Month: September 2006

Earthquakes — Another Reason Florida Is More Dangerous than Southern California

Buck Banks

Magnitudes of disaster: Editor-In-Chief Jon always takes on a slightly condescending attitude when Co-Editor Trish and I complain about hurricanes. As a denizen of West Hollywood, Jon likes to point out that he lives right on top of a REALLY BIG FAULT LINE THAT COULD GO AT ANY MINUTE, WITHOUT WARNING (emphasis mine).

While Jon always is sympathetic to Trish and my plight as huge weather systems hundreds of miles across containing as much enegery as several atomic bombs come barreling toward the Sunshine State, he always plays the earthquake trump card — while we know for days ahead of time that a hurricane is coming and can prepare and/or evacuate, his cats tell him only minutes before he gets a temblor.

So what if we didn’t feel the quake and a killer tsunami didn’t materialize — it’s the idea that it could happen that counts in the game of potential- disaster one-upsmanship.

Well, buddy, we in Florida got our own earthquake this weekend, and a pretty big one, too, at 6.0 on the Richter scale. And we also had a 5.3 one last February. And — unlike Los Angeles — our earthquakes have the potential to generate that third horseman of the apocalypse for Florida: a tsunami! Top that, Jon Boy!

So what if we didn’t quite feel the quake and our killer tsunami looked like a typical two-foot Gulf wave — it’s the idea that it could happen that counts in the psychological game of potential-disaster one-upsmanship.

So let’s review: Dangers that Jon faces in L.A. inlcude earthquakes, not mudslides (since he doesn’t live in Topanga Canyon), traffic, not wildfires, rap-related drive-by gang violence, smog and the actions of a depraved Austrian fascist governor.

The dangers that Trish and I face include earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, alligators, several species of poisonous snake, West Nile virus, fire ants, Africanized bees, falling coconuts, sharks and, following Steve Irwin’s unusual death, stingrays. On top of that, we have the Army Corps of Engineers, which is capable of creating disasters on an epic scale; the dangerously incompetent Florida Legislature; Miami’s emotionally unstable Cuban community, and a chunky, sleazy, untrustworthy born-again governor.

So, Jon, the next time you are awakened by your collection of Hummel figurines crashing to the floor, take comfort in knowing that it was not an angry 10-foot alligator smashing the china cabinet, it was probably just a minor earthquake — and they get those in Florida, too.

Poll: Number of Americans Who Blame Bush for 9/11 Rises

Jon Ponder

In another day and another era, numbers like these might indicate a great awakening among the populace. These days, I’m not sure:

The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.

Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a “great deal” or a “moderate amount,” up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Fear is an expectation of evil. Under fear are arranged the following emotions: terror, shame, nervous shrinking, consternation, panic, mental agony. Terror is fear which produces fright; shame is fear of disgrace; nervous shrinking is a fear that one will have to act; consternation is fear due to a presentation of some unusual occurrence; panic is fear with pressure exercised by sound; mental agony is fear felt when some issue is still in suspense.

— Zeno the Stoic (c. 335-c. 263 B.C.), Greek philosopher

What We Really Lost After 9/11

Trish

Today’s New York Times marks the empty, token sacrifice we’ve made since 9/11, and names what we were really cheated of.

It was a time when the nation was waiting to find out what it was supposed to do, to be called to the task that would give special lasting meaning to the tragedy that it had endured. But the call never came.

The attacks themselves have begun to acquire the aura of inevitability that comes with being part of history. We can argue about what one president or another might have done to head them off, but we cannot really imagine a world in which they never happened, any more than we can imagine what we would be like today if the Japanese had never attacked Pearl Harbor.

What we do revisit, over and over again, is the period that followed, when sorrow was merged with a sense of community and purpose. How, having lost so much on the day itself, did we also manage to lose that as well?

The time when we felt drawn together, changed by the shock of what had occurred, lasted long beyond the funerals, ceremonies and promises never to forget. It was a time when the nation was waiting to find out what it was supposed to do, to be called to the task that would give special lasting meaning to the tragedy that it had endured.

But the call never came. Without ever having asked to be exempt from the demands of this new post-9/11 war, we were cut out. Everything would be paid for with the blood of other people’s children, and with money earned by the next generation. Our role appeared to be confined to waiting in longer lines at the airport. President Bush, searching the other day for an example of post-9/11 sacrifice, pointed out that everybody pays taxes.

That pinched view of our responsibility as citizens got us tax cuts we didn’t need and an invasion that never would have occurred if every voter’s sons and daughters were eligible for the draft. With no call to work together on some effort greater than ourselves, we were free to relapse into a self-centeredness that became a second national tragedy.

What the Times doesn’t say is that it could have been no other way with a leader as morally vacant as ours, a president whose first words of inspiration were to buy, buy, buy and show our patriotism and courage by indulging in mindless consumerism.

There was a time when America could do better than this, and I’m still not convinced we chose the alternative. It’s a plain fact that George Bush received less of the popular vote in 2000, and from everything I’ve read about Ohio in 2004, I think the chances are good he did that year also. Those of us who want something finer are still out here. We just have to get better at claiming it.

Crapudrama and Farenheit 911 Not the Same

Trish

I’m already tired of hearing Bush supporters say that the crapudrama, “The Path to 9/11” is no different than Michael Moore’s, “Farenheit 911.”

It’s different, morons.

A “docudrama” employs actors to portray real people who participated in real events.

Farenheit 911 featured a narrator, Michael Moore, presenting his opinion with newsreels, interviews, and other nonfiction footage to illustrate.

Farenheit 911 was not presented on television without commercial interruption by a major broadcast network with a major broadcast news division.

Farenheit 911 was not picked up by Scholastic children’s publishing company to be presented as a curriculum in public schools.

Farenheit 911 was not denounced by people who appeared in it as a travesty before it was ever aired.

Farenheit 911 was blocked from being released by Disney/Miramax/ABC, acting on its own. The same media conglomerate has refused calls not to air The Path to 9/11 from Pres. Clinton, Secretary of State Albright, members of the 9/11 commission, other senators and representatives, and the public.

I’m sure there are lots more ways the two films are different. Help me out here in the comments section.

Five Year Old Lies Continue Killing

Trish

One of my favorite off-line reads, The Week magazine, is usually unswervingly neutral in its coverage. Not this time. The editor’s note for the current issue comes down hard on the Bush administration, blaming it not just for 9/11, but for the greed and consumerist ideology that placed the economy above safety.

The government let them down—just as surely as it did when it ignored warnings that Muslim men with foreign citizenships were learning how to fly commercial jets

Just hours after Sept. 11, Jeffrey Endean of the Morris County, N.J., Sheriff’s Office plunged himself into the nightmare of ground zero. Endean rushed to the still-burning ruins, volunteering to search for survivors and counsel emergency workers. He worked there for two months on nights and weekends, without ever wearing a mask. “The EPA said the air was safe,” he said. “That was all the talk—it was just dust.” Today, Endean’s lungs, larynx, and vocal cords are all scarred from a cocktail of atmospheric toxins—dioxin, lead, asbestos, and pulverized glass. His asthma is so bad that he awakens most mornings gasping for breath…

A new study by Mount Sinai Medical Center has found that about 70 percent of ground zero workers have serious respiratory problems caused or worsened by inhaling the poisoned air at the site. Even as they worked in the dust and the fumes, many had concerns about what they were breathing. But the Environmental Protection Agency blithely insisted that the air was fine. If people didn’t return to downtown Manhattan, of course, Wall Street would remain closed, and the economic damage would be severe…But a small army of selfless laborers are now paying the price with their health; some have died. The government let them down—just as surely as it did when it ignored warnings that Muslim men with foreign citizenships were learning how to fly commercial jets.

Senate Confirms that Saddam Opposed al Qaeda, Had No Connection to 9/11

Jon Ponder
Another tragedy is that so many Americans can be so easily fooled by such an obvious huckster.

Nothing, not even a bipartisan finding by the U.S. Senate, will ever convince about 40 percent of Americans that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda — or especially that there was no connection between Hussein and 9/11. Nonetheless, it is so:

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration’s version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward” al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

President Bush’s misadventure in Iraq has been a tragic waste of blood and treasure. Another tragedy is that so many Americans can be so easily fooled by such an obvious huckster.

The Path to Scaife

Jon Ponder

Richard Mellon Scaife (right) and David Horowitz

Who Paid for ABC’s $40 Million Crocudrama?

If you are among the millions whose eyes have been opened over the past six years to the true depravity of Republican malfeasance, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the skullduggery didn’t start at George W. Bush’s inauguration. Not hardly.

Max Blumenthal’s expose at HuffPo on the rightwing cabal behind ABC’s controversial miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” is a must-read. According to Blumenthal, the show’s producer, director and writer are part of a conservative insurgency within Hollywood. They have connections to David Horowitz, the often-disgraced rightwing media critic who is based in Los Angeles.

The connection into the conservative power grid that may be the most interesting, however, is the production’s ties to Richard Mellon Scaife:

Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group’s headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a “think tank” bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

Secretive people usually have something to hide, and “secretive” is among the first words that come to mind regarding Mr. Scaife, who is an heir to the Mellon fortune and lives in Pittsburgh where he publishes a daily newspaper known for its rightwing slant. (The other word most-often associatied with him is “eccentric.”)

If you are among the millions whose eyes have been opened over the past six years to the true depravity of Republican malfeasance, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the skullduggery didn’t start at George W. Bush’s inauguration. Not hardly.

[…]

Election Surprise: Is Osama bin Laden in Custody?

Jon Ponder
Imagine how those numbers would change if Bush bagged bin Laden. The shift among conservative independents could flip the mid-terms.

He’s baaack: My tinfoil hat has been snap-crackle-and-popping all week over the sudden return of Osama bin Laden. Starting Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, the president launched his campaign of political terror with a series of speeches intended, apparently, to terrify swing voters and security moms into voting for the GOP in the fall elections. The speeches were unremarkable, except for a surprising number of references to the world’s most wanted terrorist. Coincidentally, a new video of bin Laden that was taped in September 2001 also appeared this week.

Where has Osama been? After the attacks in 2001, President Bush said he wanted the terrorist mastermind “dead or alive.” But as months passed and bin Laden eluded capture — and with the distraction of the president’s misadventure in Iraq — poor Osama became a non-person of interest to the White House political team. I think we can assume that bin Laden went from being wanted dead or alive to Osama been-forgotten because the CIA and the Pentagon simply could not find him.

Flash forward to this week: Conversely, they would only begin referring to Osama again if they’ve got him — he’s sitting in a cell in a secret prison in Uzbekistan. (I hope they’re torturing him by forcing him to watch Bush’s speeches end to end.)

Consider this:

[…]