Baron Dave Romm
Teabag Terrorism
By Baron Dave Romm
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Right wing goes off the deep end
The lies and outright fabrications about President Barack Obama started early. The same people who stood by when Bush and co. drastically spent more than they took in and passed laws allowing the Feds to take away their guns are shocked, shocked when Obama continued those policies. They never lived in the real world to begin with, but Obama's success drove them farther off the deep end. Remember when Karl Rover predicted, confidently, a permanent Republican majority? These morons do.
Crazy right-wing myths about Obama 2.0 Post-election right wing rumors and outright lies debunked. salon.com 6/8/09 (click through the ads). You probably can name most of them yourself: Obama birth certificate somehow proves that he wasn't born in America (whereas McCain's non-American birth is far more problematic, and yet Dems didn't complain). Obama uses a teleprompter more than others. My favorite: Obama's the anti-Christ/son of Satan (like the right does anything Jesus would approve of). Obama wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine so hate radio wouldn't have a home (demonstrating the petulant one-sided, unbalanced, nature of their mean-spirited pandering). Etc, etc. It's a long list, and none of it true.
To be a Republican these days, one must believe lies and not believe the truth. It's worse for the tea baggers, whipped up by the conservative news media.
A history of anti-government rage and violence salon.com (click through the ads) 3/26/10: "And rage toward a president -- and toward the federal government in general -- is hardly a new phenomenon. It has reared its head (sometimes even on the left) throughout American history. In this slide show, Salon looks back at some other notable episodes."
Threats reveal scary underpinnings of right-wing opposition salon.com 3/25/10 (click through the ads). Going back to "the killing of Dr. George Tiller, the Holocaust Museum shooting and the suicide attack on the Internal Revenue Service all come to mind, along with a general increase in white supremacist activity." But more recently:
Probably the most symbolically freighted incident thus far has happened to Rep. John Clyburn, D-S.C. An African-American and member of the Democratic leadership, Clyburn reported that his office had received a faxed image of a noose, and that his wife had been threatened over the phone. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., have both had district office windows smashed, as has the office of the Cincinnati Democratic Party. Slaughter, who as chair of the House Rules Committee has had her name associated with House floor procedures, also received a voicemail that used the word "snipers." Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., released a passel of menacing voicemails that he received from abortion opponents who believe he betrayed their cause. And in Virginia, after a tea party activist urged angry healthcare opponents to pay a visit to the house of Rep. Tom Perriello, and mistakenly released his brothers address instead, someone severed the gas line at Perriello's brothers house.
Capitol police and Democratic officials have begun to take some basic security measures, such as securing residences or moving families away from home districts.
The Rage Is Not About Health Care Frank Rich NYTimes 3/27/10:
THERE were times when last Sunday's great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC's "This Week," a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his "Hell no, you can't!" incantation in the House chamber - instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am's "Yes, we can!" classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.
But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There's nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn't recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.
&...
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that's the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
"Fear Trumps Hope" sinfest webcomic 3/28/10
Tea baggers are like Hamas: They're more than willing to resort to violence, they don't believe in Democracy, they don't recognize the legitimacy of any other viewpoint, and (as the Texas School Board proved, again) they're willing to sacrifice their children for their own petty hatred.
A very few are sounding off
If you're going to follow any one link from this essay, which has been on Bartcop-E before, follow this one:
An open letter to conservatives Talking Points Memo from AmericanDad, former Republican Russell King, 3/22/10. An exhaustively linked list of right-wing hypocrisy, going after the GOP and Republicans who complain about Obama et al when their guys did the same thing.
The people who have been tracking domestic violence for decades are worried:
Southern Poverty Law Center calls out FOX and GOP for inciting violence ferallike DKos Diary 3/25/10 is a good overview. Let me break out a few of the links:
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking hate groups, and their rise since Obama's election. New SPLC Report: "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year 3/2/10:
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The number of extremist
groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other
groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited
populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream,
according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC).
Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.
The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.
....
"This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern," said Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok. "The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead."
The Patriot movement has made significant inroads into the conservative political scene, according to the new report. "The tea parties' and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," the report says.
Unlike the 1990s, the Patriot movement's central ideas are being promoted by people with large audiences, such as FOX News' Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Beck, for instance, reinvigorated a key Patriot conspiracy theory - the charge that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is secretly running concentration camps - before finally "debunking" it.
Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism Mark Potok, SPLC Intelligence Report, Spring 2010, Issue 137:
We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history, Chip Berlet, a veteran analyst of the American radical right, wrote earlier this year. "We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage."
Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Just a quarter think the government can be trusted. And the anti-tax tea party movement is viewed in much more positive terms than either the Democratic or Republican parties, the poll found.
The signs of growing radicalization are everywhere. Armed men have come to Obama speeches bearing signs suggesting that the "tree of liberty" needs to be "watered" with "the blood of tyrants." The Conservative Political Action Conference held this February was co-sponsored by groups like the John Birch Society, which believes President Eisenhower was a Communist agent, and Oath Keepers, a Patriot outfit formed last year that suggests, in thinly veiled language, that the government has secret plans to declare martial law and intern patriotic Americans in concentration camps. Politicians pandering to the antigovernment right in 37 states have introduced "Tenth Amendment Resolutions," based on the constitutional provision keeping all powers not explicitly given to the federal government with the states. And, at the "A Well Regulated Militia" website, a recent discussion of how to build "clandestine safe houses" to stay clear of the federal government included a conversation about how mass murderers like Timothy McVeigh and Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph were supposedly betrayed at such houses.
Antigovernment Rhetoric Spills into the Mainstream SPLC Intelligence Report, Fall 2009, Issue 135. I'm not going to pull out quotes, since it's gotten worse since then, but these are good examples of treasonous and incendiary remarks made by conservative Hollywood elites, and conservative media elites.
The 2010 Election
Prediction: Democrats will lose seats in the House and Senate, but will wind up with larger majorities in both houses than the Republicans had in 2002.
It pisses me off that the conservative news media rarely talks about health care reform or any of the bills actually being passed. No, they almost invariably lead with the horserace. "What does this mean for 2010?" cries the airhead pundit. They don't know the issues and they can't read poll numbers, so they just repeat whatever Dick Cheney or Karl Rove say. Fox "News" is the worst, of course, but CNN isn't far behind.
Doing the right thing is its own reward. Some politicians know this. Most, even Democrats, have at least one eye on the next campaign. So lets give the devil her due and look at the political horserace, eight months out.
As Frank Rich mentions above, March 24, 2010 - Tea Party Could Hurt GOP In Congressional Races, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Dems Trail 2-Way Races, But Win If Tea Party Runs:
"The Tea Party movement is mostly made up of people who consider themselves Republicans," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "They are less educated but more interested in politics than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack and are not in a traditional sense swing voters."Tea Baggers are not Ross Perot's Reform Party, which drew many people who were unlikely to vote into the process, getting support in roughly equal measures from previously Democratic and Republican voters. Every vote for a Tea Party candidate is one fewer for the Republican candidate. This is good news for the Democratic candidate.
"The Tea Party could be a Republican dream - or a GOP nightmare. Members could be a boon to the GOP if they are energized to support Republican candidates. But if the Tea Party were to run its own candidates for office, any votes its candidate received would to a very great extent be coming from the GOP column," Brown added.
Obama ran -- and won -- as a post-partisan centrist. The "centrist" part displeases much of the country, which is to his left. Even the centrists (such as myself) who were disgusted at the extremism of the Bush/Cheney regime are farther to the left than Obama. We're happy that some sort of health care reform is now law, but still deeply concerned about issues such as torture and the Iraq War. When Obama continues a Bush policy, that's generally a bad sign.
However, the "post-partisan" part of Obama's presidency has been an abject failure. At least so far, the Republicans are in thrall to the worst elements of their party. Health Care Reform passed without a single goppie vote in either the House or the Senate.
The Health Care Reform Law (so nice to be able to say that) is extremely popular... when removed from the name calling and fnords from the right. Call "Obamacare" and the tea baggers react without thinking. Mention that it eliminates being turned down for pre-existing conditions and you get smiles.
Let's make a little comparison: Reagan vs. Obama.
At this time in his presidency, Reagan was unpopular and losing support. As the conservative Wall Street Journal's chart shows, from the middle ofhis first year into his third, Reagan's approval ratings were in the 40s. Aside from the bump he got from being shot, the majority didn't really liked him, and he dipped into the 30s until he reversed his 1981 tax cuts and passed the largest tax hike ever, at the time, in 1982. When that worked (raising taxes generally helps the economy), he started up and eventually won big in 1984.
Obama's approval rating trajectory is fairly similar to Reagan's. He started higher, but has dipped in the first year. Still, he's currently at 48% approval (according to Gallup, used by the WSJ above). In Real Clear Politics Poll Averages, as of this writing, Obama's approval ranges from a low of 45% to a high of 53%, with a majority within a point or two of Gallup's 48%. And, unlike Reagan, his numbers are going up, sometimes sharply, since the law was signed and the GOP obstructionism is seen as petulant and the tea baggers are misbehaving like horny teenagers.
Blowing My Own Horn Dept. I predicted that one of the major effects of Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts, keeping the Democratic Party's huge but no longer super majority in the Senate, would be to diminish the influence of Joe Lieberman and Blanch Lincoln. And indeed, this has come to pass. When Lieberman threatened to break the supermajority, he had lots of leverage. Since then, he's hardly been heard from. The Dems could and did pass laws without him.
The result of the 1982 election, according to encyclopedia.com National Politics: 1982 ElectionsThe Republicans' margin in the Senate was unchanged after the 1982 congressional elections, with the GOP holding onto its majority, owing in large part to a nationally financed campaign that tipped the balance in favor of the Republicans in every close contest. Only five new senators were sworn in at the opening of the Ninety-eighth Congress. Big changes took place in the House of Representatives, where redistricting and fallout from the recession of the early 1980s resulted in the election of 81 new congressmen, 57 of them Democrats, increasing their edge in the House to 103 seats. The majority of the new Democrats campaigned on promises to defend the social programs the Reagan administration was trying to cut back, while promising to hold down the creation of new ones. Most of them also called themselves fiscal conservatives and blamed the recession on Reagan's supply-side economic measures. Several Republican incumbents from districts hurt badly by the economic downturn lost their seats because they allowed themselves to become too closely associated with Reagan's economic programs.
The Democratic Party increased its majority in the House in Reagan's first term. This might be bad news since the party out of the presidency won, but they campaigned on exactly the same issues that Obama and the Democrats just won bigtime. The tea baggers keep forgetting: They were wrong then and they're wrong now.
So let's take a closer look at my prediction, above: That the Democratic Party will have larger leads in the House and Senate after the 2010 election than the Republican Party had in the equivalent period under Bush, 2002. When the dust cleared, Republicans gained two seats in the Senate to get to 51 (they had 50 for a while in 2001, but Jim Jeffords was too disgusted with Bush and switched parties), and Republicans actually gained a few seats in the House , in the post 9/11 surge in support for Bush, with Republicans now holding a 229-204 majority.
Currently, the Democrats have 59 Senators and 256 Representatives (with one vacant). Both parties currently have 18 Senators who's seats are up for election. More Republican Senators are retiring than Democrats, and it's hard to dislodge a sitting senator; been done, but rarely are the changes huge, especially when open seats need defending. For the GOP to wind up with a net gain of ten seats is highly unlikely. There will be slightly more open seats currently held by Democrats than by Republicans, but many of those are fairly safe. It's unknown whether voting against health care reform will help or hurt those Democratic candidates, but voting for have energized the Democratic base, such as ActBlue, "We've Got Your Back". For the goppies to pick up 50+ seats is highly unlikely.Indeed, as one of the links Bruce posted here yesterday points out, the economy is improving and voters are coming around to Obama's viewpoint so Is 2010 Going To Be 1994 or 1934? And again, the Dems have larger majorities in both houses than they had in 1994, so the likelihood is somewhere in the middle, but it's entirely possible that they will minimize their losses (which are standard in mid-term elections) or even pick up a few seats (if the tea baggers piss off enough of the middle and take enough votes away from goppies).
My prediction for 2010 is on solid ground. And yet, the right wingers are sure - sure - that the clinically insane will take both houses again. I'm willing to bet any amount of money up to 25¢. So far, my right wing friends haven't taken me up on this.
Minicon next week - no column
I'll be at Minicon 45 next week, and won't be able to do a Bartcop-E column. But you never know.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Connie Schultz: With Parkinson's, His Voice for Health Care Grows Stronger (creators.com)
Last Tuesday, 60-year-old Robert A. Letcher showed up for a rally outside a congressional office in Columbus, Ohio, and decided he no longer could just stand there as an angry crowd screamed obscenities at him and fellow supporters of health care reform.
Froma Harrop: Take Student-Loan Companies Off Welfare (creators.com)
When the government hands money to poor people, that's welfare, Republicans say. That's taking money from productive taxpayers and encouraging dependency, they assert. But when corporations get taxpayer handouts, that's not welfare in the GOP book of rhetoric.
Susan Estrich: Guts and Glory (creators.com)
The nuns are right. The bishops are wrong. I know what you're thinking: Who am I, a nice Jewish girl from Lynn, to be telling bishops and nuns who is right?
I was a male escort (guardian.co.uk)
There is an urban myth that only drug dealers and escorts need two mobile phones, and I can tell you it's truer than you might think. As an escort, you learn to love and loathe that second phone in equal measure: the desire for it to ring because you want the money, followed by the inevitability of what it means once it does. The last-minute cancelling and lying to friends and family was something I never reconciled myself to.
Tom Abate: More middle-class jobless need government aid (sfgate.com)
Laid-off lawyer Heather Tanner and her family adjust to life on aid, as do many middle-class families.
RICHARD ROEPER: Right claims D.C. hatemongers are liberal plants (suntimes.com)
One thing's for sure: They're 'idiots ... saying stupid things'
John Burnside: Ted Hughes's poetry enriches us spiritually and mentally (guardian.co.uk)
Ted Hughes has already won a lasting place in the collective imagination. It's only right that he should now be given a spot in Poets' Corner.
Alison Flood: Philip Pullman's book on life of Jesus prompts letters condemning him to 'eternal hell' (guardian.co.uk)
Philip Pullman is unperturbed by letters from Christians condemning him for his latest book, 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ,' saying he's 'been getting letters of disapproval and condemnation for years'
Alex Pham, Todd Martens and Mark Milian: Spotify music stream works to woo skeptical labels (Los Angeles Times)
The last time a young entrepreneur executed his promise to revolutionize music with computer software, the industry sued him for billions of dollars.
Alan Sculley: Black Eyed Peas laugh all the way to the bank (csindy.com)
It may be hard to imagine it now, but there was a time when the Black Eyed Peas were primarily known for the serious, socially conscious side of its music. Early albums like Bridging the Gap and Behind the Front gave the group a reputation for being one of the more literate and socially aware acts in hip-hop.
Roger Ebert: Review of "The Big Lebowski" (1998; A Great Movie)
"The Big Lebowski" is about an attitude, not a story. It's easy to miss that, because the story is so urgently pursued. It involves kidnapping, ransom money, a porno king, a reclusive millionaire, a runaway girl, the Malibu police, a woman who paints while nude and strapped to an overhead harness, and the last act of the disagreement between Vietnam veterans and Flower Power. It has more scenes about bowling than anything else.
roger ebert's journal: See you at the movies
Yes, Chaz and I are still going ahead with our plans for a new movie review program on television. No, Wednesday's cancellation of "At the Movies" hasn't discouraged us. We believe a market still exists for a weekly show where a couple of critics review new movies. I can't prove it, but I have the feeling that more different people are seeing more different movies than ever before.
David Bruce: William Shakespeare's "Macbeth": A Discussion Guide (lulu.com)
Download: FREE
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Reality Television
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Health Care Deformed: Winners and Losers...' Edition
The House of Representatives has passed a Health Care 'Reform' Bill... 'The Man' will sign it and it'll be a done deal... So be it... Now then, Poll-fans, I ask...
What will the President's proposal mean for you? An interactive guide.
Who do you see as the long term Winners and Losers in this imbroglio?
A.) The People
B.) The Democrats
C.) The Republicans
D.) The Insurance companies | Big Pharma | Wall Street vultures
E.) Everybody wins
F.) Everybody loses
G.) How in the hell should I know?
Pick and Choose! Mix and Match! Name names! Point fingers! Rant and Rave!
Praise or excoriate! Let it all out! Have some fun, it'll be therapeutic!
(We're all about fun and wellness here, dontcha know!)
Send your response to
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
Biggest Book
Hi there
One possible link for you today - thanks for taking a look!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny spring day.
Happy birthday to my pal, Doug in Tallahassee!
Warns Of Urgency To Protect Environment
James Cameron
Film director James Cameron says there is an urgency to protect the environment and says that climate change will affect rich and poor alike.
Cameron says the success of his movie "Avatar" is proof that the world is ready to take the necessary actions to stop climate change and other environmental problems that could lead to global tragedies.
The director also mentions his Oscar-winning movie "Titanic," noting that passengers from all classes died when the ship sank. He says everyone will suffer because of climate change.
Cameron made his comments at an international sustainability forum in the Brazilian Amazon city of Manaus. The comments were reproduced in a press release by organizers late Saturday.
James Cameron
Jameson Empire Awards 2010
Sir Ian McKellen
Sir Ian McKellen has been crowned the Empire Icon for his long and varied film career at the Jameson Empire Awards 2010.
The 70-year-old actor, who won an Oscar for his role as real-life filmmaker James Whale in Gods And Monsters and is loved by many for starring in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and The X-Men films, was honoured at the ceremony at London's Grosvenor House Hotel.
Fellow British actor Ray Winstone received the Outstanding Contribution To British Film award, while Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes picked up the Best Thriller award.
Now in their 15th year, the Jameson Empire Awards are the only film awards to be voted for entirely by British film fans.
Sir Ian McKellen
Japanese Architects Win
Pritzker Prize
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, a duo of Japanese architects praised for using everyday building materials to create ethereal structures that shelter flowing, dreamlike spaces, have won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the prize's jury announced Sunday.
Sejima, 54, and Nishizawa, 44, join Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano in receiving the top honor in the field in recognition of the art museums, university buildings and designer-label fashion boutiques they have designed in Japan, the United States and Europe.
The Pritzker jury of architects, academics, writers and designers praised Sejima and Nishizawa for designing structures that blend into their surroundings to provide unassuming backdrops for the activities occurring in their midst.
Among the projects mentioned by the Pritzker jury were the translucent-skinned Christian Dior Building in Tokyo's upscale Omotesando shopping district and the Toledo Museum of Art's see-through Glass Pavilion.
Pritzker Prize
China Making Push As Japan Hits Slump
Anime
Yoko Komazawa had been at the Tokyo International Anime Fair for nearly six hours when she fell in love with a brown-and-white stuffed panda - a character in one of the fair's featured cartoons.
Unfortunately, the panda wasn't for sale and Komazawa had to settle for a photo. But she walked away from the small booth impressed by the panda's creators - from China.
Komazawa's enthusiasm for something new is a small victory for China's fledgling animation industry, and could well represent a widening crack in Japan's global anime dominance. Japan may be the birthplace of anime, but China is gunning for its future as it mounts an aggressive effort to expand the country's creative prowess and reputation.
In November, the government's cultural arm established the China Animation Comic Group Co. to foster a "great leap forward" in animation production, technology and marketing. Part of the plan includes building a "China Animation Game City" in Beijing that would be a national hub.
Anime
Pot Cases Getting Tossed Out Of Court
California
Police in a northern California town thought they had an open-and-shut case when they seized more than two pounds of marijuana from a couple's home, even though doctors authorized the pair to use pot for medical purposes.
San Francisco police thought the same with a father and son team they suspected of abusing the state's medical marijuana law by allegedly operating an illegal trafficking operation.
But both cases were tossed out along with many other marijuana possession cases in recent weeks because of a California Supreme Court ruling that has police, prosecutors and defense attorneys scrambling to make sense of a gray legal area: What is the maximum amount of cannabis a medical marijuana patient can possess?
No one can say for sure how many dismissals and acquittals have been prompted by the ruling, but the numbers are stacking up since the Supreme Court on Jan. 21 tossed out Patrick Kelly's marijuana possession conviction.
The high court struck down a 7-year-old state law that imposed an 8-ounce limit on the amount of pot medical users of marijuana could possess. The court said patients are entitled to a "reasonable" amount of the drug to treat their ailments.
California
Lawyer Pursued Perverts
Jeff Anderson
Jeff Anderson has filed thousands of lawsuits alleging sex abuse by priests and won tens of millions of dollars for his clients, but he has had a bigger goal in mind for nearly two decades. He wants to bring his career-long legal crusade against misconduct in the Roman Catholic Church right to the top.
He would love to question Pope Benedict XVI himself under oath. Though that is extremely unlikely given that the pope is a head of state, documents Anderson has unearthed have the potential to take a scandal that has plagued dozens of dioceses around the world and place it at the doorstep of Vatican leadership.
The documents, which became publicly known in the past week after Anderson shared them with The New York Times, show that a Vatican office led by the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, halted a church trial against a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 boys at a school for the deaf.
Since 1983, Anderson and the five other attorneys at his downtown St. Paul firm have sued thousands of Catholic priests, bishops, and dioceses over allegations of sexual abuse by priests and other church leaders. He claims to have no idea how much he has won in settlements; in 2002 he estimated that it was around $60 million.
Jeff Anderson
Lawsuits
Scientology
At the edge of arid foothills far outside Los Angeles, hundreds of Scientology followers live on a gated, 500-acre campus and work long hours for almost no pay reproducing the works of founder L. Ron Hubbard and creating the church's teaching and promotional materials.
The church says its 5,000 so-called Sea Organization members are religious devotees akin to monks who are exempt from wage requirements and overtime. But two lawsuits filed by two former Sea Org members, as they are known, allege the workers are little more than slave laborers, forced to work 100-hour weeks for pennies and threatened with manual labor if they cause trouble.
Marc Headley and his wife, Claire, are seeking back pay and overtime that could add up to $1 million each, according to their attorney, Barry Van Sickle.
Scientology has been sued by disgruntled members before, but experts believe these suits are the first to use labor law to challenge the premise that the Sea Organization is akin to a fraternal religious order.
Scientology
Closing On Broadway
'Miracle Worker'
The Broadway revival of "The Miracle Worker" will close April 4 after a disappointing run of less than two months and a loss of more than $2.5 million.
The production stars Abigail Breslin as Helen Keller and Alison Pill as Annie Sullivan, the determined young woman who teaches the deaf and blind Helen how to communicate.
Producer David Richenthal said Sunday that he was saddened by the play's short engagement but added that the opportunity "to share this powerful story with a new generation of theatergoers has been remarkable."
The production will have played 21 previews and 38 regular performances at Circle in the Square Theatre. The play by William Gibson originally was on Broadway in 1959 with Patty Duke as Helen and Anne Bancroft as Annie.
'Miracle Worker'
May Be Real
Junk Food 'Addiction'
Obese people often say they'd like to eat less but feel almost powerless to stop indulging, and now new research suggests that explanation might be all too true.
The theory stems from a study in rats. When researchers gave the rats unlimited access to a calorie-laden diet of bacon, pound cake, candy bars and other junk food, the rats quickly gained lots of weight. As they plumped up, eating became such a compulsion that they kept chowing down even when they knew they would receive an unpleasant electric shock to their foot if they did so.
Meanwhile, rats fed the human equivalent of a well-balanced, healthy diet -- and given only limited access to the junk food -- didn't gain much weight and knew enough to stop eating when they received the cue that a foot shock was imminent.
Even more startling, the researchers report, is that when they took away the junk food from the obese rats and replaced it with healthier chow, the obese rats went on something of a hunger strike. For two weeks, they refused to eat hardly anything at all.
Junk Food 'Addiction'
Tourist Attraction
Venice Beach
Sand and surf are the least of the attractions making Venice Beach one of Los Angeles' top tourist draws.
On summer weekends, some 150,000 exhibitionists and gawkers flock to the neighborhood to see and be seen in a Bohemian rhapsody of bongo-bangers, dreadlocked artists and acrobatic gymnasts.
In recent months, though, that freewheeling hippie circus has gotten edgy thanks to a stubbornly sour economy heightening competition for the 200 peddler spaces along the 1.5-mile long asphalt strip bordering the beach.
That has longtime storeowners and artists steamed, and residents in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood clamoring for a clamp down on the increased noise and transients.
Venice Beach
Weekend Box Office
'How to Train Your Dragon'
"How to Train Your Dragon" breathed a bit of box-office fire with a $43.3 million opening weekend and a No. 1 debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," which had been No. 1 the previous three weekends, slipped to second place with $17.3 million. It raised its domestic total to $293.1 million and its worldwide haul to $656 million.
John Cusack's raunchy comedy "Hot Tub Time Machine" had a lukewarm No. 3 debut of $13.7 million. Released by MGM, the movie features Cusack as part of a group of losers hurled back by a time-traveling hot tub to the 1980s, where they have a chance to set their lives right.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "How to Train Your Dragon," $43.3 million.
2. "Alice in Wonderland," $17.3 million.
3. "Hot Tub Time Machine," $13.7 million.
4. "The Bounty Hunter," $12.4 million.
5. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," $10 million.
6. "She's Out of My League," $3.5 million.
7. "Green Zone," $3.3 million.
8. "Shutter Island," $3.2 million.
9. "Repo Men," $3 million.
10. "Our Family Wedding," $2.2 million.
'How to Train Your Dragon'
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
