With Gerald Ford's passing yesterday...

...we're currently being treated to dozens of stories that feature some riff on the angle of "Ford stepped in after Nixon and healed America." Not surprisingly, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States posits a different view.

Zinn points out that, for starters, Nixon's resignation was designed to avoid an inevitable impeachment, which would have dragged sordid details into the public eye - including Nixon's ultra-cozy relationship with the corporate world, and his secret, year-long bombing of Cambodia. Ford then took over, and as Zinn puts it, "Nixon's foreign policy remained. The government's connections to corporate interests remained. Ford's closest friends in Washington were corporate lobbyists." And, of course, "One of Ford's first acts was to pardon Nixon, thus saving him from possible criminal proceedings and allowing him to retire with a huge pension."

How would Ford compare today? Based on one of Zinn's anecdotes, at least, Ford seems like he suffered from the same type of militaristic myopia that plagues the neo-cons currently running our show. Even with American troops finally home from Vietnam, he continued to cheerlead for victory, and to ask for money to support the South Vietnamese:

On April 16, 1975, Ford said: "I am absolutely convinced if Congress made available $722 million in military assistance by the time I asked - or sometime shortly thereafter - the South Vietnamese could stabilize the military situation in Vietnam today." Two weeks later, April 29, 1975, the North Vietnamese moved into Saigon, and the war was over.

My biggest beef with Bush...

...is his seeming indifference to the sanctity of human life. From the 130 executions he oversaw as governor of Texas to nearly 3,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the guy has played a lead role in extinguishing so many existences that sometimes I wonder how anyone can be in the same room with him, let alone shake his hand, laugh at his jokes, or allow him to continue leading our country.

Of course, if you think about the ripples of pain that emanate from each of Bush's deaths, his indifference grows exponentially more callous. For each executed criminal, each lost soldier, and each Iraqi casualty, there are friends and family members who have to suffer the unnecessary loss.

Personally, I'm lucky enough to not have experienced this type of pain, so I can only imagine its true depth. But I think it's important to try to imagine, to try to understand how the actions of our leader and our nation have affected others. With that in mind, I'm grateful for poems like the one below, recently published in The Sun. It's a different context - a mother facing the possible loss of her infant daughter - but to me, it helps drive home how much we've all got riding on each and every human life on this planet.

from Infant Pneumonia, by Cheryl Gatling:

When they handed her back,
I wouldn't lay her down again.
I slept that night in a chair,
holding her up so the mucus would drain.
In sudden, sharp focus, I cherished it all:
the sweaty spikes of her damp hair,
the rattling vibrations of every breath.
I hold no moments more precious than these,
the nearly unbearable,
a pain so pure, it was almost like happiness.

So here's some great news from DC...

...Kirsten Gillibrand, a new congresswoman from New York (she pulled off an upset victory on November 7, with a campaign my uncles Bill and Brian worked for), will publish the details of her daily calendar online - every day of her term. This is a great idea, and an encouraging opening gambit from Gillibrand, who could be one to watch. From an opinion page column in The New York Times:

At first, the innovation sounds simple enough: Representative-elect Kirsten Gillibrand has decided to post details of her work calendar on the Internet at the end of each day so constituents can tell what she is actually doing for their money.

In fact, it is a quiet touch of revolution. The level of transparency pledged by Ms. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York — down to naming lobbyists and fund-raisers among those she might meet with — is simply unheard of in Congress. The secrecy that cloaks the dealings of lawmakers and deep-pocket special interests underpinned the corruption issue that Ms. Gillibrand invoked as voters turned Republicans from majority rule last month.

For all the worthy proposals for ethics reform being hashed out by the incoming Congress, a heavy dose of Internet transparency should not be overlooked in the effort to repair lawmakers’ tattered credibility. The technology is already there, along with the public’s appetite for more disclosure about the byways of power in Congress.

I don't know what it is about Brits and graffiti...

...but between Banksy and this other guy, Moose (aka Paul Curtis), the streets of Britain are sure home to some interesting portfolios. From a 2004 article on NPR.org:

July 15, 2004 · A British street artist known as Moose creates graffiti by cleaning dirt from sidewalks and tunnels -- sometimes for money when the images are used as advertising. But some authorities call it vandalism.

Moose, whose real name is Paul Curtis, tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he got the idea when he saw that people had written their names with their fingers on dirty tunnel walls in his hometown of Leeds. Moose does some freehand drawing, but also uses the grid from wall tiles to create perfect shapes and letters.

The tools are simple: A shoe brush, water and elbow grease, he says.

British authorities aren't sure what to make of the artist who is creating graffiti by cleaning the grime of urban life. The Leeds City Council has been considering what to do with Moose. "I'm waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks," he jokes.

One place where paperless isn't cool...

...is the voting booth, and thankfully, it looks like we'll be headed back to casting ballots that can be recounted if necessary. As the New York Times reports, purely electronic voting machines will be out by November 2008:

New federal guidelines, along with legislation given a strong chance to pass in Congress next year, will probably combine to make the paperless voting machines obsolete, the officials say. States and counties that bought the machines will have to modify them to hook up printers, at federal expense, while others are planning to scrap the machines and buy new ones.

Motivated in part by voting problems during the midterm elections last month, the changes are a result of a growing skepticism among local and state election officials, federal legislators and the scientific community about the reliability and security of the paperless touch-screen machines used by about 30 percent of American voters...

Many of the paperless machines were bought in a rush to overhaul the voting system after the disputed presidential election in 2000, which was marred by hanging chads. But concerns have been growing that in a close election those machines give election workers no legitimate way to conduct a recount or to check for malfunctions or fraud.

Money, money, money...

...is the elephant in the room in this New York Times excerpt on a Barak Obama elbow rub in NYC. Money still means access, that's for sure. Isn't it this kind of cozy money-grubbing that voters spoke out against last month?

One of the donors who met with Mr. Obama, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to offend Mrs. Clinton, said that he and several others had supported Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaigns but were not committed to her as a presidential candidate.

“I like Hillary a lot, but I’m also impressed with Obama — his message, the way he connects to people,” said the donor, a prominent businessman. “It’s a little too early for Democrats to be certain that Hillary is the strongest bet for 2008. There are a lot of good people interested in running.”

Mr. Obama’s reconnaissance mission came as Mrs. Clinton was starting to talk about 2008 not only with New York elected officials, but also with some prominent donors whom she would like to lock in for a possible White House bid.

Now it's the City of San Diego vs. Wal-Mart...

...from an article on the San Diego Union-Tribune site:

In a move that pits the city squarely against the nation's largest retailer, San Diego yesterday joined a growing list of cities nationwide to place restrictions on large retail developments. The City Council voted 5-3 to ban stores with more than 90,000 square feet that use 10 percent of their space to sell groceries and other merchandise not subject to sales tax. The ban excludes membership stores, such as Costco and Sam's Club, which sell grocery items in bulk...

Although the council is nonpartisan, the vote was along party lines. Those supporting the ban are Democrats; those opposed are Republicans...A group of labor leaders and grocers proposed the ban three years ago, while pro-business organizations, including the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, fought it.

Kevin McCall, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said each Supercenter would potentially create 350 jobs and sell groceries at prices up to 20 percent below what traditional supermarkets offer. “Why would this council turn away a company that is seeking to bring full-service grocery stores to communities with limited shopping options?” he asked...

Former City Councilwoman Valerie Stallings said she reluctantly supported the construction of a Wal-Mart in Serra Mesa while in office because she was convinced it would not hurt local businesses. After watching a number of businesses fold in Wal-Mart's wake, she said that she made the wrong decision. “It's true that the big boxes may be less expensive and they do offer affordable prices to many families, but they do not provide the kind of friendly and individual service that a smaller business can,” she said.

Some excerpts from The Crisis of Islam...

...by Princeton's Bernard Lewis, who The Wall Street Journal called "the world's foremost Islamic scholar." In one passage that enlightened me, Lewis gives some historical backdrop to the ongoing alliance of sorts between the United States and Israel. Apparently, this alliance first gelled in the mid-1950s, after the Soviet Union and Egypt announced an agreement to supply Cairo with Russian arms:

The spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East and the enthusiastic response to it encouraged the United States to look more favorably on Israel, now seen as a reliable and potentially useful ally in a largely hostile region. Today, it is often forgotten that the strategic relationship between the United States and Israel was a consequence, not a cause, of Soviet penetration.

In another excerpt, Lewis summarizes our current leadership's overall approach to the Middle East, in a manner that - at least judging by the WSJ accolade - appears to be acceptable to that leadership:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new American policy has emerged in the Middle East, concerned with different objectives. Its main aim is to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemony – of a single regional power that could dominate the area and thus establish monopolistic control of Middle Eastern oil. This has been the basic concern underlying successive American policies toward Iran, Iraq, or to any other perceived future threat within the region.

Importantly, Lewis is careful to note that both suicide bombers and any perpetrators of attacks on civilians are in blatant defiance of Islam principles:

Two features mark the attacks of September 11 and other similar actions: the willingness of the perpetrators to commit suicide and the ruthlessness of those who send them, concerning both their own emissaries and their numerous victims. Can these in any sense be justified in terms of Islam? The answer must be a clear no. [Both suicide and the killing of non-combatants are strictly prohibited in Islamic teachings like the Qur'an.]

Here's a link to Amazon's page on The Crisis of Islam, a superb - and easy to read - briefing on the history of Islam and on Islam's role in today's world.

I'm at Houston Bush Airport at 5:30am...

...and at Terminal E's Fox News store, the top story - projecting from 9 different HD displays - is Rupert Murdoch's decision to drop the O.J. Simpson's If I Did It. Weird.

Amid the celebration...

...we wave a well-deserved farewell to the W.A....
...but also shudder at a new estimate of Iraq's civilian death toll, from an AP article:

Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave his new estimate of 150,000 to reporters during a visit to Vienna, Austria. He later told The Associated Press that he based the figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals - though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

"It is an estimate," al-Shemari said. He blamed Sunni insurgents, Wahhabis - Sunni religious extremists - and criminal gangs for the deaths...

"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK," he said.

Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency.

As al-Shemari issued the startling new estimate, the head of the Baghdad central morgue said Thursday he was receiving as many as 60 violent death victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi said those deaths did not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom.

Al-Obaidi said the morgue had received 1,600 violent death victims in October, one of the bloodiest months of the conflict. U.S. forces suffered 105 deaths last month, the fourth highest monthly toll.

Is it me or is it big karma...

...haunting the GOP like a wailing ghost lately? Today's gaffe is a national security stumble: turns out detailed, atomic bomb-related documents were posted to the public on a government website - a site created by Republicans who attempted to apply a free market approach to the search for Saddam's WMDs. The problem with free markets, of course, is that they sometime go in nasty directions...from a head-slapper in tonight's New York Times:

The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence.

The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents’ release...

The Web site, “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal,” was a constantly expanding portrait of prewar Iraq. Its many thousands of documents included everything from a collection of religious and nationalistic poetry to instructions for the repair of parachutes to handwritten notes from Mr. Hussein’s intelligence service. It became a popular quarry for a legion of bloggers, translators and amateur historians...

On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, “Summary of technical achievements of Iraq’s former nuclear program.” It runs to 51 pages, 18 focusing on the development of Iraq’s bomb design. Topics included physical theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New York and their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do.

Last week in Vienna, Olli J. Heinonen, head of safeguards at the international atomic agency, expressed concern about the documents to the American ambassador, Gregory L. Schulte, diplomats said.

Calls to Mr. Schulte’s spokesman yesterday were not returned.

While watching some NFL action today...

...I noted a particularly patriotic Chevy Truck commercial, in which John Mellencamp croons "This is our country" while a montage of iconic subjects like the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and 9/11 culminates in a Chevy product shot. It felt a bit manipulative and egregiously cheesy, but in the heat of the football excitement I didn't give it another thought.

Then when I got home I read this sassy send-up of the ad in The New York Times. A choice excerpt:

And now we have Mr. Mellencamp, who’s done some rebranding of his own, having dropped the “Cougar” from his name back when his image needed a folksy turn. His political values seem equally elastic. He and his spouse once wrote a jeremiad against the Bush administration that said, in part: “It is time to take back our country. Take it back from political agendas, corporate greed and overall manipulation."

That was in 2003. Now he’s sitting on the fender of a Chevy truck, strumming a guitar and singing, “Well, I can stand beside ideals I think are right, and I can stand beside the idea to stand and fight.” He can also stand beside a nice shiny truck, if the fee is right.

A few days ago, Gawker, the Manhattan media site, ran a picture of a bar advertising, “The happiest happy hour south of ground zero.” Whether or not the statement is clinically true — a bit tough to measure, that — the message was beyond crass and deserved our contempt.

When it comes to selling bars, trucks or even politicians, you can wave the flag or you can drape one over a coffin. You can’t do both.

U.K. tagger god Banksy's imagery...

...is always entertaining to the eyes and usually pretty thought- provoking, too. The piece below (click it to enlarge) is new on Banksy's incredible gallery-site, banksy.co.uk.

Of many powerful images, the one I think is Banksy's most stirring - it depicts a trio of characters brought together in a scathing send-up of imperalism, militarisim, capitalism, and globalization all at once - is actually so stirring I'm hesistant to display it straight out on this page. Instead, I'll wimp out and provide a link to it here.

Here's a blazer from Kevin Tillman...

...a former soldier in the U.S. Army and brother of former NFL player Pat Tillman, who left football to join the Army and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. Kevin seems eager for some domestic regime change on November 7. His full essay, After Pat's Birthday, was published on an outside-the-mainstream news site I hadn't heard of, truthdig.com. Kevin's background combines with the incredulous tone of his writing to give his piece significant punch:

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world...

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

Full essay here, on truthdig.com.

A temblor of globalization is rumbling...

...in China, where the central government - worried about a widening income gap and the related potential for civil unrest - is working to establish more comprehensive rights for workers in the nation's rapidly growing economy. Economists like Pietra Rivoli, author of the suberb Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, argue that China's push for labor protections is a natural evolution in the process of globalization.

Rivoli believes that labor forces in developing economies like China's, originally tapped by foreign employers because of their willingness to work for next to nothing, become more skilled and more wealthy over time. As their economic status improves, these workers will begin to clamor for more raises and workplace reforms, in effect seeking to close the gap between themselves and the workers of more developed nations. Employers must accomodate these demands or move on to a less-developed economy, where the process will start anew.

A shorter-term option for employers, of course, is to rally against raises and reforms for as long as possible. China's current push for labor rights, for example, is staunchly opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents companies like Dell, Ford, GE, and Nike. While foes of globalization might interpret this as evidence of the developed world's exploitative aims, I think Rivoli would disagree. She would probably argue that, while both sides of the issue should be expected to fight for their interests, history suggests the Chinese worker will end up better off - and in the long run, the rest of us will, too.

For more on China's push for labor rights, check this NY Times article.

Hush, and enjoy the elocution...

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

"The United States of America is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks." --George W. Bush, McLean, Va., Aug. 15, 2006

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good." --George W. Bush, Strelna, Russia, July 15, 2006

"You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 5, 2006

While the NLRB slips it past us at home...

...North Korea has gone completely il (not the good ill often cited by the Beastie Boys) with this nuclear test ridiculousness. It's like I've seen this before, in a horrible dream - no wait, it was Team America World Police.

Is it a coincidence that a new prime minister with tough guy foreign policy beliefs just stepped in for Japan? It's hard to figure out what the hell is going on, but in any case, and particularly in Bush's case, ugh. Clinton's style was to engage in diplomacy, and it seemed to keep this sticky stuff down. You know what happens when il gets lonely...

Paul Krugman on a recent NLRB decision...

...which represents a big blow to workers' rights. Full article here, on a site that gets around the NY Times "Select" barrier that now guards Krugman's awesome columns.

Since 1935, U.S. workers considering whether to join a union have been protected by the National Labor Relations Act... For a long time the law was effective: workers were reasonably well protected against employer intimidation, and the union movement flourished.

In the 1970’s, however, employers began a successful campaign to roll back unions. ... thanks to America’s political shift to the right. And now that the shift to the right has gone even further, political appointees are seeking to remove whatever protection for workers’ rights that the labor relations law still provides.

The Republican majority on the National Labor Relations Board ... has just declared that millions of workers who thought they had the right to join unions don’t. You see, the act grants that right only to workers who aren’t supervisors. And the board, ruling on a case involving nurses, has declared that millions of workers who occasionally give other workers instructions can now be considered supervisors.

As the dissent from the Democrats on the board makes clear, the majority bent over backward, violating the spirit of the law, to reduce workers’ bargaining power.

When corrupt lobbyists call the White House...

...we'd all hope that the White House would hang up the phone. But what do we hope for when the White House is the one calling in the first place? From the article Abramoff and Rove Had 82 Contacts, in today's NY Times:

The House Government Reform Committee report, based on e-mail messages and other records subpoenaed from Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying firm, found 485 contacts between Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying team and White House officials from 2001 to 2004, including 82 with Mr. Rove’s office. The lobbyists spent almost $25,000 in meals and drinks for the White House officials and provided them with tickets to numerous sporting events and concerts, according to the report, scheduled for release Friday...

Mr. Rove has described Mr. Abramoff as a “casual acquaintance,” but the records obtained by the House committee show that Mr. Rove and his aides sought Mr. Abramoff’s help in obtaining seats at sporting events, and that Mr. Rove sat with Mr. Abramoff in the lobbyist’s box seats for an N.C.A.A. basketball playoff game in 2002.

After that game, Mr. Abramoff described Mr. Rove in an e-mail message to a colleague: “He’s a great guy. Told me anytime we need something just let him know through Susan.” The message was referring to Susan Ralson, Mr. Abramoff’s former secretary, who joined the White House in February 2001 as Mr. Rove’s executive assistant.

Here's an interesting Bill Maher thought...

...on the topic of impeachment, from an interview with The Onion's A.V. Club:

The A.V. Club: On last season's Real Time finale, you joked about George W. Bush being impeached for lying about a fish he caught, and today at The Huffington Post, you called more seriously for impeachment over the wiretapping scandal. Do you think there's any chance of Bush actually being impeached?

Bill Maher: Well, it really depends on what happens with the elections in November, and what happens to the makeup of Congress, doesn't it? I mean, the Republicans are certainly never going to impeach Bush. Which is sort of hilarious, if you look at how little it took by comparison to get Bill Clinton impeached. If America wants it done, they're going to have to elect people who'll do it. Not that I think that should be that much of a priority in this election, given what a lame duck Bush is.

I'd agree with everything but that last part.