Author: Trish

Ifill on Imus: Finally Addresses Personal Insult

Trish

There’s a wonderful piece on the Dom Imus mess in today’s NYT by Gwen Ifill, once called by the insult-happy radio host “a cleaning lady.”

Ifill said she didn’t find out until five years later about the characterization, since Imus isn’t exactly on her radar screen.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice.

It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged…

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult…

To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

States Put at Risk from Bush Rip-off

Trish

How is the Bush government providing equipment for its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why, stealing it from the states of course.

What I want to know is where the billions of dollars of emergency appropriations for “the troops” have gone.

Florida has about 600 to 700 soldiers in Iraq. Members were sent overseas with their equipment, but when they come back, the gear often stays in the war zones.

The Florida Guard was down 500 Humvees and 600 trucks, short 4,000 pairs of night vision goggle and needed 30 more wreckers, spokesman Lt. Col. Ron Tittle said…

The Florida National Guard has only 53 percent of the dual-use equipment it once had for responding to a storm or domestic disturbance, a recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office found. Texas, California and Louisiana also have about half of their dual-use equipment available to non-deployed Army National Guard forces.

In light of the pilfering, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is worried about the Guard’s ability to respond to stateside disasters.

“Problems from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the Florida National Guard further than ever before, leaving it without all the resources it should have for responding to a domestic crisis,” Nelson said. “Hurricane season is coming fast and we need to make sure the Guard has what it needs.”

The Guard is being a good soldier and saying it will be O.K.

…Tittle said sufficient manpower and equipment remained to respond to a major hurricane, and additional supplies could be borrowed from other states or rented if needed.

Rented? In the devastation, flooding, power outages, and chaos of a major storm, we’ll just trot off to the nearest open Rent-All and come back with a generator or a backhoe? I’m not seeing it.

What I want to know is where the billions of dollars of emergency appropriations for “the troops” have gone. I would not be surprised to hear that government equipment ended up in the hands of the private contractors in Iraq, or that fistfuls of that emergency money went there too.

Boycott Your Church

Trish

Or just expect more from it.

Pensito Review reader Rick left this eloquent and strong comment about why folks like us aren’t doing church anymore:

I stopped going to church after our shameful shock and awe of Iraq. I believe God spoke loudly and clearly February 8th when over 8 million people of conscience poured out into the streets and pleaded that we not do this. This we did, and this we would’ve done even if it would’ve required tanks in the streets of America to enable it.

My faith is not wrapped in a flag. My conscience is not deadened to silently condone torture. And I can’t fellowship with those whose consciences are that dead.

I’m not going to church this Easter, as well as not joining with family, because I don’t silently condone torture nor can I shut up about it. I’m supposed to zip my lip and not offend the morality of other family members who “love my country”. Excuse me. My morality is offended, much more deeply than those offended by my protests could ever fathom because of their shallowness. Abu Grahib was the 9-11 event to our morality. Where is the outrage?

This president is not ashamed or embarrassed to use tortured confessions. This country is not ashamed or embarrassed to use tortured confessions. Need I say more? I don’t suspect there is any questioning of this in the churches of this country. Rather, there is pray for our troops. And just what are our troops doing?

My faith is not wrapped in a flag. My conscience is not deadened to silently condone torture. And I can’t fellowship with those whose consciences are that dead… nor with those who sing happy hymns while being totally oblivious to what we are doing, what we’ve become.

Bush: Attorney Firings Just Need Better Press

Trish

Who’s behind the payback firings of U.S. attorneys? Do you think it’s:

a) Attorney General/Bush personal lawyer Alberto Gonzales
b) Deputy Chief of Staff/Bush Brain Karl Rove
c) Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Lying Weasel Asshat Bush
d) All of the above

Yes, students. Both answers and “c” and “d” are correct.

Which is why it rankles so to hear Bush talk about it they way he did during a press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week. Bush makes it sound as if the skullduggery manifested out of thin air, not unlike a plop of pigeon poo on your shoulder as you walk beneath telephone wires. Except the pigeons all have the seal of the Oval Office on their wings.

Bush somehow managed to effectively pass along complaints without naming names, and by some miracle of coincidence Gonzales correctly identified who needed to be fired and did so

On Wednesday, Bush said he passed on to Gonzales complaints that he had received about the attorneys last fall but did not name names or ask him to fire anyone.

The president said the decision to fire the attorneys was justified.

“And yet this issue was mishandled to the point now where you’re asking me questions about it in Mexico,” Bush said.

Man, that pisses me off. Here he is in frickin’ Mexico, and you want him to be accountable.

We need to be straight about what the problem is, folks. What we have here — and follow me closely now — is a failure to communicate. It’s not that anyone did anything wrong. No, Bush somehow managed to effectively pass along complaints without naming names, and by some miracle of coincidence Gonzales correctly identified who needed to be fired and did so.

So obviously, the problem is that you people just aren’t getting the right message. But we’re going to fix that.

Bush said he and Gonzales, a longtime friend from Houston, “talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decisions it made.”

…”Mistakes were made, and frankly, I’m not happy about it,” Bush said… “Al was right, mistakes were made, and he’s going to go up to Capitol Hill to correct them.”

See, this needs to be done with “members in both political parties.” Because it’s, you know, partisan criticism. So we’re going to do the right thing and lie to members of both political parties, not just one. Got it?

Evidently not.

A few hours after the president’s news conference, Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire became the first congressional Republican to call on Gonzales to step down.

Somebody call Rover. Now!

Calls for Head on a Platter After Imus Loses His Mind

Trish

“Nappy headed hos???”

That’s how radio superstar Don Imus described Rutgers University’s Scarlet Knights, after they lost the NCAA Women’s Basketball title to the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols.

“That’s some nappy headed hos there, I’m going to tell you that,” Imus said.

“That’s some rough girls from Rutgers,” Imus said. “Man, they got tattoos …”

“Some hardcore hos,” said [Imus Show’s Producer Bernard] McGurk.

“That’s some nappy headed hos there, I’m going to tell you that,” Imus said.

As you might expect, lots of people were unhappy with the racist, sexist characterization of the college athletes.

[National Association of Black Journalists] President Bryan Monroe asked Thursday if Imus had “lost his mind” and called for the veteran radio host’s dismissal.

I agree, but I must say Imus made a good apology.

Imus said he wanted to “apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team.”

“It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.”

So many people would have said they were apologizing to anyone they “might” have offended, as if whoever found their bad behavior offensive was the problem. At least Imus owned his backward stereotyping.

Imus, according to Wikipedia, hails from Riverside, Calif. I shudder to think what people would have made of this if he were from, say, anywhere at all in the South.

Why I Won’t Be in Church on Easter

Trish

As Christians and people of Eastern Orthodox faiths observe their holiest day this Sunday, one of their number has a few questions about what they think it means to follow Christ.

Christian commentator Roland Martin speaks for many.

When did it come to the point that being a Christian meant only caring about two issues,­ abortion and homosexuality?

Roland Martin: “I’ve grown tired of people who pimp God”

Ask the nonreligious what being a Christian today means, and based on what we see and read, it’s a good bet they will say that followers of Jesus Christ are preoccupied with those two points.

Poverty? Whatever. Homelessness? An afterthought. A widening gap between the have and have-nots? Immaterial. Divorce? The divorce rate of Christians mirrors the national average, so that’s no big deal.

The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it’s high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith.

Martin puts his finger on one of the reasons I and so many others have all but turned our backs on faith, and can’t be pushed into an organized religious service with a Mack truck.

…it’s troubling to listen to “Christian radio” and hear the kind of hate spewing out of the mouths of my brothers and sisters in the faith.

In fact, I’ve grown tired of people who pimp God. That’s right; we have a litany of individuals today who are holy, holy, holy, sing hallelujah, talk about how they love the Lord, but when it’s time to walk the walk, somehow the spirit evaporates.

I mean no disrespect to the people closing their businesses to celebrate Good Friday, or those joining the throngs at church on Easter Sunday. But the joy of religion is long since past for me. And until it becomes more about quietly setting the highest example for others to follow and less about judgement and scorn, it will probably remain that way.

Bush, Cheney Dig Deep for Friendly Graduates to Address

Trish

Both the president and his impeachment insurance — er, I mean, his vice president — will speak to graduating young people this month. Cheney will go to Mormon-run Brigham Young University while the holder of the nation’s highest office will go to…wait for it…a satellite campus of a community college.

Meanwhile Condoleezza Rice will address the graduates of Little Tots Preschool in St. Joseph, Missouri. Rice is preparing for tough questions afterward, like “Can I go pee-pee now?” Oh wait, Bush won’t be there to ask that last question.

President Bush will deliver a rare commencement address at a community college: the Miami Dade College Kendall Campus, on April 28.

The White House said Monday that it’s only the second time in history that a sitting president has spoken at a community college commencement. The first time came last year, when Bush traveled to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College following Hurricane Katrina.

O.K., it’s billed as the country’s largest community college but still. This is just embarrassing. Why MDC?

“Though his popularity is at a historic low, [Bush] remains more popular among Cuban Americans, said Fernand Amandi, executive vice president at public opinion research firm Bendixen and Associates…

”I think the student body at Kendall Campus are an educated body and will understand that he’s the commander-in-chief and will show him the respect he deserves,” [17-year-old Student Government President Christopher] Miles said.

Well, Chris, I are educated enough to know that you’re probably right. There’s no chance Bush would go anyplace that isn’t a slam dunk to love him. And obviously, those places are getting harder and harder to find. No offense.

Cheney, meanwhile, is venturing into hostile waters. I know, he’s supposedly from the West and Mormons are very Republican but BYU students are protesting his visit. A writer for the University of Utah’s independent student paper really let it go, saying Cheney came looking for the work.

BYU has invited the devil to Happy Valley.

OK. That last sentence isn’t entirely true. Vice President Dick Cheney will be giving the commencement address at BYU-and yes, he is the devil. What isn’t true is that BYU sought out his services. It was the Bush administration that laid the groundwork for this controversial decision. It asked politely if BYU leaders could see it in their hearts to listen for an hour or two to the half-smiling codger. It seems Cheney won’t be busy this month giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton, outing CIA agents over a grudge or shooting his friends in the face.

Whew. Want to come to work for Pensito Review when you graduate? The pay’s not so good but…well, anyway.

The first of the actual protests got off to a very Mormonesque start.

The College Democrats passed out fliers listing their grievances with having the VP speak at the ceremony. Among them are complaints that: “Cheney’s controversial actions do not represent a model our students should follow,” various issues with the war in Iraq from, the war being “preemptive” to “misleading use of weak intelligence to elicit fear” to ties with Halliburton…

The protest was a peaceful sit-in style with discussions between students but very little shouting and no chanting.

At the BYU College Republicans’ counterprotest, students handed out blue armbands, circulated a letter thanking Cheney for agreeing to speak and offered cookies, brownies and lemonade.

The speeches are still a couple of weeks away, so maybe the action will pick up. Meanwhile Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address graduates of Little Tots Preschool in St. Joseph, Missouri.* Rice is said to be preparing for tough questions afterward, like “What’s your favorite color?” and “Can I go pee-pee now?” Oh wait, Bush won’t be there to ask that last question.

* Not.

Cheney Overseeing “Private War” Against Iran

Trish

The United States has been orchestrating raids on Iran by a covert Pakistani group since 2005, according to ABC. The Bush administration makes sure its private war flies below the public radar by keeping funding a secret from Congress.

And Dick Cheney’s recent trip to Afghanistan to meet with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf — when he was finally on the business end of a weapon — was part of it.

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.

The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or “finding” as well as congressional oversight.

Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

Official disavowals focus on whether we bankroll, not control, the group. But laundering money is nothing new for rightwing American paramilitary and intelligence operations. Can you say, “Iran-Contra?”

Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s…

Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.

Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack…

The Iranian TV broadcast is interspersed with the logo of the CIA, which the broadcast blamed for the plot.

A CIA spokesperson said “the account of alleged CIA action is false” and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group.

The book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, can tell you how little correlation there is between the United States not leaving a money trail and not being behind something.

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.

Ryan Skipper Press: With Friends Like These…

Trish

One of the nation’s top gay focused web sites has smeared Ryan Skipper, a young Florida gay man recently murdered in what police labeled a hate crime. In fact, what queerty.com said makes the local sheriff and news media — blasted by us and many others for repeating the suspect’s version of events before investigating — look like paragons of open-mindedness and circumspection.

At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

According to friends, Ryan Keith Skipper, 25, went cruising Wahneta, Florida, for some quick and easy sex when he came across 21-year old Joseph Bearden. Testing his luck, Skipper offered Bearden a ride, which Bearden accepted. Skipper then took him to his house, where they smoked a bit of ganj and, according to police reports, chatted about using Skipper’s computer expertise to copy checks.

Skipper and Bearden then apparently took Skipper’s laptop and headed off to meet Bearden’s friend, 20-year old William David Brown Jr. From what police gather, Bearden and Brown, nestled in Skipper’s car, then stabbed Skipper 20 times before tossing his body on the side of the road.

That would make a good movie but it bears little resemblance to what actually happened.

Not a single one of Ryan’s friends has said he was cruising that night. All have said they know of no time Ryan ever looked for sex with strangers.

Ryan’s brother, who is in the computer/internet/all that stuff business, was preparing a laptop to send him from his home in Las Vegas but had not yet shipped.

At the time of his murder, Ryan owned a desktop computer, but no printer and no scanner.

Ryan has no history of criminal activity beyond some underage personal consumption charges related to pot. He was a student at a technical college and held a steady job at Sunglass Hut.

Though they jumped to the conclusion expected by rabid anti-gay evangelicals, Queerty is refusing to apologize. They blame their sources and then, worse, their defenders hide behind the excuse they are a blog, not a legitimate news outlet.

In this story, we passed along the Associated Press story…

Skipper’s friends, meanwhile, wrote us an angry note insisting that not only do we have the story wrong, we’re defaming this boy’s name: a stunning allegation, if you ask us…

Rest assured…that was not our intent. We simply report the news as we find it. We’re sure Skipper would be pleased to know that you’re keeping his good name alive. We must say, however, that we find nothing wrong with cruising for sex and, thus, cannot agree that we assassinated anyone’s character. Regardless, we’re sorry for your loss. It’s always upsetting when people are murdered – especially when it’s a senseless a crime as the one that took Skipper. We’ll be sure to keep our virtual eyes on any and all developments in this convoluted and multi-faceted story.

The only convoluted stories are the ones coming from the suspects. But George Bush himself could not have sidestepped this any better. Next they’ll be saying, “mistakes were made.”

“It’s always upsetting when people are murdered.” Yeah, don’t you hate that? What a bother. It probably happens to them all the time, which is how they know it’s “always upsetting.” Sheesh.

That they find nothing wrong with cruising is not the point, SINCE RYAN WASN’T DOING THAT ANYWAY.

We didn’t know Ryan when we read the first reports of his death, but we have half a brain and could see that the suspects’ version wasn’t adding up. Since then, we have spoken to his brother, scoured the web for updates, and are in the process of speaking to his friends. At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

Ryan’s family has been cautioned that capital murder trials can take up to two years to prepare. If this is the kind of support they can expect from the “good guys,” it’s going to be a very long 24 months.