By the time you
read this, the
population of the United States of America will have topped 300
million. That's a bit of a guess and estimate, but exit polls
suggest a trend that will continue. It took 39 years to go from 200
million to 300 milllion; it will probably take around 37 years to get
to 400 million.
Of course, by the time we get to 400 million,
we'll all be quaking in our socks, flying to relocation camps to
visit friends and relatives clad in underwear and handcuffs, unable
to eat fresh vegetables or drink unofficial water.
That is,
things will be that bleak if the current political situation is
allowed to continue. It's up to you to make a difference. Here are
some issues.
Conservatives invented a Culture War, and now find
themselves on the wrong side of it.
According to John Cheever, 1948 was 'the year
everybody in the United States was worried about homosexuality'. And
nobody was more worried than the federal government, which was
rumoured to be teeming with gays and lesbians. One might think that
Washington's attentions would have been focused elsewhere - on the
Soviet Union, for example, or on Communist spies - but in 1950,
President Truman's advisers warned him that 'the country is more
concerned about the charges of homosexuals in the government than
about Communists.' The executive branch responded immediately. That
year, the State Department fired 'perverts' at the rate of one a day,
more than twice the figure for suspected Communists. Charges of
homosexuality ultimately accounted for a quarter to a half of all
dismissals in the State and Commerce Departments, and in the CIA.
Only 25 per cent of Joseph McCarthy's fan letters complained of 'red
infiltration'; the rest fretted about 'sex
depravity'.
The scare lasted from 1947 to
the 1970s, and in The Lavender Scare David Johnson estimates that
thousands lost their jobs. The men and women charged with rinsing the
pink from the Potomac were astonishingly ignorant about their quarry.
Senator Clyde Hoey, head of the first congressional inquiry into the
threat, had to ask an aide: 'Can you please tell me, what can two
women possibly do?' Senator Margaret Chase Smith asked one Hoey
Committee witness whether there wasn't a 'quick test like an X-ray
that discloses these things'.
The official
justification for the purge was that homosexuals were vulnerable to
blackmail and could be turned into Soviet spies. But as Johnson
points out, investigators never found a single instance of this kind
of blackmail during the Cold War. The best they could come up with
was a dubious case from before the First World War, when the Russians
allegedly used the homosexuality of Austria's top spy to force him to
work for them.
....
Despite evidence that the
pre-emptive arrest and detention of suspected terrorists frustrates
the gathering of intelligence, the US continues to rely on such
policies. In the two years following 9/11, federal authorities
rounded up more than five thousand foreign nationals. As of today,
Cole and Dempsey write, none of them has been 'convicted of any
terrorist crime', while the FBI has yet to identify a single al-Qaida
sleeper cell in the United States. After 9/11, Cole reported in
Enemy Aliens (2003), the Justice Department selected thousands
of male immigrants for questioning on the basis of their age, date of
arrival and country of origin. Though the Justice Department claimed
it chose men only from countries harbouring al-Qaida cells, it did
not interview anyone from Britain, France, Spain or
Germany.
The pattern is clear: measures
that would improve security are not taken, while the measures that
are taken either fail to improve security or undermine it. There are
several explanations for this, including racism and the blinkered
interests of the intelligence bureaucracy. But a key factor, as Nancy
Baker shows in General Ashcroft, her comprehensive assessment
of John Ashcroft's tenure as Bush's first attorney general, is that
conservatives view national security through the lens of their
ongoing Kulturkampf against the 1960s.
To
recap a bit: The virulent and Unamerican attacks against US citizens
by the right wing during the McCarthy Era weren't so much against
Communism as they were attacks against the people who helped us win
WWII. The virulent and Unamerican attacks against anyone who looks
suspicious isn't so much against terrorism as it is against people
who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conservatives don't
give a damn about America, they just want to whip up hatred against
people they don't like.
Marriages are down: The assault on love is taking
its toll.
Married couples, whose
numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American
households, have finally slipped into the minority. Of the nation's
111.1 million households in 2005, 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, were
made up of married couples -- with and without children -- just shy
of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier,
according to a new Census Bureau survey. "This would seem to close
the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the
last century," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings
Institution.
....
Steve Watters, director of young
adults for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, said
the trend was more a reflection of delaying marriage than rejection
of it. "It does show that a lot of people are experimenting with
alternatives before they get there," Watters said. "The biggest
concern is that those who still aspire to marriage are going to find
fewer models. They're also finding they've gotten so good at being
single it's hard to be at one with another
person."
Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at
the University of Michigan Population Studies Center, said her own
research found that the desire for strong family bonds, and
especially marriage, was constant.
"Even
cohabiting young adults tell us that they are doing so because it
would be unwise to marry without first living together in a society
marked by high levels of divorce," she said.
As
I've said before, I
approve of committed monogamous relationships between people who love
each other. Conservatives are against love unless it's to their
exact plumbing specifications. By coming out so strongly against
love and family, the religious right has sent very mixed messages to
young people in heat. Yes, they say, you should stay in bad
relationships for the sake of the (future) children and you should
avoid relationships filled with love if you can't have your own
children.
The sphincter conservatives have two cheeks: The
Steal Your Money and Anti-Sex wingnuts are beginning to
realize that they don't belong in the same room.
There
have been many reports about this split, as the GOP coalition is
unravelling in the face of economic scandal and sex scandal. The
business conservatives are getting annoyed because bribes don't buy
much these days, and the social conservatives are getting annoyed
because they're being laughed at for their hypocrisy and gullibility.
Here are just a few links to relevant stories.
Big
Business and the Patriot Act. The New Republic's take on how
uncomfortable businesses are because all that phoney security stuff
(not to mention being hauled away without a warrant) might get in the
way of selling stuff.
The
Gay Old Party comes out. Frank Rich of the New York Times exposes
a bt of hypocrisy regarding the conservatives utter lack of morality
on sexual issues.
White
House calls evangelical right "Nuts". If there was ever proof of
how Republicans rely on gullible right wingers for political support,
it's the new book by David Kuo, the former Deputy Director of the
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the Bush
administration. Karl Rove needs their support and Bush pays lip
service to his Born Again status, but in reality they were cynically
playing hard-ball politics with people who just ate up the
lies.
Republicans are poised to steal another set of
elections. Don't let 'em.
Republicans don't believe in
Democracy. They're in it for the power and the money and they don't
give a damn about you. They will say anything to convince you
otherwise. They do this because it works. Mud-slinging, guilt by
association, half truths, scare tactics, outright lies... these are
the tools of the modern Republican, and they have been winning
elections for underserving candidates since at least the Nixon
campaign in 1968. (Remember "I have a secret plan to end the war?"
Nixon's secret plan was to spend the next six years losing
it.)
Even with the lies and incompetence and scandal exposed,
Carl Rove and company will whip up a storm of last-minute mud.
That's what they do, they don't know how to do anything else.
Republicans can't run on their record; their record is terrible.
They can run against Democrats and anyone else honorable to stand up
to them; their smarmy arguments never stand up to scrutiny, but
weak-minded Republicans already buy into the lies and it doesn't take
much anymore.
You shouldn't be complacent.
Start
writing letters to the editor now about mudslinging and voter
fraud. Republicans only know one way to win, and that's to cheat.
It's time they were held up so some degree of morality and
ethics. Here are my columns on How To Write A Letter
To The Editor.
In letters, call-in radio shows or even
personal conversations, mention just how sure you are of a
last-minute barrage of mud-slinging from the right. Point out how
coverage in the media is favoring Republican candidates.
Most importantly, be on the watch
for voting "irregularities". Republicans will try to cheat, and they
have already gotten away with a lot of it. Don't let their
power-hungry frenzy disrupt the most American of rights, the right to
vote. Help your local polling place. Carry a camera around to
detail people setting up road blocks or intimidating voters.
Volunteer for door-knocking and transportation to a polling
place.
Final Thought
Mark Foley claims he was
abused as a child, as if it forgave his later depravity. Not all
children who were molested grow up to be molesters, and not all child
molesters were molested as a child. Nonetheless, this seems to be a
trend: The farther right you are, the more likely you were to have
been molested as a child. Too many conservatives walk abour with a
not-so-figurative stick up their butt, and too many sure act like
incest survivors. That's a different essay; a different PhD
thesis.
Suzanne Corson: The Tonight Show's Vicki Randle (afterellen.com)
In what may be a record, for the last 14 years there has been an out lesbian on network television nearly every weeknight: Vicki Randle, percussionist and vocalist with The Tonight Show band. Randle has been singing us in and out of commercial breaks, tossing her shekere, and playing with the band since Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson in May 1992. She has also made history as the first woman musician in The Tonight Show band.
Michael Ricci: Slash Fiction Makes Room for Gays (afterelton.com)
On The X-Files, Fox Mulder and Alex Krycek are bitter enemies. On CSI , Nick Stokes and Greg Sanders are murder-solving forensic experts. On Angel, Angel and Spike fight together to save the world - and fight over the affections of blonde bombshell and vampire slayer Buffy Summers. On television, these male relationships challenge and fortify the meaning of friendship between men. On the internet, they're lovers.
No Pity Party (beliefnet.com)
The trademark Mohawk is looking a little sparse, and age has begun to scrunch further his bulldog features, but Mr. T, who laid claim to the tagline "I pity the fool" a quarter-century ago, is back in a reality series, "I Pity the Fool," ....
Talk about BAD TIMING ! Warner Brothers had done a limited test marketing of the movie "Duma" to see if it could stand up to 2005 summer blockbusters like "The Dukes of Hazzard"…..IDIOTS…they blew releasing one of the most charming and poignant family movies I've seen in a long time…and I saw it on Showtime last night. Needless to say, very few people got a chance to see this film in the theater….it was pre-empted by all the summer crap and Jessica Simpson's ASS.
Bitter be not I…..although they might have come up with a catchier name for a movie about a young South African lad and an orphaned cheetah…..like "Cat Boy"….."Born Free" was already taken.
Then there is the matter of the very un-prolific director, Carroll Ballard….who comes down from his ranch/vineyard in St Helena, California, every 5 or 10 years to make absolutely amazing movies….it started back in 1979 when Francis Ford Coppola picked Carroll to direct "The Black Stallion"…..then, in 1983, he directed "Never Cry Wolf"….He waited until 1992 to give us the wonderful movie "Wind"….then in 1996 he finished the fabulous film "Fly Away Home"….9 years later we have "Duma" ! I believe that this film should have been a huge hit!
A young white South African boy named Xan (Alex Michaeletos) is riding with his dad Peter (Campbell Scott - "Dead Again" 1991) on a road near their farm and find an orphaned Cheetah….they bring it back home and they bottle feed it and it grows…there is a family tragedy and Xan and his mom Kristin (Hope Davis - "About Schmidt" (2002) have to move back to the City…with the much larger cheetah…now named Duma. Facing the prospect of having to give up his "friend", Xan decides to run away across the Kalihari desert and try to return Duma to the wilds by himself.
They say it is the journey and not the final destination that counts, and this movie is just lush with brilliantly filmed scenery, a very believable story line and lots of lions, crocodiles, hippos, black mambas, giraffes, antelopes, hyenas, the cutest little bush baby that befriends Xan…and of course Duma…a beautiful cheetah that can run from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds…faster than Larry Ellison's McLaren sports car!
Xan hooks up with a man named Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker - "Oz") along they way and learns a lot about becoming a man and about the beautiful South African culture. I'm not going to give the ending away…although it's not a big surprise…it's just that the Journey is just amazing to see!
Purple Gene give "Duma" 9 lovely golden sunsets over the desert out of 10 for stunning cinematography and a sweet story that was almost a perfect 10.
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'How I Met Your Mother', followed by a FRESH'The Class', then a FRESH'2½ Men', followed by a FRESH'Old Christine', then a FRESH'CSI: The 2nd One'.
On a RERUNDave (from 8/24/06) are Mark Wahlberg, canine wigmaker Ruth Regina, and M. Ward.
On a RERUNCraig (from 10/6/06) are Howie Mandel, Andy Summers, and Rodrigo y Gabriela.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'Deal Or No Deal', followed by a FRESH'Heroes', then a FRESH'Studio 60'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Hugh Jackman and Tim McGraw.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Regis Philbin and Dierks Bentley.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 9/12/06) are Jason Statham and Whitney Cummings.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Wife Swap', followed by a FRESH'The Bachelor: Roma', then a FRESH'What About Brian'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 10/5/06) are Jessica Simpson, Carlos Mencia, and the Killers.
The CW offers a FRESH'Everybody Hates Chris', followed by a FRESH'All Of Us', then a FRESH'Girlfriends', followed by a FRESH'The Game'.
Faux has a RERUN'Prison Break', followed by a RERUN'Justice'.
MY has a FRESH'Desire', followed by a FRESH'Fashion House'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Driving', another 'Driving', 'Gene Simmons', and another 'Gene Simmons'.
AMC offers the movie 'When A Man Loves A Woman', followed by the movie 'Basic Instinct', then the movie 'Murder By Numbers'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] As Time Goes By - Episode 5;
[2:40 pm] Are You Being Served - Camping In;
[3:20 pm] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 4;
[4:00 pm] The Avengers - Take Me To Your Leader;
[5:00 pm] Footballers Wives - Episode 8;
[6:00 pm] BBC World News;
[6:30 pm] Everything Must Go - Episode 11;
[7:00 pm] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 16;
[8:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[8:30 pm] Masterchef Goes Large - Episode 11;
[9:00 pm] Wire in the Blood - Ep 3 Hole in the Heart;
[11:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 9;
[11:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[12:00 am] Wire in the Blood - Ep 3 Hole in the Heart;
[2:00 am] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 9;
[2:30 am] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[3:00 am] McCallum - Ep. 2 Sacrifice;
[5:00 am] Crimefighters - Ep 5 One for the Road;
[5:30 am] Crimefighters - Ep 6 Kick Offs and Knock Offs;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Inside The Actors Studio', 'Six Feet Under', and another 'Six Feet Under'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', and 'Kevin James'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Frank Rich.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Barry Scheck.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Alien Engine', 'Engineering An Empire', and 'Lost Worlds'.
IFC -
[06:50 AM] The Road Home;
[08:20 AM] Spellbound;
[10:00 AM] Rank;
[11:40 AM] Antwone Fisher;
[01:45 PM] The Road Home;
[03:15 PM] Spellbound;
[04:55 PM] Le Divorce;
[06:55 PM] Antwone Fisher;
[09:00 PM] In the Bedroom;
[11:15 PM] Metroland;
[01:00 AM] In the Bedroom;
[03:15 AM] Metroland;
[05:00 AM] Le Divorce. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has 'Heroes', then fills the rest of the night with episodes of 'Darkside'.
Sundance -
[06:05 AM] Cotton Mary;
[08:15 AM] Tube Mice;
[08:30 AM] Since Otar Left;
[10:15 AM] Embedded;
[12:00 PM] Camp Hollywood;
[01:15 PM] In Short: Documentaries;
[01:45 PM] Das Bus;
[03:30 PM] The War Room;
[05:15 PM] Who Is Bernard Tapie?;
[06:15 PM] In Short: Documentaries;
[06:45 PM] Camp Hollywood;
[08:00 PM] The Hill: Episode 2: Less Feeling Please... More Doing;
[08:30 PM] House of Boateng: Episode 1;
[09:00 PM] August in the Empire State;
[10:15 PM] The War Room;
[12:00 AM] Crazy;
[01:45 AM] Primo Amore;
[03:30 AM] Guy;
[05:05 AM] Lucie Aubrac. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Actress Whoopi Goldberg poses in the media room during the 2006 Women's World Awards at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York October 14, 2006. Eric Thayer
U.S. critics swooned over "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary film about global warming starring ex-Vice President Al Gore, but international response has ranged from raves in Oslo to yawns in Bangkok.
In eco-friendly Germany, where Gore attended last week's Berlin premiere, the film was a multi-media event, covered by major newspapers and several television news shows. It drew specific praise from German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel at a news conference on energy.
In Australia, the film touched off a political spat. Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane dismissed it as "just entertainment" and refused to meet with Gore when he came to promote the movie in September. Environment Minister Ian Campbell said the film was "sound and solid." The movie ranked 10th at the Australian box office in early October.
But in Bangkok, film critic Natakwang said it lacked mass appeal. Four of seven friends in his group walked out in the middle of the show, he said, and when he used the film to teach one of his university classes, "Half of the class liked it and the other fell asleep."
Playwright Neil Simon (R) and his wife Elaine arrive for a program honoring him as the 2006 Mark Twain Prize recipient at the Kennedy Center in Washington October 15, 2006.
Photo by Mike Theiler
Ten months after leaving the commercial airwaves for subscription-based Sirius Satellite Radio, shock jock Howard Stern is out to attract a broad new online audience with his first-ever free Internet broadcast.
Stern's four-hour-plus program will be made available live online at no charge for two days, October 25 and 26, to promote an Internet radio service Sirius is launching this week. A formal announcement was planned for Monday morning.
The new service offers more than 75 channels of CD-quality programming over the Internet -- without the need to buy a Sirius satellite receiver -- for a monthly subscription fee of $12.95, the company said in a press release.
The service can be accessed by logging on to the Sirius Web site, www.sirius.com.
Despite the big early success of his new film "The Departed," Martin Scorsese plans to take a break from Hollywood blockbusters and focus on the adaptation of a Japanese novel for his next work, he said on Sunday.
Scorsese won the only standing ovation so far at the Rome Film Festival with the screening of his modern-day cops versus mobsters thriller starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon.
Scorsese said he had had no particular problems with Warner Bros. Pictures, the studio behind the film, but that he was finding it harder and harder to work on big productions, and felt Hollywood studios restricted the creativity of directors.
Former tennis star Billie Jean King displays the statuette she received at the 2006 Women's World Awards in New York on Oct. 14, 2006. King was given the World Athlete Award.
Photo by John Smock
In a vibrant farewell to the legendary punk-rock venue CBGB, Blondie singer Deborah Harry played a final show on Saturday in a tribute to the club that was a launching pad for her career, but is due to close at the end of the month.
Taking the tiny stage at the dank, crumbling club wearing red gloves and swaying her now strawberry blond hair, Harry sang many of the hits that made Blondie a wildly successful band in the 1970s and 80s.
The club in Manhattan's East Village -- its full name is CBGB & OMFUG, or Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers -- became the epicenter of the punk-rock scene launching bands like the Ramones and Talking Heads.
Actors Matt Dillon and Rosie Perez handed out Woodstock Film Festival awards Saturday night, while a story about a suicide bombing in the heart of Manhattan won Best Feature Film.
Dillon, an Academy Award nominee for "Crash," presented the Trailblazer Award to Independent Film Channel Chairman Jonathan Sehring. Dillon starred in the IFC's 2005 release "Factotum."
Julia Loktev's "Day Night Day Night" was named Best Feature Film. It tells the story of a 19-year-old girl and the three masked men who drop her off in Times Square with a bomb strapped to her back.
Perez presented the Maverick Award to two-time Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple, whose newest documentary, "Shut up and Sing," is about the backlash against the Dixie Chicks after the country music group publicly criticized resident Bush.
Singer-actress Hilary Duff and her boyfriend, Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden, are seeking restraining orders against two men they claim are stalking them.
Duff, 19, and Madden, 27, filed requests in Superior Court on Thursday for protection from David Joseph Klein, 50, and a man identified by first name as Max, according to court papers.
Duff and Madden are requesting that Max and Klein stay at least 100 yards away from them, Duff's sister Haylie, 21, her mother Susan, 53, and Madden's twin brother Benji.
Actor Willem Dafoe, left, and his wife Italian actress Giada Colagrande smile as they arrive at Rome's Auditorium, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006, for the screening od Martin Scorsese's movie 'The Departed', at the first ever edition of the Rome 'Festa del Cinema' Film Festival.
Photo by Andrew Medichini
Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking will reportedly trade in scientific journals for the big screen by starring in a movie.
The film, "Beyond the Horizon," aims to explain some of the complicated theories backed by Hawking and his fellow physicists, including the idea that space has up to 11 dimensions and the cause of the big bang.
The 64-year-old Hawking, famous for his 1988 international best-seller "A Brief History of Time," will also narrate a soundtrack which explains cosmological concepts.
A view of the Bode Museum in Berlin October 15, 2006. After several years of restoration, the museum will present three collections to the public from October 21: the Sculpture Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art, the Numismatic Collection, as well as works from the Gem?egalerie-Old Master Paintings. Picture taken using time exposure.
Photo by Arnd Wiegmann
Bill Murray created a small sensation in the Scottish town of St. Andrews, joining Scandinavian students at a late-night party and even helping to wash the dishes, a newspaper reported Sunday.
And in what The Sunday Telegraph said was life imitating art, the 56-year-old Murray joined up with 22-year-old Norwegian student Lykke Stavnef, who took him to a house where a student party was in full swing.
"Nobody could believe it when I arrived at the party with Bill Murray," Stavnef, a social anthropology student, was quoted as saying. "He was just like the character in 'Lost in Translation.'"
Valencay cheese, from France's Loire Valley, is arranged at New York's Artisanal Cheese Center, Friday, Oct. 13, 2006. Max MacCalman, Artisnal's maitre fromager, says that the cheese got its shape from an encounter with Napoleon's sword. As the story goes, his army had been trounced in Egypt, and when Napoleon later saw a cheese that looked like a pyramid, his sword was swift.
Photo by Richard Drew
Actress Tara Reid, whose botched breast surgery made her a Hollywood laughingstock two years ago, underwent additional surgery to repair the damage, according to a report in Us Weekly.
In an interview released on Wednesday, the "American Pie" actress told the magazine she had surgery last month to reduce the scarring on her breasts and to even out her stomach after cosmetic surgery in 2004.
Reid said the surgery hurt her professionally and personally.
"Guys I was dating would be like, 'What's wrong with them? They look really bad. You know, you should really get them fixed.' So embarrassing, I mean, you definitely had to turn off the lights. And then there was my stomach."
The New Years Eve ball rises over Times Square in New York October 15, 2006. The ceremony was part of the U.N. Millenium Stand Up Against Poverty event to promote the United Nations' goals to end poverty and hunger by the year 2015.
Photo by Keith Bedford
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Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
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amused or entertained?
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How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
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