I spent this
past weekend at the 11th annual Earthdance celebration, a global festival for
peace held in northern California, uniting with over 250 locations in 50
countries, providing a wide variety of live music, workshops, speakers,
inspiration and a worldwide sense of community. On
Saturday, I was among a large group of men and women participating in the
International Elders Forum. Each one had six minutes to share their wisdom with
an overflowing crowd in the huge Electronica Dome. A native American, David of
the Blackfoot tribe, would play the flute after five minutes of talk as a signal
that there was one minute left. When my turn came, I
began, "Whatever wisdom I have to share is in the form of comic relief, but just
remember, if you don't laugh you're only helping the terrorists." After seven
minutes, I still didn't hear any notes from the flute, so I decided to pass the
microphone on to the next person. On Sunday afternoon,
David told me that he had been laughing so hard he simply couldn't play his
flute. He tried again and again, yet the best he could do was spit into it. Of
course, this was gratifying feedback to a stand-up satirist, but over lunch our
conversation became deadly serious. Last November, he
wanted to sell a piece of equipment, and a man who saw the ad invited him to his
apartment. There, David was told to help himself to a soda from the
refrigerator, which he did. When he turned around, four guys -
biker/skinhead/Aryan-Nation types - burst through the door and attacked him with
2-1/2 inch metal pipes, first striking him on the forehead, then beating and
kicking him while calling him a "dog" and a "prairie
nigger." He tried unsuccessfully to defend himself and
finally dove out the first-floor window, landing in a carport. He pounded on
somebody's door - yelling - "9-1-1!" - and collapsed in a puddle of blood. He
regained consciousness in a hospital where he got 40 stitches for a cracked
cranium and a head brace for his broken neck. His shoulder and hand were also
injured. He was rescued by a friend and stayed at her home to heal. He could no
longer do physical work, but she has since helped him open a small
business. Two weeks after the incident (the night before
Thanksgiving), police arrested David for missing a court date on a traffic
violation. He had missed the date because he was unconscious in the hospital. At
the Sonoma County jail, the guards kicked him, removed his head brace, refused
him all medical attention, placed him in solitary confinement, forced him to
sleep on a concrete bed without a mattress, and did not allow him to shower for
six days. They eventually brought him to court, chained to a
wheelchair. After he was released on probation, the
district attorney demanded that David testify against the skinheads. Knowing the
nature of the Aryan gang, he immediately expressed concerns about his safety,
regardless of what his testimony might be. A couple of months later, the DA
agreed to place him in a witness protection program. It turned out to be at the
Pink Flamingo, a hotel in Santa Rosa, the same city in which he was
attacked. On the third day, he walked out of the hotel and
saw a bunch of bikers and skinheads outside. Not knowing they were there for a
tattoo convention, he panicked and smoked a cigarette in his no-smoking room.
For that offense, he was taken out of the witness protection program and left
homeless, afraid to put anyone he knew in danger. The DA made it very clear to
him that "We have ways to make you testify." The day
before the trial, David was arrested again, on the way to the Indian Health
Center, for driving with a suspended license. Again, he was denied medical
attention, his head brace was removed, and he was thrown into solitary
confinement. A week later, he was again brought into court chained to a
wheelchair - unbathed and looking like a wild Indian - and threatened with three
years in jail. The DA was in the courtroom at his sentencing, pow-wowing
directly with the judge. Immediately before the
sentencing, David's friend stood up and asked to speak out on his behalf, since
his court-appointed lawyer had done so little to defend him. With the bailiff
bearing down on her and contempt of court looming, the judge surprisingly agreed
to let her talk. She stated how jailing David was cruel and unusual punishment,
because he would have to be placed in solitary confinement throughout his
incarceration in order to avoid any contact with Aryan gang members, due to his
status as a hate-crime victim. Moreover, he was in
violation of driving with a suspended license only because he couldn't afford to
pay the fines; his injuries prevented him from being able to work in his chosen
field to earn the money to pay those fines. Was driving with a suspended license
actually worth three years of anyone's life, or was there another agenda lurking
in the courtroom that needed such leverage to pressure David into testifying
against the assailants? Was it justice to, in effect, condemn him for the
heinous crime of poverty? The judge weighed the case and
the next day released David on probation, warning him not to drive. Almost a
year later, the DA is still hounding David by phone and subpoena, putting his
life in danger by coercing him to testify. And where was Victims Assistance
during all this horror? A Victim Witness Advocate told David, "I can't help you.
You're on probation. Our hands are tied." Since David was
a victim, he does not have the right to an attorney. He was due to appear in
court on September 18, but the case has been postponed for a month. He plans to
say in court that he will not testify because, "If concern for my safety is not
addressed, I could die." He expects to be charged with contempt and, once again,
to be put in solitary confinement.
Whatever you can do to help extricate him from
this profane injustice would be most appreciated. His tormenters, DA Anne
Masterson and her investigator Denise Urton, can be reached at (707) 565-2311.
You can contact David at iamhollowreed@yahoo.com. I'm grateful to be in a
position to communicate the details of this nightmare, none of which I would
have known had David been able to play his flute after five minutes of
laughing.
Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports
From an Investigative Satirist, published by Seven Stories Press; he
publishes The Disneyland Memorial Orgy at www.paulkrassner.com.
Robert Fisk: It Is The Death of History (The Independent)
2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past - the very cradle of human civilisation - has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
Annalee Newitz:The Death of 'Green' Satellites
The government is cutting funds to the tools that climate researchers need most -- the satellite and sensor networks that study the way humans are impacting climate change.
Jim Hightower: AMERICA'S GAPING ECONOMIC DIVIDE (jimhightower.com)
What happened to the good ol' American notion of the common good - the idea that we're all in this together, trying to build a strong, unified society by fairly sharing the economic gains that all of us help produce?
Run for your lives (guardian.co.uk)
Kids' exercise levels are even more abysmal than we feared. And, says Peta Bee the repercussions are not just physical - they extend to academic achievement and social behaviour. So what can we do to get them off the sofa?
Check out the questions they ask the kids, one is 'Who is the worst president?', and almost to a kid responded "George W. Bush." It's good to know kids have their heads screwed on right.
CBS opens the night with the SEASON PREMIERE'Survivor: China', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The Original One', then a RERUNWithout A Trace'.
On a RERUNDave (from 7/31/07) are Seth Rogen, Sen. Joe Biden, and Gogol Bordello.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are James Woods and Ben Lee.
NBC begins the night with an hourlong 'My Name Is Earl' that's mostly a RERUN, but with some promised fresh material, followed by an hourlong RERUN'The Office', then a RERUN'ER'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Jessica Alba, D.L. Hughley, and Cold War Kids.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Terrence Howard, Simon Pegg, and Mystery.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Oliver Hudson, Peter Bjorn and John.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Ugly Betty', followed by a RERUN'Grey's Anatomy', then a RERUN'Men In Trees'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Dane Cook, Samaire Armstrong, and KT Tunstall.
The CWRERUNs Tuesday night's 'Beauty & The Geek'.
Faux has a FRESH'Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?', followed by a FRESH'Don't Forget The Lyrics'.
MY has the movie 'The Tailor Of Panama'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', followed by a FRESH'Thr First 48', then a FRESH'Dallas SWAT'.
AMC offers the movie 'Marnie', followed by the movie 'The Man Who Knew Too Much', then the movie 'The Torn Curtain'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 8;
[1:00 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 18;
[1:30 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 19;
[2:00 PM] Weakest Link, The - Episode 20;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[4:00 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 17;
[4:30 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 1;
[5:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 8 La Gondola;
[6:00 PM] My Family - Ep 5 First Past The Post;
[6:30 PM] My Family - Ep 6 My Will Be Done;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News;
[7:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 2;
[8:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Momma Cherri's;
[9:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 D-Place;
[10:00 PM] Coupling - Ep. 5 Jane and the Truth Snake;
[10:40 PM] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 2;
[11:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Momma Cherri's;
[12:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 D-Place;
[1:00 AM] Coupling - Ep. 5 Jane and the Truth Snake;
[1:40 AM] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 2;
[2:00 AM] The Weakest Link - Episode 1;
[3:00 AM] Hollyoaks - Episode 14;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Episode 3;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 11 Detling 31;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 23 Newark 63;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 18 Springthorpe;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 19 Lovell;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Top Chef', another 'Top Chef', still another 'Top Chef', followed by a FRESH'Tim Gunn's Guide To Style'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', last night's 'Jon Stewart', last night's 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', another 'South Park', and 'Drawn Together'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Former President Bill Clinton.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Jeffrey Toobin.
FX has the movie 'Man Of The House', followed by the movie 'The Rundown', then 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia', followed by another 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', another 'Modern Marvels', 'Boneyard', and 'Ancient Discoveries'.
IFC -
[06:00 AM] Jet Lag;
[07:30 AM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 3;
[08:20 AM] Trauma;
[10:00 AM] Festival Express;
[11:30 AM] Jet Lag;
[01:00 PM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 3;
[01:50 PM] Trauma;
[03:30 PM] Festival Express;
[05:00 PM] Jet Lag;
[06:30 PM] IFC News Special: Comic-Con Chronicles;
[07:00 PM] Monster;
[09:00 PM] Swingers;
[10:45 PM] Being John Malkovich;
[12:45 AM] After Hours;
[02:30 AM] Swingers;
[04:15 AM] Being John Malkovich. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has the movie 'Resident Evil', followed by the movie 'Highlander: The Source'.
Sundance -
[04:00 AM] September 11;
[07:00 AM] The Milagro Beanfield War;
[09:00 AM] Raving;
[09:00 AM] Nose, Iranian Style;
[10:00 AM] The Syrian Bride;
[12:00 PM] Forty Shades of Blue;
[02:00 PM] Millennium Mambo;
[04:00 PM] The Parole Officer;
[06:00 PM] Episode 3;
[06:00 PM] Raving;
[07:00 PM] Mario Batali on Michael Stipe;
[07:00 PM] Robert Redford on Paul Newman;
[08:00 PM] Hotel Infinity;
[09:00 PM] Episode 2;
[09:00 PM] News for the Church;
[10:00 PM] Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snow Patrol & Madeleine Peyroux;
[11:00 PM] Episode 5;
[12:00 AM] Build;
[12:00 AM] Art from the Arctic;
[01:00 AM] Recycle;
[01:00 AM] Build;
[02:00 AM] Unborn But Forgotten;
[04:00 AM] Our Brand is Crisis;
[05:00 AM] The Syrian Bride. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Stevie Wonder, center, is applauded by, from left, Quincy Jones, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Wonder's daughter Aisha Morris, and Todd 'LL Cool J' Smith during The Dream Concert at Radio City Music Hall Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007 in New York.
Photo by Jason DeCrow
David Bowie has donated $10,000 to a legal defense fund for six black teens charged in an alleged attack on a white classmate in the tiny central Louisiana town of Jena.
The British rocker's donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund was announced by the NAACP as thousands of protesters were expected to march through Jena on Thursday in defense of Mychal Bell and five other teens. The group has become known as the Jena Six.
"There is clearly a separate and unequal judicial process going on in the town of Jena," Bowie said Tuesday in an e-mail statement. "A donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund is my small gesture indicating my belief that a wrongful charge and sentence should be prevented."
Cenk Uygur of Air America's morning show "The Young Turks" insisted on his program Wednesday that Stephen Colbert used his joke on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." Uygur posted a video on YouTube comparing his joke - which he claims he first told on his Sept. 7 radio program - with a segment that aired on "The Colbert Report" four days later.
In both jokes, Uygur and Colbert suggest that the Republican presidential candidates sounded like Klingons from "Star Trek" while speaking about the value of honor.
Renata Luczak, a spokeswoman for Colbert, said the comedian had no immediate comment but will most likely address it on the show.
Cartoonist Hector Cantu decided if the stories of Latino soldiers were going to go untold in Ken Burns' upcoming World War II documentary, he'd have Benito tell them.
This week, Cantu and co-creator Carlos Castellanos unveiled Benito "Benny" Ramirez in their syndicated comic strip "Baldo," which appears in 200 newspapers.
Benito is a composite character based on the actual stories of several Hispanic World War II veterans. Their experiences are featured in a book by University of Texas journalism professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez.
The Baldo strips, running through Sept. 27, are among several activities planned around the Sunday start of Burns' 15-hour series, "The War," which Hispanic groups have criticized for inadequately representing of their role in the conflict.
Resident George W. Bush, twice elected with solid backing of conservative Christians, promised to curb adult pornography in the United States.
But the administration has had little effect on the $13 billion industry, anti-porn activists say, largely because the FBI has focused investigations on small operations producing extreme forms of smut instead of on the bigger companies.
Adult-obscenity investigations have taken a back seat to more pressing issues such as terrorism, even though former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales named obscenity as a top priority, two FBI officials said.
"The Last King of Scotland" director Kevin Macdonald returns to his documentary roots with "My Enemy's Enemy," a sobering history lesson detailing the disturbing record of complicity between notorious war criminals, specifically Klaus Barbie, and the West in the aftermath of World War II.
Macdonald, whose riveting 1999 film "One Day in September," dealing with the 1972 Munich Olympics tragedy, took home a documentary Oscar, finds no shortage of glaring hypocrisies when it comes to the troubling postwar relationship between the Butcher of Lyon and American counterintelligence.
Although he was held accountable for the murder of celebrated French Resistance leader Jean Moulin, as well as for the deaths of 44 Jewish children in Izieu, France, the U.S. nevertheless found his communist-hunting tactics to be quite useful during the Cold War.
They would eventually part company, and Barbie and his family would "disappear" to Bolivia (with the assistance of the Catholic Church), where he would lay low for a while, eventually becoming a powerful businessman and enlisting the help of some of his old Nazi brethren in a bid to build a Fourth Reich in the Andes.
Sean Penn, director of the film 'Into the Wild,' arrives with his wife Robin Wright Penn at the premiere of the film, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, in Los Angeles.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Punk legend Iggy Pop has been honoured with a lifetime achievement gong at the Vodafone Live Music Awards.
Amy Winehouse was named best female performer beating rivals Lily Allen, KT Tunstall and Kate Nash to the best female prize.
Kylie Minogue won best show production for her Showgirl Homecoming tour, a series of spectacular comeback gigs following her recovery from breast cancer.
Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and his former bosses Wednesday, claiming they made him a "scapegoat" for a discredited story about President Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.
The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the story, said the actions of the defendants damaged his reputation and cost him significant financial loss.
The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, claims the network intentionally botched the aftermath of the story about Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard and had Rather take the fall to "pacify" the White House. He was removed from his job at "CBS Evening News" in March 2005.
Besides CBS Corp., the suit names former CBS parent company Viacom Inc., CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, and Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News. The suit seeks $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.
Cellist Yo Yo Ma performs with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra , as the orchestra opened its season, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2006 at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. Ma performed Dvorak's Cello Concerto .
Photo by Stephen Chernin
Britney Spears has been ordered to undergo random drug and alcohol testing twice a week, according to court documents in her custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline.
The order was issued Monday by a judge who required both parents to refrain from drinking and using drugs around their two young children and 12 hours before either cares for them. Only Spears was ordered to submit to testing.
The judge also said Spears must meet for eight hours a week with a "parenting coach" who will observe and report back to the court about her parenting skills.
Lou Reed has long been lauded for his critically acclaimed musical portrait of New York. Now the rock star has turned his attention to his favorite city once again, this time as a photographer.
Best known for "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sweet Jane," Reed is co-curating a Manhattan show featuring photos by musicians and prepping to take his own touring "New York" photo exhibit show to Amsterdam next month.
"I've always been interested in photography," Reed told Reuters in an interview. "What was I trying to accomplish with the New York photos? I wanted to record the way New York looks right now, before it changes any more."
Giant panda "Bing Xing" (Star of Ice) stands up in his enclosure at the Madrid zoo September 19, 2007. Two giant pandas, "Bing Xing" and "Hua Zui Ba",which arrived in Spain on September 8 on a goodwill gesture loan from China, are housed in an air-conditioned pagoda and garden specially built for them at the zoo.
Photo by Paul Hanna
When John Sykes saw a band of Brooklyn schoolkids playing in a musical graveyard of stringless violins and taped-up drums, it felt like the day the music died.
"I was shocked because I saw all of these incredibly enthusiastic kids ... had almost no facilities for music, arts, phys ed, anything," recalled Sykes, then president of the VH1 music channel. "Here we were making billions of dollars as a corporation, and a school just a few miles away had next to nothing."
The principal of P.S. 58 told Sykes she could revive the music program for a mere $5,000. "You'll have the $5,000. Go get the instruments," the music executive responded - and The VH1 Save The Music Foundation was born.
A decade later, the foundation has tuned up music programs in more than 1,500 schools nationwide, helping one million students enjoy the benefits of music education rather than the sounds of silence - and raising $40 million along the way.
A fiery meteorite crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed on Wednesday. But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened 200 people.
Jose Mechare, a scientist with Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a "rocky meteorite," based on the fragments analyzed.
He said water in the meteorite's muddy crater boiled for maybe 10 minutes from the heat and could have given off a vapor that sickened people, and scientists were taking water samples.
Jorge Lopez, director of the health department in the state where the meteorite crashed, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 200 people suffered headaches, nausea and respiratory problems caused by "toxic" fumes emanating from the crater, which is some 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
Dancers and acrobats perform on stage at the start of the German tour of Canadian 'Cirque du Soleil' with their new show 'Delirium' in Hamburg, northern Germany, on Tuesday, Sept. 18., 2007.
Photo by Patrick Lux
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Sept. 10-16. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses.
1. NFL Football: Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens (Monday, 7 p.m.), ESPN, 8.29 million homes, 11.1 million viewers.
2. "The Closer" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 6.84 million homes, 9.21 million viewers.
3. NFL Football: San Francisco 49ers vs. Arizona Cardinals (Monday, 10:30 p.m.), ESPN, 6.63 million homes, 8.50 million viewers.
4. "Saving Grace" (Monday, 10 p.m.), TNT, 4.03 million homes, 5.22 million viewers.
5. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.98 million homes, 5.82 million viewers.
6. "Monk" (Friday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.52 million homes, 5.03 million viewers.
7. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.48 million homes, 5.20 million viewers.
8. MLB Baseball: New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox (Sunday, 8 p.m.), 3.40 million homes, 4.51 million viewers.
9. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.05 million homes, 4.02 million viewers.
10. "The Hills" (Monday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 2.96 million homes, 3.66 million viewers.
11. "Drake & Josh" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.95 million homes, 4.15 million viewers.
12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.94 million homes, 3.90 million viewers.
13. "Psych" (Friday, 10 p.m.), USA, 2.93 million homes, 4.15 million viewers.
14. College Football: Maryland v. West Virginia (Thursday, 7:30 p.m.), ESPN, 2.88 million homes, 3.59 million viewers.
15. "The Closer" (Monday, 8 p.m.), TNT, 2.83 million homes, 3.55 million viewers.
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