush is on the right course, they should vote Republican. If they think it's time for a change, they should vote Democratic.

It really is that simple.

love,

steve

Dear Democrats

Why I Love Henry Rollins

Henry Rollins = Keith Olbermann + f-bombs

Henry is saying exactly what needs to be said to people who equate questioning authority with sympathizing or appeasing terrorists.

Freedom is under attack. Under attack by hysterical and well funded Christian psychotics, intellectually undernourished leaders who lie and manipulate information, overfed Baby Huey coward bitch motherfuckers like Karl Rove and their suck up weakling apologists like Sean Hannity. To question authority is to be somehow unpatriotic, unAmerican and in league with terrorists worldwide?

Fuck you.

With even election results becoming more and more questionable, The Constitution a thing to be manipulated, ignored and frivolously amended, even Democracy itself seems to be on the run.

Where's one place you can go and tell your version of the truth, rail against liars, fakes and propagandists with your own unique propaganda, sign your name to it and let the world know how you feel? That's right, the internet. Perhaps responsible for the most substantial shifts in culture in the last several decades. There is so much freedom and potential on the World Wide Web that one is barely able to get one's head around it.

Who in their right mind would to dare to regulate or charge websites to be on the internet? Who would dare to rain on a parade so fantastic that many of us wouldn't know what to do without our high-speed connection and our lives on the internet?

Actually some very powerful forces. Telco companies want to make you pay for your site to be carried on the internet. If you can't afford to pay, guess what? That's right--you're cyber history pal. The Bush Administration wants major internet and phone companies to keep track of where their customers surf, all in the name of the War On Terror don't ya know. How much do you want to bet they want the internet regulated, contained and thrown into a cell in Guantanamo Bay?

For a country that talks so much about freedom being on the march, seems to me that some people want anything but. If they come for your freedom you must not only resist, you must strike back with a vengeance that will stun them. On this front, if your anger and outrage are not at the forefront then you're already dead. Dead to me, anyway. Fuck these cowards, these traitors, these enemies of Democracy.

Never relent.

Video available here

Why I Love Henry Rollins

Why I Love Nomar

Wicked classy.

The Cubs were shut out for the 14th time, most among NL teams. Garciaparra, who chipped in with a two-run single in the fourth, is enjoying his homecoming while sympathizing over the plight of the Cubs.

"It's not an easy place to hit, but what I really enjoyed was just playing here, the atmosphere," he said of his stay with the Cubs. "It's definitely tough for [the Cubs]. They're good people over there, good guys, and you don't want anybody to have to take anything like that, especially your friends. You just wish them the best."

Why I Love Nomar

3 Things to Remember

1. President Bush isn't that concerned about Bin Laden.

Q: But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

Bush: I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

2. President Bush let him get away at Tora Bora.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

3. There has not been a credible lead on Bin Laden in 2 years.

"The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone "stone cold."

Bonus: President Bush isn't concerned that Pakistan has made a peace deal with the pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan that are most likely providing a sanctuary for Bin Laden.

Bush said in an interview that he did not think the controversial amnesty deal between the Pakistani military and pro-Taliban elements in Waziristan gave a safe haven to terrorists, but added "we are watching this very carefully, obviously".

"I don't read it that way" Bush said when asked about the truce, which many analysts are reading as a retreat by Musharraf's army and ceding of both territory and responsibility by Pakistan.

That is all.

(courtesy: Daily Kos)

3 Things to Remember

The Best War Ever

(via Atrios)

The Best War Ever

Thank You, Keith

Olbermann gives the most powerful 9/11 commentary of the day.

Thank You, Keith

Fountains Exclusive!

Meet the executive producers of "The Path to 9/11."




It's a small world, after all...

(images found and stolen from Atrios and Daily Kos. I hope they don't mind.)

Fountains Exclusive!

Sunday Q and A

Q: When Does Bush Care About Bin Laden?
A: When there's an election coming up. Otherwise, he "truly doesn't think about him that much."

Sunday Q and A

Dear Mickey

The events leading up to 9/11 need not be fictionalized for political purposes to shift blame from the Bush Administration to the Clinton Administration and present unsubstantiated right-wing myths to the unsuspecting public as reality. I am disturbed that ABC/Disney would allow outright falsehoods in a film presented as a "docudrama" based on the 9/11 commission report.

This film should be corrected or pulled. If it isn't, you have lost a viewer of any ABC/Disney related programming and I will be sure to tell as many of my friends about ABC/Disney's reprehensible conduct regarding this film.

Love,

Steve

Dear Mickey

Dear Andy and Jim

Heckuva job. 1/2 game lead on the Pirates.

P.S. I have a new theme song for the Chicago Cubs franchise. Ever heard of "Wake Me Up When September Ends"?

Enjoy the video.



Love,
st3veh

Dear Andy and Jim

Why I Love Neil Young

He puts my anger into words and delivers the message, righteously.

His eyes fixed, shoulders loose and expression stone-faced, Neil Young venomously spat the words to "Let's Impeach the President" as gospel while the controversial song's lyrics were projected on a screen behind him. The song was the angriest moment of a Sunday evening filled with peaceable sentiments and outspoken sloganeering, the trumpet-blaring anthem garnering cheers from a majority of the fair-size crowd drawn to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre.

Thank you, Neil, for doing your part to wake our country up, while also patiently educating the empty-headed cable reporters. Where the hell do they find these morons? I would have found it hard to be as polite as Neil was.

Keep on rockin' Neil.

Why I Love Neil Young

Olbermann en Fuego

Just watch as Keith reads Rummy the riot act.

Transcript:

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

And, today, the Preznit.

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

I can answer that. He has no sense of decency.

Olbermann en Fuego

Why I Love Sleater-Kinney

Read.
The.
Whole.
Thing.

Burnside is the main strip bisecting Portland into South and North, and runs the length of the city. It's lined with cheap Indian and Mexican restaurants, strip joints (of which Portland has more per capita than anywhere in the U.S.), the famous union bookstore Powell's City of Books, and, of course, the Crystal Ballroom, which sits on Burnside's left flank just above I-5, where the city erected tall iron fencing to keep jumpers from ending it on the freeway. It is representative of an ethos that pervades the entire Pacific Northwest: a social democracy (in theory if not practice), diverse in class and interests, with an emphasis on localized economy and deliberate community.

Sleater-Kinney embodied that mindset, in theory and in practice. They wore clothes made by Portland designers (Holly Stalder, Seaplane, where the photos for One Beat were shot). They attended local shows in clubs and in converted art-warehouses. They volunteer-instructed at the Rock & Roll Camp for Girls, a Portland day-camp dedicated to teaching young girls instruments and self-esteem. They eschewed the pedestal and fetishization that's written in the rock star script, which made them unique beyond their extraordinary talents-- they seemed accessible, in the tradition of indie rockers, yet they retained the notoriety and respect of the 1970s style rock and rollers, before voracious commercialism mandated image-fame and reality-show photogenicity. That's why this show felt like a real ending, not a Jay-Z retirement: Like the economy of notes in many of their songs, they were never ones for pomp. Goodbye felt like goodbye.

[...]

The perspective counted: the openness of new motherhood, of actual creation, tore open their music and exposed their hearts; the songs "One Beat" and "Oh" thumped with the sound of invention, charged and organic like the kinetic energy of lightning. At the same time, "Faraway" and "Combat Rock" illustrated the conundrum of giving life just as the ash of death has permeated the world: profound rage, and a mother's instinct to protect her child from threat. It contains some of most hopeful and important rock songs ever written on war, 9/11 and the fragility of life, and it ends with a prayer: "Sympathy", humanity in the blues, the equalizing forces of humility and need.

***

Sleater-Kinney's best video, the Miranda July-directed "Get Up," is a black-and-white motif of women walking through a field, the evergreens of Oregon piercing the sky behind them. They are holding hands; as they walk through the grass, they pick Weiss, Tucker and Brownstein off the ground, as their warm notes and high-hat hits seem to cloak the specks of light in the lens. Shots of meteors flash in and out. The images are an evocative metaphor for Sleater-Kinney's career: leg-ups for downtrodden women; hope, promise, and humor through ingenuity and virtuosity; a coalition of ideas without bounds. The video ends with a hot pink cartoon supernova. Brownstein looks up in awe. Their impact fans out.

Though onstage banter was rare that last day at the Crystal Ballroom, Carrie Brownstein punctuated their final show by telling the audience, "It's such a privilege to play for you tonight." Time will tell the impact and longevity, but for over a decade, the privilege was ours.

For 4 shows and 7 albums, the privilege was mine.

I make one promise, my children, and especially my daughter will know who Sleater-Kinney was. The 3 passionate and brilliant women of Sleater-Kinney provide a source of courage, inspiration, empowerment, esteem and hope in a world that tends to objectify, label, demean, and brutalize women.

Thank you, one last time, Sleater-Kinney. I will miss you. You will always be in heavy rotation on my iPod.

Why I Love Sleater-Kinney