Sunday, February 27, 2005

Condi for President?

I don’t get it. What’s up with this right-wing fascination with Condoleezza Rice to the point that they are touting her as a presidential candidate in 2008?

Other than the fact that she is willing to parrot whatever foreign policy position Bush wants, what is it that they think she will offer them? She has said she is pro-choice on abortion and most of her positions on other domestic issues are unknown if she even has any.
And yet the far-right is completely enamored with her and acts like she is the only Republican who can defeat what they are certain will be a Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2008.

I suppose it's a good thing that the Bush administration did not allow Rice to be put under oath during the 9/11 Commission hearings last year because it is now well documented
that she lied.

Imagine if a National Security Advisor for a Democratic administration had received a memo like this more than eight months before 9/11, and had done nothing about it. The right-wing would have gone nuts. They would have demanded that person’s head on a platter and most certainly would not consider them presidential material.

I’m not surprised that the right-wingers have a double standard for Rice. I just can’t figure this sudden infatuation and worshipful reverence for her. Just check out how the conservative sites constantly refer to her as “Dr. Rice” at every opportunity because she has a Ph.D. in political science. I mean, that’s great and all, but come on. Howard Dean actually is a Dr. with an actual degree in medicine, but you never hear these same folks referring to him as Dr. Dean.
Then there is the fact that she is 50-plus and has never been married. I can’t imagine that would go over too well with the “Family Values” crowd in the GOP if she were a Democrat.

I think this is all rather silly at this point. I don’t believe Rice will run for president in ’08 and neither will Hillary.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

A Musical Odyssey, Part II

Note: This is Part 2 of my Musical Odyssey series in which I recollect how my musical tastes evolved over the years. For Part 1 go here.


The 1980s were a turning point for my musical interests. I started high school in late 1979 shortly after my family had moved to the small South Texas town of Premont. The Disco Era was rapidly coming to an end and the MTV phenomenon was just getting started as more homes were getting hooked up to cable. At the same time, the dominance of vinyl records was being challenged once again after successfully weathering the onslaught of the 8-track tape. The new cassette tapes opened up a whole new world of music by allowing me to record music that I would otherwise have been unable to purchase on my own. It also allowed me to record my favorite music compilations to listen to in the car.

As previously noted, I had purchased the Bee Gees album "Tragedy" which was in many ways the swan song of disco. A couple of other songs from that period that caught my fancy at the time included "Le Freak" by Chic, “Knock on Wood” by Amii Stewart, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart and “Heart of Glass” by Blondie.
The first record albums I bought (or recorded) in my early high school days included:

REO Speedwagon - Hi Infidelity
Rick Springfield - Working Class Dog
Queen - The Game
Joan Jett - I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll


Working Class Dog was a highly underrated album in my opinion. There were a lot of songs that I thought were even better than the breakout hit “Jessie’s Girl” including “Hole in My Heart,” “Carry Me Away” and “Everybody’s Girl.”
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen was a big hit at school. And when Queen released “Another One Bites the Dust” it was a sensation almost on par with their earlier smash “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions.” But I also liked “Dragon Attack” which was never released off of the album.

Then there was The Chipmunks -Chipmunk Punk (note: I had the record, not the 8-track).
I don’t remember how I ended up with that album, but I listened to it alot. I’m still more familiar with the Chipmunks version of “My Sharona” than with the original by The Knack. It was also several years later before I realized that “Refugee” was a song by Tom Petty.

About this time I also began to expand my interests in country music after purchasing the Urban Cowboy soundtrack album, which was much better than the movie. Songs like “All Night Long” by Joe Walsh and “Nine Tonight” by Bob Seger really rocked, while “Lookin’ For Love” by Johnny Lee and “Could I Have This Dance” by Anne Murray were music hall staples. Then there was the classic “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels and my introduction to The Eagles with “Lyin’ Eyes.”

Here is the full lineup:
Jimmy Buffett - Hello Texas
Joe Walsh - All Night Long
Dan Fogelberg - Times like These
Bob Seger And The Siver Bullet Band - Nine Tonight
Mickey Gilley - Stand By Me
Johnny Lee - Cherokee Fiddle
Anne Murray - Could I Have This Dance
The Eagles - Lyin Eyes
Johnny Lee - Lookin For Love
Bonnie Raitt - Don't It Make Ya Wanna Dance
The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down To Georgia
Mickey Gilley - Here Comes The Hurt Again
Gilley's 'Urban Cowboy' Band - Orange Blossom Special/ Hoedown
Kenny Rogers - Love The World Away
The Charlie Daniels Band - Falling In Love For the Night
Bonnie Raitt - Darlin
Boz Scaggs - Look What You've Done to Me
Linda Ronstadt/J.D Souther - Hearts Against the Wind


Other country albums that influenced my tastes from the early 80s:

Hank Williams Jr. - Family Tradition
Jerry Jeff Walker - Jerry Jeff
George Strait - Strait From the Heart
Oak Ridge Boys - Fancy Free
Ronnie Milsap - Greatest Hits
Eddie Rabbit - Horizon
Don Williams - Yellow Moon
Alabama - Mountain Music


Kenny Rogers was also big at the time with “Coward of the County” getting lots of radio play along with his older hit “The Gambler” and his syrupy ballad “Lady.” I also liked Eddie Rabbit’s - “I Love A Rainy Night” and “Drivin’ My Life Away” with the snappy beat and catchy lyrics like “Those windshield wipers slappin' out a tempo, Keepin' perfect rhythm with the song on the radio”.
“Elvira” was a huge hit for the Oak Ridge Boys. I remember singing that song over and over to pass the time while mowing lawns with a riding lawnmower -

“Giddy Up Oom Poppa Oom Poppa Mow Mow
Giddy Up Oom Poppa Oom Poppa Mow Mow
Heigh-ho Silver, away”

But I was only dabbling in country music before Alabama came out with “Mountain Music” and nearly made me a country devotee for life. Their upbeat, rock-n-roll style of country music was a revelation to me. I even went to see them in concert when they were in San Marcos and got all their autographs on a publicity photo. But what kept me going back to rock music was MTV. This was back when MTV actually played music videos and had a huge influence on the popularity of music. Initially, the bands that took advantage of this new format were obscure English bands with very different music than what we were used to here in the states. There was Squeeze and Human League and Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran and Adam Ant and Haircut 100 and Bow Wow Wow and Soft Cell and many more.
Unfortunately for most of those artists, my interest never went far enough to actually purchase one of their albums (with the exception of Duran Duran). Instead, I stuck pretty close to mainstream U.S. pop-rock groups.


Over the next couple of years (1980-82) I would pick up some albums that would become some of my all-time favorites:

The Police - Ghost in the Machine
Loverboy - Get Lucky
The Go Go’s - Beauty and the Beat
Foreigner - Four
J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame
Asia - Asia
Cheap Trick - One on One.
John Cougar - American Fool
Devo - New Traditionalists


My favorite music video back then was “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police. I tended to prefer videos that showed actual live performances, but for some reason I enjoyed watching Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland goofing around in the recording studio, jumping on furniture and lampooning their own lyrics. Their album Ghost in the Machine is still one of my all-time favorites. There are only a few artists who I’ve made an effort to collect all their recordings - The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, to name a few... But the Police was the first band that I made my own. The Police became my favorite rock band in the same way that the 1975-76 Cincinnatti Reds had become my favorite baseball team. When they came out with Synchronicity a few years later I eagerly snatched it up as well. But then I was devestated when I learned that they were breaking up shortly after that. With no more new Police albums, I started buying all their older albums until I had the whole collection. Then I continued to buy the new Sting solo music as it was released.

I really liked the other albums as well, but for whatever reason I didn’t follow up and buy their later albums (With the exception of Cheap Trick which continued to be a favorite rock band through college). For some, the early 80s was there hey day. J. Geils Band didn’t release another album after their big splash with “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold.” Loverboy never made it as big again after “Working For the Weekend.” Asia dwindled away after their big hits “Heat of the Moment” and “Only Time Will Tell.” The Go-Go’s never broke the Top 10 again after “We Got the Beat” and Foreigner had a few big hits after Four but none that achieved the status of “Juke Box Hero” and “Urgent”.
Of course, John Cougar went on to bigger and better things after he reclaimed his last name of Mellencamp and I would later pick him back up in college.

By my junior year in High School (1981-82) the world had become enamored with Michael Jackson whose album Thriller was dominating the air waves with “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and the super-long MTV video for “Thriller” complete with Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. Meanwhile, I mostly listened to the albums listed above while picking up a few more like George Thorogood - Bad to the Bone, Billy Squire - Emotions in Motion, Men at Work - Business as Usual and Billy Joel - Nylon Curtain.
Some more interesting music came out during my senior year - chiefly the above mentioned Synchronicity by The Police - but also ZZ Top - Eliminator, David Bowie - Let’s Dance, Billy Joel - Innocent Man, and my first introduction to Bob Dylan - Infidels.

Songs on the radio (High School)
Rush - Tom Sawyer
Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science
Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
Physical - Olivia Newton John
Ebony & Ivory - McCartney/Wonder
Abracadabra - Steve Miller Band
Eddie Grant - Electric Avenue

Alaska Republicans have second thoughts on Global Warming

Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (2/22/05 page A4) noting that Alaska’s two Republican senators appear to be having a change of heart about their opposition to global warming legislation now that their home state is being impacted negatively.

“In Alaska, where severe storms, flooding and permafrost melting have caused widespread damage, the two Republican senators say they are willing to reconsider carbon-dioxide regulation after voting against it two years ago.”

Funny how conservative Republicans suddenly become more generous, forgiving and broadminded whenever an issue impacts them personally. No doubt Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski would have remained unmoved in their opposition to emmission curbs if it was some other state suffering the ill effects of global warming. But Alaska just happens to have longest coastline in the U.S. and the melting sea and glacier ice has resulted in severe erosion and flooding problems in 86 percent of the state’s native villages.

According to the article, Sen. Stevens is proposing to help the impacted villages with funds that would be generated by opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling - an issue the Congress is expected to take up in the coming weeks.
As if that were not ironic enough, the article goes on to note this additional irony - “If Congress approves drilling in the refuge... oil companies could find it hard to start exploration (because) the runways of the nearest airport... are often underwater now after fall storms.”

Monday, February 21, 2005

S.A. Fire Department - An appreciation

We took my son who is 18 months to a birthday party over the weekend and had a great time. Our across the street neighbors have twin boys who were just turning 1 and they threw a heck of a party. We were watching them prepare all morning, bringing in boxes of presents and balloons and such. Then a truck pulled up and unloaded two of those moonwalk bouncing castles and we thought Wow! all this for 1-year-olds. Well, they do have large extended familes with lots of children, so it made sense. But then my jaw dropped when two large San Antonio Fire Engines pulled up and parked in front of our house. I knew the parents had chosen fire fighters as the theme for their kids' room, but this was truly over the top. I wondered who had what kind of pull to make this happen.

As it turns out, it did not require any pull at all. The mother had simply stopped by the local fire station the day before and asked if they would mind dropping by for the party and they happily agreed. I think there were 8 or 9 firemen there all dressed up and they gave all the kids (about 15-20 of all ages) a tour of the trucks and a short lesson in fire safety basics.
It was a swell way to kick off the birthday party. My little boy had a great time climbing around on the fire engines - a tanker and a ladder truck - and we took lots of pictures.

It was a great bit of PR for the fire department plus an opportunity to promote fire safety. I'm sure the city encourages them to get out and do things like this. It probably beats sitting around the fire station all the time and they would have been able to respond to any emergency in the same amount of time since they were less than a mile away from the firehouse.

Mixed Up Music

My new computer at work came with iTunes and enough hard drive space to dump a ton of music onto it. I currently have about 8 gigabytes of music loaded up which is an insane amount I know. It would take over a week to listen to every song. What is neat about it though is that you can shuffle the entire library of music at any time and play it in random order. Here for example is the mix of music that came up at random when I hit the shuffle feature just now:

Slither - Velvet Revolver
Jazz Me Blues - Bix Beiderbecke
Looking For My Love in the Pouring Rain - Tish Hinojosa
Greenbacks - Ray Charles
Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zepplin
Rehumanize Yourself - The Police
Loves Me Like A Rock - Paul Simon
Apalachicola, Fla. - Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
Jumpin’ Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones
You’re A Big Girl - Bob Dylan
Death Letter - Cassandra Wilson
Killer Queen - Queen
Walk On - Neil Young
There’s a Cabin in the Pines - Bing Crosby
Broken Arrow - Neil Young
Oh, Lady Be Good! - Lester Young
Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock
Tears - John Waite

Friday, February 18, 2005

Ocean temperatures rising

Temperature's rising; Fever is high; Can't see no future; Can't see no sky

- Cold Turkey by John Lennon

"The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people."

- Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

It’s too bad that we have irrational people running the country because this is some scary stuff.

New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well under way, according to Barnett, who presented his data at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there.
"The real place to look is in the ocean,"

Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals.

Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean currents and, ultimately, climate.
"As the Earth warms, its water cycle is changing, being pushed out of kilter," she said. "Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet."
A circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt is in danger of shutting down, she said.

Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply for a range of animals.
And the disappearing ice shelves meant big animals such as walruses, polar bears and seals were losing their homes.


Multiple Choice:
What will the right-wing response be to these latest scientific studies.

A. Ignore it.
B. Denounce it as biased.
C. Call for more studies.
D. All of the above

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Brit Hume should resign


Resign Brit Hume
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.

Brit Hume, the chief anchor/propagandist for Faux News, recently committed a journalistic sin a hundred times worse than anything that Dan Rather ever did and should therefore resign.

Following is a summary of Hume's deliberate manipulation and misrepresentation of quotes by Franklin Roosevelt in an effort to create a false impression that the founder of our Social Security system would support our current president's efforts to dismantle his legacy.

Here's Brit Hume, the Fox News Channel's top news anchor, on February 3: 

In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, quote, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

Hume's claim is that FDR wanted to replace Social Security with private accounts. Hume is lying. Here's the FDR statement that Hume is misquoting:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

So, FDR was proposing three things: a temporary "old-age pension," for seniors who wouldn't have time to pay into the Social Security system; a compulsory-contribution annuity--meaning, Social Security as we know it today--which would become a "self-supporting system," and, third, voluntary individual accounts. Ultimately, the old-age pensions would be supplanted by the self-supporting annuity system (meaning, Social Security.)

Hume turns this completely on its head. He pulls two unrelated bits out of the FDR quote, and adds the wrods "government funding" between them. Because it's so carefully done, it's clear that it's deliberate. And it's a nasty form of dishonesty. Hume is manipulating Americans' trust of FDR in order to build support for dismantling FDR's legacy.

Although it won't be as explosive politically, this is worse than Dan Rather's memo scandal. First of all, it's deliberate. Secondly, it's untrue. Dan Rather was guilty of being insufficiently skeptical of forged, true documents. But Brit Hume, Fox News Channel's #1 anchor--not commentator, not editorialist, anchor--is deliberately perverting the words of a hero to destroy the hero's legacy. 

Brit Hume should resign.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

More broken promises

President Bush has failed to deliver on yet another promise. I mentioned earlier how Bush made big promises to spend billions on AIDS prevention in Africa during his 2003 State of the Union speech and has so far failed to follow through with it.
This time the criticism comes from a former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives who says the Bush administration “lacks a genuine commitment to its "compassionate conservative" agenda.”

“The White House reaped political benefits from the president's promise to help religious organizations win taxpayer funding to care for "the least, the last and the lost" in the United States,” David Kuo said recently. But then the administation did not follow up and help get the funding through Congress. Kuo notes that after promising to provide tax incentives for private charitable giving during his first year in office, the administration chose to drop that provision from his $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation "to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy."

Of course, Kuo is not the first former Bush official coming out of the faith-based office to question the administration’s committment to its stated goals.

“In August 2001, John J. DiIulio Jr., then-director of the faith-based office, became the first top Bush adviser to quit, after seven months on the job. In an interview with Esquire magazine a year later, DiIulio said the Bush White House was obsessed with the politics of the faith-based initiative but dismissive of the policy itself.”

As I said earlier, this is just another instance of Bush’s political dishonesty - saying one thing before an election to boost his political support and then dropping it afterwards.

Although I did not support Bush for president, there once was a time when I thought he might actually accomplish some good things in office. His promises to be the “education president,” and some parts of his “compassionate conservative” agenda gave me hope that things would not be all bad under a Bush administration. Sadly, I was wrong. In nearly every case where Bush has made some promise or proposal on an issue that I found even slightly beneficial to society and the greater good - it has turned out to be as empty and meaningless as his pledge to send a manned mission to Mars.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Why the Jeff Gannon scandal matters

A lot of people have apparently missed the significance of this Jeff Gannon scandal. I keep reading comments at various rightwing blogs about how the resignation of Eason Jordan is so much more significant because he was a senior executive at CNN while Gannon was a nobody working for an unknown web-based publication.
But the point is not who Gannon is or what he did, it’s about the White House trying to manipulate its press briefings by planting partisan shills amongst the reporters to lob administration-friendly questions.

Let’s step back and look at the inevitable result of this kind of policy if it is allowed to fester. Why even bother to have press conferences? If the White House can plant phony reporters who will be called on to ask pre-packaged questions then we might as well not even bother.

Imagine if Bill Clinton had done something like this when he was president. Just as an example, let’s say that the Sierra Club, NOW, ACLU, People for the American Way, NARAL, and so forth all set up front faux “news organizations” and then the White House credentialed each of their “senior correspondents” and made sure they got seated at the front of each news conference where they would be called on to ask questions that allowed the president to push his agenda without ever being challenged on anything.

That is why this is a scandal and why it needs further investigation.

Monday, February 14, 2005

The era of big government being over is over

The New York Times had an interesting piece in its Week in Review section this Sunday titled Cut Short: The Revolution That Wasn't

It is about the Republican Revolution that Newt Gingrich led 10 years ago and the article asks the obvious question - What happened? Here are some key snippets from the article:

Last week President Bush unveiled a $2.57 trillion budget for 2006, the largest in the nation's history.

Overall federal spending has increased twice as fast under Mr. Bush as under Mr. Clinton. At the same time, the federal deficit is projected to hit a record high of $427 billion this year.

The White House estimated last week that the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries, originally projected at $400 billion from 2004 to 2013, would, in fact, be $724 billion from 2006 to 2015. Republicans called for scaling back the benefit, but on Friday, Mr. Bush said no and vowed to veto any changes to the Medicare bill.

"The era of big government being over is over," declared Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democratic research organization.
“Yesterday's revolutionaries are today's pragmatic politicians," he said. "It's a classic tale of any revolution. They start out as revolutionaries wanting to storm the Bastille and the end up as 'All the King's Men.' "


The one thing I disagree with here is his characterization of the current crop of Congressional leaders as “pragmatic politicians.” That may be true for a few of them, but most would be more accurately described as incompetent goofs and reactionary radicals.

Of course, Mr. Bush has also proposed lots of spending cuts in his 2006 budget, but these would have little impact on the deficit even if they are all adopted which is not likely. The The New York Times Editorial Board puts it this way:

Mr. Bush has been talking the deficit reduction talk, but there's no sign that he is willing to walk the walk. In his 2006 budget, he pledges to slash spending, but largely in areas that would have only a small impact on the deficit and where cuts would be politically difficult, not to mention cruel, such as food stamps, veterans' medical care, child care and low-income housing.

I’ve heard Bush partisans defend these cuts by saying the programs are redundant and weren’t accomplishing what they were supposed to be doing. But this begs just one question - Why did Bush wait until now to request that they be cut? He’s been president for the past four years and didn’t request they be cut in his past four budgets. What changed? Were they not redundant and wasteful last year but they are this year?

Finally, Bush’s dedication to cutting the deficits would be more plausible if he wasn’t taking other steps at the same time that will more than overwhelm any savings produced by his proposed spending cuts. Here is the NYTimes again:

Meanwhile (Bush) is pounding the table for more deficit-bloating measures - making his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a 10-year cost of as much as $2.1 trillion; putting into effect two high-income tax breaks that were enacted in 2001 but have been on hold, at a 10-year cost of $115 billion; and introducing new tax incentives to allow high earners to shift even more cash into tax shelters, at a cost that would ultimately work out to more than $30 billion a year when investors cashed in their accounts tax-free.

And don’t forget the trillions of dollars that Bush wants to borrow over the next several years on behalf of his Social Security privatization scheme as well as the expanding cost of his foreign policy misadventure in the Middle East where we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make it possible for hardline Islamic clerics affiliated with Iran to take control in Iraq.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Fake names and press passes

On Jan. 26 I just happened to be watching President Bush’s press conference on television when I got to hear some guy in the White House press corps ask this gem of a question:

“Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?”

I don’t remember what Bush’s response was. I was too stunned that someone in the press corps would ask such a blatantly loaded question. This was not even a question. It was a partisan attack on Democrats masquerading as a question. Who the heck was this guy?

As it turns out, the “reporter” who lobbed President Bush the big mushy softball was some guy using the pseudonym ‘Jeff Gannon’ and working for some right-wing web site that tries to pass itself off as a news organization. This wasn’t “Jeff Gannon’s” first press conference either. He had become a regular attendee at White House press briefings where Bush spokesman Scott McClellan was always sure to call on him for a question passing over dozens of other real journalists working for legitimate news organizations.

So now the big question - How did this guy get a press pass that allowed him to get that close to the president using a fake name? I find that to be rather disturbing and scary. Was the White House complicit in helping plant this guy at press conferences so that he could lob friendly questions? Does this all tie in to the administrations apparent scheme of paying journalists to write positive things about them?

I can assure you that if something like this had taken place during Clinton’s presidency there would have been yet another special prosecutor on the prowl.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Big Brother is watching

I don’t normally pay much attention to local TV news, but the other night I saw a report on KSAT, the local ABC affiliate, that I found to be very disturbing. It was part of the station’s Defenders Investigations in which they respond to viewer tips and look into various city shenanigans. But the segment the other night was something straight out of George Orwell’s “1984” with the local TV station happily playing the role of Big Brother.

It seems that the stationed was tipped off that a band director at a local school had been taking off time during the middle of the day to run errands or whatever and was missing classes as a result. I assume there was probably an assistant band director leading the classes during these times, but they failed to address that point. Instead the station decided to use video surveillance techniques to follow the band director around and see where he was going. They then confronted him on camera at his home to throw their accusations in his face. Only then did they go back to the school administrators for comment and reaction. At the end of the report they triumphantly announced that the band director had been placed on administrative leave.

This really disgusted me not because I think a teacher should be allowed to skip out of classes whenever they feel like it, but because this was clearly a personnel matter for the school administration that should have been handled behind closed doors. There was no reason why it needed to be splashed all over my television screen just to add humiliation to whatever other punishment the school might mete out. The fact that the TV station tried to play this up into some kind of scandal was pathetic and was an abuse of thier power.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani


Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani
Originally uploaded by mwthomas87.
In case you were wondering, this is the guy who is winning the election in Iraq.

Is it just me, or does he bear a striking resemblance to another Ayatollah we once knew?

The New York Times is reporting today
that the Shiite clerics are anxious to write the country's new constitution so that they can enshrine Shariah, or Koranic law, as the foundation of the new government.

What will that mean?

"The clerics generally agree that the constitution must ensure that no laws passed by the state contradict a basic understanding of Shariah as laid out in the Koran. Women should not be treated as the equals of men in matters of marriage, divorce and family inheritance, they say. Nor should men be prevented from having multiple wives, they add."

Lovely. And how exactly is this different from the Taliban? It seems that in some parts of Iraq, this kind of fundamentalism is already taking hold.

"In Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, where one of Ayatollah Sistani's closest aides has enormous influence, Shiite religious parties have been transforming the city into an Islamic fief since the toppling of Mr. Hussein. Militias have driven alcohol sellers off the streets. Women are harassed if they walk the streets in anything less than head-to-head black. Conservative judges are invoking Shariah in some courts."

Bush has been going on and on about how we have given the Iraqi people their freedom. But democracy doesn't necessarily guarantee freedom for everyone.

Wouldn't it be ironic if it turns out that we spent $300-plus billion to help establish another Islamic fundamentalist state in the Middle East?

Quick! Time for a pop quiz! Why did the United States under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush support Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran?

Because he was a secular leader whom we considered to be more amenable to our interests.

Now that we've tossed Hussein out finally, it looks like we may be helping to establish another Khomeini-like government. And remember that this is the guy that Bush is counting on to serve as a beacon of freedom that will spread across the rest of the Middle East.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Star Trek Enterprise canceled

The Star Trek franchise has had a really rought time lately.

UPN has just announced that it is canceling 'Enterprise' , the Star Trek prequel series at the end of this season. That means Enterprise will be the second shortest run series of the entire franchise at just four seasons - second only to the original Star Trek series which lasted just three seasons.

Needless to say I am not happy about this decision and will obviously have no more reason to ever watch UPN. I’ll be contacting my cable provider later this year to petition them to drop UPN in favor of the Watching Paint Dry channel.

The last Star Trek movie - Nemesis - did so poorly at the Box Office {43 million} that it probably killed the chances of there being any more Next Generation movies and may have also snuffed any hopes of movies based on the Deep Space or Voyager series as well.

That’s a shame because there isn’t much left to watch on TV these days. I’m down to ER, Lost and Judging Amy as the only shows I still follow on a regular basis.

I imagine the Star Trek series was a big target for cancellation due to its high production costs in an era dominated by low-production reality shows. Also, the country’s rightward shift may had an impact as Star Trek has always had a decidely liberal utopian outlook on the future. How many people who think the United Nations should be shut down would watch a TV series about the formation of the United Federation of Planets?

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Favorite TV theme music

What are your favorite TV show theme songs? Which themes immediately come to mind. Don’t just pick out your favorite shows. There have been TV shows that I liked where I can’t recall the theme, and then shows I didn’t like where I can’t get the theme out of my head. If a theme song sticks with you it must have some positive traits.

retroCRUSH: The World's Finest Pop Culture Site has been counting down the Top 100 TV show theme songs of all time. They have posted 100-30 so far with 29 slots left. They are slowly adding to their list at about one or two a week and now I’m curious about which shows are left to fill out the top of their list.

Here is what they have listed so far:

100. Petticoat Junction
99. CBS Special Theme
98. Welcome Back Kotter
97. The Odd Couple
96. Danger Man/Secret Agent
95. Night Court
94. The Six Million Dollar Man
93. Star Blazers
92. Casper the Friendly Ghost
91. Family Feud
90. Underdog
89. Battlestar Galactica
88. The Lone Ranger
87. Hong Kong Phooey
86. Seinfeld
85. The Green Hornet
84. Laverne & Shirley
83. The Price is Right
82. The Sopranos
81. Square Pegs
80. Mr. Belvedere
79. Dark Shadows
78. Dragnet
77. Three’s Company
76. Mister Ed
75. Taxi
74. Sledge Hammer
73. The Rookies
72. Sesame Street
71. Hill Street Blues
70. The Mickey Mouse Club
69. Rawhide
68. The Ren & Stimpy Show
67. The Dick Van Dyke Show
66. Diff’rent Strokes
65. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
64. WKRP in Cincinnati
63. South Park
62. The Simpsons
61. Leave It To Beaver
60. The Love Boat
59. CHIPS
58. I Dream of Jeannie
57. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
56. The Streets of San Francisco
55. George of the Jungle
54. Lost In Space
53. Kung Fu
52. Happy Days
51. Ultraman
50. The Cosby Show
49. The A-Team
48. The Muppet Show
47. The Match Game
46. Knight Rider
45. Green Acres
44. Alfred Hitchcock Presents
43. The Dukes of Hazzard
42. Cheers
41. SWAT
40. Speed Racer
39. Pee Wee’s Playhouse
38. Peter Gunn
37. The Addams Family
36. MASH
35. Chico and the Man
34. The Benny Hill Show
33. The Banana Splits
32. Barney Miller
31. The X-Files
30. What’s Happening!


A pretty compelling list so far. I don’t agree with all of the picks. Some are obvious, others are surpirses. I was happy to see some of my favorites on there like Speed Racer and The Banana Splits.

Here is my best guess as to some of the show themes that will fill out the top 30:

Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Friends, Danger Mouse, Scooby Doo, Gilligan’s Island, The Beverly Hillbillies, ER, Spider Man, Miami Vice, Hawaii Five-0, Batman, Bonanza, Baretta, Mission: Impossible, All In the Family, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, The Brady Bunch, The Flintstones, The Monkees...

What am I missing?

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Making lemonade out of a bucket of lemons

I am very happy that Iraq was able to hold elections and I hope that this will lead to the formation of a stable government that can restore peace and freedom (and electricity and water and food and medicine) and all those other good things for the Iraqi people.
But does this mean now that it was all worth it? No, it does not.
Even if we were to pull all of our troops out of Iraq tomorrow, which we are not, it would still mean that this little adventure cost the lives of nearly 1,500 U.S. troops and cost taxpayers more than $300 billion. If our nation’s security had been at stake, then there would have been no question of its worth and no price would have been too much. But that was never the case as I have said from the beginning. Even before the start of the war, most of the world agreed that Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent or dire threat even to his own neighbors. Only in the fevered mind of George W. Bush and Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice did Hussein rise above the level of a regional thug.
Now that we know without a doubt that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, no nuclear program, no ties to al-Quaeda and no connection to 9/11, the Bush administration has been left defending the pre-emptive military invasion on strictly humanitarian grounds. We have freed the Iraqi people from a horrible dictator and a murderous regime, they say. Sure, that’s wonderful and all, but at this point we are just making lemonade out of a bucket full of lemons.
What makes the Iraqi people so special anyway? Why are we sacrificing the lives of hundreds of our soldiers and putting our nation into debt for the foreseeable future just for their sake? What about the people of North Korea, or Iran, or Syria, or Yemen, or Libya or the dozens of other nations burdened with totalitarian regimes? Are we willing to turn around now and expend the military resources and tax dollars necessary to free them as well? At least if we had put our resources into freeing the people of North Korea we would have had the added bonus of actually eliminating a real nuclear threat, but apparently the North Korean people’s freedom isn’t deemed as important for some reason as the Iraqi people’s freedom.
Bush claims that Iraq will serve as a shining example of democracy in the Middle East and help transform the entire region. Kind of like the “domino effect” that never came about when we pulled out of Vietnam. But if spreading democracy were really so simple why didn’t we just approach our friends the Saudis and get them to adopt a democratic form of government? Couldn’t they have served as the example for the Middle East and wouldn’t that have been a lot less costly? But we are not even pressing them to change their form of government. Why not?
It is clear that the American people would never have signed off on this deal if they had known the truth from the beginning. Our military has done an incredible job under very trying circumstances over in Iraq, but they should never have been put in that situation in the first place. Our military's role is to protect the United States and its interests, not to serve as a giant aid organization to promote the president's geopolitical vision. Putting Saddam Hussein behind bars was not worth the lives of 1,500 U.S. servicemen and $300 billion. I only hope that those costs don’t escalate further before we can finally bring the rest of our troops home.