This Looks Important

I received this e-mail from freepress.net:

Dear Media Reformer:

Community Internet may be the most important media policy fight of the decade. Local communities across the country -- looking to offer affordable, universal access to high-speed broadband services -- are squaring off against big cable and telephone companies determined to outlaw the competition.

In a few years, all communications -- TV, radio, Internet and telephone -- will come through broadband Internet connections. If Big Media has its way, access will cost more than $100 a month, and corporations -- not communities -- will determine what information is available and what's not.

The fight for tomorrow's technology is being waged today. Here's what you can do:

1. Watch Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott on tonight's broadcast of NOW, the PBS news magazine. (Click here to check your local listings.) Then visit Free Press' new Community Internet site to learn more.

2. A rapid response from vocal citizens is the only way to stop the cable and telephone companies when they try to sneak in bad legislation under the radar. Help us win the next battle by getting 10 people to sign up now as Free Press e-activists for future actions. It's free and takes only a few seconds.

3. Meet and strategize with other activists working to defend Community Internet at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis on May 13-15. You can register for the conference online or by calling (866) 462-2838. We need you to be there to build this important campaign.

With your help, we can stop Big Media -- and win the struggle for the future of communications in America.

Onward,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press

Ho Ho Ho

"To the Editor, Lebanon Express:

"In public, Republicans say they want to 'save' Social Security, and would never dream of leaving working people to face a destitute retirement.

"In their private, insiders-only gatherings (such as Rick Santorum's rally at Drexel University on 23 February), they chant, 'Hey-hey, ho-ho, Social Security's got to go!'

"Ho ho indeed.

"John M. Burt, Corvallis"

I Have Read Ten or More Books by

Isaac Asimov
Lester Dent
Ron Goulart
Robert A. Heinlein
Warren Murphy

I guess that's about it. Jules Verne doesn't make my list. Neither does Walter B. Gibson Peni R. Griffin will be on it soon.

My list is substantially different from (and shorter than) Arthur D. Hlavaty's.

Hey, George, Ya Miss This One?

Psalm 10

1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?

2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.

3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.

4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

5 His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.

6 He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.

7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.

9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

10 He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.

11 He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.

13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.

14 Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.

15 Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

16 The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.

17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:

18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.

Water Ice on Mars

Do you have any idea how long it's been since a newspaper headline actually made me feel glad, or happy or hopeful?

Usually the best I can manage is schadenfreude.

'Rithmetic

I went to apply for admission to the nursing program at Linn-Benton Community College today, and found out at the last minute that the old requirement (placement - testing into Math 95 or higher) had been replaced by PASSING Math 95 or PLACING higher, so I had to run and sign in at the math lab, and pray that I could place into Math 97, then drive from Albany to Corvallis, to the other campus, where the math lab had an opening today, take the placement test, sweating dromedaries the whole time, get my score, find I had been deemed fit to enroll in Math 97 (huzzah!), and then stagger home to Kathe, who said incredulously, "You had a hard time getting into Bonehead Math?"

Well, yes, actually, I did, and the fact that she would have breezed through it is not really relevant. It happens that I have never succeeded in advancing into the esoteric realms of the quadratic equation. This may be an appalling gap in my education, and possibly sign of some serious moral weakness, but elementary algebra is already more mathematics than a registered nurse actually needs.

Kathe has, over the years, promised to teach me calculus. Maybe this incident will inspire her to try again, though I'd probably beg off, pleading my studies, if I should actually get admitted to the program this time.

Last time, I was ranked 149th in line for one of the 50 seats, meaning that if the entire class had flunked out, and been replaced by students who flunked out . . . I would have been the last one called.

As for what happens this time, we'll just have to see.

What Obsolete Skill Are You?

I'm . . . French?

French is obsolete?

These quiz thingies are getting weird.

Still Wrong

I received this message in reply to my comments on Bruce Kauffmann's column in the Oregonian (as seen in yesterday's post):

Mr. Burt - thanks for your note. I was working for CBS News at the time of
the elections. I am well aware of the human rights abuses of the Contras--I
mentioned them in my column. I am well aware of the Reagan and Bush I
administration's support for the contras, and for Chamarro, and we can
presume that the CIA was part of that support. That said, I write with 100
percent certainty that the vast majority of the Nicaraguan people who gave
her a 55 percent plurality in the election did so because they wanted the
Sandinistas out of power and her in power.

You will recall, given your memory of the heady excitement of the
Sandinistas in the post-Somoza years that Chamarro joined the Sandinistas
but later quit when she saw which direction they were taking "the
revolution," subsequently turning her newspaper, La Prensa, into a major
voice of the opposition to the Sandinistas.

I note, finally, that in my column I gave the Sandinistas credit for abiding
by the election results and subsequently running for office in the post-1990
Nicaragua. Indeed, I am hoping the Sunnis in Iraq emulate their actions.
Bruce Kauffmann

My reply:

I am grateful to Bruce Kauffmann for taking the time to reply to a critical letter from a stranger, and for the most part I don't disagree with his comments. I hope I have few illusions about the nature of the Sandinista party and their 1979-1990 rule in Nicaragua. But Mr. Kauffmann did not address one truly vital point: that the first free elections in Nicaragua's history were not held in 1990, but in 1984, and the Sandinistas won that one. The elections were universally affirmed by foreign observers to be free and fair, in spite of the contra terrorists' efforts to prevent them from taking place, and it was a democratically elected government that Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters" were trying to overthrow.

Bruce Kauffmann's Hazy History

To the Editor, Portland Oregonian:

Like Bruce Kauffmann (20 February 2005) I, too, remember the heady excitement of Nicaragua's first-ever free election. I was so happy for the long-suffering people of a small and impoverished country, taking charge of their own destiny at last and shaking off a long history of dictatorship.
But Kauffmann is incorrect in saying that the first free election was held in 1990. It was actually in 1984, and the Sandinista party won that one.
Kauffmann praises the "freedom fighters" supported by Ronald Reagan, failing to mention that the contra terrorists tried to disrupt free elections and overthrow the nascent Nicaraguan democracy.
Why did the Sandinistas hold an election in 1990? Because the democratic Constitution the Sandinistas wrote called for elections every six years, and they took their commitment to democracy seriously. Seriously enough to hold the election in spite of the contras' efforts to prevent people from voting, in spite of the massive CIA investment in Violeta Chamorro's campaign. Seriously enough to allow the votes to be counted honestly, and to leave office peacefully when the UNO party won.
These are the people Kauffmann refers to as a "military dictatorship".
I think some more history lessons are called for.

Negroponte, As If Anybody Cared

Kind of funny,isn't it, how the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General got so much scrutiny because of Gonzales' legal apologetics for torture, while John Negroponte, who got chummy with death squads and supplied arms to anti-democracy terrorists, gets almost no attention on his way to becoming the first "national director of intelligence"?

Not that I ever thought Americans had a really good sense of priorities.

Free Republic Must Have a Strong Stomach

Sean Hannity is terribly upset that Free Republic has been taken over by fringe elements who are filling it up with vicious personal attacks, dividing people who ought to be working together in common cause.

I'm sorry, this keyboard in front of me does not contain enough quotation marks, question marks or italic letters to say what I think about this.

I will, hoever, say that the last straw for me was when Hannity waxed nostalgic for the night he joined with a bunch of Freepy-Crawlers in riotous assembly to try to force a man, through menaces, to flee his own home.

The Real Jeff Gannon?

I received a most surprising e-mail today. I have not been able to research the matter and determine whether or not it is accurate, but I thought that its contents were so explosive that they needed to be shared more widely.

If you can shed any light on this story, by all means please let me know. -- John

"Now that Jeff Gannon has suddenly departed, under mysterious circumstances, from the prestigious Talon News Service, a lot of crazy stories have been circulating. Some people are even trying to claim that no such person as Jeff Gannon exists, that he is really an escort-for-hire named Jim Guckert. Yeah, some people will believe anything.

"Jeff Gannon is a real person, he is NOT the same person as Jim Guckert. Jeff Gannon is abusing that poor man, making him the fall guy for Gannon's sleazy activities.

"I repeat, this story has NOTHING to do with Jim Guckert, it is the truth about Jeff Gannon, and what kind of man he really is:

"Samir Hamdi was a teacher at a small high school in Kabul, Afghanistan, swept up by U.S. forces in December of 2001 and detained at a torture camp in Pakistan. In 2003, he was dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJs, then ordered to describe for a visiting American "journalist" the "lenient and humane treatment" he'd received. He spat at Mr. Gannon, and was clubbed and dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward upon the camp Commandant's feet, which sent that officer berserk. In 2005, he still suffered from double vision from the Colonel's frenzied application of a wooden baton.

"Karim Musharrak, an Iraqi shopkeeper detained since 2002, was not even on the books at the prison camp in Egypt where he was detained, one of the "phantom" prisoners whose presence is not recorded or acknowledged, even to the Red Cross, for "security" reasons. His group, too, got the cleaned/fed/clothed routine in preparation for a visit from an "independent journalist". They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his name and home town on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Mr. Gannon and a camera man, he walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?" Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed Gannon their slivers of paper. He took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, he turned to the officer in charge ... and handed him the little pile of papers. Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Musharrak was almost number four. But he survived, and was one of a handful of prisoners who were finally recognized as innocent and released ...which is the only reason we know about Gannon's actions that day.

"This is the truth about Jeff Gannon, and anyone who doesn't believe it can just go ask Jeff Gannon!"

Good Donuts

I was walking into downtown Corvallis this afternoon, on my way to the offices of Willamette Valley Community School where I would teach another session of my history class, "The Cold War and Stuff", when I happened to see that the Cork's Donuts franchise at 4th And Jefferson was open.

I was delighted, though regretful that Kathe wasn't with me. We'd been hoping to visit it together for over a week. I found out that they are only open from 5:30AM to 2:30PM, and had been closed a few days due to a family emergency.

Michelle, the counter person, gave me a box of donuts for the kids when I told her I was teaching a class next thing. It was a bit too appropriate that the class just ending had been covering juvenile obesity, but that's life.

We talked a little about Dr. Strangelove, which we had finished watching the other day, and then started in on The Atomic Cafe, and ate some donuts.

Really good donuts. If there's a Cork's near you, check it out.

My Valentine

Kathe gave me a cute little windup walking monster. I never met a vinyl-covered windup before.

I gave her a pipe wrench. Her fine set of pipe wrenches mysteriously disappeared during that idyllic summer I was enjoying so much, so she needed one (I'd already gotten her a really nice hammer for Christmas).

Hey, it works for us.

That Dirty Rotten Racist, Barbara Boxer

jheyne@victorhanson.com

Ms. Jennifer Heyne:

Since Victor Hanson is apparently being coy with his own contacts, I
will direct this comment to you.

I'm not entirely clear what Mr. Hanson's point was concerning Senator
Boxer's challenge to Dr. Rice, but he seems to be saying that no Democrat
should ever confront or challenge any African American, ever, no matter how
egregious the provocation, and that this protection is granted solely on the
basis of race.

I find it hard to imagine a more racist notion.

John M. Burt

From: "VDH Assistant"
To: "John M. Burt"
Subject: RE: Boxer Vs. Rice
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:53:59 -0800

Dear Mr. Burt,

Victor is never coy, just very busy. I think the point was that the
Democrats are especially angry that a black woman might harbor her own
ideas -- and so prone to grill a black republican more closely and in ways
that was never seen even by more controversial appointments -- because the
Democrats feel blacks owe them something as champions of civil rights. It's
much like the plantation owner who felt his slaves owed him for their
livelihood. Ultimatly, Boxer's anger was Rice's race, not her testimony.
Hence, the tenor of the attack was motivated by race. He suggests the same
phenonmenon with C. Thomas.

I confess that I write this from a conversation with Victor and have not
read the article. So I am as remiss as i am busy. I don't even know if
this made since. Good luck

Sincerely,

Jennifer Heyne
Assistant

_____________________________________
This comes from "Private Papers"
VDH's website at www.victorhanson.com


Ms. Heyne:

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to reply to my message of the other day.

I am interested by the line of reasoning used here. Mr. Hanson declared, with no supporting evidence, that Senator Boxer's close questioning of Dr. Rice was not motivated by political expedience in opposing an effective agent of the Bush Administration's agenda, nor by moral objections to Dr. Rice's well-documented carelessness with the truth, but solely by hostility towards a "disloyal" African American.
You support this assertion with . . . your own assertion of the same thing.
Oh, well. Doubtless the charge of racism laid against Senator Boxer will stick, once asserted by enough people. And Secretary Rice's falsehoods will remain ignored, no matter how well they are documented.


Life goes on,

John M. Burt

Finally Figured It Out

Now I understand why Bush is so determined to change Social Security, and most importantly, why he wants to change it in this particular way.

He's trying to bring it in line with all the Republican programs.

In order for it to fit in alongside "No Child Left Behind", "Homeland Security", the "Clear Skies Initiative", and so forth, "Social Security" needs to be entirely concerned with private risk.

What Color Is Your Bracelet?

First there were the yellow rubber bracelets.

Then the pink ones.

And the red and blue "VOTE" bracelets, and the post-election bracelets, and other blue bracelets. Lots of them. And red ones, too.

The green bracelet seems sort of beside the point.

Or just go here and get the color you like.

Working Assets offered us a blue bracelet stamped "NEVER SURRENDER", but when they came, they were purple.

I guess we'll wear them anyway.

LOL @ This, But Not That

[Recycled from 12:01PM, 9 February 2005]

Chilly here this evening. It will take awhile for my fingers to loosen up after the frosty climb to the lookout. Some days I wish I had put my imaginary private sanctum in a stone-walled sub-basement, or maybe the Negative Zone.

Arthur D. Hlavaty provided me with a link to Civil War-era e-mail shorthand.

Wow.

Less amusing, also from Hlavaty's blog, is the story of Maya Keyes, recently fired from the job of being Alan Keyes' daughter:

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/02/republican-compassion-in-action.html

It's always a mistake to wait around for them to fire you. She should have resigned a long time ago.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Don't delay."\\

Spirited Boxer vs. Converted Rice

jheyne@victorhanson.com

Ms. Jennifer Heyne:

Since Victor Hanson is apparently being coy with his own contacts, I will direct this comment to you.

I'm not entirely clear what Mr. Hanson's point was concerning Senator Boxer's challenge to Dr. Rice, but he seems to be saying that no Democrat should ever confront or challenge any African American, ever, no matter how egregious the provocation, and that this protection is granted solely on the basis of race.

I find it hard to imagine a more racist notion.


Respectfully,

John M. Burt

News Item

Samara, Ohio -- Today the bandages came off and Missy Potamia's family got to see the 13-year-old's reconstructed face for the first time. Two years after an unfortunate misunderstanding when she tried to deposit money at her local bank, extensive surgery has undone broken cartilage, smashed cheekbones and shattered teeth.

Her mother was delighted.

"To tell the truth, Missy was always a plain child. Her big blobby nose and buck teeth were a real drawback, but we could never have afforded braces, let alone plastic surgery. Fortunately, the bank's insurance paid for it, and since her face was so totally ruined, it gave us a chance to give her the look she always wanted."

Bank security guard George W. Bush declared that Missy's beautiful new face vindicated his own actions two years ago.

"Even though it appears she wasn't actually trying to rob the bank," Bush said, "it's now clear that I still did the right thing in taking prompt action with that baseball bat."

Bush's contract with the bank has recently been renewed for another four years.

Prettifoggery

We've had some eerily pretty fogs in the evening lately. The kind where every light becomes a fuzzy fairy palace and the world becomes van Gogh's _Starry Night_. Real nice, so long as you don't have to drive in it.

Mmmmmmm

Headed towards the LBCC campus to class, I took Kathe along to drop her downtown, where she will take care of various personal and WVCS matters. She must be having a good day, where her legs don't hurt her too much, to be confidently planning to walk all over downtown.

I pulled into the ARCO station at 3rd and VanBuren and gave Kathe a long, lingering, emphatic goodbye kiss while the attendant approached the car.

"What are we doing here today?" came the familiar question.

"Besides necking, you mean?" I answered with an insufferable grin.

Acting as a Society to Help People Be Secure

The comic strip Mr. Boffo has a recurring feature called "People Unclear on the Concept", in which someone displays a serious fundamental lack of misunderstanding. I'd like to think that George W. Bush has a similar lack of comprenehsion about the word "social" and the word "security", and what they mean when you put them together.

1905: "They made us many promises, but they kept only one: they said they would take our land, and they took it."

2005: "They made us many promises, but they kept only one: They said they would cut Social Security benefits by 40%, and they cut them."

Keep Social Security secure.

Elsewhere in the news, my body-weight profile now stands at:
October: 240 lbs.
November: 222 lbs.
December: 217 lbs.
January: 215 lbs.
February: 214 lbs.
Not bad, but I believe I'll try to steepen that curve just a tad.