~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In The News
Bill Clinton In NYC
Same Picture, Different Address
Former President Bill Clinton hugs an unidentified boy on University Place in
New York, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001, while on his way to a vigil in Washington
Square for victims of Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Photo by Adam Forgash (AP)
Radio News
Robin Quivers Rules!
Taking Care Of Hank
Robin Ophelia Quivers' efforts to establish a memorial college scholarship in
the name of Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf is being thwarted by organized charity.
Quivers tells Pagesix.com that when she
contacted the Little People of America about setting up the fund for the Howard
Stern show regular, who died last week, "They were willing to take donations in
his name but not to recognize him in any particular way."
Quivers assures us her crusade, funded in part by dough she won last weekend
taping "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" will succeed. "I want his name to live on
in perpetuity. I don't think he knew how much he was loved."
Also see: bcEnt 5 Sept., 2001
Broadway!
"The Show Must Go On"
Broadway returned to its regular performance schedule Thursday night, as the
theater industry, like the rest of the city, attempts to recover in the wake of
Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
The 23 shows on the boards canceled performances Tuesday and Wednesday, with
most of those losing three shows including Wednesday matinees.
``It was a logistical question with regard to Broadway,'' said Jed Bernstein,
president of the League of American Theaters & Producers. ``It was simply not
possible to get casts and crews together for Wednesday performances here in the
city.''
Meanwhile, in London, a city whose theatrical ties with New York have always run
rich and deep, the show went on Tuesday night, albeit with a mournful nod across
the Atlantic.
At the Lyric Theater, for instance, the company of ``Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof'' -- including American leads Brendan Fraser and Ned Beatty -- considered
canceling the show but decided to go ahead.
``We had a brief discussion about it with the cast and decided that (to cancel)
was really caving into terrorism,'' said Tom Siracusa, show's inhouse producer
for West End impresario Bill Kenwright.
The performance played to about 75% capacity in the 900-plus seater.
Many U.S. road companies, which also were shut down Tuesday as the country
reacted to the tragic events, resumed performances Wednesday, Bernstein said.
With the exception of the occasional theater strike, the three-performance gap
represents the longest interruption in the Broadway performing schedule in
recent memory. Following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963,
Broadway theaters closed on Friday, Nov. 22, and Monday, Nov. 25, the day of the
funeral, but remained opened for the intervening Saturday matinee and evening
performances.
The immediate impact of the three-performance moratorium represented a loss of
about $1.5 million for Broadway. Midweek performances often gross substantially
less than weekend performances, with the exception of sold-out shows such as
``The Producers'' and ``The Lion King.'' (``Producers'' star Nathan Lane, who
lives in the financial district, reportedly felt the shock of the World Trade
Center attack but was unharmed.)
September is customarily Broadway's lowest-grossing month, with several shows
having just closed (``Fosse,'' ``Riverdance,'' ``The Dinner Party'') and only
two (``Hedda Gabler,'' ``Dance of Death'') set to begin previews later this month.
The exception is ``Urinetown,'' which canceled its official opening set for
Thursday night. The new musical will play Thursday, but has not yet rescheduled
its official opening date.
Broadway
In The News
Photo Essay From Time Magazine
Shattered
Music News
John Lennon Museum In Japan
Halfway around the world from where John Lennon lived and died, a museum
dedicated to him is attracting the kinds of crowds he enjoyed while performing
with the Beatles more than three decades ago.
The John Lennon Museum, in the Tokyo suburb of Saitama, has had nearly 200,000
visitors since it opened on Oct. 9, which would have been Lennon's 60th birthday.
What they see when they travel north about 45 minutes from Shinjuku Station in
downtown Tokyo is a serious, almost scholarly look at Lennon's life, from his
birth to his final days in New York. His widow, Yoko Ono, cut the ribbon at the
opening ceremony and has provided the museum with about 100 of the 130 items on
display.
The location seems unlikely. The museum, which cost $16.6 million to build,
occupies two floors of a new sports arena, concert hall and convention center,
the $620 million Saitama Super Arena.
The displays are divided into chronological zones. They cover Lennon's childhood
and his teenage years; his Beatle days and his early days with Ms. Ono; his
peace efforts; the creation of the song "Imagine"; his life in New York; the
"lost weekend" years of 1973 and 1974, when he and Ms. Ono lived apart; their
reconciliation; and his return to writing and performing.
Several of Lennon's favorite guitars, including the Gallotone Champion he was
playing on July 6, 1957, the day he met Paul McCartney, are on display. There is
also his Rickenbacker 325, which he used in the Hamburg and early Liverpool days
of the Beatles, as well as a replica of the white piano he played when he wrote
"Imagine."
But many of Lennon's everyday items offer a more personal feeling, like three
pairs of his round-framed glasses that are scattered among the displays. Near
the end of the exhibition, in a section about Lennon's life in New York, there
are a wallet, a wristwatch, a lighter and a leather cigarette case containing
six cigarettes.
For those who identify him most with his words, there are several original lyric
sheets handwritten by Lennon on hotel stationery, manila envelopes and lined
notebook paper, including the words for "Julia," the song Lennon wrote about his
mother.
Some lyrics appear with nothing changed or crossed out. Others show the work of
this songwriter's mind. "Help," the title song from the Beatles' second film, is
scrawled, as though Lennon was in a hurry.
One of his best known and most respected ballads, "In My Life," was written on
the back of a manila envelope on display, just 16 lines on a torn, spotted
envelope, but words known around the world.
"Imagine," perhaps the song most closely associated with Lennon, is there,
written in brown ink on New York Hilton memo paper. There are no changes, as
though Lennon wrote in one draft the song that became a documentary on his life.
Visitors can walk among them, examining them at their leisure. Finally they are
asked to write their reflections about the museum on a piece of paper provided
and to place it in one of several boxes adjacent to photographs of Lennon from
particular times in his life. Some 60,000 of the visitors have offered comments.
Lennon Museum
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Check it out at BC Astrology.
Have you ever checked out Jimi Hendrix or Michael Bloomfield's horoscope?
Pretty cool stuff!
Music News
Bad, Bad Rumor
Pop singer Whitney Houston's spokeswoman on Thursday denied rumors that the
superstar had died of an overdose.
``Whitney Houston is fine. This is a rumor and it's not true. She thanks
everyone for their concern. She is fine and at home with her family,''
spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer said in a statement.
The source of the rumors was unknown. Said an official at Seltzer's office:
``It's a very, very bad rumor that happened at a very, very bad time.''
Houston, 38, performed during the tribute concert for Michael Jackson last
Friday, when observers commented on her seemingly emaciated condition. She did
not appear on the second night of the tribute the following Monday.
Whitney
New!
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Don't worry about the HTML, just send text, or rich text, or a Word document, photos, video, whatever you have, and Michele will take care of the rest. Don't hesitate to write with any questions you may have and bring on the recipes!
To check out 'Train Station Chicken', and more, In The Kitchen With BartCop
TV News
Ellen
In the pilot episode of ``The Ellen Show,'' the hometown folks offer their
congratulations when they learn that Ellen Richmond is gay.
``No need to harp on it,'' Richmond responds, with a smile.
Her attitude reflects an ease with sexual choice, a sense that it's part of a
person, not the entire story.
DeGeneres likes the notion that ``don't harp on it'' sets the tone for her new
show. This Ellen character leaves her high-powered executive career to return
home to mother, sister and small-town life and values. She's gay, but that's not
the primary focus.
``It should be a non-issue and it should not be something people harp on,'' she
says, adding that her goal is ``to make this show a sweet little fantasy,'' like
the good-natured sitcoms ``Mayberry R.F.D.'' and ``Petticoat Junction'' she
enjoyed as a child.
Her former girlfriend Anne Heche, who recently married cameraman Coleman
Laffoon, is pregnant. Heche also has been on the national talk-show circuit
touting her memoir, ``Call Me Crazy.''
With sad, sweet dignity, she responds, ``I really don't want to talk about her,
but I will say that nothing surprises me.''
Clearly the 43-year-old DeGeneres is coping. Despite a hint of sorrow in her
trusting blue eyes, she looks happy, free of that ``trapped-in-the-spotlight''
look.
DeGeneres had considered doing a variety show instead of a sitcom, taking real
situations from people on the street and doing ``ridiculous Carol Burnett-type
sketches based on that.'' A pilot was shot last year for a midseason CBS series,
but the concept was shelved.
``I just found it to be really hard to do quality stuff, especially as I don't
do characters or dialects.''
Ellen
Ellen, The Show
Emmy Awards
TV News
Fall Season Update & More
Network executives have started to comb through their fall fare, hoping to erase
anything considered tasteless in light of Tuesday's tragedy.
The pilot to CBS' rookie drama ``The Agency,'' for example, includes a reference
to terrorist Osama bin Laden as the mastermind of a plot to blow up Harrods
department store in London.
CBS execs said Wednesday that the pilot would not air as is -- if at all -- next
week. It's more likely the network will sub another episode of ``The Agency'' as
the show's first, making a few tweaks to account for continuity issues. Promos
for the series have been pulled.
``Agency'' exec producer Shaun Cassidy said it's still too soon to tell
precisely what changes will have to be made.
Nonetheless, ``The world's a very different place today than it was,'' he said
through a spokesman. ``We will have to make some adjustments.''
Industry executives are also wondering how Fox might handle its new drama
``24,'' which focuses on a CIA agent (Kiefer Sutherland) who has 24 hours to
prevent a group of terrorists from assassinating a presidential candidate.
The pilot to ``24,'' which is produced by 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine TV,
includes the explosion of a jumbo jet, which might be deemed in poor taste
considering Tuesday's attack.
But Fox executives believe ``24'' focuses more on the relationship between the
main character and his family than it does on any terrorism -- and that the
show's assassination attempt is very different from what happened in the real
world this week.
Fox has yanked all ``24'' promos for the time being. But the drama isn't
scheduled to debut until late October, when the nation may feel more calm.
Beyond depictions of terrorist attacks, the networks have to be careful with any
scenes of New York under siege. Fox, for example, has decided to pull its
made-for-TV movie ``The Rats,'' originally scheduled for Monday, in favor of a
repeat run of ``The Nutty Professor.''
Even skyline shots of New York will have to be changed now that the cityscape
has been dramatically altered. NBC will edit out scenes of the World Trade
Center from the opening credits of ``Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'' and an
upcoming episode of its reality show ``Lost.''
Meanwhile, production continued on CBS' ``Big Brother 2,'' though it was still
unclear when CBS will air the show's next episode.
The cousin of Monica, one of the houseguests, remained unaccounted for in New
York late Wednesday. Monica has been kept up to date on the situation, said
``Big Brother'' executive producer Arnold Shapiro.
Bad TV
BartCop TV Is Here!
Visit the site at BC TV
The 'Vidiot', has updated, again!
There is even more to check!
The Vidiot.
You'll find an amazing amount of information, on an amazing variety of TV shows,
thanks to our Vidiot.
TV News
The Co$t$
The nation's media outlets will stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in
advertising this week as they provide expanded news coverage of the terrorist
attacks.
The major broadcasters--NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox--dropped commercials and all
regular programming Tuesday and Wednesday to provide nonstop coverage of the
catastrophe. Newspapers across the country printed extra editions even as
advertisers pulled their business because of the crisis.
Analysts estimated that television broadcasters alone are losing nearly $100
million a day in local and national advertising because of the extended news
coverage. Cable networks are losing money as well. In addition to the cable news
channels, such as CNN and MSNBC, ad-driven sports and entertainment networks
including ESPN and MTV picked up the news feeds of their sister broadcast
networks for the first time ever. By Wednesday, many of the cable networks and
independent broadcasters had returned to normal programming.
Some non-news cable channels, including QVC, Home & Garden Television and the
Food Network, eliminated all programming and commercials out of respect for the
victims of national tragedy, with some returning to regular schedules on
Wednesday.
"We have never before taken the service down, but it didn't seem right to run
programming and commercials," said Ken Lowe, president and chief executive of
E.W. Scripps, which owns newspapers, TV stations and cable channels including
Home & Garden and the Food Network.
The networks are just now beginning to evaluate when to reinstate advertising
and regular programming.
Turner Broadcasting spokesman Mark Harrad said the network had decided not to
air financial services or airline ads until messages and phone numbers within
the spots had been checked with sponsors.
In addition to losing ad revenue, the networks are also experiencing unexpected
expenditures.
Most networks must rebuild transmitters located at the top of the World Trade
Center towers, which were leveled Tuesday after airliners hijacked by terrorists
crashed into them.
These transmitters cost between $5 million and $10 million apiece. With a second
transmission tower atop the Empire State Building, CBS was the only major
network broadcasting an over-the-air signal in New York on Tuesday, with the
highest ratings in the city as a result.
Cost Of TV Business
TV News
Petty Faux News
CNN and Fox News Channel took unusually harsh swipes at each other Wednesday
while analyzing the ratings for their coverage of the terrorist assaults on New
York and Virginia the previous day.
Fox News kicked off the attack when it responded to CNN's email to reporters
putting out Nielsen ratings based on the top 51 ``metered'' markets for Tuesday.
``CNN has a reputation for distorting numbers, a despicable practice made more
disappointing during a national tragedy such as this,'' said a Fox News memo
emailed by the network's PR staff.
Fox News hates the metered-market comparison because CNN is fully penetrated in
all 51 markets, whereas Fox News has spotty clearances in such major cities as
Philadelphia, putting it at a household disadvantage.
In response to the Fox News memo, Brad Turell, head of corporate communications
for CNN's Turner Broadcasting parent, said: ``(Fox News boss) Roger Ailes should
be thanking us because Fox News used so much of our footage throughout the day.
Instead, he follows his usual pattern of going on the offensive and using vile
language against us.''
CNN vs. Faux
Michael Dare
The Great Collapse
Michael Dare
THE GREAT COLLAPSE
I can't say what it meant; I can only say what it meant to me.
The bus picks my son up for high school at 6:47AM, so I'm
generally up at 5:30 with a cup of coffee, turning on the TV at six
to wake him up. Together, we watched the whole thing. Now, my memory
of seeing Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated live with my parents is
joined by the memory of seeing thousands of deaths live with my son.
I didn't have to look at the calendar to know what day it was because
yesterday was my younger son's birthday, 9/10. It was 9/11. It was
911. It was the ultimate emergency call.
I feel an odd combination of emotions, unbelievable anger
that something like this could happen, but unlike those people who
heard about Pearl Harbor on December 7, nobody to specifically blame.
At least they knew to hate the Japanese, but this event doesn't allow
us to hate an entire country or class of people. There's only one
person to hate, the mastermind, and though we can make a good guess,
at this point there's no way to actually know.
Going out in the world, everyone was in a daze. The clerk at
Vons was getting an update on her cell phone, saying "What? There was
a fourth plane?" while ringing up my juice. We walk down the aisles
and shake our heads at each other, we had all witnessed thousands of
simultaneous deaths on live television. Fuck politics, life would
never be the same. And the thought that keeps surfacing, despite my
longing for some sort of justice, is What if they're right? What if
their tactics are despicable but their cause is just? What would you
do if you believed that the United States was systematically
committing genocide against your people? Wouldn't you strike back?
At this point, all I had was TV for news since my computer
had broken down. I went to The Desert Post Weekly who were kind
enough to loan me a laptop. I thought Tuesday would be an interesting
day to spend at a newspaper but it wasn't an interesting day to spend
anywhere. I went home.
I had gone without e-mail for three whole days, so there were
about 200 waiting for me the Tuesday of the great collapse -- the
collapse of the buildings, the collapse any deep-rooted trust in the
sanctity of life on earth, the collapse of my sense of safety in my
homeland. I started surfing.
Wherever you go, you're confronted with stats. The buildings
of the World Trade Center contained more than 200,000 tons of steel
(that's 400,000,000 pounds), more than was used to construct the
Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
There were 425,000 cubic yards of concrete -- enough to build
a five foot-wide sidewalk from New York to Washington DC. At a rough
estimate, that much concrete would weigh close to 479,000 tons --
almost but not quite a billion pounds. There were 43,600 windows with
an area of over 600,000 square feet of glass. If it were extruded
into a ribbon one-inch wide, it would stretch 1,363 miles. Over 1.2
million cubic yards of earth was excavated for the structures, and
this landfill was used to create 23.5 acres of new land now known as
Battery Park City.
A lot of commentators misinterpreting rational statements
from the Arab world as support for the terrorists. Sheikh Yassin,
leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said "no doubt this is a
result of injustice the U.S practices against the weak in the world."
From Gaza, Islamic Jihad official Nafez Azzam said, "what happened in
the United States today is a consequence of American policies in this
region."
Further surfing revealed a major month old article from The
Atlantic called "The Counterterrorist Myth" at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/07/gerecht.htm in which a
former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Ladin has
little to fear from American intelligence, detailing the physical
impossibility of infiltrating his stronghold. It says
this: "Westerners cannot visit the cinder-block, mud-brick side of
the Muslim world—whence bin Ladin's foot soldiers mostly come—without
announcing who they are. No case officer stationed in Pakistan can
penetrate either the Afghan communities in Peshawar or the Northwest
Frontier's numerous religious schools, which feed manpower and ideas
to bin Ladin and the Taliban, and seriously expect to gather useful
information about radical Islamic terrorism—let alone recruit foreign
agents."
Over at Slate.com, James Fallows rose the occasion with three
fascinating articles, "How Good Were the World Trade Center
Pilots?," "Why did the World Trade Center Towers Collapse?,"
and "What Liabilities Do Insurance Companies Face From Terrorist
Acts?"
Buzzflash.com and drudgereport.com did excellent jobs of
providing up to date links covering the entire story and background.
Even Bartcop.com, a generally vicious anti-Bush site, saw fit to lay
off for a day and give the pres a day off, agreeing we should huddle
together in mutual sorrow, give blood, and leave off the Bush bashing
for another day.
The net was full of anonymous postings. Some typical ones
went like this: "I think it's safe to say religion is the problem
here. Religion is always the problem" or "I'm no longer really
interested in peace in the Middle East. I no longer have any sympathy
for the Palestinians. I no longer want to see restraint by Israel or
the US Government. Bush can really choose what tone to set when he
finally speaks. If he calls for blood then he'll get support for
anything. Do you see the danger here? Quite frankly, I don't have the
stomach to oppose ANY response against bin Laden or the Taliban. As
for Israel, they can do what they like and I won't complain. I wonder
if this is how people felt about the Japanese after Pearl Harbor."
And this one: "This should be the end of SDI. The money Smirk
wants to waste on ballistic missile defense should instead be spent
building a much better airport security system and developing better
intelligence. This is exactly what people like you and me have been
saying could/would eventually happen. A space based laser defense
wouldn't have been able to have stopped any of this from happening."
A lot of people expressed sentiment like "I believe the WTC should,
in a few years, be rebuilt. Show the bastards they can't keep us
down."
There were people claiming NBC was totally irresponsible for
showing Palestinians dancing in the streets with joy, but most
typical of all was this: "If bin Laden claims responsibility for this
(as it now seems he will) then he should be dead before I get home
from work. If we do not take an immediate and decisive action today
then Bush should be kicked out on his butt."
I subscribe to dozens of mailing lists, including one that
sends me a quote from Buddha every day. I'm not a Buddhist, I'm just
discovering that Buddha said a lot of far out things I didn't know he
said. Everyone knows what Jesus said, so these quotes are all new to
me. Today's Daily Words of the Buddha, "The worse of the two is he
who, when abused, retaliates. One who does not retaliate wins a
battle hard to win." Samyutta Nikaya I, 162
At first you rebel against this because a great wrong has
been committed and you want to retaliate because you've got to do
something other than sit there in a daze. Then you realize that it's
the other way around. It's THEY who were retaliating against US. The
score is even -- thousands of dead Americans vs. thousands of dead
Palestinians. Now it's up to us to take the high road. We must rise
to the occasion, not sink to it. We must seek justice, not
retaliation.
I go back to the TV. I can't see it now because the smoke is
still too thick, so I try to picture the New York Skyline without the
World Trade Center. It's like trying to picture the Coachella Valley
without Mt. San Jacinto. Imagine waking up one morning and Mt San
Jacinto isn't there. How could it happen? Why would anyone want to
deliberately destroy something of such beauty. It's like they blew up
the Grand Canyon.
One of the spookiest moments for me was seeing all the TV
stations asking us to give blood, except for CBS which showed mile
long lines at the blood donation centers intercut with hundreds of
doctors lined up to perform hundreds of operations, standing around
the hospital entranceways with nothing to do because there weren't
enough survivors to justify their presence. Everyone was dead, as
everyone knew who watched the collapse of the buildings.
I feel strangely conflicted. If a gang of outraged Swedes
blew up a building because "The English Patient" won the Academy
Award for Best Picture, I'd have to condemn their actions while
agreeing with them that "The English Patient" was crap. I'm
simultaneously on their side and against them. If I saw gangs of
outraged Americans pulling Swedish cabdrivers out of their taxis and
beating them up, I'd have to step in to defend the Swedes. Just
because some Swedes are crazy doesn't mean that all Swedes are crazy.
I'd guess that roughly 10% of all Swedes are crazy because roughly
10% of mankind is crazy. You can't go blaming the sane ones for
something done by the insane ones.
The word I keep hearing bandied about is cowardly. What a
cowardly act this was, they all say. Have I lost my mind or were the
actions of those pilots among the bravest I've ever seen? I guess
when our soldiers give their lives for a cause we agree with, it's
bravery, but when their soldiers give their lives for a cause we
disagree with, it's cowardice. When we killed thousands of innocent
civilians at Hiroshima in the cause of American freedom, it's
bravery, but when they kill thousands of innocent civilians in New
York in the cause of Palestinian freedom, it's cowardice. What
hypocrisy.
Like the Japanese Kamikazes of WWII, these were acts that
took amazing courage. They didn't just risk their lives; they gave
them, just like the firemen gave their lives at street level. Only
the motives differ, the bravery is the same. They both did things I
wouldn't have the guts to do in a million years. When buildings
collapse, I'm the one running FROM the building, not to it. The men
on the ground gave their lives to save schmucks like me. I know what
they died for. But the terrorists, the ones who flew the planes, what
did they die for? The brilliance of their move is that they haven't
told us. They're making us think about it. Why would we, the American
people, the citizens of the land of the free and home of the brave,
deserve such treatment? What have we done that angered them so? Do I
have to tell you? Is the record of the United States so unblemished
that you actually can't picture why someone would hate us? Far from
cowardly, this was people fighting for their lives, willing to give
up their own life in EXACTLY the same way that our soldiers are
willing to give up theirs.
Whatever the terrorists are accusing us of we probably did.
The most horrifying thing to face is that it's our fault. We chose
sides. We turned the Palestinians into our enemy.
What if it was American Indians? They've got a score to
settle, and the destruction of the World Trade Center doesn't even
come close to settling it since The United States has wiped out
hundreds of times more of them. Would the answer be to kill more
Indians? Let's face it. The reason we feel so bad is because there's
no one to take it out on. Nobody forced these people to do it. If I
told you to kill yourself, would you do it? The only people totally
to blame for this are the ones who did it, the ones who took over and
piloted the planes, and there's nothing we can do to them but take
revenge against their colleagues.
It's like the Colombine High School shootings. The real
people to blame already killed themselves. No amount of security will
ever prevent something like this from happening again because there's
no way to plan against brilliant irrationality. Who knows what
they'll do? Better metal detectors don't solve the problem. What
solves the problem is not having them as an enemy. How do we get
these two to stop fighting. The answer is NOT taking sides. The
answer is being an impartial referee. If we'd been backing the
Palestinians in this war, it would have been Israeli terrorists doing
the same thing.
Four planes, four separate simultaneous acts. This was an
effort incredibly difficult to coordinate, clearly requiring years of
planning. Since they don't have might, they have to be clever, and
today was fiendishly clever, more diabolical than a Bond film,
revealing a masterful grand scheme.
You can stop singing God Bless America right now. This wasn't
a strike against America or Democracy. It was only nine months ago
that America proved to the world that it isn't a democracy. Courts
don't appoint rulers in a democracy. This was a strike against our
real system, Capitalism, and once again, to my horror, I find I'm on
their side. Rule by the rich sucks. Our country is run by people who
were born on third base but think they hit a triple, people whose
compassion clearly only extends to those with the most wealth.
One month after we showed the world our missile defense
system, whoever did this has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that
it's totally useless because they're smarter than we are. Bin-Laden,
or whoever the mastermind proves to be, has got ten times the
brainpower of our leader in chief. If this were a game of Chess, they
just took our Queen. While we spend billions of dollars on high-tech
doodads, they destroy our national monuments and kill thousands of
our people with some plastic knives and an airline schedule. They're
brilliant. We're buffoons. No defense system on earth could have
prevented what happened today. The problem can only be attacked at
the roots. They give us no choice. We've got to stop giving people
reason to hate us. America has to change as a society to one that
lives and lets live, both inside and outside its borders.
The overriding message is that we've got a big problem.
There's a group of people on this earth who are known as
Palestinians, which is odd because there is no land known as
Palestine. Israel has gobbled it up. We've got a people without a
homeland. Doesn't everybody deserve a homeland? I say give them one.
The magnanimous, the brilliant, the free-thinking and completely
moral thing to do is simply to offer the Palestinians a new safe
place to stay, where they'll be protected from the Israelis, where
they'll feel at home. It's so obvious. What do you do with the
homeless:? You offer them a home. I say give them Desert Hot Springs.
Call it New Palestine. Let 'em do what they want with it. They can't
fuck it up any more than it's already fucked up.
I'm serious. Think about it. Can you tell the difference
between the Holy Land and the Sonoran desert? I can't. We'd be
offering them a homeland with the exact same climate they're used to,
with it's own water supply, hundreds of pre-existing HUD homes, and a
built-in tourist trade.
Bush has made it quite clear that he will NOT meet with
Yassar Arafat when he visits next week. I say he's got to make the
PLO an offer. Would they refuse the offer? Of course, and the simple
act of showing the world that we offered the homeless of the world a
home and they refused to accept it would be a moral victory. It makes
US appear reasonable. How can they complain about not having a home
when they've turned one down, one that's actually much nicer than the
one they're fighting for, a home in a land where they would be free
to practice the religion of their choice without fear from the
government (unless they're polygamous or smoke pot).
I say goodnight to my kids and try to actually pay attention
instead of pretending when they go on and on about something
important to them that I know is trivial in the grand scheme of
things. Days like today make you think about the grand scheme of
things.
America tends to think that might makes right, that just
because you win a battle physically means you've won it morally, but
there are too many cases of misguided tyrants who are far from right
wringing despair from the people simply through the strength of their
might. Does the ability of the Chinese army to squelch student
activism and innocent exercise movements prove they're right? Of
course not. Like the Chinese, we're equally capable of misusing our
might, as we have in the mid-east.
And I keep thinking what if they were right? What if they've
been mistreated, neglected, wiped out? What if we created a situation
so hopeless for them that death seems the only solution? Do we solve
the problem by wiping out more of them? No, that exacerbates the
problem. We solve the problem by SOLVING THE PROBLEM. One of the
lessons we were teaching the world with WWII was that you can't solve
the problems of the world by wiping out an entire race of people.
Hitler tried to wipe out the Jews because of that 10% of all Jews who
really were crazy, just like the 10% of everybody who's crazy,
forgetting that 90% of Jews are normal people, just like you and me,
just like 90% of the Palestinians who are normal people, just like
you and me, people you could invite into your home, people interested
in nothing more that getting on with their lives, trying to live with
the simple agreement we all share with the human race, that we all
deserve to live, that we will leave you alone as long as you leave us
alone.
We should be helping the Palestinians, not because of today's
tragedy but despite it, because it's the right thing to do. Just
because we despise the heartless tactics of a few renegade radicals
doesn't automatically mean that we have to denigrate their motives
because I'll say it once again, maybe they're right. I'm Jewish and I
say to you right now that I don't have any greater right to live a
peaceful life than any Arab, that the religion of my ancestors is
just as outdated as theirs, that we should shake hands and go our
separate but equal ways.
I've stood at the top of the World Trade Center and it felt
so solid under my feet that I totally overcame my fear of heights. I
was simultaneously petrified and overwhelmed with the view of the
city beneath. To be able to stand on solid ground that high up was a
profound experience, one I intended on sharing with my children. I
looked forward to the day we would take our first trip to New York.
We'd take the subway downtown from our hotel near the park and I'd
lead them to the midpoint between the two buildings where Homer
Simpson's car got booted and he had to go to the bathroom after
drinking too much crab juice. I'd hold their hands on the elevator to
the top. It would have been so cool. Why can't I have that dream any
more?
Visit Michael Dare's home site, Michael Dare
'Management' may or may not agree, but, loves the fact that Michael is willing to
put his opinion out there.
Please visit his site.
In Memory
Berry Berenson
Actress and photographer Berry Berenson, 53, the widow of ``Psycho'' star
Anthony Perkins, died aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on her way home to
California from her summer home in Wellfleet.
Berenson, the sister of actress Marisa Berenson, had a short film career,
appearing in such forgettable projects as ``Cat People,'' ``Winter Kills'' and
opposite her late husband in the 1978 flick, ``Remember My Name.''
Berenson's 27-year-old son, Osgood Perkins, hit the big time playing David,
Reese Witherspoon's dorky pal in ``Legally Blonde.''
In an interview in July, Oz said he never got any advice or encouragement from
his famous father but that his mother ``loved everything'' he did.
A part-time hostess at Bubala's By The Bay in Provincetown, Berenson was a
boyish-looking photographer who had shot for Vogue, Life and Newsweek when she
married Perkins in 1973.
According to a biography of Norman Bates' alter-ego, Perkins, a closeted gay,
saw a therapist to help him ``go straight,'' before he and Berenson tied the
knot. They were married until his death from AIDS nine years ago yesterday.
Berenson had recently completed a book on fashion designer Halston. She is
survived by her sons Osgood and Elvis, 25.
For more, Berry Berenson
Still MISSING
Marc Chagall's "Study for 'Over Vitebsk'"
