April 2006 (I): Doggie C-Sections...And Other Tales Of Family Values

I make a badly timed trip to the lunch room, where Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant is telling a captive audience of secretaries: "My daughter's dog is having puppies...that breed always needs a C-section... "

I first hear this as, "My daughter's having puppies"...

Which doesn't sound all that strange, considering how Jesus' BAA usually describes her canine relationships. But the special obstetric needs are her point: this appears to be a great distinction and source of pride—something like inbred diseases as a mark of royal breeding.

"American Idol" still exerts its thrall over the office, particularly Cruella. Who is called for real-life jury duty this month, then released.

"Lucky for me," she says. (But so much luckier for the defendant, I say.)

Now Cruella can devote her full attention to passing harsh judgements on teevee contestants: "Kelly was horrible! Paris doesn't have her own style!"

Jesus' BAA tries to pipe up: "But she's just a kid: she just turned 17."

Cruella insists, "Paris will go! The girls will be in the bottom and boys in the top 3!"

Though she takes this stuff very, very seriously, Jesus' BAA is also trying to Better Herself, ever since the arrival of Dr. G. Zuss and spouse. She is feeling especially full of Rapture™, because a campus orchestra (employee amateur players) is about to give a free concert. A Tchaikovsky overture/Broadway show tunes kind of program, over which Jesus' BAA exclaims, "I love classical music!"

Instant comeback from Cruella: "You'd have to kill me to make me listen to that kind of music! Now 50s music: that was the best there ever was!"

"I never heard it," says Jesus' BAA.

Presumably, because she spent her childhood locked in a closet, per instructions from the voices in her parents' heads.

One night this month I dream that Cruella is yelling about
F.D. Roosevelt. Though she can't bring herself to speak his name—she calls him, "that damn WWII Democrat!"

My dream self says to her, "if you hate him so much, why don't you give back your husband's Social Security?"

Cruella may invade my dreams, but at least that's one place where speech is still free. Though when I say so, Clever Sister forwards some "they're working on that, too" items from New Scientist. The articles are no longer free, but from CS's email:

It is possible to read someone's mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves.

So far, it has only been used to identify visual patterns a subject can see or has chosen to focus on. But the researchers speculate the approach might be extended to probe a persons awareness, focus of attention, memory and movement intention.

Even without yet having that technology, DHS is busy protecting us from threats like eco terra-ists likely to terra-ize Patriotic American fax machines with terra-ist flyers.

There have also been a couple little bits of news about some of the officials...Such as the arrest of Brian J. Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary for the Office of Public Affairs:

Homeland Security official arrested in child sex sting

And appearing in court after his arrest in 2005:

Frank Figueroa, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s program to stop child predators (Operation Predator), today pleaded no contest to charges he exposed himself to a 16-year-old girl. According to the victim,"Figueroa pulled up a leg of his shorts, exposed himself and masturbated for about 10 minutes" in front of her.

TalkingPointsMemo does a rundown of the new DHS arrest, as well as scandals involving other administration officials. And, speculating that DHS must really stand for "Degenerate He-Men's Society," watertiger suggests

We're gonna need a bigger Post Office wall for the mug shots of this Administration.

It just happens that the day of Doyle's arrest, a faculty visitor refers to Fawn Hall (in some context I don't catch).

After the speaker leaves, the others scratch their heads, until Jesus' BAA suggests: "it sounds familiar...didn't she have an affair?"

Cruella: "Then, that must have been the Bill Clinton era!

Huzzah for no more scandals, not with Godly Republicans in power!

April 2005 (II): The Month In Family/Amurkan Values

Clever Sister sends some product links [no longer working]. They're a 2005 example of "what those loonies wanted to do in Florida with Schaivo"—to turn her into a "living miracle" product-pushing business opportunity, à la comatose Little Audrey Santo.

Tacky, but only the smallest of small-time opportunism, compared to the theocratic right's wealth and power-enhancing intrusions into politics.

After the Republican leadership's loud bleating that their Schaivo maneuvers were all about the sanctity of life—never (gasp!) political—a memo from the Senate Office of Mel Martinez Senate becomes public. Which outlines the party's talking points for exploiting Schaivo to the max.

Now their media operatives go into gear, promoting the "what's the big deal, and—look over there!—it's the Democrats' fault anyway" line—here, for example.

And in this transcript, much effort is made by Darryl Kagan [for the moment, Mrs. R. Limbaugh] to steer her fellow talking-head in the direction of saying, "but isn't this just icky, nasty politics, and aren't the Democrats worse..." Followed by her changing the subject to the previous night's Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner—addressed by jovial Dick Cheney—a "fun night" enjoyed by all.

While it's not exactly news that opportunism makes strange allies, Max Blumenthal 's portrait of the assorted theocrats, racists, Catholics and anti-Catholics joining forces to rouse the rabble on "Justice Sunday" is here.

The event's only black speaker is a Protestant bishop active in promoting "wedge issues" like gay marriage, to divert blacks from voting Democratic. His stature on the white right has grown, and he's been among black clergy invited to a private White House meeting. But he's frustrated that these issues aren't working because—as he admits in his speech—"Black churches are too concerned with justice."

The immediate goal of the event is to weaken Congressional opposition to Bush judiciary appointments. As part of the long-range goal of destroying judiciary independence.

Digby points out the hypocrisy of the Catholic church's top-level involvement in "Justice Sunday," after previously ruling that priests could not involve themselves in politics—at least, not liberal priests.

And Digby's post goes on to cite Fritz Stern, including this:

Twenty years ago, I wrote about "National Socialism as Temptation," about what it was that induced so many Germans to embrace the terrifying specter. There were many reasons, but at the top ranks Hitler himself, a brilliant populist manipulator who insisted and probably believed that Providence had chosen him as Germany’s savior, that he was the instrument of Providence, a leader who was charged with executing a divine mission. God had been drafted into national politics before, but Hitler’s success in fusing racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity was an immensely powerful element in his electoral campaigns. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas.

"Justice Sunday" was a stunt staged for public visibility—satellite broadcast to 400 churches, as well as via radio and internet. But earlier in the month, movement leaders held a more private meeting: a "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" conference—also attended by Max Blumenthal, who reports:

For two days, on April 7 and 8, conservative activists and top GOP staffers summoned the raw rage of the Christian right following the Terri Schiavo affair, and likened judges to communists, terrorists and murderers. The remedies they suggested for what they termed "judicial tyranny" ranged from the mass impeachment of judges to their physical elimination.

While the brains of this movement aim for "plausible deniability" by indulging only in violent rhetoric, there are also the foot soldiers. As of April 14:

Abortion clinics around the US are "bracing for attacks" after convicted murderer and Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph issued a "manifesto" justifying attacks against such clinics and their workers.

Rudolph is able simultaneously to plead guilty; issue his call-to-arms; and prevent the public spectacle of a trial that would shed light on right-wing terrorism.

A Berkshire Eagle editorial [registration required], "An American terrorist," suggests:

...questions will go unanswered that a trial might have resolved. Did Mr. Rudolph think up the idea of becoming a "pro-life" killer all by himself, or did others influence his thinking? He said in his statement he had no ties to the fascist Christian Identiy movement. Is that really the case? Did he build, plant and detonate his bombs all by himself, or did he have assistance and support? It's comforting to think Mr. Rudolph was a lone zealot, unless he wasn't. Without a trial, we'll never know.

Maybe the prosecutors thought they couldn't get him and so opted for an easy plea. but here are powerful people for whom the spectacle of an unrepentant murderer for the unborn, a clean-cut movie star handsome Christian terrorist, posed political problems. Better to defend life in the abstract, keep the focus on the enemy at the gates and keep skeletons like Eric Rudolph locked up in the closet.

And April 19 is the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

I remember well how the first news reports of that day were quickly followed by the judgement of our brilliant pundits: "Islamic Terrorists, striking at The Heartland!"

..."The Heartland"? A region with more than a few heavily armed gubmit haters? A slight awareness of the U.S. sociopolitical environment could have led to the second hypothesis just as quickly as the media jumped to the first.

Driftglass marks the anniverary—and the political course of the subsequent years—

First they came for the File Clerks.
Then they came for the Family Planning Clinics.
Then they came for the "activist" judges.
Happy Anniversary, Moderate Republicans!

In the more mundane attack on what affects "security" for most citizens, the regime's efforts on this front continue:

'Trust fund' is locked in filing cabinet
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

President Bush's visit Tuesday to a federal agency in West Virginia that holds the Social Security trust fund put the spotlight on a $1.7 trillion promise to the nation's retirees.

...Physically, the trust fund consists of 8-by-11-inch sheets of paper...in a drawer of a four-drawer filing cabinet at the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Parkersburg, W.Va...

The papers in the cabinet are computer-generated replicas of $1.7 trillion in Treasury bonds — the amount the government has promised to repay Social Security for spending payroll taxes that finance the retirement system on other programs such as defense and education...

Bush offered the filing cabinet as proof that "there is no trust fund — just IOUs."

As money, bonds, and such are just ink on paper...just paper...Which could be a silver lining—if driftglass is correct that this is the Bush Secret Chinese Debt Strategy Revealed!

Bush's photo ops staged for the fool-some-of-the-people-all-of-the-time segment of the population are one thing. More stealthy are the continuous assaults in areas like this from PR Watch:

A little noticed proposal in the 2,000 page federal budget "would give the president the power to appoint an eight member panel called the 'Sunset Commission.'" The commission would "review federal programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs that are not 'producing results,' in the eyes of the commission, would 'automatically terminate unless the Congress took action.'" Even the Environmental Protection Agency or Food and Drug Administration could be axed, on a "simple vote of five commissioners" not a high bar, since many commissioners would likely be "lobbyists and executives from major corporations." The Sunset Commission is the brainchild of Clay Johnson, who's already "helped place industry champions ... throughout the government." It was first mentioned publicly by the ExxonMobil funded think tank, the Mercatus Center.

Finally, a couple of small items in the perpetual propaganda campaign against the citizenry.

I'm starting to see the new nickels—Jefferson faces right; he's lost the hippy hair; and the "God" of "In God We Trust" has moved from bottom to a more immediately visible position at top (which could be what started Jefferson's head to spinning...) I'm not sure what the extreme close-up and cropping are meant to represent, but they make the face look vaguely threatening, much like Hitchcock's creepy close-ups of Mt Rushmore heads in "North by Northwest."

Or this may be meant to make Jefferson resemble someone else. Clever Sister:

I wonder whose face this really is. I should look at some of the 2008 contenders & see if it's one of them. They have already linked Dim Son to George Washington—that's why Rove came up with the "W" business: "George W..." I've seen ads:

"Learn about the first George W. — George Washington"

For that matter, they've already remade Jefferson into a Republican...

April 2005 (I): Pope-a-palooza

In a "concerned" voice, Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant to Cruella: "You're a Catholic aren't you? What direction do you think the church will go now?"

Meaning: she's seriously worried they'll annoint a librul...

Smoke machine at film location, London
Photo: Andrew Dunn.

I listen to Cruella reassure Jesus' BAA that the pick will of course be a conservative, because "everyone wants to change things to suit their lifestyle, but you can't just have things different from how they've always been...

Clever Sister predicts: "they'll appoint one of those fascist Africans."

As on all topics, Cruella continues broadcasting her opinions: she doesn't want an Italian; doesn't think an African will be named; but there's a Venezuelan who's "very well-regarded"—which I take to mean "fascist"— that's her guy.

At some point a faculty member tries prodding Cruella about whether it might be time for some liberalization, and she declares, "As much as we might like that, we can't always have what we would like!"

I enjoy the bland insincerity of those "we"s, particularly about what "we" would "like"!

Ideological bent of this office aside—and that ideology is nothing, if not "bent"—the national media are ecstatic, what with the mix of wealth, power, fame, and pseudo-piety this circus offers.

As she follows the daily coverage, Clever Sister e-mails me tidbits like:

• Inquiring minds want to know:
  Pope was not embalmed, only 'prepared' for public viewing, Vatican says
  [I'd say he was pickled, or he'd rot before the funeral – cs]
• Bush ordered flags at ½ staff and will go to funeral. Did Carter do that when previous one died?
• Criticism in France over lowering of flags as government abuse of power
• People who watched the funeral live heard Bush being booed. There will be no mention of this in our free media.

After the funeral on April 8, Bush declares it "one of the highlights of my presidency." But Mr. Appropiate's excitement was also quite visible during the event—where he was snapped in the midst of supposedly grieving world leaders, smoochin' Laura [photo here, if you dare].

The election of a new pope may not be as exciting as "American Idol" voting, but it seems just as drawn out. The background on Vatican smoke signals is offered by these people, who will rent you a smoke machine suitable for staging your very own papal election!


Among events this month not subject to media frenzy: the death in Iraq of Marla Ruzicka. As much as the death of a young blonde might inspire media circusry, this particular blonde's work and death are not high on the list of what our spinmeisters want to publicize.

But then, as Jane Reitman reports in Rolling Stone, it happens that several days before Ruzicka's death "she had obtained a document that was her holy grail: a detailed report showing that the U.S. military keeps its own civilian-casualty records, something the Pentagon has repeatedly denied."

Despite her unembedded independence, the very visible and sociable young American woman was known and liked by US reporters in Baghdad and Kabul. So, this being the loss of someone in their milieu, there were pieces in Time, the Washington Post, and Newsweek.

As much as war stories need exposure, it's inevitable that the coverage of this particular death is full of the personalization that so predominates what we get as journalism. Now, if only more untold stories had an advocate who could throw a good, boozy party, maybe the press would feel motivated to cover those stories from time to time.

It may not be a blockbuster missing blonde story, but yes, there is some coverage— largely as the sad story of a dead young American. Journalist Jill Carroll—who will later be kidnapped in Iraq—recalls her friend's death:

If she were still here, she'd be most worried now about her driver's family, and who will take care of all the other Iraqi families she was working with. She would point out, this happens to Iraqis every day, and no one notices or even cares. There are no newspaper articles or investigations into what happens to them. For most of them, there was only Marla.

The quote comes from this column, by James Carroll (no relation to Jill). Written while Jill was still in captivity, James connects Marla's life and death with Jill's seriousness about being in Iraq to bring the war home to American readers:

...Jill Carroll published an account of the death of an American aid worker, a report much noted [after Jill's kidnapping] because of similarities to her own situation.

Marla Ruzicka was a Californian, attached to an NGO, attending to the needs of desperate Iraqis. She and her driver were killed when they were caught in a crossfire between a suicidal insurgent and US soldiers. Marla Ruzicka was Jill Carroll's friend, and her story is infused with grief. But the story also takes careful note of Ruzicka's driver...To Jill Carroll, the death of this Iraqi man weighed as much as the death of her American friend. If Jill Carroll were filing the report of her own kidnapping...we would know the name of her murdered driver, and his death, too, would have grave importance to us -- because it surely did to her.

March 2008: Tie A Yellow Ribbon...

Or make that: slap the ribbon on something that opens so that something else can be pumped in?

... When the "something else" might just be a reason for BushCo to invade a country?

[Image: Photoshop recreation of megastore parking lot sighting—
from a day I had no camera on me]

At Editor & Publisher, Greg Mitchell has been doing a "Five Years Ago" series about abysmal media coverage of the war. The whole series is not available, though some elements are online in other places—

— Questions We Wish They'd Asked Five Years Ago
— Five Years Ago 'Embeds' Got Ready for War Duty in Iraq: How Did That Work Out?
— And, on some journalists who got it right, there's this.

The series is based on Mitchell's book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq. Amy Goodman's interview with Mitchell is here.

On the March 19 anniversary, Scott Horton posts: Six Questions for Aram Roston, Author of The Man Who Pushed America to War.

The discussion of Ahmad Chalabi paints the very striking picture of a master con-man out-conning the con-men who run BushCo. The con artist's maneuvers being enabled by his charming the uncritical members of our media into promoting his stories.

But, no surprise there: this bunch was charmed by Commander Guy.

Horton and Roston look at how Chalabi used his understanding of what kind of people inside The System could be worked. As during the Clinton administration, when he befriended right-wing congressional staffers who then helped push policies contrary to the administration's.

And, there's his outfoxing of the CIA—

"In the early 1990s, the CIA invented and paid for the Iraqi National Congress with U.S. taxpayer money, built up Chalabi as its leader and let him spend that money, and then in the mid 1990s, it cut him off. But then he used the credibility and the organization they gave him, and headed to Washington, D.C. to lobby for money overtly, bypassing the CIA completely. In fact, he was basically at war with them. And that animosity proved useful because they had bureaucratic enemies in D.C."

While a fancy foreigner like Chalabi can outmaneuver amateurs like the CIA, BushCo has things well in hand here in HomelandWorld.

On March 10, Scott Horton's reaction to the Elliot Spitzer sting: "It looks like the Bush Justice Department just bagged themselves another Democratic Governor."

On the 22nd, Horton offers evidence of "More Political Taint in the Spitzer Case".

Though I can't find the source, at the time I read a comment to the effect of:

Proof the Spitzer sting was engineered by political operatives in the DOJ—the news broke on a Monday morning instead of a Friday evening...

March 2007: Ladies Against Women

E-mail from Jesus' Best Administrative to Cruella:

I have been invited to speak at a Women's Conference on April 20-21. I need to be sure it will be ok for me to take off 1/2 day on the 20th before I accept.

An event sponsored by these Ladies?

(Image here; backstory here.)

As it comes to an end: Libby Trial Exposes Neocon Shadow Government, reports Sidney Schanberg.

Day by day, witness by witness, exhibit by exhibit, Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the trial of Dick Cheney’s man, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, is accomplishing what no one else in Washington has been able to: He has impeached the Presidency of George W. Bush. Of course, it’s an unofficial impeachment, but it will also, through its documentation, be inerasable.

Interested persons can seek out documentation, the existence of which will be filtered from reaching the masses.

Greg Mitchell observes one classic example: Media Reviews Plame's Wardrobe -- But Not White House Coverup.

The verdict is on March 6, and the following day, "Inside the Jury Room...by Denis Collins, Juror #9" appears on Huffington Post (no longer online).

Juror #9 turns out to be a D.C. journo: a former employee of Washington Post—witness Bob Woodward was once his boss—and former neighbor of witness Tim Russert. Judging from the HuffPo piece, Collins' journalism contains a mix of the glib and the shallow that can only have helped his career.

Collins is full of gee-whiz admiration for the big players.
Of former boss, Bob Woodward, he gushes:

I immediately picture a party Woodward hosted at his Georgetown home for the Metro staff about 25 years ago. When I went looking for my girl friend, I found her with some copy aides and reporters in an attic piled high with boxes of files for one of his books.

"Unbelievable," said one of the reporters. "Look at the file labels. This entire box is backup for one interview."

Most players are introduced in a character sketch meant to sound tersely "hard-boiled." Robert Novak:

Robert Novak - Chicago Sun times. Television's "Capital Gang." After all the Ivy Leaguers, here comes a guy who looks like he was spawned in the era of sawdust and cigarette butts on newsroom floors. Might still write with a stubby pencil...

David Addington:

Today we started with David Addington. Attorney. Promoted to VP's Chief of Staff after Libby's resignation. We were impressed by his memory, gravitas, and deliberate way of speaking...

To be fair, Collins also gushes about his fellow jurors, whom he portrays as a fascinating cross-section of Washington middle-class professionals:

...our foreperson Susan, an accounting manager at one of DC's biggest law firms and, more impressive to us, a marathon runner, yoga diva and all around sweetheart...

Kate is 43, the mother aof a 14-month old daughter. She books conventions for hotels, knows a scary amount of pop culture and cracks me up at least three times a day...

The latter are the likely audience for a potboiler courtroom drama, full of lame attempts at hard-boiled prose. It's the normal stuff of magazines and best-sellers, but not so worthwhile as a supposedly authoritative view of this trial. And it's the normal stuff of how information is put through the trivialization filter, before feeding to the masses.

Despite how much the jurors liked that nice regular guy, Scooter, and—if Collins is any indication—how much they were bedazzled by the important people on display, the jury ultimately found Libby guilty on 4 of 5 counts.

Official and media reaction don't differ much from parody: "President's Statement on the Sad, Yet Insignificant Felony Conviction of Low-Level Functionary Scooter Libby."

Sentencing will be in June. In July, Bush will commute the sentence. As a pardon would have removed Libby's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent,
commutation will be the more effective way to make sure Libby stays quiet.

Regarding other regime assaults against justice—and media complicity in explaining them away—Glenn Greenwald posts "The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever."

...the video clip of the jovial and dismissive discussion of the U.S. attorneys scandal on yesterday's Chris Matthews Show...is completely typical of how our national media thinks and talks about political matters. But there just is something about this particular discussion and the giggling, vapid participants that is extra vivid and instructive on a visceral level.

...Presumably, even those incapable of ingesting the danger of having U.S. attorneys fired due to their refusal to launch partisan-motivated prosecutions (or stifle prosecutions for partisan reasons) at least understand that it is highly disturbing and simply intolerable for the Attorney General of the U.S. -- the head of our Justice Department -- to lie repeatedly about what happened, including to Congress, and to have done so with the obvious assent and (at the very least) implicit cooperation of the White House. Even the most vapid media stars should be able to understand that.

And yet so many of them do not. They continue to defend the administration by insisting that even if the accusations are correct, there was no real wrongdoing here...

Just as was true for their virtually unanimous insistence that there was no wrongdoing worth investigating in the Plame case -- including the serial lying and obstruction of justice from the Vice President's top aide, one of the most powerful people in the White House -- they also see nothing wrong whatsoever with serial lying and corruption by the Attorney General in this case.

Think about this: there are only two instances in the last six years where real investigations occurred in any of the Bush scandals -- this U.S. attorneys scandal (because Democrats now have subpoena power) and the Plame case (due to the fluke of two Republican DOJ officials with integrity, James Comey and Patrick Fitzgerald). And in both cases, it was revealed conclusively that top Bush officials -- at the highest levels of the government -- repeatedly and deliberately lied about what they did. Isn't that pattern obviously extremely disturbing? And imagine what would be revealed had there been real investigations -- journalistic or Congressional -- of all the other scandals that ended up dying an inconsequential death due to neglect and suppression.

Beltway media stars really aren't bothered by any of this in the slightest. It's how their world works. Initially, they even refused to talk about the story at all, insisting that there was nothing worth seeing here, and were all but forced into writing about it as a result of the tenacious coverage in the blogosphere, led by TPM's Josh Marshall. Their instinct is to lash out at anyone who suggests real wrongdoing on the part of the Republican political machinery that has ruled their town for so long.

There's much more, and it's worth reading.

Glenn's observations are echoed by parody, which is the closest to truth we can get: President Expresses Support for Alberto Gonzales in Super-Boring "Attorneygate" Scandal That Nobody Understands or Cares About Anyway

March 2006: Idolatry

For the other inhabitants of my workplace, the new season for obsessive "American Idol" watching has begun.

Somehow, it is not heretical for Christian fundies to devote themselves to an Idol.

Cruella and Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant do extensive analysis after each episode. Jesus' BAA ventures an opinion—"I like Lisa"—and is instantly put in her place by Cruella: "She's not special enough!" Jesus' BAA persists, trying to assert her value in both office hierarchy and as a wise judge of Idol material: "Give her a couple of years to grow up: she's just 16, she could be really special in a couple of years..."

The awesome (Cruella's word for the ones she likes) talent on display is something I avoid subjecting myself to. But I can't avoid week after week of hearing Cruella and Jesus' BAA do their commentaries and comparative ranking of "Paris"-"Kevin"-"Bucky"- et. al...

"If it's Country, that's good for Bucky and Kelly...Taylor did exactly what he said he would do..."

And there's the absorption in voting: yes, plenty of others have observed that more 'Murkans vote for an Idol than for political offices. Regrettably, Cruella and Jesus' BAA also vote in those other elections—for the biggest crooks and bullies the Republicans dredge up each cycle.

This month, the always classy Nino "Fascism with Flair" Scalia delivers a Fuck You to critics – in a Boston cathedral, no less. This is reported by the Archdiocese photographer who snapped Scalia's Sicilian gesture and heard the comment.

The photographer is promptly fired. [And by now, the Boston Herald has pulled most of the story from free access, but there's this.]

Of course, the Bush regime sends FUs to us all, every day.

Then there's the occasional event that would be big news—if only we had news.

Yet there are still those who persist in doing journalism. Charlie Savage reports on Bush's just-signed "Patriot Act" re-authorization. Signed with an addendum that "he did not feel obliged to obey requirements [to] inform congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers."

Throughout the years of this regime, there are frequent odd events around the country that show what happens when local authorities get drunk on Homeland Security cash; when the regime is quietly launching a trial balloon; or some combination of the two. These stories usually stay local, with few, if any, observers to connect them to larger events. But occasionally they're striking enough to be picked up by larger outlets.

An Alaska fishing village spends over $200,000 in Homelandization funds to install 80 surveillance cameras monitoring the 2400 residents. Some residents petition local government to remove the privacy-invading devices. The project is the brainchild of the town's mayor, who outlines for the LA Times reporter a scenario in which a Russian nuclear device is dropped at the harbor by 'maybe Mafiosi,' who ship it to Seattle, then: "'Phoooom,' he says, his hands blooming like a flower."

And the Washington Post reports Fairfax County is participating in "a White House pilot program to analyze wastewater from communities throughout the Potomac River Basin for the urinary byproducts of cocaine."

Eyewitness Muse suggests that area residents "Stand up for Liberty: Piss in Your Yard". And he concludes

...with ballooning deficits and growing poverty in America our priorities have gone straight to the shitter. Actually, this may be a good thing. Because that is the one place we might locate what Bush has done with our Bill of Rights.

Taylor—every woman's dream man, according to Cruella—becomes Idol. He is voted Idol, that is. But what comes after that? Is he crowned? Apotheosized? I have no understanding of how this metamorphosis of ordinary into Idol works.

One day at a supermarket checkout, I see this. The reason for the middle aged right-wing ladies' overstimulation is finally clear: they have found their answer to George Clooney!

Attraction to celebrity has a very long history, but I have to assume that higher standards of the past—those of an Oscar Wilde, say—could only rate the current mass-produced idols vapid and untalented.

Ah well, Oscar: some of us are trying to keep an eye on what's happening in the gutter, while also trying to look at the stars.

The rest gaze at the awesome stars of Idol.

March 2005: Families, Valued (Or Not)

This appears in the women's room at work... Can the arrival of $1 store Spring décor be far behind?

I return with an inter-office envelope; slip the jar inside while hoping no one opens the door; bring the concealed object back to my desk; scan it when the others have left for the day.

More of the label:

Angelic™
Raspberry Cordial
Creme Pour Le Corps
Angelic™ presents a heavenly hand and body moisturizer, especially formulated…for the feel and touch of silky elegance... [followed by a list of not so heavenly chemical-laden ingredients]
Mostly Memories™ Ozark, MO
An Angel will whisper the right way in your ear

A product that promises to make you hear voices? Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant needs no additional help with that...

And this will keep doctors away? We have quite a few "doctors" here—is this wish not subversive?

The arrival of March each year since 2003 means yet another anniversary of the horror that is the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Marking 3/19 last year was Bush's "no WMD under here" performance.

Early this month, U.S. military open fire on the car of released hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.The circumstances are highly questionable, like everything about the occupation.

First published in Year One of the "war," Harper's posts Sam Smith's "The revision thing: A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies"—compiled from quotes by Administration officials and assorted henchman.

And not to forget the earlier "war on terror" front, there is this 3/19 account of random disappearance, torture, and death of civilians in Afghanistan, 'One huge US jail'.

In Shock and Awe measures for the home front, Republicans—along with enough hopeless Dems—are about to pass the bankruptcy bill. It's another win in the class war of the rich against the rest of us, and another step toward what Paul Krugman calls "The Debt-Peonage Society".

Then, there's the Schaivo exploitation circus. Juan Cole looks at the Republicans' "disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them." It's the "Islamization of the Republican Party," says Cole, and it brings us "closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model."

As Bush interrupts his vacation to sign grandstanding legislation, a breathing tube is removed from the infant son of a non-white Texas mother —against her will. The treatment of that particular mother is the result of legislation signed in 1999 by life-lovin' Governor George W. Bush—a law that allows hospitals to remove life support from patients, against the wishes of their guardians.

And in a bizarre piece of timing: the moment Schaivo becomes the big media story, Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant is in the midst of family dicussions about an elderly aunt just placed on life support.

The medical verdict is that the situation is hopeless, and the uncle consents to ending support. Jesus' BAA complacently wears her "All Is For The Best And Is In Heaven's Plan" look.

Then, there's some business about a resident talking—Bible in hand?—to the uncle... Most of the family—including Jesus' BAA —are upset at the resident's interference, but the uncle decides to continue life support.

About ten days later, I see Jesus' BAA with her most Rapture™ ready expression: she says tells me she is on her way to buy a get-well card for her aunt, who has come out of the coma.

The unexpected development is wonderful, of course. What is not so wonderful is the smugness of Jesus' BAA's new position: All Is For The Best And This Was Heaven's Plan All Along. Also not wonderful is the inevitable next step: she now considers herself an expert on a situation like Schaivo's.

One encouraging thing about the larger issue: the Republicans' gambit backfires, as normal people find they resent the political intrusion into such a difficult private matter.

Interestingly, Cruella tries talking sense to Jesus' BAA about Schaivo. Which she does by laying on some fundie-speak very unlike her usual manner: "Just look at your Bible! It says the wife follows the husband!"

Funny in itself, but the real howler is the idea of Cruella's not being the boss in that marriage!

The pitch goes nowhere with Jesus' BAA.

But at a later date, she lets the holiness slip long enough to reveal a little of the ol' Sin Of Jealousy. While Cruella is away for a week in Vegas, Jesus' BAA bursts out to the student helper: "I don't know how she has a disabled husband and can afford to go, and my husband works and I can't afford a trip!"

Clever Sister reacts:

ha ha! why can't she use her tax cut to go on a trip?
or go into debt & help the economy!

Cruella's trip is a Family Values get-together with her mother and her daughter [the good daughter— not the other, overly independent one].

Not only do the three generations get to commune with each other, but they do it in a truly magical setting—where "liberal" is a good thing, seeing as it precedes "slots."