EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Now, and for the next few days, I am trying to remember there is a world beyond the elections, there is a life of the mind, heart and body that will continue after November 2.  Towards that end I am striving for some sanity and peace.   Everyone I talk to agrees that what we have begun, the resurgence of political awareness, passionate caring and involvement will go on after the election. The fight will continue, no matter what.  If you saw Fred Trippi on Bill Moyers last night you know what I mean. But so will the cycle of life, the seasons, love, family and some sort of hope. 

My contribution to sanity and hope today is a poem I wrote a few years ago at this same time of year.  I love the autumn, this huge change of weather, scenery, bird and plant life.  It has always been the true beginning of a new year for me.  It is the new year in the Jewish tradition, it is the new year for academic life.  Much of my life has been spent in academia of one sort or another.  And for 23 years I've lived with a Jewish partner.  So, happy new year, let us all continue to fight like hell for the living and pray like hell for the dead.

  ALL HALLOWS

These are the days of long shadows,
houses, trees and barns,
telephone poles,
stretched across the stubbled fields,
the heartbreak of October light.
And then the geese:
morning and evening wedges
crossing the horizon
trailing autumn in their
busy mournful cries;
trailing memory,
the scent of apples,
dark leaves, morning mist.
The season of ghosts,
souls returned,
blowing past like leaves,
cold mornings, early dark;
trying, like the geese, to tell us
something we almost remember,
something we almost hear.

ABUSE ABOUNDING

How about them Red Sox?  I can't imagine Boston last night.  Madness in the streets.  Hopefully no one else got shot in the madness.  I'm happy for the Sox, for my former city, for the rising of the underdogs everywhere.  But I hate the whole "free agent" thing.  I liked it when teams stayed together and you could really be a loyal fan to a whole group of guys for a long time.  Ah well, I'm an old fart, there's no denying that.

And this morning I have Arianna Huffington's last column pre the election to offer you.  On a subject I have been mulling and stewing, ranting and raving, choking and gagging over in the past weeks more than ever.  It's what she calls "faith abuse."  She links to Ron Suskind's article in the NYT magazine a couple of weeks ago, I think it was Oct. 27, a hair-raising look at how this president is making decisions, running a government, a war, and ultimately all our lives.  I've wanted to write a post linking to the NYT article as well as several other sites where this is being discussed, and haven't had the time.  Now, Arianna has done it for me.  I don't know that anything anyone says will deter those who see all this as America's salvation from voting for Bush, but the rest of us need to do everything we can to alert sane voters and get them to the polls.

FAITH ABUSE: WHEN GOD BECOMES A CAMPAIGN PLOY

By Arianna Huffington

This is my last column before Election Day. With less than a week to go, I plan on doing everything in my power to defeat George W. Bush (need a ride to the polls?). Then I'm going to get down on my knees and pray to a higher power.

As someone for whom faith is incredibly important, and who regularly prays for all the people and things that matter to me, I'm hopeful that God is as appalled as I am with the way His name is constantly being taken in vain on the Bush campaign trail, and with how the president is abusing his faith to justify to himself and to the world his disastrous policies.

Lord knows there's a very long list of things to be angry with Bush about, but this one has moved to the top of my personal hit parade because, as Catholic theologians teach us, "The corruption of the best is the worst." And George W. is truly corrupting faith and dragging it into the political gutter. In two fundamental ways:

First, he's using it as a spiritual inoculation against uncertainty and complexity.

Ron Suskind's recent piece  in the New York Times Magazine painted a chilling portrait of a presidency in which thoughtful analysis and moral questioning have been replaced by "God-given" certainty, and where facts and open debate have become an anathema.

Suskind reveals a president who uses his faith to numb himself against reality. It anesthetizes him in the same way a stiff drink — OK, 20 stiff drinks — used to, and allows him to drown out the voices of doubt. Yet great thinkers throughout history have extolled the virtues of doubt. As Paul Tillich put it: "Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith."

But not in the Bush White House, where doubters are treated as traitors, and inconvenient facts are the work of the Devil — because facts can lead to questioning, and questioning undermines faith. And that would be blasphemy in an Oval Office where unbending resolve has become a holy sacrament. No wonder Bush is unwilling to admit to even a single mistake.

The second way the president is corrupting his faith is by using it as a marketing tool designed to garner support among the over 60 million Americans who identify themselves as evangelical — particularly the 4 million born-again voters who stayed home in 2000.

Nowhere is this blending of church and campaign more evident than in "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," a DVD being distributed to tens of thousands of America's churches.

Although not officially the work of the Bush-Cheney campaign, it obviously has its approval, and indeed was screened at a party for Christian conservatives hosted by the campaign at the GOP convention in New York.

In the documentary, President Bush is presented as a man with "the moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet" — and is shown sharing a beatific split screen with the Son of God himself.

So, in 2004, Jesus is not only the president's favorite philosopher — he's his surrogate running mate. I'm surprised we haven't seen any "Bush-Christ 2004" bumper stickers yet. It would make for a heck of an October surprise.

All this pious posturing is also being used as a cudgel with which to attack John Kerry, portraying him as a sorry second in the faith sweepstakes.

Forget that Kerry carries a Bible and a rosary with him on the campaign trail, used to be an altar boy, and has said, "My faith affects everything that I do." The Bushies have made it seem as if they are running against Joe Pagan. Just check out the "Kerry: Wrong for Catholics" page  on the official Bush-Cheney campaign Web site.

What's next? Attack ads from Altar Boys for Truth claiming Kerry never actually swallowed the body of Christ during communion?

What the president calls faith is actually nothing of the sort. It is fanaticism, pure and simple. The defining trait of the fanatic is an utter refusal to allow anything as piddling as evidence to get in the way of an unshakable belief.

This zealot's mindset is what allows President Bush to take in the death and destruction in Iraq and see them as "freedom on the march." And it's also what allows Abu Zarqawi and his followers to coldly put a bullet in the back of the head of four-dozen unarmed Iraqi Army recruits because they are "apostates."

"Either you're with us or you're against us" plainly cuts both ways.

"This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about al-Qaida and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy," explained Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to Reagan and Bush 41. "He understands them because he's just like them."

I pray that every American of real faith keeps this in mind when stepping into the voting booth on Election Day.

© 2004 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

FEAR AND LOATHING IN DELAWARE

I know, I know.  It's true.  I'm not posting in my journals, I'm not reading your journals, not eating, not sleeping.  Living in Zombie mode entirely. The weekend was political rallies and Red Sox games  (thank goddess for the Red Sox) evenings are phone banks to Get Out the Vote, and in between I try to appear compos mentis for my students, both adult and juvenile.  I am trying to keep up with news, but then I have panic attacks:  380 tons of serious explosives gone missing in Iraq, Rehnquist has throat cancer, oh holy shit, what next?  Kerry appeared with Bubba in Philly yesterday, I almost skipped my obligations and went, but in the end I was a Good Girl, sixty years of being a Good Girl are hard to overcome, stayed home and taught everyone as best I could.  I watched it on CSPAN last night for quite a while, they were both in great form.  Clinton certainly came through bypass surgery well, good for him.

Something I do read religiously, as it were, is War Room 2004 on salon.com, although it does bring on shortness of breath, heart palpitations, all those panic symptoms.  In a War Room piece on Jon Stewart's now infamous appearance on "Crossfire" Rebecca Traister offers some very accurate impressions of our current state of mind and some advice to help us maintain sanity:

"...We are all jittery and bloated ourselves, overfed on coverage, statistics, polls, trends, heroes, villains, conspiracies, lies and anger. We have overfeasted on our own cleverness, on our own ability to gather information and process it instantly. We are sick of ourselves and sick with worry about what will happen next week. We can barely stomach the idea of the eight more days -- or God knows how long -- to come before we know who the next president will be. And so, wandering aimlessly, crazily looking for any piece of fresh meat to rip from the bone, the addled, self-loathing media have caught our own tail and are dumbly gnawing on it.

So let's just breathe in and breathe out. Drink a cool glass of water and maybe throw back a stiff drink. Head home early and get a good night's sleep. We are a week away from this thing."

I am relieved that I am not a member of the media, but I feel exactly like the description in her first paragraph., sick of myself, sick with worry, unable to stomach the idea of another week.  I'm trying to ignore polls, easier said than done, but still...

 

IMAGINE THAT

Miracles do happen.  E called last night to tell us the complete biopsy shows the lymph nodes to be free of cancer.  This is the best possible news we could have.  Again, bless you all for caring so kindly with us through this.

And, the Sox beat the Yankees.  I can hardly believe those words as I type them.  They were ahead when I came home from GOV (get out the vote) phone banking, they were even ahead when I had to collapse into bed.  So, I fully expected that they choked in a later inning - and the news on AOL Sports took me by complete surprise, nay, amazement.  I think G stayed up for the whole thing, but she's still sleeping.  I know better than to wake her up to ask

 GO SOX!

Dare I hope for two more miracles?  I think that's asking a lot, really.  A series for the Sox?  A sweep for Kerry?  Okay, I'll settle for one more.  You should know me well enough by now to know which it is.  I seldom write about sports.  Politics is definitely my obsession.

IT ALL COMES TOGETHER WITH GRACE

Into the midst of political obsession come things that make us realize what is really and lastingly important.  Family, friends, health, community.  I have seen this very clearly in the past few days.  So thank you to my virtual community for responding so generously to the request to keep M (our daughter-in-law) in your thoughts and prayers during her surgery and after.  It was a long day for all concerned, her especially of course.  We thought of little else all day.  E's (son) phone call in the early evening, letting us know the mastectomy was over and the reconstructive surgery had begun, was such a relief.  An even greater relief was that the initial biopsy of the sentinal lymph nodes showed no cancer.  This is the best news of all.  It means much better recovery time, far less likelihood of metastisis, the hope for complete recovery.  We're waiting for the more thorough biopsy to be done, results later in the week, before we entirely release our held breath.  I'll keep you all in the loop as we know it.

Everyone is home now, she says it hurts to laugh - but smiling is okay.  Which means she's spiritually able to laugh, imagine that.  Again, heartfelt gratitude to readers for being with us.  I love you all.

And then - still on the subject of community, friends, grace freely bestowed - I was able to experience what the J-Land folks are calling a "confluence" yesterday.  If you read sunflowerkat's journal you know she trekking around on a Hornsby tour.  She emailed me (the night before, but I didn't see it til early Friday morning before I left for school) to let me know she'd be driving down the Delmarva Peninsula, could we possibly get together for lunch?  That was one of the few weekdays in my life when it would have been possible.  So she met me at the college, we drifted around for a while looking for a place that was open (it was a late lunch) and had food healthy enough for our healthy and fit friend Kat.  My brain finally kicked in (it was the day of concentrating on Denver, I really wasn't all there) and I thought of the perfect place.  We had a yummy and healthy lunch  (sharing a piece of cherry pie, however) and talked for about two hours.  She's as darling and lovely, full of life and energy, quirky and interesting, in person as she is in her journals and photos.  No, more so.  It's the whole person.  And she's even going to make me a Bruce Hornsby CD and send it.  Maybe next time she goes on a groupie tour I'll go with her!  I was embarrassed and sad that my life is in such a shambles, house, refrigerator, etc.  Next time, if I have a little more notice, lunch will be at my house and I'll fix it.  I really wanted to invite her to stay the night with us, but - oh, the amount of dog and cat hair mixed with dust; oh, the empty refrigerator, the piles of papers and books everywhere!  Oh the shame, the horror!  All my friends working on this Democratic campaign assure me their life is in exactly the same condition.  Okay?

This experience has made me want to do more of this meeting my virtual friends in real time and space.  How about it you guys in Maryland, New Jersey, D.C., Virginia, Penna?  A small regional confluence?

 

A DIFFERENT KIND OF NET

I mentioned in an previous post that one of our daughters-in-law had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Today, for most of the day, she will be in surgery, undergoing a double mastectomy and beginning reconstructive surgery.  We talked with her, with the whole family, last night - she is so brave and positive, determined that this is the beginning of recovery.  It's a huge ordeal, nevertheless, and my purpose here is to ask any readers who pray - in any of the many forms of prayer that are humanly possible - to keep her with you today.  Send powerful forces of goodness, light and hope towards that hospital in Denver.  Our son will be there all day, the kids will be taken to school and picked up by aunts and their other grandmother - there is a good and widespread support network surrounding them all.  Please join us and be part of it - she swears that the net of love and prayer surrounding her is working.  Thank you, and know that I will always do the same for any of you.

NOTES FROM THE FIRST DEBATE

Okay, yes, it's a cheap shot.  It's also pretty funny.

We watched number three with a huge gathering of like-minded folks at the Virden Center on the Univ. of DE campus in Lewes - and my was it fun!  I couldn't stay in one of the "quiet rooms" for most of the debate (though towards the end none of the rooms were actually quiet: guffaws, snickers, horse laughs became rampant) so I hung out by the bar with other irreverent types who couldn't keep their mouths shut.  We raced home afterwards so I could vote in online polls, which by that time were so far ahead in Kerry's favor it felt like carrying coals to Newcastle. 

Here's a little piece from salon.com's WarRoom 2004, which I think sums it all up nicely:

Mr. President, you're no Ronald Reagan

The scowl and the smirk bombed in the first debate. The winks and the high-testosterone swagger in the second didn't cut it. Trying in the third and final debate to turn George W. Bush into Goldilocks' oatmeal -- not too hot, not too cold, just right -- Bush's handlers obviously told him to smile, be optimistic, folksy, likable, and generally do his best Ronald Reagan impersonation.

And so during almost every answer, what was supposed to be a warm, confident smile was plastered over Bush's face. His answers to Bob Schieffer's questions, too, were right out of the tried and true Reagan playbook. Constantly bash your opponent for being a (gasp!) liberal -- worse, an "out of the mainstream" liberal. Avoid substantive discussion of policy issues -- those are for Massachusetts pointy-heads who secretly believe in World Government. (Cue sound of black helicopters.) Repeat charges about a Kerry Global Test that will result in the U.S. being instantly swarmed over by swarthy evildoers in turbans wielding scimitars. Talk vaguely, yet passionately, about "values" and religion. And when confronted with the actual consequences of, say, tax cuts for the mega-rich that hurt the middle class, say that you just want to get the government off people's backs.

And all the time, keep smiling. During his concluding statement, Bush even tried to resurrect that old morning-in-America feeling, with a homey reference to Texas sunrises.

The act flopped. Bush wanted to come across like Reagan, but he looked more like a beauty queen at the end of the Macy's parade -- the forced smile, the mechanical wave, the worn-out "charm." Bush lacks the expansiveness, the self-assurance of Reagan. His "confidence" felt like it was painted on by Karl Rove. In-over-his-headness flashed from him like a Vegas sign. He was a mere facade, a Potemkin Village of Reagan-ness. And since even Reagan himself was little more than a high-grade imitation of "Ronald Reagan," a mythical John Wayne-like entity, watching Bush was like trying to warm yourself with a picture of a picture of a fire.

And yet Bush is supposedly the guy with the common touch, the Joe Sixpak who connects with average Americans. An insta-poll on CNN found that Kerry won decisively, but that most viewers found Bush more "likable." Right-wing talking head Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC, "Debating coaches from Harvard or Yale will say that Kerry won, but the average working men are all going to look at the screen and say I relate more to that George Bush guy. The only question is can I afford to vote for him?" (Although by the end of the evening, regular old Joe, sitting for some reason in a suspiciously tony-looking, book-lined study somewhere, seemed to have lost his pro-Bush gumption, resigning himself to Kerry's triple-crown debate wins and his presidential stature.)

I just don't get the Bush as beer-drinking buddy thing (even if he still drank beer). It isn't like John Kerry is Mr. Personality. He's a bit of a stiff. But you sense that behind his wonky, methodical exterior that he cares and that he's actually engaged with issues -- which, after all, is what we hire our politicians to do, not be incoherent cheerleaders for anti-government zealotry. Bush, presiding over a deeply divided country, mired in a disastrous war that he misled us into, offers only a bad Reagan imitation. Which could, in fact, describe his entire presidency.

If Bush somehow pulls it off in November, it'll be for the reasons Thomas Frank outlines in his new book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank explains how the American working class has been seduced into voting against its own economic interest by Republican appeals to cultural issues that stir primordial passions. Your wages going down? Rage at queers. No health care? Wash yourself in the blood of the Lamb! Meaningless war waged under false pretenses got you down? Shut down those evil abortionists!

It's the ultimate triumph of resentment over rationality, of superficial cultural signifiers over actual issues. Amped up by the propaganda geniuses at Fox News, it isn't surprising that it works. But what is surprising is that it works with Bush as its pitchman.

If America will buy a used ideology from this guy, it'll buy anything.

-- Gary Kamiya

BUGS?

Okay, there seem to be bugs in the posting again.  The entry I just made has a lot of weird stuff in it.  But I think you can read it, basically.  And the links are perfectly clear.  So.  Please, read it.

READ, ACT, REPEAT. AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN.

An email from Environment2004.org with great links to online polls.  Post-debate polls seem to have a big influence on the media spin on these debates.  Let's do it.   Dear E'04 members,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>In the presidential debate last Friday in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>St. Louis</st1:place></st1:City>, an audience member asked President Bush to name his environmental accomplishments.  His garbled response listed a few facts and figures, dressed up with a whole lot of spin -- garbled, perhaps, because the President is not used to talking about the environment.  As Florida Senator Bob Graham noted when the President failed to mention the environment even once in his 2004 State of the Union address, "If I had his environmental record, I wouldn't talk about it either."

 

The day after the debate, Environment2004 released a point-by-point analysis of Bush's response, exposing the extent to which he misrepresented and distorted the hard facts about his administration's abysmal environmental record.  Some example distortions:<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

• While Bush claimed that his Clear Skies initiative would reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions by 70%, in reality his initiative actually weakens emissions standards as required by current regulations.  Bush is proposing to allow dirty coal-fired power plants to spew more of all three of these contaminants into the air for longer than the Clean Air Act would.

 

• Bush claimed that there have been fewer water quality complaints since he's been president, but under his watch, fish consumption warnings for rivers and lakes have almost doubled, the number of beach closings has risen 26%, and 44% of the nation's water bodies are still impaired by pollutants.  Meanwhile, his administration has slashed funding to local sewage treatment plants, exempted factory farms from liability for water contamination, rolled back protections for wetlands, and underminded enforcement of the Clean Water Act to favor polluters. 

 

• Bush cited his Healthy Forests initiative in reducing the threat of forest fires in our nation's forests, but in reality the initiative is actually heightening the risk of forest fires in our communities.  Logging companies now have access to more acres (including pristine national forests formerly protected by the now defunct Roadless Rule), are subject to less stringent environmental analysis and public participation than before, and are encouraged to continue harvesting high-value wood rather than small timber – which scientists say will actually increase the intensity and frequency of forest fires.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>

Tonight, Bush and Kerry face off in <st1:place><st1:City>Tempe</st1:City>, <st1:State>Arizona</st1:State></st1:place>, for the last presidential debate of this election.  This debate, unlike the previous two, will focus exclusively on domestic issues.  We'll have experts standing by to decipher any Bush comments on the environment, but we need you to help play a role in making sure the record is straight about the President's environmental record. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

TAKE ACTION!

<o:p> </o:p>

Here are three easy ways to make a difference right after tonight's debate:

<o:p></o:p> 

1) Vote in online polls:<o:p></o:p>

 

National and local news organizations will be conducting online polls during and after the debate asking for readers' opinions. These polls carry weight with commentators and columnists looking to declare the debate's winner.  Here's a few to get you started:

• CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/
• CNN: http://www.cnn.com/
• Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/
• MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
• Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/
• Akron Beacon-Journal: http://www.ohio.com/<o:p></o:p>
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution: http://www.ajc.com/ 
• Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/
• Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
• Philadelphia Inquirer: http://www.philly.com/<o:p></o:p>
• Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/
• Orlando Sentinel: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
• South Florida Sun-Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ <o:p></o:p>

Don't forget to check the websites of your local newspapers and TV stations for additional online polls!

<o:p></o:p> 

2) Write letters to the editor:

<o:p></o:p> 

Immediately after the debate, go online and write a letter to the editor of your local paper about who you think will do a better job for our environment and our nation as the next president.  You can do so easily by using the Democratic Party's online media center:

 

http://www.democrats.org/media/

<o:p></o:p> 

3) Call radio and TV stations:

<o:p></o:p> 

TV and radio coverage immediately following the debate is where much of the spin is cemented. Make sure you call radio and TV stations to tell them what you thought.

<o:p></o:p> 

Find shows in your area at:

<o:p></o:p> 

<o:p>http://www.democrats.org/media/find.html</o:p>

<o:p></o:p> 

<o:p> </o:p>

 

GROUND CONTROL TO PRESIDENT GEORGE

In case you've been on another planet, getting a truly large amount of sleep, or just not paying attention to the internet rumors lately, this is the story to which I was referring in the previous post.  Bush receiving input from his handlers.  I think it's pretty likely, myself, and I think this time they moved the receiver to his front where it wouldn't show as much.  Did you notice how he kept messing with his shirtfront?  Kind of fumbling around or itching at his midriff?  The tape attaching the device must have been bothering him. 

Anyway, it's a great day when the president of the country can even be credibly SUSPECTED of such a ploy.  Even incredibly suspected of needing such a device.  This story is from salon.com, there are far more hysterical versions on other internet sites.

Bush's mystery bulge
The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Dave Lindorff

Oct. 8, 2004 | Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboardswith speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish.

Hot on the conspiracy trail, I tried to track down the source of the photo. None of the Bush-is-wired bloggers, however, seemed to know where the photo came from. Was it possible the bulge had been Photoshopped onto Bush's back by a lone conspiracy buff? It turns out that all of the video of the debate was recorded and sent out by Fox News, the pool broadcaster for the event. Fox sent feeds from multiple cameras to the other networks, which did their own on-air presentations and editing.

To watch the debate again, I ventured to the Web site of the most sober network I could think of: C-SPAN. And sure enough, at minute 23 on the video of the debate, you can clearly see the bulge between the president's shoulder blades.

Bloggers stoke the conspiracy with the claim that the Bush administration insisted on a condition that no cameras be placed behind the candidates. An official for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set up the lecterns and microphones on the Miami stage, said the condition was indeed real, the result of negotiations by both campaigns. Yet that didn't stop Fox from setting up cameras behind Bush and Kerry. The official said that "microphones were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or Senator Kerry." When asked about the bulge on Bush's back, theofficial said, "I don't know what that was."

<FONTFACE="COMIC size="4" MS? Sans>So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Wash., looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said. McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible. He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by another broadcaster.

Mystery-bulge bloggers argue that the president may have begun using such technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful use of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his handlers may have turned to a technique often used by television reporters on remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while on camera, plays it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just after hearing them, managing to sound spontaneous and error free.

Suggestions that Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day event in France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up -- and broadcast to surprised viewers -- the sound of another voice seemingly reading Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself, said the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking up their radio frequencies -- notably during the Republican Convention on the day of Bush's appearance. "They had a frequency specialist stop me and ask about the frequency of my camera," Schechter said. "The Democrats weren't doing that at their convention."

Repeated calls to the White House and the Bush national campaign office over a period of three days, inquiring about what the president may have been wearing on his back during the debate, and whether he had used an audio device at other events, went unreturned. So far the Kerry campaign is staying clear of this story. When called for a comment, a press officer at the Democratic National Committee claimed on Tuesday that it was "the first time" they'd ever heard of the issue. A spokeswoman at the press office of Kerry headquarters refused to permit me to talk with anyone in the campaign's research office. Several other requests for comment to the Kerry campaign's press office went unanswered.

As for whether we really do have a Milli Vanilli president, the answer at this point has to be, God only knows.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Dave Lindorff is the author of the new book "This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy." Reach him at dlindorff@yahoo.com.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO A REAL HERO

Right now I don't care about tonight's debate, about whether Dubya is wearing a wireless receiver picking up voices from his handlers, or from other planets for that matter. Don't care if the polls are up or down, don't care whether Teresa and Laura wear the same color outfit or go naked.  And why is this?

Because....

I have just heard on NPR, and then read here on AOL, that this amazing woman has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize.  She is an environmentalist and a human rights activist, primarily rights for women, children and poor people (which, all over the world are mainly women and children).  That the prize was awarded to Wangari Maathai means that the international community knows how important to the planet's peace and future the environment is, and that they have acknowledged this importance.  She is the first African woman to achieve such international acclaim.  She has been achieving it for years now, this award is the highest feather in a cap with many feathers already.  It's time for the world to meet her and follow her example.  She is my new hero and role model. It is possible to fight the Dark Forces and make a difference.

Africa's green belt: Wangari Maathai's movement is built on the power of trees - Currents

Jim Motavalli

On a winter day in 1999, Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai was doing what comes naturally to her: planting trees. As in Thailand, where a Buddhist monk who protected trees by ordaining them was thrown in jail, Maathai's activities made the authorities uneasy. The seedlings that Maathai and her cohorts in the Green Belt Movement were attempting to plant replaced trees felled by real estate developers, whose private security guards were reportedly behind an attack that left Maathai's head gashed and many of her supporters injured.

Danger is nothing new to Maathai. The 1999 incident represented the third physical assault on the courageous activist in recent years. In 1992, she was clubbed unconscious by police during a hunger strike and was hospitalized in critical condition. She can expect no protection from the Kenyan government: President Daniel arap Moi has called her "a mad woman" who is "a threat to the order and security of the country"; a government minister recently called her "an ignorant and ill-tempered puppet of foreign masters."

This "ignorant puppet" also happens to be the first woman from East and Central Africa to receive a doctoral degree (in veterinary medicine). Despite the near-constant intimidation, Maathai's Green Belt Movement, founded in 1977, has planted 20 million trees. Maathai launched the movement, she says, because "the Earth was naked. For me, the mission was to try to cover it with green." In 1986, it expanded beyond Kenya with the establishment of the Pan African Green Belt Network. Making the link between environmental degradation and jobs, the network buys seedlings from indigenous cultivators--mainly women--and promotes food security.

Maathai has won many honors, including the Goldman Prize, the Right Livelihood Award, the United Nations' Africa Prize for Leadership and the Golden Ark Award. In the spring semester of 2002, she served as a visiting fellow at Yale University, and E was able to spend some time with this buoyant woman, whose brightly colored African clothing made an impression among the gray suits at Manhattan's Yale Club.

E asked Maathai about the concurrent struggles for justice, women's rights and the environment, which are all tied together in her work. "They interact so closely that you can't have one without the other," she says. "Governments that oppress people are the same ones that are not sensitive to people's livelihoods or to the environment."

Are there parallels between Maathai's work and the struggle for environmental justice in the U.S.? "It is not quite the same," she says, "because Africa is not yet very industrialized. But you do see in the city of Nairobi that the garbage is disposed of in the poorer areas, which are also where they locate the sewage treatment plants."

Affected communities in both Africa and the U.S., she adds, don't always know the facts about their exposure. "The manufacturers know, the government may know, the environmental agencies may know, but the communities don't, and that is very dangerous and very sad. Poverty deprives people of knowledge. But empowered people can rise up, so raising awareness is a very important part of what we do."

In Kenya, Maathai says, government corruption is a major cause of deforestation and pollution--regardless of what laws may be on the books. "I see what our government is doing in the supposedly protected forests, which have been clear cut or planted in marijuana for export," she says. "There is a lucrative trade in wood from illegally logged trees. These are very dangerous elements in the government, lured by the money they can make from such clandestine activities. And when a system is that weak and rotten, if you don't raise your voice, then your environmentalism means nothing; it's mere tokenism or opportunism."

The Green Belt Movement's supporters in the West may be surprised to learn that all the accolades Maathai has received do not necessarily translate into financial support, or, indeed, protection from harassment. "And because we have been very critical of our government, we have found it very difficult to fundraise," she says. "Many of the people who could support us monetarily are tied in with that government, or represent international organizations that want favors from the government. But because of the honors, people tend to think we have a lot of money."

Maathai has received some support from the governments of both Australia and the Netherlands, and if she has a patron in the U.S., it's the Massachusetts-based Marion Foundation, which works directly with selected grantees to help them reach their goals. According to Mike Henkle, the foundation's communications director, "It's very hard for her to raise money inside Kenya, so we create situations for her to network and fundraise in the U.S." Marion has raised $290,000 for Maathai, and plans to raise another $800,000 over the next three years. In addition to the Green Belt Movement, the foundation's partners include the U.S.-based Lionheart Foundation, which works with prisoners; and the Solar Electric Light Fund, which promotes rural solar power in developing countries.

The Green Belt Movement threatens entrenched power, Maathai says, "because it empowers women, and women are very much the center of what we do." Despite continuing and constant opposition, the movement grows and expands. "It really shows that something can be done," she says. "Sometimes I marvel at the work we've done, despite the fact that maybe half of our time is spent just trying to survive, andI wonder what we would have achieved if the government were supporting us instead of intimidating us. Africans can do a lot to serve their environments, but there is a great need for African leaders to wake up." CONTACT: Green Belt Movement, (011) 254-2-571523, www.geocities.com/ gbm0001. Tax-deductible contributions to Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement can be made to: Marion Foundation, 3 Barnabas Road, Marion, MA 02738, (508)748-0816, www.marionfoundation.org.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Earth Action Network, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

IT WILL ALL BE OVER SOON, OR WHY I LOVE MARK MORFORD

I am much too tired here at the end of a long hard week - in fact, I feel like I need a blood transfusion - to write anything original.  So, I'm taking the short cheap way out and giving you today's send from Mark Morford.  If you don't regularly read him, you're missing a little thread of sanity in the midst of the madness.  Link to the column he cites in this one, the hallowed balm link, while you're at it.  It'll make ya feel guuud.  And we all need that right now.  Going to take a nap right now, so's I can try to stay up and tolerate the Smirk for a while tonight.

And then, get back to work.

It Will All Be Over Soon
BushCo? Kerry? SUV gluttony? Your last orgasm? All flashes in the geological pan, baby. Don't forget
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, October 8, 2004

It's so easy to get all caught up in the everyday spit and hiss and noise and blank presidential smirks. Isn't it?

It is, after all, incredibly easy to get stuck in the white-hot moment, all screaming elections and bland debates and counterfeit terrorism fears and ugly obesity epidemics and Atkins-approved bubble gum and air/water pollution like an afterthought, all commingling with the mad melodrama of your last bad haircut and the scratch on your precious bumper to the point where we forget the scope of it all, the scale, the macro and the micro and the ebb and flow and the imminent flip of the cosmic switch.

This is how we are wired. This is only what we see. The long view is clearly not our forte, a sense of the celestial a concept we just can't quite taste. We forget, for example, how relatively quickly regimes rise and neoconservative empires fall and populations overturn and how nearly every single human biped now alive and walking and spitting and parallel parking and consuming Big Macs and not watching ABC sitcoms on the planet today will be very much completely dead within a short 100 years, if not sooner.

Pause here. Think about that. A hundred years, everyone now alive, dead. Everyone. You. Me. Bush. Your kids. All dead. Guaranteed.

And of course you are not exempt because if you are old enough to read this and if you are old enough to make it through this paragraph without caring all that much about the general carefree lack of major punctuation or a clear thesis statement, then it is indeed proof that you are already well on your way toward some sort of Regurgitative Afterlife Leapfrog-arama, some sort of mystical evolutionary whoop, if not a ghostly dreamy moist sepia-toned afterlife featuring a plethora of nubile long-eyelashed callipygian assistants plying your luminous self with wine and chocolates and fine artisan cheeses, forevermore.

But as true as that scenario may be, on a moment-by-moment basis, we aren't much aware of what might be in store. We block, we dodge, we fill up on grease and poison and anger, and it all seems so immediate, so right now, so present and hateful and suffocating as if there has never been anything else but this, but Bush and Kerry and Saddam and Ford Expeditions like a national cancer, bad schools and staggering third-world poverty and a Dubya-ravaged planet.

And history merely seems like a blurry, unrecognizable movie and the future just a vague intangible notion, a blip, a hint, so much so you can only smell the immediacy in the air and taste the bitter metallic tang of it on your tongue and you want to spit it out and cleanse your palate on something fruity and swooning and just a little bit eternal, which is why we so desperately turn to religion, and religion can only mostly shrug and offer platitudes and guilty doctrine and blind faith and ask for money. You know how it is.

Funny, then, that the mystics and the gurus and the deep thinkers, they always tell us that true awareness, true power of self, comes from living in the now, in the moment, in the deep Yes of today, though of course we look at them and say but wait you can't possibly mean I must commit myself with full unwavering intimate intent to the war and Donny Rumsfeld's black soulless eyes and cancerous McNuggets and hissing policy wonks and Bill O'Reilly digging himself a karmic grave with every shouted sneer and Jessica Simpson's ubiquity infecting us like an STD, right?

No no no, they reply. No, of course that's not what we mean. Then they might roll their eyes and sigh and order another pitcher of mojitos.

What they mean, rather, is to sink so deeply into the hot moment of now that you can actually transcend the mad swirl of heatstroke and hate and bile and Bush and jackhammers outside your window, and learn to see through the raw everyday smoke-and-mirror shell game of blissful agony and corrupted paradise to where you can actually begin to see the eternal in it all, lick the interconnectedness, move like you know you're really just a thousand pins dancing on the head of an angel.

This is the trick, then. To live so intentionally for the wet sticky Now that you dissolve the distinctions and see that it all flows together and it's all just two (one? zero?) degrees of separation between Us and Them, Fear and Hope, War and Love and Porn and Religion and Man and Woman and Self and Divine and Will and Grace and this too shall pass and Bush is just a sad bleak phantasm we have to pass through, like a sewer pipe, a dark reeking cloud, a bad fever dream, a nasty flu you had as a child where you dreamed your hands were two balloons.

Live in the moment, pay attention, participate, delve into the issues as if your life depended on it, fight your ass off for what you believe in and what you care about and what matters most. But then again, avoid toxins, don't get poisoned by it all. Stay clear, be spiritually nimble, physically radiant, transcend at will. This is the balance. This is the flux. This is the only way.

Because soon enough, a small hunk of time will pass and this epoch will flit away and we'll blink a number of times and feel a slight shift and not remember much of it anyway. Which is why we have the Internet. And books. And "I Love the '00s." And faint wisps of memory, like threads, like smoke, like vague hints of something else.

We will very shortly all look back on this and laugh. And cry. And point fingers and lay blame and try to figure out what the hell went wrong and where we screwed it all up and what we did right and where we found our glimmers of hope and our delicious hallowed balms of much-needed temporal salvation.

Do you see? Does it make any sense at all? Are you paying sufficient attention? No?

Then come closer to the screen. No, closer. Even closer, still.

Do you see it now? See how it all begins to dissolve and soften and pixilate? To break apart into a million tiny perfect luminous dots with nothing but infinite space between and infinite potential betwixt? Well, there you go. There's your current event. There's your immeasurable now. Think about it. Now get back to work.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE SCARIEST OF TIMES

I'd love some input from folks in other places, re this comment in my last post from my friend Tim, who writes from K.C., MO.  He wonders what things look like in other places:

"The more I talked with people yesterday -- not just the three I called first thing (and the basis for my earlier comment about an "even" exchange) -- the more an Edwards all-out victory seem to emerge.  Chaney's blatant gaffs about not meeting Edwards and the totally wrong website address, got a lot of play in our local press and airways.  More importantly, this debate, like the first Presidential debate, has energized the Democrats and put the Bush/Chaney supporters on the defensive.  Is it my imagination or am I really seeing a lot more "Kerry/Edwards" bumper stickers and yard signs these last six days?  What's it like in Delaware?  And are your readers seeing the same phenom in their states?"
Comment from joetimkc - 10/7/04 9:35 AM

What it looks like here is that the back of my truck is full of Kerry/Edwards signs that I'm dispersing through the neighborhood.  The state party was supposed to get us about a thousand signs, but only came up with 400.  They've been widely disseminated at the beach, but here in the conservative heart of the county we're awash in Bush/Cheney signs.  I just took a bunch down to the union office (UFCW, Local 27) in Millsboro for a compatriot there to pass out, along with bumper stickers and flyers in Spanish.  I met with the Dem. candidate for this district to the State House and the union rep yesterday at La Esperanza, a Hispanic community center where we've been doing voter registration.  We were trying to come up with an idea for getting Hispanic voters more involved.  An interesting note - there seem to be quite a few yards where all the local Rep candidates signs are displayed, with the notable exception of Bush/Cheney.  I'm hoping these are Republicans who have seen the light and realized Dubya is not really a Rep, that he's leading the country into every possible sort of disaster: fiscal, environmental, military, etc.  It's my hope these people won't vote for this lunatic this time.

So, as Tim queries:  What are you seeing in your states?   

On another subject entirely, I hope you're seeing this glorious weather wherever you may be.  Autumn has always been my favorite season, despite the fact that now -in addition to long grass, unpruned bushes, flower and vegetable beds full of weeds- the yard is covered in fallen leaves.  The days are clear and warm, not a cloud in the blue blue sky.  The nights are crisp and chilly, quilts have been added to beds, and it's possible to sleep like babies.  The fans and air conditioners are all stilled, the crickets and cicadas sing through the evening hours and the mockingbirds, mourning doves and cardinals wake me up before dawn.  I can breathe again, no more humidity weighing on me like a sodden wool blanket;  I can walk for miles, drive with the windows down, smell the leaves and dry corn stalks.  Much of the corn has been harvested, the fields now have that bare autumnal look.  The light has changed, the shadows are long and clearly defined.  As a child Halloween was my favorite holiday, beating out Christmas and even birthdays.  It was the mystery, the sense of the supernatural and spooky, the lurking through the dark as a witch or pirate, as the wind swirled the leaves and the smell of burning pumpkin filled the air. 

SLEEP WELL, AMERICA, EVERYTHING IS FINE

Well, okay, no ears were bitten off last night, in fact.  I watched until almost ten o'clock, when I had lost track of the number of times Cheney said the words "terror" or "terrorist(s)."  I was trying to keep a count, but somewhere around 25 I lost it.  Keeping track of the number of lies the VP told was even harder.  He can't open his mouth without lying, evidently.  Here, just for fun, is a Washington Post article from last week that shows up some of those lies for the fiction they are.  

(P. S. Later the same day:  I just found another blogger who was also counting, and he says that Cheney mentioned the word "terrorist(s)" thirty one times.  Sounds a little low to me, but you get the picture. He also uses a word apropos Dick Cheney that AOL probably won't like, but I certainly do.  Calls him a "douchebag."  I actually haven't heard that term for quite a while.)

washingtonpost.com / U.S. Effort Aims to Improve Opinions About Iraq Conflict
By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page A20

The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news" about Iraq to U.S. military bases, and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country.

The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Combined, they indicate that the federal government is working assiduously to improve Americans' opinions about the Iraq conflict -- a key element of Bush's reelection message.

USAID said this week that it will restrict distribution of reports by contractor Kroll Security International showing that the number of daily attacks by insurgents in Iraq has increased. On Monday, a day after The Washington Post published a front-page storysaying that "the Kroll reports suggest a broad and intensifying campaign of insurgent violence," a USAID official sent an e-mail to congressional aides stating: "This is the last Kroll report to come in. After the WPost story, they shut it down in order to regroup. I'll let you know when it restarts."

Asked about the Kroll reports yesterday, USAID spokesman Jeffrey Grieco said, "The agency has restricted its circulation to those contractors and grantees who continue to work in Iraq." He said that the reports were given to congressional officials who sought them, but that the information will now be "restricted to those who need it for security planning in Iraq." An agency official said the decision was unrelated to the Post story and was based on a fear that the reports "would fall into insurgents' hands."

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office has sent commanders of U.S. military facilities a five-page memorandum titled "Guidance to Commanders." The Pentagon, the memo says, is sponsoring a group of Iraqi Americans and former officials from the Coalition Provisional Authority to speak at military bases throughout the United States starting Friday to provide "a first-hand account" of events in Iraq. The Iraqi Americans and the CPA officials worked on establishing the interim Iraqi government. The Iraqi Americans "feel strongly that the benefits of the coalition efforts have not been fully reported," the memo says.

The memo says the presentations are "designed to be uplifting accounts with good news messages." Rumsfeld's office, which will pay for the tour, recommends that the installations seek local news coverage, noting that "these events and presentations are positive public relations opportunities."

The memo anticipates controversy. "It is well understood that the efforts and sacrifices associated with Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom have resulted in a significant human toll," it says. "As such, emotions and apprehensions may run high in response to the conduct of these visits." The memo offered reassurance that those on the tour "are not political policy makers" and said commanders at each base "are in the best position on how to market this voluntary attendance program effectively."

Lt. Col. Joe Richard, a Pentagon spokesman, said most of the Iraqi Americans are teachers who will emphasize improvements made to the Iraqi education system. He said they want to "provide some perspective on theoperation" in Iraq. "I wouldn't characterize it as unusual. There are provisions that allow for it."

At the White House, National Security Council spokesman Jim Wilkinson said the Iraqi Americans have "a legitimate perspective, and that perspective should be heard."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked Tuesday about similarities between Bush's statements about Iraq and Allawi's speech to Congress last week, said he did not know of any help U.S. officials gave with the speech. "None that I know of," he said, adding, "No one at the White House." He also said he did not know if the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had seen the speech.

But administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the prime minister was coached and aided by the U.S. government, its allies and friends of the administration. Among them was Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA who has more recently represented the Bush campaign in media appearances. Senor, who has denied writing the speech, sent Allawi recommended phrases. He also helped Allawi rehearse in New York last week, officials said. Senor declined to comment.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and British Foreign Service officials also helped Allawi with the text and delivery of his remarks, said administration officials who were involved. The State Department and officials elsewhere in the government took the lead in booking Allawi's interviews. Administration officials said that the Iraqi Embassy in Washington consists of just a few officials and has only a dial-up Internet connection, so was incapable of preparing for the high-profile tour.

Staff writers Al Kamen, Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright contributed to this

THE VPS, MANO A MANO

The wonderful Boondocks knows my fears exactly.  And expresses them so well.

JUST REPORTING IN

Friday I picked G up at the Wilmington train station, ecstatic to have her home from Massachusetts.  We took a nice walk along the river, to unkink our legs from our various travels, hers on the train, mine the long drive from Sussex County north to the Big City.  In truth it's a small city (large only by comparison with this podunk area), and one we've never yet gotten acquainted with.  Urban renewal is flourishing, at least there in the area of the "transit center" and the Riverfront. 

We spent the weekend in blissful togetherness, doing errands, walking the beach at Cape Henlopen, sleeping a lot, doing voter registration on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach.  It's the last big push to get folks registered, our deadline is Oct. 13 here in DE.  I'm working several places on this all during this week, as well as trying to stay current with my own classes and my afterschool group.  Soon I'll have some pictures to post of this bunch, the afterschool homework kids.  There's more of them every day, and I think we're finally bonding.  They're beginning to see I'm smart and funny and give them all little presents at the end of every week.  It's amazing what's surfacing from my memory, I thought I'd be lost helping the older kids with math - but it's all still in there somehow.  Stuff I didn't even know I knew. 

I have had little time to be online, and that will be the status quo for the next couple of weeks.  Really, I feel like I'm holding my breath until November 2, which can't be good, can it?  Here's a true fact:  I hate seeing/hearing GWB so much that I couldn't even watch that first debate.  I have read much of the transcript, and of course loads of commentary.  It wasn't that I doubted for a second that Kerry would whup his sorry little ass, I just can't stand to see the squint, the smirk, the pout, the eyerolls.  Can't stand to listen to that fake folksy Texas drawl. So, his ass was whupped up one side and down the other, fer shure, and it only seems to make a difference to those Americans possessed of functioning brains themselves.  How can they still be in a dead heat?  Okay, two more to go, plus the VP debate tomorrow night.  Unless, of course, Dubya decides he has such important matters of state to which he must attend that he can't possibly engage in any more meaningful discussion in front of millions of viewers.