Dan Rather and the 2006 Midterm Elections

J.Phineas Gage - Guest Columnist

JG: Dan thanks for taking some time to answer a few questions. We were kind of surprised you called back since this blog is one of the newer ones out there. I guess things are kind of slow?

DR: Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.

JG: Right. What are you up to these days? Doing any special reports? A little writing? gearing up for the 2006 coverage of the political campaigns?

DR: I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with heroin so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to 'smack,' and quickly.

JG: You're serious? You took a needle for the good of a story? But am I missing something...if it was a "special kind of hell" wouldn't that push you away from the drug rather than towards addiction?

DR: Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it's very hard to turn it, even slightly.

JG: Hmmmmm...OK.

DR: I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas.

JG: Well, back to the news. So now that you're not in an offical broadcasting role with CBS do you have any opinions about the midterm elections you would like to share with us? Maybe handicap some of the big races?

DR: Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.

JG: Are you including political blogs in that category?

DR: I've always tried to be fair, even-handed, not an advocate for any group.

JG: What do you think about Hillary Clinton's chances for president?

DR: The reelection of Bill Clinton is as secure as a double-knot tied in wet rawhide.

JG: No, its Hillary who is running, not Bill.

DR: Folks, let me point out something to you, because for a lot of people in Washington, they could not be more surprised if Fidel Castro came loping through on the back of a hippopotamus this Election Night.

JG: Alright, lets try John McCain - where does he have to do well to make it through the primaries and get the Republican nomination?

DR: They say California's the big burrito; Texas is a big taco right now. We want to follow that through. Florida is a big tamale.

JG: Thats it?

DR: Never eat spinach just before going on the air.

JG: Dan are you OK? Maybe its been awhile since you've done the interview give-and-take, questions and answers...maybe you haven't adjusted to being the subject instead of the reporter?

DR: I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes.

JG: Back to heroin and crack again. Well, we're running out of time here -

DR: What I say or do here won't matter much, nor should it.

JG: Thanks for stopping by, I think I'm beginning to understand why we were able to grab you for an exclusive interview.

DR: Those of you watching and listening, get a cup of coffee or a spot of tea and join us back here in just a few moments.

JG: No Dan, we're done. And there is no camera. Just text on a computer screen.

DR: Nobody's pushing me out.

JG: Times up.

DR: Thats part of our world, goodnight.

Source of the quotes used to assemble the "interview".

Local Television and Fake News

If you don't like the news change the channel. But what if you can't tell what is really news and what isn't? What if corporations sent your local news stations a video press release of their product and they ran it as a news piece (and they get paid extra to do so)? Wouldn't you be more inclined to consider purchasing the product because it was being presented as objective news coverage rather than as a paid advertisement?

"Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. They identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers.

Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients' messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety".

Let your local news station and the FCC know how you feel. Just the facts ma'am!

Bush to try "X-Men" Strategy in Iraq

With poll numbers still plummeting and the marginal success of his "mea culpa" performance at last week's press conference with Tony Blair about Iraq, it seems that Bush is in desperate need of a new approach.

While he frankly admits to not planning on seeing his good friend Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, the explosive success of the third X-Men movie surely hasn't escaped him. Record breaking box office numbers might inspire Bush to try and reclaim his glory days of President-as-action figure that worked so well in the beginning of the Iraq invasion. Sitting in the cockpit of military jets and speaking on aircraft carriers in front of "Mission Accomplished" banners.

Despite recent polls showing over 60% of Americans are opposed to the war in Iraq, Bush continues to ignore both the majority of Americans and the reality on the ground in Iraq.

"More adults in the United States are disappointed with their government’s decision to go to war in Iraq, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 62 per cent of respondents think the conflict was not worth fighting, up five points since March. For the first time since the conflict began, fewer than four-in-ten Americans believe the war with Iraq was worth fighting."

While it may pump him up to see the "good guys" win in the movie, some of the more nuanced plot subtext probably flew right over his head, (the whole gay rights thing). But then shades of grey, nuance, and pesky details were never a strong suit for this administration. Why complicate world affairs when it can be cut down to a simple case of "bring it on"?

So is Bush a Wolverine? Smells more like Weasel to me.

Bush Moves On To Treasury Secretary #3

New Frumpy Bald White Guy Replaces Old Frumpy Bald White Guy as Treasury Secretary.

John Snow, the soon to be former ex-Secretary (red tie)
was mercilessly dragged over to the White House to attend Bush's announcement that Henry Paulson (blue tie) has been nominated to succeed him.

This was at least the third or fourth time Snow had slipped his resignation letter under the White House door only to have it kicked back out to him each time with a note, "Thanks, but no thanks, please go back and keep the chair warm". Finally it stuck.

What's the deal on the new guy? Who knows, who cares. Goldman Sachs credentials or not, his task will be to sit down, help row the administration boat and shut up. What else is left to do? Plan sound fiscal policy for the country? Supervise port deals with companies from Dubai?

Its gotta be a pretty thankless job being Treasury Secretary when the country is running its largest deficit ever, the tax base is being hijacked by tax cuts programs for the upper 1% and corporation tax give-away's, the dollar can't compete with the yuan, and somehow every 6 months we need to throw another 30-40 billion into the pot for Iraq whose cost isn't calculated as part of the annual budget.

Good luck Henry, don't get too comfortable.

Sunday Funnies

Today we offer a selection of editorials from newspapers across the country:

A moderate editorial from USA Today that asks why Congress roars about protecting their own privacy rights but remains quiet on protecting yours.

A more conservative editorial from The Ledger in Nebraska about the message of the movie the Da Vinci Code.

A liberal leaning editorial from the StarTribune in Minneapolis about efforts to undermine the courts.

Memorial Day Travel - Your Roads are For Sale

Normally on a Friday we go for the fluff around here. No sense getting everyone all churned up just before the weekend unless something really, really, big is going down. But on this Memorial Day holiday weekend we did think this topic was appropriate, even on a Friday, given the fact that so many of you will take to the highways for this 3 day weekend.

States are selling your toll road highways to foreign companies in sweetheart 99 year lease deals. They are also contracting the construction and maintenance of future highways (with tolls) to these companies as well.

While selling off our highways to foreigners doesn't have the same level of security concerns as the Dubai owned company U.S. ports deal from a few months ago, what was a small trend is now becoming standard operating practice with government at all levels bailing out on their responsibility to maintain our infrastructure.

[Quick sidebar on the ports controversy - 90 days later, it hasn't really been resolved. Promises were made that the Dubai company would divest its interests in U.S. ports or transfer their management to a U.S. subsidiary. To date, nothing has happened. The DPW company website remains "unavailable", and the Treasury Department office responsible for the oversight hasn't updated their information. But there is contact information if you would like to try and get an update: Gay Hartwell Sills (202) 622-9066.]

Fire sales of our highways by a number of states raised questions in a recent article by Mike Rupert of the Washington, DC edition of the newspaper The Examiner.

"Transurban Group, Australia’s second-largest toll road owner, last week agreed to lease the Pocahontas Parkway in Richmond for $611 million for 99 years, gaining its first U.S. highway. The company is also part of a consortium ready to spend $913 million to build High Occupancy Toll, or HOT, lanes on Interstate 95 from the 14th Street Bridge to Massaponax and another $900 million to add the lanes to portions of the Interstate 495 Beltway. The company also bid for operating rights for the Dulles Toll Road last year."

The fact that Interstate 95 is included in discussions implies these programs have been blessed at a federal level as well. In fact they are encouraged:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta lauded the trend Wednesday but urged more U.S. companies to hop on board. “We know that many private firms are literally knocking on doors in state capitals across the country, willing to invest billions of dollars in transportation projects,” Mineta said. “While many of these firms are international, we believe that transportation infrastructure will be an increasingly attractive opportunity for American investors.”

From a security standpoint, it may or may not be troubling to you that your ports, your highways, and other infrastructure like your local water supply are being contracted out to foreign companies. But there is an ethical line that is beginning to be erased that should be raising serious questions by all taxpayers - where is our money going, why don't we have a say, and why is America increasingly not able to afford to maintain basic services?

We are the richest country in the world, hands down, without debate. Why can't we keep school buildings from crumbling, roads repaired, safe drinking water coming out of the tap?

While states have faced specific budget crunches during economic down cycles over the past 20 years, they have also had years of surplus. In fact, your federal government had a surplus as well just 6 short years ago. So why can't the state and federal government provide even the most basic of services?

• Government has been tarred as an inherently bad thing by many politicians and their constituents. Government is bad, taxes are bad. Reduced government, reduced (or reckless) tax cuts are good. In fact, just as no company can survive by selling a product for less than it costs to produce it, the government cannot provide even basic services below a certain tax base level. We have sunk to that level.
  
  
• By executive order, through the back door, and in the middle of the night, politicians whose point of view is imbalanced in favor of business continue to push public-private sector "partnerships". Using flowery language these sound like a good thing and continue to thrive because they remain too often unquestioned. What they are is a way to drive what used to be government services provided to taxpayers "at cost" into profit produceers for private companies - they are corporate handouts at the expense of taxpayers.



• While it is proper to monitor and question a lot of noncritical government programs and services there needs to be a reasonable agreement that basic security, health, transportation, and environmental protections belong in the government, run by the government for the betterment of its citizens, not for profit.

As isolated instances, where you live may be seeing only the first small waves in this ripple effect. Perhaps parking control, prison services, rural mail delivery or school lunches are the only visible signs. But have you ever gotten a single tax refund check from any level of government stating that since they are saving money with these "public-private" partnerships those savings are being returned to the taxpayers? No, probably not.

Challenge your government to be a good government and to provide the services that are the core of their reason for existing. Giving away pieces of America to the lowest bidder and turning every municipal service into a profit center is just bad governing, period.

Cheney, Energy, and Undermining Freedoms

Sometimes it's just too easy to connect the dots, and too frightening of a view into a pervasive mindset.

On his recent trip abroad to Eastern Europe and Russia Dick Cheney embraced the President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.

Why? Afterall, the State Department lists these highlights about the country on their website:

- severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government
- instances of military hazing that led to deaths
- abuse and mistreatment of detainees and prisoners
- unhealthy prison conditions
- corruption in law enforcement, the judiciary, and the legal system
- arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of government opponents
- government infringement of citizens' privacy rights
- selective use of civil and criminal libel cases to punish political opponents
- self-censorship in the media
- harassment of opposition newspapers
- limited freedom of association and assembly
- narrowing of legal protections for freedom of religion
- discrimination and violence against women, including domestic violence
- discrimination against persons with disabilities
- trafficking in persons
- restricted workers' rights, poor workplace safety in heavy industries, and child labor in agricultural areas

Granted, the self-censorship and harrassment of newspapers and limited freedom of assembly is something that Cheney has helped orchestrate here in our own country so that has a certain appeal but whats the real attraction here? Could it be:

"Kazakhstan’s vast energy wealth has made it an important geostrategic partner for many countries and institutions and raised the political stakes inside the country significantly. As a consequence, in recent years the government undermined freedoms to shield itself from public scrutiny and political rivals, and to protect its substantial control over the hydrocarbon sector."

Ahhh...paranoid leadership and fossil fuels, a matchmaking success story. But still, fuel from Eastern Europe, surely there are other countries easier to tap into...but still don't have the angle, unless its because:

"...foreign relations is a complicated business and the United States often has to work with unsavory regimes. Kazakhstan has energy we need and could provide a way of bypassing Russia in shipping gas to the West. But this administration has made the large claim that promoting democracy is a central element of its foreign policy. Did Cheney have to offer his "friend" Nazarbayev such a warm embrace? Did anyone in our government consider that what Cheney said in Kazakhstan could undercut what he said about Russia?"

OK, got it. Now if there was just a way to connect Cheney to the CIA leak case...

How Gay was the Wedding?

The epiphany came as I was watching a dance floor of 50 years olds mightily gyrating away to the song "YMCA" made famous by the Village People. I was at a wedding reception in a smaller city filled with working-class, conservative families celebrating the latest family nuptials. Other than the usual list of wedding reception novelty songs (which might include YMCA), the music that drove them in throngs to the dance floor was music first created for a gay or gay friendly audience.

As one wedding DJ has commented:

"Is it selfish to deny your guests certain wedding-song standards that you find overplayed (or just plain bad) when it brings them joy? Based on last weekend’s experience, many people love flapping their arms to “The Chicken Dance” or spelling out “Y.M.C.A.” (On the Village People, Keith Phipps mused, “I’ve always wondered why a song about cruising for gay sex would be so popular at weddings.)"

In addition to the music, quite a few of their servers were gay. Florist: gay. Wedding cake: gay baker. Food: gay chef. Event coordinator: gay. This doesn't even count most of the gowns and formalwear presumably designed by someone who was gay as well.

In short, while these reception attendees had no problem with gay's supplying things for their weddings from the bridesmaids shoes to the frosting on the wedding cake, they seemingly have a problem with gay's getting married to each other if we are to believe certain politicians. The 2004 call for a constitutional ban on gay marriage was something most moderate Americans had hoped was left behind with other campaign trickery that was used to scare voters into voting for Bush, or else...

However, with the midterm elections coming up the old gay boogie-oogie-oogie scarecrow has been hauled out for an encore by political conservatives and the religious right to try and stop potential Republican election losses this fall. Once again, the mantra is to get voters to vote not based on the qualities of the candidates but to "SAVE" the sanctity of marriage.

Hopefully, things have changed enough over the past two years that most Americans will see the gay marriage red-herring issue for what it really is: faith-based discrimination. This isn't the view of some vast left wing conspiracy, it also happens to be the view of Vice President Cheneys' daughter and an entire country of millions of people, our friendly neighbors to the north - Canada.

In reality, trying to raise an ammendment to the US Constitution banning gay marriage is a useless exercise serving nothing other than being a political ploy as most studies and polls continue to prove it would never pass with the needed majorities. The US Constitution was designed to make poorly thought through ammendments difficult to add on purpose to protect us from momentary lapses in bad judgement like this one.

There has always been a simpler solution to the debate on gay marriage, one which most level-headed moderate voters could appreciate, but which the firebrands to the left and right abhor because it entails compromise and no one would be able to claim to have "won". Return to the roots of our forefathers and once again appropriately separate church and state.

Marriage today serves two taskmasters poorly. In a wide range of religions marriage is the blessed wedding of two people in accordance with each church's interpretation of their faith on matrimony. At the same time in the laws of the federal and local governments, marriage bestows certain rights and benefits which absent being "married" are otherwise unavailable to its citizens.

Separate the civil rights and benefits from the religious act of marriage. Allowing civil unions that are equal in every secular aspect to marriage allows gay partnerships to have access to the same civil rights. Allow each religion to decide separately if they choose to include gay "marriage" within their faith or not.

Gay's will holler back that separate is not equal. But this type of compromise would allow for equality and recognize that there are real differences with more fundamentalist faiths that would otherwise have a hard time coexisting. Better to focus on what is tangible - full civil rights throughout local, state, and federal laws without the burden of trying to legislate every religion to accept gay marriage being imposed on their faith.

At the same time, Americans of faith need to be more enlightened and accepting of those who are gay. Recognize that they are your God's children as well and your place is not to be their judge. Why? Because at that last wedding you attended despite your value system you had no problem joyously dancing to these lyrics:

Young man, there's a place you can go.
I said, young man, when you're short on your dough.
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

They have everything for you men to enjoy,
You can hang out with all the boys ...

Media Update: Lawsuits Filed Against Phone Companies

AT&T, Verizon, and Bell South have been named in multiple lawsuits involving their reported cooperation with the National Security Agency (NSA) in providing massive amounts of personal phone records of American citizens without a warrant or a supoena.

The companies are being sued in order to obtain an injunction to halt the turning over of records, to destroy existing records and to insure that due process of law and protection of constitutional rights are carried out in any future telecommunications monitoring. While those authorizing the program in the Bush administration could face criminal charges, if a class action proceeds against the phone companies they could be liable for up to $2 billion dollars in violations ($1,000 per customer for over 200 million customers).

Six days ago Mr. Bush made a statement at the White House on this issue:

"I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing.

First, our international activities strictly target Al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans. Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities".

In 6 days all the information that has been reported in the news indicates that 3 out of 4 of Mr. Bushs' points appear to be untrue.

Link to our original posting on this topic.

Are Bloggers the Professional Wrestlers of Journalism?

It started as a Democratic “thing”. First Al Gore invented the internet. Then Howard Dean was among the first to blaze a political trail onto the landscape of the World Wide Web, both for fundraising and for political activism. With the 2006 midterm elections less than 6 months away the air is filling with the smoke from burning high octane rumors, accusations, and innuendo. The political blogging season is upon us, gentlemen start you engines!

But is anything of substance really being added by blogs or are they just raising our political pain threshold? In 2004 nobody took the time to care or to ask, it was just a question of jumping in the pool and keep treading water. Then the election results came in and the bloggers who were sure they were making a difference and could take out "the man" in the White House woke up to a nightmare. None of it apparently had mattered.

Shortly afterwards came the backbiting and the awkward dance between the blogs and the mainstream media (MSM) trying to figure out what was what anymore. Each wanted what the other had.

Though they play the outsider role well and enjoy the residual glow of being a more technically innovative product, bloggers want what the MSM already has: respectability, a larger audience, book deals, Pulitzer prizes, and company benefits. So Ana Marie Cox, the original "Wonkette" leaves the blog for a book deal and a gig at stodgy old MSM Time magazine. The book is ranked #91,856 on Amazon (3 stars) and I have no idea in the grand scheme of book publishing if thats a stud or a dud but she's back to blogging again.

On the other side, the MSM reporters hated having to follow all of those journalism rules and editorial guidelines. The appeal of the freewheeling world off blogging where its just a question of finding enough secondhand sources (flawed or not) to support an opinion and then get to the gate with the accusation first and hit "publish post" - now that's FUN! Now almost every MSM source and even relatively obscure pseudo "news" cable outlets have one of their traditional reporters trying their hand at blogging.

But should blogs focused on current events and politics do more than entertain? Is bitching enough? Initially it holds an appeal for new readers because the writing style and the Attention Deficit Disorder method of presenting information is, well, easier to take in. It doesn't take long; however, for new readers to begin asking, "Is this all there is?"

Every blog has to make a choice where to perch its banner on the infom vs. entertain spectrum of choices. Like MSM has seen for decades, whether its newspapers, magazines or television, those that do what they do well and find an audience stay, those that don't disappear. Except "disappear" is such an old-media way of looking at things, although blogs can be pretty ephemeral, in small nooks and crannies of the internet they still live on - over 39 million of them and over 2 billion links.

They're Tracking Your Phone Calls, Your E-mails, Your Banking (and this posting?)

"Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security".
- Benjamin Franklin

Americans have become fat, happy (in an ignorance-is-bliss sort of way), and in general, don't give a shit.

There I said it.

How else to account for high levels of a passivie malaise that has spread across an entire generation? In the 1970's under comparatively less dire political, criminal, and personal privacy invasion issues, the American public literally forced President Nixon to resign. These days, despite overwhelming evidence of misleading the public, lying under oath, pedaling federal procurement contracts for cash and sex, and nondenials of the breaking of constitutional law on more that one occasion, the loudest the public outcry ever gets is to the level of a whimper.

In two separate contexts the public has been made aware of the fact that large numbers of American citizens private phone calls are secretly monitored, and that millions of records of our phone calls have been collected from numerous phone service companies. And it doesn't stop there, today brings information that news bureaus and reporters cell phones are specifically being targeted to monitor their protected sources of information.

If no other words in this post scare you into some sort of active response these should:

"The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations. "It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official."

I'll even put it in caps again for emphasis....USED TO BE HARD AND COMPLICATED...NO LONGER IS IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.

Still not ticked-off, concerned, or at least a little creeped out?

"Imagine a situation where massive government computers listen to every phone call you make, read every e-mail you send and receive, and keep meticulous records of your pattern of communication. Yet amazingly something like this might just be happening right now. So claims the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed a class-action lawsuit against telecommunications giant AT&T in U.S. District Court in Northern California earlier this year.

In the lawsuit, EFF accuses AT&T of providing the U.S. National Security Agency, the super secret intelligence outfit, with unfettered access to customer phone calls and Internet communications collected through a secret room at the company's downtown San Francisco switching center."

And we'll link to a photo as well.

I'm not naive, secrecy and spying have a place in the government and in the protection of our national interests. But that need has to be firmly grounded in a rational understanding of the requirements for checks and balances within branches of the federal government and between the public and their political leaders. An overwhelming paranoia of those outside of the inner circle and an obsession with secrecy and spying inevitably has lead to criminal acts once those checks and balances have been removed.

Support elected officials who can be trusted to maintain our security and retain an honest, open transparency in their governing. Rationally question those who continuously wave the banner of "fighting the war on terror" as a hollow justification for ignoring your personal rights and maintaining a sense of trust and dignity.

P.S. To the secret spy-guys: I'm not sure if this post has enough "key words" to flag your data analyzing software and bring it up for a read-through. If it did, just want to say "hi", thanks for all your hard work, we're not here trying to blame the messenger.

Friday Fluff - Tom Cruise's Little Protest

You may have heard that Tom Cruise has a new movie out: "MI3". If you don't know the title just from the acronym then you're starting to fall way outside the movies target audience.

While Tom may be a petite little guy he's stretched every conceivable marketing possibility to try and insure the movie is a blockbuster. If there are people who work in marketing or PR jobs in the theater audience when you see the film you will literally be able to hear them squeal in delight.

Every conceivable channel had some sort of "the making of..." special the week before the film opened. Even the Food Network cable channel had a special on the catering company who worked on the film in location in Shanghai, China.

The hype before the movie fed right into the marketing chess pieces in the film. Need a younger stud to buck up Tom who's getting a little old for the younger female fans, bring in Johnathan Rhys Meyers in a supporting role. African-American audience; got that covered with Ving Rhames and Laurence Fishburne. And what about the huge Asian market distribution of the film; sign on Maqqie Q as a vixen special agent and make downtown Shanghai one of your locations. Gravitas, gravitas, we need some real acting; stroke-of-genius, bring in Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the evil mastermind.

Of course all of this would have worked flawlessly if a few months before the film Tom wasn't let off the leash to go out in the real world for a little while. His meltdown, or "overly enthusiastic" appearance on Oprah is now legendary. One would have thought it nearly impossible to topple Howard Dean's "Yee-Haw" but Cruise put him to shame. Follow that episode up with a Brooke Shields medication cat-fight, and a lot of children-of-the-corn weirdness on how to delivery the proper Scientology baby and its no wonder that all those good marketing vibes got shot to hell by the time the film opened.

It may not be just fans or potential fans that have begun looking at the star with a more critical eye. George Lucas weighed in on the MI3 movie:

"I think Tom Cruise proved that people are getting bored with that kind of stuff."

But in the end; or at least returning back to the beginning point of this post, for me there was only one part of the movie that clanked like a shiny new Diet Pepsi can on a worn cobblestone alley in Shanghai (Note: no important plot details revealed here). Cruise is getting a lecture towards the end of the film from one of the bad guys. You know, the part in almost every action film where the evil plan is revealed to the hero just before the climatic final scene. The bad guy talks about what disasters their plan will let loose and then mentions at the end of his little speech, that after the Armageddon event, the "United States can then come in and do what it does best, clean up the mess and rebuild" [it may not be exactly the words said but this is pretty darn close].

My friend and I sat there in the theater and looked at each other - Did he? No, he didn't. Oh, yes he did!!! Did Tom just gave George W. a little poke in the eye about Iraq? Maybe it was intentional, maybe not. Did the writers slip it in? Did Tom green-light the dialog? Who knows, but given the fact that Tom's approval ratings are sliding off the same cliff as George W. he might want to put on his marketing thinking cap and rebrand the movie a little bit. Add more of that protest film bravura, or bring back the wheelchair from his movie Born on the Fourth of July.

For the moment though, lets definitely put the plans for MI4 on hold.

Media Update: Feds Gutting the National Parks

WAG THE DOG? Proof that the rumor has wings?

Our story on May 9th:

CULTURAL WASTELAND?

Excerpt - "Our national parks are at the brink of collapse because Congress feels funding their upkeep is a nonexistant priority for the American people. With little objection we've gotten to the point where the only way many of them can stay open is by using volunteers as staff and charging user fees to get into them. From the Statue of Liberty to the Washington Monument, our federal government has refused to properly fund the restoration and upkeep of our cultural icons and the only way these two landmarks were restored was through corporate sponsorships that allowed advertising tie-ins.. Your cultural heritage is increasingly for sale to the highest bidder."

Link to our original post on this subject.

YAHOO! cover page news story on May 12

Critical item in the Yahoo story, a Government Accountability Office Report on National Park Service Funding Shortfalls: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06631t.pdf

Texan's Can't Protect Themselves From Each Other

There has been a lot of "Cowboy Justice" talk from the White House the past few years, lots of action verbs. They claim to have all the virtues best suited to protect our country in what they refer to as "these troubled times". They insisted that anyone else elected to lead the country would be too soft on the "evil-doers".

Mr. Bush, after all is a Texan. They have guns and an electric chair and they're not afraid to use them. They have a keen sense of right and wrong - you're either "with us or against us". They have the guts to make the hard decisions, and to protect their homes and families so "bring...it...on."

Newsflash - it doesn't work.

If you compare the latest Department of Justice Crime Statistics for Texas and that dreaded bluest of the blue states in the Northeast - New York, you are much safer in New York than Texas.

2004 TX violent crime total 121,554; murder and manslaughter 1,364; forcible rape 8,388.

2004 NY violent crime total 84,914; murder and manslaughter 889; forcible rape 3,563.

Safety and security is not a simple question of who has the most guns, the most Bibles or the harshest laws. Its not just catching "evil-doers" after they've committed a crime, its about the complexities of living in a civilized world that does the right things to make sure that a crime is never committed in the first place. Prevent the crime, spare the victim.

When the rhetoric comes around again, remember the facts and the numbers, its that simple. And don't even get me started on the number of Adult Book Stores per capita by state, another unfortunate set of facts that contradicts the holier-than-thou rhetoric from the "family values" side of the political spectrum.

A Cultural Wasteland?

Winston Churchill was asked whether England's arts budget should be cut to help fund World War II, he replied, "God, no. What the hell are we fighting for?"

Priorities. Among everything that we have to cram into our hectic lives who has time for the arts, for a little beauty? If an amazing day is categorized as one where the children are shuttled off to school on time, gas prices hold steady, and the laundry gets done, what hope is there that we'll take a few stolen moments to appreciate a little inspired creativity that only has a pleasing image, a melody, or a few well placed words to offer?

Has it really been that long since you've been to a live performance of a play or to a concert? How long have you been trying to read that book you bought month's ago? Do your kids go to a museum once or twice a year - and then only because the school takes them? Do they even have an art class at their school anymore?

Children are naturally creative and find both focus and joy in the process of exploring and making things just for the heck of it. Give them a crayon or two, something to draw on and the free time to let their mind wander and its incredible what they create. Often times their visual language gallops far in advance of their spoken vocabulary. They intuitively "know" what they see even if they have trouble expressing it accurately in words. But do we give the free time and the encouragement that we took for granted when we were young?

"Over the past two decades, the degree to which marketers have scaled up efforts to reach children is staggering. In 1983, they spent $100 million on television advertising to kids. Today, they pour roughly 150 times that amount into a variety of mediums that seek to infiltrate every corner of children’s worlds." - Juliet Schor

Adults may not be fairing much better. For many of us our last consistent exposure to any of the arts was whatever "Intro to..." class we were required to take as an undergraduate, and we've pretty much left it all behind from there. Do we have an inkling of what is happening in the arts around us in the time in which we live? It doesn't require historical learning of thousands of years of art history, just an awareness and a willingness to muck around in it from time to time.

It's one thing to compartmentalize and schedule time to read a book, watch a film or listen to music that we know will always be available, but what about something that is beautiful for just a short period of time? Under the control of nature or of an artist, these things have their own responses to the passage of time and are almost completely outside of our control. Do we allow them to be a priority in our lives from time to time?

Perhaps not, because we don't seem to value them enough to care for them. Our national parks are at the brink of collapse because Congress feels funding their upkeep is a nonexistant priority for the American people. With little objection we've gotten to the point where the only way many of them can stay open is by using volunteers as staff and charging user fees to get into them. From the Statue of Liberty to the Washington Monument, our federal government has refused to properly fund the restoration and upkeep of our cultural icons and the only way these two landmarks were restored was through corporate sponsorships that allowed advertising tie-ins.. Your cultural heritage is increasingly for sale to the highest bidder.

As a country we are younger than most, and although our natural resources, our history, and our artistic achievements are spread far and wide geographically and ethnically, they represent a heritage unique from that of any other in the world. More than commerce, more than any political system, it is the arts that open doors across national borders between our country and so many others. They are also the historic link between an upstart country that became America and thousands of years of Western and Native American civilizations.

The Arts are valuable, and they are worth fighting for, both in our daily lives, and as a part of our national priorities.

They're Always Watching You, Slow Down

Just after the events of 9/11 it seemed a little unreasonable when isolated voices like the ACLU shouted warnings about the increasing number of cameras appearing everywhere in public spaces under the premise that they were being used to protect us from terrorists and to monitor us for our own safety. Under those unusual circumstances, sacrificing a little personal privacy for the better public good seemed like the least we could do.

But then local law enforcement offices, city budget directors, highly paid lobbyists, and politicians got together and extended public safety into "revenue enhancement". All of those warm fuzzy feelings of communal safety fade pretty quickly when the first, and then the second speeding ticket appears in your mailbox from a camera enforced traffic zone. These enforcement areas use cameras mounted along select city streets to monitor a vehicles speed, record those cars traveling above the posted speed limit, and automatically send violations to the "offender".

In one month (March, 2006) in Washington, DC this type of program netted $3.3 million dollars for the "general fund" of the city coffers (meaning: use the money as they see fit). But there are no real witnesses to the crime, usually there is no policeman involved, no judge, no jury - just a photo of you car and license plate that arrives in the mail with the statement that you were traveling at this amount of excessive speed and owe a specified number of dollars in fines.

Is this just sour grapes on one driver's part for getting caught speeding? Initially, yes. But then I went back (slowly) down the same road where the citation was issued. Its a multi-jurisdictional four lane street that goes from suburban Maryland to downtown DC to suburban Virginia. Only a quarter of a mile (in DC) of this road is camera equipped. On most days the rush hour traffic volume doesn't even allow one to go the 30 mph speed limit posted. But after rush hour and on weekends certainly going 35-40 mph wouldn't be unsafe or unreasonable, though it may be modestly illegal. That's where the camera's come in and the money is made. Even driving safely for the existing conditions will net you a citation if you happen to be in the wrong 1/4 mile of the road.

"In November [2005], AAA designated the District as a "strict enforcement area" -- the first time in the organization's 105-year history that an entire city received the label.

Mr. Townsend said authorities should conduct formal studies to determine rational and reasonable speed limits, particularly for thoroughfares such as Interstate 295.

"I'm not justifying speeding, but most people are not woeful and wanton lawbreakers," he said. "If everyone knows that the cameras are there and are still being [cited for] speeding, then obviously people are speeding for reasons other than having a lead foot."

The police department, city council, and mayor will all chime in accordingly that this is just a matter of enforcing the law and providing a safe driving environment. While certainly no one wants to see dangerous speeds driven on any road, or accidents caused by running red lights, does the data support the claim that these camera watch-dogs reduce accidents. No it doesn't.

"There are no statistics that show the cameras decrease the number of traffic accidents or fatalities. The number of fatalities in the District decreased from 69 in 2003 to 45 in 2004. However, the number increased last year to 49."

But there is growing evidence that cities across the country are getting used to the increased revenue streams these programs produce. In 5 years these cameras have generated over $100 million dollars for Washington, DC. And it's somewhat ill gotten money, a no-bid contract with plenty of lobbyist dollars left in its wake. The only thing that improved in the latest version of the contract was that there were no longer incentives to issue more tickets:

"The new contract pays ACS a flat fee of about $850,000 per month. Previously, the company received a flat monthly fee of about $650,000. Under the previous no-bid deal approved last year, ACS also stood to earn more money if the District issued more than 53,750 citations in any given month."

But where will it all end? Maybe we should really be safe and go after people using cell phone and not wearing seat belts, ummm, OK, they're already doing that in England. Or what if we mounted a camera on a street sweeper so we could fine those who didn't bother to move their cars so we could all have a nice clean gutter, ummm, sorry, they're already doing that one too in Lancaster, PA.

Well now this is getting ridiculous. Its not as if your city had one of these camera programs contracted out and it was so badly managed that it turned out the contractor was getting more money than the city. Eventually, the city reissued the contract but raised the cost of the violations to try and recoup the money they bungled under the first contract, yep, this has already happened as well in Winnipeg, Canada.

Regrettably, this list could go on and on, in fact there are at least 61 other news accounts on the day of this posting that more than adequately document that your personal privacy is no longer being sacrificed for safety, but to provide revenues for the local municipalities that use these camera pointing contractors. You may be thinking - what if there is a technical problem and the camera's aren't functioning properly, band together, class action suit? You silly monkey, the local governments and the courts wouldn't let such a thing happen. But they did.

Where to turn if this is starting to get under your skin or into your wallet? The largest group of motorists that can influence legislation is through AAA. Their legislative action center is a start. The other organization is the one mentioned in the beginning of this post, the ACLU who was one of the few voices of protest 5 years ago. Not always a group we feel comfortable turning to sometimes, but in 5 years look how far we've come.

Technical Difficulties?

Friday's should be festive. So on Friday's we'll take a break from the typical background story and call to action and go for a lighter post, more humorous, "snarky" even.

Now about our technical difficulty. Our posts sit on a blog called "The Rumor Has Wings" on the home site of blogger.com, owned by the omnipresent Google. We have no beef with either of our landlords here but others have raised a concern about how search engines locate and rank information and the confusion it can cause.

For example, a certain well known British footballer (we'd call them a soccer player) had his name appear on a site that speculated about which footballers might be gay. Other sports sites and fans who did a search for their favorite player began picking up the site and posting the question as well. Before you knew it, strictly because of the number of times the player's name was appearing close to the word "gay" within a sentence on multiple sites, his name + gay rose to the top as the number one ranking on major search engines.

A serious problem or just a quirk of the internet? Is it even true? I mean what if I wrote here that at times when Karl Rove makes certain facial expressions he kind of reminds me of the character "Fat Bastard" from the Austin Powers movies?

OK, given the stress Rove is under with getting hauled before a grand jury multiple times and a potentially looming indictment, maybe he's put on a few pounds, but fat? And granted he's been pretty devious and underhanded in some of his political strategies; well, OK, borderline or even over-the-line criminal, but a bastard? Other than a coincidental comical resemblence at times between Karl Rove and Fat Bastard, I don't think we can really say that Rove is a fat bastard.

But ultimately, maybe thats a call for you all to make? Comment below: is Karl Rove a fat bastard or not?

Which brings us full circle back to our technical difficulty. What happens if enough of you comment on whether Rove is a fat bastard or not and then the next time you do a search for Rove + fat bastard it comes up on top?

Is the footballer gay? Is Karl Rove a fat bastard just because the search engines say so?

Have Americans Been Manipulated, Frozen by Terror?

For our country to continue to move forward it involves going beyond our fears sometimes, into unknown territories. Without inspired leadership and the support of those around us we can quickly get to a point where we feel we have reached our limit, our bodies and minds frozen. We either no longer act, or we at best have no more resolve than what is needed to maintain the status quo.

Political leaders, despots and dictators know how to foment such feelings and use them to their advantage. Has that time come in the United States? Have we become victims of our own political leaders propaganda? Its happened before -

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliment, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Herman Goering,
Nuremburg Trials

While it is certainly alarming to compare world events of today with those in Germany prior to and during World War II, its not without merit to ask ourselves if we have been all too blindly following a leader we should be questioning?

Its not easy to do such questioning though when it quickly is stymied by howls of being unpatriotic (sound familiar?) or that such questioning doesn't support our troops. Of course the opposite is true, open and reasonable debate among men is the foundation of a democracy. It also plays a role in protecting our troops.

Brave though they may be, they are in no position to question. Their lives are structured by the top-down commands of military field operations, in many ways for their own protection. They will perform heroically in their duties wherever they are sent. It is you who elects the political leaders who make the decisions on where to send our troops, ultimately they depend on you to not put them in harms unless it is absolutely necessary.

History is filled with so many wars, invasions and military battles where from our perspective now the causes seem flimsy at best, and the actions taken barbaric at least. How will today's family's explain to their grandchildren a "War on Terror" that really should have been a focused manhunt for one man and a small group of followers that should never have gone on for years? How will they explain invading a country, winning the "war" and finding out afterwards that the most critical reasons for the invasion were false. How will they explain prison tortures by our country and unlimited detentions in Guantanamo? How will they explain billions of tax dollars mostly from lower and middle class American families used to rebuild a country whose national and cultural history we never bothered to try and understand once we occupied their soil?

It will soon be time for us to listen, to raise our voices, to question and to partcipate in the elections this fall. Feel comfortable in whatever you decide to believe, but don't be afraid. We all need to find the courage to move forward.

Why Bernie Sanders Should be Your New Best Friend

If you were like many tired revellers, shortly after January rung in the New Year, you took some time to review how things were going in your life and an area of concern was the amount of credit card debt you owed. In fact in 2004 almost 70% of Americans named reducing credit card debt as their number one resolution, for the first time ranking it above the perennial promise to lose a few pounds after the holidays. The level of concern has only increased since then.

So how are your credit card balances doing? Probably not much better than the beginning of the year. The balances perhaps at best are holding steady while your interest rates and the fees are going up. You may have also gotten a newly updated agreement from your credit card company. The most recent one I received was 8 pages, double-sided, on 11"x14" sheets of paper. An agreement that the head of the Harvard Law School, who specializes in corporate contracts, admits she has a hard time understanding.

Why is there no accountability to the public interest? Financial Services companies that issue credit cards are the number one business sector in the amount of contributions made to political campaigns.

Your Senators and Congressmen don't represent you, the consumer, or the public interest on this issue, they are indebted to the credit card companies who finance their political campaigns. There are rare exceptions, and this is where Bernie Sanders comes in. He is a Congressman from Vermont who introduced the "Loan Shark Prevention Act" - calling credit card companies what they really are? Perhaps being a little more subtle may have helped the cause, because a year has gone by since this bill has been introduced and there is little support from other Senators and Congressmen who are on the dole from the "loan sharts" - oops, I mean Financial Services companies. The bill rationally asks for credit card interest rate caps, fee caps, and the end of the various credit card interest bait-and-switch marketing schemes that allow introductory interest rates to be raised at will for a myriad of reasons (refer to that lengthy user agreement).

But what can credit card companies legally do, surely there are some limits?

Maybe not - "Under the 'Truth in Lending' law, as long as a company gives you two weeks' notice, they can change anything they want," says Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America in Washington, D.C.

So what can you do? Make Bernie your new best friend. Call him and let him know you support his efforts and ask him to reintroduce his bill in Congress.

It may also be time to take a national day off from using our credit cards to show Congress and the Financial Services companies that Americans are no longer willing to remain quiet on this issue.

Its time to restore truth and fairness to credit card lending practices.

What difference can one person make?

First day, first post. Just what the world needs you might be thinking...one more blog. I agree, we don't really need one more blog, but I think we do need this blog to provide encouragement and a quick set of tools to stop passively accepting many of the things that effect all of our daily lives.

The central idea to every posting created here is a desire for everyone to get a little more involved in the world around them, to look up from their own personal stories and connect with others, with ideas, and with a new appreciation of their ability to create positive changes.

Start small. Be aware that your personal economics has power, that as a consumer every time you spend or withold dollars from a purchase you are sending a message to a company, to your neighborhood, to your government and our elected public officials. Know who you are buying from; especially for major purchases, by reviewing a companys' practices at the Responsible Shopper.

Everyday a little progress can be made.