"Torture" vs. Torture. When asked at his late April press conference how he would justify renditioning—sending terror suspects to third countries for interrogation and possibly torture—George W. Bush answered, "That's a hypothetical. We operate within the law, and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people." Only it's not hypothetical. One of those countries is Egypt, where, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, more than 60 Islamist militants have been brought, often by the US, since 1994. “Sending suspects to a country where they are likely to be tortured is strictly prohibited under international law,” said Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch. “Egypt’s terrible record of torturing prisoners means that no country should forcibly send a suspect there... The Bush administration knows full well that Egypt tortures people in custody, and that its promises not to torture a given suspect are not worth the paper they’re written on. This fig leaf doesn’t hide U.S. complicity in the terrible abuses that await suspects sent to Egypt.”

Of course, maybe it all depends on how you define torture. This week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez gave the opinion that much of the recently publicized abuses are not legally torture. "Torture, as a matter of prosecution, is defined by Congress as the intentional infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering. Congress intended a very high bar here in order to be prosecuted for engaging in torture. There may be conduct that you may find offensive that falls far short of torture." Of course, Gonzalez wrote the 2002 memo that said the war on terror "renders obsolete" the Geneva Conventions that prohibit torture, so naturally he's going to set that bar incredibly high. (Via TruthOut.)

With friends like these: Seven months before terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the State Department decried Uzbekistan for its hideous track record of torture. It said the police were guilty of "beating [detainees], often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask," and human rights groups reported atrocities in Uzbek jails including pulling fingernails out with pliers, using electric shocks on genitals, and, on two occasions, boiling inmates to death. Today, Uzbekistan is a favored partner in the US war on terror. It's received more than $500 million in US anti-terror money and is allegedly one of countries the US sends suspected terrorists for "interrogation."

Social Security benefits calculator: So the prez has big plans to save Social Security? See how you'll fare under his plan, then compare it to the current law's guaranteed benefits. The Center for Economic and Policy Research's Accurate Benefits Calculator "compares current-law Social Security benefits to the 'Bush Plan' based on Model 2 from the President's Commission and 2005 State of the Union proposal, which includes private accounts paid for up to 4 percentage points of the employee's taxable payroll."

Playing politics with terror: Tom Ridge used to say he never played politics with the terror alert levels. But now that he's no longer the head of Homeland Security, guess who he says was making the decisions? Politicians. He says administration officials overruled his opposition to elevating the threat level.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

May the merchandising be with you: Part II

(Via Sivacracy.)

May the merchandising be with you: Part I
(Via reBlog.)

Lessons in living: Kim Phuc
On June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc had 65% of her body burned with napalm in the South Vietnamese city of Trang Bang, a terror captured in one of photojournalism's most arresting images. Remarkably, she went on to forgive those responsible for her injuries. Since 1997 she's been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and is the founder of the Kim Phuc Foundation. An excerpt from her inspiring interview with UNESCO Press:

I want my experience to serve a purpose: I was burned because of war. Today, I want to encourage people to love and help one another. We need to learn how to become more tolerant, how to look at the individual, to listen, to come out of ourselves, to help others instead of letting ourselves get carried away by anger and hatred, which give rise to revenge and violence in the world and don't help anybody.

War causes nothing but suffering. That's why I show the little girl in the picture. Because she tells my story and the consequences that war has had on my life. No father or mother in the world wants what happened in that picture to happen again. I would like to transmit what I have learned to value: I experienced war; I know the value of peace.

I have lived with my pain; I know the value of love when you want to heal. I have lived with hatred, and now I know the power of forgiveness. Today, I am alive, I live without hatred, without the spirit of revenge, and I can tell all those who caused my suffering: I forgive you. That is the only way to save peace, to speak of tolerance and non-violence.

(Thanks to Ann at Sivacracy.)


And: The American War, 30 Years Later.

Flagging interests: Grande Reportagem magazine in Lisbon, Portugal, came up with the Meet the World campaign to illustrate facts about eight countries. Reconfiguring flags with colors that represent different statistics, the project shows the percentage of people in Angola who have HIV and malaria, and no medical care at all; the percentage of Americans who supported and opposed the Iraq war, plus those who couldn't find Iraq on a map; and--in this case, the proportion of 14-year-old laborers in China (red) to those receiving an education (yellow.)

(Via World Changing.)

Patriot Plates: In Oklahoma, the House of Representatives passed legislation to create special license plates with proceeds going to buy body armor for that state's Iraq troops. For every $35 plate purchased, $20 will go into a kitty to buy the protective equipment. Rep. Ryan Kiesel, D-Seminole, who originally proposed the bill, said, “This is a simple, voluntary and cost-effective way for Oklahomans to show their support for our men and women in uniform.” Er, that's in addition to the simple, involuntary way we should be protecting our troops—through taxes. We're at $170 billion and counting for the cost of this war, yet they've got to sell commemorative license plates to afford armor? What's next, a bake sale?

The Huffington Post: In case you missed the hoopla, Arianna Huffington has launched an uber-blog of sorts, The Huffington Post. It's pretty amazing, although almost too much to take in at once. It's got an excellent newswire, and a diverse, superstar group-blog list. For starters, the site offers political perspectives from Seinfeld creator Larry David, Walter Cronkite, Sen. Jon Corzine, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Eyebeam's Jonah Peretti, The Nation's David Corn, playwright David Mamet, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, and others. Alas, its glaring downfall: it doesn't blogroll Eyeteeth.

Hand #120 of 204, from The Hand Collector [via]

Do the arts matter? Leading up to next month's publication of What Good Are the Arts? by Oxford English Lit professor emeritus John Carey, The Observer asks a range artists to weigh in. One of them, Geoff Dyer, writes:

The arts don't make us morally better people but they do enable us to discriminate more finely and this means that we live fuller, if not necessarily happier lives. At a time when the culture at large goads us towards an ever-coarsening response to almost everything, the demands made on our attention by 'difficult' art are to be especially valued...

Botero's battle: Some six years ago, Colombian painter Fernando Botero started making shocking images of his country's violent, 40-year guerilla war—graphic depictions of massacres, murders, and funerals that have since generated interest in galleries in Europe. "It's very hard to know what would be the reaction," he says in an audio interview with the New York Times' Juan Forero. "They would be pleased to know that an artist did something about it... I'm not trying to change any situation with my work, because I know that art cannot do this, but at the same time, it will important, in 20 years, or whenever we get peace in this country, that people remember this horrible moment in our history and that it makes a reflection on them of how stupid was the whole thing..." Now, he's addressing the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison (mentioned here last month). While museums in Germany have shown interest in the new body of work, no American institutions have. "If any museum wants to show works of torture, well, I would be delighted," Botero said. "The museum that decides to show it would have to be conscious that many people would be repulsed and be against it." More images of Botero's work here.
(Thanks, Mike.)

The Good Death

Scott and Helen Nearing, authors of a series of Good Life books that relate their experiences in sustainable living on homesteads in Vermont and, later, Maine, offer a humbling counterpoint to the notions of death with dignity espoused by high-profile Christian conservatives these days. Two weeks past his 100th birthday in 1983, Scott Nearing died a peaceful death of his choosing, as Helen (who lived another 12 years) recounted:

A month or two before he died he was sitting at table with us at a meal. Watching us eat he said, "I think I won't eat anymore."

"Alright," said I. "I understand. I think I would do that too. Animals know when to stop. They go off in a corner and leave off food."

So I put Scott on juices: carrot juice, apple juice, banana juice, pineapple, grape - any kind. I kept him full of liquids as often as he was thirsty. He got weaker, of course, and he was as gaunt and thin as Gandhi.

Came a day he said, "I think I'll go on water. Nothing more." From then on, for about ten days, he only had water. He was bed-ridden and had little strength but spoke with me daily. In the morning of August 24, 1983, two weeks after his 100th birthday, when it seemed he was slipping away, I sat beside him on his bed.

We were quiet together; no interruptions, no doctors or hospitals. I said "It's alright, Scott. Go right along. You've lived a good life and are finished with things here. Go on and up - up into the light. We love you and let you go. It's alright."

In a soft voice, with no quiver or pain or disturbance, he said "All...right," and breathed slower and slower and slower till there was no movement anymore and he was gone out of his body as easily as a leaf drops from the tree in autumn, slowly twisting and falling to the ground.

So he returned to his Maker after a long life, well-lived and devoted to the general welfare. He was principled and dedicated all through. He lived at peace with himself and the world because he was in tune: he practiced what he preached. He lived his beliefs. He could die with a good conscience.

As to myself and my old age: I try to follow in his footsteps. It is not so easy homesteading alone, but I carry on. A few more years and I also will experience the great Transition. May I live halfway as good a life and die as good a death.

Read "At the End of the Good Life" here. Hear audio of Helen Nearing here. (Thanks, Mom.)

By Mr. Fish. (Via Harper's.)

Less Republican than I thought:

I am: -2% Republican.

"You're a damn Commie!  Where's Tailgunner Joe when we need him?"

Are You A Republican?

(Via the more-Republican-than-me TalkLeft.)

We've got their number: Got a gripe with your government? Call the Capitol Switchboard to let them know. The number, 1-877-762-8762, conveniently translates to 1-877-SOB-U-SOB. (Via Metafilter.)

Foster kids are government guinea pigs: CampusProgress points out this AP story about how the US government has been testing experimental HIV drugs on mostly poor, mostly minority foster children over the past two decades, "often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states." On one hand, these kids got free medical care from the government; on the other, it "also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown." Todd Hill comments, "I can’t imagine any country calling themselves the land of the free while at the same time deeming foster children medically expendable."

If only Jesus had befriended Democrats as well as lepers and prostitutes. But since there's no biblical record of such a thing, pastor Chan Chandler of the East Waynesville Baptist Church has nothing to guide him: he kicked out nine parishoners because they supported John Kerry or other Democrats in the last election. Because of the issues of homosexuality and abortion, they were deemed to be "against the church" and "excommunicated." Some 40 other members of the congregation walked out in protest. Issues of Christ-like compassion and tolerance aside, isn't this illegal? A DailyKos commenter reminds us that a New York church was stripped of its tax-exempt status for taking out an anti-Clinton ad in the 1992 election. Watch a newscast on the story here (wmv).

Catholic dress code! Here in the Twin Cities the Catholic archbishop has decided to deny communion based on attire. Actually, he won't allow anyone wearing rainbow-colored sashes—the marker of gay and lesbian Catholic group Rainbow Sash Alliance USA—to partake of the "body of Christ." Brian McNeill, a member of the alliance, says, "The request to take off the sash makes no sense. The church is saying it only wants closeted gay people going to communion."

The other Mark of the Beast: According to Art.Blogging.LA, a one-day exhibition called Mark of the Beast was shut down by the Los Angeles Police Department on April 23 because its contents were deemed "agressive and offensive," according to the hosting gallery, Transport. The show, curated by designer Brandy Flower, featured spoofs of corporate logos by LA artists in a sometimes potty-mouthed critique of globalization. Is this stuff, reminiscent of Adbusters circa 1997, that objectionable to the Law? There's got to be more to this story...

Aw, hell. 666 isn't the number of the beast. The guys at Iron Maiden are gonna be pissed when they hear this: 616 is really the number of the beast, according to researchers who have been analyzing a new fragment discovered from the Book of Revelation. David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, says, "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."

No big whoop, says Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan (I'm paraphrasing). "By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear," he says. "Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that."

Hey, waitaminute! If 666 isn't really a satanic number, then maybe the forked finger gesture used by heavy metal rockers and George W. Bush alike really isn't a satanic symbol. Y'think?