Quotes, URL's, Links And References-by:older Femmes, Butches, Ftms, Mtfs, Queer, Etc. [Archive] - Page 8

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 09:53 AM

PEGGY NOONAN

'Whatever It Takes'

Is Bush's big spending a bridge to nowhere?

Thursday, September 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. WSJ

George W. Bush, after five years in the presidency, does not intend to get sucker-punched by the Democrats over race and poverty. That was the driving force behind his Katrina speech last week. He is not going to play the part of the cranky accountant--"But where's the money going to come from?"--while the Democrats, in the middle of a national tragedy, swan around saying "Republicans don't care about black people," and "They're always tightwads with the poor."

In his Katrina policy the president is telling Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this is over Dennis Kucinich will be crying uncle, Bernie Sanders will be screaming about pork."
That's what's behind Mr. Bush's huge, comforting and boondogglish plan to spend $200 billion or $100 billion or whatever--"whatever it takes"--on Katrina's aftermath. And, I suppose, tomorrow's hurricane aftermath.

George W. Bush is a big spender. He has never vetoed a spending bill. When Congress serves up a big slab of fat, crackling pork, Mr. Bush responds with one big question: Got any barbecue sauce? The great Bush spending spree is about an arguably shrewd but ultimately unhelpful reading of history, domestic politics, Iraq and, I believe, vanity.

This, I believe, is the administration's shrewd if unhelpful reading of history: In a 50-50 nation, people expect and accept high spending. They don't like partisan bickering, there's nothing to gain by arguing around the edges, and arguing around the edges of spending bills is all we get to do anymore. The administration believes there's nothing in it for the Republicans to run around whining about cost. We will spend a lot and the Democrats will spend a lot. But the White House is more competent and will not raise taxes, so they believe Republicans win on this one in the long term.

Domestic politics: The administration believes it is time for the Republican Party to prove to the minority groups of the United States, and to those under stress, that the Republicans are their party, and not the enemy. The Democrats talk a good game, but Republicans deliver, and we know the facts. A lot of American families are broken, single mothers bringing up kids without a father come to see the government as the guy who'll help. It's right to help and we don't lose by helping.

Iraq: Mr. Bush decided long ago--I suspect on Sept. 12, 2001--that he would allow no secondary or tertiary issue to get in the way of the national unity needed to forge the war on terror. So no fighting with Congress over who put the pork in the pan. Cook it, eat it, go on to face the world arm in arm.

As for vanity, the president's aides sometimes seem to see themselves as The New Conservatives, a brave band of brothers who care about the poor, unlike those nasty, crabbed, cheapskate conservatives of an older, less enlightened era.

Republicans have grown alarmed at federal spending. It has come to a head not only because of Katrina but because of the huge pork-filled highway bill the president signed last month, which comes with its own poster child for bad behavior, the Bridge to Nowhere. The famous bridge in Alaska that costs $223 million and that connects one little place with two penguins and a bear with another little place with two bears and a penguin. The Bridge to Nowhere sounds, to conservative ears, like a metaphor for where endless careless spending leaves you. From the Bridge to the 21st Century to the Bridge to Nowhere: It doesn't feel like progress.

A lot of Bush supporters assumed the president would get serious about spending in his second term. With the highway bill he showed we misread his intentions.

The administration, in answering charges of profligate spending, has taken, interestingly, to slighting old conservative hero Ronald Reagan. This week it was the e-mail of a high White House aide informing us that Ronald Reagan spent tons of money bailing out the banks in the savings-and-loan scandal. This was startling information to Reaganites who remembered it was a fellow named George H.W. Bush who did that. Last month it was the president who blandly seemed to suggest that Reagan cut and ran after the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon.
Poor Reagan. If only he'd been strong he could have been a good president.

Before that, Mr. Mehlman was knocking previous generations of Republican leaders who just weren't as progressive as George W. Bush on race relations. I'm sure the administration would think to criticize the leadership of Bill Clinton if they weren't so busy having jolly mind-melds with him on Katrina relief. Mr. Clinton, on the other hand, is using his new closeness with the administration to add an edge of authority to his slams on Bush. That's a pol who knows how to do it.

At any rate, Republican officials start diminishing Ronald Reagan, it is a bad sign about where they are psychologically. In the White House of George H.W. Bush they called the Reagan administration "the pre-Bush era." See where it got them.

Sometimes I think the Bush White House needs to be told: It's good to be a revolutionary. But do you guys really need to be opening up endless new fronts? Do you need--metaphor switch--seven or eight big pots boiling on the stove all at the same time? You think the kitchen and the house might get a little too hot that way?

The Republican (as opposed to conservative) default position when faced with criticism of the Bush administration is: But Kerry would have been worse! The Democrats are worse! All too true. The Democrats right now remind me of what the veteran political strategist David Garth told me about politicians. He was a veteran of many campaigns and many campaigners. I asked him if most or many of the politicians he'd worked with had serious and defining political beliefs. David thought for a moment and then said, "Most of them started with philosophy. But they wound up with hunger." That's how the Democrats seem to me these days: unorganized people who don't know what they stand for but want to win, because winning's pleasurable and profitable.

But saying The Bush administration is a lot better than having Democrats in there is not an answer to criticism, it's a way to squelch it. Which is another Bridge to Nowhere.

Mr. Bush started spending after 9/11. Again, anything to avoid a second level fight that distracts from the primary fight, the war on terror. That is, Mr. Bush had his reasons. They were not foolish. At the time they seemed smart. But four years later it is hard for a conservative not to protest. Some big mistakes have been made.

First and foremost Mr. Bush has abandoned all rhetorical ground. He never even speaks of high spending. He doesn't argue against it, and he doesn't make the moral case against it. When forced to spend, Reagan didn't like it, and he said so. He also tried to cut. Mr. Bush seems to like it and doesn't try to cut. He doesn't warn that endless high spending can leave a nation tapped out and future generations hemmed in. In abandoning this ground Bush has abandoned a great deal--including a primary argument of conservatism and a primary reason for voting Republican. And who will fill this rhetorical vacuum? Hillary Clinton. She knows an opening when she sees one, and knows her base won't believe her when she decries waste.

Second, Mr. Bush seems not to be noticing that once government spending reaches a new high level it is very hard to get it down, even a little, ever. So a decision to raise spending now is in effect a decision to raise spending forever.

Third, Mr. Bush seems not to be operating as if he knows the difficulties--the impossibility, really--of spending wisely from the federal level. Here is a secret we all should know: It is really not possible for a big federal government based in Washington to spend completely wisely, constructively and helpfully, and with a sense of personal responsibility. What is possible is to write the check. After that? In New Jersey they took federal Homeland Security funds and bought garbage trucks. FEMA was a hack-stack.

The one time a Homeland Security Department official spoke to me about that crucial new agency's efforts, she talked mostly about a memoir she was writing about a selfless HS official who tries to balance the demands of motherhood against the needs of a great nation. When she finally asked for advice on homeland security, I told her that her department's Web page is nothing but an advertisement for how great the department is, and since some people might actually turn to the site for help if their city is nuked it might be nice to offer survival hints. She took notes and nodded. It alarmed me that they needed to be told the obvious. But it didn't surprise me.

Of the $100 billion that may be spent on New Orleans, let's be serious. We love Louisiana and feel for Louisiana, but we all know what Louisiana is, a very human state with rather particular flaws. As Huey Long once said, "Some day Louisiana will have honest government, and they won't like it." We all know this, yes? Louisiana has many traditions, and one is a rich and unvaried culture of corruption. How much of the $100 billion coming its way is going to fall off the table? Half? OK, let's not get carried away. More than half.

Town spending tends to be more effective than county spending. County spending tends--tends--to be more efficacious than state spending. State spending tends to be more constructive than federal spending. This is how life works. The area closest to where the buck came from is most likely to be more careful with the buck. This is part of the reason conservatives are so disturbed by the gushing federal spigot.

Money is power. More money for the federal government and used by the federal government is more power for the federal government. Is this good? Is this what energy in the executive is--"Here's a check"? Are the philosophical differences between the two major parties coming down, in terms of spending, to "Who's your daddy? He's not your daddy, I'm your daddy." Do we want this? Do our kids? Is it safe? Is it, in its own way, a national security issue?

At a conservative gathering this summer the talk turned to high spending. An intelligent young journalist observed that we shouldn't be surprised at Mr. Bush's spending, he ran from the beginning as a "compassionate conservative." The journalist noted that he'd never liked that phrase, that most conservatives he knew had disliked it, and I agreed. But conservatives understood Mr. Bush's thinking: they knew he was trying to signal to those voters who did not assume that conservatism held within it sympathy and regard for human beings, in fact springs from that sympathy and regard.

But conservatives also understood "compassionate conservatism" to be a form of the philosophy that is serious about the higher effectiveness of faith-based approaches to healing poverty--you spend prudently not to maintain the status quo, and not to avoid criticism, but to actually make things better. It meant an active and engaged interest in poverty and its pathologies. It meant a new way of doing old business.

I never understood compassionate conservatism to mean, and I don't know anyone who understood it to mean, a return to the pork-laden legislation of the 1970s. We did not understand it to mean never vetoing a spending bill. We did not understand it to mean a historic level of spending. We did not understand it to be a step back toward old ways that were bad ways.

I for one feel we need to go back to conservatism 101. We can start with a quote from Gerald Ford, if he isn't too much of a crabbed and reactionary old Republican to quote. He said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."
The administration knows that Republicans are becoming alarmed. Its attitude is: "We're having some trouble with part of the base but"--smile--"we can weather that."

Well, they probably can, short term.

Long term, they've had bad history with weather. It can change.

Here are some questions for conservative and Republicans. In answering them, they will be defining their future party.
If we are going to spend like the romantics and operators of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society;
If we are going to thereby change the very meaning and nature of conservatism;
If we are going to increase spending and the debt every year;
If we are going to become a movement that supports big government and a party whose unspoken motto is "Whatever it takes";

If all these things, shouldn't we perhaps at least discuss it? Shouldn't we be talking about it? Shouldn't our senators, congressmen and governors who wish to lead in the future come forward to take a stand?
And shouldn't the Bush administration seriously address these questions, share more of their thinking, assumptions and philosophy?

It is possible that political history will show, in time, that those who worried about spending in 2005 were dinosaurs. If we are, we are. But we shouldn't become extinct without a roar.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," forthcoming in November from Penguin, which you can preorder from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

(*) (*) It's very odd for such a hard-core neocon (neoconservative) columnist to openly critisize da Village Idiot. And I have to wonder why such an intelligent womyn writer would side with such a dumb a**? Does conservative opinions trump IQ? ;) Her upconing book does cound like an interesting one, if only to stay open-minded to the far right (fart for short). ;)

I must be giddy with having a week (that long?) off from school. I'm taking two PhD business courses starting Monday.

Have a beautiful day! (f) (f)

SWeetlady and Doc the Boxer

Lady_Di

09-27-2005, 10:57 AM

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 02:09 PM

Hi Sweetlady!!!
*throwing a Milk Bone to Doc the handsome Boxer*

Good to see you. I hope that you are doing better. How is the handsome boy, btw? How is school going? I am sure you are having no trouble maintaining that 4.0. As I have the upmost faith in your abilities.

Still interested in going on that cruise, Sweet?

Lady Di

Hi dear one, thank you very much for your thoughtful posting. Doc has been getting better slowly but surely....I am delighted with both how he's been while undergoing chemo since July 17th as well as since the chemo stopped a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for asking and Doc in his unique way of doggie-speak, thanks you for the "Scoobie snack"!

Well, I have two weeks off in December but Alaska might be a bit chilly then.... ;) Have you thought about Patagonia? It would be early Summer then. And oh, what an adventure that would be.....

Or, perhaps an Olivia Spring 2006 cruise - what are your thoughts on that? Then might be a better time for B-F members and friends to go to warm up from the cold of Winter.

I for one though have become a big fan of Winter since I turned 40 and my hormones went awry. I LOVE when it's really cold - and during the last few months bought Doc about a dozen Fido Fleece coats to keep him warm inside and during very abbreviated outside "Boxer-Bio-business breaks", AKA 4B's. ;)

I'll find out my other course grade from the Summer Quarter soon - hopefully my 16 "A's" out of 16 courses taken. My PhD advisor thinks that my grades reflect a "Stepford Learner".....I laughed and told her that it's 1. Passion for learning all kinds of new things and 2. Relentless pursuit of knowledge through research, critical reflection and through experiences. I'd never be this excited without fast access to the Internet although I do sometimes miss those old college libraries for their peace and quiet. Internet is better especially now that it takes $50. to fill my vehicle tank up with petrol. :|

It was *so* good to "see" you this afternoon. PM me sometime and let me know how you've been and what interesting things you have been doing. (f) (f)

Kindest Regards,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 02:15 PM

September 25, 2005

Screech and Tell

By CARRIE FISHER

We went to Newfoundland for many reasons. For one thing, we had never heard anything much about it, and by "we," I mean me; my 13-year-old daughter, Billie; my stepson, Harper Simon; my friend Kim Painter; and my photographer and friend, Meg Ryan, who took along her assistant, Learka Bosnak, and her photo assistant, Dan Hallman.

We started our trip in St. John's, the provincial capital. Over the summer, St. John's stages several historic re-enactments, including one in which Napoleon surrenders to the English. Yes, I know that it's highly unlikely that Napoleon was even in Newfoundland, much less surrendered to the English there, but like the re-enactment itself, that is another story. In the final analysis, though, a huge part of what drew us there was another absurdity: we were going to Dildo, a two-hour drive away along the scenic route. Yes, I said Dildo, the name of a fishing village in Newfoundland. Unusual, you say? Well, yes, I would have to agree with you, but it is by no means the only village with a strange name. It's just across the bay from Spread Eagle.

We set off from St. John's mid-morning, laden with cameras and overnight bags in case we couldn't find a B & B inviting enough and, more to the point, large enough to accommodate all 6,000 of us. Somehow, we managed to fit into one vehicle, trailed by the owner of the hotel where we'd stayed, the Spa at the Monastery and Suites, in his soon-to-be-vintage BMW, carrying our stuff - at least, I think that's why he was with us. Though, I also think his sudden appearance had to do with Meg Ryan's being in the first car.

The ride from St. John's is a picturesque drive through long stretches of green trees sprinkled with small homes here and there. As the roads smoothed out from rolling to winding, we found ourselves driving along the coast, looking at islands in the flat, gray ocean. And in the van we listened to some trip-appropriate local music that I had discovered online. It was by a Canadian band called the Arrogant Worms. They have one song called "A Night in Dildo," to which we sang along: "From Woody's Point to Come by Chance, to good old Ferryland / Come take a look at Gander, Blackhead's mighty grand / Don't let their names deceive you. Newfoundland's mighty fine / so spend a night in Dildo, if you think you've got the time!"

I admit not all of us knew all the words, but when it came to "so spend the night in Dildo, if you think you've got the time!" we all sang out clear and loud. Well, most of us sang out pretty clear. O.K., mostly I sang out clear and loud, and everyone else laughed at me - everyone but my daughter. She didn't think I was funny that day. She would rather have been in Toronto or Vancouver. "Could you please keep your voice down?" she admonished me, hunching down in her seat, gazing out the window away from me.

We arrive in Dildo in the early afternoon. The nifty little sign with an arrow by the roadside tells us so. We all cheer; even Billie brightens as we clamor out of the vehicle and drape ourselves around the sign for Meg to take a picture.

But I have to say, there really isn't that much of a town. Not grouped together in one place, anyway. There's no Main Street; no city hall. What they do have is a coffee-and-gift shop with a statue of Captain Dildo in front of it and a lot of houses dotting the small hills and set along the winding southeastern edge of Trinity Bay.

In the gift shop, we buy everything that has Dildo's name on it for Christmas presents and stocking stuffers. There are T-shirts with pictures of the dear captain. There are road signs and backpacks and burlap bags and potholders and handkerchiefs. We buy them all. Conversation pieces. And this is everyone in our group. We're juvenile. I'm sorry.

There is also a museum near the waterfront, opposite the coffee-gift shop. The museum's gift shop carries T-shirts imprinted with a big, yellow smiley face and the town's name written beneath it. The museum has a display of fishhooks and ropes, but that's about it, so we head to a small local diner for a late lunch. There, we talk to some ladies about how they tried to change the name of the town because everyone thought it meant "artificial penis." We look appropriately baffled.

Dildo's an all right place, but there's not much to do there. So after some discussion, we move on to Brigus, a grossly undersold town in the Conception Bay area. This place is spectacular. It's like driving into the pages of "Our Town," or being in a Grandma Moses painting. It's a poem, a prayer - a perfectly preserved 19th-century village right on land's end, where you can look down from the cliffs above the town onto the bright blue water of the bay below. With two churches on the hill opposite each other and a path leading to the cemetery, it's a place time forgot. There are no neon signs, no stores; only one soda machine. And then, of course, there is Esther's house, where you can buy pies and sit out on the front porch, waiting for Edith Wharton to come walking up the lane.

I don't know why, but Brigus is essentially empty. Whatever the reason, we are lucky because it is magic, trapped inside the Grandma Moses painting with Esther and her pies, waiting to be screeched in.

Being "screeched in" is a Newfoundland tradition: it's how visitors become honorary Newfoundlanders. If it's done right and proper, the bar where you're "screeched in" has a sense of occasion, which Christian's Bar, in St. John's, certainly has. Basically, the ritual includes kissing the mouth of a frozen cod (or the posterior of a stuffed puffin) and scraping the bottom of a barrel of Screech Rum for the dregs and drinking them while a master of ceremonies chants over you. Our screech master cheers us on, making us recite in rapid fire, "Deed I is, me old cock, long may your big jib draw!" after which Harper, Learka and Kim and I down our foul liquid shot (Kim drinks mine by prearrangement), while Billie watches from the sidelines, amused and embarrassed. Meg takes photos of our graduation into Screechdom. We even get a certificate, signed by our master of ceremonies.

So, finally, we are happy - as happy as any honorary Newfoundlander can be, finding himself winding through this not so very new but exceptional place, with loads and loads of land that these nice, fun people live in.

The morning we leave, we head over to the Napoleon re-enactment. As I said, I doubt that Napoleon ever actually visited Newfoundland, but I think that the port wine that his officers drank during their surrender is the same port wine that they have there in St. John's.

Nevertheless, Napoleon is there that morning. So we wait to get our pictures taken with him, but while we wait, the local paparazzi who shows up to photograph the re-enactment starts photographing Meg photographing the re-enactment. And then I decide to photograph the paparazzi photographing Meg. Wow, man, if we'd been on some sort of hallucinogen, this would have blown our minds, layer upon layer upon layer of people photographing something that never happened.

I have an existential breakdown on the way to the airport.

(*) (*) The NYTimes' Fall Travel Supplement from this past sunday was great! Carrie wrote about another trip last year, but this one made me laugh from deep down. :o :o :| :| ;) ;)

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the napping-in-the-sunshine Boxer

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 02:18 PM

February 25, 2005

JOURNEYS

A Grand Season at a Cold Canyon

By EVE GLASBERG

RACING north up Route 180 in Arizona, ahead of a storm moving in from California, I drove through the gray-green Kaibab National Forest and Coconino National Forest. Ponderosa pines stood sentry-like, to the accompaniment of radio warnings of snow - 16 inches in Flagstaff, where I'd come from, and 10 inches where I was headed, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

A family of wild turkeys strutted alongside the road just before the woods gave way to a rolling expanse of scrub country covered with patches of snow. Blue sky alternated with bands of thick, billowy clouds casting a pearly luminescence and concealing the San Francisco Peaks, which normally dominate the eastern horizon. Then, before the snow could catch me, I was there -at the entrance gate of the Grand Canyon National Park. Minutes later, I stood on Mather Point, 7,000 feet in elevation, gaping at the edge of the canyon. No matter what the season, the canyon always takes your breath away.

In winter, a trip to the Grand Canyon is all about weather - cold, foggy and rainy; warm, clear and sunny; frigid and blindingly snowy - not only on the highways and at the airports that provide access to the canyon, but also in the park itself.

At Mather Point that day, the air was crisp and the sun pierced the clouds so that shafts of light illuminated the vivid colors of the rock layers in the canyon walls. Below the rim, where the cliffs and the slopes of the upper canyon descend into the V-shaped inner gorge, snow blanketed the landscape at higher elevations and merely flecked it lower down. At the bottom, roughly a vertical mile below the rim, flowed the sinuous Colorado River. Back up top on Mather Point, tourists piled out of buses and S.U.V.'s, chilly but delighted, busily snapping pictures and exclaiming over the views.

In winter, dramatic and rapid weather changes at the South Rim can make canyon-watching an extreme sport. You can experience four seasons within minutes at Mather Point, going from sunny and mild to a blizzard that obliterates the whole scene and leaves you clutching the overlook railing, enshrouded in a whiteout.

"You can be standing inside a snowstorm with zero visibility when suddenly the storm moves along and you can see all the way to the bottom of the canyon," said Ronald Brown, a ranger in the park. "Sometimes the snow melts as it falls, or the fog will be so thick you can't see the closest rocks. Once in a great while there's an inversion: you'll be standing at the rim with only the tops of the highest rock formations visible. Everything below you is filled with clouds so thick it looks like you could walk right out on top of them."

Still, even in winter, this is sunny Arizona, where that great ball of light in the sky beams down about three of every four days, said Mark Stubblefield, a National Weather Service meteorologist. At the canyon, about half the days in cold months are sunny or partly sunny. A typical pattern is a snowy or foggy day followed by a clear one, as wind from the storm brings in fresh clean air.

Because the hordes thin out once the temperature drops, there is less jostling for space at the overlooks than in summer and there is less need to pass slowpokes on the trails. The National Park Service said that of the 4.67 million people who visited the canyon in 2004, 162,059 arrived in February, compared with 677,633 in July. "The snow makes the canyon look clean and bright," Mr. Brown, the ranger, said. "When clouds and shadows are moving through the canyon and snow is reflecting light off the rocks, it's more breathtaking than usual."

Most of the activities available to canyon visitors in the warm months occur, weather permitting, throughout the winter as well. This includes two-day mule trips down Bright Angel Trail, from Grand Canyon Village, the hub of the South Rim, to Phantom Ranch on the canyon floor, where visitors spend the night. (When severe storms caused a rock slide on Jan. 5, the trail was closed for almost three weeks until it could be cleared. The mule trips resumed on Feb. 7.)

Straight across the canyon from Mather Point is the North Rim, 1,000 feet higher and about 10 air miles away, but more than 200 miles by car and a 21-mile, two-to-three day, cross-canyon hike. From mid-October to mid-May, the North Rim is closed because of snow, but the South Rim remains open year-round (the Park Service keeps the roads clear). Another advantage of visiting the canyon in winter is that fewer travelers mean fewer helicopters and small planes buzzing overhead, spoiling the peace and quiet. During my three-day stay, I saw no aircraft, though they do operate all year.

As I walked the Rim Trail ahead of the storm, I kept tripping over rocks. Instead of looking where I was going, I was riveted by the chasm, which dropped off just inches from my feet. During inclement weather, rangers warn winter hikers to beware of ice, mud, slush and slippery rocks on all of the trails. Hiking poles and instep crampons are recommended for brutally cold days when trails at the high elevations may be icy. (As hikers descend into the canyon, the weather warms up. Average February temperatures are 21 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit on the South Rim and 42 to 62 degrees in the inner gorge. Hikers staying overnight at Phantom Ranch must remember that a mild day by the river can be a snowy one up top.)

Tour buses still come to the canyon in the cold months, but in far fewer numbers, and from December through February visitors can take their own cars onto the Hermit Road, which begins in Grand Canyon Village and dead-ends eight miles to the west. As I drove it, stopping at overlooks, the tempest hit, so I opted to wait it out at Pima Point for that once-in-a-lifetime view of Granite Rapid 5,000 feet below. Post-storm, standing on the narrow promontory that forms Maricopa Point was like being on the prow of a ship that had set sail into a sea of swirling reds, pinks and salmons, the shades of the canyon's epic towers, buttes and pinnacles.

Another 360-degree prospect awaited at Hopi Point, where bands and patterns of color in the cliffs - black bleeding into mustard-yellow, orange melding into coffee-umber-cinnamon-terra-cotta - danced and shimmered in the shifting light. The Grand Canyon, it seems, must be the mother piece of Southwestern pottery, inspiring generations of Indian artists.

At Mohave Point, you can see the Colorado River both coming and going, as it were, from east to west, a skein of muddy-hued water unspooling through the canyon.

I also drove Desert View Drive, which curves along the South Rim for 25 miles from the park's southern entrance to its eastern one. At Lipan Point, windy sheets of freezing rain and snow pelted me, but I hung in there until the ceiling lifted, revealing both a rainbow and the tableland of the Navajo Reservation, ending abruptly at Palisades of the Desert, the sheer bluffs that form the Grand Canyon's eastern wall. Here the Colorado River turns west and enters the black-schist inner gorge. Above, the broad Tonto Platform, consisting mostly of green-gray shale, spreads like a mossy carpet over the canyon.

At every stop I made along both roads, and during my hikes, I encountered people madly trying to record the moment, either by filming the canyon with a camcorder or by taking photographs. But no camera lens is long or wide enough to capture the canyon. After a while, you have to stop looking through the viewfinder and gaze unblinkered at the constantly changing panorama. Only then will you realize that the Grand Canyon is the perfect scale. If it were any deeper or wider, it would be an abyss, and if any smaller, it would lose much of its monumentality. EAGER to see the Colorado River close-up, but not via a boat or a two-day trek on foot, I drove southwest under a bright sun for about 140 miles from the South Rim to Peach Springs, 5,000 feet in elevation and the capital of the Hualapai Reservation, on Historic Route 66. Diamond Creek Road, which requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle even in the best of weather, heads north out of town, dropping 3,000 feet in elevation as it winds 20 miles through Peach Springs Canyon, one of the Grand Canyon's many side canyons, right to the river.

As the only road that runs to the floor of the Grand Canyon, it presents a singular view, especially for those who have seen the canyon only from the South Rim.

Evidence of how green Arizona's desert is - even in winter - surrounded my car as I descended through Peach Springs Canyon. Prickly pear, barrel and spiny cactus, agave and yucca plants, and other desert shrubs climbed far up the canyon walls as they rose all around. The sky was overcast, so the colors were more muted than they had been at the South Rim. Yellow-green willows and cottonwoods appeared as the road crisscrossed Diamond Creek and then, around another bend or two, ended at a beach - mile 226 of the Colorado River's 277-mile course through the Grand Canyon.

The river rushed by, its strong current whooshing over a bed of boulders that ran from the shore to midstream. Its chilly waters, at their winter temperature of 40 degrees, were hardly colder than in summer, when the water temperature through the floor of the canyon rarely rises above 45 degrees.

Since 1964, the release of water from Glen Canyon Dam, 15 miles upstream from the park, has controlled the Colorado's flow through the Grand Canyon. Even so, the river projects its wildness. The Grand Canyon as a whole, in fact, often leaves visitors overwhelmed by its power.

No matter what time of year you go, the canyon stands immutably, despite all the miners and other adventurers who have tried to exploit its resources and failed. It is a place of beauty and rawness that must be appreciated simply for what it is.

South Rim Activities Don't Stop for Winter

VISITORS to Grand Canyon National Park can fly into Flagstaff, Ariz., (80 miles away), Phoenix (230 miles away) or Las Vegas (280 miles away). The Grand Canyon Railway (800-843-8724; www.thetrain.com) runs vintage diesel and steam passenger trains from Williams, Ariz., (65 miles away) to the South Rim.

One of the best hotels on the South Rim is the rambling chalet-style El Tovar, built of logs and native stone in 1905 and exuding a rustic charm. It is being renovated; when it reopens April 13, rates will be $123 to $285. A five-minute walk down the Rim Trail from El Tovar, with equally impressive canyon views, is the 1935 Bright Angel Lodge, which has a history room crammed with memorabilia from the park's early days. Guests stay in small cabins or motel-type rooms. Rates are $49 to $240. Information on both hotels is available at www.grandcanyonlodges.com or by calling (888) 297-2757.

Camping, hiking, biking, mule trips, horseback riding, flight-seeing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and ranger programs are all wintertime options, weather permitting. Just about the only activity not available now is Colorado River rafting; the season begins in mid-April. For more information about any of these activities, visit www.nps.gov/grca.

The Grand Canyon Field Institute (866-471-4435; www.grandcanyon.org/fieldinstitute) offers classes ranging from geology to cultural history.

(*) (*) .....<sigh>.......although I have been here nine (9!) times to the South Rim, I never, ever tire of going. It would be nice to someday soon visit the North Rim however it's closed from October to May as it's another thousand feet higher than the south rim at 8,500 feet. The crowds really thin out in the Winter, the smell of pinion pine and other smoke from fireplaces and bundling up....yummy. (l) (l) (l) Okay who's up for this December? ;)

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 02:23 PM

http://www.petswelcome.com/

(*) (*) I love it!

({) (}) 's

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

09-27-2005, 09:34 PM

http://www.slavetotarget.blogspot.com/

(*) (*) I think Target's commercials are very entertaining but the stores are way, way too crowded for my taste and I HATE shopping except for when I NEED an outfit for a wedding or funeral and then I always go to Nordstrom's. I must admit that I'd love to shop at a Target during off hours when families and kids are at home.... :o Just not a crowd person I suppose. Or perhaps slightly a hermit..... (a)

This blog is amusing and entertaining although older womyn might find it superflous with the age differences of the two womyn authors. Can't always read "steak" articles and web sites.....some bubble gum or cotton candy web sites balance the chewy articles out, in my view. ;) ;)

Have a lovely mid-week. (f) (f)

Warmly,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:24 AM

Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris

June 18/no spamming of other sites/September 11, 2006

Born in the heart of Europe during World War I, the Dada movement displayed a raucous skepticism about accepted values and artistic practices and addressed pressing questions posed by modernity itself. This is the first major museum exhibition in the United States to focus exclusively on Dada, one of the most significant movements of the historical avant-garde.

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2006/dada.html

Pixar's coming December, 2005 through Feb. 2006:

Pixar

December 14, 2005/no spamming of other sites/February 6, 2006

The Museum of Modern Art presents Pixar, in the most extensive theater and gallery exhibition it has ever devoted to the art of animation. Pixar Animation Studios has had worldwide critical and box office success with its feature films, from Toy Story (1995) to The Incredibles (2004). The exhibition marks the first time Pixar is lending its collection of art and films. In addition to six features and a number of shorts that will be screened in MoMA's Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, the Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery will be devoted to moving-image work created especially by the studio for this exhibition.

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/pixar.html

(l) (l) (h) (l) (h)

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady & Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:27 AM

The Ghost City

By George Friedman

The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: it permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the East and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.

But it was not the extraordinary land or the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography—the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one —the Mississippi—and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold, and reloaded on oceangoing vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.

For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers—which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.

During the cold war, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: a U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. New Orleans was the prize.

On Sunday, August 28, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.

The ports of South Louisiana (POSL) and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products—corn, soybeans, and so on. A large proportion of US agriculture flows out of the port. Even more cargo, nearly 69 million tons, comes in through the port—including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete, and so on.

A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of American agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities needed for American industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: the very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact on the US auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if US corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.

The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The US transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities —assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.

The focus in the press and television has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of US-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.

There is clearly good news as information comes in. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, suffered minimal damage while Port Fourchon, which serves it, has had no damage that could not readily be repaired. Offshore oil platforms have been damaged but, on the whole, they and the oil transportation network have generally held up.

The news on the river is also far better than might have been expected. The levees on the Mississippi continue to contain the river, which has not changed its course. The levees that broke and allowed water to pour into New Orleans were on the canal side and more weakly constructed. The Mississippi has not silted up and, while the Coast Guard continues to survey the river, it appears to be fully navigable. Even the port facilities, although obviously suffering some damage, are still there. The river as a transport corridor has not been lost.

What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburbs around it. As I write, most of the population has fled, leaving behind a small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfed the inadequate resources that were made available to relieve the condition of those who were trapped. But it is not the population that is still in and around New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: it is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.

The oil fields, pipelines, and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it—and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that most of it will not be habitable for a long time.

It may be possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that most of those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends, or are in shelters far from New Orleans. Many also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite—and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans anytime soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then whatever emotional connections they may have to their home, their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.

A city is a complex and ongoing process—one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. I don't simply mean power plants and sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are for the most part gone—and they are not coming back anytime soon.

It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to me that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of huge resources from outside—and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.

The displacement of population due to destruction, disease, and pollution is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, except for the remaining refugees, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.

Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to make this exchange possible. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.

Katrina and the events following it have taken out the port—not by fatally destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system—the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.

It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, at least some part of the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be while still being accessible to oceangoing vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north for oceangoing vessels. Barges can pass under the bridge, but cargo must first be transferred to them, and for that a port is needed. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: the United States needs a city right there.

New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. Vulnerable to inundation, it is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city of some kind will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port, or part of it, will have to be opened soon. The port area will have to be cleared, by herculean effort if necessary. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.

Geopolitics concerns permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. If the logic of geopolitics prevails, it will force the city's resurrection, even if it will be greatly changed, and in the worst imaginable place.

—September 8, 2005

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18292

:| :| :o :o

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:32 AM

September 29, 2005

After the Love Is Gone

By NORA EPHRON

I broke up with Bill a long time ago. It's always hard to remember love - years pass and you say to yourself, was I really in love or was I just kidding myself? Was I really in love or was I just pretending he was the man of my dreams? Was I really in love or was I just desperate? But when it came to Bill, I'm pretty sure it was the real deal. I loved the guy.

As for Bill, I have to be honest: he did not love me. In fact, I never even crossed his mind. Not once. But in the beginning that didn't stop me. I loved him, I believed in him, and I didn't even think he was a liar. Of course, I knew he'd lied about his thing with Gennifer, but at the time I believed that lies of that sort didn't count. How stupid was that?

Anyway, I fell out of love with Bill early in the game - over gays in the military. That was in 1993, after he was inaugurated, and at that moment my heart turned to stone. People use that expression and mean it metaphorically, but if your heart can turn to stone and not have it be metaphorical, that's how stony my heart was where Bill was concerned. I'd had faith in him. I'd been positive he'd never back down. How could he? But then he did, he backed down just like that. He turned out to be just like the others. So that was it. Goodbye, big guy. I'm out of here. Don't even think about calling. And by the way, if your phone rings and your wife answers and the caller hangs up, don't think it's me because it's not.

By the time Bill got involved with Monica, you'd have thought I was past being hurt by him. You'd have thought I'd have shrugged and said, I told you so, you can't trust the guy as far as you can spit. But much to my surprise, Bill broke my heart all over again. I couldn't believe how betrayed I felt. He'd had it all, he'd had everything, and he'd thrown it away, and here's the thing: it wasn't his to throw away. It was ours. We'd given it to him, and he'd squandered it.

Years passed. I'd sit around with friends at dinner talking about How We Got Here and Whose Fault Was It? Was it Nader's fault? Or Gore's? Or Scalia's? Even Monica got onto the list, because after all, she delivered the pizza, and that pizza was truly the beginning of the end. Most of my friends had a hard time narrowing it down to a choice, but not me: only one person was at fault, and it was Bill. I drew a straight line from that pizza to the war. The way I saw it, if Bill had behaved, Al would have been elected, and thousands and thousands of people would be alive today who are instead dead.

I bring all this up because I bumped into Bill the other day. I was watching the Sunday news programs, and there he was. I have to say, he looked good. And he was succinct, none of that wordy blah-blah thing that used to drive me nuts. He'd invited a whole bunch of people to a conference in New York and they'd spent the week talking about global warming, and poverty, and all sorts of obscure places he knows a huge amount about.

When Bill described the conference, it was riveting. I could see how much he cared; and of course, I could see how smart he was. It was so refreshing. It was practically moving. To my amazement, I could even see why I'd loved the guy in the first place. It made me sadder than I can say. It's much easier to get over someone if you can delude yourself into thinking you never really cared that much.

Then, later in the week, I was reading about Bill's conference, and I came upon something that made me think, for just a moment, that Bill might even want me back. "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me," he said. "I just don't want anyone to die before their time any more." It almost really got to me. But then I came to my senses. And instead I just wanted to pick up the phone and call him and say, if you genuinely believe that, you hypocrite, why don't you stand up and take a position against this war?

But I'm not calling. I haven't called in years and I'm not starting now.

Nora Ephron is a writer and director.

(*) (l) (h) (*) (l) (h)

;) ;)

SL & DTB

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:39 AM

September 28, 2005

Dancing in the Dark

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

I can't wait to see what's next.

Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon? Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?

Maybe now that our hydrocarbon president is the conservation president, he'll downgrade from Air Force One to a solar-powered Piper Cub as he continues to stalk the Gulf Coast towns and oil rigs like Banquo's ghost.

The once disciplined and swaggering Bush administration has descended into slapstick, more comical even than having Clarence Thomas et al. sit in judgment as Anna Nicole Smith attempts to get more of the moolah of her late oil tycoon husband.

We've got the clownish Brownie still on FEMA's payroll, giving advice on cleaning up the mess he made. ( Let's hope the White House is paying him only long enough to buy his good will, not to take any of his bad advice.)

We've got two oilmen in the White House whose administration was built on urging us to consume and buy as much oil and energy as possible. Now they're suddenly urging us to conserve. (Since Mr. Cheney considers conservation a "personal virtue," at least he'll get some virtue.)

The president called on Americans to drive less, and told his staff members to turn off their computers at night, turn down the air-conditioning, form carpools and take the bus.

At the same time, he set a fine example by wasting gazillions of gallons of fuel with all the planes and Secret Service vans and press motorcades and police escorts that follow him around every time he goes on one of his inane photo-ops from the Colorado bunker to what's left of the Mississippi Delta and the Bayou. He did his part by knocking off a few cars from his motorcade on his seventh trip to the gulf yesterday - but if residents had hoped he'd bring them some water, they went thirsty.

"Even so," as The Times's Elisabeth Bumiller wrote, "security dictated that Mr. Bush's still-impressive caravan pick him up at the base of Air Force One in Lake Charles, La. - and drop him off just yards away for a meeting with local officials at an airport terminal."

Noting that the Bush administration has proposed new fuel economy standards that critics say could make huge S.U.V.'s and pickups even more popular, Reuters published some arithmetic about the president's notorious fuel inefficiency.

Air Force One costs $83,200 to fill up and more than $6,000 per hour to fly. Then there's the cost of helicopters and a 2006 Cadillac DTS limo that gets less than 22 miles per gallon.

Karen Hughes, the Bush nanny who knows nothing about the Muslim world and yet is charged with selling the U.S. to it, wasted even more fuel this week flying to Saudi Arabia to tell women covered from head to toe in black how much she likes driving even though they can't.

She knows so little about the Middle East that she looked taken aback when some Saudi women told her that just because they could not vote or drive did not mean that they felt they were treated unfairly.

One thing Saudi women like even less than not having certain rights is to have hypocritical Americans patronize them.

The moment when America should have used its influence to help Saudi women came on Nov. 6, 1990, as U.S. forces gathered in the kingdom to go to war in Iraq the first time. Inspired by the U.S. troops, including female soldiers, 47 women from the Saudi intelligentsia took the wheels from their brothers and husbands and drove until the police stopped them.

They were branded "whores" and "harlots" by Saudi clerics, had their passports revoked, and were ostracized from society for a dozen years. Even their husbands suffered.

The experience made them more angry at the U.S. than at their own rulers. They feel that the Bushes play up the repression of women in the Middle East when it suits their desire to bang the war drums, but do not care what happens to women once the ideological agenda has been achieved.

They feel the administration and the American media have emphasized the repression of Saudi women post-9/11 as a way to demonize Saudi Arabia and paint Saudi men as bullies and terrorists.

When Ms. Hughes goes to Saudi Arabia to introduce herself as "a mom" and to talk about Americans as people of faith, guzzling fuel all the way in a country getting flush selling us oil, I think we can consider it taxpayer money well spent.

W. doesn't really need to worry about turning down the lights in the White House. The place is already totally in the dark.

(*) (*) Among other insights, Maureen really nailed it with, "One thing Saudi women like even less than not having certain rights is to have hypocritical Americans patronize them." (*) (*)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:41 AM

21 Variations on "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-haa!"

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/09/21_variations_o.html

(*) (*) ;) ;)

(k) (k) 's,

SL & DTB

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:43 AM

Tomdispatch Interview: Cindy Sheehan, Our Imploding President

Katrina Will Be Bush's Monica
A Tomdispatch Interview with Cindy Sheehan

My brief immersion in the almost unimaginable life of Cindy Sheehan begins on the Friday before the massive antiwar march past the White House. I take a cab to an address somewhere at the edge of Washington DC -- a city I don't know well -- where I'm to have a quiet hour with her. Finding myself on a porch filled with peace signs and vases of roses (assumedly sent for Sheehan), I ring the doorbell, only to be greeted by two barking dogs but no human beings. Checking my cell phone, I discover a message back in New York from someone helping Sheehan out. Good Morning America has just called; plans have changed. Can I make it to Constitution and 15th by five? I rush to the nearest major street and, from a bus stop, fruitlessly attempt to hail a cab. The only empty one passes me by and a young black man next to me offers an apologetic commentary: "I hate to say this, but they probably think you're hailing it for me and they don't want to pick me up." On his recommendation, I board a bus, leaping off (twenty blocks of crawl later) at the sight of a hotel with a cab stand.

A few minutes before five, I'm finally standing under the Washington monument, beneath a cloud-dotted sky, in front of "Camp Casey," a white tent with a blazing red "Bring them home tour" banner. Behind the tent is a display of banged-up, empty soldiers' boots; and then, stretching almost as far as the eye can see or the heart can feel, a lawn of small white crosses, nearly two thousand of them, some with tiny American flags planted in the nearby ground. In front of the serried ranks of crosses is a battered looking metal map of the United States rising off a rusty base. Cut out of it are the letters, "America in Iraq, killed ___, wounded ___." (It's wrenching to note that, on this strange sculpture with eternal letters of air, only the figures of 1,910 dead and 14,700 wounded seem ephemeral, written as they are in white chalk over a smeared chalk background, evidence of numerous erasures.)

This is, at the moment, Ground Zero for the singular movement of Cindy Sheehan, mother of Casey, who was killed in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004, only a few days after arriving in Iraq. Her movement began in the shadows and on the Internet, but burst out of a roadside ditch in Crawford, Texas, and, right now, actually seems capable of changing the political map of America. When I arrive, Sheehan is a distant figure, walking with a crew from Good Morning America amid the white crosses. I'm told by Jodie, a stalwart of Code Pink, the women's antiwar group, in a flamboyant pink-feathered hat, just to hang in there along with Joan Baez, assorted parents of soldiers, vets, admirers, tourists, press people, and who knows who else.

As Sheehan approaches, she's mobbed. She hugs some of her greeters, poses for photos with others, listens briefly while people tell her they came all the way from California or Colorado just to see her, and accepts the literal T-shirt off the back of a man, possibly a vet, with a bandana around his forehead, who wants to give her "the shirt off my back." She is brief and utterly patient. She offers a word to everyone and anyone. At one point, a man shoves a camera in my hand so that he and his family can have proof of this moment -- as if Cindy Sheehan were already some kind of national monument, which in a way she is.

But, of course, she's also one human being, even if she's on what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton would call a "survivor mission" for her son. Exhaustion visibly inhabits her face. (Later, she'll say to me, "Most people, if they came with me for a day, would be in a coma by eleven A.M.") She wears a tie-dyed, purple T-shirt with "Veterans for Peace" on the front and "waging peace" on the back. Her size surprises me. She's imposing, far taller than I expected, taller certainly than my modest five-foot, six inches. Perhaps I'm startled only because I'd filed her away -- despite every strong commentary I'd read by her – as a grieving mother and so, somehow, a diminished creature.

And then, suddenly, a few minutes after five, Jodie is hustling me into the backseat of a car with Cindy Sheehan beside me, and Joan Baez beside her. Cindy's sister Dede, who wears an "Anything war can do, peace can do better" T-shirt and says to me later, "I'm the behind-the-scenes one, I'm the quiet one," climbs into the front seat. As soon as the car leaves the curb, Cindy turns to me: "We better get started."

"Now?" I ask, flustered at the thought of interviewing her under such chaotic conditions. She offers a tired nod -- I'm surely the 900th person of this day -- and says, "It's the only way it'll happen." And so, with my notebook (tiny printed questions scattered across several pages) on my knees, clutching my two cheap tape recorders for dear life and shoving them towards her, we begin:

Tomdispatch: You've said that the failed bookends of George Bush's presidency are Iraq and Katrina. And here we are with parts of New Orleans flooded again. Where exactly do you see us today?

Cindy Sheehan: Well, the invasion of Iraq was a serious mistake, and the invasion and occupation have been seriously mismanaged. The troops don't have what they need. The money's being dropped into the pockets of war profiteers and not getting to our soldiers. It's a political war. Not only should we not be there, it's making our country very vulnerable. It's creating enemies for our children's children. Killing innocent Arabic Muslims, who had no animosity towards the United States and meant us no harm, is only creating more problems for us.

Katrina was a natural disaster that nobody could help, but the man-made disaster afterwards was just horrible. I mean, number one, all our resources are in Iraq. Number two, what little resources we did have were deployed far too late. George Bush was golfing and eating birthday cake with John McCain while people were hanging off their houses praying to be rescued. He's so disconnected from this country -- and from reality. I heard a line yesterday that I thought was perfect. This man said he thinks Katrina will be Bush's Monica. Only worse.

TD: It seems logical that the families of dead soldiers should lead an antiwar movement, but historically it's almost unique. I wondered if you had given some thought to why it happened here and now.

CS: That's like people asking me, "Why didn't anybody ever think of going to George Bush's ranch to protest anything?"

TD: I was going to ask you that too…

CS: [Laughs.] I don't know. I just thought of it and went down to do it. It was so serendipitous. I was supposed to go to England for a week in August to do Downing Street [Memo] events with [Congressman] John Conyers. That got cancelled. I was supposed to go to Arkansas for a four-day convention. That got cancelled. So I had my whole month free. I was going to be in Dallas for the Veteran's for Peace convention. The last straw was on Wednesday, August 3 -- the fourteen Marines who were killed and George Bush saying that all of our soldiers had died for a noble cause and we had to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by continuing the mission. I had just had it. That was enough and I had this idea to go to Crawford.

The first day we were there -- this is how unplanned it was -- we were sitting in lawn chairs, about six of us, underneath the stars with one flashlight between us, and we were going to the bathroom in a ten-gallon bucket.

DeDe: Five-gallon…

CS: A Five-gallon bucket, sorry. So that's how well planned this action was. We just planned it as we were going along and, for something so spontaneous, it turned out to be incredibly powerful and successful. It's hard for some people to believe how spontaneous it was.

TD: You've written that George Bush refusing to meet with you was the spark that lit the prairie fire -- and that his not doing so reflected his cowardice. You also said that if he had met you that fatal… fateful day…

Joan Baez: Fatal day…

TD: Fatal -- it was fatal for him -- things might have turned out quite differently.

CS: If he had met with me, I know he would have lied to me. I would have called him on his lies and it wouldn't have been a good meeting, but I would have left Crawford. I would have written about it, probably done a few interviews, but it wouldn't have sparked this exciting, organic, huge peace movement. So he really did the peace movement a favor by not meeting with me.

TD: I thought his fatal blunder was to send out [National Security Advisor Stephen] Hadley and [Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joe] Hagin as if you were the prime minister of Poland. [She laughs.] And it suddenly made you in terms of the media…

CS: …credible.

TD: So what did Hadley and Hagen say to you?

CS: They said, "What do you want to tell the President?" I said, "I want to ask the President, what is the noble cause my son died for?" And they kept telling me: Keep America safe from terrorism for freedom and democracy. Blah-blah-blah… all the excuses I wasn't going to take, except from the President. Then we talked about weapons of mass destruction and the lack thereof, about how they had really believed it. I was: Well, really, Mr. Stephen (Yellowcake Uranium) Hadley… I finally said, "This is a waste of time. I might be a grieving mother, but I'm not stupid. I'm very well informed and I want to meet with the President." And so they said, "Okay, we'll pass on your concerns to the President."

They said at one point, "We didn't come out here thinking we'd change your mind on policy." And I said, "Yes you did." They thought they were going to intimidate me, that they were going to impress me with the high level of administration official they had sent out, and after they explained everything to me, I was going to go [her voice becomes liltingly mocking], "Ohhhh, I really never saw it that way. Okay, let's go guys." You know, that's exactly what they thought they were going to do to me. And I believe it was a move that did backfire because, as you said, it gave me credibility and then, all of a sudden, the White House press corps thought this might be a story worth covering.

TD: What was that like? I had been reading your stuff on the Internet for over a year, but…

CS: I think in progressive circles I was very well known. But all of a sudden I was known all over the world. My daughters were in Europe when my mother had her stroke. My husband and I decided not to tell the girls. We didn't want to ruin their vacation, but they saw it on TV. So it really just spread like wildfire. And not only did it bring wanted attention, it brought unwanted attention from the right-wing media. But that didn't affect me, that didn't harm me at all.

I'd been doing this a long time. I'd been on Wolf Blitzer, Chris Mathews, all those shows. I'd done press conferences. It was just the intensity that spiked up. But my message has always remained the same. I didn't just fall off some pumpkin truck on August 6th and start doing this. The media couldn't believe someone like me could be so articulate and intelligent and have my own message. Number one, I'm a woman; number two, I'm a grieving mother; so they had the urge to marginalize me, to pretend like somebody's pulling my strings. Our President's not even articulate and intelligent. Someone must be pulling his strings, so someone must be pulling Cindy Sheehan's too. That offended me. Oh my gosh, you think someone has to put words into my mouth! [She laughs.] Do some research!

TD: Did you feel they were presenting you without some of your bluntness?

CS: God forbid anybody speak bluntly or tell the truth. Teresa Heinz Kerry, they marginalized her too because she always spoke her mind.

TD: Would you like to speak about your bluntness a little because words you use like "war crimes" aren't ones Americans hear often.

CS: All you have to do is look at the Nuremberg Tribunal or the Geneva Conventions. Clearly they've committed war crimes. Clearly. It's black and white. It's not me coming up with this abstract idea. It's like, well, did you put a bullet in that person's head or didn't you? "Yes I did." Well, that's a crime. It's not shades of grey. They broke every treaty. They broke our own Constitution. They broke Nuremberg. They broke the Geneva Conventions. Everything. And if somebody doesn't say it, does it mean it didn't happen? Somebody has to say it, and I'll say it. I've called George Bush a terrorist. He says a terrorist is somebody who kills innocent people. That's his own definition. So, by George Bush's own definition, he is a terrorist, because there are almost 100,000 innocent Iraqis that have been killed. And innocent Afghanis that have been killed.

And I think a lot of the mainstream opposition is glad I'm saying it, because they don't have to say it. They're not strong enough or brave enough or they think they have something politically at stake. We've had Congress members talk about impeachment and war crimes. I've heard them. But they're the usual suspects. They're marginalized too. They've always been against the war, so we can't listen to them.

You know, I had always admired people like the woman who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving or John Walsh for starting the Adam Walsh Foundation after his son was killed. I thought I could never do anything like that to elevate my suffering or my tragedy, and then, when it happened to me, I found out I did have the strength.

[It's about 5:30 when we pull up at a Hyatt Hotel. Cindy, Dede, and I proceed to the deserted recesses of the hotel's restaurant where Cindy has her first modest meal of the day. The rest of the interview takes place between spoonfuls of soup.]

TD: I've read a lot of articles about you in which your son Casey is identified as an altar boy or an Eagle Scout, but would you be willing to tell me a little more about him?

CS: He was very calm. He never got mad. He never got too wild. One way or the other, he didn't waver much. I have another son and two daughters. He was the oldest one and they just idolized him. He never gave anybody trouble, but he was a procrastinator, the kind of person who, if he had a big project at school, would wait until the day before to do it. But when he had a job -- he worked full time before he went into the Army and he was never late for work or missed a day in two years. I think that's pretty amazing. The reason we talk about him being an altar boy was that church was his number one priority, even when he was away from us in the Army. He helped at the chapel. He never missed Mass. He was an usher. He was a Eucharistic minister. When he was at home, he was heavily involved in my youth ministry.

For eight years I was a youth minister at our parish and for three of those years in high school he was in my youth group; then for three of those years in college he helped me.

TD: Tell me about his decision to join the Army.

CS: A recruiter got hold of him, probably at a vulnerable point in his life, promised him a lot of things, and didn't fulfill one of the promises. It was May of 2000. There was no 9/11. George Bush hadn't even happened. When George Bush became his commander-and-chief, my son's doom was sealed. George Bush wanted to invade Iraq before he was even elected president. While he was still governor of Texas he was talking about: "If I was commander-and-chief, this is what I would do."

Back then, my son was promised a twenty thousand dollar signing bonus. He only got four thousand dollars of that when he finished his advanced training. He was promised a laptop, so he could take classes from wherever he was deployed in the world. He never got that. They promised him he could finish college because he only had one year left when he went in the Army. They would never let him take a class. They promised him he could be a chaplain's assistant which was what he really wanted to do; but, when he got to boot camp, they said that was full and he could be a Humvee mechanic or a cook. So he chose Humvee mechanic. The most awful thing the recruiter promised him was: Even if there was a war, he wouldn't see combat because he scored so high on the ASVAB [Career Exploration] tests. He would only be in war in a support role. He was in Iraq for five days before he was killed in combat.

TD: Did you discuss Iraq with him at all?

CS: Yes we did. He didn't agree with it. Nobody in our family agreed with it. He said, "I wish I didn't have to go, Mom, but I have to. It's my duty and my buddies are going." I believe we as Americans have every right to, and should be willing to, defend our country if we're in danger. But Iraq had nothing to do with keeping America safe. So that's why we disagreed with it. He reenlisted after the invasion of Iraq, because he was told if he didn't, he'd have to go to Iraq anyway -- he'd be stop-lossed -- but if he did, he'd get to choose a new MOS [military specialty] when he got home.

TD: Can you tell me something about your own political background?

CS: I've always been a pretty liberal democrat, but I don't think this issue is partisan. I think it's life and death. Nobody asked Casey what political party he belonged to before they sent him to die in an unjust and immoral war.

TD: You met with Hillary Clinton yesterday, didn't you? What do you think generally of the Democratic... well, whatever it is?

CS: They've been very weak. I think Kerry lost because he didn't come out strong against the war. He came out to be even more of a nightmare than George Bush. You know, we'll put more troops in; I'll hunt down terrorists; I'll kill them! That wasn't the right thing to say. The right thing to say was: This war was wrong; George Bush lied to us; people are dead because of it; they shouldn't be dead; and if I'm elected, I'll do everything to get our troops home as soon as possible. Then, instead of seeing the failure Kerry was with his middle-of-the-road, wishy-washy, cowardly policies, the rest of the Democrats have just kept saying the same things.

Howard Dean came out and said he hopes that the President is successful in Iraq. What's that mean? How can somebody be successful when we have no goals or defined mission or objectives to achieve there? They've been very cowardly and spineless. What we did at Camp Casey was give them some spine. The doors are open to them, Democrats and Republicans alike. As [former Congressman and Win Without War Director] Tom Andrews said, if they won't see the light, they'll feel the heat. And I think they're feeling the heat.

I can see it happening. I can see some Republicans like Chuck Hagel and Walter Jones breaking ranks with the party line. We met with a Republican yesterday -- I don't want to say his name because I don't want to scare him off -- but he seems to be somebody we can work with. Of course, as it gets closer to the congressional elections, we'll be letting his constituents know that he can be worked with.

TD: So you're planning to go into the elections as a force?

CS: It's totally about the war, about their position on the war. If people care about that issue, then that's what they should make it about too. We're starting a "Meet with the Moms" campaign. We're going to target every single congressman and senator to show their constituents exactly where they stand on the war. People in the state of New York, for instance, should look at their senators and say, if you don't come out for bringing our troops home as soon as possible, we're not going to reelect you.

TD: Did Hillary give you any satisfaction at all?

CS: Her position is still to send in more troops and honor the sacrifices of the fallen, which sounds like a Bush position, but the dialogue was open.

TD: Don't you think it's strange, these politicians like [Senator] Joe Biden, for example, who talk about sending in more troops, even though we all know there are no more troops?

CS: Yes... Where you gettin' ‘em? Where you gettin' ‘em? It's crazy. I mean we're going to send more troops in there and leave our country even more vulnerable? Leave us open for attack somewhere else, or to be attacked by natural and man-made disasters again?

TD: You want the troops out now. Bush isn't about to do that, but have you thought about how you would proceed if you could?

CS: When we say now, we don't mean that they can all come home tomorrow. I hope everybody knows that. We have to start by withdrawing our troops from the cities, bringing them to the borders and getting them out. We have to replace our military with something that looks Arabic, something that looks Iraqi, to rebuild their country. You know, they have the technology, they have the skills, but they don't have any jobs right now. How desperate for a job does one have to be to stand in line to apply to the Iraqi National Guard? I mean, they're killed just standing in line! Give the Iraqis as much help and support as they need to rebuild their country which is in chaos. When our military presence leaves, a lot of the violence and insurgency will die. There will be some regional struggles with the different communities in Iraq, but that's happening right now. The British put together a country that should never have been put together. Maybe it should be split into three different countries -- who knows? But that's up to them, not us.

TD: And what do you actually expect? We have three and a half more years of this administration…

CS: No we don't! [She chuckles.] I think Katrina's going to be his Monica. It's not a matter of "if" any more, it's a matter of "when," because clearly… clearly, they're criminals. I mean, look at the people who got the first no-bid contracts to clean-up and rebuild New Orleans. It's Halliburton again. It's crazy. One negative effect of Camp Casey was it took a lot of heat off Karl Rove for his hand in the [Valerie] Plame case. But I hear indictments are coming down soon. So that's one way it's going to come about. George Bush is getting ready to implode. I mean have you seen him lately? He's a man who's out of control.

(*) (*) AMEN.

SL & DTB

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:47 AM

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY

http://www.mentalsoup.com/mentalsoup/basic.htm

(*) (*) ;) ;)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:51 AM

Whacked Batman:

http://ualuealuealeuale.ytmnd.com/

(*) (*) :o :o TOO FUNNY...... ;)

(k) (k) 's,

SL & DTB

sweetlady

10-01-2005, 07:54 AM

http://www.umop.com/rps25.htm

(*) (*) (l) (l) ;) ;)

(o) (o) Time to get out and about and it's a gorgeous day.....feels and smells like early Fall. (h)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 04:23 PM

Flying Circus!!

http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/justthewords.htm

(*) (*) How Cool. (h) (h)

(o) (o) Taking a break from first week (again) of a new quarter. My 18 and 19th graduate courses. The PhD target is Summer, 2007 - not too far away. (h)

({) (}) 's from one tired lady,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 04:27 PM

Okay, every tooth is crowned and was THAT ever expensive! It's been almost two years and I'm still a delighted smiler....... ;) That is, without hand over mouth when I laughed....similar to Geishas...... :o ;)

(with all due respect to geishas especially those lovely silk kimonos.... (l)

Ron Grant, former dental technician and now one of the foremost porcelain artists in the country:

http://www.rongrant.com/samples.asp

(*) (*) Can you even imagine putting any of these in your mouth??? (6)
Maybe sports' fans.....or maybe I am just not being creative enough here. Let me know which you like?

Not me, at least for now. I like the white, thank you very much. (h)

(k) (k) 's & ({) (}) 's

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 04:31 PM

Coffee warning!

http://www.thyla.com/bubble/Anki-Cosmic-bath.jpg

(*) (*) :o :o :o :| :| :| ;) ;) ;)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 04:47 PM

1. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=2&productId=22006&deptId=38&ensembleId=23147

2. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=24234&deptId=1&ensembleId=26338

3. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=24068&deptId=1&ensembleId=26125

4. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=24068&deptId=1&ensembleId=26125

5. (l) (l) http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23881&deptId=1&ensembleId=25899

6. (l) http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23894&deptId=1&ensembleId=25912

7. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=20074&deptId=1&ensembleId=20616

8. Classy: http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23600&deptId=1&ensembleId=25512

9. I LOVE this! http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23708&deptId=1&ensembleId=25682

10. Retro silk dress: http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=24042&deptId=1&ensembleId=26096

11. http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23891&deptId=1&ensembleId=25909

12. Ah, that lovely purple: http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23880&deptId=1&ensembleId=25898

13. Dancing the night away: http://www.coldwatercreek.com/aspx/product.aspx?np=true&channel=1&productId=23108&deptId=1&ensembleId=24826

(l) (l) I didn't buy any.......seriously! I'm thinking about the upcoming conference for PhD learners and the dresses with matching jackets caught my eye - but I have enough in either my closet or still in the boxes they came in a few months back! It's kind of like shopping all over again..... ;)

(o) (o) Time to head back to the virtual stacks AKA google.com.

Have a restful evening.

Love, kisses and hugs,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 04:52 PM

I ordered this recently and can't wait until it arrives:

http://www.danburymintjewelry.com/viewproduct.asp?Sku=586-17

Boxer Charm Bracelet: These 24kt gold-plate charm bracelets feature beloved breeds and their favorite things. Sumptuously set with genuine Austrian crystals. Bracelets are 7 1/2" in length.

(l) (l) (l) (l) I've been in "I love my Boxer mode" lately! (can ya blame me?)

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady and her canine Knight, Doc Holliday (l) (l)

sweetlady

10-06-2005, 05:10 PM

Had one, flew one and still can:

1. http://www.stearmanflyin.com/

2. http://www.stearmanworldflight.com/

3. (l) (l) (l) http://www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com/Aircraft/Stearman/Page1.html

4. Even in the Netherlands!! (and I took Dutch in college for some reason): http://www.oldcrow.nl/

5. This is ME!!!!!! http://warbirdalley.com/pt17

6. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/early_years/ey16.htm

7. Lloyd Stearman was a genious! http://opencockpit.net/stearman.html

(l) (l) (l) (h) (h) (h) Kudos to all aviatrixes!!!! I still use my leather helmet and goggles......sans silk scarf though..... ;) It blocks the view when the wind shifts.

Carpe Diem!!

Sweetlady and Doc Holliday, the handsome Boxer

sweetlady

10-14-2005, 04:25 PM

This is a cool experiment on mouse clicks—or, rather, no mouse clicks. Do we really need to click? Are we just addicted? See if you can work your way through this site without giving in. But if you're itching to click, just try it and see what happens!

It took me about 20 seconds to figure it out and wow! What a cool feature that definitely is more restful for my right hand.....and it would prevent cramping while researching for hours on end like I did today....;-)

http://dontclick.it/

(*) (*) (h) (h) (h)

(k) (k) 's

SL & DTB

sweetlady

10-14-2005, 04:27 PM

Zigzag into fall on historic railway

OSIER, Colorado (AP) -- Trains on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway start running each year in late May, as soon as snow is cleared from the tracks at Cumbres Pass. But fall -- when the aspen trees are a blaze of gold and the Gambel oaks a brilliant red against the dark green mountains -- is the most popular time for travel on the scenic railroad.

The cinder-spewing steam train, which meanders at 12 mph through the backcountry, is billed as the longest and highest narrow gauge railroad in the country. The 125-year-old railway runs between Antonito, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, a 64-mile zigzag back and forth across the state line at elevations reaching 10,000 feet.

The route includes trestles and tunnels, switchbacks and curves, and stunning views of the Toltec Gorge from 600 feet above the river that helped carve it, the Rio de los Pinos.

Everyone has a reserved seat, in coaches or a fancier parlor car. But it's more fun to stand in the open observation car -- swaying, squinting, and trying to dodge the occasional blast of acrid smoke from the coal-fired steam locomotive.

"I see something new every time I come through here," said Jim Ward, an enthusiastic docent aboard the train who has spotted deer, elk, bear and fox during his trips this summer.

The trip takes about six hours -- including a lunch stop. The season ends October 16.

Cattle, sheep, lumber, coal, oil and mail once were hauled over this line, which was built in 1880 and once was part of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad -- as was the Durango-to-Silverton line in Colorado, which now also operates as a scenic railway.

The Cumbres & Toltec is just one of more than 150 tourist trains operating around the nation, according to Dan Ranger, executive director of the Tourist Railway Association, or TRAIN, an information clearinghouse for such railroads.

But he said only about 15 others are narrow gauge -- 3 feet between the rails, good for climbing steep terrain and popular with the lumber and mining industries in the late 1800s.

This year, about 40,000 passengers are expected to ride the Cumbres & Toltec, which is jointly owned by New Mexico and Colorado.

Trains typically leave simultaneously from Chama and Antonito and meet in the middle for a break in the old stagecoach town of Osier -- now a sprinkling of historic structures alongside a cavernous, modern-day dining hall.

Lunch consists of turkey and all the trimmings, meat loaf, soup and salad bar, or mix and match. Desserts include chocolate cake, peach cobbler and buttermilk pie.

Passengers switch trains at Osier if they're going all the way to the end of the line, or re-board the same train if they're just making a round trip to Osier.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, summer monsoon rains that coincided with lunch kept the Antonito train's passengers in the dining hall during the wait for the Chama crowd. The tourists talked, read, poked around in the gift shop, or sprawled on the benches of the long dining tables, backpacks under their heads.

Wanda Burger and her husband, George, a retired firefighter, from Pilot Point, Texas, had four grandchildren in tow: Brittney, 11, Brenden, 10, and Branson and Bryson, both 8.

The train trip "is fantastic for grandparents, because you get to see their enjoyment," Burger said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/10/05/scenic.rail.ap/index.html

(*) (*) :o :o (h) (h)

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-14-2005, 04:31 PM

October 3, 2005

Good Energy

By RICK MORANIS

Subject: look at the time! - can't sleep

Date: 10/03/2005 3:24 a.m. eastern daylight time

From: pilateguy@hedgemail.com

To: stillfishing@probono.org

Dear Micki and Stan,

I've decided that we will not be coming to Shelley's wedding in December. (By the way, congratulations again on this wonderful event in your lives. You should be very proud and happy with how terrifically things have turned out.) Unfortunately for us, a wedding in Westport would require non-essential driving and I must honor President Bush's wishes to limit the amount of energy I consume in order to do my part during these difficult and challenging times for our country.

I realize that if all of your guests felt the same way, there would be tremendous consequences for many decent, hard-working people. The tuxedo-rental industry, the caterers, waiters, musicians, florists and table linen people would all lose important income. But when I think of the energy saved in dry cleaning alone, it warms my heart to think I can help make a difference with a personal commitment against wasteful consumption and reckless indulgence in our sick culture.

Needless to say, we'll be with you in spirit and a handsome gift will be sent.

On that note, I've looked at all of Shelley and Michael's bridal registry sites on line and though I think their china pattern is absolutely gorgeous, I'm reluctant to go in that direction because it will involve delivery by one of the nation's leading shipping companies. That kind of non-essential driving is problematic for me at this time, especially given the low gas mileage those trucks undoubtedly get.

I'd appreciate the wiring instructions to the appropriate bank account so I can electronically transfer energy-free funds directly. I'll leave it up to their discretion how to spend, or donate, said monies.

Things are good here, thank God. We had a marvelous summer. The addition finally got finished in Sagaponack. You must plan to come out one weekend. Other than the traffic, it's pure heaven. To think I had the foresight to buy so long before the bubble. And to stay north of the highway, far from any potential beach erosion and the inevitable future storm consequences.

Have to admit I feel a bit guilty heating and cooling a 12,560-square-foot second home, but this winter we're letting Juan and Maria stay in the main house while the gatehouse is being steel-reinforced and rewired for the property's new security system.

To think I was the first person to have a solar pool cover!

Like everyone else, I'm so concerned about the state of the world. I so want to believe the war is important and I think I still do. I'm very worried about the polar ice cap. We didn't get all the way up there on our Alaska cruise but I hear it's melting big-time.

One thing puzzles me the most. Why has no one come out against auto racing? Every weekend in this county, millions of people get in their silly souped-up cars and drive to huge stadiums to watch other people drive around in circles at ridiculously high speeds. There's no way those race cars are fuel-efficient.

Anyway, congratulations again. Let me know if you ever decide to not drive into the city to use your opera subscription.

Much love.

P.S. Did I tell you I'm getting a gun?

Rick Moranis, the creator of rickmoranis.com, has released a country music album, "The Agoraphobic Cowboy."

(*) (*) ;) ;) ;)

(k) (k) 's,

SL & DTB

wolfsong069

10-16-2005, 05:13 PM

I don't know if this is the right place to put this or not....heck most of you will probably think I lost my mind. I'll be 41 this year, so I'm not quite a youngster.....but growing up, I didn't know any other lesbians, let alone butches.....I didn't have the internet or any kind of social interaction with other lesbians until I left home and joined the Army.

I just watched a documentary called "Lesbian Love, Forbidden Love" and it was basically a history of lesbians in the US and the butch-femme dynamic. Most of the women on here were 50 or older.

I just wanted to say to those of you that fall into that age group and went through those things in the 40s-70s....thank you....from the very bottom of my heart. Everything you did to try and live your life and be happy, made it easier for me to be me.

I wish I had known you folks when I was a kid, but though I didn't have the privilege.....I will always be grateful to you. I hope that some little thing I do in my life will make a difference for the kids that come after me.

Thank You Ladies

Wolf

sweetlady

10-17-2005, 12:46 PM

sweetlady

10-17-2005, 12:47 PM

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/657/657986p1.html

October 12, 2005 - Has prolific filmmaker Steven Spielberg invented new technology that will define the future of cinema? That's what he told The Hollywood Reporter during a recent chat.

The patent, Spielly says, is pending and he can't give any concrete details, but whatever it is it seems to be something that will give audiences a totally immersive experience.

"A good movie will bring you inside of itself just by the sheer brilliance of the director/writer/production staff," he says. "But in the future, you will physically be inside the experience, which will surround you top, bottom, on all sides. ... I've invented it, but because patent is pending, I can't discuss it right now."

So, all this begs the question: What the hell is it!? Send us your ideas and let's get to the bottom of it. This could be like Dean Kamen's Segway all over again, but let's hope the pay-off is a little better... okay, a lot better.

Maybe it's something similar to the digital 3-D technology that Disney is unveiling with Chicken Little, but it sounds more immersive than that. Maybe it's next-generation "smell-o-vision," or maybe it's a first-generation "holodeck." Let's just hope it's not some virtual reality helmet. That would be so '90s.

Spielberg is known to love working with celluloid, but he's also been a pioneer in the digital age, making films with groundbreaking CG effects like Jurassic Park and cofounding the high-tech gaming/entertainment chain GameWorks.

We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for news on Spielberg's secret project.

**......from a long-time girl-propeller-head: holographic storage, 3D animation and lots of other enabling technologies.....ah, they just get me jazzed....I also love the "old-fashioned" claymation processes that made Wallace and Gromitt possible.

(*) (*) (l) (l) (h) (h) ;)

(k) (k) 's and ({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-17-2005, 12:48 PM

October 12, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

To Sir, With Love

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

W. was the best Harry ever had.

"You are the best Governor ever - deserving of great respect!" gushed Harriet Miers, then the Texas Lottery chief, to George W. Bush in 1997. The belated birthday card she sent her boss had a sheepishly eager puppy poking his head up and a poem that read: "This is the wish/That should have been sent/Before your birthday/Came and went."

According to a cache of mash notes released by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in response to formal requests from The Times and other news organizations, Ms. Miers also told W. that he was "cool" and "the best!"; that he and Laura were "the greatest"; that Texas was "in great hands"; and that the governor should "keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

Since there is no breathtaking Miers judicial record to pore over, I was eager to read more breathless Miers missives to a president she describes as the most brilliant man she has ever met. How could I get the notes from the White House, given how opposed Mr. Bush is to leaks? I called Scooter and Karl and they sent the secret documents right over.

August 2001 "Thank you so much for letting me bundle up and drag away the brush that you cut down today. And if I might add, Sir, I've never seen a man wield the nippers so judiciously. It was awesome! You are the best brush cutter ever!!"

September 2001 "I found out today that you handed down a decision for the White House mess to offer three different kinds of jelly with its P.B.&J. sandwiches. Sweet!! As you know, I'm the only member of the staff who eats three meals a day in the mess. Now I get to have a different type of jelly at every meal! The mess is blessed to have a president who cares so much. I know I'm probably just flattering myself, but I like to think that you are thinking of me, also. (Smile.)

"P.S. Can you believe Condi cares more about W.M.D.'s than P.B.&J.'s?"

April 2002 "I was worried that it could go unstated in the rush of business around here, but I just wanted to pause and say how amazing it is that, after doing so much for the American people already, you keep showing up for work most days. We have to come, but you choose to. You're the hardest-working president ever!!"

October 2002 "I'm not sure Condi has made the time to thank you herself, so I just wanted to say how much we appreciated the tickets to 'Madame Butterfly' on Saturday night. I wore my long black robe - I mean, opera cape. I just wish it had had that song from 'The Sound of Music' - I know you love it, too - 'Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels. ...' You're one of my favorite things, sir!"

January 2003 "Just a quick note to say how cool it is that you picked Brownie to head FEMA. There's nothing like having someone you know and trust in a top job. Your gut is the best judge ever!!"

April 2004 "There is no other president who would have had the courage to allow torture, dude! (It's only too bad that Abu Ghraib rules out Alberto's chances of getting on the Supreme Court.) You are the best torturer ever!! xo, H."

June 2005 "Make sure you take a good, long vacation this summer! Last year, you only took two weeks. You are pushing yourself way too hard, Sir!!"

August 2005 "I've half a mind to come down there myself and chase that witch, Cindy Sheehan, off your property with an injunction!! Yours, with you in Christ, Harriet."

September 2005 "In all this fuss about that bad-girl buttinsky Katrina, no one else seems to have noticed - not even Karen - that you've achieved your bold vision of losing that seven pounds. That extra week of mountain biking was so much more important than people realize. You're the most chiseled commander in chief ever, and the most rad guitar player ever!!"

October 2005 "How can I thank you, Sir? I never, ever expected the Supreme Court. Phat! I hope Clarence doesn't make me watch 'Debbie Does Dallas' again. That movie is so anti-Texas! I miss you already!!

"But now I will be able to serve your interests - and those of your family - forever and ever. If there's another recount you need help with, count on me. They say I don't have experience, but I've had the experience of polishing the boots of the wisest ruler since Solomon. I may not know stare decisis, but I know when to be starry-eyed. I await your instructions, Master."

(*) (*) (*) I just love her sense of humor.....what WILL we do in 2008 without such hilarious targets? Poor neocons - the religious right conservatives must be "busting a gasket"....LOL! ;) (6) (6)

Carpe Diem!
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

10-17-2005, 12:49 PM

October 16, 2005

Meet the Life Hackers

By CLIVE THOMPSON

In 2000, Gloria Mark was hired as a professor at the University of California at Irvine. Until then, she was working as a researcher, living a life of comparative peace. She would spend her days in her lab, enjoying the sense of serene focus that comes from immersing yourself for hours at a time in a single project. But when her faculty job began, that all ended. Mark would arrive at her desk in the morning, full of energy and ready to tackle her to-do list - only to suffer an endless stream of interruptions. No sooner had she started one task than a colleague would e-mail her with an urgent request; when she went to work on that, the phone would ring. At the end of the day, she had been so constantly distracted that she would have accomplished only a fraction of what she set out to do. "Madness," she thought. "I'm trying to do 30 things at once."

Lots of people complain that office multitasking drives them nuts. But Mark is a scientist of "human-computer interactions" who studies how high-tech devices affect our behavior, so she was able to do more than complain: she set out to measure precisely how nuts we've all become. Beginning in 2004, she persuaded two West Coast high-tech firms to let her study their cubicle dwellers as they surfed the chaos of modern office life. One of her grad students, Victor Gonzalez, sat looking over the shoulder of various employees all day long, for a total of more than 1,000 hours. He noted how many times the employees were interrupted and how long each employee was able to work on any individual task.

When Mark crunched the data, a picture of 21st-century office work emerged that was, she says, "far worse than I could ever have imagined." Each employee spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else. What's more, each 11-minute project was itself fragmented into even shorter three-minute tasks, like answering e-mail messages, reading a Web page or working on a spreadsheet. And each time a worker was distracted from a task, it would take, on average, 25 minutes to return to that task. To perform an office job today, it seems, your attention must skip like a stone across water all day long, touching down only periodically.

Yet while interruptions are annoying, Mark's study also revealed their flip side: they are often crucial to office work. Sure, the high-tech workers grumbled and moaned about disruptions, and they all claimed that they preferred to work in long, luxurious stretches. But they grudgingly admitted that many of their daily distractions were essential to their jobs. When someone forwards you an urgent e-mail message, it's often something you really do need to see; if a cellphone call breaks through while you're desperately trying to solve a problem, it might be the call that saves your hide. In the language of computer sociology, our jobs today are "interrupt driven." Distractions are not just a plague on our work - sometimes they are our work. To be cut off from other workers is to be cut off from everything.

For a small cadre of computer engineers and academics, this realization has begun to raise an enticing possibility: perhaps we can find an ideal middle ground. If high-tech work distractions are inevitable, then maybe we can re-engineer them so we receive all of their benefits but few of their downsides. Is there such a thing as a perfect interruption?

Mary Czerwinski first confronted this question while working, oddly enough, in outer space. She is one of the world's leading experts in interruption science, and she was hired in 1989 by Lockheed to help NASA design the information systems for the International Space Station. NASA had a problem: how do you deliver an interruption to a busy astronaut? On the space station, astronauts must attend to dozens of experiments while also monitoring the station's warning systems for potentially fatal mechanical errors. NASA wanted to ensure that its warnings were perfectly tuned to the human attention span: if a warning was too distracting, it could throw off the astronauts and cause them to mess up million-dollar experiments. But if the warnings were too subtle and unobtrusive, they might go unnoticed, which would be even worse. The NASA engineers needed something that would split the difference.

Czerwinski noticed that all the information the astronauts received came to them as plain text and numbers. She began experimenting with different types of interruptions and found that it was the style of delivery that was crucial. Hit an astronaut with a textual interruption, and he was likely to ignore it, because it would simply fade into the text-filled screens he was already staring at. Blast a horn and he would definitely notice it - but at the cost of jangling his nerves. Czerwinski proposed a third way: a visual graphic, like a pentagram whose sides changed color based on the type of problem at hand, a solution different enough from the screens of text to break through the clutter.

The science of interruptions began more than 100 years ago, with the emergence of telegraph operators - the first high-stress, time-sensitive information-technology jobs. Psychologists discovered that if someone spoke to a telegraph operator while he was keying a message, the operator was more likely to make errors; his cognition was scrambled by mentally "switching channels." Later, psychologists determined that whenever workers needed to focus on a job that required the monitoring of data, presentation was all-important. Using this knowledge, cockpits for fighter pilots were meticulously planned so that each dial and meter could be read at a glance.

Still, such issues seemed remote from the lives of everyday workers - even information workers - simply because everyday work did not require parsing screenfuls of information. In the 90's, this began to change, and change quickly. As they became ubiquitous in the workplace, computers, which had until then been little more than glorified word-processors and calculators, began to experience a rapid increase in speed and power. "Multitasking" was born; instead of simply working on one program for hours at a time, a computer user could work on several different ones simultaneously. Corporations seized on this as a way to squeeze more productivity out of each worker, and technology companies like Microsoft obliged them by transforming the computer into a hub for every conceivable office task, and laying on the available information with a trowel. The Internet accelerated this trend even further, since it turned the computer from a sealed box into our primary tool for communication. As a result, office denizens now stare at computer screens of mind-boggling complexity, as they juggle messages, text documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and Web browsers all at once. In the modern office we are all fighter pilots.

Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is. David Rose, a Cambridge, Mass.-based expert on computer interfaces, likes to point out that 20 years ago, an office worker had only two types of communication technology: a phone, which required an instant answer, and postal mail, which took days. "Now we have dozens of possibilities between those poles," Rose says. How fast are you supposed to reply to an e-mail message? Or an instant message? Computer-based interruptions fall into a sort of Heisenbergian uncertainty trap: it is difficult to know whether an e-mail message is worth interrupting your work for unless you open and read it - at which point you have, of course, interrupted yourself. Our software tools were essentially designed to compete with one another for our attention, like needy toddlers.

The upshot is something that Linda Stone, a software executive who has worked for both Apple and Microsoft, calls "continuous partial attention": we are so busy keeping tabs on everything that we never focus on anything. This can actually be a positive feeling, inasmuch as the constant pinging makes us feel needed and desired. The reason many interruptions seem impossible to ignore is that they are about relationships - someone, or something, is calling out to us. It is why we have such complex emotions about the chaos of the modern office, feeling alternately drained by its demands and exhilarated when we successfully surf the flood.

"It makes us feel alive," Stone says. "It's what makes us feel important. We just want to connect, connect, connect. But what happens when you take that to the extreme? You get overconnected." Sanity lies on the path down the center - if only there was some way to find it.

It is this middle path that Czerwinski and her generation of computer scientists are now trying to divine. When I first met her in the corridors of Microsoft, she struck me as a strange person to be studying the art of focusing, because she seemed almost attention-deficit disordered herself: a 44-year-old with a pageboy haircut and the electric body language of a teenager. "I'm such a spaz," she said, as we went bounding down the hallways to the cafeteria for a "bio-break." When she ushered me into her office, it was a perfect Exhibit A of the go-go computer-driven life: she had not one but three enormous computer screens, festooned with perhaps 30 open windows - a bunch of e-mail messages, several instant messages and dozens of Web pages. Czerwinski says she regards 20 solid minutes of uninterrupted work as a major triumph; often she'll stay in her office for hours after work, crunching data, since that's the only time her outside distractions wane.

In 1997, Microsoft recruited Czerwinski to join Microsoft Research Labs, a special division of the firm where she and other eggheads would be allowed to conduct basic research into how computers affect human behavior. Czerwinski discovered that the computer industry was still strangely ignorant of how people really used their computers. Microsoft had sold tens of millions of copies of its software but had never closely studied its users' rhythms of work and interruption. How long did they linger on a single document? What interrupted them while they were working, and why?

To figure this out, she took a handful of volunteers and installed software on their computers that would virtually shadow them all day long, recording every mouse click. She discovered that computer users were as restless as hummingbirds. On average, they juggled eight different windows at the same time - a few e-mail messages, maybe a Web page or two and a PowerPoint document. More astonishing, they would spend barely 20 seconds looking at one window before flipping to another.

Why the constant shifting? In part it was because of the basic way that today's computers are laid out. A computer screen offers very little visual real estate. It is like working at a desk so small that you can look at only a single sheet of paper at a time. A Microsoft Word document can cover almost an entire screen. Once you begin multitasking, a computer desktop very quickly becomes buried in detritus.

This is part of the reason that, when someone is interrupted, it takes 25 minutes to cycle back to the original task. Once their work becomes buried beneath a screenful of interruptions, office workers appear to literally forget what task they were originally pursuing. We do not like to think we are this flighty: we might expect that if we are, say, busily filling out some forms and are suddenly distracted by a phone call, we would quickly return to finish the job. But we don't. Researchers find that 40 percent of the time, workers wander off in a new direction when an interruption ends, distracted by the technological equivalent of shiny objects. The central danger of interruptions, Czerwinski realized, is not really the interruption at all. It is the havoc they wreak with our short-term memory: What the heck was I just doing?

When Gloria Mark and Mary Czerwinski, working separately, looked at the desks of the people they were studying, they each noticed the same thing: Post-it notes. Workers would scrawl hieroglyphic reminders of the tasks they were supposed to be working on ("Test PB patch DAN's PC - Waiting for AL," was one that Mark found). Then they would place them directly in their fields of vision, often in a halo around the edge of their computer screens. The Post-it notes were, in essence, a jury-rigged memory device, intended to rescue users from those moments of mental wandering.

For Mark and Czerwinski, these piecemeal efforts at coping pointed to ways that our high-tech tools could be engineered to be less distracting. When Czerwinski walked around the Microsoft campus, she noticed that many people had attached two or three monitors to their computers. They placed their applications on different screens - the e-mail far off on the right side, a Web browser on the left and their main work project right in the middle - so that each application was "glanceable." When the ding on their e-mail program went off, they could quickly peek over at their in-boxes to see what had arrived.

The workers swore that this arrangement made them feel calmer. But did more screen area actually help with cognition? To find out, Czerwinski's team conducted another experiment. The researchers took 15 volunteers, sat each one in front of a regular-size 15-inch monitor and had them complete a variety of tasks designed to challenge their powers of concentration - like a Web search, some cutting and pasting and memorizing a seven-digit phone number. Then the volunteers repeated these same tasks, this time using a computer with a massive 42-inch screen, as big as a plasma TV.

The results? On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly - and some as much as 44 percent more quickly. They were also more likely to remember the seven-digit number, which showed that the multitasking was clearly less taxing on their brains. Some of the volunteers were so enthralled with the huge screen that they begged to take it home. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a user's productivity. The clearer your screen, she found, the calmer your mind. So her group began devising tools that maximized screen space by grouping documents and programs together - making it possible to easily spy them out of the corner of your eye, ensuring that you would never forget them in the fog of your interruptions. Another experiment created a tiny round window that floats on one side of the screen; moving dots represent information you need to monitor, like the size of your in-box or an approaching meeting. It looks precisely like the radar screen in a military cockpit.

In late 2003, the technology writer Danny O'Brien decided he was fed up with not getting enough done at work. So he sat down and made a list of 70 of the most "sickeningly overprolific" people he knew, most of whom were software engineers of one kind or another. O'Brien wrote a questionnaire asking them to explain how, precisely, they managed such awesome output. Over the next few weeks they e-mailed their replies, and one night O'Brien sat down at his dining-room table to look for clues. He was hoping that the self-described geeks all shared some common tricks.

He was correct. But their suggestions were surprisingly low-tech. None of them used complex technology to manage their to-do lists: no Palm Pilots, no day-planner software. Instead, they all preferred to find one extremely simple application and shove their entire lives into it. Some of O'Brien's correspondents said they opened up a single document in a word-processing program and used it as an extra brain, dumping in everything they needed to remember - addresses, to-do lists, birthdays - and then just searched through that file when they needed a piece of information. Others used e-mail - mailing themselves a reminder of every task, reasoning that their in-boxes were the one thing they were certain to look at all day long.

In essence, the geeks were approaching their frazzled high-tech lives as engineering problems - and they were not waiting for solutions to emerge from on high, from Microsoft or computer firms. Instead they ginned up a multitude of small-bore fixes to reduce the complexities of life, one at a time, in a rather Martha Stewart-esque fashion.

Many of O'Brien's correspondents, it turned out, were also devotees of "Getting Things Done," a system developed by David Allen, a personal-productivity guru who consults with Fortune 500 corporations and whose seminars fill Silicon Valley auditoriums with anxious worker bees. At the core of Allen's system is the very concept of memory that Mark and Czerwinski hit upon: unless the task you're doing is visible right in front of you, you will half-forget about it when you get distracted, and it will nag at you from your subconscious. Thus, as soon as you are interrupted, Allen says, you need either to quickly deal with the interruption or - if it's going to take longer than two minutes - to faithfully add the new task to your constantly updated to-do list. Once the interruption is over, you immediately check your to-do list and go back to whatever is at the top.

"David Allen essentially offers a program that you can run like software in your head and follow automatically," O'Brien explains. "If this happens, then do this. You behave like a robot, which of course really appeals to geeks."

O'Brien summed up his research in a speech called "Life Hacks," which he delivered in February 2004 at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Five hundred conference-goers tried to cram into his session, desperate for tips on managing info chaos. When O'Brien repeated the talk the next year, it was mobbed again. By the summer of 2005, the "life hacks" meme had turned into a full-fledged grass-roots movement. Dozens of "life hacking" Web sites now exist, where followers of the movement trade suggestions on how to reduce chaos. The ideas are often quite clever: O'Brien wrote for himself a program that, whenever he's surfing the Web, pops up a message every 10 minutes demanding to know whether he's procrastinating. It turns out that a certain amount of life-hacking is simply cultivating a monklike ability to say no.

"In fairness, I think we bring some of this on ourselves," says Merlin Mann, the founder of the popular life-hacking site 43folders.com. "We'd rather die than be bored for a few minutes, so we just surround ourselves with distractions. We've got 20,000 digital photos instead of 10 we treasure. We have more TV Tivo'd than we'll ever see." In the last year, Mann has embarked on a 12-step-like triage: he canceled his Netflix account, trimmed his instant-messaging "buddy list" so only close friends can contact him and set his e-mail program to bother him only once an hour. ("Unless you're working in a Korean missile silo, you don't need to check e-mail every two minutes," he argues.)

Mann's most famous hack emerged when he decided to ditch his Palm Pilot and embrace a much simpler organizing style. He bought a deck of 3-by-5-inch index cards, clipped them together with a binder clip and dubbed it "The Hipster P.D.A." - an ultra-low-fi organizer, running on the oldest memory technology around: paper.

In the 1920's, the Russian scientist Bluma Zeigarnik performed an experiment that illustrated an intriguing aspect of interruptions. She had several test subjects work on jigsaw puzzles, then interrupted them at various points. She found that the ones least likely to complete the task were those who had been disrupted at the beginning. Because they hadn't had time to become mentally invested in the task, they had trouble recovering from the distraction. In contrast, those who were interrupted toward the end of the task were more likely to stay on track.

Gloria Mark compares this to the way that people work when they are "co-located" - sitting next to each other in cubicles - versus how they work when they are "distributed," each working from different locations and interacting online. She discovered that people in open-cubicle offices suffer more interruptions than those who work remotely. But they have better interruptions, because their co-workers have a social sense of what they are doing. When you work next to other people, they can sense whether you're deeply immersed, panicking or relatively free and ready to talk - and they interrupt you accordingly.

So why don't computers work this way? Instead of pinging us with e-mail and instant messages the second they arrive, our machines could store them up - to be delivered only at an optimum moment, when our brains are mostly relaxed.

One afternoon I drove across the Microsoft campus to visit a man who is trying to achieve precisely that: a computer that can read your mind. His name is Eric Horvitz, and he is one of Czerwinski's closest colleagues in the lab. For the last eight years, he has been building networks equipped with artificial intelligence (A.I.) that carefully observes a computer user's behavior and then tries to predict that sweet spot - the moment when the user will be mentally free and ready to be interrupted.

Horvitz booted the system up to show me how it works. He pointed to a series of bubbles on his screen, each representing one way the machine observes Horvitz's behavior. For example, it measures how long he's been typing or reading e-mail messages; it notices how long he spends in one program before shifting to another. Even more creepily, Horvitz told me, the A.I. program will - a little like HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey" - eavesdrop on him with a microphone and spy on him using a Webcam, to try and determine how busy he is, and whether he has company in his office. Sure enough, at one point I peeked into the corner of Horvitz's computer screen and there was a little red indicator glowing.

"It's listening to us," Horvitz said with a grin. "The microphone's on."

It is no simple matter for a computer to recognize a user's "busy state," as it turns out, because everyone is busy in his own way. One programmer who works for Horvitz is busiest when he's silent and typing for extended periods, since that means he's furiously coding. But for a manager or executive, sitting quietly might actually be an indication of time being wasted; managers are more likely to be busy when they are talking or if PowerPoint is running.

In the early days of training Horvitz's A.I., you must clarify when you're most and least interruptible, so the machine can begin to pick up your personal patterns. But after a few days, the fun begins - because the machine takes over and, using what you've taught it, tries to predict your future behavior. Horvitz clicked an onscreen icon for "Paul," an employee working on a laptop in a meeting room down the hall. A little chart popped up. Paul, the A.I. program reported, was currently in between tasks - but it predicted that he would begin checking his e-mail within five minutes. Thus, Horvitz explained, right now would be a great time to e-mail him; you'd be likely to get a quick reply. If you wanted to pay him a visit, the program also predicted that - based on his previous patterns - Paul would be back in his office in 30 minutes.

With these sorts of artificial smarts, computer designers could re-engineer our e-mail programs, our messaging and even our phones so that each tool would work like a personal butler - tiptoeing around us when things are hectic and barging in only when our crises have passed. Horvitz's early prototypes offer an impressive glimpse of what's possible. An e-mail program he produced seven years ago, code-named Priorities, analyzes the content of your incoming e-mail messages and ranks them based on the urgency of the message and your relationship with the sender, then weighs that against how busy you are. Superurgent mail is delivered right away; everything else waits in a queue until you're no longer busy. When Czerwinski first tried the program, it gave her as much as three hours of solid work time before nagging her with a message. The software also determined, to the surprise of at least one Microsoft employee, that e-mail missives from Bill Gates were not necessarily urgent, since Gates tends to write long, discursive notes for employees to meditate on.

This raises a possibility both amusing and disturbing: perhaps if we gave artificial brains more control over our schedules, interruptions would actually decline - because A.I. doesn't panic. We humans are Pavlovian; even though we know we're just pumping ourselves full of stress, we can't help frantically checking our e-mail the instant the bell goes ding. But a machine can resist that temptation, because it thinks in statistics. It knows that only an extremely rare message is so important that we must read it right now.

So will Microsoft bring these calming technologies to our real-world computers? "Could Microsoft do it?" asks David Gelernter, a Yale professor and longtime critic of today's computers. "Yeah. But I don't know if they're motivated by the lust for simplicity that you'd need. They're more interested in piling more and more toys on you."

The near-term answer to the question will come when Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, is released in the fall of 2006. Though Czerwinski and Horvitz are reluctant to speculate on which of their innovations will be included in the new system, Horvitz said that the system will "likely" incorporate some way of detecting how busy you are. But he admitted that "a bunch of features may not be shipping with Vista." He says he believes that Microsoft will eventually tame the interruption-driven workplace, even if it takes a while. "I have viewed the task as a 'moon mission' that I believe that Microsoft can pull off," he says.

By a sizable margin, life hackers are devotees not of Microsoft but of Apple, the company's only real rival in the creation of operating systems - and a company that has often seemed to intuit the need for software that reduces the complexity of the desktop. When Apple launched its latest operating system, Tiger, earlier this year, it introduced a feature called Dashboard - a collection of glanceable programs, each of which performs one simple function, like displaying the weather. Tiger also includes a single-key tool that zooms all open windows into a bingo-card-like grid, uncovering any "lost" ones. A superpowered search application speeds up the laborious task of hunting down a missing file. Microsoft is now playing catch-up; Vista promises many of the same tweaks, although it will most likely add a few new ones as well, including, possibly, a 3-D mode for seeing all the windows you have open.

Apple's computers have long been designed specifically to soothe the confusions of the technologically ignorant. For years, that meant producing computer systems that seemed simpler than the ones Microsoft produced, but were less powerful. When computers moved relatively slowly and the Internet was little used, raw productivity - shoving the most data at the user - mattered most, and Microsoft triumphed in the marketplace. But for many users, simplicity now trumps power. Linda Stone, the software executive who has worked alongside the C.E.O.'s of both Microsoft and Apple, argues that we have shifted eras in computing. Now that multitasking is driving us crazy, we treasure technologies that protect us. We love Google not because it brings us the entire Web but because it filters it out, bringing us the one page we really need. In our new age of overload, the winner is the technology that can hold the world at bay.

Yet the truth is that even Apple might not be up to the task of building the ultimately serene computer. After all, even the geekiest life hackers find they need to trick out their Apples with duct-tape-like solutions; and even that sometimes isn't enough. Some experts argue that the basic design of the computer needs to change: so long as computers deliver information primarily through a monitor, they have an inherent bottleneck - forcing us to squeeze the ocean of our lives through a thin straw. David Rose, the Cambridge designer, suspects that computers need to break away from the screen, delivering information through glanceable sources in the world around us, the way wall clocks tell us the time in an instant. For computers to become truly less interruptive, they might have to cease looking like computers. Until then, those Post-it notes on our monitors are probably here to stay.

(*) (*) I LOVED this! (h) (h)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

Lady_Di

10-17-2005, 03:34 PM

sweetlady

10-26-2005, 05:34 PM

Lady_Di

10-29-2005, 08:27 AM

10/20/05, Doc had an appointment for blood tests and xrays to make sure that he was still in remission from lymphoma.. A young (not at all Doc's older and more experienced) oncologist decided to palpitate, and take a specimen from a lump on Doc's neck.

Last Friday morning, my beloved pet/child's face got to the point of swelling to the point that an emergency visit to a local hospital was required. Poor Doc's face was so swollen that I was concerned that he might need oxygen to breathe. This is a really bad set-back! Thank goodness I knew about Benadryl and after confirming with his primary oncologist, gave him 50 mgs. every four hours Friday and then Sat. morning. He was much, much better and could see :| :| by Saturday afternoon - the swelling went down that much. (too much histamine was released....)

F.Y I: Canine mass cell tumors:
http://www.kateconnick.com/library/mastcelltumor.html

Doc needs surgery and/or radiation..... :( :( Until I take him to "see" his regular vet on Wed. Nov. 2, I don't know what the next steps are despite massive chemotherapy for most of this year.

I'm not attending my first PhD conference scheduled to start this weekend as a result. I'm too worried about leaving Doc by himself in my hotel suite and/or my SUV. Kennels are out of the question anymore since after chemo, pets can't get their booster shots and their immuno-system is compromised. :(

Just wanted to share where in the world Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer have been lately. (well, Doc's mama also started two courses about a month ago and there's LOTS and weekly assigned readings.) I think I can say that I have officially become a night person AKA lady of the evening. ;) :o :[ :[

({) (}) 's and (k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

Oh darlin... that is so not good. So sorry to hear of this.

As you might recall, I did tell you about Brandy. Our 14 year old boxer pup. Well, we had to put her down last week. And I am grieving something fierce. Did not think I was gonna take it this hard, as I knew she was old and her time was definitely up. She had a great life, a good life. And her last moments were tender and good. The whole clan showed up from around the world to be there, but me. My mother spent the whole last night with her, holding her in her arms.

I am am crying just typing this out to you. So just know, I sort of kind of understand a bit of what you must be feelin, darlin. Sweet Lady, there are no words to really say right now. But know I am with you there in spirit, okay?

Offerin Doc some liver I made just for Him. And a cup of your favourite tea for you. An embroidered hankie... And my broad shoulders to lean upon.

ODAAT~
Lady Di

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:17 PM

Oh darlin... that is so not good. So sorry to hear of this.

As you might recall, I did tell you about Brandy. Our 14 year old boxer pup. Well, we had to put her down last week. And I am grieving something fierce. Did not think I was gonna take it this hard, as I knew she was old and her time was definitely up. She had a great life, a good life. And her last moments were tender and good. The whole clan showed up from around the world to be there, but me. My mother spent the whole last night with her, holding her in her arms.

I am am crying just typing this out to you. So just know, I sort of kind of understand a bit of what you must be feelin, darlin. Sweet Lady, there are no words to really say right now. But know I am with you there in spirit, okay?

Offerin Doc some liver I made just for Him. And a cup of your favourite tea for you. An embroidered hankie... And my broad shoulders to lean upon.

ODAAT~
Lady Di

Oh sweetie, I am so sorry to hear about your beloved pet, Brandy. Fourteen years is such a long time. My prayers and thoughts are with you and your family. (l) (l) (l)

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness Lady_Di. Doc's appointment this past Wed. was a long one. However the main oncologist was there and although the lymphoma has come back, Doc did not have a mass cell tumor. Both of his neck lymph nodes were enlarged because of the cancer coming back. The young oncologist made a mistake three weeks ago. :| :| Talk about needless worry about Doc requiring surgery and radiation. :(

I'm sticking with Doc's primary and older oncologists - taking him when THEY are there and not let him be seen by anyone else.

So, last Wed. Doc got two chemo drugs via I.V., a prednizone injection and a pepsid injection. One of the reasons that he was getting so sick is that his calcium was very high - which made his stomach upset. He gets prednizone, pepsid and another tummy med twice a day.

I drive him back this Wed. for Vincristine I.V. and may or may not get the four days of Cytoxin pills to bring home to start giving him on thursday.

What I don't understand is why the intense doubled-up chemo that started July 17th didn't get him back in remission.

Oh well. I have been praying so hard and asking others to keep Doc in their prayers as well.

Thank goodness that this past week was break week from school, although I was supposed to attend my first PhD Colloquia - a one-week conference that is required as a yearly "residency". I even had a hotel suite that allowed me to have Doc with me.

Oh well, I can go to two during 2006 or in 2007 as long as it is before I publish my dissertation. I couldn't take Doc and leave him alone. I was just too scared and worried.

You take good care. Again, prayers, good thoughts and ({) (}) 's from this end of the digital tundra.

Peace, love and light,
Sweetlady and Doc the (now sleeping under my desk) Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:21 PM

Exotic Greenland: Iceberg drinks and Arctic vistas

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) -- It is one of the most barren and inhospitable places to live on the planet. Yet the Arctic landscape of Greenland attracts thousands of visitors yearly who marvel at the astounding beauty of icebergs, glaciers and a vast ice cap.

The Kangia fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site outside this western Greenland town, offers one of the most dramatic views of the forces of nature in motion. Enormous blocks of ice break off with a thunderous roar from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and into the fjord before beginning their silent 25-mile voyage out to the Arctic Sea.

Tourists wrapped in blankets watch the spectacle from cutters, zigzagging between the massive ice blocks, while others swoop down over the glacier in helicopters.

"I have never seen anything like this. The glacier is fantastic," said Javier Gonzales Garcia, 42, of Barcelona, Spain. "These are mountains like we have in Spain but they are of ice and disappear in the ocean. I will tell my grandchildren about this when I get old."

Some 30,000 tourists visit the world's largest island every year, with the bulk going to Ilulissat, which means "icebergs" in Greenlandic, which is spoken by the indigenous Inuits.

More than 80 percent of visitors come from Denmark, which Greenland is part of as a semiautonomous territory. Other Scandinavians, Germans, French and Britons also find their way here -- although it is considered an extreme destination for them, too.

"Greenland is attracting people who want to try something different, really different," said Hans Peter Poulsen of the Greenland Tourism and Business Council. "There is no mass tourism here."

Traveling to and within Greenland is expensive because of its size and remote location. The island stretches 1,655 miles from south to north, and is four times larger than France. The vast ice cap covers 85 percent of the island.

There are no roads connecting towns and settlements, so transportation is by plane, helicopter and dogsled, or by boat during the ice-free summer.

"The infrastructure is a huge problem and a giant challenge," Poulsen said.
Dogsleds, kayaks, culture

Dogsled rides are offered in Sisimiut or Ilulissat, Greenland's third-largest town, where the 4,400 residents are outnumbered by more than 6,000 sled dogs.

Daring visitors paddle in kayaks between icebergs or camp in tents in the Arctic wilderness. Others hike the 10,560-foot-thick ice cap, or join a photo safari, hoping to snap shots of musk oxen and reindeer on land, or whales and seals at sea.

Don't expect to cross paths with any polar bears, though. Most Greenlanders have never seen one, as the animals seldom venture into populated areas from their habitat in the more inaccessible northern parts.

In coastal towns, tourists can board a cutter or fishing boat for a late-night cruise among the icebergs. They steer you so close you can break off a small chunk of ice, frozen for 100,000 years, and slip it into your drink in the midnight sun.

Visitors can get a taste of the local culture in Kulusuk, a village of 230 people on the thinly populated, wind-swept east coast, where locals perform Inuit drum dances. The village has no paved streets, but there is a modern hotel next to a small airfield.

"The tourists who come here are typically Europeans and Americans on a round trip to the Nordic countries," said Patrick M. Abrahamsen of the Hotel Kulusuk. They come via Reykjavik, the capital of neighboring Iceland, "to get a quick feel of Greenland."

Tourists are not the only ones interested in Greenland. Scientists too, are eyeing it -- but with worry. Many scientists believe the thinning of the ice cap that covers the world's largest island is the result of global warming, with dire implications for various aspects of life here, from fishing to local hunters' dogsledding on the ice-covered fjords and inlets.
More than glaciers and icebergs

In Qassiarsuk, a hamlet near Narsarsuaq, southern Greenland, is a replica of what has been called the first Christian church built in North America, to which Greenland geographically belongs.

The Viking Eric the Red -- whose son Leif Ericson is believed to have landed in North America 500 years before Columbus -- built the tiny 10-foot wooden church with a grass roof next to his home.

Ilulissat, too, has more to offer than calving glaciers and icebergs.

At the mouth of the Kangia fjord is the archaeological site of Sermermiut, where the earliest human settlement on the island was established 4,400 years ago.

In the Ilulissat hinterland, where the rocks are covered by soil and moss, more than 300 different species of plants, including crowberries, lousewort, marsh tea and Niviarsiaq -- Greenland's national flower -- can be found.

Every town or larger village has at least one museum.

Ilulissat has a museum for whaling and fishing, and one for explorer Knud Rasmussen, who documented Eskimo culture in the early 20th century. The permanent exhibit sits in a red wooden house in the middle of the town where he was born in 1879.

Nuuk, the capital 372 miles south of Ilulissat, houses Greenland's National Museum, displaying local history, well-preserved mummies of Inuits, kayaks and other artifacts. Sisimiut, on the Arctic Circle, has an archaeological museum dedicated to the Inuits, who arrived here from Siberia more than 4,000 years ago.

Kangerlussuaq, near Sisimiut, and Narsarsuaq are both former U.S. Air Force bases with permanent exhibits on the American presence there.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/10/18/greenland.ap/index.html

(h) (h)

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:22 PM

NFL Scores with IBM Deal for Digitized Footage

October 20, 2005

By Chris Marlowe, Reuters, PC Magazine and Carly Mayberry, Reuters, PC Magazine

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)—IBM will announce Thursday its creation of a new digital media system for the NFL and NFL Films that will streamline and simplify its production flow while making possible future breakthroughs in the viewing experience.
The solution, called the Digital Foundation, features IBM Total Storage SAN File System technology and Linux and will allow a show producer or host to use a PC and quickly search through a detailed catalog of game plays. Producers can then review that footage in real time, send it on to editors and generate content collections to be accessed and viewed by different producers and hosts simultaneously.
Previously, NFL Films producers like Greg Cosell and hosts like Ron Jaworski and others would have to rely on traditional broadcast systems and manually search through printed NFL game books, view reels of videotapes, note plays on paper logs and manually assemble plays to review later by tape.

"We're creating a centralized way for the NFL to take all of the game footage, digitize it, add all the metadata and make it available for all of the producers to access on a PC," said Steve Canepa, vp IBM Global Media & Entertainment Industry. "That kind of flexibility makes you more efficient for traditional programming and paves the way for next-generation applications."

NFL Films can access exclusive NFL coaches' footage, providing a more extensive analysis for NFL Network's "Playbook" and ESPN's "EA Sports NFL Matchup" television shows. Canepa said working with IBM ultimately will allow every offensive, defensive and special teams play to be available on demand internally and poised to be offered at the consumer level at some future time.
He added that this deal was special because of the value of NFL content, and because in general people can easily understand how "NFL content originates in a stadium, finds its way to a broadcast and moves to all kinds of news outlets and promos on the Web."

Canepa said that because IBM is using industry-standard servers running Linux, the NFL was positioning itself for future growth.
"This system can scale and respond to changes in workflow more easily and efficiently than proprietary or analog approaches," Canepa said. "This prepares the NFL for however their business evolves over time to better exploit the value of their the content."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1874290,00.asp

(h) (h)

(k) (k) 's,
SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:27 PM

October 30, 2005

What's a Modern Girl to Do?

By MAUREEN DOWD

When I entered college in 1969, women were bursting out of their 50's chrysalis, shedding girdles, padded bras and conventions. The Jazz Age spirit flared in the Age of Aquarius. Women were once again imitating men and acting all independent: smoking, drinking, wanting to earn money and thinking they had the right to be sexual, this time protected by the pill. I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists. I was more of a fun-loving (if chaste) type who would decades later come to life in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. I hated the grubby, unisex jeans and no-makeup look and drugs that zoned you out, and I couldn't understand the appeal of dances that didn't involve touching your partner. In the universe of Eros, I longed for style and wit. I loved the Art Deco glamour of 30's movies. I wanted to dance the Continental like Fred and Ginger in white hotel suites; drink martinis like Myrna Loy and William Powell; live the life of a screwball heroine like Katharine Hepburn, wearing a gold lamé gown cut on the bias, cavorting with Cary Grant, strolling along Fifth Avenue with my pet leopard.

My mom would just shake her head and tell me that my idea of the 30's was wildly romanticized. "We were poor," she'd say. "We didn't dance around in white hotel suites." I took the idealism and passion of the 60's for granted, simply assuming we were sailing toward perfect equality with men, a utopian world at home and at work. I didn't listen to her when she cautioned me about the chimera of equality.

On my 31st birthday, she sent me a bankbook with a modest nest egg she had saved for me. "I always felt that the girls in a family should get a little more than the boys even though all are equally loved," she wrote in a letter. "They need a little cushion to fall back on. Women can stand on the Empire State Building and scream to the heavens that they are equal to men and liberated, but until they have the same anatomy, it's a lie. It's more of a man's world today than ever. Men can eat their cake in unlimited bakeries."

I thought she was just being Old World, like my favorite jade, Dorothy Parker, when she wrote:

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

I thought the struggle for egalitarianism was a cinch, so I could leave it to my earnest sisters in black turtlenecks and Birkenstocks. I figured there was plenty of time for me to get serious later, that America would always be full of passionate and full-throated debate about the big stuff - social issues, sexual equality, civil rights. Little did I realize that the feminist revolution would have the unexpected consequence of intensifying the confusion between the sexes, leaving women in a tangle of dependence and independence as they entered the 21st century.

Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years.

Despite the best efforts of philosophers, politicians, historians, novelists, screenwriters, linguists, therapists, anthropologists and facilitators, men and women are still in a muddle in the boardroom, the bedroom and the Situation Room.

Courtship

My mom gave me three essential books on the subject of men. The first, when I was 13, was "On Becoming a Woman." The second, when I was 21, was "365 Ways to Cook Hamburger." The third, when I was 25, was "How to Catch and Hold a Man," by Yvonne Antelle. ("Keep thinking of yourself as a soft, mysterious cat.. . .Men are fascinated by bright, shiny objects, by lots of curls, lots of hair on the head . . . by bows, ribbons, ruffles and bright colors.. . .Sarcasm is dangerous. Avoid it altogether.")

Because I received "How to Catch and Hold a Man" at a time when we were entering the Age of Equality, I put it aside as an anachronism. After all, sometime in the 1960's flirting went out of fashion, as did ironing boards, makeup and the idea that men needed to be "trapped" or "landed." The way to approach men, we reasoned, was forthrightly and without games, artifice or frills. Unfortunately, history has shown this to be a misguided notion.

I knew it even before the 1995 publication of "The Rules," a dating bible that encouraged women to return to prefeminist mind games by playing hard to get. ("Don't stay on the phone for more than 10 minutes.. . .Even if you are the head of your own company. . .when you're with a man you like, be quiet and mysterious, act ladylike, cross your legs and smile.. . .Wear black sheer pantyhose and hike up your skirt to entice the opposite sex!")

I knew this before fashion magazines became crowded with crinolines, bows, ruffles, leopard-skin scarves, 50's party dresses and other sartorial equivalents of flirting and with articles like "The Return of Hard to Get." ("I think it behooves us to stop offering each other these pearls of feminism, to stop saying, 'So, why don't you call him?"' a writer lectured in Mademoiselle. "Some men must have the thrill of the chase.")

I knew things were changing because a succession of my single girlfriends had called, sounding sheepish, to ask if they could borrow my out-of-print copy of "How to Catch and Hold a Man."

Decades after the feminist movement promised equality with men, it was becoming increasingly apparent that many women would have to brush up on the venerable tricks of the trade: an absurdly charming little laugh, a pert toss of the head, an air of saucy triumph, dewy eyes and a full knowledge of music, drawing, elegant note writing and geography. It would once more be considered captivating to lie on a chaise longue, pass a lacy handkerchief across the eyelids and complain of a case of springtime giddiness.

Today, women have gone back to hunting their quarry - in person and in cyberspace - with elaborate schemes designed to allow the deluded creatures to think they are the hunters. "Men like hunting, and we shouldn't deprive them of their chance to do their hunting and mating rituals," my 26-year-old friend Julie Bosman, a New York Times reporter, says. "As my mom says, Men don't like to be chased." Or as the Marvelettes sang, "The hunter gets captured by the game."

These days the key to staying cool in the courtship rituals is B. & I., girls say - Busy and Important. "As much as you're waiting for that little envelope to appear on your screen," says Carrie Foster, a 29-year-old publicist in Washington, "you happen to have a lot of stuff to do anyway." If a guy rejects you or turns out to be the essence of evil, you can ratchet up from B. & I. to C.B.B., Can't Be Bothered. In the T.M.I. - Too Much Information - digital age, there can be infinite technological foreplay.

Helen Fisher, a Rutgers anthropologist, concurs with Julie: "What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag."

Women might dye their hair, apply makeup and spend hours finding a hip-slimming dress, she said, while men may drive a nice car or wear a fancy suit that makes them seem richer than they are. In this retro world, a woman must play hard to get but stay soft as a kitten. And avoid sarcasm. Altogether.

Money

In those faraway, long-ago days of feminism, there was talk about equal pay for equal work. Now there's talk about "girl money."

A friend of mine in her 30's says it is a term she hears bandied about the New York dating scene. She also notes a shift in the type of gifts given at wedding showers around town, a reversion to 50's-style offerings: soup ladles and those frilly little aprons from Anthropologie and vintage stores are being unwrapped along with see-through nighties and push-up bras.

"What I find most disturbing about the 1950's-ification and retrogression of women's lives is that it has seeped into the corporate and social culture, where it can do real damage," she complains. "Otherwise intelligent men, who know women still earn less than men as a rule, say things like: 'I'll get the check. You only have girl money."'

Throughout the long, dark ages of undisputed patriarchy, women connived to trade beauty and sex for affluence and status. In the first flush of feminism, women offered to pay half the check with "woman money" as a way to show that these crass calculations - that a woman's worth in society was determined by her looks, that she was an ornament up for sale to the highest bidder - no longer applied.

Now dating etiquette has reverted. Young women no longer care about using the check to assert their equality. They care about using it to assess their sexuality. Going Dutch is an archaic feminist relic. Young women talk about it with disbelief and disdain. "It's a scuzzy 70's thing, like platform shoes on men," one told me.

"Feminists in the 70's went overboard," Anne Schroeder, a 26-year-old magazine editor in Washington, agrees. "Paying is like opening a car door. It's nice. I appreciate it. But he doesn't have to."

Unless he wants another date.

Women in their 20's think old-school feminists looked for equality in all the wrong places, that instead of fighting battles about whether women should pay for dinner or wear padded bras they should have focused only on big economic issues.

After Googling and Bikramming to get ready for a first dinner date, a modern girl will end the evening with the Offering, an insincere bid to help pay the check. "They make like they are heading into their bag after a meal, but it is a dodge," Marc Santora, a 30-year-old Metro reporter for The Times, says. "They know you will stop them before a credit card can be drawn. If you don't, they hold it against you."

One of my girlfriends, a TV producer in New York, told me much the same thing: "If you offer, and they accept, then it's over."

Jurassic feminists shudder at the retro implication of a quid profiterole. But it doesn't matter if the woman is making as much money as the man, or more, she expects him to pay, both to prove her desirability and as a way of signaling romance - something that's more confusing in a dating culture rife with casual hookups and group activities. (Once beyond the initial testing phase and settled in a relationship, of course, she can pony up more.)

"There are plenty of ways for me to find out if he's going to see me as an equal without disturbing the dating ritual," one young woman says. "Disturbing the dating ritual leads to chaos. Everybody knows that."

When I asked a young man at my gym how he and his lawyer girlfriend were going to divide the costs on a California vacation, he looked askance. "She never offers," he replied. "And I like paying for her." It is, as one guy said, "one of the few remaining ways we can demonstrate our manhood."

Power Dynamics

At a party for the Broadway opening of "Sweet Smell of Success," a top New York producer gave me a lecture on the price of female success that was anything but sweet. He confessed that he had wanted to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages but nixed the idea because my job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties. Will she be critical of absolutely everything, even his manhood?

He had hit on a primal fear of single successful women: that the aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality.

A few years ago at a White House correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful and successful actress. Within minutes, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with young women whose job it was was to care for them and nurture them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.

John Schwartz of The New York Times made the trend official in 2004 when he reported: "Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame." A study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggested that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors. Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them. There it is, right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too independent.

"The hypothesis," Dr. Stephanie Brown, the lead author of the study, theorized, "is that there are evolutionary pressures on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not their own." Women, by contrast, did not show a marked difference between their attraction to men who might work above them and their attraction to men who might work below them.

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?

After I first wrote on this subject, a Times reader named Ray Lewis e-mailed me. While we had assumed that making ourselves more professionally accomplished would make us more fascinating, it turned out, as Lewis put it, that smart women were "draining at times."

Or as Bill Maher more crudely but usefully summed it up to Craig Ferguson on the "Late Late Show" on CBS: "Women get in relationships because they want somebody to talk to. Men want women to shut up."

Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes' going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," a book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of 35-year-old career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have children, compared with only 19 percent of the men.

Hewlett quantified, yet again, that men have an unfair advantage. "Nowadays," she said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."

A 2005 report by researchers at four British universities indicated that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to marry, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.

On a "60 Minutes" report on the Hewlett book, Lesley Stahl talked to two young women who went to Harvard Business School. They agreed that while they were the perfect age to start families, they didn't find it easy to meet the right mates.

Men, apparently, learn early to protect their eggshell egos from high-achieving women. The girls said they hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death. "The H-bomb," they dubbed it. "As soon as you say Harvard Business School . . . that's the end of the conversation," Ani Vartanian said. "As soon as the guys say, 'Oh, I go to Harvard Business School,' all the girls start falling into them."

Hewlett thinks that the 2005 American workplace is more macho than ever. "It's actually much more difficult now than 10 years ago to have a career and raise a family," she told me. "The trend lines continue that highly educated women in many countries are increasingly dealing with this creeping nonchoice and end up on this path of delaying finding a mate and delaying childbearing. Whether you're looking at Italy, Russia or the U.S., all of that is true." Many women continue to fear that the more they accomplish, the more they may have to sacrifice. They worry that men still veer away from "challenging" women because of a male atavistic desire to be the superior force in a relationship.

"With men and women, it's always all about control issues, isn't it?" says a guy I know, talking about his bitter divorce.

Or, as Craig Bierko, a musical comedy star and actor who played one of Carrie's boyfriends on "Sex and the City," told me, "Deep down, beneath the bluster and machismo, men are simply afraid to say that what they're truly looking for in a woman is an intelligent, confident and dependable partner in life whom they can devote themselves to unconditionally until she's 40."

Ms. Versus Mrs.

"Ms." was supposed to neutralize the stature of women, so they weren't publicly defined by their marital status. When The Times finally agreed to switch to Ms. in its news pages in 1986, after much hectoring by feminists, Gloria Steinem sent flowers to the executive editor, Abe Rosenthal. But nowadays most young brides want to take their husbands' names and brag on the moniker Mrs., a brand that proclaims you belong to him. T-shirts with "MRS." emblazoned in sequins or sparkly beads are popular wedding-shower gifts.

A Harvard economics professor, Claudia Goldin, did a study last year that found that 44 percent of women in the Harvard class of 1980 who married within 10 years of graduation kept their birth names, while in the class of '90 it was down to 32 percent. In 1990, 23 percent of college-educated women kept their own names after marriage, while a decade later the number had fallen to 17 percent.

Time magazine reported that an informal poll in the spring of 2005 by the Knot, a wedding Web site, showed similar results: 81 percent of respondents took their spouse's last name, an increase from 71 percent in 2000. The number of women with hyphenated surnames fell from 21 percent to 8 percent.

"It's a return to romance, a desire to make marriage work," Goldin told one interviewer, adding that young women might feel that by keeping their own names they were aligning themselves with tedious old-fashioned feminists, and this might be a turnoff to them.

The professor, who married in 1979 and kept her name, undertook the study after her niece, a lawyer, changed hers. "She felt that her generation of women didn't have to do the same things mine did, because of what we had already achieved," Goldin told Time.

Many women now do not think of domestic life as a "comfortable concentration camp," as Betty Friedan wrote in "The Feminine Mystique," where they are losing their identities and turning into "anonymous biological robots in a docile mass." Now they want to be Mrs. Anonymous Biological Robot in a Docile Mass. They dream of being rescued - to flirt, to shop, to stay home and be taken care of. They shop for "Stepford Fashions" - matching shoes and ladylike bags and the 50's-style satin, lace and chiffon party dresses featured in InStyle layouts - and spend their days at the gym trying for Wisteria Lane waistlines.

The Times recently ran a front-page article about young women attending Ivy League colleges, women who are being groomed to take their places in the professional and political elite, who are planning to reject careers in favor of playing traditional roles, staying home and raising children.

"My mother always told me you can't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time," the brainy, accomplished Cynthia Liu told Louise Story, explaining why she hoped to be a stay-at-home mom a few years after she goes to law school. "You always have to choose one over the other."

Kate White, the editor of Cosmopolitan, told me that she sees a distinct shift in what her readers want these days. "Women now don't want to be in the grind," she said. "The baby boomers made the grind seem unappealing."

Cynthia Russett, a professor of American history at Yale, told Story that women today are simply more "realistic," having seen the dashed utopia of those who assumed it wouldn't be so hard to combine full-time work and child rearing.

To the extent that young women are rejecting the old idea of copying men and reshaping the world around their desires, it's exhilarating progress. But to the extent that a pampered class of females is walking away from the problem and just planning to marry rich enough to cosset themselves in a narrow world of dependence on men, it's an irritating setback. If the new ethos is "a woman needs a career like a fish needs a bicycle," it won't be healthy.

Movies

In all those Tracy-Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. You still see it onscreen occasionally - the incendiary chemistry of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing married assassins aiming for mutually assured orgasms and destruction in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Interestingly, that movie was described as retro because of its salty battle of wits between two peppery lovers. Moviemakers these days are more interested in exploring what Steve Martin, in his novel "Shopgirl," calls the "calm cushion" of romances between unequals.

In James Brooks's movie "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, playing a sensitive Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid, just as in "Maid in Manhattan," Ralph Fiennes, playing a sensitive New York pol, falls for the hot Latino maid at his hotel, played by Jennifer Lopez. Sandler's maid, who cleans up for him without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman, in looks and character. His wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm and fears she has lost her identity.

In 2003, we had "Girl With a Pearl Earring," in which Colin Firth's Vermeer erotically paints Scarlett Johansson's Dutch maid, and Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," about the attraction of unequals. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson, the sister of the prime minister, falls for his sultry secretary. A novelist played by Colin Firth falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese.

Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection.

It's funny. I come from a family of Irish domestics - statuesque, 6-foot-tall women who cooked, kept house and acted as nannies for some of America's first families. I was always so proud of achieving more - succeeding in a high-powered career that would have been closed to my great-aunts. How odd, then, to find out now that being a maid would have enhanced my chances with men.

An upstairs maid, of course.

Women's Magazines

Cosmo is still the best-selling magazine on college campuses, as it was when I was in college, and the best-selling monthly magazine on the newsstand. The June 2005 issue, with Jessica Simpson on the cover, her cleavage spilling out of an orange crocheted halter dress, could have been June 1970. The headlines are familiar: "How to turn him on in 10 words or less," "Do You Make Men M-E-L-T? Take our quiz," "Bridal Special," Cosmo's stud search and "Cosmo's Most Famous Sex Tips; the Legendary Tricks That Have Brought Countless Guys to Their Knees." (Sex Trick 4: "Place a glazed doughnut around your man's member, then gently nibble the pastry and lick the icing . . . as well as his manhood." Another favorite Cosmo trick is to yell out during sex which of your girlfriends thinks your man is hot.)

At any newsstand, you'll see the original Cosmo girl's man-crazy, sex-obsessed image endlessly, tiresomely replicated, even for the teen set. On the cover of Elle Girl: "267 Ways to Look Hot."

"There has been lots of copying - look at Glamour," Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmo's founding editor told me and sighed. "I used to have all the sex to myself."

Before it curdled into a collection of stereotypes, feminism had fleetingly held out a promise that there would be some precincts of womanly life that were not all about men. But it never quite materialized.

It took only a few decades to create a brazen new world where the highest ideal is to acknowledge your inner slut. I am woman; see me strip. Instead of peaceful havens of girl things and boy things, we have a society where women of all ages are striving to become self-actualized sex kittens. Hollywood actresses now work out by taking pole-dancing classes.

Female sexuality has been a confusing corkscrew path, not a serene progressive arc. We had decades of Victorian prudery, when women were not supposed to like sex. Then we had the pill and zipless encounters, when women were supposed to have the same animalistic drive as men. Then it was discovered - shock, horror! - that men and women are not alike in their desires. But zipless morphed into hookups, and the more one-night stands the girls on "Sex and the City" had, the grumpier they got.

Oddly enough, Felix Dennis, who created the top-selling Maxim, said he stole his "us against the world" lad-magazine attitude from women's magazines like Cosmo. Just as women didn't mind losing Cosmo's prestigious fiction as the magazine got raunchier, plenty of guys were happy to lose the literary pretensions of venerable men's magazines and embrace simple-minded gender stereotypes, like the Maxim manifesto instructing women, "If we see you in the morning and night, why call us at work?"

Jessica Simpson and Eva Longoria move seamlessly from showing their curves on the covers of Cosmo and Glamour to Maxim, which dubbed Simpson "America's favorite ball and chain!" In the summer of 2005, both British GQ and FHM featured Pamela Anderson busting out of their covers. ("I think of my breasts as props," she told FHM.)

A lot of women now want to be Maxim babes as much as men want Maxim babes. So women have moved from fighting objectification to seeking it. "I have been surprised," Maxim's editor, Ed Needham, confessed to me, "to find that a lot of women would want to be somehow validated as a Maxim girl type, that they'd like to be thought of as hot and would like their boyfriends to take pictures of them or make comments about them that mirror the Maxim representation of a woman, the Pamela Anderson sort of brand. That, to me, is kind of extraordinary."

The luscious babes on the cover of Maxim were supposed to be men's fantasy guilty pleasures, after all, not their real life-affirming girlfriends.

Beauty

While I never related to the unstyled look of the early feminists and I tangled with boyfriends who did not want me to wear makeup and heels, I always assumed that one positive result of the feminist movement would be a more flexible and capacious notion of female beauty, a release from the tyranny of the girdled, primped ideal of the 50's.

I was wrong. Forty years after the dawn of feminism, the ideal of feminine beauty is more rigid and unnatural than ever.

When Gloria Steinem wrote that "all women are Bunnies," she did not mean it as a compliment; it was a feminist call to arms. Decades later, it's just an aesthetic fact, as more and more women embrace Botox and implants and stretch and protrude to extreme proportions to satisfy male desires. Now that technology is biology, all women can look like inflatable dolls. It's clear that American narcissism has trumped American feminism.

It was naïve and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dressed alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way.

But it is equally naïve and misguided for young women now to fritter away all their time shopping for boudoirish clothes and text-messaging about guys while they disdainfully ignore gender politics and the seismic shifts on the Supreme Court that will affect women's rights for a generation.

What I didn't like at the start of the feminist movement was that young women were dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. They were supposed to be liberated, but it just seemed like stifling conformity.

What I don't like now is that the young women rejecting the feminist movement are dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. The plumage is more colorful, the shapes are more curvy, the look is more plastic, the message is diametrically opposite - before it was don't be a sex object; now it's be a sex object - but the conformity is just as stifling.

And the Future . . .

Having boomeranged once, will women do it again in a couple of decades? If we flash forward to 2030, will we see all those young women who thought trying to Have It All was a pointless slog, now middle-aged and stranded in suburbia, popping Ativan, struggling with rebellious teenagers, deserted by husbands for younger babes, unable to get back into a work force they never tried to be part of?

(k) (k) 's,
SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:28 PM

November 2, 2005

Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio

By DINITIA SMITH

"Remember, be kind to your mailman," said Jane Harris, a disc jockey. Then she softened her voice until it was a little insinuating: "He only wants to deliver the mail."

It is a message that many of her listeners need to hear. Ms. Harris is a D.J. on DogCatRadio.com, a new Internet radio station for pets. Now dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots can keep the anxiety, the loneliness, the restlessness at bay while their owners are out. It is radio just for them, live 17 hours a day, 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time, and podcast for the rest of the 24 hours.

Those who listen to DogCatRadio will find that there is generally an animal motif to the playlist, like "Hound Dog": "You ain't nothin' but a hound dogcryin' all the time."

This Elvis song is a frequent request from listeners (presumably the owners), as are the Baha Men, singing: "Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)."

And Dionne Warwick is also popular, especially her soothing song "That's What Friends Are For": "Keep smiling, keep shining,/Knowing you can always count on me."

Since many pets are apparently bilingual, DogCatRadio also has a "Spanish Hour," 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time daily, with Hispanic commentary and music, like Luis Miguel's "No Sé Tú": DogCatRadio.com was started last June by Adrian Martinez, who is also president of Marusa records, an independent record label in Los Angeles. He runs the station out of a customized RV parked in his office lot in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles.

Mr. Martinez, 34, who owns six dogs and two cats, said he founded the station because "my cat, Snickers, asked me to do it." One day, Snickers was pacing the floor restlessly and meowing. "I said, 'What do you want?' " Mr. Martinez recalled in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "I turned up the music, and she was fine." He discovered that Snickers likes 80's rock, particularly the Eddie Money version of the song "Take Me Home Tonight:" "I feel a hunger /It's a hunger that tries to keep a man awake at night."

Mr. Martinez added, "I wanted to do something for the pet community."

The first week that DogCatRadio was broadcast, the local CBS television station showed a feature about it. As a result, so many people tuned in, 130,000 in one day, that the server crashed, Mr. Martinez said. "We had to get a bigger server to accommodate more listeners." Now, he said, "We average close to 8,000 hits a week. We have a meter that tracks it."

"People are just e-mailing us," calling from all over the world, Mr. Martinez said. "I love what you are doing, but please don't forget our equine friends," an e-mail message from Australia said.

When Mr. Martinez gets requests, he springs into action. "We go to Tower Records within the hour," he said. "Since we're conquering the globe, we want to make sure we can accommodate these people."

Sometimes Mr. Martinez broadcasts from the field. DogCatRadio showed a segment on people walking their dogs first thing in the morning outside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena - a very popular early morning route for dog walkers, bikers and joggers - with interviews (with the owners). It reports on animal charity events like "Walk for Paws," recently sponsored by the group "Nuts for Mutts."

Internet radio, which claims about 20 million regular listeners, is still in the early stages of development and has a relatively small number of fans who use their laptops, desktops or hand-held computers to tune in.

Mr. Martinez said he believed he had latched onto something unique with his little station: "With all the news you hear on Iraq, it's something to balance the bad news."

Meanwhile, the broadcast has received some notice. Dr. Larry Family, who has a talk show program, the Pet Vet, on WROW-AM in Albany, recommends DogCatRadio to his patients' owners. "It's of interest to those people whose pets have certain phobias or anxiety issues," he said in a telephone interview from the outskirts of Schenectady, where he has his practice.

"I have recommended it to those whose dogs are having certain problems behaviorwise in the home environment," he said.

"It might be helpful with dogs with separation anxiety issues," Dr. Family went on. "Dogs, especially, are interested in watching TV with their owners and listening to music."

Mr. Martinez said that at the moment, the station has no advertising and is making no money. But, he said, "I'm not in it for the money." He added, "Eventually, I'm sure, people will advertise."

That is not such a leap, since it is estimated that American pet owners will spend $35.9 billion this year on everything from electric toothbrushes for dogs to bird pedicures to self-flushing litter boxes for cats, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

So far, the six people associated with the station, four of whom act as D.J.'s, are paid only a small stipend to cover expenses. "I'm so involved with the pet community," said Ms. Harris, the D.J. and an owner of five dogs. "I'm looking to this as an avenue to open something up." When Ms. Harris isn't broadcasting on DogCatRadio.com, she works as a market researcher.

"How are all my furry friends doing out there?" Ms. Harris asked her listeners recently. "We hope you're doing great and not chewing on anything but your toys."

(*) (*) (h) ;) ;)

Carpe Diem!
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:30 PM

I'd like to write a letter to CNN and tell them I intensely dislike Cooper and won't watch him. I already refuse to watch Paula after her bulldog tactics with 9/11 survivors and then again when a plane crashed about a month later.

And now they boot Aaron Brown? What are they using for demographics?

GRRRR.
**********************************

November 2, 2005

CNN Ousts Aaron Brown and Gives Slot to Anderson Cooper

By BILL CARTER

CNN ousted its longtime prime-time anchor, Aaron Brown, today in favor of Anderson Cooper, who has received extensive media attention in the wake of his widely publicized coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said today that he and Mr. Brown had mutually agreed that Mr. Brown would leave the cable news network because the new CNN lineup left "no options" for a program that would include Mr. Brown. "It is, unfortunately, a zero-sum game," Mr. Klein said.

The realigned CNN lineup will place Mr. Cooper's program "360," which had previously run at 7 p.m. Eastern time weeknights, in the 10 p.m. time period that had been occupied for the last four years by Mr. Brown's program, "Newsnight." Mr. Cooper's program will also expand to two hours, from 10 until midnight. CNN has experimented with that two-hour format over the past month, with Mr. Cooper joining Mr. Brown to serve as co-anchor of the program.

The audience levels for that program have increased markedly in the last month, a development that CNN attributed to Mr. Cooper's presence. In the 7 p.m. hour, where Mr. Cooper had previously worked, CNN will insert the final hour of its three-hour-long "Situation Room" program with Wolf Blitzer. That program has been running from 3 to 6 p.m. Eastern time each weekday. Now it will run from 4 to 6 p.m., leading into an hourlong newscast anchored by Lou Dobbs, with Mr. Blitzer coming back at 7 p.m. for one more hour.

Paula Zahn's program will continue to run from 8 to 9 p.m. and Larry King's show will remain from 9 to 10 p.m.

Mr. Klein said the moves were made chiefly to elevate the profiles of the two news figures that he said have been growing in popularity at CNN, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Blitzer.

"We want to expose Anderson and Wolf to more people," Mr. Klein said.

He said that Mr. Cooper, who is 38, had so stood out for his "passion and enthusiasm" - especially during the coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its impact on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast - that "his name has been on the tip of everyone's tongue."

Mr. Klein also complimented Mr. Brown, who is 56, saying "he is a first-class news talent, no question." But he repeated that CNN simply had no program to offer Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown did not respond to telephone calls and e-mails requesting comment. A CNN spokeswoman said Mr. Cooper was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

(*) (*) (*) See my next post for what I emailed to their President this past week...... ;)

(f) (f) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:32 PM

Attn: Jonathan Klein, President, CNN/U.S

Have the executives and demographics' researchers at CNN lost their minds? Replace Aaron Brown with arrogant, un-watchable (I refuse to watch him) Anderson Cooper? Promoting a Gen-Xer because of his hurricane coverage? How weak.

You are also keeping your in-the-9/11-or-other-tragedy's-victim's-face news bulldog, Paula Zahn?? I refuse to watch her since her blatant disrespect for 9/11 victims and those impacted by the plane crash about a month later.

Do you really believe that Baby Boomers are not an extensive, influential market demographic? Do you believe that Baby Boomers like me will follow like sheep and watch Cooper or Zahn? You have got to be kidding. I may even stop watching the only person left that I do respect: Wolf Blitzer.

I had to read of Brown's abrupt departure in today's New York Times and not on CNN's web site?

CNN is becoming more like Fox everyday. That is, they function as the PR ARM of Da Village Idiot and other corrupt Republican neocons.

I can't wait to get the word out to everyone I know and provide them with some overseas URLs which provide wonderfully refreshing alternative views on news including events in the U.S..

CNN has gone to the Republican dogs. Another bad joke media outlet like Fox.

*****************

(*) (*) :@ :@ :| :| :| :o :o ;) ;)

(S) (S) Life is just way too short, ya know? (l)

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:33 PM

Is This You? Early Signal of Alzheimer's

When older people experience an unexplained weight loss, it could be an early signal of Alzheimer's disease, the Associated Press reports of research from Chicago's Rush University Medical Center. The weight loss, which tends to be gradual and not dramatic, typically occurs years before memory lapses happen.

This fascinating new theory is based on an ongoing study of 820 Roman Catholic priests, nuns and brothers with an average age of 75. At the start of the study, the average BMI of the participants, none of whom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, was 27.4, which is considered overweight. During the 10-year study period, 151 of the 820 volunteers developed the disease. Those whose BMI dropped one point each year had a 35 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer's later, compared with those whose BMI remained the same.

Why is weight loss an early symptom of Alzheimer's? It appears the disease first attacks brain regions that are involved in regulating food intake and metabolism, says study co-author Dr. David Bennett, who is the director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. While weight loss frequently occurs after an Alzheimer's diagnosis, this has been blamed largely on memory lapses and lifestyle changes. Now Bennett thinks brain changes that begin well before the diagnosis could also be the reason.

Dr. Peter Rabins, an Alzheimer's researcher and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told AP this new research confirms what many doctors now believe: that the abnormalities of Alzheimer's "really are present for at least 10 years before there are any symptoms. The idea that something would start before it became clinically obvious no longer seems that farfetched," Rabins explained.

Still, the early weight loss could be due to behavior changes, such as loss of initiative, instead of brain changes affecting metabolism. The problem is that the weight loss is subtle so it's not necessarily recognized until after the Alzheimer's diagnosis is made.

The study findings were reported in the journal Neurology.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?name=fte/signofalzheimers/signofalzheimers

;) ;)

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:36 PM

November 6, 2005

Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies

By STEVE LOHR

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry.

"We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board.

In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby.

Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern. As Google increasingly becomes the starting point for finding information and buying products and services, companies that even a year ago did not see themselves as competing with Google are beginning to view the company with some angst - mixed with admiration.

Google's recent moves have stirred concern in industries from book publishing to telecommunications. Businesses already feeling the Google effect include advertising, software and the news media. Apart from retailing, Google's disruptive presence may soon be felt in real estate and auto sales.

Google, the reigning giant of Web search, could extend its economic reach in the next few years as more people get high-speed Internet service and cellphones become full-fledged search tools, according to analysts. And ever-smarter software, they say, will cull and organize larger and larger digital storehouses of news, images, real estate listings and traffic reports, delivering results that are more like the advice of a trusted human expert.

Such advances, predicts Esther Dyson, a technology consultant, will bring "a huge reduction in inefficiency everywhere." That, in turn, would be an unsettling force for all sorts of industries and workers. But it would also reward consumers with lower prices and open up opportunities for new companies.

Google, then, may turn out to have a more far-reaching impact than earlier Web winners like Amazon and eBay. "Google is the realization of everything that we thought the Internet was going to be about but really wasn't until Google," said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School.

Google, to be sure, is but one company at the forefront of the continuing spread of Internet technology. It has many competitors, and it could stumble. In the search market alone, Google faces formidable rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo.

Microsoft, in particular, is pushing hard to catch Google in Internet search. "This is hyper-competition, make no mistake," said Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief executive. "The magic moment will come when our search is demonstrably better than Google's," he said, suggesting that this could happen in a year or so.

Still, apart from its front-runner status, Google is also remarkable for its pace of innovation and for how broadly it seems to interpret its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

The company's current lineup of offerings includes: software for searching personal computer files; an e-mail service; maps; satellite images; instant messaging; blogging tools; a service for posting and sharing digital photos; and specialized searches for news, video, shopping and local information. Google's most controversial venture, Google Print, is a project to copy and catalog millions of books; it faces lawsuits by some publishers and authors who say it violates copyright law.

Google, which tends to keep its plans secret, certainly has the wealth to fund ambitious ventures. Its revenues are growing by nearly 100 percent a year, and its profits are rising even faster. Its executives speak of the company's outlook only in broad strokes, but they suggest all but unlimited horizons. "We believe that search networks as industries remain in their nascent stages of growth with great forward potential," Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, told analysts last month.

Among the many projects being developed and debated inside Google is a real estate service, according to a person who has attended meetings on the proposal. The concept, the person said, would be to improve the capabilities of its satellite imaging, maps and local search and combine them with property listings.

The service, this person said, could make house hunting far more efficient, requiring potential buyers to visit fewer real estate agents and houses. If successful, it would be another magnet for the text ads that appear next to search results, the source of most of Google's revenue.

In telecommunications, the company has made a number of moves that have grabbed the attention of industry executives. It has been buying fiber-optic cable capacity in the United States and has invested in a company delivering high-speed Internet access over power lines. And it is participating in an experiment to provide free wireless Internet access in San Francisco.

That has led to speculation that the company wants to build a national free GoogleNet, paid for mostly by advertising. And Google executives seem to delight in dropping tantalizing, if vague, hints. "We focus on access to the information as much as the search itself because you need both," Mr. Schmidt said in an analysts' conference call last month.

Telecommunications executives are skeptical that Google could seriously eat into their business anytime soon. For one thing, they say, it will be difficult and expensive to build a national network. Still, they monitor Google's every move. "Google is certainly a potential competitor," said Bill Smith, the chief technology officer of BellSouth, the Atlanta-based regional phone company.

The No. 1 rival to phone companies in the Internet access business, Mr. Smith noted, is the cable television operators. "But do I discount Google? Absolutely not," he said. "You'd be a fool to do that these days."

In retailing, Google has no interest in stocking and selling merchandise. Its potential impact is more subtle, yet still significant. Every store is a collection of goods, some items more profitable than others. But the less-profitable items may bring people into stores, where they also buy the high-margin offerings - one shelf, in effect, subsidizes another.

Search engines, combined with other technologies, have the potential to drive comparison shopping down to the shelf-by-shelf level. Cellphone makers, for example, are looking at the concept of a "shopping phone" with a camera that can read product bar codes. The phone could connect to databases and search services and, aided by satellite technology, reveal that the flat-screen TV model in front of you is $200 cheaper at a store five miles away.

"We see this huge power moving to the edge - to consumers - in this Google environment," said Lou Steinberg, chief technology officer of Symbol Technologies, which supplies bar-code scanners to retailers.

Such services could lead to lower prices for consumers, but also relentless competition that threatens to break up existing businesses.

A newspaper or a magazine can be seen as a media store - a collection of news, entertainment and advertising delivered in a package. A tool like Google News allows a reader or an advertiser to pick and choose, breaking up the package by splitting the articles from the ads. And Google's ads, tucked to the side of its search-engine results, are often a more efficient sales generator than print ads.

"Google represents a challenge to newspapers, to be sure," said Gary B. Pruitt, chief executive of the McClatchy Company, a chain of 12 newspapers including The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. "Google is attacking the advertising base of newspapers."

At the same time, Google and search technology are becoming crucial to the health of newspapers as more readers migrate to the Web. As one path to the future, Mr. Pruitt speaks of his newspapers prospering by tailoring search for local businesses, but also partnering with search engines to attract readers.

Within industries, the influence of Internet search is often uneven. For example, search engines are being embraced by car companies, yet they pose a challenge to car dealers.

George E. Murphy, senior vice president of global marketing for Chrysler, said Chrysler buys ads on 3,000 keywords a day on the big search sites: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and AOL, whose search is supplied by Google. If a person types in one of those keywords, the search results are accompanied by a sponsored link to a Chrysler site.

Chrysler refines its approach based on what search words attract clicks, and studies its site traffic for clues on converting browsers to buyers. "We've got Ph.D.'s working on this," Mr. Murphy said. "The great thing about search is that you can do the math and follow the trail."

After following a link to a Chrysler Web site, a prospective buyer can configure a model, find a dealer and get a preliminary price. Only dealers can make final price quotes. Yet with more information on the Web, the direction of things is clear, in Mr. Murphy's view. "It will fundamentally change what the dealer does, because telling people about the vehicle won't add value for the customer anymore," he said. "If dealers don't change, they'll be dinosaurs."

Mr. Breyer, the Wal-Mart board member, watches Google closely in his job as managing partner of Accel Partners, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. These days, he advises startups to avoid a "collision course" with Google, just as he has long counseled fledgling companies to steer clear of Microsoft's stronghold in desktop software.

Internet search, like personal computing in its heyday, is a disruptive technology, he said, threatening traditional industries and opening the door to new ones. "We think there is plenty of opportunity for innovation in the Google economy," Mr. Breyer said.

***I *still* never shop at a Wal-Mart for love or money.... ;) I *do* however, use google every single day for research. There are other search engines that find the more scholarly (yawn, boring) journal articles for course work.

(o) (o) Have a restful evening and lovely start of your week.

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:37 PM

November 6, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

The Mysterious Death of Pat Tillman

By FRANK RICH

IT would be a compelling story," Patrick Fitzgerald said of the narrative Scooter Libby used to allegedly mislead investigators in the Valerie Wilson leak case, "if only it were true."

"Compelling" is higher praise than any Mr. Libby received for his one work of published fiction, a 1996 novel of "murder, passion and heart-stopping chases through the snow" called "The Apprentice." If you read the indictment, you'll see why he merits the critical upgrade. The intricate tale he told the F.B.I. and the grand jury - with its endlessly clever contradictions of his White House colleagues' testimony - is compelling even without the sex and the snow.

The medium is the message. This administration just loves to beguile us with a rollicking good story, truth be damned. The propagandistic fable exposed by the leak case - the apocalyptic imminence of Saddam's mushroom clouds - was only the first of its genre. Given that potboiler's huge success at selling the war, its authors couldn't resist providing sequels once we were in Iraq. As the American casualty toll surges past 2,000 and Veterans Day approaches, we need to remember and unmask those scenarios as well. Our troops and their families have too often made the ultimate sacrifice for the official fictions that have corrupted every stage of this war.

If there's a tragic example that can serve as representative of the rest, it is surely that of Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals defensive back who famously volunteered for the Army in the spring after 9/11, giving up a $3.6 million N.F.L. contract extension. Tillman wanted to pay something back to his country by pursuing the enemy that actually attacked it, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Instead he was sent to fight a war in Iraq that he didn't see coming when he enlisted because the administration was still hatching it in secret. Only on a second tour of duty was he finally sent into Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan, where, on April 22, 2004, he was killed. On April 30, an official Army press release announcing his Silver Star citation filled in vivid details of his last battle. Tillman, it said, was storming a hill to take out the enemy, even as he "personally provided suppressive fire with an M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon machine gun."

It would be a compelling story, if only it were true. Five weeks after Tillman's death, the Army acknowledged abruptly, without providing details, that he had "probably" died from friendly fire. Many months after that, investigative journalists at The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times reported that the Army's initial portrayal of his death had been not only bogus but also possibly a cover-up of something darker. "The records show that Tillman fought bravely and honorably until his last breath," Steve Coll wrote in The Post in December 2004. "They also show that his superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details that might tarnish Tillman's commanders."

This fall The San Francisco Chronicle uncovered still more details with the help of Tillman's divorced parents, who have each reluctantly gone public after receiving conflicting and heavily censored official reports on three Army investigations that only added to the mysteries surrounding their son's death. (Yet another inquiry is under way.) "The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons," said Patrick Tillman, Pat Tillman's father, who discovered that crucial evidence in the case, including his son's uniform and gear, had been destroyed almost immediately. "This cover-up started within minutes of Pat's death, and it started at high levels."

His accusations are far from wild. The Chronicle found that Gen. John Abizaid, the top American officer in Iraq, and others in his command had learned by April 29, 2004, that friendly fire had killed their star recruit. That was the day before the Army released its fictitious press release of Tillman's hillside firefight and four days before a nationally televised memorial service back home enshrined the fake account of his death. Yet Tillman's parents, his widow, his brother (who served in the same platoon) and politicians like John McCain (who spoke at Tillman's memorial) were not told the truth for another month.

Why? It's here where we find a repeat of the same pattern that drove the Valerie Wilson leak a year earlier. Faced with unwelcome news - from the front, from whistle-blowers, from scandal - this administration will always push back with change-the-subject stunts (like specious terror alerts), fake news or, as with Joseph Wilson, smear campaigns. Much as the White House was out to bring down Mr. Wilson because he threatened to expose its prewar hype of Saddam's supposed nuclear prowess, so the Pentagon might have been out to delay or rewrite a story that could be trouble when public opinion on the war itself was just starting to plummet.

It was an election year besides. Tillman's death came after a month of solid bad news for America and the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign alike: the publication of Richard Clarke's book about pre-9/11 administration counterterrorism fecklessness, the savage stringing up of the remains of American contractors in Falluja, the eruption of Sunni and Shiite insurgencies in six Iraqi cities, the first publication of illicit photos of flag-draped coffins. In the days just after Tillman's death, "60 Minutes II" first broadcast the Abu Ghraib photos, Ted Koppel read the names of the war's fallen on "Nightline," and the Pentagon's No. 2, the Iraqi war architect Paul Wolfowitz, understated by more than 200 the number of American casualties to date (722) in an embarrassing televised appearance before Congress.

Against this backdrop, it would not do to have it known that the most famous volunteer of the war might have been a victim of gross negligence or fratricide. Though Tillman himself was so idealistic that he refused publicity of any kind when in the Army, he was exploited by the war's cheerleaders as a recruitment lure and was needed to continue in that role after his death. (Even though he was adamantly against the Iraq war, according to friends and relatives interviewed by The Chronicle.)

"They blew up their poster boy," Patrick Tillman told The Post; he is convinced that "all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script" the fake narrative (or, as he puts it, "outright lies") that followed. Pat Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, was offended to discover that even President Bush wanted a cameo role in this screenplay: she told The Post that he had offered to tape a memorial to her son for a Cardinals game that would be televised shortly before Election Day. (She said no.)

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Mary Tillman added: "They could have told us upfront that they were suspicious that it was a fratricide but they didn't. They wanted to use him for their purposes. It was good for the administration. It was before the elections. It was during the prison scandal. They needed something that looked good, and it was appalling that they would use him like that."

Appalling but consistent. The Pentagon has often failed to give the troops what they need to fight the war in Iraq, from proper support in manpower and planning at the invasion's outset to effective armor for battle to adequately financed health care for those who make it home. But when it comes to using troops in the duplicitous manner that Mary Tillman describes, the sky's the limit.

Pat Tillman's case is itself a replay of the fake "Rambo" escapades ascribed to Pfc. Jessica Lynch a year earlier, just when Operation Iraqi Freedom showed the first tentative signs of trouble and the Pentagon needed a feel-good distraction. As if to echo Mary Tillman, Ms. Lynch told Time magazine this year, "I was used as a symbol." But the troops aren't just used as symbols for the commander in chief's political purposes. They are also drafted to serve as photo-op props and extras, whether in an extravaganza like "Mission Accomplished" or a throwaway dog-and-pony show like the recent teleconference in which the president held a "conversation" with soldiers who sounded as spontaneous as the brainwashed G.I.'s in "The Manchurian Candidate."

As Mr. Bush's approval rating crashes into the 30's, he and the vice president are so desperate to wrap themselves in khaki that on the day of the Libby indictment, they took separate day trips to mouth the usual stay-the-course platitudes before military audiences. If this was a ploy to split the focus of cable news networks and the public, it failed. Perhaps Scooter Libby is hoping that a so-called faulty-memory defense will save him from jail, but too many other Americans are now refreshing their memories of what went down in the plotting and execution of the war in Iraq. What they find are harsh truths and buried secrets that even the most compelling administration scenarios can no longer disguise.

(*) (*) GD Dubya & Co. treating this family like that. There oughta be a law. :@

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:38 PM

November 5, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

Fashioning Deadly Fiascos

By MAUREEN DOWD

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office. The Bush administration has proved that once and for all.

These guys can't be bothered to run the country. They are too obsessed with frivolous stuff, like fashion and whether they look fat. They are catty, sometimes even sabotaging their closest friends. They are deceitful minxes and malicious gossips.

And heaven knows they're bad at math. Otherwise, W. would realize that a 60 percent disapproval rating, or worse, means that most Americans would like some fresh blood in the administration. It's appalling to see ringleaders of the incompetent, mendacious crew who rushed into Iraq but not New Orleans getting big promotions and posh consulting jobs.

Let's first consider the astonishing new cache of Brownie e-mail released by the Congressional panel investigating the heartbreaking Katrina non-response.

Batting away the frantic warnings of death and doom in New Orleans, bubbleheaded Brownie boasted of his style sense, replying to a staffer who told him his outfit looked "fabulous" on TV: "I got it at Nordstrom."

In another e-mail to staffers, he preened: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

Brownie had other things on his mind besides managing the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history: restaurants and dog sitters, and marshaling spin for stories about his past management gaffes at the International Arabian Horse Association.

By Sept. 4, with disaster apartheid in full view, Brownie was getting e-mail advice from his press secretary: "You just need to look more hardworking," Sharon Worthy wrote the FEMA Fashionista. "ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!"

It may seem unfathomable that W. has kept Brownie, one of the biggest boobs in U.S. history, on the federal payroll as a $148,000-a-year consultant.

But President Bush may be empathetic to Brownie's concerns about looking good. Obsessed with losing the seven pounds he'd gained around his waist, W. was so focused on getting back his hourglass figure that his staff had to compile an emergency DVD of Katrina news stories before he could be dragged away from biking.

Unless it's some catty attempt to undermine someone you're pretending to like, how to explain the Mean Girls cabal headed by Dick Cheney, Rummy and the Rummy aide Douglas Feith? These hawkish Heathers lured W. into war with hyped intelligence and then clawed out Colin Powell's eyes to take charge of the occupation, only to bollix up the whole thing beyond belief and send the president's ratings cratering.

The former Powell chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who often verbalizes what Mr. Powell does not say because the ex-secretary of state does not want to be in a public catfight with the cabal, charged on NPR that the cabal issued directives that led to the abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It was clear to me," he said, "that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms - I'll give you that - that to a soldier in the field meant two things: we're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence - and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it."

Colonel Wilkerson called David Addington, the shadowy Cheney counsel who has been promoted to Scooter's chief of staff job, "a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions."

Heathers have their own rules. Having ignored the warnings that an invasion would cause an insurgency, the Vice squad stepped up the torture to try to stop an insurgency born amid the arrogant, incompetent occupation.

The colonel also described how Vice shaped war policy. Mr. Cheney's fiercely ideological staff monitored the National Security Council staff in such Big Brother fashion that some of the N.S.C. staff "quit using e-mails for substantive conversations because they knew the vice president's alternate national security staff was reading their e-mails now."

Colonel Wilkerson said that there was an N.S.C. memo that made a compelling argument for a large number of troops being necessary in Iraq, "and to this day, I don't know whether that memorandum ever got to the president of the United States."

Women are affected by hormones only at times. Vice's hormones rage every day.

(*) (*) AMEN to that, Maureen! Amen!

SLK & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:40 PM

November 2, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

Chain, Chain, Chain of Cheney Fools

By MAUREEN DOWD

Scooter used to be Cheney's Cheney.

Now we've got Cheney's Cheney's Cheney.

This is not an improvement.

Once Scooter left, many people, including a lot of alarmed conservatives and moderate Republicans, were hoping that W. and Vice would throw open some White House windows to let the air and sun in, and climb out of that incestuous, secretive, vindictive, hallucinatory dark hole they've been bunkered in for five years.

But they like it in their paranoid paradise. One of the most confounding aspects of W.'s exceedingly confounding presidency is his apparent unwillingness to consider that anyone who ever worked for him - and was in any way responsible for any of the disasters now afflicting his administration - should be jettisoned.

This is not loyalty. This is myopia. Where is a meddling, power-intoxicated first lady when we need one? Maybe the clever Nancy Reagan should have a little talk with Laura Bush tonight at the dinner for Prince Charles and Camilla, and explain to her how to step in and fire overweening officials who are hurting your man.

Vice thumbed his nose yesterday at the notion that he should clean up his creepy laboratory when he promoted two Renfields who are part of the gang that got us into this mess.

Dick Cheney has appointed David Addington as his new chief of staff, an ideologue who is so fanatically secretive, so in love with the shadows, so belligerent and unyielding that he's known around town as the Keyser Soze of the usual suspects. At 48, Mr. Addington is a legend: he's worked his way up the G.O.P. scandal ladder from Iran-contra to Abu Ghraib.

Unlike Scooter, this lone-wolf lawyer doesn't reach out to journalists, even to use them as conduits or covers; he makes his boss look gregarious. He routinely declines to be interviewed or photographed.

Vice also appointed John Hannah as his national security adviser, a title also held by Scooter. Mr. Addington and Mr. Hannah often battled with the C.I.A. and State as the cabal pushed the case that Saddam was a direct threat to America, sabotaging Colin Powell's reputation when it "helped" with his U.N. speech. Mr. Hannah was the contact for Ahmad Chalabi, who went around the C.I.A. to feed Vice's office the baloney intel and rosy scenarios that suckered the U.S. into war.

Mr. Addington has done his best to crown King Cheney. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Mr. Addington pushed an obscure philosophy called the unitary executive theory that "favors an extraordinarily powerful president." He would go "through every page of the federal budget in search of riders that could restrict executive authority."

"He was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects," Mr. Milbank wrote. "He was a prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts. Addington also led the fight with Congress and environmentalists over access to information about corporations that advised the White House on energy policy." And he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission.

The National Journal pointed out that Scooter had talked to Mr. Addington and Mr. Hannah about Joseph Wilson and his C.I.A. wife when he was seeking more information to discredit them in the press. Mr. Addington, the story said, "was deeply immersed" in the White House damage-control campaign to deflect criticism about warped W.M.D. intelligence, and attended strategy sessions in 2003 on how to discredit Mr. Wilson.

"Further," the magazine said, "Addington played a leading role in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration when it refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee documents from Libby's office on the alleged misuse of intelligence information regarding Iraq."

Mr. Addington may as well have turned the documents over for safekeeping to Pat Roberts, because, as it turned out, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee didn't want to investigate anything.

Angry at the Scooter scandal, the Addington appointment and the Roberts stonewalling, Senate Democrats did something remarkable yesterday: they dimmed the lights, stamped their feet and shut down the Senate.

Tired of being in the dark, the Democrats put the Republicans in the dark. Childish, perhaps, but effective. Republicans screamed but grudgingly agreed to take a look at where the investigation stands. But even if the Senate starts investigating again, Mr. Addington, now promoted, will have even more authority not to cooperate.

It's the Cheney chain of command.

(*) (*) (h) (h) (h) ;) ;)

(f) (f) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:41 PM

November 4, 2005

Questions for . . .Maureen Dowd

Following an essay by Maureen Dowd in The Times Magazine, which was adapted from her new book, "Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide," the author and Op-Ed columnist answers reader questions on the past and future of feminism.

Q. I was fortunate, at quite a young age — 23— to marry a man who was rather liberated and we stumbled along, figuring out the money, power, housework, jobs, sex, parenting and family stuff together. Our daughter is in college now, and the boys she meets seem terrified of the strong, opinionated and funny young woman she has become. She is discouraged and worries that she won't be able to secure a relationship like ours. After reading your article on modern relationships, I don't know whether to advise her to hold out for the last liberated guy. Or tell her that she may need to settle for less, and tone down her style a bit, too. And it would break my heart to do that. What would you recommend?
— Deborah Frandsen, Missoula, Mont.

A. I think when you settle for less than you deserve, you get less than you settled for. Your daughter clearly has high standards because she's had remarkable role models in you and your husband, and you've clearly created someone enchanting. She should not tone anything down. She should look for guys who celebrate and appreciate who she is, and not waste a lot of time on guys who don't. Just because a lot of men seem to prefer women who are awed by them, rather than ones who provide snap and crackle, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of men who like the snap and crackle, too. You just have to hunt for them.

Q. Doesn't it seem curious that this resurgence of the girlie girl and sex kitten seems to be running parallel to the great religious and political conservative movement engulfing us today? What are we doing wrong in letting the lessons some of us learned in that period go quietly by? Whether by folklore, story-telling, or by virtue of your upcoming book, shouldn't more be done to show the risky effects of insular dependence on the man in your life?
— Barbara P. Hageman, Brewster, Mass.

A. I recommend reading Ariel Levy's new book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture." It has a lot of interesting material linking the red state surge and the self-actualized sex kitten surge.

In my book, I make the point that we live in a society that is so derangingly sexualized, it's not a sexy society. You can't think about sex clearly if all you're thinking about is sex, whether it's an obsession over celibacy or nymphomania. America has always been conflicted about sex, its puritanical side clashing with its prurient side. But now, with the ascendance of the prudish religious right and the numbing oversexualization of commerce and culture, America seems positively bipolar about sex.

As Amazon.com began selling sex toys, a public radio station in Kentucky briefly canceled the venerable Garrison Keillor's show "The Writer's Almanac" a few months ago because he read a poem with the word "breast" in it. An art dealer in New York captured the schizoid insanity of the moment perfectly, confiding that he gets calls from wealthy private collectors in places like Texas saying that they don't want Rubens or Monet nudes because they have small children at home. They'd rather stick with impressionist landscapes and old Dutch masters. I agree that young women, like the Ivy Leaguers interviewed in a recent front-page story, may correctly assess that it was a grind for baby boomer women trying to have it all. But they seem oblivious to the perils of insular dependence on a man.

Q. Are the problems you describe more about the shallowness of the culture and its immature, narcissistic elements, and less about the role of men and women?
— Norman Chaleff, West Orange, N.J.

A. I would say both. I think baby boomers were a very narcissistic bunch compared to the self-deprecating and not so self-regarding Greatest Generation. And I think narcissism has trumped feminism. But I also think that men and women at the start of the sexual revolution envisioned a lot easier road, and more utopian world of equality, than this world of ours. Relations between the sexes are more muddled than ever.

Q. Do women ever marry down much?
— William G. O'Connell, Minneapolis

A. A lot of high-powered, high-earning women end up with men who put less focus on earning and ambition, and that makes for a happier, alpha-beta balance. But it's harder for women to duplicate the "staff siren" syndrome I write about, where men like to get involved with the young girls who are paid to revolve around them and make their lives easier. I've had fantastically smart and cute young male assistants, but never entertained any notion of marrying them.

Q. At the close of your piece, you imagine a 2030 where all of today's young women who've opted for hearth and home will wake up and find themselves deserted by husbands for younger babes. Is your opinion of men really this jaundiced? Have you not run across any men in your world devoted to their wives and their marriages? Have you ever considered the possibility that just maybe you're traveling in the wrong circles and hanging out with the wrong people? I'm not writing from a farm in the Midwest. I grew up in New York City and married a professional woman I look forward to being married to for the rest of my life.
— Peter McFadden, Cold Spring, N.Y.

A. Yes, all the men in my family are devoted to their strong, professional wives and happily married, and many of my male friends. I was merely speculating on the possible perils for a pampered class of young women who yearn to go back to total economic and emotional dependence on men. It was just a nightmare fantasy of what could happen if women someday boomerang so far away from feminism, that they start totally revolving around men again, and give up all their own independence. A Philip K. Dick scenario.

Q. Why blame feminism for the fact that ignorant men prefer women who aren't as smart and successful? Why not blame the ignorant men? And why perpetuate this sad stereotype of single women waiting passively — and desperately — for men to pay attention to them?
— Ajitha Reddy, Chicago

A. You have to read the whole book. I don't think men who prefer women who aren't smart and successful are ignorant. A lot of men think it works better to hook up with women who want to revolve around them, and I can't argue with that. It's probably easier in many ways. I know plenty of single women who are having a great time.

Q. When your wife renounces books for catalogues, when she begins to idolize Blanche Dubois and starts going to Mass again . . . when your grad-school daughter says her mother is letting her mind go to waste, what is a husband to do? You build a modest career by avoiding the twin pitfalls of being boss and being bossed, then one day you look in the mirror and see Mike Doonesbury. Are we going back to the future or forward to the past?
Chandler Thompson, Las Cruces, N.M.

A. That is my question exactly! I love your e-mail. Please read the whole book and get back to me with your thoughts.

Q. There are women in African countries who risk HIV/AIDS on a daily basis because they HAVE to have sex with their husbands, or else. There are women in Eastern Europe who see their tickets outta there on a train to work in a brothel in the West. And there are women in India who are burned to death in kitchen fires for letting down the in-laws. The point is, these women have still not gone through our 60's — they have not had a wave of feminism which would allow them to claim some very basic rights, much less the right to be C.E.O.

Maybe women in North America are moving on, and back to a place we aren't very comfortable with. But while that happens, from our positions of comfort, I think we owe women in other countries a voice.

Christine McNab, Geneva, Switzerland

A. I agree.

Q. Who would you identify as positive role models today for women looking to stand on the shoulders of our feminist foremothers and build from that place rather than reject it? In other words, if you had your way, who would you like to see on the cover of magazines instead of Jessica Simpson?
Amy Selwyn, London

A. I introduced Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and former U.N. commissioner for human rights, the other night at a Glamour Magazine Awards dinner. She was very impressive. She got 90 percent approval ratings in Ireland and led with moral authority in a country dominated by men, reflecting feminine grace and macho tenacity, always trying to unite society and heal divisions, reaching out to her political rivals, and reaching out to help the poor and suffering, and working for women's legal and reproductive rights. Mrs. Robinson is now running an international organization called Realizing Rights, trying to end extreme poverty and to move women's health to the top of the international agenda, to try to stop the gap between rich and poor, powerless and powerful, from getting bigger. It's fine to have beautiful women on the covers of magazines, but there are many ways to be beautiful, and I worry that America has lost a sense of that. Women used to demand equality; now they just demand Botox.

We need more covers like the Time Persons of the Year in 2002, featuring a trio of brave truthtellers — Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on the creeps at Enron; Coleen Rowley, who blew the whistle at the F.B.I. incompetence; and Cynthia Cooper, who blew the whistle on the Worldcom n'er do wells. Three grown-up Nancy Drews with guts.

Q. How hopeful are you that America will be an example of innovation and forward-thinking once again?
Steven Henry, Miami, Fla.

A. We're in a dark ages now, with the government pulling science backward, and suffocating research on stem cells, and encouraging the idea that Intelligent Design is a legitimate alternative to evolution studies. This is a long way from JFK's New Frontier attitude. But I think most Americans like to be on the cutting edge of culture and science, and will want that reflected, sooner or later, in our leaders.

(*) (*) (h) (h) (h)

(f) (f) 's,
SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:42 PM

Chávez and Maradona Lead Massive Rebuke of Bush

by JORDANA TIMERMAN

[posted online on November 5, 2005] The Nation

Some aspects of George Bush's travels have become commonplace, including massive protests, sporadic violence and tight security operations. All of these usual elements--notably the imperial-style arrival of the US president with an entourage of 2,000 people and four AWACS surveillance systems--were present at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

But the opposition to Bush and his proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), as well as neoconservative economic policies and capitalism in general, took on a creative twist this time, with a massive march that ended in a rally at a sports stadium involving a heterogeneous group of Latin American leaders: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Bolivian socialist leader Evo Morales, Argentine leaders of the unemployed, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, singers from all over the continent, and, of course, Diego Maradona, legendary soccer hero.

A counter-meeting, the Summit of the People, began in the city on Monday, and concluded on Thursday with recommendations to summarily suspend FTAA talks, combat inequality in the region, and "energetically reject the militarization of the continent promoted by the empire of the north."

At the culminating event of the march against Bush, Chávez called the stadium in which over 25,000 demonstrators had gathered the "gravesite of the FTAA."

He also proposed a Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA, a Spanish acronym meaning "dawn") to replace the controversial FTAA. Regional opponents of Bush's free trade agreement accuse it of fomenting inequality and placing poorer countries at the mercy of wealthier ones. The Bolivarian alternative proposes regional integration with the goal of fighting poverty and social exclusion.

Chávez's speech reflected the diplomatic problems encountered in the writing of the Summit of the Americas final text. Venezuela refused to agree to a note, inserted by US representatives, mentioning "the 96 million people who live in extreme poverty," in Latin America and the Caribbean unless there was also mention of the "37 million poor" living in the United States.

ALBA, according to Chávez "must be built from the bottom...It will not be built up from the elites, but from below, from our roots." He listed examples of ALBA in action, citing the sale of Venezuelan petroleum to fourteen Caribbean countries at a 40 percent discount and with an interest rate of one percent over twenty-five years, with the ability to pay off the debt with goods and services instead of cash.

"It was a turning point in Latin American history," claims Marcelo Langieri, academic secretary of the Sociology faculty at the University of Buenos Aires. Langieri, who was one of 160 cultural and political leaders invited to travel the 400 kilometers from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata on a train dubbed the ALBA Express, emphasized what he considers a paradigm shift in the dialogue. "Not only was the FTAA questioned, but also the neoconservative economic model and capitalism," and by somebody in a position of power such as Chávez's.

Chávez revealed that he would be presenting an Alliance Against Hunger plan to the Summit leaders. He promised $1 million from Venezuela for the project, which proposes eradicating starvation within the next decade.

Signs carried by the crowd included "Stop Bush" and "Pirate Bush, out of Mar del Plata." Crowd estimates varied, from 25,000 cited in the New York Times to 50,000 people cited by organizers.

The march and rally at the soccer stadium had an important celebrity factor attracting further attention to the cause. The ALBA Express, which included a special VIP car for Maradona, was cheered on by fans along the way to Mar del Plata, and stopped several times in the night to greet people gathered at stations.

Soccer legend Maradona attracted considerable attention to the march by announcing on his Monday night television show that he would be protesting Bush's arrival in Argentina. Maradona, who is not known for his political views, has a close relationship with Cuban president Fidel Castro, built during recent years when he spent time recovering from drug addiction in Cuba. In a press conference on Thursday Maradona referred to Bush as "human garbage." However, he did not actually march, going directly from the train to the stadium.

"Argentina is worthy; Let's kick Bush out," was Maradona's message to the stadium protesters.

Langieri discards the idea of separating Maradona's star power from the anti-Bush cause. For Langieri the importance of the message is expressed by the fact that a national hero such as Maradona would promote it. "Maradona is not a politician. What Diego said is the truth."

Though the march to the stadium and the gathering there were peaceful, a separate demonstration by far-left groups ended in chaos and violence. Reaching the barrier area, a group that spread out over an avenue for over six blocks faced off against police forces. A segment of this group--about 200 people--were prepared for confrontation, masking themselves to avoid recognition and as protection from tear gas. Most of the demonstrators fled when police forces responded to rock-throwing with tear gas, but others turned on storefronts--setting a bank on fire and breaking windows.

The Summit of the Americas ended Saturday in a deadlock: Mexico, the United States and 29 other nations pushed to set an April deadline for more talks on free trade, but that was opposed by Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela, the Associated Press reported. And in the end It is not clear what effect the opposition to Bush will have on regional cooperation. Will the promise of unity demonstrated by the Summit of the People and the peaceful marches lead to real alternatives to US foreign policy? Or is Bush merely the latest rallying point for anti-capitalism leading to riots and vandalism? Regardless, it seems to be that opposition toward Bush and his policies has created a powerful space, one which regional leaders, especially Chávez, are more than willing to take advantage of.

(*) (*) Good for 'em.

(f) (f) 's,
SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:43 PM

Intolerable Cruelty

by DAVID COLE

[from the November 21, 2005 issue] The Nation

Do we really need to be "cruel, inhuman or degrading" to win the war on terror? Apparently the Bush Administration thinks so. When John McCain proposed an amendment to a military appropriations bill that would comprehensively ban such tactics, the Administration threatened to veto it. Now that ninety senators, including forty-six Republicans, have voted for it, and Colin Powell and the Catholic bishops have all endorsed it, the Administration has shifted to a stealth strategy. It asks only for an exemption for the CIA, or deletion of the provision that the ban applies abroad. But those proposals would effectively gut the amendment, as its principal legal effect is precisely to bind the CIA in its actions overseas. And as Dana Priest's chilling November 2 Washington Post account of secret CIA detention and interrogation centers, known as "black sites," makes clear, this is no abstract debate.

In 1994 the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which prohibits such treatment under all circumstances, specifically including "a state of war." But after 9/11 the Administration argued that the ban does not apply to foreign nationals being held and interrogated abroad. It reasoned that when Congress ratified the treaty, it provided that these terms should be interpreted to prohibit conduct that would violate the Constitution--that is, conduct that "shocks the conscience." Since the Administration contends that the Constitution does not extend to foreign nationals outside our borders, it maintains that neither does the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

This interpretation runs against the central purpose of the Torture Convention, which is to protect all human beings, regardless of location and nationality. And it transforms what Congress plainly intended as a substantive definition of prohibited treatment into a territorial exception that affords government officials carte blanche to engage in conduct that includes, according to reported US practices, sexual humiliation, use of dogs to terrorize prisoners, sleep deprivation, extended exposure to extreme temperatures, forced nudity, waterboarding and mock burials.

The military is already barred from such conduct by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits cruelty and maltreatment. The CIA is not governed by the military's rules, however, so the amendment's principal contribution is to impose such limits on nonmilitary interrogators acting abroad. To exempt the CIA, or to limit the statute to domestic interrogations, would not only rob the amendment of virtually all its bite. It would actually make existing law worse by providing Congressional authorization for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in certain circumstances. Right now the authority for such action is a highly dubious executive interpretation; the proposed exemptions would give this questionable interpretation legislative approval.

The CIA does not need this exemption. As Priest reveals, the CIA began operating secret detention centers for illegal interrogations only after 9/11. For 200 years our government has gathered invaluable intelligence without resorting to tactics that treat human beings worse than dogs. And as the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation expressly states, "Use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results."

Even if inhuman treatment might induce a suspect to talk in a specific case, such methods are difficult to control and in the long run ill-advised, as the migration of such abuses from Guantánamo to wider use in Iraq demonstrates. These tactics ultimately undermine our security, as they impair our legitimacy and create ideal recruiting tools for the enemy. It is simply immoral to claim that we can inflict on other countries' nationals cruel and inhuman treatment that would not be tolerated if it were imposed on our own citizens.

If we are to prevail in the war on terror, we must do so by distinguishing ourselves from our enemy. Terrorism is a moral evil because to achieve its ends it brutally disregards the value of human life. Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are evil for the same reason. As John McCain said, this is not about who they are, "this is about who we are."

(*) (*) I've always liked McCain and would have voted for him had he run.

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:44 PM

Sheryl Swoopes: Out of the Closet--and Ignored

by DAVE ZIRIN

[posted online on November 4, 2005]

What's the sound of a good story smothered? Ask Sheryl Swoopes. Swoopes is the most prominent women's basketball player of her generation: a five-time all-star, three-time Olympic gold medalist and the WNBA's only three-time MVP. And in a tribute only corporate America could render, Swoopes is the only female player to have her own basketball shoe: Nike's Air Swoopes.

The 34-year-old Houston Comet veteran just delivered what could be the most significant body blow to homophobia ever weathered by the athletic-industrial complex. She has come out of the closet with pride, defiance and a palpable sense of joy.

But Swoopes's announcement has been met in the sports press with what the Associated Press correctly described as "a shrug of indifference." San Jose Mercury News columnist John Ryan wrote, "Let's face it: On the list of shocking headlines, 'WNBA player is gay' falls somewhere between 'Romo took steroids' and 'Steinbrenner is angry.' "

The muted response to Swoopes's revelation flows from the sexist treatment of women's athletics on sports pages, where the WNBA faces regular derision and the accomplishments of even elite female athletes--from Mia Hamm to Serena Williams--are downplayed or ignored.

The Swoopes story hasn't been ignored so much as reframed. Sports pundits have shifted the conversation toward how "easy" it is for Swoopes to come out compared to a male athlete. Jim Rome, whom no one is about to confuse with Harvey Milk, said on his sports yak-fest Rome Is Burning that Swoopes "is in a fringe professional sports league and is anything but a household name in this country. [Male athletes] have a lot more to lose because they have a lot more at stake. Bigger league. Bigger profile. Bigger dollars. Bigger backlash. Bigger ball. Bigger everything." Ummm... paging Dr. Freud.

Bill Plaschke, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, said on ESPN's Around the Horn, "Sadly, I don't think it's going to make much of an impact because, for whatever reason in this country, lesbians are viewed differently than gay men. There's not the stigma against lesbianism that there is against gays and men. Especially in athletics."

And this is just a sampling.

Swoopes responded to this line of questioning perfectly, saying, "I don't see [a male athlete coming out] any time soon. But you know what? I didn't really see this happening, either--at least not now--and it did."

It should probably go without saying that looking to Around the Horn or Jim Rome for a serious discussion on sports and sexuality is like reading Ann Coulter for a history of Islam. But tragically, many writers and voices that should be celebrating this moment are choosing to be little more than a fun-house reflection of the mainstream sports blather, concentrating on what Swoopes is not: a man.

The most painful expression of this came from someone described on ESPN.com as a "Closeted Division I-A sports administrator." He said, "I and every other gay guy in sports live every day with the fact that it's OK to be a lesbian in sports but not a gay guy. It hurts like hell and is life-altering and causes you to live with fear.... We gotta be in the closet and they don't."

This entire approach accepts the myth that it's somehow "easier" for a woman athlete to come out than a man. It adheres in canine fashion to the sports radio stereotype that somehow, in this homophobic society, female athletes are magically turning women's sports into a rainbow paradise. This is simply untrue. In the WNBA for example, a whopping two other players have declared themselves lesbians.

Of course there is tremendous homophobia in men's sports. But the moment belongs to Swoopes. Especially because, in addition to being the most prominent team athlete to ever come out, Swoopes happens to be African-American. As she said, "You have Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell, but you don't have your well-known gay African-American who's come out." If you don't think this took guts, see the sick, homophobic rants against gays and lesbians--against black lesbians in particular--by the Rev. Walter Fauntroy and DC Reverend Willie Wilson. You can also ask Keith Boykin of the National Black Justice Coalition, a prominent civil and gay rights organization, who was denied the opportunity to speak at the Millions More March in October.

For African-American women athletes, especially in the WNBA, the closet can be a cavernous, lonely, chamber of depression. Many come from small Southern towns and communities where homophobia is as thick as the humidity. They then go to college programs where learning to stay in the closet can be as much a part of the coaching drills as lay-up lines and the three-person weave. Swoopes's courageous stance has the potential to begin to move that weight in the other direction. It also has the potential to reach out to young African-American lesbians, made to feel like the twenty-first-century version of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. As Selena Roberts wrote in the New York Times, "There is no diminishing the importance of each female athlete who publicly declares she wants to love freely in a homophobic culture, to live truthfully in a society divided on gay rights. Somewhere, a girl may feel less alone and less of an outcast because someone like Swoopes--an African-American woman--has further diluted the taboo."

We should stop looking for the gay Jackie Robinson. We found her.

(*) (*) Amen. ;)

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:46 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

by Katha Pollitt

Madam President, Madam President

[from the November 14, 2005 issue] The Nation

I can't help it. I love Commander in Chief. Sure, it's cheesy and underwritten and not as good as The West Wing. More story lines, please! More characters! More witty banter and moral ambiguity and multiple crises all coming to a head at the same time! But in a TV season in which the major network roles for women over 30 are as desperate housewives in size 0 stretch pants, this feminist fantasy about the first woman President gives me a thrill every Tuesday night at 9. Maybe there's more to life than Wisteria Lane, after all. I love Geena Davis as President Mackenzie "Mac" Allen, so unflappable and warm and confident and kind and clever, to say nothing of gorgeous and six feet tall. But then I've loved Geena Davis ever since she wrote a letter to Newsweek, at the height of the "date rape hype" hysteria, pointing out that speaking out against rape wasn't embracing the role of victim but rejecting it. Commander in Chief makes you realize how rarely on TV you get to see a woman in charge who isn't a dragon or a bundle of nerves--or a likable one who isn't incompetent, clumsy, silly or self-/no spamming of other sites/hating. Imagine, the show's been on since September 27, and Mac hasn't--yet--dissolved into a puddle of tears from the stress of running the free world while raising three kids and foiling the plots of sexist Republican Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton, played with delicious malice by Donald Sutherland.

Even more amazing, her husband, Rod Calloway (Kyle Secor), isn't sulking and acting out, even though one of Mac's first official acts when she moved up from being Vice President was to fire him as her Chief of Staff because otherwise people would assume he was running the show. He takes being First Gentleman with a sense of humor, pitches in equally with the kids and still wants to have sex. More miraculous still, so does Mac. Well, I said it was a fantasy. (Update: Looks like trouble is brewing in paradise. Sigh.)

Pundits wonder out loud if Commander in Chief will pave the way for a real-life woman President, like--oh let's just pick a name out of a hat--Hillary Clinton. Far be it from me to suggest that TV dramas don't affect Americans' real-life attitudes--I'd never even heard of cosmopolitans before Sex and the City and now I drink them all the time. The show may persuade some voters that it would be cool to have a woman President--"Madam President" has a nice ring to it. But it's unlikely to reach the gender-/no spamming of other sites/prejudiced. The substantial minority of voters who, according to polls, wouldn't vote for a woman nominated by their own party probably aren't watching the show, and besides, they're most likely Republicans (20 percent, versus 7 percent of Democrats) who would sooner admit the Earth is more than 10,000 years old than vote for Hillary. Mac Allen, moreover, is so androgynously terrific--even her name is unisex--she's less like a real woman politician than like one of Shakespeare's cross-dressing heroines--Rosalind, or Portia. It's hard to think of a woman within a thousand miles of the White House she doesn't make look frumpy and fussy and old and short.

But then, Mac isn't a politician--she doesn't even belong to a political party. She's an idealistic ex-Congresswoman turned academic who rather improbably accepted the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket, despite being a liberal and understanding that she was there to win women's votes. So little interested is Mac in power that she's all set to heed the President's dying wish and step aside so Templeton can take over--the Speaker of the House is next in line of succession, a fact that must brighten Denny Hastert's life considerably. But then Templeton makes one coarse, woman-hating remark too many and next thing you know, President Allen is sending in the Navy to rescue a Nigerian woman scheduled to be stoned for sex out of wedlock, sending in the Air Force to restore democracy to an unnamed Latin American country by threatening to destroy its coca crop, and using her summit meeting with the arrogant and sexist Russian president to win freedom for imprisoned dissident journalists. Can a woman be tough enough to lead the free world? Take that, misogynists and drug lords and enemies of free speech! In future episodes Mac will capture Osama bin Laden, rewrite the Iraqi Constitution and raise SAT scores by 75 points--all while dealing with a sullen teenage daughter who wishes Pat Buchanan had her mother's job.

There's a lot of paint-by-numbers feel-good feminism here: See Mac cope when her younger daughter spills juice on the presidential blouse just before she addresses the nation; see Mac and the former First Lady bond over the old joke about how if Moses had been a woman she would have asked for directions and been in Israel in a week; see Mac elegantly trump man after man who makes the mistake of talking down to her. I'm not happy about the show's penchant for calling out the troops, but feel-good feminism? I'll take it. In the real world, after all, it's hard to read the paper without coming across a Larry Summers sound-alike. "Women don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to," top British advertising executive Neil French told a posh Toronto audience in October. "They're crap." French went on to call women "wimps" who inevitably "go suckle something." (Interestingly, the New York Times made no mention of the crude language in its report.) French resigned but that didn't stop Brit celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay from announcing that "the girls" these days "can't cook to save their lives." Harriet Miers is ridiculed for her eyeliner, her thank-you notes and her lack of hot dates, and attacked as a mediocrity--which she is, but I don't want to hear about it from people who think Clarence Thomas is a brilliant jurist. New data showing that in Minnesota women now get more academic degrees than men at every level is reported as a problem, not just for men but for women. Whom will they marry, poor overeducated dears? Funny how no one worried about marriage when the numbers went the other way.

As the backlash gets daily more open and absurd, our real-life female politicians seem paralyzed. It's up to television now: Run, Geena, run!

(*) (*) (l) (h) (l) (h) (l) I never miss this show.

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:49 PM

Frontier Injustice

by ANATOL LIEVEN

[from the October 31, 2005 issue]

Think of Andrew Jackson as your grandfather who spent his life in the military (old style). Many of his attitudes are absolutely abominable, especially when it comes to race. He believes passionately in democracy and freedom, but his views of who is entitled to those blessings appear to leave out the vast majority of humanity. His wartime anecdotes and views about war and other nations make you shudder. Whenever he fiercely disagrees with a person or a country, he threatens to shoot them down like a dog, and since he spent much of his life shooting people and is a leading member of the NRA this doesn't seem an empty threat. All your educated acquaintances sneer at him. He can't spell. He talks as if he comes from the backwoods of the Carolinas, which happens to be the truth. You don't even share his taste in music.

And yet while you detest his service in Vietnam, you are very grateful that he fought against the Germans and the Japanese. You remember his flashes of great kindness and generosity. He is pathologically loyal to his friends. Though he became a famous man, he retained a touching affection for and loyalty to your grandmother, despite her homeliness and country ways, including smoking a pipe at official dinners. Even at your most pacific, you feel a sneaking admiration for a man who has lead poisoning from the fragments of three separate bullets wandering round his body and yet works harder than most people a third of his age. He is, as they say, as tough as hickory. He carved his way upward--almost literally--from an impoverished, orphaned and desperate youth. He committed his murders face to face, not by giving orders to others from the safety of a Washington desk. Above all, as you grow older and wiser, you understand more that he is part of you, flesh of your flesh. If he hadn't existed, neither would you in any form be recognizable to yourself. You may hate him, but you can't cut him out of you.

Nobody today can claim Jackson as a grandfather, but some readers of The Nation may perhaps have Southern Scots-Irish grandfathers with the above traits (full disclosure: I'm mostly German-Irish, and my grandmother was Scottish, though her family was in the British service).

Jackson was not only an immense personality and historical force. He was also one of the supreme historical representatives of the Scots-Irish frontier and military tradition in America, with its cult of "toughness, maleness and whiteness," in the words of Michael Kazin. In this tradition the admirable and the detestable are inextricably mixed, and without it America would not be what it is today, geographically or culturally.

Andrew Jackson was born in the South Carolina Piedmont in 1767, to Protestant Scots-Irish parents who had emigrated from Ulster two years earlier. The family suffered terribly at British hands during the War of Independence, and hatred and distrust of Britain became a leitmotif of Jackson's life. Orphaned, and a wild youth even by Scots-Irish standards, Jackson moved to Tennessee and rose in local politics thanks in large part to his leadership of militia forces against the Indians. The duels that he fought with rival local figures mostly only enhanced his reputation among his constituency. He became a national hero with his crushing defeat of the British attempt to capture New Orleans in 1815. He also gained enormous popularity for his readiness to defy international law by pursuing Indian enemies into the Spanish territory of Florida and executing two of their British suppliers.

Jackson's victory over President John Quincy Adams in 1828 is usually taken as representing the triumph of mass democracy over the elites who had dominated American politics since independence. Jackson's championing of the common man against the East Coast elites has led to his popularity among liberal scholars like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who might have been expected to distrust him.

However, this populist, nationalist anti-elitism has returned to bite the liberals with a vengeance in our own time. As for Jackson's economic egalitarianism, it should be noted that this was a specifically Western sense of equality of opportunity--including the free opportunity to seize lands from the Indians. It implied a defense of the common man against unfair suppression by the elites, but it certainly did not imply any kind of guaranteed economic status or state support for the population.

Jackson's victory, and the nature of his support, led to widespread fears that the United States was following France and Mexico into mob rule and military dictatorship. In fact, while Jackson pursued certain anti-elitist policies, most notably in his successful campaign against the Bank of the United States, he generally defended the Constitution. Jackson's facing down of the threat of South Carolina secession preserved the Union for another generation. Jackson was President until 1837; he died in 1845, after living long enough to see his protégé, Sam Houston, achieve one of his greatest ambitions, the incorporation of Texas into the Union and consequent removal of any potential foreign threat to the United States from the Southwest.

Jackson is of perennial interest as a historical figure, but far more important in today's historical climate is that we reckon with the impact of the ideology that bears his name, Jacksonianism, confronting in particular the combination of fanatical belief and extreme narrowness with which its exponents understood the concepts of democracy and freedom. We need to do this because Jacksonian ideas, however transformed over time, continue to shape how a great many Americans see their country and the world. A candid reckoning with Jacksonianism's history raises key questions about the ambiguous nature of democracy itself, and the relationship between democracy and nationalism. It also raises in acute form the point Eric Foner has made so brilliantly about the shifting definition of liberty in American history.

H.W. Brands's biography of Jackson fails completely in its approach to these questions. As an account of Jackson's upbringing, character and life, it is solid and well written. It does not add much of real importance to the 1984 biography by Robert V. Remini (now abridged into one volume), whose judgments it generally echoes. Brands's work also suffers from Remini's greatest failing, an identification with its subject sometimes tending toward hagiography, as in the statement that "Jackson's support indeed was the people" (despite his getting a minority of the popular vote). Still, Jackson's life and character were so amazing that it is always worth reading a new book about him on a plane or in bed--if you don't suffer from airsickness, nightmares or any lingering affection for Britain.

But Brands does not really deal with the deeper issues of Jacksonianism. It is striking that his bibliography contains no mention either of Michael Kazin's critical work The Populist Persuasion, which accords Jacksonianism a leading place, or of Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence, which contains an exceptionally intelligent analysis of the Jacksonian tradition. Nor is there a place for Richard Slotkin's great if problematic trilogy on the role of the frontier and its myths in American culture. As a study of how Jackson's ideas have affected later generations of Americans, Brands's book does not match Andrew Burstein's work of 2003, The Passions of Andrew Jackson.

Indeed, nowhere does Brands seriously analyze the word "democracy." In his version, whatever sins marred Jacksonian democracy, they were a product of his time and have since been redeemed by the forward march of democracy that Jackson helped to further, even to father. Jacksonianism's contribution to democracy is therefore seen as unimpeachably good: "Jackson's devotion to democracy was unsurprising in one born of the people and bred in the school of hard experience.... the Clan of Old Hickory, the tribe of Sharp Knife, was the American people." The book ends with the statement that "Andrew Jackson...devoted his life to making democracy possible."

On this point, unfortunately, Brands's book also reflects the dominant currents in the popular history of this country, as well as the way many Americans view the past, especially their own. To the extent that this sentimental, populist ethos reflects the democratic values of American civic nationalism, it is in principle positive. The problem is that it also encourages an instinctive, uncritical deference to words like "freedom" and "democracy" that can easily lead not only to great political naïveté but also ruthless political exploitation to suppress debate and dissent--as at present by the Bush Administration.

The most bitter and enduring issues that Jackson's memory raises about democracy and the American tradition concern the Cherokee question: Jackson's refusal as President to implement the decision of the Supreme Court under John Marshall in 1831 giving protection to the Cherokee against new measures passed by the State of Georgia making them subject to its law. This, as Jackson was well aware, laid the basis for the Indians' expulsion beyond the Mississippi to make way for white settlers. "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it," he is reported to have said. Whether he uttered them or not, these words faithfully reflected the spirit in which he acted. The US government refused to defend the Cherokee against Georgia, Jackson warned them that they had no choice but to leave and within a few years (though after Jackson himself had left office) they were driven from their ancestral homeland to Oklahoma on the "Trail of Tears," on which a large number died of disease and malnutrition.

Brands tackles this issue head on--in marked contrast to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who in The Age of Jackson (1945) amazingly evaded the issue altogether, even in a chapter titled "Jacksonian Democracy and the Law." Brands takes the line of Remini and other recent defenders of Jackson in arguing--as indeed Jackson did--that the "attitudes" of Southern white society made it impossible for the Cherokee to remain. As Brands writes:

The Indians must either adopt the ways of the Whites, including the laws of the states in which they lived, or move. To stay where they were, under their old customs, was not an option. Jackson knew the Indians' neighbors [i.e., Southern whites] having lived among such people for most of his life. They wouldn't leave the Indians alone, nor let them keep large tracts of land lightly occupied. The status quo was untenable; for the Indians it risked "utter annihilation."

Realistically, therefore, their only choice was deportation or extermination. Indeed, it was only their removal west of the Mississippi that allowed even a remnant of the Cherokee to survive as a people, rather than following the other eastern tribes into oblivion.

There is a good deal of truth to this argument, but what Brands and others fail to realize is that it is less a defense of Jackson than an indictment of his society. The reason the case of the Cherokee has caused such disquiet throughout the generations is that they were not "wild Indians" like the Comanche or the Kiowa. Given the nomadic and raiding life of the latter, including truly bestial treatment of prisoners, it is hard to imagine how they could have coexisted in peace not only with white Americans but with any settled society. The Cherokee, by contrast, were a settled people who became literate and Christian, and who tried to play by American rules--including the appeal to the Supreme Court. They had also been America's, and Jackson's, allies against other tribes and against the British. Most of the empires of the time, including the French and Spanish, would have protected them as trusted allies.

It is instructive in this regard to contrast their treatment with that of the Maori of New Zealand by the British Crown at around the same time. The British conquered the Maori and seized much of their land. But when they made a treaty with the Maori, they stuck to it. They protected the Maori from the white settlers in New Zealand and guaranteed their possession of enough land to live on--with the result that today, the Maori are a powerful, growing (and perhaps in the future, dominant) section of New Zealand society.

In the case of the US frontier, the alternatives always seemed to be either assimilation, deportation or extermination. Coexistence with indigenous groups has always been especially difficult for the United States, at least as long as those groups retained any autonomous power. The drive either to Americanize or destroy such communities is the flip side of the often admirable American desire to spread democracy and freedom. Or in Andrew Burstein's words, Jackson "expected Indians to be either diabolical or pliant."

The fate of the Southern Indians, however, also illustrates some wider and uncomfortable truths about democracy and "freedom," which Americans would do well to consider before they plunge into any more attempts to democratize countries in the Muslim world. The first is that through most of history and in most societies, from ancient Athens on, ideas of "freedom" have been closely allied to ideas of personal or group "privilege"--just as the whites of the South and of the frontier interpreted their freedom vis-à-vis the Indians and the blacks.

Another point is that people have always been willing to make trade-offs between democracy and the rule of law on the one side and security on the other. In the case of the Cherokee, Jackson and his followers were willing to ignore US law not only because they were greedy for land but also because of the horrible frontier experiences of the previous century, including in many cases personal experience of Indian raids. They saw the Cherokee as a real threat and potential fifth column, if backed by a European power like Britain or France.

The long determination to maintain ruthless suppression of the blacks, by slavery or terror, also owed much to fear--paranoid and hysterical no doubt, but nonetheless real for that. And it is sad but true that while the diminution of this fear in the white South in the twentieth century owed something to the spread of new ideas, it also owed something to the fact that, thanks to massive migration to the Northern cities--driven in part by white Southern terrorism--blacks formed a much smaller proportion of the Southern population in the 1960s than they had in the 1860s.

Above all, Americans should remember that for by far the greater part of American history, if Americans had been told by an outside dominant power that "democracy" meant acknowledging black equality and respecting Indian land, a majority would have unhesitatingly rejected democracy and opted instead for some kind of populist, racially based authoritarianism--something so unthinkable to Brands that he does not even consider it. During Jackson's presidency his enemies, John Quincy Adams among them, accused him of seeking to set up a "military monarchy" along Latin American lines, governing dictatorially though with occasional plebiscitary support from the masses.

This didn't happen, of course, and so the United States today is not Mexico or Brazil. The Yankee, or New England, element in the American tradition, with its historical commitment to the rule of law and to civil society, is not the only reason the Latin American solution did not come to pass. Jackson and his descendants have always been genuinely attached to democracy and the law, though in their own specific understanding of these terms. For most of American history, tendencies toward authoritarianism have taken a communal form, and as with Jackson they have been phrased and even thought of in terms of a defense of the American democratic system, not a revolt against it. However, this adherence to democracy has also involved a conviction that being American means adhering to a national cultural community, one defined by its values, and in the past by race, ethnicity and religion.

Like Jackson, the numerous descendants of this tradition have had a strong sense that this community is threatened by alien and savage "others." They have also had a sense that they constitute in some way the authentic American people, or folk; the backbone of the nation, possessing a form of what German nationalists called the gesunder Volkssinn ("healthy sense of belonging to the people"), embracing correct national forms of religion, social behavior and patriotism. With time, they have come to accept people first of different ethnicities, then of different races, as members of the American community--but only so long as they conform to American norms and become "part of the team."

The freedom of aliens and deviants, who do not share the folk culture, can therefore legitimately be circumscribed by authoritarian and even savage means, as long as this is to defend the community and reflects the will of the sound members of the community. In the words of Walter Russell Mead, which have deep implications for American nationalism abroad as well as at home: "Jacksonian realism is based on the very sharp distinction in popular feeling between the inside of the folk community and the dark world without."

This is the tradition that produced figures like John Ashcroft. Like Jackson's, Ashcroft's adherence to the rule of law is not hypocritical. It is merely qualified by two very large conditions: that in a crisis, written laws can be suspended for the sake of the defense of the community; and that the law in any case applies only to a limited extent to aliens, particularly those who are suspected of being enemies and of having behaved in a "barbaric" manner.

Tragically, the indiscriminate savagery of the attacks on 9/11 was all but destined to reawaken this aspect of the Jacksonian tradition in the United States. Systematically fanned by the Bush Administration, the atrocities have produced a widespread attitude toward the outside world in general and the Muslim world in particular that closely replicates that of Jackson toward the "savage" Indians and their international backers. Leaving aside issues of morality and justice, however, there are some critical differences between the two cases. Say what you like about Jackson and his Scots-Irish frontiersmen, they were superbly effective fighters. They knew their enemies. They knew the land. The contrast with their hapless descendants blundering around Iraq could hardly be more stark. Jackson would doubtless have approved of the spirit behind the Bush Administration's "war on terror." I doubt very much that he would have approved of its execution.

(*) (*) Amazing to me how reading history (which is always an accounting of those who "win" and thus open to interpretation) provides perspective on current events. At least I have found that what my dad told me about how the two relate is more and more true the older I get..... :| ;)

Peace,

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:50 PM

Scamming the States

by GREG LEROY

[from the October 31, 2005 issue] The Nation

In a potential bombshell for the ways states and cities subsidize corporations in the name of jobs, the Supreme Court announced in late September that it will hear the case of DaimlerChrysler v. Cuno. A year ago the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a huge investment tax credit given by the State of Ohio for a new Jeep plant in Toledo violated the commerce clause of the Constitution. If the Supremes uphold the decision many job subsidies are likely to be invalidated. In the world of "economic development," where states and cities spend at least $50 billion a year, such a ruling would be huge news.

The DaimlerChrysler episode is a classic case of "job blackmail," in which the automaker threatened to move Toledo's longstanding Jeep production, playing Ohio against Michigan. Ohio "won" with a package valued at about $281 million.

Such episodes have become epidemic: state versus state or more commonly suburb versus suburb. Boeing did it to Washington State for the Dreamliner project. Dell did it to North Carolina. Dozens have done it to New York City. Raytheon and Fidelity did it to Massachusetts. Cabela's does it and so does Wal-Mart. The average state now subsidizes jobs in more than thirty ways. Individual deals routinely involve eight or ten giveaways: property tax abatements, corporate income tax credits, tax increment financing, low-interest loans, free land--and just plain cash. Such packages often exceed $100,000 per job.

The trouble is, the system is rigged. State auditors, investigative journalists and tax watchdogs have repeatedly found that companies fail to create or retain as many jobs as they promise. Others are paying poverty wages or failing to provide healthcare. Some don't create any new jobs or actually lay people off. Subsidized companies are even outsourcing jobs offshore. The other promised benefit--higher tax revenue--often proves false or exaggerated as well. That's the great American jobs scam: a system that enables corporations to exact huge taxpayer subsidies by promising a stronger economy--and then lets them fail to deliver.

In the same quarter-century that states and cities have larded on these wasteful giveaways, they have had to cut corners on their budgets, deferring maintenance on infrastructure. New Orleans's shattered levees are a tragic example, but the American Society of Civil Engineers warns of a cumulative physical deficit of $1.6 trillion that threatens everything from water quality and reliable electricity to highway safety and mass transit.

With roots in the Great Depression, this rigged system matured by the 1970s, with secretive site-location consultants (like Fantus), "business climate" experts (like Grant Thornton) and a corporate network orchestrating attacks on state tax codes. Today it includes consultants who help companies avoid leaving money on the table--and even an embryonic industry buying and selling unused economic development tax credits.

Consider Dell's recent deal for a new computer assembly plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The company secretly negotiated state subsidies worth $200 million to $225 million, which were then presented by Governor Mike Easley to the legislature for one day of debate--up or down, no amendments allowed. Then Dell played three localities against one another and won an additional $37.2 million from Forsyth County and Winston-Salem. All this for a facility that will cost a projected $100 million to $115 million--less than half the value of the subsidies!

Increasingly, however, taxpayers are fighting back. A wide rainbow--including social service advocates, community groups, unions and labor federations, tax and budget watchdogs, and environmentalists--are rewriting jobs policy from the grassroots up. They're winning "disclosure" laws requiring annual, company-specific reporting on costs and benefits (twelve states and counting); "clawbacks," which allow taxpayers to get some or all of their money back if a company falls short on jobs or other promised benefits; and job-quality standards, or wage and healthcare requirements (in forty-three states and forty-six localities).

Coalitions are also demanding budget reforms to make hidden corporate entitlements fully visible when states make tough budget choices. School boards are becoming aware that they deserve more say when property tax abatements hurt public education funding. Activists against sprawl and Wal-Mart are increasingly using the leverage of subsidies in big-box fights.

Of course, the Bush Administration's post-Katrina plans--the Gulf Opportunity Zone, which promises a windfall for oil companies and casinos--are swimming against this tide of progress. But community groups and unions are resisting, informed by New York City watchdogs about the many scams in the $20 billion package for the post-9/11 rebuilding of Lower Manhattan [see David Dyssegaard Kallick, "Building a New Table," October 24].

Against this roaring backdrop--and related lawsuits in North Carolina and Minnesota--DaimlerChrysler v. Cuno goes to the Supreme Court. No matter how the case is decided, the issue can only grow hotter. Money is being wasted on secret corporate giveaways when it is needed to rebuild our infrastructure, and the costs are becoming clearer by the day.

(*) (*) :| :| :o :o

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:51 PM

Mark Steyn The Australian (Sydney) 11/6/05 The Week

Russia is dying, said Mark Steyn in the Sydney Australian, and Islamists will eat its carcass. This death is not just a metaphor: Russians die young and have few children, so their population is dropping rapidly. And those who are left are sickly. With the world’s fastest-growing rate of HIV infection, Russia can expect to lose a half million people each year to AIDS by 2010. The only regions with growing populations are the Muslim ones, and they are getting increasingly radical. Other parts of the world are coping with similar problems, but they get them one at a time. Africa has AIDS, the Middle East has Islamists, and East Asia has North Korean nukes. Russia is the trifecta: “an African-level AIDS crisis and an Islamist separatist movement sitting on top of the biggest pile of nukes on the planet.” Its nukes, in fact, are some of the only valuable assets Russia has. As it crumbles, it will surely be tempted to sell them. It could easily “bequeath the world several new Muslim nations, a nuclear Middle East, and a stronger China.” Such a future could make the Cold War seem like a golden age.

(*) (*) .........sounds like a really alarming combination in my view. :|

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:53 PM

The Humbling of the Bush Administration

With scandal at every turn, many wonder if Bush will restaff.

11/4/2005

The George W. Bush presidency is “imploding,” said Reymer Klüver in Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. The president is suffering disaster after disaster in a Job-like rain of catastrophe. The 2,000th death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, the forced recall of his Supreme Court pick, and the indictment of his vice president’s top advisor came “all in the same week.” Bush can still salvage his administration, but only by doing what most leaders of other countries would do in such situations: firing a bunch of top officials and putting in untainted people. Yet there’s almost no chance that such a “stubborn” person as Bush will even admit that his administration is broken. He is so “utterly dependent on his tight circle of advisors” that he can’t possibly do without them. Bush will try to ride out the criticism without changing course.

He hasn’t seen the worst of it yet, said Julian Borger in the London Guardian. The trial of Dick Cheney’s aide “Scooter” Libby for lying about the outing of a CIA operative could easily turn into a debate over the justification for the Iraq war. The U.S. has conducted several investigations into the faulty evidence indicating that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but all have “avoided directly tackling the politicization of intelligence.” But tampering with intelligence is at the heart of the Libby indictment. When Ambassador Joe Wilson reported that there was no truth in the claim that Iraq was buying nuclear material from Niger, Libby allegedly tried to discredit Wilson by claiming his CIA-operative wife had organized the trip. Cheney had already been at loggerheads with the CIA over its reluctance to endorse his wild theories about Iraqi WMD.

This scandal could awaken the American people to the truth about the war, said Gérard Dupuy in Paris’ Libération. Plamegate “reveals the power the neocons wield in the Bush administration, their cynical and brutal manipulations, and the adventurism their dogma pushed America into.” A majority of Americans already disapproves of the way the Iraq war has been conducted. The more they learn about the lies on which it was based, the more they will come to join the rest of the world in condemning it. The satisfying sight of the administration under fire restores one’s faith in the American justice system, said Amsterdam’s De Volkskrant in an editorial. Even such a “slick, controlled machine” as the Bush administration can’t escape “the cherished American tradition of independent investigation.”

Don’t write Bush’s political obituary quite yet, said the London Times in an editorial. Bush may be having a bad spell, but that’s normal for presidents in their second terms. The Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Monicagate scandals all came after the presidents involved had just been re-elected. Compared with any of those, Plamegate is not so bad. After all, Bush is not personally involved in the scandal the way Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton were. And he’s got some good news to trumpet: The U.S. economy is growing, and Iraq is making progress on democracy. If Bush can “recapture his authority,” he will still be an effective president.

(*) (*) ....like we Americans don't already know...... :| :|

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:54 PM

Changing Their Tune

The Week

11/4/2005

To stand on principle, a politician needs the flexibility of a yoga instructor and a short memory. Changing circumstances inevitably create the need for an entirely new position on “the rule of law,” “the will of the people,” or other such noble abstractions. Consider the ongoing debate over the president’s Supreme Court nominations. Not long ago, Republicans insisted that every one of President Bush’s nominees deserved a “straight up-or-down vote” in the Senate. Anything less was a constitutional outrage—a usurpation of power from the executive branch. Then along came Harriet Miers. Many Republicans didn’t think very highly of her ideological bona fides, and clamored for the president to withdraw her nomination. An up-or-down vote was no longer deemed necessary. Meanwhile, the same Democrats who professed shock that conservatives would veto poor Ms. Miers on ideological grounds are now insisting that Judge Samuel Alito’s ideology might warrant his rejection.

And so it goes. Remember when Bill Clinton got caught lying under oath about a sex act? Anguished Democrats cried that the charge was trivial, while grave Republicans intoned that perjury was a serious crime. Now that Dick Cheney’s top aide stands accused of perjury, Democrats are horrified anyone might tell an untruth. Republicans, on the other hand, are griping about prosecuting fine public servants over mere “technicalities.” It’s to be expected, really: Politics is a rugby scrum, not ballet. It’s about ideas some of the time, and self-interest most of the time, but very rarely is politics about principles. Both parties will say and do whatever is necessary to win. We might all be less cynical if the players of this game, now and then, would just admit that.

William Falk
Editor-in-chief The Week

(*) (*) Of course I agree...... ;)

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:57 PM

Charles Loloma (1921-1991)

WORLD RENOWNED HOPI JEWELER

Loloma was born on January 7, 1921. His father was a Hopi Indian, Rex of the Sand and Tobacco Clan. His mother, Rachel Loloma was from the Badger Clan. His father was an accomplished waver and moccasin maker and his mother was an excellent basket maker. The Loloma family lived in a traditional Hopi village. Over the years Charles Loloma developed a sense of design, dedication and meticulousness that was considered to be the Hopi way; in which art is not different from daily life. Loloma attended day school as a child. His teachers recognized his talents and he was encouraged to draw and paint. Charles finished high school in 1941. By that time he was an accomplished artist in his community and received many commissions.

As many others, Loloma was drafted into the army in 1941. He became a camouflage expert and was stationed in Missouri. From there he spent his time in the Aleutians as an engineer. In 1942 he married Otellie Pasivaya. Loloma returned to her village, Second Mesa, after he was discharged in 1945. With help of the GI Bill, Charles attended the School of American Craftsman at Alfred University. There he studied design, mechanical drawing, ceramic chemistry and marketing.

Loloma applied for a Whitney Foundation Fellowship. With the grant he studied the clays used by Hopi Indians. Through his experiments he proved that shale clays would turn into a glaze if fired at high temperatures. During his stay at Alfred, Loloma also discovered he wanted to pursue an occupation as an artist. He and his wife set up a shop in the Kiva Craft Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. After several years of working with clay and weaving, Loloma decided to try jewelry making. He continued to make and sell his jewelry in his shop. He was a self-taught silversmith. Loloma did find some help in a book called The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. Loloma's early work was mainly cast objects designed in a traditional Hopi fashion. Loloma also taught part-time at Arizona State College and in Sedona during summers. He was able to formulate ideas on design and gather information on selling and marketing through these various experiences. Loloma and his wife were the first Native American's to successfully run a pottery shop. Because of this they received attention that inevitably helped their business.

In 1962 the Institute of American Arts was founded. Loloma was appointed head of plastic arts and sales departments. Loloma traveled to Paris in 1963. While in Paris, his jewelry was modeled in fashion shows and exhibited in private shows. After his visit, he returned to the Institute in Santa Fe where he remained until 1965. He then went back to his village in Hoteville. Soon after his return, he divorced his wife and remarried. He built a studio in his home and continued to make jewelry.

Loloma believes his most important contribution to the field was what he called "inner gems". These were hidden stones in his jewelry, once the jewelry was put on; you could no longer see the gems on the inner side of the jewelry. These gems were to indicate inner beauty of the wearer. Usually these gems were more valuable than the gems on the outside of the jewelry.

Loloma received many awards and prizes and is represented in numerous collections nationwide. In 1991, Loloma passed away and his studio no longer produces jewelry.

(*) (*) (*) have several of his pieces..... (l) (l) (l) (l) (l) What an amazing artist with whom I had the priviledge of spending some time at several gallery openings of his work in CA and NM. I also visited his home town of Old Oriabi on the Third Hopi Mesa in Arizona. Such a gifted person with such a generous, kind soul. (l) (l) (l)

Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

sweetlady

11-06-2005, 11:58 PM

Gore Vidal, Octocontrarian

by MARC COOPER

[from the November 7, 2005 issue] The Nation

Gore Vidal remains one of the more prolific contemporary American writers and certainly one of the most politically outspoken. Shortly after his recent 80th-birthday celebration, Nation contributing editor Marc Cooper interviewed him in his Hollywood home. Herewith, a condensed version of that conversation. . --The Editors

Q:In the introduction to your new book, Imperial America, you begin by saying that the four sweetest words in the American lexicon are "I told you so." What were you gloating about?

A:Oh, everything. The principal bit of wisdom that I had to purvey, which I got from Thomas Jefferson and he got from Montesquieu, is that you cannot maintain a republic and empire simultaneously. The Romans couldn't do it. The Brits could only manage it up to a certain point, but then ended up going broke. The Venetians were an empire, and the United States. And in each case the republics were lost. Starting with our war against Mexico in 1846, which was to acquire California, we've been in a serious, naked grab, grab, grab imperial mood.

Q:In that respect, how different is the Bush Administration? Anything new here, or part of that same historical arc?

A:Well, a lot is different. The machinery is all changed. Nuclear and bacteriological weapons exist. We can kill a lot more people. But there have been things unimaginable to me and most Americans--that we would have a government that is absolutely in your face to every country on earth. We have insulted everybody.

Q:We now see that House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, is under investigation by the SEC. We've seen the debacle around Michael "Brownie" Brown and FEMA. Is this Administration finally collapsing under its own weight?

A:"Under its own lack of weight" [laughing], I think, is the phrase you are searching for.

Q:Sort of the unbearable lightness?

A:Yes, the unbearable lightness. Or here DeLay--gone tomorrow. Yes, I do believe it is breaking up. And the indictment of DeLay would not have happened had there not been two hurricanes, which dramatized to everybody in the United States that we don't have a government. And to the extent we do have one it is not only corrupt but a menace to other countries, to our liberties, to our Bill of Rights.

Q:If, indeed, this Administration is collapsing for lack of weight, what comes after it?

A:Martial law, that's next. Bush is like a plane of glass. You can see all the worms turning around in his head at any moment. The first giveaway of what's on his mind--or the junta's mind.

Q:The junta being...?

A:Cheney, who runs everything, I suspect. And a few other serious operators. Anyway, I first noticed this was on their mind when Bush finally woke up to the fact that the hurricanes were not going to be good PR for him. And he starts to think friends of his are going to be running in '08. So what's the first thing he does? The first thing on the mind of a dictator? He gets the National Guard away from the governors. The Guard is under the governors, but Bush is always saying, Let's turn it over to the military. This is what's on their mind. Under military control.

Q:Are you predicting a coming military dictatorship? And that the American people would stand for that?

A:They'll stand for anything. And they will stand for nothing. I deal with a lot of European journalists who are very well versed in American politics. But they will ask me silly questions like, "So, Kerry didn't turn out very well. So who's the next leader of the opposition who can become President?" I answer, Well, first the New York Times won't interview him. He won't get on prime-time television if he looks like a winner. That's out. Or he will be made a fool of, like they did with Howard Dean when they amplified his famous cry. That was all done at CBS to make him look like a maniac. They are very resourceful! So if you have a media that is completely controlled by corporate America--or whatever phrase you want to use to describe our rulers--no information is getting through that is useful to the public. No White Knight is going to be acknowledged in the press or seen on television. He would have no way of connecting with the people. And this a permanent fact in our situation.... If there could be a viable opposition to the oil and gas junta that has seized power--all three branches of government, I think--it will have to be at the grassroots. Then you will have to find a way of publicizing through the Internet the White Knight--or the Black Knight, whoever comes along to save us.

Q:What are three or four main things the White Knight would have to say to motivate us, in your words, to keep the Republic?

A:First of all, we should be allowed to keep the money we earn. Because most of us are heavily taxed.

Q:That's what the Republicans say.

A:That's what they say, but they don't mean it. What they mean is, "We people who have money, we don't want our children to pay any inheritance tax. We don't want our huge incomes to be taxed. We don't want the profits of our big corporations ever to be taxed." And they've pulled all that off. When you run against them, you have to say the profits on corporations are going to be taxed. As they always were. The people understand this. And if they don't, you can explain it in ten minutes.

Q:What would the White Knight do with the military?

A:Cut its budget in half. That would save us a lot of money. We could rebuild a lot of levees. We don't need it.... We can't win a war anymore. They can't bring back the draft. We are at end times now for this regime. Just keep your fingers crossed we are not at end times for our country....

Q:One area where things seem to have improved in America concerns homophobia. Gay marriage can now be discussed in polite company.

A:I don't know that it much matters as a theme. Talk to anybody in the military and it's just as bad as when I spent three years in the Army during World War II and those suspected of same-sex activities were Section Eighted out or locked up. It was bad then, and it's bad now. An issue like gay marriage just keeps homophobia alive.

Q:So you're not an advocate of it?

A:No. I know to what purposes that issue is put.... You get an issue, like gay marriage, which doesn't concern 99.9 percent of the population, and you go on and on and on about it. Proving that the Democrats are all crazy, if not all queer. Someone wants to get married, fine. What's it to me?

Q:If we pick a point forty years ago, in the middle of the 1960s, when you were half your age, did you think then the United States would take the course it eventually did?

A:I never thought the President would dare to favor pre-emptive war. I never thought it would come to this, a sort of maniac for President who goes around attacking verbally and physically any country he wants. The ownership of this country has usually been pretty shrewd. They knew what they wanted. They don't want to pay taxes, certainly. They don't want people blowing them up in the night like 9/11. And if there ever was great cause for impeachment it would be over 9/11. Never been a case of negligence like that.

Q:You are not possibly suggesting that the Bush Administration allowed this attack to go ahead?

A:No. I'm not saying anything even close to it. If there had been some sort of wicked collusion between elements of our government and the 9/11 team from Saudi Arabia, in a country like ours, by now, at least two of them would have been on television talking to Barbara Walters. That's what kind of country we have. We can't keep secrets. No, it's unthinkable. Whatever was behind 9/11 was well worked out. And there isn't a brain in this Administration that could have worked out something like 9/11. Either to prevent it or to do it.

(*) (*) Well said.

(S) (S) 's
SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-07-2005, 12:01 AM

by Alexander Cockburn

Final Days: Only 39 Months to Go

[from the November 14, 2005 issue] The Nation

We have to go back to the early 1970s to find rubble so satisfactorily piled up around our imperial government. In fact, when the bodies are counted, the collapse in Nixon's second term may well pale in comparison to the Götter/no spamming of other sites/dämmerung of the Bush dynasty.

In Nixon's case, top officials and aides forced into resignation, and in many cases prison, included the Vice President, the head of the FBI, two attorneys general and four senior White House staffers.

On March 1, 1974, a grand jury named President Nixon, among others, as an unindicted co-conspirator, for obstructing justice by suppression of evidence such as the White House tapes. In August of that year Nixon resigned.

Yes, it was quite a holocaust at the top executive level. But many imperial institutions sailed through the crisis unimpaired, supposedly ennobled by it. Kissinger's sway over State Department and Empire was enhanced.

The Supreme Court sailed on, led by Nixon's chosen instrument, Warren Burger. Both the Senate and House of Representatives gained a heroic aura as the TV cameras turned Sam Ervin and even Howard Baker into saviors of the Republic. The Democratic Party emerged with credit and huge majorities in November 1974. Most of all, the Fourth Estate was anointed (mostly by itself) as the vanquisher of despotism.

Contrast this to the inferno that now threatens the Imperial Establishment on every front. Since Nixon-time the Republic has had thirty-one years to run to seed--fatter and more corrupt. Already the most powerful politician in Washington, House majority leader Tom DeLay, is under indictment and in consequence stripped of his official position. The future looks grim for Senator Bill Frist, who faces SEC and Justice Department probes for insider trading.

On Capitol Hill there's open warfare among various factions of the Republican Party, focused for now on Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. With midterm elections looming and Bush's approval ratings tumbling, the collapse of discipline will only accelerate amid the general panic.

The Bush high command is in utter disrepute, openly attacked by Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, as a dictatorial "cabal." The Plame scandal has threatened to take out the whole of Vice President Cheney's senior staff and to have the Vice President himself named as unindicted co-conspirator. Bush's deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, is in serious trouble, less and less able to counsel his boss, whose presidency hangs over the precipice of total ruin.

Consider the gloomy vista from Bush the Unlucky's Oval Office, where even the birds in the Rose Garden are omens of yet another national crisis (scheduled to provide another bonanza for the drug companies, which a Senate subcommittee just voted to hold free of any liability if their flu vaccines have the same lethal potential they did in the days of the swine flu).

In Iraq the war is faring disastrously and stateside it's increasingly unpopular. In the Homeland the hurricanes have blown away all remaining public illusions masking the venality of the President and his associates. The economy is rickety and a long-feared end to the housing boom may be upon us. Symbolizing the growing sense that the jig is up, Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan is heading into retirement just before the roof falls in.

Internationally, the United States has rarely been more despised. The armed forces are demoralized and the reserve system, in ruins.

Is there any institution not compromised, not held in popular contempt? This crisis has no Woodward or Bernstein to lend it luster. The journalist's name on every lip is that of Judith Miller, tagged as co-conspirator in the fomentation of a war that has seen the deaths of 2,000 Americans thus far. The New York Times is in a state of civil war, just like the Republican Party.

There's no sign that the Democratic Party is gaining any traction from the Republican collapse. With good reason. Never has a party been offered so many opportunities and taken so little advantage from them. So far as the war is concerned, powerful Democrats like Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton are calling for more troops.

In 2005 it is impossible to link the Democrats with a single courageous stand or even constructive idea. In October the party's top strategists--mesmerized by the twenty-first century's answer to the Framers, George Lakoff's childish nostrums--were wrangling over two possible slogans: "Together, we can do better" and "Together, America can do better."

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 older Americans lined up in mid-October to file for bankruptcy before the old wipe-the-slate-clean Chapter 7 law expired. Over half of these bankrupts have been ruined by health costs. The new bankruptcy law, written by the banks and credit card companies, made it through Congress only with the help of Democratic votes in the Senate, which were duly forthcoming, as they always are.

If a Democrat, John Kerry, had captured the White House in 2004, would it have made a difference? Yes. The imperial machine would probably be running more smoothly. The war in Iraq would have been given a new infusion of malign energy. You doubt this? Listen to Professor Juan Cole, liberal Democratic guru on Iraq. It's hard to keep up with his somersaults, but Cole says to The Nation Institute's Tom Engelhardt that for the United States to "up and leave" Iraq would be to become an accomplice to genocide. He counsels the heightened use in Iraq of "special forces and air power." In other words, assassinations and saturation bombing. Come home, Rob/no spamming of other sites/ert McNamara, all is--yet again--forgiven.

It's not the role of radicals to call for the election of a more efficient strategist and engineer of a bloodthirsty and rapacious empire, Kerry's only claim on the voters' attention anyone remembers. So let us give thanks that Bush is in the White House, and holding the imperial fleet on a steady course to the rocks.

(*) (*) (*) :| :| :| ;) ;) (h) (h) (h)

(o) (o) .....hmmm......I guess I better make some tea and try to relax soon. Talk about being a night owl. Well, many nights I'm up with Doc if he's sick or needs to go outside or have a drink of water. (l) (l)

(S) (S) Yep, definitely have become a lady of the evening..... ;)

Sweet dreams...... (S) (S)

SL & DTB

sweetlady

11-07-2005, 12:03 AM

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/kagoo/551101/522885/523000/#506655

;) ;)

SL & DTB

sweetlady

12-04-2005, 05:39 PM

(l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l)

Long time no hear from me - between Doc being sick and trying to keep up with weekly PhD course work - there just just no time for emails or postings lately.

Just so that you know, after a very stressful past week driving Doc to several places, I took him to be hospitalized Wed. afternoon.

By early Friday evening he was in so much distress breathing and was also in pain. I drove to the Vet Emergency Hospital and was told that there wasn't anything they could do and that the lymphoma was causing fluid build-up around his lungs and heart. I held my beloved Doc Holliday while the vet administered the meds and he passed quickly and peacefully...:-( :-( :(

A devasted and heartbroken Sweetlady (and Doc Holliday R.I.P. Friday, December 2 at 10:00 p.m.) (l) (l)

(l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l)

blackknight1

12-14-2005, 10:12 AM

Dearest Karen...aka sweetlady,

I was stunned and so sorry to hear about Doc. Having recently had to go through the same thing with an aged Newfoundland, I can feel your pain.

There really isn't much one can offer in the way of condolences when a beloved pet is no longer snoring under your feet, but rest easy and be at peace...now Doc is doing just that.

Hang in there Sweet Lady!!!

blackknight

sweetlady

12-15-2005, 06:37 AM

This should help clear up the differences between Sales, Marketing and
Public Relations.

Several women have asked for me an explanation of Marketing. Perhaps
the
following analogies will help clear it up:

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and say, "I'm
fantastic
in bed."
-- That's Direct Marketing.

You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a handsome guy. One
of
your friends goes up to him and pointing at you says, "She's fantastic
in
bed."
-- That's Advertising.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and get his
telephone
number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm fantastic in bed."
--That's Telemarketing.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. You get up and straighten
your
dress. You walk up to him and pour him a drink. You say, "May I," and
reach
up to straighten his tie brushing your breast lightly against his arm,
and
then say, "By the way, I'm fantastic in bed."
-- That's Public Relations.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. He walks up to you and says,
"I
hear you're fantastic in bed."
-- That's Brand Recognition.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. You talk him into going home
with
your friend.
-- That's a Sales Rep.

Your friend can't satisfy him so he calls you.
-- That's Tech Support.

You're on your way to a party when you realize that there could be
handsome
men in all these houses you're passing. So you climb onto the roof of
one
situated toward the center and shout at the top of your lungs, "I'm
fantastic in bed!"
-- That's Spam.

:| :|

sweetlady

12-15-2005, 06:42 AM

http://www.beecy.net/frank/

(*) (*) (*) :o :o :o ;) ;) ;) (h) (h) (h)

Sweetlady and oh.........forgot that I don't sign his paw anymore...... :(

sweetlady

12-15-2005, 06:45 AM

November 4, 2005

"One of the marks of John Paul's greatness was his rejection of ideological categories and limitations and his ability to hold complex thoughts together as a result. For him, there was no contradiction between celebrating the vocation of business leaders, as he does so innovatively in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, while upholding and defending the rights and dignity of simple peasants. In his view, both positions flowed, not from some poll he took, but from the intrinsic dignity and eternal destiny of the human person: a being at once unique, unrepeatable and immortal." Fr. Sirico on Pope John Paul II, April 4, 2005.

Brief Summary of John Paul II's Legacy:

25 years as pope - third longest tenure in papal history.
Most-traveled pope in history - visited 118 countries.
Transformed papacy into a public role.
Provided influence and inspiration for the non-violent collapse of communism in Poland in 1989, followed by other Eastern bloc countries.
Granted Vatican diplomatic recognition of Israel and made historic apology to Jews and others.
Named more saints than any other pope.

Leadership Style and Beliefs:

Bold, charismatic leader who likes to be challenged.
Intellectual strongly influenced by his experience under fascism and communism.
Traditionalist who clings to orthodox ideas of clerical celibacy, no woman priests, no contraception, no liberation theology, and tight, centralized Vatican control over bishops.

More about John Paul II: Spoke eight languages rather fluently: Polish, Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Playwright, poet, author, theologian, and philosopher, as well as pope. Shot by the Turkish assassin Mehmet Ali Agca on May 13, 1981. The Pope later forgave him.

Pope John Pail II may have been the most insightful business management thinker who ever lived. A column devoted to managing for society must pay homage to a spiritual leader and thinker who believed that business and society must always be in creative harmony.

People don’t usually think of the Pope as a business management thinker. Discussions of business management gurus bring to mind the likes of Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, Tom Peters or, more recently, Jack Welch. Yet, the Pope had a knack for expressing many progressive business management ideas without any jargon at all, often anticipating best-selling management writers by several years (Teehankee, 2005).

It would be impossible to give justice to the Pope’s thinking on business management in one unit assignment. His key ideas about economic initiative, the role of profit, the purpose of the firm, worker dignity, human capital, consumerism and sustainability - these ideas can be found in the Pope’s encyclicals entitled Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) and Centesimus Annus (1991).

Entrepreneurship is vital to society (Teehankee, 2005).

Michael Novak, in The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, hailed John Paul II as “the Pope of economic enterprise” because he made personal economic initiative a key idea in his social teaching. The Pope wrote in almost glowing terms about the potential of capitalism, properly understood for promoting the common good. Moreover, he always pushed for the idea that personal economic initiative is a fundamental human right.

Economists like Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek have always stressed the vital role of the entrepreneur in society. So did the Pope. In Centesimus Annus he explained that “it is precisely the ability to foresee both the needs of others and the combinations of productive factors most adapted to satisfying those needs that constitutes another important source of wealth in modern society.” In other words, the entrepreneur who acts quickly to meet a real need of those around him is giving an important social service.

This may come as a surprise to many who tend to think that Catholic Social Teaching encourages laziness and excessive dependency—both examples of weakness in character. The opposite is true. The Pope argued that the social role of “initiative and entrepreneurial ability” is decisive.

He linked entrepreneurship to the development of basic virtues important for everyday economic life “such as diligence, industriousness, prudence in undertaking reasonable risks, reliability and fidelity in interpersonal relationships, as well as courage in carrying out decisions which are difficult and painful but necessary, both for the overall working of a business and in meeting possible setbacks.”

Profit is a good thing, but not the only thing.

The Pope favored profit. He saw it as a useful indicator for measuring the results of human innovation. In Centesimus Annus, he wrote: “The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well. When a firm makes a profit, this means that productivity factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied.” Thus, he supported the principle of creating economic value by competitively meeting demand.

He was careful, though, to remind business managers not to be single-minded about profit because a business has a bigger purpose. “In fact,” he explained, “the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavoring to satisfy their basic needs and who form a particular group at the service of the whole society.”

In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras found out that many of the great companies which stood the test of time, like Sony and Johnson & Johnson, worked hard for both profit and social contribution. It was never a forced choice. They achieved both.

This is corporate social responsibility without the jargon and the media fanfare that often comes with CSR nowadays. Like the Pope, management thinkers like Charles Handy and Michael Porter emphasize the social responsibility role of business. Not everyone thinks this way. Peter Drucker, the original management guru, is emphatic: “If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibilities, fire him. Fast.” Sadly, Drucker is required reading in many business schools, while the Pope is not.

Many of Pope John Paul II’s ideas anticipated the human capital craze, why Jack Welch should not be a management role model and the cure for, in the words of Joel Bakan, the psychopathic state many business corporations are in (Teehankee, 2005).

Pope John Paul II as Transformational AND Spiritual Entrepreneur

In his Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II submits "the affluent society" to critique. He argues that it "seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a freemarket society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values." In doing so, the affluent society "totally reduces man to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs".

It seems to some that the two “selves”, material and spiritual must be in opposition, but in fact they are complementary. Material entrepreneurship in fact serves our spiritual self-interest, since, on the one hand, sufficient material prosperity permits the cultivation of spiritual well-being. On the other hand, without the Spirit, the most fabulous wealth turns to ashes in our hands, while the presence of the Spirit transforms even dust-motes and smoke into thousands of myriads of jeweled webs of light. All too often economic freedom corrupts self-interest to the point of contempt for God and neighbor. One then forgets that prosperity belongs to the whole human race and cannot be enjoyed in a proper and lasting way if it is achieved by excluding others from the sources of well-being (Harris, 2005).

Nonetheless, the Pontiff supports the free market for its ability to produce material prosperity. Economic freedom is essential, since it is the autonomous subject of moral decision whose decisions build the social order. Entrepreneurs are the "angels" of the free market. We know what an entrepreneur is: someone who sees a need and uses his or her free initiative to fill the need. Ordinarily, this is done for the sake of making an economic profit. But there is another possibility, one that may perhaps serve to balance the equation weighted down by the single-minded pursuit of material gain. Perhaps what is needed is a reinterpretation of the dedication of energies to what might be called spiritual entrepreneurship. Spiritual entrepreneurship is committed to spiritual well-being, that is, to justice and the common good. Anyone at any time can be a spiritual entrepreneur. Anyone with good will who, like his or her market counterpart, sees an economic need and seeks to fill it becomes a spiritual entrepreneur by injecting a "free gift of self" into the dark and dismal places of poverty and want, into the places where the materialistically oriented "angels of the market" fear to tread. One is a spiritual entrepreneur when hears not only his or her own material demands, but hearkens to the universal existential demand of the human heart for goodness, truth, and life (Harris, 2005).

The spiritual entrepreneur is as necessary to the spiritual wealth of society as the economic entrepreneur is to its material wealth. The notion of development "must not be understood solely in economic terms, but in a way that is fully human." Economic life is, after all, uncertain. It has ups and downs. The advantages of the market, i.e., its non-transparency and hence its ultimate incorruptibility, have an inevitable down-side: unpredictability, which unleashes economic storms that have disastrous consequences for the innocent victims of the market’s necessary changes and adjustments. When, for example, electricity, that mysterious power of heat and of light, ceased to flow through large portions of eastern Canada and the U.S. in the winter of 1998, many thousands of people were without power for many weeks after the storm. Such natural events contain valuable lessons concerning the leveling effect of disasters. Each of us meets the lack of heat, electricity, and hot water with an irredeemable and fundamental equality. Whether rich or poor, well- or poorly-housed, -clothed, and -fed beforehand, such events render each of us equally destitute. Many find themselves living in shelters. Stripped of belongings and even beloved pets by a "random" event, with little or nothing they could do about it--temporarily perhaps, but in such times does anyone really know?--they can but wonder when and indeed if they would return home (Harris, 2005).

Bank accounts and credit cards provide only fragile insulation against the cold that comes with a total loss of income and social status. We are interdependently linked through cash flow as well as through electrical flow. Those who believe themselves well-insulated cannot afford to forget that their cash flow is inextricably linked to the flow that passes through the hands of others (Harris, 2005).

The pope and Solidarity

At the time of the papal election, the conflict between the working class and the ruling Stalinist regime in Poland had escalated dramatically. Since the bloodily repressed workers’ rebellion of 1956, Poland had been wracked by a series of conflicts. In 1970, a strike wave against price increases forced the resignation of the party and government leader Wladyslav Gomulka. His successor, Edward Gierek, had to withdraw the price increases.

In 1976, Gierek sought again to increase prices, resulting in strikes, mass demonstrations and struggles on the barricades. In the ensuing years, the Committee for the Defense of Workers and founding committees of independent trade unions were formed, and in 1980—after a renewed strike wave against price increases—these organizations coalesced to become the trade union Solidarity, which won the following of millions of workers.

The emergence of a powerful workers movement in Poland was followed with great concern by governments East and West. The spread of the Polish movement to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries would have not only threatened Stalinist rule, but also inspired new militant struggles by workers in the West. A wave of such struggles had been curbed in the mid-1970s by the united efforts of the Social Democratic and trade union bureaucracies.

Characteristically, the German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, consistently supported the government of Gierek against the Polish workers. Schmidt even maintained a personal friendship with Gierek.

John Paul II was quite conscious of the danger of violent revolution in Poland and Eastern Europe. He sought to insure that Stalinist rule was overturned from the right, not the left, by supporting a pro-imperialist leadership within the Polish working class. In this effort, he was aided not only by the CIA, but also the various AFL-CIO foreign operations that were allied with the CIA and the US State Department (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

The hostility of John Paul II and the Church to Stalinism is equated by the media with devotion to democracy. This is a grotesque distortion. The pope presided over an institution that had been the most intransigent opponent of democracy for over 500 years, going all the way back to the emergence of Protestantism, when the Catholic Church sought to uphold the power and wealth of the clergy as a feudal estate.

The Church’s animus toward Stalinism was not due to the antidemocratic, caste-like rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy as such—all that was perfectly in keeping with the inner operations of the Church itself as an institution. The Church hierarchy itself is a caste, which originated in pre-capitalist society and is now rooted in capitalist social relations.

The Catholic Church is, after all, the largest single property owner in the world. Hence the Church supported bloody Latin American dictatorships, which upheld capitalist property, but opposed Stalinist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe that were based on nationalized property.

On this fundamentally reactionary basis, the Catholic Church openly sided with Solidarity. Less than eight months after his appointment, the new pope undertook his first “pilgrim’s journey” to Poland, followed by additional visits in 1983 and 1987. In January 1980, John Paul II granted an audience to a delegation of Solidarity members led by Lech Walesa. Drawing from different sources, the Vatican gathered at least $50 million to support the trade union in the ensuing years (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

The aim of the Vatican, however, was not to support the social demands of the workers. Rather, it sought to keep the movement under the influence of reactionary Catholic ideology and Polish nationalism, and ensure that it did not develop into an international challenge to the existing order. The Catholic hierarchy, whose experience in defending authority and order spanned one-and-a-half millennia, was highly aware that a popular movement such as that which had developed in Poland could not be tamed through passive means, but had to be actively influenced and turned in a different direction.

The appointment of a Polish pope already signified a stabilization of Catholicism in Poland. Wojtyla never tired of referring to his Polish roots, flattering Polish nationalism and presenting Poland as the Christian nation. Before a jubilant crowd at Warsaw’s Victory Square in June 1979, he praised the contribution made by “the Polish nation to the development of humanity and mankind,” which could be understood and appreciated, he said, only through Christ. His lecture culminated in the sentence, “There can be no just Europe without an independent Poland on the map of Europe!” (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

Without the pope’s intervention in Poland, events would hardly have taken the disastrous course that ultimately led to mass unemployment and bitter poverty for Polish workers. Initially, there existed not only Catholic, but also strong secular and socialistic tendencies in the Solidarity movement. These, however, lacked an effective perspective for opposing the Stalinist regime (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

The intervention of the Vatican contributed substantially towards bringing the movement under the control of the Catholic-nationalist wing around Lech Walesa—a man who combined his reputation as a militant workers leader at the Lenin Shipyard with a large dose of bigoted Catholicism. Walesa himself has openly acknowledged the role of the pope. In 1989, he declared: “The existence of the trade union Solidarnosc and myself would have been inconceivable without the figure of this great Pole and great man, John Paul II.” (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

While the pope gave political and financial support to Solidarity, he sought to hold it back from an open confrontation with the regime. Time and time again he called for moderation and restraint. As confrontations with the government became more violent, Solidarity increasingly intervened to restrain and control the workers.

Walesa constantly stressed that Solidarity was not striving for power: “We do not want to govern, but rather seek acknowledgment by the government, and we want to check them when they are governing to make sure they do a good job.” Wojciech Jaruzelski, who in December 1981 proclaimed martial law and arrested thousands of workers and Solidarity leaders, later openly acknowledged the restraint shown by the pope. In a television interview on the occasion of the death of the pope, he said: “He refrained from inciting social emotions at that time.”

Later, the pope appeared increasingly worried about the speed with which, after the collapse of the Stalinist regime, Solidarity discredited itself before the working class as its leaders came to power and oversaw the reintroduction of capitalism. John Paul II feared, with some justification, that the influence of the Catholic Church could suffer as a result, and that the new order would be endangered.

In visits to the country in 1991 and 1993, he warned against simply copying Western capitalism. During his last journey to Poland in 2003, he was even more blunt. When one forgets the price that was paid for liberty, he said, one is not far from “anarchy.” He lectured the Solidarity movement to keep out of politics, and pointed to glaring injustices in Poland—wages not paid, small businesses wiped out, workers denied holidays and time with their families.

John Paul II and US policy toward the Soviet Union

The decision by the Catholic Church to name a Polish pope was closely connected with a change of course in American foreign policy towards the Soviet Union. Under President Jimmy Carter and, even more openly, under his successor Ronald Reagan, détente gave way to confrontation.

As archbishop of Krakow, Wojtyla had already maintained an intensive exchange of letters with Polish-born Zbigniew Brzezinski, who took over as national security advisor during the Carter administration. Brzezinski, who had attended the funeral of Wojtyla’s predecessor as the official American representative, stayed in Rome for the entire period of the 1978 papal election that placed Wojtyla at the head of the Church.

This cooperation was intensified under the presidency of Reagan. The American ambassador to the Vatican at the time, James Nicholson, speaks of a “strategic alliance” between Washington and the Vatican against the Soviet Union. According to information gathered by the journalists Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, who wrote a book on the secret diplomacy of the Vatican, CIA Director William Casey and Deputy CIA Director Vernon Walters held regular confidential discussions with the pope starting in 1981. The main topic was CIA financial and logistic support for Solidarity (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

The ruling bureaucracy in Moscow reacted to the combination of intensified external pressure and growing internal social pressures by initiating the policy of capitalist restoration. The ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had its origins—as ironic as this may seem—in the same objective changes that brought Wojtyla to the holy seat in Rome. The events in Poland had deeply shaken the Kremlin bureaucracy. In the end, it sought to prevent a similar development in the Soviet Union by creating new bases for its rule through the introduction of capitalist property. This was the essential significance of Gorbachev’s perestroika.

In December 1989, Gorbachev became the first and only secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to have an audience in the Vatican. Three years later, Gorbachev praised the role of the pope with the words: “Everything that happened in these years in Eastern Europe would have been impossible without the presence of this pope.” (Heuser and Schwarz, 2005).

References:

Allegri, R. (2005). John Paul II: A life of grace. Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press.

Dess, J. (1998). Enterprising nonprofits. Harvard Business Review.

Gartner, W. (1993). Organizing the voluntary association. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice. 17(2), 103-106.

Garud, R., Jain, S., & Kumaraswamy, A. (2002). Institutional entrepreneurship in the sponsorship of common technological standards: The case of Sun Microsystems and Java. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 196-214.

Harris, I. (2005). Spiritual entrepreneurs. Catholic Planet, Retrieved November 4, 2005 from: http://www.catholicplanet.com/articles/article02.htm

Heuser, M. & Schwarz, P. (2005). Pope John Paul II: A political obituary. Retrieved November 4, 2005 from: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/pope-a06.shtml

McGuire, S., Hardy, C., & Lawrence, T. (2004). Institutional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. The Academy of Management Journal, 47 (5), 657-680.

Pantry, S. & Griffiths, P. (2000). Being an intrapreneur and creating a successful information service within your organization. Business Information Review, 17 (4),

Teehankee, B. (2005). Pope John Paul II: A great management thinker. The Manila Times. Retrieved November 3, 2005 from: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/apr/05/yehey/business/20050405bus5.html

sweetlady

12-15-2005, 07:01 AM

November 26, 2005

Business ethics is a concern for everyone. However, many believe that entrepreneurs are given to being more concerned with performance and being first to market or maintaining and increasing market share, than always being as vigilant as they should be regarding the ethics being used. Probe this assumption and provide an opinion with data to support it.

Webster's defines ethics as "a system or set of moral principles; the branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of actions and the goodness and badness of motives and ends."

Ethics play a major role in today's "arm's length" business transactions, and in turn, those transactions play a major role in the lives of all stakeholders. Many entrepreneurs are new or relatively new to the business world and can be somewhat naïve about common business practices that have evolved over time. Questions arise such as, should a business have morality, or is that a human characteristic? Should all executives, managers, and employees answer to the same set of rules for ethical conduct? Are ethical standards the same for a person at work as they are when that person is not at work? Who is guilty if an employee performs an unethical or illegal act while working for a company? What should be done if an employee calls attention to unethical practices that are condoned by the company? Are there any correct answers or do the answers depend on the situation and circumstances? In recent years, major unethical and/or illegal acts have been exposed in many corporations (Boyd, 2004).

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman boiled down the ethical responsibilities of business to society to this: "There is only one social responsibility of business - to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." (Barbee, 2005)

Where the ethical boundaries are blurred is where leadership and integrity - or lack of it - emerges. The connection between integrity and profits is not simple and clear. At best, a business that operates with integrity, one that treats its employees fairly and stands behind its products and services, earns loyalty and patronage. The basic character of such a business enables it to prosper (Barbee, 2005).

Ethical behavior relies on more than good character. Although good upbringing may provide a kind of moral compass that can help the individual determine the right direction and then follow through on a decision to do the right thing, it’s not the only factor determining ethical conduct (Papoutsy, 2000).

Past research on business ethics has shown that many entrepreneurs employ personal values within their businesses to a greater extent than do managers. Entrepreneurs appear to be slightly more sensitive to societal expectations and are more critical of their own performance than the general public. These positions are based on a study that surveyed 165 entrepreneurs and 128 managers, which revealed that with a few exceptions, entrepreneurs and managers were in agreement on ethical issues, entrepreneurs consistently placed a greater emphasis on ethical behavior (Hisrich, 2005).

Very little in the business ethics literature captures the passion and commitment that most business professionals and entrepreneurs feel for their life's work. This is a consequence of the "Business ethics is a contradiction in terms" attitude that underlies to some extent all writings in business ethics (Hicks, 2005).

The concept of a social entrepreneur is relatively new in the academic literature. In the past, entrepreneurs were thought of as motivated strictly by economic concerns. Dees, Emerson and Economy (2001) note that Say and Schumpeter present a foundation for entrepreneurial ventures which is based on the redirection of resources to meet a higher economic return. Say refers to a person as an entrepreneur, from the French word “entreprendre,” as one who attempts “to undertake; to pursue opportunities; to fulfill needs and wants through innovation and starting a business” (Burch, 1986 in Naumes, et al., 2002). In Schumpeter’s view, this leads to a form of creative destruction for the economic good of the system as a whole. This Hegelian perspective leads to a constant turmoil in the economic system that provides innovative approaches to current problems. Essentially, entrepreneurs act as change agents in economic society (Naumes, et al., 2002).

Trying to define and directly tie entrepreneurial leadership with ethics would be like nailing Jell-O to a wall (Mills, 2005). Standards, best practices and measurements are ambiguous. For instance, the Opacity Index, developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, provides some measurements of levels of opacity defined as "the lack of clear, accurate, formal, easily discernible, and widely accepted practices." The PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Study of Transparency and Sustainability assembled a team of senior economists, survey professionals, analysts, and distinguished advisors to explore the development of a worldwide Opacity Index. As the world's markets, in the era of "globalization," become more interdependent, it becomes obvious that one country can differ from another in the clarity and consistency of their approaches to managing their economies. Some national economies are relatively transparent, while many others are relatively opaque. The PricewaterhouseCoopers Opacity Index brings a degree of clarity to the subject of costs related to corruption (Papoutsy and Papoutsy, 2005).

Tying ethics to cultural values:

Some social scientists search for common ground between western and non-western values to support ethics research. Other social scientists find a common denominator in the philosophical system that shaped western values and ethics such as the Classical Greek Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle - the Japanese Kyoshi Philosophy of living and working together for the common good - the Hindu Dharma, the fulfillment of inherited duty - the Buddhist Santatthi, the importance of self restraint - the Muslim Zakat, the duty to help the poor - and the western notion of human rights. Other social scientists find a common denominator in the philosophical system that shaped Western values and ethics, namely the Classical Greek Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (Papoutsy, 2000).

From its founding, the United States has struggled with the difficulty of constructing a powerful government for a diverse population. Consequently, Americans are potentially well equipped to deal with the challenges of developing standards of global conduct for diverse cultures. The key for Americans is a process that shows "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Despite this promising endowment or perhaps because of it, Americans do not respond well to the kinds of cultural imperatives that in other societies may cause business decision-makers to exercise moral restraint (Berenbeim, 2002).

Some of these inhibitions are:

1. Relationship to and feelings about money.

2. Individualism versus group orientedness.

3. Culture of shame versus culture of sin.

4. Accountability and social responsibility.

5. Influence of different religions.

Cultural elements such as the unfavorable notion of greed, group commitment, shame, sin, accountability, responsibility and religion that may be critical decision-making factors in other societies have less importance in shaping the U.S. view of ethical business conduct (Berenbeim, 2002).

The global corporation must just not seek profit for its stockholders, and big bonuses for its senior management, but must also enhance the opportunities for society where people can contribute in a business environment in a free society for the benefit of global corporations, stockholders, managers, and other stakeholders, labor, and the world community. Global harmony and global eudaimonia must become the ultimate goals. Aristotle’s philosophy of eudaimonia is built on the virtues emphasized by the virtues of his teacher, Plato—wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice (Papoutsy, 2003).

Entrepreneurs must be able to define and analyze the ethical consciousness of the organizations, the process and structure that will enhance ethical activity and the incorporation and implementation of ethical objectives in the daily activities. This defines the three major elements of the ethical objectives: ethical consciousness, ethical process and structure and institutionalization. But the most important element in this should be the entrepreneur himself or herself. The whole ethical objectives will somehow be affected by the entrepreneur’s own set of values and norms. Therefore, the quest for ethics must start from him or her. The entrepreneur must be able to set a good example especially in how he conducts himself, makes decisions, set standards and provide ethical direction to his or her (Feliciano, 2005).

References:

Barbee, B. (2005). Ethics of... entrepreneurship. Baylor Business Review. Retrieved November 23, 2005 from: http://www.baylor.edu/bbr/index.php?id=27171

Berenbeim, R. (2002). What is ethical? An American view. Delivered to the Institut Aspen France Conference Business Ethics and Corporate Governance: Are Cultural Differences Involved in the Perceptions of Approach to These Issues? Lyon, France, April 25, 2002. Retrieved November 26, 2005 from: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/berenbeim.html

Boyd, M. W. (2004). Business ethics for unseasoned entrepreneurs: Trends and concerns for professionals and stakeholders. Proceedings of the Academy of Entrepreneurship. Vol. 10 (1). Retrieved November 25, 2005 from: http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/research/allied/2004/entrepreneurship/pdf/09.pdf

Case studies in business ethics. Inc. Magazine. Retrieved November 26, 2005 from: http://www.inc.com/guides/growth/20806.html

Feliciano, R. R. (2005). Business ethics. University of the Philippines Technology Management Center. Retrieved November 25, 2005 from: http://www.tmc.upd.edu.ph/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=22

Hannafey, F. (2003). Entrepreneurship and Ethics: A Literature Review. Journal of Business Ethics, 46 (2), 99-111.

Hicks, S. (2005). Foundations study guide: Business ethics. The Objectivist Center, Rockford College. Retrieved November 24, 2005 from: http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/foundations_business-ethics.asp

Hisrich, R. D. (2005). Ethics of business managers vs. entrepreneurs. Retrieved November 25, 2005 from: http://www.riseb.org/eshisrich.html

Morris, M. Schindehutte, M., Walton, J., & Allen, J. (2002). The ethical context of entrepreneurship: Proposing and testing a developmental framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 40 (4), 331-362.

Naumes, M. J., Kammermeyer, J. A. & Naumes, W. (2002). Social Entrepreneurship –

A relevant concept for business schools? Retrieved November 25, 2005 from: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/naumes1.html

Papoutsy, C & Papoutsy, M. (2005). Measuring opacity. Retrieved November 24, from: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/opacity.html

Papoutsy, C. (2003). Entrepreneurship and ethics equals success. Presented at the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business and Economics. Retrieved November 23, 2005 from: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/papoutsyspeaksunh.html

Papoutsy, C & Papoutsy, M. (2000). Can business ethics be taught? Retrieved November 23, 2005 from: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/ethics.html

Temple University. Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute. (2005). Entrepreneurship and Ethics Conference Proceedings.

;) (h) ;) (h) ,

Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 02:59 PM

December 17, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Hot Monkey Love
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

As President Bush tries to shake off his dazed look and regain his swagger, he will no doubt dust off his cowboy routine: his gunslinger pose, his squinty-eyed gaze, his dead-or-alive one-liners, his Crawford brush clearing.

But this time, he may want to think twice before strapping on a Texas-shaped belt buckle. W. might inadvertently conjure up images of Bushback Mountain.

The High Plains, one of the few remaining arenas where men were men, may now evoke something more ambiguous, like men with men. After "Brokeback Mountain," pitching that pup tent on the prairie will never seem the same.

Can a culture built on laconic cowboys like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood survive one rough-hewn cowboy crooning to another, as Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist tells Heath Ledger's Ennis Del Mar, "Sometimes I miss you so much, I can hardly stand it," and, "I wish I knew how to quit you"?

The Duke's tough "Pilgrim, you could've gotten somebody killed today and somebody oughta belt you in the mouth" has a different ring than Jake's vulnerable entreaty, "It could be like this, just like this, always."

Hmm. Maybe it's time to take another look at that sway in John Wayne's stride.

Everything will have to be re-evaluated. "High Plains Drifter" now sounds like a guy who might get arrested in a bus station bathroom. And audiences may be ready for "The Good, the Bad and the Bad Hair Day."

For decades, Republicans have had electoral success exploiting the simplistic frontier myth. Ronald Reagan galloped in from the West to rescue Washington. Dick Cheney's aides cast him as the stoic rancher who would blast a shotgun at rustlers if they messed with his cattle.

In 2004, the G.O.P. convention was staged like "The Magnificent Seven," with a gunslinging posse - including Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain - riding in with W. and Vice to save the town from the black hats. Poor John Kerry had to fall back on sailor imagery, skippering a boat into Boston and saluting the crowd with "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty." At least he managed not to use the Village People's "In the Navy" as his theme song.

A president who hates dissonance, who prefers a world in black and white, is now confronted by confusing gray shades everywhere he looks.

Hollywood is busy sensitizing - and emotionally layering - archetypal macho guys, including our most famous alpha male. He's still strong and decisive. His back's as hairy as ever. But it's just not the same Kong.

This lovable overgrown monkey is more like the brooding, wounded and steadfast romantic heroes Heathcliff and Rick Blaine. Like Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy, Peter Jackson's big ape goes for gals with spunk. He likes babes who juggle more than jiggle.

This gorilla doesn't go around tossing "gorilla dust," as Ross Perot used to call it, just to get into another alpha's space. He doesn't look for a T. rex simply to rip its jaws apart - he only protects his loved ones. He'd rather hang out on his mountain, enjoying the sunset and watching his gal juggle and do pratfalls.

In a way, the new images of alpha archetypes are subversive precisely because the cowboys and the king of the jungle remain macho even as they become more nuanced.

The latest Kong waits for the blonde to come to him. "This time, he really seems to have the qualities of a hero in a woman's romance - he's distant, he's suffering, he's aloof," says Cynthia Erb, a professor and the author of "Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture."

As the hairy antihero grows more sensitive with each remake, the Ann Darrow character gets more sexual and aggressive. "She goes from a naïve, innocent, screaming, virginal character in the 30's to a sexually free, liberated feminist woman in the 70's," Ms. Erb notes. "In this one, she has the benefits of feminism and is the one who in some ways initiates the courtship. She actually works to earn his interest." And tries to save him.

For all its dazzling digital spectacle, "King Kong" is not as daring as it could be. Peter Jackson could have made Kong a woman. Or, while he was borrowing "Titanic" imagery for the lovers' parting on the Empire State Building, he could have gone all the way and made "Brokeback Island."

Just picture it: Leonardo DiCaprio, blond, doe-eyed and smitten, curled in the ape's epicene yet hairy grip. Kong, swinging both ways.

(*) (*) (h) (h) ;) ;)

Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 03:00 PM

December 14, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

W. Won't Read This

By MAUREEN DOWD NYTimes

WASHINGTON

Never ask a guy who's in a bubble if he's in a bubble. He can't answer.

'Cause he's in a bubble.

But the NBC anchor Brian Williams gamely gave it a shot, showing the president the Newsweek cover picturing him trapped in a bubble.

"This says you're in a bubble," Brian told W. "You have a very small circle of advisers now. Is that true? Do you feel in a bubble?"

"No, I don't feel in a bubble," Bubble Boy replied, unable to see the bubble because he's in it. "I feel like I'm getting really good advice from very capable people and that people from all walks of life have informed me and informed those who advise me." He added, "I'm very aware of what's going on."

He swiftly contradicted himself by admitting that "this is the first time I'm seeing this magazine" - his version of his dad's Newsweek "Wimp Factor" cover - and that he doesn't read newsmagazines.

The anchor and the anchorite spent a few anodyne moments probing the depths of what it's like to be president. "I just talked to the president-elect of Honduras," W. said. "A lot of my job is foreign policy, and I spend an enormous amount of time with leaders from other countries."

Brian struggled to learn whether W. read anything except one-page memos. Talking about his mom, Bubble Boy returned to the idea of the bubble: "If I'm in a bubble, well, if there is such thing as a bubble, she's the one who can penetrate it."

"I'll tell the guys at Newsweek," the anchor said impishly.

"Is that who put the bubble story?" W. asked. First he didn't know about it, and now he's forgotten it already? That's the alluring, memory-cleansing beauty of the bubble.

The idea that W. is getting good advice from very capable people is silly - administration officials have blown it on everything from the occupation and natural disasters to torture. In the bubble, they can torture while saying they don't. They can pretend that Iraqi forces are stronger than they are. They can try to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda's dream of a new Islamic caliphate - their latest attempt to scare Americans into supporting the war they ginned up.

"Whether or not it needed to happen," the president told the anchor, "I'm still convinced it needed to happen." The Bubble Boy can even contradict himself and not notice.

W.'s contention that he's informed by people from all walks of life is a joke, as is his wacky assertion that he can "reach out" to the public more than Abraham Lincoln because he has Air Force One. Lincoln actually went to the front in his war, with Minié balls whizzing by. No phony turkey for him.

The president may fly over all walks of life in Air Force One or drive by them and hide behind dark-tinted windows. In his bubble, he floats through a comforting world of doting women, respectful military audiences, loyal Republican donors and screened partisan groups - with protesters, Democrats, journalists, critics and coffins of dead soldiers kept at bay.

(He has probably even been shielded from the outrage of John and Stacey Holley, both Army veterans, who were shocked to learn that their only child, Matthew, killed in Iraq, would be arriving in San Diego as freight on a commercial airliner.)

Jack Murtha, a hawkish Democrat close to the Pentagon who supported both wars against Iraq waged by the Bushes, has been braying against the Bush isolation. He told Newsweek that a letter he wrote to the president making suggestions about how to fight the Iraq war was ignored for seven months, then brushed off by a deputy under secretary of defense. Even after he went public, he still did not get a call from the White House.

"If they talked to people," he said, "they wouldn't get these outbursts."

Mr. Murtha told Rolling Stone that the administration's deafness had doomed Iraq: "Everything we did was mishandled. Plans that the military and the State Department had in place - they ignored 'em. The military tells me that when they were planning the invasion, the administration wouldn't let one of the primary three-star generals in the room."

The president's bubble requires constant care. It's not easy to keep out huge tragedies like Katrina, or flawed policies like Iraq. As Newsweek noted, a foreign diplomat "was startled when Secretary of State Rice warned him not to lay bad news on the president. 'Don't upset him,' she said."

Heaven forbid. Don't burst his bubble.

(*) (*) :| :| :| :|

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 03:04 PM

December 12, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

Big Box Balderdash

By PAUL KRUGMAN

I think I've just seen the worst economic argument of 2005. Given what the Bush administration tried to put over on us during its unsuccessful sales pitch for Social Security privatization, that's saying a lot.

The argument came in the course of the latest exchange between Wal-Mart and its critics. A union-supported group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, has released a TV ad accusing Wal-Mart of violating religious values, backed by a letter from religious leaders attacking the retail giant for paying low wages and offering poor benefits. The letter declares that "Jesus would not embrace Wal-Mart's values of greed and profits at any cost."

You may think that this particular campaign - which has, inevitably, been dubbed "Where would Jesus shop?" - is a bit over the top. But it's clear why those concerned about the state of American workers focus their criticism on Wal-Mart. The company isn't just America's largest private employer. It's also a symbol of the state of our economy, which delivers rising G.D.P. but stagnant or falling living standards for working Americans. For Wal-Mart is a huge and hugely profitable company that pays badly and offers minimal benefits.

Attacks on Wal-Mart have hurt its image, and perhaps even its business. The company has set up a campaign-style war room to devise responses. So how did Wal-Mart respond to this latest critique?

Wal-Mart can claim, with considerable justice, that its business practices make America as a whole richer. The fact is that Wal-Mart sells many products more cheaply than traditional stores, and that its low prices aren't solely or even mainly the result of the low wages it pays. Wal-Mart has been able to reduce prices largely because it has brought genuine technological and organizational innovation to the retail business.

It's harder for Wal-Mart to defend its pay and benefits policies. Still, the company could try to argue that despite its awesome size and market dominance it cannot defy the iron laws of supply and demand, which force it to pay low wages. (I disagree, but that's a subject for another column.)

But instead of resting its case on these honest or at least defensible answers to criticism, Wal-Mart has decided to insult our intelligence by claiming to be, of all things, an engine of job creation. Judging from its press release in response to the religious values campaign, the assertion that Wal-Mart "creates 100,000 jobs a year" is now the core of the company's public relations strategy.

It's true, of course, that the company is getting bigger every year. But adding 100,000 people to Wal-Mart's work force doesn't mean adding 100,000 jobs to the economy. On the contrary, there's every reason to believe that as Wal-Mart expands, it destroys at least as many jobs as it creates, and drives down workers' wages in the process.

Think about what happens when Wal-Mart opens a store in a previously untouched city or county. The new store takes sales away from stores that are already in the area; these stores lay off workers or even go out of business. Because Wal-Mart's big-box stores employ fewer workers per dollar of sales than the smaller stores they replace, overall retail employment surely goes down, not up, when Wal-Mart comes to town. And if the jobs lost come from employers who pay more generously than Wal-Mart does, overall wages will fall when Wal-Mart moves in.

This isn't just speculation on my part. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas.

The authors find that retail employment did, indeed, fall when Wal-Mart arrived in a new county. It's not clear in their data whether overall employment in a county rose or fell when a Wal-Mart store opened. But it's clear that average wages fell: "residents of local labor markets," the study reports, "earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores."

So Wal-Mart has chosen to defend itself with a really poor argument. If that's the best the company can come up with, it's going to keep losing the public relations war with its critics. Maybe it should consider an alternative strategy, such as paying higher wages.

(*) (*) I wonder when more folks will realize that Wal-Mart's value chain is building up China to eclipse the U.S. as the world's next superpower? :| :| :|

(o) (o) Back to the books....last week ends tomorrow.

It will be a long two weeks before Winter Quarter (two more PhD courses however the end is in sight....) starts January 2. It's so quiet without my Doc'meister, the boxer around anymore. I miss him so much my heart feels broken every day. :( :( :( :( :( :(

Have a lovely evening,

Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 03:07 PM

Our 25 favorite books of the year—from teen sex diseases and Aztec slaughterhouses to Kiss riffs and juvenile tambourinists

December 13th, 2005 3:37 PM

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction
By Sue Townsend
Soho, 327 pp., $24

Townsend uses the weight of her 23-year-old literary project to create an expert entertainment that's also a cogent, furious foreign-policy critique. Hypnotized by credit card offers, thirtysomething Adrian sinks hundreds of thousands of pounds into debt; the final calculation is both absurd and chilling, a potent metaphor for the cost of the war effort. His support for Tony Blair crumbles as it becomes clear that his infantryman son faces real danger. "Happy people don't keep a diary," Adrian concludes. Can greedy readers be forgiven for wishing him just a little more misfortune?

Afflicted Powers
By Retort
Verso, 211 pp., $16

It starts with a rebarbative proposition. The events of September 11, 2001, were indeed attacks in a terrain once thought unassailable: the arena of domination known (and misknown) as "the spectacle." "The state's reply to them," the first chapter notes unflinchingly, "has exceeded in its crassness and futility the martyr-pilots' wildest dreams." Elaborating global and local conflicts within a web of strong, weak, and failed states, the book pursues much of what's hauntingly unsatisfying about most "explanations" of recent history. It's similarly enlightening on the troubling development of "Revolutionary Islam," and global oil economics—situating these things, without justification or excuse, within the failed narrative of modernity. Unorthodox, historically informed, and fearless, this volume is desperately necessary for thinking, circa now, about common life without commonplaces.

Atomik Aztex
By Sesshu Foster
City Lights, 203 pp., $15.95

Foster's debut novel flips fearlessly between the creases he's pressed into the wrinkled fabric of reality—from the killing floor of a southeast L.A. slaughterhouse, to a suicide mission in 1940s Stalingrad, to "the frenetic hustle of overcrowded Teknotitlan," mid-20th-century capital of the "Aztek Socialist Imperium." Isaak [sic] Babel makes a brief showing in biker's black leather, and a naked, 400-pound Hermann Goering, emptied of entrails, bounces down the steps of the Great Pyramid. "The world goes on & on," Foster writes. "It will never stop." And until you turn the final page, at least, that sounds like a blessing.

Black Hole
By Charles Burns
Pantheon, 368 pp., $24.95

There's a bug going around, passed through sexual contact, leaving teenagers with peculiar deformities—a tail, or webbed hands, or a small, mumbling mouth at the base of the neck. Is this an AIDS metaphor, or one for the awkward passage into adulthood, or simply a horrific look through a mirror, darkly? By the end of Burns's 10-years-in-the-making opus, dream logic and subtext have danced with each other too closely for us to distinguish between fantastic abstraction and what's really real. Corroborated by his stark, static illustration, the book's final impression is candid and clinical, a portrait of the artist as the man he'll inevitably become.

The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Koch
Edited by Jordan Davis, Karen Koch, and Ron Padgett
Coffee House Press, 387 pp., $18

Koch's fiction strings together impeccable sentences in ways that beat the boundaries of logic and genre. A seven-page Hardy Boys epic nestles next to a Proustian riff off a postcard; novels have a hard time deciding whether they're made up of chapters or stories. Koch wrote about one long work: "All the sentences were like the last sentences of novels or the first sentences of short stories." There's an innocence to all his orderings, and a great relief in not knowing whether we're reading grown-up literature for children ("He really loved the polenta, and so did his friend") or children's literature for grown-ups ("We have had such a good lunch that it makes me sad"). What's certain is a light and loving hand that wasn't afraid to do a little wavering.

Europeana
Patrik Ourednik
Dalkey Archive, 122 pp., $12.50

Europeana is like Harper's Weekly Review extended across the 20th century: a bunch of neutral sentences that promise via sequentiality to make an endlessly dissolving narrative from "events." Here the facts are weighted: more sentences about WW I than jogging, though both appear, and ghostly power is vested in the magical word and. "And writers and poets endeavored to find ways of expressing it best and in 1916 they invented Dadaism because everything seemed crazy to them. And in Russia they invented a revolution. And the soldiers wore around their neck or wrist a tag . . ." History, or a knifing of the progressive humanist delusion that there's such a thing as history in the first place? Yes, exactly. A tragicomic prose poem to make poets weep with envy, to make everyone weep.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
By Jonathan Safran Foer
Houghton Mifflin, 356 pp., $24.95

Oscar Schell, a nine-year-old tambourinist with a propensity for running his mouth, roams New York searching for the literal key to his father, who died on 9-11 after leaving five gut-wrenching messages on his home answering machine. Oscar wards off panic attacks by busying his brain with pressing questions (what if skyscrapers were built underground? what if anuses could talk?). Never short on invention, Foer's second novel offsets tragedy into moments of sweet and boyish humor. With an array of puzzles and tricks, the book captures "the worst day," as well as the unconquerable loneliness that follows.

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
By Chuck Klosterman
Scribner, 245 pp., $23

Please thrill me: Klosterman's best book yet has a Spin-assignment narrative line (he'll drive across the country, visiting the deathplaces of rock stars) that he gradually and gloriously reconfigures to his own omphaloskeptical purposes. The result is a fast-moving meditation on death, girlfriends, and drugs. Not that there isn't music: His riffs are nicely deranged, as when he explains how Kid A predicted 9-11 or correlates his exes with every last member of Kiss—even the "uncredited percussionist on Unmasked." Klosterman concludes, with charming self-loathing, "It is a miracle any woman has ever kissed me."

The Letters of Robert Lowell
Edited by Saskia Hamilton
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 672 pp., $40

Reading letter collections always feels a little larcenous, but Lowell's correspondence is so artfully crafted it demands an audience. Enclosed are reams of apologies to those whose lives his manic depression also, to varying degrees, derailed. In particular, his three writer wives and his great friend Elizabeth Bishop sustained impassioned attempts to cover lapses and explosions. To Bishop he writes, "[M]y state zoomed sky-high and I am glad you didn't see it. It's hard for the controlled man to look back on the moment of chaos and claim. I shan't try, but it was all me, and I am sorry you were touched by it." This is a different kind of confessionalism—one that places Lowell among the ranks of the great epistolists.

Like a Fiery Elephant: The Life of B.S. Johnson
By Jonathan Coe
Continuum, 486 pp., $29.95

Coe's passionate B.S. Johnson bio is a tribute from a famous novelist to an obscure one, a reconstruction of the life and a probing if playful deconstruction of such reconstructions, and an affirmation of Johnson's importance. Johnson could be a comic figure; he was ultimately a tragic one, ending his life at 39 and leaving behind his wife and two children. In its artfully fragmented structure, autobiographical inserts, and circular conceits Like a Fiery Elephant adopts Johnson's own imperatives (all is chaos, you can only write about yourself) even while questioning them.

Love Creeps
By Amanda Filipacchi
St. Martin's, 289 pp., $23.95

After years of unhampered if boring success with men, a New York gallery owner yearns to be humiliated, or at least rejected, so she picks a random guy to pursue and annoy—"for health reasons." (Her own stalker, a chubby dud who calls her "pooky," trails a few paces behind.) With a flair for delightfully silly dialogue, Filipacchi's third novel portrays romance as the tricky, prickly game that it is: Her characters fall in love for all the wrong reasons. Flirting is a complex process, requiring wit, patience, and elaborate displays of disgust.

Lunar Park
By Bret Easton Ellis
Knopf, 320 pp., $24.95

Eyeballing his writing and party careers next to his estranged father's ghost, a son he's ignored for 11 years, disappearing teens, possessed toys, and a serial killer re-enacting American Psycho's murders, Bret Easton Ellis stars as Lunar Park's neurotic and perpetually buzzed, ultimately tender narrator. Like a tell-all, meta–Charlie Kaufman– Revolutionary Road– Poltergeist mash-up, Ellis's fifth novel channels John Cheever, Stephen King, and Philip Roth into the author's own back catalog, creating a cynical, heavily coded, surprisingly scary, often hilarious, totally haunted treasure hunt from 307 Elsinore Lane. Showcasing Ellis's best writing to date, the pyrotechnical finale is one of the year's most sumptuously tear-jerky prose arcs. Watch your back, Michael Cunningham.

Magic for Beginners
By Kelly Link
Small Beer Press, 272 pp., $24

Otherworldly nostalgia creeps close to revolution in Link's collection, where zombies and ghost dogs muddle a sweetly feral domesticity. In "Lull," a cheerleader fated to live life backward thinks (during a spin-the-bottle interlude in a closet with the Devil): "That was what was so nice about being married. Things got better and better until you hardly even knew each other anymore. And then you said goodnight and went out on a date, and after that you were just friends." It's the storyteller's mantra—"It gets better"—come to life and multiplied.

My Life in CIA: A Chronicle of 1973
By Harry Mathews
Dalkey Archive, 249 pp., $13.95

A semi-fictionalized (or perhaps semi-authentic) account of the author's Cold War adventures, My Life in CIA features an American protagonist, Harry Mathews, who's so frequently mistaken for a government operative that he decides to become one. But Mathews the author isn't necessarily Mathews the character, and ultimately nothing about this "novel" should be taken literally, except its desire to provoke ample head-scratching. Mathews leaves subplots unresolved, abruptly writes off supporting characters, and otherwise luxuriates in an inexplicable stasis. Think of a Ludlum thriller bled of all suspense, and then turned inside out.

Never Let Me Go
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Knopf, 288 pp., $24

Like Shakespeare's monster who learns enough to curse learning, Ishiguro's Kathy H. comes to doubt what she's taught at Hailsham, an isolated boarding school where student-clones are raised and trained to donate their organs. Imagine Caliban as an adolescent girl; today the test tube is the witch who gives birth to her. A 1984 for the bioengineering age, the novel is a warning and a glimpse into the future. For Orwell's Winston Smith, war was peace and freedom was slavery. For Kathy, dying after a second or third or fourth donation is known as "completing." By the time a well-meaning guardian finally follows "donate" with "your vital organs," it's too late to object.

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style
By Matt Madden
Chamberlain Bros., 206 pp., $16.95

99 Ways does the best kind of exercise: There's no padding or heavy machinery, just one elegant body studiously stretching its limbs. Madden takes the model figure of a bare-bones story (man walks into a kitchen), spreads it out over eight panels, and, in 99 one-page permutations, twists and shouts it in every direction. It's the comic book version of Bach's Goldberg Variations—or, to choose a juicier example, a still life from The Aristocrats. The real story turns with the pages in this deep-thinking, quick-moving Queneauvian study of the infinite pleasures of composition.

Other Electricities
By Ander Monson
Sarabande, 167 pp., $14.95

The fragments in Monson's Upper Peninsula epic assume in strange shapes: dream obituaries, annotated temperatures, incantations. The titles here would be at home on a Sufjan Stevens album ("We Are Going to See the Oracle of Apollo in Tapiola, Michigan"), and the two share a gift for oblique illumination. Winter has its own secret history, a frozen litany of vandalism, accident, and rue; "like milk in a bottle," the season's given shape in these pages. Crystallography and The Age of Wire and String are reference points, but Other Electricities locates an odd, exciting wavelength all its own.

Povel
By Geraldine Kim
Fence, 128 pp., $14

Kim's centaur debut is a constant notebook, humming with graffiti and gossip, bad jokes, great jokes, bodily functions, lyrics, juvenile glosses, sudden sadnesses. Povel comes equipped with a hilarious, spurious Lyn Hejinian intro, the longest title in the world, and observations on how her writing-workshop cohorts are responding to the text. Kim comments on the spell-checker's comments, Rage Against the Machine, the NYU suicides, Infinite Jest. She's her own A.D.D. Boswell, a self-mythologizing Korean American diva worth a thousand Margaret Chos.

Reflex
By Vik Muniz
Aperture, 204 pp., $39.95

The most Borgesian of contemporary artists turns out to be a splendidly Borgesian writer himself, and Reflex, his generous, Cheshire cat of a primer, is as profound as it is playful. Injured randomly by a bullet in his native Brazil, he took up the gunman's offer of money and bought a ticket to the U.S., where he developed the "light interrogatory technique" of his art. His wizardly cover versions of famous images use everything from thread to diamonds to chocolate syrup, and Reflex is similarly omnivorous, bursting with double-take reproductions, beard-tugging axioms ("The accidental discovery of anything implies a predisposed need for that thing"), and at least seven if not seventeen types of ambiguity.

Rubble: Unearthing the History of Demolition
By Jeff Byles
Harmony, 353 pp., $24

Voice contributor Byles presents very different chapters in city planning: Haussmann's plans for Paris, the what-were-we-thinking story of Penn Station, the Berlin Wall's demise, the destruction of the twin towers. It's a strange but satisfying amalgam of stories, a primer for anyone who cares about urban histories and how, in ignoring architecture, we actively participate in its destruction. By Rubble's end, the pleasure of ruins no longer seems so irresistible, and analogies to voyeurism and murder are never far.

The Sluts
By Dennis Cooper
Void, 296 pp., $50
(also in paper, $14.95 from Carroll & Graf)

A dizzying pileup of bareback breeding, castration procedures, master-slave mind games, boyband necrophilia fantasies, and consensual snuff sex, The Sluts is—this will sound strange— Cooper's most enjoyable novel to date. Echoing the loose palindromic structure of his George Miles cycle, the book begins and ends on a gay-escort review website, where the focus of masturbatory—and possibly murderous—attention is a barely legal total bottom. Simulating the thrill and fatigue of Web prowling, it's as profound an analysis of the Internet's philosophical dimensions as any fiction writer has produced.

Times Like These
By Rachel Ingalls
Graywolf, 316 pp., $16

A Massachusetts native resident in En-gland for 40 years, Ingalls conjures a calmly demonic America for the stories and novellas in this brutally beautiful collection. Unwanted pregnancies and unnamed wars cast permanent shadows; the reader's skin crawls at the relentless concatenations (shades of Thomas Berger) and Twilight Zone plot-pivots. "Veterans" evokes A History of Violence, and "Somewhere Else" might be the year's most surprising piece of fiction: an unmooring vision of hell that rises just as your defenses go down.

Veronica
By Mary Gaitskill
Pantheon, 227 pp., $23

Fans long accustomed to a sensibility as blunt as ice had reason to worry that Mary Gaitskill might by circumstance have softened in her second novel. Begun a decade ago, Veronica, whatever its author may have once intended, reaches us at last as a well-crafted dispatch from middle age. No matter, it's a knives-out return, and Gaitskill's sentences spring all the usual traps. Feeling blue one rainy day, Alison, a washed-up model, regrets her past—in particular, Veronica, a loudmouth who made her embarrassed to be her friend. Humility strikes Alison hard.

Wimbledon Green
By Seth
Drawn & Quarterly, 128 pp., $19.95

In this high-spirited, densely packed graphic novel, cartoonist Seth chronicles the exploits of the "greatest comic book collector in the world." Working with a color palette of gold, silver, and bronze (in honor of the three key ages of 20th-century comics), Seth casts his hero as a globe-trotting adventurer with his own dual identity, acknowledging this highly nerdy community's fundamental need to imagine itself as a league of real-life superheroes. Conceived as an exercise in the artist's sketchbook, the whimsical world Seth creates ultimately captures the best and worst of comics, the only place where "infamous flatulence" is actually a selling point.

The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion
Knopf, 240 pp., $23.95

The writer who famously cut to passages from her psychiatric report here splices in her husband's autopsy and her daughter's CT scan. Didion has always been obsessed with disjunction—narrative breakdown, the erasure of meaning—and is never more lucid than when she realizes the impossibility of clarity. By awful necessity, this memoir sees a further refinement of the Didion style: the incantatory echoes, the tidal italics, the pitch-perfect use of crescendo and staccato. Facts are her talismans, and The Year of Magical Thinking is a survivor's manual that understands all too well the limits of its usefulness.

(*) (*) (*) Thank goodness for many books especially really good fiction that have been piling up between taking care of Doc throughout all of 2005 until he passed two weeks ago last night and my online PhD course work. (*) (*)

Carpe Diem,
Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 03:08 PM

The Bush Beat by Ward Harkavy

Saturday, December 17

I don't know what's worse: the New York Times's revelation yesterday that the National Security Agency is illegally spying on Americans or the New York Times's keeping secret in yesterday's revelation that there's a book deal involved.

Go ahead and read the fine coverage of this latest scandal at the formerly great paper by the Washington Post's Paul Farhi ("At the Times, A Scoop Deferred" and Salon's Tim Grieve ("How Long Did the Times Hold Its News?".

But here's something they don't have that you may have forgotten: James Risen, the reporter in the middle of this disgraceful episode, was involved in a similar (and similarly hinky) deal three years ago with another U.S. spy agency, the CIA.

In fact, the CIA's copy desk wound up editing half of Risen's 2002 book The Main Enemy, as Allan Wolper reported nearly three years ago in Editor & Publisher. Wolper led his January 14, 2003, story with questions for the Times back then that are even more relevant today:

What would Americans think if they knew that their best newspaper, the New York Times, had allowed one of its national-security reporters to negotiate a book deal that needed the approval of the CIA?

What would they say if they knew the CIA was editing the book while the country is days or weeks away from a war with Iraq and is counting on the Times to monitor the intelligence agency?

They would be properly horrified.

One of the golden rules of journalism is that you can't let your source control your content. Another is that you must avoid making financial deals with the people you cover. The reasons are obvious. Reporters turn themselves into pretzels to prove their reporting isn't compromised. And their credibility becomes a casualty of their relationships.

Good point then, and good point now. However, it's past time that we withdrew the "best newspaper" tag from the Times. Such labels are meaningless, but if you have to pick an overall best at timely digging under the surface of officialdom's news, you could paste the "best" label on either the Washington Post (except for Bob Woodward) or the Wall Street Journal. The Times is still perhaps the most influential, at least when it comes to the people who run other big-media newsrooms and TV outlets. But it's not the best.

Anyway, this is now, as the Washington Post reports this morning on the Times's long-delayed revelation yesterday of NSA domestic spying:

The Times agreed to remove information that administration officials said could be "useful" to terrorists and delayed publication for a year "to conduct additional reporting."

The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday's story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

Exactly how long was the delay? The Times says "for a year," but is that more or less?

Come off it. It's clear that this story was ready for publication before the November 2004 election — and it could have changed the results.

Too bad the Times didn't delay its Judy Miller WMD stories back in 2002. Those carelessly published pieces of agitprop were rushed into print and fueled the fooling of American pols and public about the "need" to invade Iraq. If all it takes is a book deal to make the Times hold back publication of timely news, I would have scraped together some cash for Miller in '02.

Back to James Risen: To be fair to him, there are indications that he wasn't the one responsible for the delay in the Times's publishing the NSA story. Farhi's Post piece notes:

The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times' Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story's path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.

In a statement yesterday, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller did not mention the book. He wrote that when the Times became aware that the NSA was conducting domestic wiretaps without warrants, "the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security."

"Officials also assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions," Keller continued. "As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time."

Outrageous, especially the crap from Keller.

The paper continues to make the tragic mistake of looking out for the administration's interests instead of guarding the public interest. That's why I derisively refer to the Times as our version of the Soviet-era Pravda — it's our establishment organ. The used-to-be-great paper, which still houses many fine reporters, has a thoroughly cavalier and snobbish attitude toward the public, as my colleague Paul Moses has noted in his exposé of the paper's slimy real-estate deal with New York City officials, and as I've noted in parsing even its purported ombudsman's snooty attitude toward readers.

There is no way that Bill Keller survives this episode. He was a short-termer when the Judy Miller crap really hit the fan a short time ago. Look for him to soon make what will be portrayed as a graceful exit from the Times.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media's mainstream protectors are circling the wagons, as Farhi's story notes, after giving us some more of Keller's bull:

In the ensuing months [while the Times held onto the story], Keller wrote, two things changed the paper's thinking. The paper developed a fuller picture of misgivings about the program by some in the government. And the paper satisfied itself through more reporting that it could write the story without exposing "any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record."

Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said it was conceivable the Times waited to publish its NSA story as the Senate took up renewal of the Patriot Act. "It's not unheard of to wait for a news peg," he said. "It's not unusual to discover the existence of something and not know the context of it until later."

Bullshit, Rosenstiel. We already knew the "context." The "news peg" is the size of the Washington Monument. The Patriot Act, in its various incarnations, has been a bone of contention ever since 9-11 — especially concerning its provisions that allow the government to spy on its own citizens. American citizens who happened to be Muslims had already been swept off the streets by John Ashcroft.

The confirmation hearings nearly a year ago for Alberto Gonzales to replace Ashcroft would have been perfect timing for publication of the NSA spying story. But the Times couldn't have done it then, because there would have been an outcry about why it didn't publish only a few months earlier — before the November 2004 election.

As for the Times's desire not to hamper the U.S. government, the public would be better served if the paper focused instead on the several thousand unanswered questions about the government's downright strange relations with spies and terrorists who aren't American citizens.

One thing I'm referring to is our current CIA director, Porter Goss. On the morning of 9-11, as I pointed out in August 2004 (I didn't break the story), Goss was eating breakfast in D.C. with a Pakistani official who, as it turned out, had been the bag man for 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta.

I haven't seen much of anything about that. Guess we'll just have to wait for the book.

(*) (*) ;) ;) :o :o :| :|

(f) ,
SL

sweetlady

12-17-2005, 03:09 PM

Bites

Coffee Abuse

by Nina Lalli The Village Voice

December 16th, 2005 6:32 PM

I've only tasted hazlenut coffee by accident. America's flavored coffee movement, which initially seemed like a fad that would quickly disappear, has really passed me by. I'm starting to feel like one of those kids who grew up without TV, and doesn't understand references to Three's Company or Who's the Boss. Now that the holidays are upon us, the movement is at its annual aggressive peak, with even the burliest of men ordering up Grande Skim Eggnog Chai Lattes and Tall Peppermint Mochas with whipped cream. A horrible thought popped into my head recently. Am I the weird one? Is my "small coffee with milk—no sugar" a sign of my utter party-pooperness?

In an effort to join the rest of society, I decided to sample the seasonal offering at Starbucks, beginning with the extremely popular Gingerbread Latte. At the first store I visited, the girl behind the counter put on a frown-y face when I requested it, saying "Aww, I'm so sorry, we're all out." Then she sighed and said "I'm tired. What time is it?" I moved on to another of the 47 billion locations, which was one block away, and ordered the same. The guy behind the counter nodded with approval. "That's the best one."

The gingerbread latte, like all flavored coffee drinks, is extraordinarily sweet and packs in an absurd number of calories (330 for a "tall" which is a "small", but it is one of the more bearable of the holiday-inspired beverages. That's not to say I enjoyed the actual experience of drinking it, but at least it is clever and had a distinct flavor, aside from "sweet." The peppermint hot chocolate is a reasonable combination, but a peppermint mocha takes it a step too far: Coffee goes with chocolate, and chocolate goes with peppermint, but does peppermint go with coffee?

The eggnog series, though a cute idea, was offensive in execution. An eggnog latte consists of espresso, a lot of eggnog mix from a supermarket carton, and milk. It is the color of a Caucasian baby's knees and the smallest size contains 25 grams of fat. Do people think because it is in some abstract sense "coffee," that it doesn't count? The Pumpkin Spice Latte, which has stuck around since Thanksgiving, had a milder taste. A friend who loves fruity cocktails and hates beer and wine tasted it and said " That's nice." It had the appearance of chicken soup (the whipped cream melted to leave a greasy film on the surface) and tasted like milk and sugar.

But what about the competition? Dunkin' Donuts has come out with endearingly enthusiastic ads for lattes, a little late in the game. And they have an alarming array of flavored coffees as well (Cinnamon! Coconut! Marshmallow! Blueberry?). But their holiday lineup is far less ambitious than Starbucks'. It contains no Christmas-specific references, just two humble seasonal offerings: Mocha Almond and Caramel Creme. But they make up for this lack of range by making these straightforward-sounding flavors unbelievably sweet. The caramel latte has not even a hint of coffee taste to it. When I asked a friend to confirm that this was by far the sweetest drink we had tasted, he said "I'm losing my perspective. What is coffee supposed to taste like?"

(*) (*) :| :| (o) (o) (S) (S)

Sweetlady

Lady_Di

12-25-2005, 12:44 PM

thinking plain coffee about right now... yes, the perfect Christmas delight

somedays when I splurge, I have half-n-half in it, as long as I can still taste the coffee, I am happy

but for really great cup of coffee, all I want to taste is coffee...

sweetlady

12-26-2005, 04:24 PM

December 24, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

Hey, W., It's Safe! Read This.

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

As a Christmas present for our president, who's been going through a rough time lately, I'm not writing the column this Christmas Eve.

In keeping with a holiday tradition I began last year, I'm giving the space to my conservative brother, Kevin, who delights in turning the Gray Lady a vivid shade of red.

I asked Kevin, a salesman and father of three boys who lives in a Maryland suburb of Washington, to write you, dear readers, a letter with his thoughts on the year. You will find his meditation a refreshing, or regrettable, change from me, depending on your perspective. Here it is, unexpurgated:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Maybe it was the extended absence from the stern Franciscan nuns at Nativity grade school. But more likely it was the decorations, the songs, the movies like "A Christmas Carol" and "Miracle on 34th Street," that filled people with an unbridled joy and an unusual generosity of spirit. Christmas has generally been celebrated as both a secular and religious holiday in this country. Recently, the P.C. police have decided that the word Christ carries an unbearable religious aura, so they are working hard to strike the word entirely for the more generic Holiday. The battle for the soul of Christmas has heated up.

So first, I'd like to give a big thank you to Speaker Hastert for ordering the renamed Holiday tree to revert to its original title of Christmas tree. And why not? We do not decorate the tree for Easter or the Fourth of July. It is a Christmas tree.

We live in a country of 295 million people. Eighty percent of them are affiliated with religions. Ten percent don't believe anything at all. Who the hell does Christmas offend?

Go back two generations and you will find the real diversity that made our country the greatest in the world. Immigrants brought their customs with them and were accepted. We were taught by our parents to respect the customs and religious beliefs of other people. Let's reach around and give P.C. a swat, like an annoying child in the back seat of a long trip, before Santa and St. Patrick are casualties of war.

My mother hated political correctness. "In my day," she'd say, "people respected each other and minded their own business." Still good advice.

To the P.C. Elites: The founding fathers guaranteed Freedom OF Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion. Please go away, you are making my hair hurt.

To Target: You better check the sales and profit numbers that are CHRISTMAS related before you ban the word.

To Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin: When did you get back?

To MSNBC: Susan Estrich, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Lanny Davis.

To Hillary: A hearty welcome to the Republican Party.

To Bill O'Reilly: Thank you for dragging the P.C. crowd into the open. Maybe they will learn that America doesn't want to be de-Godded.

To Maureen: Of course Men are Necessary; who else could write this column?

To Jesse Jackson, Sean Penn, Snoop Dog, Susan and Tim: Tookie Williams KILLED four people. Community service does not seem enough.

To Judge Jones of Pennsylvania: No Intelligent Design? You are going to be hoping for a Big Bang if St. Peter is checking ID's.

To President Bush: Stay the Course. The same people that are calling for troop withdrawal were under their beds on 9/12/01 screaming "Kill the Infidels!" Let's fight them there instead of here and bring our troops home with honor as soon as possible.

To my Mom: Thanks for teaching your children to love Christmas as much as you did.

In the 1950's, my mother used to take Maureen and me to the sloping hill outside the Church of the Nativity. There, workers had assembled a giant stable, complete with figures at least four feet high, on a bed of real straw. Driving north on 13th Street, you could see the floodlit display four blocks away. We stood and admired that display with our Jewish and Protestant neighbors. No one seemed offended. Across the top was an angel, holding a sign that said, "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men." Let's save that.

So, my friends, let me wish all of you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Blessed Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad and to all the rest of you: Have a nice day!

(*) (*) :o

SL

sweetlady

12-26-2005, 04:26 PM

December 25, 2005

Editorial

December 25

You don't really have to be in the mood for the Fourth of July. No one ever talks about having that Memorial Day spirit. Even Thanksgiving can be distilled, without too much disrespect. But Christmas is something different. Feeling is the point of it, somewhere under all that shopping. To think of Scrooge is to think of his conversion, the cartwheeling of his emotions after his long night of the soul. But the more interesting part of the story is his dogged resistance to feeling the way everyone thinks he's supposed to feel - about death, about charity, about prize turkeys hanging at the poulterer's.

Most of us know how we want to feel this time of year, whatever holiday we are celebrating. We want to feel safe, loving and well loved, well fed, openhanded, and able to be moved by the powerful but very humble stories that gather in this season. We would like to feel that there is a kind of innocence, not in our hearts, since our hearts are such complicated places, but in the very gestures and rituals of late December. We would like to feel that we are returning to something unchanged, some still spot in a spinning world. Whether you believe with an absolute literalism or with a more analogic faith, whether you believe at all, whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or merely human, the word we would like to feel most profoundly now is Peace.

It's easy enough to be cynical about the things we would like to feel here at the dark end of the year, to dismiss them out of hand as if they were only the battery-powered, sugar-coated, marzipan dreams of a child's holiday. Life is too tough, too embattled for such sentimentality. That is Scrooge's point exactly: no use pretending the world isn't exactly the way it is. One of the reasons we love to hear the story of an old crank like Scrooge is that he seems to embody this cracked old world, made whole in one night by regret and repentance.

One night will not do it, nor will one day. Peace does not simply appear in the sky overhead or lie embodied one morning in a manger. We come into this season knowing how we want it to make us feel, and we are usually disappointed because humans never cease to be human. But we are right to remember how we would like to feel. We are right to long for peace and good will.

(*) (*) A very merry and healthy and happy New Year!! (*) (*)

(f) (f) ,
SL

sweetlady

12-29-2005, 06:42 AM

December 25, 2005

Fiddling with Formats While DVD's Burn

By KEN BELSON

The war for control of the next-generation DVD is approaching a critical juncture: next week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, companies championing the two competing high-definition DVD standards - Blu-ray and HD DVD - will unveil their lineups of new players and movie titles.

There are growing signs, though, that the battle for supremacy in this multibillion-dollar market may yield a hollow victory. As electronics makers, technology companies and Hollywood studios haggle over the fine points of their formats, consumers are quickly finding alternatives to buying and renting packaged DVD's, high-definition or otherwise.

"While they fight, Rome is burning," said Robert Heiblim, an independent consultant to electronics companies. "High-definition video-on-demand and digital video recorders are compelling, and people will say, 'why do I need it?' " when considering whether to buy a high-definition player.

The fight between the Blu-ray and HD DVD groups is based on different views of what consumers want. The HD DVD camp, led by Toshiba, assumes that consumers will buy high-definition DVD's and players, but only at the right price. So it is improving existing DVD technology, which can be made cheaply and quickly.

The Blu-ray group figures that something brand new is needed to get consumers interested, so it is developing discs with enough capacity to allow for innovative features in the future.

Both sides agree, however, that now is the time to introduce high-definition DVD discs and players. Sales of high-definition televisions, with their sleek design and superior picture and sound quality, are soaring, and the major networks are broadcasting more programs in high-definition.

Game makers like Sony see high-definition video games as a way to boost console sales, and Hollywood hopes that high-definition discs will offset slumping sales of current-generation DVD's in the $19 billion prepackaged disc market.

Yet the alternatives to these new players and DVD's are growing by the day. The most promising is the on-demand programming, both standard and high-definition, being offered by cable companies. The percentage of cable customers who watch television on-demand has doubled in the past year, to 23 percent, according to the Leichtman Research Group.

With thousands of free movies available at any time, consumers have fewer reasons to rent a DVD at Blockbuster or buy a new one at Best Buy. They are also likely to think twice before spending $1,000 or more for a new high-definition DVD player, or $25 or so to own a disc of a movie they might already have in standard definition. Of course, these newfangled ways of watching video are still a small piece of the overall video market, and industry executives and analysts say they expect most consumers to continue buying prerecorded DVD's for years to come. They also say they believe that high-definition programs - and the televisions to watch them on - are the way of the future. The question is how consumers will get that programming.

Even without these alternatives, high-definition DVD's face a dicey start. The inability of the Blu-ray group and HD-DVD camp to agree on a single standard means that consumers must consider two sets of machines in the stores.

Except for avid technophiles, consumers are likely to wait out the standards battle, lest they get stuck with a player that becomes obsolete if the other format wins.

Machines will also be expensive - $1,000 or more - and consumers will need a television capable of playing high-definition programs, which can easily cost several thousand dollars more. The list of movies available in the formats will be skimpy at first.

Sony, which leads the Blu-ray group, has said that its new video game consoles due out this spring will play Blu-ray DVD's. But few industry analysts expect consumers to buy the game machine just to watch movies.

In the meantime, other companies are making it easier to watch and copy high-definition movies. Scientific-Atlanta has a new set-top box with a digital video recorder and DVD recorder built in, so cable subscribers can use a single machine to record programming and burn it onto blank discs.

"Consumers are getting hooked on video-on-demand and the flexibility of moving content around the home," said Ted Schadler, an industry analyst at Forrester. "Once you open that Pandora's box, you can't close it. The battle over the format is silly. For the product to grow, they have to promote the benefits of HD, not battle each other."

Yet the two sides are digging in their heels, not shaking hands. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and other backers of the Blu-ray format expect to flood stores next year with high-definition DVD players, and half a dozen studios will make movies for their machines.

Not to be outdone, the HD DVD camp led by Toshiba has won endorsements from Microsoft and Intel. Hewlett-Packard, a member of the Blu-ray group, agreed last week to work with the HD DVD camp as well.

These allies say that the wall between computers and consumer electronics is blurring and that the new formats should let users move movies and other content among various devices seamlessly. Not surprisingly, they see computers at the main conduit, not standalone electronic devices.

"If PC's don't adopt these technologies, it will be a ho-hum 2006" for next-generation DVD's, said Maureen Weber, the general manager of the personal storage group at Hewlett-Packard. "It all boils down to Microsoft and Sony wanting to dominate the connected home. It's a showdown between consumer electronics and personal computers over convergence."

Ms. Weber, like many other executives, acknowledges that the longer the format battle continues, the higher the likelihood that consumers will find other solutions, including video-on-demand.

Comcast, the country's largest cable provider, already gives its 20 million subscribers access to 3,800 movies and television shows. The 44 percent of Comcast's subscribers who have the set-top box needed to see on-demand programs have watched more than 1 billion of them so far this year.

There are signs that rising on-demand viewing is denting DVD sales and rentals, a worrying sign for Hollywood executives who increasingly rely on disc sales to offset the rising cost of producing movies. Since consumer electronics makers and Hollywood studios earn much of their profit on sales margins, they will feel the pinch if these new viewing options grab even 5 or 10 percent of video market.

A poll by the Starz Entertainment Group this month showed that 60 percent of those who watch on-demand video buy fewer DVD's, while 72 percent of those surveyed are renting fewer movies.

Starz has also broadened the definition of on-demand with Starz Ticket, which lets users download movies to their laptops or other devices for $12.95 a month. The service includes a rotation of 300 movies that can be watched multiple times and, like a digital video recorder, paused, rewound and fast-forwarded. Like store-bought DVD's, they also include directors' cuts, foreign language versions and other bonus material.

"We're on the verge of another major shift in terms of how consumers receive video," said Tom Southwick, a spokesman for the Starz Entertainment Group. "What's happening in the video arena is just like what is happening in the MP3 market. Over time, there's going to be so much available with cable on-demand and the Internet that having a library of tapes that you buy or borrow will become inconvenient."

For now, none of the Starz Ticket movies are in high-definition because typical broadband connections are too slow to make downloads feasible. The current generation of discs hold up to 8.5 gigabytes of memory, not enough for a full-length movie in high-definition.

Consumer habits also die hard.

"You can change technology all you want, but you can't change people," said Andy Parsons, a Blu-ray group spokesman who noted that the vast majority of music fans still buy CD's. "Average folks still want to watch the movie and buy it. It's presuming a lot to think that they will replace the model they've used for decades."

(h) (h)

Sweetlady

sweetlady

12-29-2005, 06:43 AM

October 5, 2005

Darknets: Virtual Parties With a Select Group of Invitees

By TIM GNATEK

DESPITE all the openness of the Internet, there are still places you cannot saunter into on the Web. You must be invited.

These are "darknets": exclusive peer-to-peer networks in which membership is based on circles of trust, whose activities are veiled from the general public. And though people who are adept at configuring servers and comfortable with File Transfer Protocol have used such systems for years, a spate of new online services aimed at everyday users is sure to draw new attention to under-the-radar file sharing.

Darknets, like their peer-to-peer predecessors Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella, allow users to browse and download digital files like movies and music from other people's computers. But while Napster and its ilk have allowed unrestricted access to files on any of the millions of connected computers, darknets are more discriminating. In a darknet, users get access only through established relationships - and only when they have been invited to join. This selectivity promises greater privacy, regardless of whether the networks are used for sharing personal or pirated media.

File sharers may be enthusiastic about the possibilities such services provide, but there are questions as to whether any new service facilitating file swapping can avoid the legal scrutiny that has hampered open-access file-sharing systems.

Grouper, among the largest of the new services, hosts more than 100,000 private groups. Users can build their own darknets or request admission to thousands of publicly listed clubs whose members can browse through group folders, download files and communicate by instant messaging or group blogs.

A Bible group on Grouper, Deepthings, shares e-books and audio tapes. Needles and Pins offers sewing patterns; Skater Paradise posts skateboarding videos.

Grouper is currently a free service, and contextual ads in its group directory help generate revenue; soon the company will include video ads and the option to buy photo prints or CD's. The people behind Grouper say they hope to eventually offer a premium service stripped of ads and the ability to control a PC from afar.

Although unauthorized versions of copyrighted material do sometimes drift across the network, the company says it makes great effort to distance itself from illegal activity.

"Our intent is not to circumvent the copyright world," said Josh Felser, a co-founder of Grouper. "This is about personally generated content."

Mr. Felser and other advocates of commercial darknets think they are fulfilling consumer demand for what might best be called personal distribution, a medium whose potential content expands with every video-equipped cellphone and pocket-size digital camera bought.

"The big play for us is personal video," Mr. Felser said last month, as he toyed with a moviemaking digital camera in his office in Mill Valley, Calif. "Personal video is everywhere, and people are wanting to share video that they create."

To prevent piracy, Grouper limits the file-sharing capacities on its network. Instead of letting members download music, for example, users are allowed to listen only to others' MP3's in real time through FM-quality streams. Grouper also limits groups to 50 people, and adds a whistleblower feature so members can call out illegal activity.

But their methods are not foolproof; conspiring group members can change music file extensions or compress album folders to allow downloading, as does the group Only Zipped Music, and there is no means to block pirated software and crack codes, which are circulated in groups like Krakk'd, Warez and Xbox Gamez.

Mr. Felser and his partner, Dave Samuel, say they feel that their self-regulating efforts allow them to continue courting the media industry. "We want a company that gives us the ability to partner with other media companies, and eventually, an exit strategy," said Mr. Felser, who sold their previous enterprise, an Internet radio broadcaster called Spinner.com, to America Online for $320 million.

Qnext, another private peer-to-peer network, also tries to distance itself from illegal users in the hope of building a successful business without setting off legal battles. The company packages its service as an all-in-one communications tool with instant messaging, video conferencing and Internet telephone service, as well as file sharing and an application that operates a PC remotely.

The Qnext software does not assist the development of groups of strangers, however, making it more difficult to disseminate copyrighted entertainment widely. A company spokesman, Simon Plashkes, said this limitation rendered Qnext useless as a piracy tool. "If someone was sharing a movie, it would be hard to send that to more than five people," Mr. Plashkes said. "The technical design is not the best piracy platform." Even in more public forums, like virtual communities, users increasingly want to share files as well as photos; administrators have responded by developing safeguards against misuse.

Imeem, a social networking group that connects users with common interests, encourages members to share files like videos and recordings among friends. But the company's owners say that by publishing the relationships among members and listing the membership of its groups, they are creating a deterrent to illegal trading.

"If you're letting people into your trust network, you're implicating them as well," said Dalton Caldwell, one of the service's co-founders. "It recreates in the digital world the kind of pressure that exists in the real world."

It remains unclear whether these efforts will be enough to ward off a litigious entertainment industry.

"The protections are good, but unfortunately, that kind of argument is no longer as strong as it was prior to the Grokster case," said Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor, referring to a recent United States Supreme Court ruling that allows companies to sue peer-to-peer networks for copyright infringement if they are shown to encourage illegal downloading.

"If I were an investor, I'd think strongly about whether to invest in a company that could facilitate this sharing," he said.

Copyright owners make it clear that they are prepared to defend their turf. "We don't take issue with the technology," said Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It's when it's for illegal uses. When they promote or facilitate this, they should be aware that they are accountable."

Ms. Bernards said that in the wake of the Grokster decision, the association had been approached by some file-sharing companies that wanted to learn if their operations were likely to attract copyright-infringement lawsuits.

Nor is Professor Lessig alone in suggesting that the entertainment industry's vested interests may lead to efforts that will stifle technological innovation.

"The more Hollywood clamps down, the further underground the activity is driven, and the more difficult it's going to be to find out what's going on," said J. D. Lasica, author of "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation."

Signs that file-sharing networks are becoming more stealthy already exist.

Ian Clarke, founder of Freenet, a peer-to-peer network meant to circumvent government efforts to censor material on the Internet, says he will soon unveil a version of his program that will coordinate private groups. Mr. Clarke said he viewed the spread of pared-down commercial darknets as a setback, that they gave up too much ground to copyright holders and limit what could otherwise be powerful software.

"These guys are deliberately holding back, and that's what happens when lawyers dictate software development," Mr. Clarke said. "Software people enable people. Lawyers disable people."

(*) (*) :o

(f) ,
SL

sweetlady

12-29-2005, 06:44 AM

December 25, 2005

The Best Films of the Year

Rome in Six Hours and Four Decades

By A. O. SCOTT

THIS list is intended neither as prophecy nor as summing up. It is impossible to predict which of the many fine movies released in 2005 will still claim our attention 10 years - or even 10 weeks - from now. Nor do the titles below represent, as far as I can see, any important trends in world cinema. Many of them belong to the year just ending by sheer happenstance, having been shown at festivals long before their (often brief) runs in American theaters. What they have in common is only that I loved them, that each one caused me, temporarily, to let go of my critical preoccupations and experience the absorption and surprise that made me want to be a critic in the first place.

No movie did that quite as powerfully or completely as "The Best of Youth," Marco Tullio Giordana's six-hour chronicle of recent Italian history told through the lives of an ordinary Roman family. Originally made as a mini-series for Italian television, this film gestures back toward the tradition of politically astute historical filmmaking exemplified by masters like Luchino Visconti and Bernardo Bertolucci. It is an intellectual as well as an emotional feast, with dozens of superb performances, especially from Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni playing two brothers caught up in the social and political turmoil of the 1960's and 70's. Mr. Giordana has made a movie so full of life that even after six hours of screen time and four decades of history, you wish it would go on.

I'm not sure I would wish for more of "The Aristocrats," Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette's scholarly inquiry into the world's filthiest joke. On the other hand, the point of this documentary is that filth knows no limits, and that exploring the far boundaries of taste and propriety demands fortitude, hard work and a commitment to craft. The craft in question is stand-up comedy, and the battalion of performers and writers gathered together here - Sarah Silverman, George Carlin, Paul Reiser and Bob Saget among them - offer a fascinating glimpse at the lore and tradition that sustains them.

In (yet another) year of excellent documentaries - as well as too many that take easy routes to sentimental uplift or political indignation - Hubert Sauper's "Darwin's Nightmare" stands out. An unflinching, rigorous examination of the ecological and human effects of globalization on the African nation of Tanzania, Mr. Sauper's film is not always easy to watch. But it peers so deeply at one of the central and largely invisible crises of our time that the conventions of cinéma vérité acquire an almost visionary intensity, as if William Blake were behind the camera.

In her second feature, "The Holy Girl," the 39-year-old Argentine director Lucrecia Martel shows herself to be one of the most original and insightful younger filmmakers working today. With self-confidence that more than matches her formal daring, she turns the story of a young girl's sexual and religious awakening into a lyrical, psychologically charged puzzle. María Alche's performance in the title role is at haunted and haunting, sensuous and otherworldly. Her character, Amalia, is a perfectly ordinary teenager who lives with her divorced mother in a provincial hotel, and her collisions with the adult world are at once comical, creepy and numinous. The film is oblique, sometimes to the point of obscurity, but in its astonishing final scenes it reveals a deep, almost shocking coherence.

It was a shock of the most pleasant kind to discover, in Woody Allen's "Match Point," that one of our most maddeningly prolific (and recently underachieving) filmmakers was back in top form. Revisiting some of the themes of his earlier work - most obviously "Crimes and Misdemeanors" - Mr. Allen reminds his long-suffering admirers what a skilled and disciplined writer he can be. Trading Manhattan for London and working with an excellent, youthful cast (with outstanding performances from Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Emily Mortimer and Scarlett Johansson), he mixes high artifice with acute insight, and presents an entertainment that is so glittery and diverting that you almost miss the cruel, chilly darkness at its heart.

Perhaps the purest dose of pleasure on movie screens this year was provided by Nick Park and his comrades at Aardman Animations, makers of "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Bringing their jug-eared English inventor and his loyal pooch to the big screen after three short adventures, the Aardmanites staked out a place of honor for old-fashioned stop-motion animation in a world dominated by digital technology. It is good to know that such solid virtues as loyalty, hands-on ingenuity, absolute silliness and the love of cheese still have a place in modern cinema. Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter lend their voices to this noble cause.

American independent cinema is full of stories of young men coming of age, which is fitting enough given that young men still dominate the Sundance/art-house nexus. One of the best recent examples of the genre - which is to say a picture that transcends the genre entirely - was Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin." Mr. Araki, once the wild child of the New Queer Cinema, remains fearless, but this adaptation of Scott Heim's novel is also tender and beautiful. Two terrific young actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet, play two boys growing up in Kansas in the 1980's, linked by a childhood trauma they share without knowing it. The story is painful, but Mr. Araki's way of telling it is funny, humane and unpretentious.

Another coming-of-age story, "The Squid and the Whale," hit me where I live, and not only because it was filmed a few blocks from where I really do live. Noah Baumbach's scathing, heartbreaking comedy of bad manners and failed romance traces the unraveling of a Brooklyn literary family. In tracing the shifting alliances between two brothers and their separating parents, Mr. Baumbach lays bare the vanity and cruelty of people who fancy themselves creatures of superior refinement and taste. And yet it is impossible not to feel a tug of sympathy for all of them. Jeff Daniels, as the pompous, narcissistic dad, gives one of the best performances of the year, and Mr. Baumbach's sharp, quick scenes give his movie the texture and economy of a first-rate novel.

Movies about aimless young people have hardly been scarce in the indie world, but Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" rises above the slacker pack. Mr. Bujalski made this super-low-budget feature with a bunch of friends (notably Kate Dollenmayer, who may be the thinking nerd's Parker Posey) in Boston, and he turns the affectlessness and indecision of overeducated 20-somethings into a genuine style. Unassuming to the point of diffidence, this film turns out on closer examination to be formally bold and slyly insightful. It's both a (whispered, half-swallowed) generational statement and the announcement of a formidable talent.

Steven Spielberg's "Munich" was no sooner hailed on the cover of Time as a "secret masterpiece" than it was subjected to a pre-emptive backlash, mainly from pundits accusing Mr. Spielberg of moral relativism and manipulation. The initial praise may have been overdone, but the attacks have more to do with the need certain ideologues have for fresh hobbyhorses to ride than with anything the movie is actually doing or saying. "Munich" is complicated, even to the point of confusion, but it is also ethically serious in a way that few large-scale commercial films dare to be. It is fundamentally about the challenge that fighting terrorism poses for liberal societies, but it is hardly a brief for defeatism or evenhandedness. Doing the right thing has costs, which are sometimes terrible. Once again, Mr. Spielberg displays a command of filmmaking technique that has, at the moment, no equal.

That makes 10, but why stop there? Those are the movies that had, for one reason or another, the deepest personal impact on me. But there were plenty more - more than usual, it seems - that I found reasons to admire. 2005 was a very good year for good movies, and I can't let it end without mentioning some more of them, in no special order and without comment. To accompany the 10-best list above, then, here are the 20 second-best movies of 2005: "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Good Morning, Night," "Syriana," "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," "A History of Violence," "Schizo," "Brokeback Mountain," "Nobody Knows," "Look at Me," "Shopgirl," "40 Shades of Blue," "Kings and Queen," "Howl's Moving Castle," "My Summer of Love," "Gunner Palace," "Broken Flowers," "Head-On," "Casanova" and "King Kong."

(*) (*) hmm.....seems like the time of year for lots of lists like this one... :|

SL

sweetlady

12-29-2005, 06:46 AM

The language of hope - whether, when and how to invoke it - has become an excruciatingly difficult issue in the modern relationship between doctor and patient.

For centuries, doctors followed Hippocrates' injunction to hold out hope to patients, even when it meant withholding the truth. But that canon has been blasted apart by modern patients' demands for honesty and more involvement in their care. Now, patients may be told more than they need or want to know. Yet they still also need and want hope.

In response, some doctors are beginning to think about hope in new ways. In certain cases, that means tempering a too-bleak prognosis. In others, it means resisting the allure of cutting-edge treatments with questionable benefits.

Already vulnerable when they learn they have a life-threatening disease or chronic illness, patients can feel bewildered, trapped between reality and possibility. They, as well as doctors, are discovering that in the modern medical world, hope itself cannot be monolithic. It can be defined in many ways, depending on the patient's medical condition and station in life. A dying woman can find hope by selecting wedding gifts for her toddlers. An infertile couple moves on toward adoption.

The power of a doctor's pronouncements is profound. When a doctor takes a blunt-is-best approach, enumerating side effects and dim statistics, in essence offering a hopeless prognosis, patients experience despair.

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From:

December 24, 2005
Being a Patient
Doctors' Delicate Balance in Keeping Hope Alive
By JAN HOFFMAN

Dr. Joseph Sacco's young patient lay gasping for breath; she had advanced AIDS and now she was failing.

Assessing her, Dr. Sacco knew her medical options amounted to a question of the lesser of two evils: either the more aggressive ventilator, on which she would probably die, or the more passive morphine, from which she would probably slip into death. But there was also a slender chance that either treatment might help her rally.

He also knew that how he presented her options would affect her decision, the feather that would tip the balance of her hope scale.

As Dr. Sacco, a palliative care specialist at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, spoke to the woman on that chilly morning earlier this month, her eyes widened with terror: no intubation. He ordered morphine.

He agonized about his approach. "She's only 23," he said later that day. "Maybe I was too grim. Maybe I was conveying false hopelessness to her. Maybe I just should have said, 'Let's put you on the ventilator.' I may have spun it wrong."

The language of hope - whether, when and how to invoke it - has become an excruciatingly difficult issue in the modern relationship between doctor and patient.

For centuries, doctors followed Hippocrates' injunction to hold out hope to patients, even when it meant withholding the truth. But that canon has been blasted apart by modern patients' demands for honesty and more involvement in their care. Now, patients may be told more than they need or want to know. Yet they still also need and want hope.

In response, some doctors are beginning to think about hope in new ways. In certain cases, that means tempering a too-bleak prognosis. In others, it means resisting the allure of cutting-edge treatments with questionable benefits.

Already vulnerable when they learn they have a life-threatening disease or chronic illness, patients can feel bewildered, trapped between reality and possibility. They, as well as doctors, are discovering that in the modern medical world, hope itself cannot be monolithic. It can be defined in many ways, depending on the patient's medical condition and station in life. A dying woman can find hope by selecting wedding gifts for her toddlers. An infertile couple moves on toward adoption.

The power of a doctor's pronouncements is profound. When a doctor takes a blunt-is-best approach, enumerating side effects and dim statistics, in essence offering a hopeless prognosis, patients experience despair.

A radiation oncologist told Minna Immerman's husband, who had brain cancer, that he had less than two years to live. "That information was paralyzing," Mrs. Immerman said. "It wasn't helpful."

But when a doctor suggests that an exhausted patient try yet another therapy, in the hope that it may extend survival by weeks, the cost is also considerable - financially, physically and emotionally.

"We have to find a less toxic way to manage their hope," said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, an internist and Harvard professor who is writing a textbook about prognosis.

Efforts are being made across the medical community to grapple with the language and ethics of hope. Some medical schools pair students with end-stage disease patients so students can learn about anguish and compassion.

Numerous studies have examined what doctors say versus what patients hear and the role of optimism in the care of the critically ill. Patient advocates have been teaching doctors how patients can be devastated or braced by a turn of phrase.

A consensus is emerging that all patients need hope, and that doctors are obligated to offer it, in some form.

To Dr. Sacco's boundless relief, his patient rallied. He began counseling her to take her AIDS medications, to find an apartment, a job.

He wrote in an e-mail message: "We prognosticate because people ask us to and trust our judgment. They do not know the depth of our uncertainty or that no matter how good or experienced we are, we are often wrong. That is why choosing where to put the feather is so damn hard."

False Hopelessness

Robert Immerman, a 56-year-old Manhattan architect, knew that his brain cancer - a glioblastoma, Grade 4 - meant terrible news. After the tumor was removed, he asked the radiation oncologist his prognosis.

"The doctor was pleasant," Minna Immerman recalled, "as if he was telling you that hamburger was $2.99 a pound. He just said the likely survival rate with this tumor was, on the outside, 18 months.

"Bob purposely forgot it," she said. "I couldn't."

After radiation, Mr. Immerman began chemotherapy. But after one treatment, his white blood cell count dropped so precipitously that it was no longer an option.

"The medical oncologist said, 'The chances of survival with or without chemo are very, very slight,' " said Mrs. Immerman, a special-education teacher. "I think she was trying to make us feel better. What I heard was: 'With or without chemo, this won't end well, so don't feel so bad.' "

Mr. Immerman got scans every two months. Mrs. Immerman watched the calendar obsessively. Twelve months left. Six months. "As time passed, instead of feeling better, I felt like it was a death sentence and it was winding down," she said.

She sweated the small stuff: should they renew their opera subscription?

Mr. Immerman turned out to be one of those rare people who reside at the lucky tail end of a statistical curve. In February, it will be 10 years since he learned his prognosis. He is well. For years, Mrs. Immerman was shadowed by fear and depression about his illness, before she finally allowed herself to breathe out with gratitude.

Candid exchanges about diagnosis and prognosis, especially when the answers are grim, are a relatively recent phenomenon. Hippocrates taught that physicians should "comfort with solicitude and attention, revealing nothing of the patient's present or future condition." A dose of reality, doctors believed, could poison a patient's hope, the will to live.

Until the 1960's, that approach was largely embraced by physicians. Dr. Eric Cassell, who lectured about hope in November to doctors in the Boston area, recalled the days when a woman would wake from surgery, asking if she had cancer:

" 'No,' we'd say, 'you had suspicious cells so we took the breast, so you wouldn't get cancer.' We were all liars." Treatments were very limited. "Now when we're truthful," Dr. Cassell added, "it's in an era in which we believe we can do something."

Doctors in many third world countries and modernized nations, including Italy and Japan, still believe in withholding a bad prognosis. But the United States, Britain and other countries were revolutionized in the late 60's by the patients' rights movement, which established that patients had a legal right to be fully informed about their medical condition and treatment options.

Now, whether a patient comes in complaining of a backache, a rash or a lump in the armpit, many doctors interpret informed consent as the obligation to rattle off all possibilities, from best-case to worst-case situations. Honesty is imperative. But what benefit is served by Dr. Dour?

"There are doctors who paint a bleaker picture than necessary so they can turn out to be heroes if things turn out well," said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford medical school, "and it also relieves doctors of responsibility if bad things happen."

The fear of malpractice litigation after a bad outcome, he said, also drives doctors to be stunningly explicit from the outset.

The medical community has nicknames for this bluntness: truth-dumping, terminal candor, hanging crepe. But some social workers call it false hopelessness.

Given a time-tied prognosis, many patients become withdrawn and depressed, said Roz Kleban, a supervising social worker with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "Telling someone they have two years to live isn't useful knowledge," she said. "It's noise. Whether or not that prediction is true, they lose their ability to live well in the present."

Health care providers debate the wisdom of giving patients a precise prognosis: "There's an ethical obligation to tell people their prognosis," said Dr. Barron Lerner, an internist and bioethicist at Columbia University medical school, "but no reason to pound it into their heads."

Others say that doctors should make sure they can explain the numbers in context, with the pluses and minuses of treatment options, including the implications of choosing not to have treatment.

Though many patients ask how long they have to live, thinking that amid the chaos of bad news, a number offers something concrete, studies show that they do not understand statistical nuances and tend to misconstrue them. Moreover, though statistics may be indicative, they are inherently imperfect.

Many doctors prefer not to give a prognosis. And, studies show, their prognoses are often wrong, one way or the other.

Where does this leave the frightened patient?

Meg Gaines, director of the Center for Patient Partnerships, a patient advocacy program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, thinks false hopelessness is more debilitating than false hope.

"I tell people to ask the doctor, 'Have you ever known anyone with this disease who has gotten better?' If the answer is yes, just say, 'So let's quit talking about death and talk about what we can try!' "

Some patients do triumph against grotesque statistical odds; others succumb even when the odds are piled in their favor.

But willful ignorance, she cautioned, can be dangerous.

"People should know about prognosis to the extent that it's necessary to make good decisions about monitoring your health care," she said. "You can't be an ostrich in the sand. When the stampeding rhinoceri are coming, you have to be able to get out of the way."

False Hope

Perhaps just as harmful as false hopelessness, many experts believe, is false hope. "If one patient in a thousand will live with pancreatic cancer for 10 years," said Dr. Christakis of Harvard, and doctors hold out that patient as a realistic example, "we have harmed 999 patients." False hopelessness, in the name of reality, dwells on the dark view of a patient's condition, prematurely foreclosing possibility and a spirited fight. False hope sidesteps reality, leaving patients and family members unprepared for tragedy.

When Anna Kyle was in labor, the umbilical cord dropped ahead of the baby, who was deprived of oxygen for critical moments. Mrs. Kyle had an emergency Caesarean section. The baby had to be resuscitated.

The nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit told Mrs. Kyle, of Lonoke, Ark., that her son was a "good baby," because he didn't cry or fuss. Later, when he had developmental delays, her hopes were at war with her nagging fears. But doctors kept saying the child might outgrow them.

Her son, now 5, received a formal diagnosis last year. "Nobody wanted to say, 'Your kid has autism, your kid is mentally retarded, your kid will be in diapers most of his life,' " said Mrs. Kyle, whose husband earns $10 an hour as a truck driver. "It hurts, it's nasty, ugly stuff, but it has to be said, so kids can get the therapy they need as early as possible."

Because patients hunger for good news, experts say that doctors should choose their words carefully: "If you get into the language of hope, you run the risk of over-promising things," said Dr. Lerner of Columbia.

The more useful discussion for patients, he added, is, "what hopeful things can I do?"

In his November lecture on hope, Dr. Cassell said that patients do not need "false hope that is personified in useless therapy with nontherapeutic effect."

False hope is both a hangover from the centuries-old belief that doctors should withhold bad news, and a practice newly infused by the explosion of so many medical treatments and the tenuous promise held out by clinical trials.

Consider the cost of false hope, experts note: not only the physical and emotional agony of dying patients who try last-ditch, occasionally unproven treatments, but also the depletion, financially and psychologically, of the patients' survivors.

"The battle cry of our culture is, 'Don't just stand there - do something!' " said Dr. Richard Deyo, a Seattle internist and professor at the University of Washington who writes about the high cost of false hope.

He added, "Physicians have a natural bias for action, whereas it may be more honest to say, 'Whether I do something or not, the result is likely to be the same.' "

A 1994 study showed that Americans have greater faith in medical advances than people in many other countries. Thirty-four percent of Americans believed that modern medicine "can cure almost any illness for people who have access to the most advanced technology and treatment." By contrast, only 11 percent of Germans held the same belief.

Accompanying the medical advances, however, are an increasing number of physician subspecialties. One downside is that patients hear from a variety of voices, and they can become inadvertently misled.

Pat Murphy, a nurse and grief counselor who heads the family support team at University Hospital in Newark, said that, for example, when a patient has a critical stroke, a cardiologist, among others, will be called in for an evaluation: "The doctor might say, 'This is a strong heart' and then he leaves," she said. "The patient will probably never regain consciousness. But the 'parts people' talk to the family out of context, and the family thinks they're hearing good news."

Another result of this medical renaissance is thousands of clinical trials. Phase 1 trials often try out doses of an unapproved drug; perhaps only 5 percent of volunteers may derive any benefit. "Most people think they don't want to be an experiment," said George J. Annas, author of "The Rights of Patients." But, he said, when desperately ill patients learn about a trial, "all of a sudden there's no difference in their minds between research and treatment."

A 2003 study of advanced-stage cancer patients who volunteered for Phase I trials showed that at least three-quarters of them were convinced they had a 50 percent chance or greater of being helped by the drug.

Because patients listen selectively, it can be difficult to tease out who owns responsibility for false hope:

Patricia Mendell, a New York psychotherapist who works with fertility patients, noted: "A doctor can tell a patient she has a 95 percent chance of an I.V.F. cycle not working. But the patient will feel it's her right to try for that 5 percent. "

Indeed, false hope can represent a complex entwining between terrified patient and well-intended doctor: both want the best outcome, sometimes so intensely that what emerges is a collective denial about the patient's condition.

Hope

Elissa J. Levy was a winter sports jock, with a buoyant social circle and a power job on Wall Street. But in January 2002, she received a diagnosis of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, a less common version of the disease, for which there are few treatments and no known cures.

Soon, Ms. Levy needed a cane, and could scarcely walk a block. Pain and fatigue dogged her. Her quick brain grew foggy, her right hand floppy. She cut back her new job as a deputy director of a Bronx charter school to three days a week. In the mornings, her mother had to help dress her.

But though her body sagged, her neurologist helped prop up her spirits. "Often I would come in crying," Ms. Levy said, "and he would hold my hand and say, 'We'll figure this out together.' Or 'We can hope that this treatment works.' "

Given the gravity of her disease, was it appropriate for the doctor to stoke her hope?

"Hope," wrote Emily Dickinson, "is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul."

Imprecise and evanescent, hope is almost universally considered essential to the business of being human.

Few can define hope: Self-delusion? Optimism? Expectation? Faith?

And that, say experts from across a wide spectrum, is the point: hope means different things to different people. When someone's medical condition changes, that person's definition of hope changes. A hope for a cure can morph into a hope that a relationship can be mended. Or that one's organs will be eligible for donation.

For so many, hope and faith are inextricably linked. "Truly spiritual people are amazing, " said Ms. Murphy of University Hospital. "Until the moment of death, families pray for a miracle and then at the moment of the death, they say, 'This is God's will' and 'God will get us through this.' "

As health care providers struggle with whether, how and when doctors should speak of hope, a consensus is building on at least two fronts: that what fundamentally matters is that a doctor tells the truth with kindness, and that a doctor should never just say, "I have nothing more to offer you."

More doctors are embracing palliative care specialists as partners who work with critically ill patients and their families to help them redefine their hopes, from the improbable to the possible. Many doctors, whose specialties range from neurosurgery to infertility, retain therapists to counsel patients.

"Hope lives inside a patient and the physician's behavior can either bring it out or suppress it," said Dr. Susan D. Block, a palliative care leader at Harvard. "When a patient has goals, it's impossible to be hopeless. And when a physician can help a patient define them, you feel like a healer, even when the patient is dying."

Dr. Spiegel, the Stanford psychiatrist, recalled a woman who knew her death from cancer was imminent: "She had 15-minute appointments scheduled all day with relatives, to set them straight on how to live their lives. Then she was going to die. This was a hopeful woman."

Harvard's medical school matches first-year students with critically ill patients - in essence, the patients become the teachers. One patient, Dr. Block recalled, was a high school teacher dying from lymphoma, who agreed with alacrity to participate. When her husband came into her room, the patient said, with tears in her eyes, "Honey, I have one last teaching gig."

Last April, Ms. Levy's doctor started her on a drug that is still in clinical trials, but has long been available in Europe. Shortly after she began taking the daily pill, she went for a checkup and lay down on his examining table.

He asked her to lift her leg.

Normally, Ms. Levy struggled to budge her leg. But having taken the drug, she flung her leg into a 90-degree angle. She gasped.

Usually, when her doctor pressed one finger against her leg, it collapsed. Now he pushed with his open hand. She held steady. Both she and her doctor grew teary-eyed.

Finally, she walked down the hall without her cane. Both patient and doctor wept openly.

The drug does not cure her disease; it treats symptoms. But Ms. Levy, 37, now walks 20 blocks at a clip, works four days a week, goes to the gym. She is dating. A recent test showed that her disease has not progressed.

In a sense, Ms. Levy's relationship with her doctor combined the best of the old and new worlds. He was hopeful but also candid. And he could offer her promising treatments, including one that, at least temporarily, seems to help.

"And if I start feeling bad again?" Ms. Levy said. "I have hope that I'll feel good again."

(*) (*) (w) (w) :( :(

SL

sweetlady

12-29-2005, 06:47 AM

December 25, 2005

The Best Films of the Year

Under a Big Sky, Amorous Cowhands and Hungry Bears

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

ANXIETY that shades into dread and dread that curdles into paranoia; the past hammering on the door of the present like a vengeful ghost: As ominous portents leaked into the movies in 2005, it sometimes felt as though the hurricanes that decimated the Gulf Coast and Florida had torn away the roof separating the movies from reality and let in an acid rain.

A loaded parable for the age of identity theft, "A History of Violence," punctured the American dream of self-reinvention by suggesting that a vicious past inevitably catches up with the peaceable present. In "Caché" a culture's colonialist history rises up to haunt it like a guilty nightmare from which there is no waking.

"Munich" focuses on the endless chain of revenge in the Middle East. "Syriana" and "The Constant Gardener" imagine corrupt, worldwide networks of corporate and governmental collusion. "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Crash" examine political and racial paranoia in American life. Even personal stories like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Junebug," are laced with secrecy, fear, xenophobia.

Below are this critic's Top 10 movies for 2005, and 10 runners-up (listed alphabetically by title).

'BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN' Ang Lee's faithful adaptation of Annie Proulx's story of two ranch hands (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) who fall in love while tending sheep one summer in the high plains of Wyoming is a cinematic landmark that lays bare the homoerotic subtext in countless westerns and buddy movies. Beautifully written (by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), visually majestic, discreet and heartbreaking, it evokes the same lonesome chill lodged in the soul of Big Sky country that infused the classic "The Last Picture Show." Mr. Ledger's portrayal of the taciturn, tormented Ennis Del Mar, who marries and sires two daughters while carrying on a secret homosexual affair, delivers the kind of devastating performance James Dean might have given had he lived long enough.

'CACHÉ' In Michael Haneke's icy, almost unbearably suspenseful drama, the privileged comfort zone of a Parisian television host (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife (Juliette Binoche), a book editor, is shattered when the couple, who have a 12-year-old son, begin receiving anonymous surveillance tapes of their home, followed by scrawled drawings of a child spewing blood. The husband's desperate quest to track down their tormenter leads to the revelation of a shameful family secret connected to the French-Algerian war decades earlier. Mr. Haneke, an Austrian filmmaker who works in France, is a pitiless cultural surgeon who likes to operate without anesthetic as he uncovers the darkest fears of a complacent bourgeois society.

'NINE LIVES' Rodrigo García's suite of vignettes that revolve around nine different female characters has the richness and subtlety of Chekhov. Though some of the stories are interconnected and others not, collectively they add up to a sweeping contemplation of modern life and its complexity. Love, marriage, parenthood, illness, death and memory are evoked in tales that all unfold in real time and lack conventional narrative closure. The acting by a cast that includes Robin Wright Penn, Sissy Spacek, Holly Hunter, Glenn Close and Kathy Baker, is extraordinary. "Nine Lives," which slipped in and out of theaters with little notice, is a sad, quiet masterpiece waiting to be discovered on DVD.

'A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE' The Canadian director David Cronenberg has a creepy understanding of where horror intersects with desire, and violence with catharsis and a Canadian's view of the United States as a place where violence is an infection genetically sown into its culture and passed down from generation to generation. Here he builds that idea into a scary cinematic thrill ride that tests viewers' complicity. Viggo Mortensen is the owner of a diner who lives with his family in a picture-perfect Indiana town whose placidity is disturbed when menacing big-city thugs, convinced he is a Philadelphia mobster who betrayed them years earlier, slide into town in a big black car. Was he in another life the vicious killer they claim to recognize? Or is it a case of mistaken identity?

'GRIZZLY MAN' Werner Herzog's documentary portrait of Timothy Treadwell, who spent 13 years living with grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness, where he became their self-appointed protector, takes a hard look at the disconnect between human life and the natural world. Treadwell, a failed actor, grew increasingly messianic while living in the wild, where he gave the beasts pet names and imagined himself their friend until he and his girlfriend were attacked and eaten by a grizzly. Much of the film consists of Treadwell's self-aggrandizing home movies of himself and the beasts. The documentary is a useful antidote to "March of the Penguins," the sentimental anthropomorphic documentary that became the year's biggest surprise hit.

'DOWNFALL' Oliver Hirschbiegel's epic film about Hitler's final days in the Berlin bunker where he committed suicide is one of the most powerful war movies ever made. Based on Joachim Fest's book, "Inside Hitler's Bunker," and on the memoirs of Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, the movie feels authentic, from its gruesome battles (filmed on the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia) to its portrait of the deluded, raving dictator. Bruno Ganz's astonishing portrait of Hitler is by turns grandiose, paranoid and abject, a monster, but a recognizably human one. His performance is matched in power by Corinna Harfouch's Magda Goebbels, who poisons her own children so they won't face the shame of growing up in a world without Nazism.

'LOOK AT ME' The French director Agnès Jaoui's film captures the narcissistic, careerist, sycophantic world of the Parisian intelligentsia, although it could just as easily be the literary salons of New York. Jean-Pierre Bacri is a famous writer, on his second marriage, who is too self-centered to care about his lonely, overweight, 20-year-old daughter, Lolita (Marilou Berry), who desperately seeks his approval. Alternately poignant and acidic, the comedy of contemporary urban manners is perfectly observed.

'JUNEBUG' A sophisticated Chicago art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) newly married to a Southern golden boy (Alessandro Nivola) who has fled the family coop, returns with him to visit his churchgoing family in rural North Carolina and meets a polite but suspicious reception. In a home where family values reign, festering sibling rivalry, maternal possessiveness and a stifling clannishness make the confrontation between cosmopolitan and provincial America wary. Amy Adams, as the dealer's young, childlike sister-in-law, gives an incandescent portrayal of the only family member with a truly open heart.

'SARABAND' In Ingmar Bergman's sequel to his 1973 masterpiece, "Scenes From a Marriage," the embattled couple, Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) meet 30 years later when she impulsively visits his summer home in the middle of a forest. There she witnesses a brutal power struggle between Johan and his failure of a son, Henrik, to control Henrik's daughter, a beautiful, talented cellist. Ms. Ullmann and Mr. Josephson are as magnificent as ever. The bone-deep Nordic chill of Mr. Bergman's Freudian vision hasn't softened one whit.

'THE SQUID AND THE WHALE' Divorce, Brooklyn style in the mid-1980's, is the subject of Noah Baumbach's acutely observed, semi-autobiographical exploration of the exploding marriage between an egotistical writer and teacher (Jeff Daniels) and his wife (Laura Linney), an aspiring writer whose career is blossoming. As witnessed by their bright, troubled 16-year-old son, the older of two boys, the emotionally gory family dynamics are so squirm-inducing they make the domestic strife in Woody Allen seem almost benign by comparison.

Runners-up:

"The Beat That My Heart Skipped"

"Capote"

"The Constant Gardener"

"Crash"

"Good Night, and Good Luck"

"The Intruder"

"Munich"

"Mysterious Skin"

"Syriana"

"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"

(*) (*) I have added a number of newly released films to my netflix queue.

(f) ,
SL