Seed police: Creepy-ass, corporate Big Brother shenanigans:

Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" snared soy farmer Homan McFarling in 1999, and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy. McFarling's sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.

"My daddy saved seed. I saved seed," said Mr. McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 200-hectare family farm in Shannon, Miss. and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.

Saving Monsanto's seeds, genetically engineered to kill bugs and resist weed sprays, violates provisions of the company's contracts with farmers.

Since 1997, Monsanto has filed similar lawsuits 90 times in 25 states against 147 farmers and 39 agriculture companies, according to a report issued Thursday by The Centre for Food Safety, a biotechnology foe.

Read the full article. (Via Digg.com.)

GOPropaganda: From the jingoistic to the star-spangled to the quite odd, AuthenticGOP.com offers a selection of t-shirts and other Republican schwag featuring weird NFL-style GOP logos. My favorite is this one that assumes that anyone who keys cars is a Bush-hating, tolerance-preaching (but not practicing) lefty.

King, a day late:

The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate....
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

—Dr. Martin Luther King

Opportunities for citizen media ventures: This is cool.

New Voices, a program to seed innovative citizen media ventures around the United States, has issued a call for its first round of grant proposals. New Voices is funded with a $1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, part of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

New Voices will help fund the start-up of twenty hyper-local news ventures over the next two years and will support them with an educational Web site.

The program is seeking new ideas for distributing news and information to hyperlocal geographic communities or communities of interest. In particular, it is looking for news ventures that offer the promise of being self-sustaining.

Nonprofit and educational institutions are eligible to apply. Funding is available for start-up news initiatives only. Ongoing efforts are not eligible to apply unless they are proposing a new venture. Funding is available for print or electronic news initiatives, including online, cable, broadcast, narrowcast, satellite, and mobile efforts.

Each project may receive as much as $17,000 in grants.

Eligibility guidelines and application forms are available at the New Voices Web site.

Deadline: March 17, 2005

Learn more here. Info on other RFPs in journalism and media
here

Social Security Bushit: Bush is mistaken about the instability of Social Security, writes Dave Hage in today's Star Tribune:

Scare tactics . . . worked three years ago, when the administration was trying to sell voters on a preemptive war in Iraq. That's because most Americans simply didn't have the facts to evaluate Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein.

With Social Security, however, we have very good information and it completely contradicts the White House crisis scenario. Social Security is running very large surpluses at the moment and it will have enough money to pay full benefits until the year 2042. By then the median baby boomer will be 20 years into retirement. After that, it will still have funds to pay about 70 percent of promised benefits. This isn't liberal propaganda. It's from the annual report of the Social Security trustees, several of them Bush appointees. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan and trusted forecasting agency, says Social Security will be able to pay more like 80 percent of promised benefits long after 2050.

This is not a system that will be "flat broke" when today's 20-somethings retire.

Full article.

SS Fearmonger: Also on the Strib editorial page:

Of all the lies -- let's call them by their right name -- that the Bush administration is spreading about Social Security, none is as vile as the canard Bush repeated last Tuesday, when he said, "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the [Social Security] system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people. And that needs to be fixed." That is an entirely phony assertion... For them to repeat what they know to be a blatant lie is despicable fear-mongering.

Please stop speaking: In today's Washington Post, George W. Bush says the 2004 election was vindication of his Iraq policy. Huh? And when did we vote on the Iran issue? According to Seymour Hersh, the US has been conducting secret missions there; the goal: "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." (In the same interview in the Post, Bush was asked why he thought Osama bin Laden hasn't been caught yet. His answer? "Because he's hiding." Are we to surmise, then, that Bush is only going to be effective in capturing terrorists who are loitering in plain view?) And: Bush's main man in the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, reportedly told a South Carolina judge that "[A] judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution."

Shot to hell: Whatever our mission in Iraq was supposed to be, the result seems to be the opposite. The war is now costing us $4.8 billion a month, but instead ridding the country of ne'er-do-wells, Iraq is now the world's biggest training ground for terrorists. No wonder 16 members of the House are calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops.

And here's how Bush deals with bad news: when Colin Powell told the president "we're losing" the war in Iraq, Bush asked him to leave. When the CIA releases findings that Iraq is now ground zero for terror, the White House dismisses it as "speculative." (Via Cursor.)

Next: The Toyota Darfur? Naming a sportscar after a natural phenomenon that recently killed upwards of 150,000 people might be a bad marketing strategy, figures Toyota Canada. They're dropping plans for the Celica Tsunami, which was to feature the "new wave of bold style."

McHuh? A new McDonald's commercial in Israel [movie file] replays the "Royale with cheese" scene from Pulp Fiction, with one character cryptically saying, "They don't say 'please' in Israel." (Via Eyebeam's reBlog.)

Another Rwanda? The Human Rights Watch report mentioned below also accuses the world of showing "callous disregard" for the victims of widespread violence in Darfur, where 70,000 have been people killed and another two million have fled their homes. The report states that UN Security Council members China and Russia are preventing tougher action in the north African country to protect lucrative oil and arms contracts. Remembering the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, HRW director Kenneth Roth says, "Darfur is making a mockery of our vows of 'never again'."

Denial and Deception: On October 7, 2002, George W. Bush said: "Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons." Today--surprise, surprise--he says the fruitless search for WMDs is off. The newsgraphic on the White House website, a remnant of the attack-Iraq marketing campaign, is pricelesss--"Iraq. Denial and Deception." So true. Night and Day: Compare the Bush administration's prewar posturing about WMDs with its more recent statements. And: Despite its human and financial toll, Bush says the war was "absolutely" worth it.

'Merican morality: If the US is so gosh-darn generous, so staggeringly moral and good, why did it take two rounds of global ridicule for the world's wealthiest nation to pony up enough money for tsunami aid to surpass the $40 million pricetag for the president's inaugural party? Don't worry, though; the presidential shindig on January 20 won't be paid for by taxpayers--unless you count the $17.3 million in security costs that'll come out of anti-terrorism funds. This inauguration, says Public Citizen's Joan Claybrook, "is bought and paid for by corporate America." Most of the donors are government contractors who have raked in $2.9 billion from the Bush administration last year. And: According to Human Rights Watch, the US can no longer claim the moral high ground on human rights issues either. HRW writes that America's "embrace of coercive interrogation [is] part of a broader betrayal of human rights principles in the name of combating terrorism."

Dollar Art: For some reason I'm intrigued by modified money--hobo nickels, rubber-stamped bills, altered twenties. Here's a particularly colorful find: Kamiel Proost's collection of dollar-bill art. (Via BoingBoing.)

The Best Use of the Public Airwaves award goes to... Clear Channel Communications, the owner of stations in four markets that ran a "Breast Christmas Ever" contest over the holidays. Thirteen women who wrote the best essays on why they wanted bigger breasts were awarded free boobjobs. It's double-D excitement for conservatives: the notoriously rightwing stations used the piously correct term "Christmas," rather than that Christ-negating PC-ism "holiday."

More Christmas Spirit: Rightwing commentator Ann Coulter opines that "saying 'Merry Christmas' is like saying 'F--k you!' I've said it to everyone. You know, cab drivers, passing people on the street, whatever. And they come up with the 'Happy holidays.' 'Merry Christmas.' I mean, it really is an aggressive act in New York."

When art's a bit too close to life: Ten garbage collectors in Frankfurt, Germany, are being sent to classes on modern art for mistaking artist Michael Beutler's sculptures for trash and incinerating them. Of the art, a conglomeration of yellow plastic sheets, Frankfurt's sanitation chief said, "As the weather was bad I thought it was construction workers who had dumped their materials on the street and called my people to come and take it away." And residents in condos across the street from the new Yoshio Taniguchi-designed Museum of Modern Art in New York are peeved that the new space gives spectacular views into their expensive living rooms. Said one MOMA neighbor, "I feel like I'm an exhibit. They're over there all day, staring, pointing, flashing their cameras."

A rough day in comic America: As Jon Stewart's America (The Book) gets banned from public libraries in two Mississippi counties, Ali G nearly gets strung up at a Salem, Virginia rodeo. The HBO star was posing as Boraq Sagdiyev, a Bush-supporting immigrant from Kazakhstan who wanted to show his patriotism by singing the "Star Spangled Banner" for the rodeo's audience. "I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards... And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq," he said, before launching into a broken-English rendition of the anthem (which concluded with the lyrics "your home in the grave").

Due North: In Vietnam, it was draft dodgers and conscientious objectors who headed to Canada to avoid service. In the neo-cons' Iraq debacle 35 years later, it's the soldiers who are hightailing it north. According to the Telegraph, some 5,500 GIs have deserted so far. And since you won't hear the figure on the nightly news, 1,356 Americans have died in Iraq so far and 9,844 have been wounded in action.

Question: How many news organizations reporting the firing of four CBS employees involved in "Memogate" (the case of allegedly forged National Guard documents that cast doubt on whether Bush fulfilled his military obligations) will remember the fact that the CBS report was essentially correct?

While the documents are questionable, the basic thesis is true: 1.) official documents about whether Bush completed his obligations are inconclusive, and 2.) Bush got special favors to avoid fighting in Vietnam. That from the man who got him his cushy post in the champagne unit, former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes: "I help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get in the National Guard. I'm very sorry of that, and I'm very ashamed of it, and I apologize to the voters of Texas for that." More on the story from CBS and the Columbia Journalism Review. (Thanks, Jim.)

Doomsday Plan (and other miscellaneous news): How's this for ominous? The U.S House of Representatives has quietly passed a "doomsday provision" that will allow a handful of congressmembers to declare war in the event of "catastrophic circumstances." It used to be that a majority of house members--218 lawmakers or more--had to be present for the body to function, but the new plan says that a majority of congressman present at any given moment can pass laws or declare war (if you know anything about how the Republicans plan midnight debates so that news cameras aren't on and many legislators aren't around, you'll be very wary).

Armstrong's bad day: Armstrong Wiliams, the conservative journalist secretly paid a quarter-million dollars to hype No Child Left Behind, had a coupla rough days: after his payments from BushCo were revealed, he walked out on a scheduled interview for MSNBC's Scarborough Country and his column was dropped from syndication by Tribune Media Services.And: More on Armstrong's brand of ethics.

"Corporate paranoia" from Apple: Should bloggers have the same protections as journalists? Apple says no, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation says yes. It's representing bloggers at AppleInsider and PowerPage who are facing a subpoena from the computer maker to reveal the identies of sources that leaked details on a product code-named "Asteroid." "I am very disappointed by Apple's behavior and its new policy of issuing legal threats to its best customers," added Jason O'Grady, publisher of PowerPage. "Is corporate paranoia really more important than the First Amendment?"

Gather no Moss: OK, so my team lost, but at least we don't have one of these (er, that's Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss air-mooning the crowd then rubbing his keister on the goalpost).

Repost: A shaman's call:
On the occasion of finding a nice picture of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys online, a re-post of my Adbusters essay from the "We're Back" issue, in which the magazine returns from an imagined and unexplained global collapse:

In a 1974 performance, Joseph Beuys struck a haunting pose. As a coyote circled him in a gallery, he gathered insulating felt around him to create a conical fortress, his body hidden entirely from view. From the top of this impromptu teepee, a shepherd's crook rose like a spire--part mountaintop guru, part signal tower. But, as in all of his enigmatic work, what he was signaling isn't altogether clear. As his three-day performance continued, a wordless dialogue with the animal ensued as Beuys sought to locate "the psychological trauma point of the United States' energy constellation"--that is, the fracture between animal instinct and a mechanistic, consumptive Western worldview. As man and beast became acquainted, roles reversed: Beuys began sleeping on the coyote's straw bedding, while the coyote took to pissing on "the daily diary of the American Dream," The Wall Street Journal (marking turf, or making a briny critique of American materialism?).

How can we make sense of the work's title, Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me, or the fact that the coyote is the second most adaptable mammal on earth, an evolutionary survivor? Whatever his intention, Beuys' work--actions, sculptures, and paintings carried out on a continuum of activism and shamanism--may have more to say to us now than it did when he created it in the late twentieth century.

Beuys deeply believed that ours was a traumatized society. The social body was psychologically and psychically wounded and Beuys, a medical student before he began making art, had a treatment plan. His performances were part of his work as a mystic medic, and his healing rituals seem to have risen from his experiences in World War II. As a fighter pilot, he was shot down over the Crimea and, risking frostbite and death, was rescued by nomadic Tartars who healed him by rubbing his body with animal fat and wrapping him in felt. While these two materials appear in Beuys' work, the experience permeated his art philosophically as well: just as the body, aided by a protective skin of lard and felt, is innately equipped to heal itself, so is society; we already possess mystical powers for individual and cultural healing. He seemed to be saying our future hinges on our ability to activate these dormant forces that reside within us. Is it too late to heed this shaman's call and summon our powers to survive?

Lawnmowers against terror: Ever innovative, the state of Texas seems to have pioneered a new terror-fighting strategy--lawnmower drag races. Either that or they're grossly misspending their federally allocated anti-terror funds. According to a state auditor's report, some of the $600 million in funds has been misspent: some emergency money was used to buy a trailer to haul lawnmowers to the races; other funds went to buy communication devices from a company owned by one of the county's commissioners; still others haven't been tracked down yet. Could this confusion be a microcosm of problems on a national scale? Maybe; finding that oversight of Homeland Security is a fractured affair, recent hearings revealed that homeland security officials report to 88 congressional committees and subcommittees (instead of just one consolidated committee, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission).

The best news money can buy: First the Bush administration got busted by the U.S. General Accounting Office for violating a ban on government funded "publicity and propaganda" by using a video news release—i.e. fake news—that supported the No Child Left Behind law. Now it’s been revealed that the White House actually paid a real journalist to fabricate news about the act:

The Bush administration paid a prominent black journalist to promote President Bush's education law and give Education Secretary Rod Paige media time, records show.

Armstrong Williams, a nationally syndicated radio, print and television personality, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

The contract required Williams' company, the Graham Williams Group, to produce radio and TV ads that promote the controversial law and feature one-minute “reads'' by Paige. The deal also allowed Paige and other department officials to appear as studio guests with Williams.

Williams, one of the leading black conservative voices in the country, was also to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to talk about No Child Left Behind.

...Three Democratic senators - Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada - wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that “the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy.''

..."There is no defense for using taxpayer dollars to pay journalists for 'fake news' and favorable coverage of a federal program,'' said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal group that has tracked the department's spending. "It's a scandalous waste.''

(Thanks, Andy.)

Making another world possible

There's an expanding chasm between rich and poor, looming environmental calamity, global terror seemingly growing in tandem with global markets. Now look at art being made today. Is it playing a vital role in mounting resistance to these forces? Does art have the capacity to catalyze social change? Or is artist Martha Rosler right when she says, "The total freedom of the artist in Western society also ineluctably signals total irrelevance"? As artists like Sam Durant are quick to point out, "art is an effective tool of resistance and change--just as it is an effective tool for the maintenance of power or the status quo." But some recent strategies of artmaking are working to tip the balance to progressive change.

One shares its name with an exhibition on view at Massachusetts' MASSMoCA through March 2005: The Interventionists. These artists seek to "enter physically," writes Nato Thompson in the show's catalog: "that is, they place their work into the heart of the political situation itself." By changing the context--going into the streets or bringing the "real world" into gallery--art makes the much-touted, yet little realized, leap between art and life. For example, the exhibition features mobile shelters for the homeless created by Krzysztof Wodiczko and the Danish art group n55 that could easily be relegated to a museum show on design. But fabricated for actual use outside the gallery, these constructions serve dual roles of giving practical help to the homeless while using aesthetic means to raise the visibility of the easily overlooked urban poor.

Does art have the capacity to catalyze social change? Or is artist Martha Rosler right when she says, "The total freedom of the artist in Western society also ineluctably signals total irrelevance"?

Well known to culture-jammers is a form of intervention described by the Situationist term detournement. "One tactic is not to present something that we all recognize as shocking, but to present the shocking aspect of what is comfortably familiar; or to defamiliarize the commonplace," writes Jean Fisher in the catalogue for Documenta 11, a recurring exhibition in Kassel, Germany, that frequently addresses geopolitical concerns. This flip is demonstrated by Mexico City-based artist Minerva Cuevas, who has repurposed corporate mechanisms, from consumer brands to the very structure of a corporation, to "make information available, readable . . . and to translate social campaigns into their visual or graphic form." In an early project, Cuevas founded the Mejor Vida (Better Life) Corporation, a nonprofit once housed in Mexico City's tallest trade tower, to do work that doesn't compute in bottom-line-driven circles: give away unscratched lottery tickets (and any winnings), distribute barcode stickers to give shoppers fair prices at supermarkets, create MVC student IDs so cardholders can get free admission at publicly funded museums and discounts on public transportation.

"One tactic is not to present something that we all recognize as shocking, but to present the shocking aspect of what is comfortably familiar; or to defamiliarize the commonplace," writes Fisher.

In one of Cuevas' more recent projects, she spotlights little-known American history: in 1954, the CIA backed a coup in Guatemala that overthrew a democratically-elected leader who sought to nationalize the powerful United Fruit Company. Cuevas' wall-sized mural features a Del Monte label for canned tomatoes with red juice flowing onto the gallery floor, puddling like blood. Accompanied by the words "Pure Murder," she references either the CIA's assassin trainings or the half century of violence the coup triggered--or both.

While such work responds to current events, it's not reactionary. So, unlike earlier forms of protest-based art, it goes beyond proposing the inverse of that which it opposes to deconstructing the underlying memes. Forgoing the binary view of Del Monte (the company that bought United Fruit's land when it folded), she complicates the reassuring design of a corporate label, hinting that the purity of our food includes not just its ingredients but the practices by which it's harvested and sold in the global marketplace. The problem with oppositionality, writes Fisher, is that, by itself, it seldom sustains a change in perception because it leaves the basic or system intact: the system is well able to absorb any message, provided its code remains unchanged. But by making alternate narratives, the memes can be exposed and, hopefully, eroded.

That seems to be the motive of Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) in his recent project Rebirth of a Nation. An experimental musician and hip-hop artist, Miller has made a high-tech reinterpretation of the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, the explicitly racist tale by D.W. Griffith long used in recruiting by the Ku Klux Klan. Using the DJ's toolbox, Miller sliced and diced a troublesome film--a cinematic classic that, because of its innovative editing and camera angles, is one of the American Film Institute's Top 100 American films of all time--overlaying hypnotic digital graphics and film footage (including a Bill T. Jones dance work based on African-American history) with a soundtrack of hip hop, dub, live violin, and ambient sounds. By reworking the film's DNA through an artform developed in large part by African-Americans, Miller reclaims the techniques of montage and intercutting, while also "taking back" the history appropriated by Griffith. "Basically I'm holding the remix of the film up to America in a way that says, 'Another world is possible,'" Miller explains. "How do you make it real?"

And perhaps that's art's strength--it creates a language of possibilities for our consideration, "endless alternatives," as Walker Art Center curator Philippe Vergne says. To ask it to be something else is wrongheaded. After all, it's art, not advertising, entertainment, or electoral politics. We don't hold our poets accountable for the effectiveness of their verse nor do we judge the aesthetic standards of our senators. But when art is successful--when it moves its viewers to act--it feeds a network of others who are using various tools, from protest to policy, voting to community organizing. "Art is a part of the struggle," says Durant. "It isn't itself the cause of some radical change but can be part of the movement for revolutionary change and social justice."

My recent essay on art and activism, from Adbusters' current issue, "The Big Ideas 2005."

Top to bottom: Minerva Cuevas' Montte Pure Murder; Sam Durant's Justice, promotional poster for DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation.

Dispassionate Conservatives: Trotting out the depraved notion that perhaps God punished Southeast Asia by sending a tsunami, rightwing extremist and conservative commentator Michael Savage asserts that the death of 150,000+ people isn't worthy of his government's aid. "We shouldn't be spending a nickel on this, as far as I'm concerned," he said on the December 31 installment of his nationally syndicated radio show. "I don't want one nickel of my money going over there. ... I am sick of being bled to death by every damn incident on the earth." Further, he asserts:

It's not a tragedy. I wouldn't call it a tragedy. It's a human disaster...

...Many of the countries and the areas in these countries that were hit by these tidal waves were hotbeds of radical Islam. Why should we be helping them destroy us? ... I think what we're doing is feeding our own demise. ... I truthfully don't believe in foreign aid.

While Indonesia is majority Muslim, he's got his facts wrong: majority-Buddhist countries Thailand (95%) and Sri Lanka (70%) lost more than 50,000 people combined with another 15,000 still missing. And India, 81% Hindu, mourns some 10,000 dead.

Earth to Sullivan: you're a gasbag. Atrios highlights conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan who, responding to Lt. Cmdr. William Whitsitt's comment that he preferred helping tsunami victims to fighting a war, quipped, "Earth to Whitsitt: you're a soldier." At another point, Sullivan wrote, "i'm sorry but i pay for those soldiers to fight in a volunteer army. they are servants of people like me who will never fight. yes, servants of civil masters. and they will do what they are told by people who would never go to war. that's called a democracy."

More perspective: Another lens through which to see the US government's $350 million donation to tsunami-stricken countries: Australia just upped their contribution to a billion dollars (US$764.5 million). Australia's generosity is all the more amazing considering their population (19.9 million people, a fraction of the US's 293 million) and wealth (the Australian GDP for 2004 was $571.4 billion, while the US's was $10.99 trillion). See the CIA's World Factbook for comparisons between the US and Australia.

Bush Family Values: The Bush twins have picked Kid Rock to play a teen concert for Daddy's inauguration. The performer of such musical gems as "Wax That Booty" and "Pimp of the Nation" ("There's only two types of men / pimps and johns / There's one type of bitch /And that's a ho"), perhaps it's a fitting choice. After all, wasn't it a Bush--Neil, in particular--who was serviced by prostitutes while traveling in Hong Kong and Thailand (the same country his uncle is photo-opping in today)? And, well, you could say Neil's brother, George, is pimping us all right now (see post below about the cost of the WMD-free Iraq war). As Patridiot posits, shouldn't Bill O'Reilly--who proposed a boycott of Pepsi for hiring rapper Ludacris a few year back--be spearheading a boycott of the Republican inauguration?

$350 million in perspective: With the war in Iraq costing $130 billion so far, the US contribution of $350 million in tsunami relief is equal to just 42.27 hours of fighting in Iraq. Our daily cost in Iraq: $198.7 million. (Via BoingBoing.)

Tsunami Monument: Gently etched in the Minnesota snow, a quiet prayer to the victims of the tsunamis reads "sleep well" in Thai.

"It's over in Iraq. It's finished." According to veteran correspondent for the UK's The Independent Robert Fisk, we've all but lost the war:

Ultimately, I think what we are going to see, as we have seen in all Middle East wars of occupation, is the opening of some kind of contact between the Americans and the insurgents. This is what the French did after years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, they talked to the FLN. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the IRA. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the militants fighting them in Aden and to EOKA in Cyprus, and indeed, to both militant sides in Palestine that they tried to escape from what Churchill called a hell disaster in 1948.

The Americans will soon, if they have not already, establish contact with the insurgents, and that will mean the beginning of end. It means that the project is over. That they have accepted, as I think, you know, they have already in terms of soldiers on the ground. If you are going to talk to the colonels, and they may -- the majors and the generals in Iraq, they know that the game is up. But the generals back at the Pentagon and the Centcom and down there in old Florida and the gentleman in the State Department and at the White House, they don't accept this because this is a screen of self-delusion between them and the reality on the ground. But it's over in Iraq. It's finished.

What we're going to see this year is the beginning of the endgame, which is how do we get Americans out without losing face and ultimately - I should say faith as well - and ultimately, how do you start negotiation with the insurgents. I mean, that doesn't mean that some American colonel is going to sit down with Zarqawi, though I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility. It means that we're going to have in effect an understanding between the insurgents and the United States forces that the project has failed, that at some point the powers behind the insurgency or the resistance or the terrorists or whatever you would like to call them, will move into place to control the country and they probably will. In the meantime, I fear the Western powers will go on trying to promote the idea of civil war as an alternative to their occupation and oppression and I hope very much that that won't work. As I said to you before, Iraq has never had a civil war. Iraqis don't want a civil war. The only people who fear or talk about civil war are the Americans and British.

Read the full interview.

Prodded toward decency: A day after September 11, 2001, the world rallied around the US, sending money and prayers. So why has it taken the Bush administration so long to react to the tsunami disaster? OK, OK, Bush did act, eventually, by offering an embarrassing $15 million in aid (a figure that rose to $35 million, after some prodding, although reading the US press you'd hardly remember that piddly "stingy" figure; for example, here's Forbes erroneously referring to that "initial $35 million pledge"). Now the US is pitching in a sum a bit more appropriate for its wealth--$350 million. Given the exorbitant pricetag of Bush's war-whim in Iraq, perhaps America can do better (sign this petition to urge a US donation of $1 billion dollars.) As John Nichols writes, Bush failed this global test.

Politicizing tragedy: Hats off to Mr. Doug Patton who on the GOPUSA website uses the death of 150,000 people to promote the cause of American conservatism and radical Republicanism. In response to a UN official's suggestion that the US promise of $15 million was a little on the lean side (what UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egelund said was "...Christmastime should remind many Western countries how rich we have become, and if actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2% of their gross national income, I think that is stingy, really.), Patton excoriated Egelund: "[T]his whining, petty, ungrateful little bureaucrat is trying to tell us we don't pay enough in taxes. In fact, he is saying that we actually want to pay more!" But Doug's not the first to seek political gain from the destruction: Jeb Bush, not the American president, is taking his photo ops in the disaster zone, a move some say is a way to jockey for his future candidacy for national office.

Stingy: Via Tom Tomorrow, a link to Mark C, who takes on a caller to Rush Limbaugh's show who complained that foreign aid didn't help out Florida's hurricaine victims:

OK all you Limbaugh listeners, try to follow along at home as I walk you through this. No matter what you've heard, the US is a very, very wealthy nation. The per capita income in the US is about $35,000. Hurricane Charley hit on Friday, August 13th. By Tuesday, August 17th, FEMA had already issued more than $2 million in checks for disaster relief. Ten days later President Bush asked Congress for $2 billion dollars for aid (he wasn't on vacation then, and its possible that the election had something to do with the amount). Since then the Small Business Administration alone has provided more than $1 billion to Florida businesses to fix hurricane damage.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's per capita income is $3,550, Thailand's is $2,000, Sri Lanka's is $850, India's is $450. The US poverty level for an individual with no children is just over $9,000.

Great women pass: I was saddened by the premature death of Susan Sontag last week; she was a hero of mine for her writing, her artful observations, and her activism. Now another hero, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm has passed on too. The first African American woman to run for Congress, Chisholm was also the first woman of any race to seek the nomination to run for president. The Nation writes:

Chisholm, who died January 1 at age 80, ran as the "Unbought and Unbossed" candidate for the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate. She campaigned in key primary states as a militant foe of the war in Vietnam and a champion of the economic and social justice movements that had organized so effectively during the 1960s. And she did not mince words. A co-convener of the founding conference of the National Women's Political Caucus, she once announced, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes. That kind of talk, along with her refusal to reject the endorsement of the Black Panthers, scared the party establishment -- including most prominent liberals -- and Chisholm's run was dismissed from the start as a vanity campaign that would do nothing more than siphon votes off from better-known anti-war candidates such a South Dakota Senator George McGovern and New York City Mayor John Lindsay. They were not ready for a candidate who promised to "reshape our society," and they accorded her few opportunities to prove herself in a campaign where all of the other contenders were white men. "There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter," Chisholm observed. "Anyone who takes that role must pay a price."

The subject of Shola Lynch's amazing film Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed, her wisdom is as relevant now as ever:

â?¢ When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom profit that lose.

• I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

• At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

• ... rhetoric never won a revolution yet.

Situational Sensitivity? Ashok Malik writes in the The Indian Express:

In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the networks were remarkably correct. ‘‘Sensitive coverage’’, ‘‘respectful of victims’’, ‘‘no violation of privacy’’: the buzzphrases flew thick and fast.

Until last week, they even seemed believable. Unlike the aftermath of 9/11 — when not one dead body was shown on screen, not one ghastly image recorded for posterity, and about the only objectionable visual was of a man jumping to his death — Asia’s tsunami is open season.

Full story here, and a response from an American writer here. (Via Cursor.)

What Gives (and Who): Not that they're related, but... the Bush administration gave out $1.17 billion to faith-based organizations in 2003. And: The top 10 war profiteers list features a number of big Bush donors.

Brains, brawn, brides: A study performed at four British universities makes a correlation between IQ and prospects for marriage. After studying 900 men and women, starting when the subjects were 11 and checking in with them at age 40, they found:

the schoolgirls with high IQs later witnessed a dramatic decline in their marriage prospects. But the brighter schoolboys found it easier to find a bride.

The results are borne out by evidence from psychologists that successful career women are struggling to find “interesting men” who are interested in them.

Relationship experts say professional men prefer to marry women “like their mum” who will provide the domestic support while they go out to work.

Women achievers, however, find it difficult to find men willing to sacrifice their careers to become house husbands.

...For boys, there is a 35% increase in the likelihood of marriage for each 16-point rise in IQ. For girls, there is a 40% drop for each 16-point increase.

Buy Nothing Inauguration: In the spirit of Adbusters' successful Buy Nothing Day, an email making the rounds calls for a buy-nothing presidential inauguration. "On 'Not One Damn Dime Day' those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending." It's a symbolic gesture, sure, but why would anyone call it a hoax?

Tsunami coverup? With 150,000 now estimated dead in the Southeast Asian tsunamis and a swath of destruction that crosses three continents, it's time to ponder: did the Thai government bury warnings to protect the country's tourism industry?

Animal planet: Six elephants that appeared in the film Alexander have been brought in to clear debris from impassable tsunami-hit areas around the Thai island of Phuket and in Phang Nga province. "Like a four-wheel drive," the elephants can go where even all-wheel-drive trucks can't. Also, WiredNews wonders why so few animals were killed in the disaster, citing scientists who refer to animals' "sixth sense."

Health v. wealth: How come US consumers pay more for drugs than just about anyone else (a WHO report shows that average prices for patented drugs are 35 to 50% lower in 25 non-American industrial nations), yet our life expectancies are lower and our infant mortality rates are higher than those in Canada, Japan and all of Western Europe except Portugal?

Tsunami. How do we make sense of disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunamis? Some wonder whether it's karma. Others prescribe the science of prayer. And some, like the Flickr bloggers behind Hands to Southeast Asia, are responding through art: they're sending their love via some 400 individual photos of hands outstretched in prayer or welcome to the people of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, and the other countries hit by the wave. The rest of us, unsure what to do, can send much-needed money. Visit Apple's home page to find links to relief agencies including the Red Cross, UNICEF, and Doctors without Borders. Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia," also offers a comprehensive list of aid organizations. Please give today.

Happy holidays! See you in 2005...

Nutter Utters: The Top Ten Most Outrageous Statements of 2004: Media Matters for America caps off the year with a round-up the nuttiest spewings by rightwing ranters. The honors:

Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Ghraib photos: "I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?"

Ann Coulter: "[Senator John] Kerry will improve the economy in the emergency services and body bag industry."

Tony Blankley called philanthropist George Soros "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."

Michael Savage: "When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. ... [T]hink only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son."

Oliver North: "Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States."

Pat Robertson on gays and lesbians: "[S]elf-absorbed hedonists ... that want to impose their particular sexuality on the rest of America."

Pat Buchanan: "[H]omosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism."

Bill O'Reilly to Jewish caller: "[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel."

Bill Cunningham (Clear Channel radio host who appeared as a guest on The Sean Hannity Show): The election is over because "Elizabeth Edwards has now sung."

Jerry Falwell: "And we're going to invite PETA [to "wild game night"] as our special guest, P-E-T-A -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we're going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my special groups, another one's the ACLU, another is the NOW -- the National Order of Witches [sic]. We've got -- I've got a lot of special groups."

O Fortified Town of Bethlehem: If you're singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" this Christmas, consider this: Mary and Joseph's arduous trek would've taken them through Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem--a path they might not have successfully navigated today. Arjan El Fassed and Annet Meeuws write:

Joseph and Mary would arrive at a town surrounded by a combination of nine Israeli settlements, a stretch of the Wall, roads restricted to Israelis and a multitude of checkpoints, earth mounds and roadblocks. Approximately 78 physical obstacles surround Bethlehem today, along with the Wall, which is nearing completion along the northern and western sides of the city.

Instead of a bustling cultural and spiritual center hosting tourists and pilgrims from around the world, Joseph and Mary would experience Bethlehem as an isolated town, with boarded up shops and abandoned development projects. The age-old link between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is nearly severed as a result of Israeli policies including settlements, a great number of physical barriers and roads restricted to Israelis...

Also from EI: Maureen Clare Murphy writes on the occupation's affect on tourism in Jesus birth city: "Bethlehem has seen much trauma to its economy since the Intifada. A recent UN report informs, 'a total of 28 hotels, 240 olive wood and mother-of-pearl workshops, and 50 restaurants have closed.' Fears of violence and Israeli intimidation and closure have stopped religious tourists from coming to both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and those that do come to what they consider the Holy Land tend to spend most of their time in Jerusalem, and make only brief day trips to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Since approximately 18 percent of Bethlehem's population was employed in the tourism sector before the Intifada, and the Annexation Wall that is ghettoizing Bethlehem continues to be built, the outlook is grim."

Merry Christmas from the USA, starving people of the world: Putting Christ in Christmas means yanking aid to the world's hungry, according to the Bush administration. Remember this when Bush prioritizes permanent tax cuts for the rich ahead of doing our part for those suffering in the world:

With the federal budget deficit expanding and President George W. Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it is unable to honor some promises...

The cuts to charities, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched. As a result, Save The Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves. The programs helped with food supplies through improvements in farming, education and health.

"We have between five and seven million people who have been affected by these cuts," Lisa Kuennen, a food aid expert at Catholic Relief Services, said. "We had approval for all of these programs, often a year in advance," she added. "We hired staff, signed agreements with governments and with local partners, and now we have had to delay everything."

Kuennen said Catholic Relief Services had to cut back programs in Indonesia, Malawi and Madagascar, among other countries.

Officials of several charities, some Republican members of Congress and some administration officials say the food aid budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 was at least $600 million less than what charities and aid agencies would need to carry out current programs.

McD's gets octopied:

SETE, France (AFP) - Armed with a high-pressure hose and a bucket of octopi, hundreds of protestors in this Mediterranean town pelted a McDonalds restaurant due to open this week with the slimy seafood.

Between 300 and 500 people gathered on the banks of the Sete canal, across from the fast-food outlet, playing music and yelling anti-junk-food slogans across the water, as police barred them from reaching the restaurant itself.

Aiming the hose across the water, they catapulted fresh octopi -- a local delicacy, known here as the "pouffre" -- towards the town's first McDonalds, which had been set to open on Saturday.

The crowd held up slogans slamming junk food, dubbed "malbouffe" in French, as well as work conditions in the fast-food industry.

Driving home their point, the protestors were serving up traditional Setois dishes -- one of which is the tielle, a fragrant octopus, tomato and onion pie prized by locals and tourists alike.

The demonstration caused the opening of the restaurant, the first fast-food outlet in the port town following years of resistance by the former communist mayor, to be put off until next week.

A group led by French militant farmer Jose Bove pulled down a McDonalds outlet that was under construction in the southern town of Millau in 1999, earning Bove a jail sentence, although the restaurant was later rebuilt.

More consumer disobedience: Boingboing links to resources for hacking Coke machines.

Immoral majority: A writer to the Washington Post's Terry Neal opines, "I do think the Democrat Party is identified -- justifiably -- with much of the vulgarization so prominently displayed by many celebrities, particularly those in the entertainment industry. Hey, we pick our friends." But as Neal outlines, it ain't that simple. Many Republican donors make tons of cash on peddling porn and other aspects of the immoral economy. Read about the Republican's moral values blindspot.

New Mashup: The Beatles + Beastie Boys = The Beastles.

The Jacir Debacle: Kudos to the Wichita State University and its Ulrich Museum for coming to its senses about the January exhibition of works by Emily Jacir. Jacir, a Palestinian whose dual citizenship allows her freedom to travel where others under occupation in Israel can't, creates poetic and human works about the restrictions on Palestinians, and the piece to be presented in Wichita appeared in the Istanbul and Whitney biennials. Jacir writes:

...The Jewish Federation of Kansas has put pressure on the University and the Museum so that they have been granted permission to place brochures and a sign in the gallery expressing their views concerning the politics of the Middle East. Actually, the University and Museum have no idea what text is contained in the brochures and what the posters are but have given them permission nonetheless.

This is a complete infringement on my right to free speech, not to mention an insult to me as an artist. It is intolerable that I have to go through this just because of my background. I am sure no other artist would accept to work under such conditions. They are placing a huge unnecessary burden on my exhibit with the presence of the brochures which are intended to silence or censor my work. I am shocked that they would place such conditions in a the space of a museum.

On the one hand they are allowing me to speak but on another they are trying to control my work by placing brochures, thereby contextualizing and framing my work in ways I have no control over. Not only is this an infringement to free speech but it also disturbs the integrity of my work...

However, as Joy Garnett reports, the University has backed down, allowing Jacir's work to be presented without recontextualization by the Jewish group (allegedly a rightwing group that supports Bush and has no actual Israeli members). Read all about it at NEWSgrist.

People Who Matter: Citing past examples ranging from Hitler to Churchill, TIME magazine defends its controversial selection of George W. Bush as "Person of the Year." And Ms. notes that TIME's list of 17 "People Who Mattered" only included two women by name--Nancy Reagan and Martha Stewart--as well as the cast of "Desperate Housewives." (Via Cursor.)

Seeing Red: Celebrating his reelection, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold took a golf trip to what may well be the "reddest spot on the whole map"--Alabama. His reflection from the road trip is published on Salon. A snippet:

Now, some may think that Alabama and Wisconsin are the polar opposites of American politics. But in both states I've found that -- along with sharing a sincere appreciation of a good turkey dinner -- too many hardworking people are losing their battles for decent paying jobs and adequate healthcare. I'm tired of seeing the power-hungry persuade the hardworking people of this country that the only way to preserve important values is to vote against their own families' basic interests. I believe that the working people of both states have sacrificed for other people's agendas for too long. And I believe that any political party or political movement or political candidate who would consistently say this would be heard throughout America.

(Thanks, Ben.)

_error

Olga Koumoundouros' excellent sculpture Monument to a town meeting, after Acconci leads off this Adbusters piece. An excerpt from the artist's unpublished statement about the sculpture, a hulking found-wood assemblage that only reveals itself when viewers climb atop it:

"Drop the “T” out of “Terror” and “_error” reveals itself. ...The piece employed the language of minimalist sculpture to discuss American relationships to terror. By presenting itself as a monolithic structure at first glance, ladders are provided to those who wish to climb on top to see that the form spells the word terror. Terror reveals itself only when we get above it. Secure and walled seating space is offered in between the letters for those that climb on top as well. We sit in the midst of terror; we live with terror around us. The “purity” of form indicted.

I Heart Canada: As Morford writes, Canada "simply beat us senseless on the whole open-minded, progressive thing. Kicked our flag-wavin' butts. Trounced our egomaniacal self-righteous selves and made the red states look even more foolish and backward than the whole world already knows them to be." On top of that, our northern neighbor has agreed to welcome US citizens who don't want to fight in Iraq. Canada also won't be financially supporting the US missile shield, and they won't allow US rockets for the system to be launched from Canadian soil. (Via Cursor.)

New Zinn: Historian Howard Zinn writes a post-election essay on how progressives must "Harness That Anger." An excerpt:

Freed from the sordid confines of our undemocratic political process, we can now turn all our energies to do what is discouraged by the voting system--to speak boldly and clearly about what must be done to turn our country around.

And let's not worry about offending that 22 percent of the country (we don't know the exact number but it is certainly a minority) who are religious and political fundamentalists, who invoke God in the service of mass murder and imperial conquest, who ignore the Biblical injunctions to love one's neighbor, to beat swords into plowshares, to care for the poor and downtrodden.

Most Americans do not want war.

Most want the wealth of this country to be used for human needs-health, work, schools, children, decent housing, a clean environment--rather than for billion dollar nuclear submarines and four billion dollar aircraft carriers.

They can be deflected from their most human beliefs by a barrage of government propaganda, dutifully repeated by television and talk radio and the major newspapers. But this is a temporary phenomenon, and as people begin to sense what is happening, their natural instinct for empathy with other human beings emerges.

Tax poll for Minnesotans: Minnesota's Republican Governor, Tim "No new taxes" Pawlenty is soliciting feedback on how to approach the 2006–2007 state budget. Curious that polltakers must assume "There are no new tax revenues and the budget must remain balanced"--a bias you might want to mention when filling out the form. Take the survey here.

(Thanks, John B.)

Jam this: As Eyebeam's reBlog suggests, these customizable magnetic "Support Our Troops"-style car magnets are ripe for culture-jamming.

Salgado in search of pristine nature: "The modern notion that humanity and nature are somehow separate is absurd," writes Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. "Our relationship with nature - with ourselves - has broken down. As the most developed species, humanity may have a special, often dominant, relationship with nature, but it is no less part of nature. Indeed, we cannot survive outside it." Known for arresting black-and-white images of workers, landless peasants, children, and migrants, Salgado is in the beginning stages of an eight-year project to "go to the most pristine places on the planet and photograph them in the most honest way I know, with my point of view, and of course it is in black and white, because it is the only thing I know how to do. I want to see if I can put a kind of virginity in these pictures, if you can say that, and to show 100% respect to nature and the animals." His work will be presented by The Guardian, where the first two installments--photos taken in the Galapagos and Rwanda--are now displayed.

Hidden casualties: As the US military death toll in Iraq teeters at the brink of 1,300, UPI's Mark Benjamin tells Amy Goodman about the hidden casualties of the Iraq war: 17% of GIs returning from Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); one in five of the 30,000 soldiers returning from Iraq has mental problems (according to the Department of Veterans Affairs); some 15,000 GIs have been injured (far below Pentagon estimates that only include soldiers injured by enemy fire), and untold numbers of Iraq vets are already homeless.

Caring for the injured: The New England Journal of Medicine offers a frightening photo essay on what it means to fight--and provide medical care--in Iraq.

The one who stayed: The mass desertions of Bush cabinet members didn't touch the ever-incompetent Donald Rumsfeld. If my opinions seem harsh, check Republican Senator John McCain, who today admitted he has "no confidence" in Rumsfeld's abilities. "I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops — linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Ariz. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

Slavery wasn't so bad, say white Christians: In Gary Taylor's state of Alabama, a school is using a booklet called "Southern Slavery, As It Was" that seeks a biblical justification for the kidnapping and indentured servitude of Africans. The principal of the Cary Christian School defends the use of the highly unorthodox view of slavery: "As a classical Christian school, we think it's important for our students to be able to think and not be slanted to a particular position. We want them to think for themselves." There's no slant in these excerpts from the pamphlet (which, due to bad publicity, has been pulled from the curriculum):

"As we have already mentioned, the 'peculiar institution' of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories." (page 22)

* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

* "There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world." (page 24)

* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports on the booklet and its neo-Confederate authors Douglas Wilson and Steve Wilkins (whose publications feature his opinion that feminists seek "to rob women of their beauty in submission" and that "[I]f neither parent believes in Jesus Christ, then the children are foul — unclean.")

Plus: Are there neo-Confederates in your town?

Dogs of war: Here's an aspect of war I'd never considered:

this time the marines are not chasing down the insurgents who they defeated in a devastating assault on the city last month. Their quarry is stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and who could harbor rabies.

Full story here.

Dispatches from the Piously Correct: The Guardian's Gary Taylor talks with Alabama Republican Rep. Gerald Allen, who's helping shape Bush's policies on "moral" values.

Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

I ask Allen what prompted this bill. Was one of his children exposed to something in school that he considered inappropriate? Did he see some flamingly gay book displayed prominently at the public library?

No, nothing like that. "It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list".

"Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me. They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians".

Earlier: The New York Times' Frank Rich, in discussing the new biopic on Alfred Kinsey, creates a chilling laundry list of evidence suggesting a new, perhaps even more intense form of Victorianism:

Just three weeks after the election, Channel 13 killed a spot for the acclaimed movie "Kinsey," in which Liam Neeson stars as the pioneering Indiana University sex researcher who first let Americans know that nonmarital sex is a national pastime, that women have orgasms too and that masturbation and homosexuality do not lead to insanity. At first WNET said it had killed the spot because it was "too commercial and too provocative" - a tough case to make about a routine pseudo-ad interchangeable with all the other pseudo-ads that run on "commercial-free" PBS. That explanation quickly became inoperative anyway. The "Kinsey" distributor, Fox Searchlight, let the press see an e-mail from a National Public Broadcasting media manager stating that the real problem was "the content of this movie" and "controversial press re: groups speaking out against the movie/subject matter" that might bring "viewer complaints."

...Yet even as the "Kinsey" spot was barred in New York, a public radio station in North Carolina, WUNC-FM, told an international women's rights organization based in Chapel Hill that it could not use the phrase "reproductive rights" in an on-air announcement. In Los Angeles, five commercial TV channels, fearing indecency penalties, refused to broadcast a public service spot created by Los Angeles county's own public health agency to counteract a rising tide of syphilis. Nationwide, the big three TV networks all banned an ad in which the United Church of Christ heralded the openness of its 6,000 congregations to gay couples.

Smelly, rightwing media: In its 12th year, the P.U.-Litzer Prizes--recognizing the smelliest performances in media--have just been announced. Among the honorees: MSNBC's Don Imus, who, just a day after Yassar Arafat died, characterized Palestinians as "They're eating dirt and that fat pig wife of his is living in Paris"; a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post who admits, "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power"; and CNN's Jack Cafferty calling AirAmerica Radio a "communist radio network." This year's top stinker:

It became a media mantra. Two days after the election, the Los Angeles Times reported that "Bush can claim a solid mandate of 51 percent of the vote." Cox columnist Tom Teepen referred to Bush's vote margin as an "unquestionable mandate." Right-wing pundit Bill Kristol argued that Bush's "mandate" went beyond the 49-states-to-one landslides of Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984. Reality check: This was the narrowest win for an incumbent president since 1916. As Greg Mitchell wrote in Editor & Publisher: "Where I come from, 51 percent is considered a bare majority, not a comfortable margin. If only 51 percent of my family or my editorial staff think I am doing a good job, I might look to moderate my behavior, not repeat or enlarge it."

Some suggested runners up, culled from recent postings at Media Matters ("the most vile, despicable human beings in the country," according to Bill O'Reilly): the bible-thumper Pat Robertson saying that "Kwanzaa is an absolute fraud" and Bill O'Reilly's recent comment to a caller who complained that growing up Jewish in a Christian town, he often felt like people were trying to convert him. O'Reilly's retort: "You have a predominantly Christian nation. You have a federal holiday based on the philosopher Jesus. And you don't wanna hear about it? Come on, [caller] -- if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then. "

Military-issue bibles:

Although the International Bible Society (IBS) indeed will crank out a limited-run, special edition of the New International Version Bible in the near future, it's unlikely that readers will discover, for example, a previously unreleased surprise ending to the Good Book. Rather, according to FedBizOpps.com, a site for federal government procurement opportunities, the Department of Defense intends to award the IBS a sole-source contract for the production of 10,000 Bibles containing military-specific messages and imagery. The Bibles - which will be distributed to soldiers of the elite U.S. Special Operations Command - will feature a "custom-designed cover" and "Army designed color photographs and text inserts."

It appears that IBS's crafting of the Special Ops Bible will rely on the "new package, same great taste" approach that the commercial sector often takes when introducing a new logo or easy-grip handle for an existing product. It's hopefully safe to assume that though the Bibles are new, they will not be "improved." IBS has an extraordinary task ahead of it, as they must juxtapose, hypothetically, Christ's "Blessed are the peacemakers" pronouncement with army-centric motivational messages and images. A tough job indeed, given the context of 100,000 "excess casualties" - consisting mainly of women and children - that U.S. and British military forces may have caused since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as indicated in the Oct. 29, 2004, edition of The Lancet, a British medical journal.

(Thanks, Reggie.)

First US soldier seeks asylum in Canada:

A former Marine on the front lines of Iraq, a witness for an American seeking to become the first U.S. soldier granted asylum in Canada, said Wednesday several men in his unit were "psychopaths" who enjoyed killing unarmed Iraqi civilians who posed no threat.

U.S. Army Pfc. Jeremy Hinzman, 26, is calling on the Immigration and Refugee Board to grant him, his wife and 2-year-old son refugee status in Canada, claiming he would face persecution if forced to return to the United States.

He fled Fort Bragg, N.C., to Canada weeks before his 82nd Airborne Division was due to be deployed to Iraq. He had served three years in the Army, but had applied for conscientious objector status before his unit was sent to Afghanistan in 2002.

Hinzman's case comes just as Ottawa is attempting to improve relations with Washington, which soured dramatically after Canada refused to send troops to Iraq.

Jimmy Massey, a staff sergeant who was in the Marines for 12 years and served three months in Iraq before being honorably discharged with post-traumatic stress syndrome, told the immigration board during the last day of Hinzman's three-day hearing that his colleague likely would have been forced to commit atrocities that violated Geneva Conventions.

Full story here.

Go Canadian: For Americans traveling abroad, consider going incognito--as a Canadian.

Dear FCC: A Boingboing reader is messing with the FCC (and Bill O'Reilly) using the Parents Television Council's letterwriting tool:

"I woke up this morning and it suddenly dawned on me that, gee willikers, my show stinks! I have no idea what I'm talking about and I am a menace to the broadcast industry. Shut me up before I open my big yap again!

"By the way, I am writing this from the Parents Television Council's web site. They make it so easy for people like me to send an email complaining to the FCC about anything we want.

"According to Mediaweek, 99.8 percent of the complaints going to the FCC about indecency are coming from this very web site. Only who knows how many of them are legitimate and representative of the will of the great American public? -- Bill O'Reilly, Fox News"

Greenest, Meanest: The Union of Concerned Scientists recognized Honda as the "2004 Greenest Automaker" award yesterday, while dubbi8ng General Motors "Public Polluter #1" for ranking worst of all car companies for environmental standards. (Via Cursor.)

Speak truth to power: Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee National Guard: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? ...We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."

Rummycount: 1,276 soldiers have been killed in Iraq on Rumsfeld's watch.

Disgruntled? Why does the AP piece on this story have a headline that reads Disgruntled soldiers put Rumsfeld on the spot? Are they really disgruntled (in that suspicious "disgruntled ex-employee" way) or do they merely wish to avoid being blown to smithereens?

Cool tool du jour: Can't seem to remember your login info for the LA Times or Chicago Tribune? Visit Bugmenot to get a free password and "bypass compulsory web registration." Very cool.

Feel the love? In George Bush's America, what could be better than one rightwing media empire falling in love with another? Today, Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio corporation (and renowned organizer of pro-war rallies), announced that Fox News Radio will be providing news to some 500 of its affiliates. Alternet has launched a new site, FightFox in response, and you can have your say on the matter--or any other issue related to media policy, perceived bias, and use of the public airwaves--at a public hearing with FCC commissioners Copps and Adelstein in St. Paul, MN, Thursday night.

An "intellectual emetic": This one's dedicated to the "reluctant" Bush supporter (and not-enlisted hawk) I met at Dusty's Dagos (real bar name) recently who said "War is ugly. People die in war. I wish it wasn't that way, but it is." From Mark Morford:

Maybe this should be the rule: If you can't handle seeing what really goes on in a war, maybe you don't deserve to support it. If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV. Clear enough?...

...Here is your uncensored truth: http://www.fallujahinpictures.com. Real pictures from Fallujah. Real pictures of war. Brutal and explicit and shocking and just one site of many. Be warned: this is very graphic content. Horrific and deeply disturbing. No censorship. No suppression. No Photoshop. No bogus shots of happy Iraqi children running in the streets begging for candy from American soldiers. No night shots of Marines in bitchin' night-vision goggles bustin' down the door of some palace and then cheering.

Because if you think that's what it's all been about, if you really think war is just this tragic but necessary evil that contains some unfortunate violence and regrettable death but is nonetheless still full of righteous democratic American truth, you have been wildly misled and deeply deceived  and might want to consider a nice intellectual emetic. You and Dubya both.

(Thanks, John K.)

UCC Petition: Tell CBS and NBC to air the "God is still speaking" ad by visting the United Church of Christ's Action Center (while you're there, check out the other great social-justice issues they're taking on.)

Yahweh or the Highway! Jesus speaks (via Ward Sutton's new comic.)

(Thanks, Reggie.)

Pumpkin pistol: As BoingBoing links to a Texas barbecue shaped like a pistol, I'm reminded of a story about pumpkin guns in the latest issue of The Rake:

The 2004 crop of shooters includes trebuchets, slingshots, spring engines, ballistae, torsion catapults, and colossal compressed air-powered behemoths such as the “Aludium Q36 Pumpkin Modulator,” whose name was inspired by the raygun belonging to Marvin the Martian, one of Bugs Bunny’s more memorable rivals. The Q36 is from Morton, Illinois, the home of Libby’s, who incidentally make quite a lot of canned pumpkin filling. The gun travels to pumpkin-shooting events on large flatbed trailers and is assembled on-site using a construction crane. The machine is basically a giant air gun fabricated from ten-inch-diameter aluminum piping, pneumatic valves and regulators, and other assorted industrial doohickeys. The gun is powered by huge tanks of compressed air and mounted on a steel launch pad the size of your average garage slab. Its barrel spans nearly eight stories and the whole thing is encased in a welded steel superstructure tensioned with guy wires.

When the trigger is tripped, a deafening release of compressed air imparts great gobs of kinetic energy to the projectile in the breech. If it’s a good, tough-shelled pumpkin, it soars about 4,800 feet before splatting into seedy goo upon impact. That’s getting very close to a mile, and brother, that’s a long way to shoot a pumpkin. If the pumpkin can’t handle it, it disintegrates in the barrel and somewhere down-range, it’s raining pumpkin pie.

Too Christian for TV? CBS and NBC are deeming the United Church of Christ's new ad campaign as too "controversial" to air. It's racy message? Tolerance and welcoming:

The 30-second commercial features two muscle-bound “bouncers” standing guard outside a picturesque church and selecting which persons are permitted to attend Sunday services, and turning away apparent gays and persons of color.

Written text interrupts the scene, announcing, “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” A narrator then states, “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is being denied network access, they church says, because its ad implies that other denominations are not as accepting of minorities and therefore too “controversial.”

For more, visit TalkingPointsMemo.

And: The Universalist Unitarian church down the block from work bears a big banner that reads, "Civil Marriage is a Civil Right.” Amen.

Mycorevolution

In the 160-page year-end "Big Ideas" issue of Adbusters, I wrote about the--ahem--mushrooming potential of fungi to do everything from clean up oil spills to cure fatal diseases. My unedited version:

"Some people think I'm a mycological heretic, some people think I'm a mycological revolutionary, and some just think I'm crazy," says Paul Stamets of Shelton, Washington. The revolutionary heresy he practices is one based on mycotechnolgy—using mushrooms to do everything from fighting disease to cleaning up toxic waste, from regenerating damaged logging roads to combating feisty termites and carpenter ants. Author of several books on the medicinal, culinary, and environmental use of mushrooms and the recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute's 1998 Bioneers Award, Stamets uses his business, Fungi Perfecti, to explore how to tap into the power of the vast web of mycelial networks in our soil—a kind of "matrix" of fungal filaments that can grow as big as 20,000 acres. Among the oldest and largest biological entities on the planet, these webs of fungal cells (mycelia) make up "the essential wiring of the Gaian consciousness," says Stamets. They have an "inherent intelligence," an ability to "respond to natural disasters and sudden changes in the environment." In short, mycelia produce acids and enzymes that aid in decomposition by dismantling chains of hydrogen and carbon—these hydrocarbons are at the root of most petroleum products, pollutants, and pesticides. Several years ago, Stamets' had the opportunity to show off his shrooms. In an experiment with the Washington State Department of Transportation, he competed in a contest of sorts: he treated ten cubic yards of diesel-contaminated soil with spores from oyster mushrooms, while other researchers using chemical and biological agents treated their own plots of earth. The other technologies had little success after four weeks, but Stamets fungi were amazing: enormous mushrooms, some a foot in diameter, had covered the soil. When tested, the mushrooms had no traces of petroleum, and 95 percent of the hydrocarbons had been broken down. After 12 weeks the soil was deemed safe enough for the DOT to use for highway landscaping. Continuing research is showing that certain species of fungus can break down sarin and VX nerve gases, that fungal mats can filter out and digest E.coli, and that mushrooms may have a role to play in fighting HIV, to name just a few of Stamets' successes. The potential for this area of study is staggering: each of Stamets' discoveries have come from the study and cataloguing of some 50,000 species of mushrooms—a mere fraction of the estimated 6 million varieties on earth.