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Saturday, June 07, 2003

Choice news from the Agonist...

Yahoo! News: A German member of the UN team investigating Iraq's alleged programme of weapons of mass destruction has accused US authorities of presenting false evidence against the regime, the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reports.

He said Powell used satellite pictures to try to show that decontamination trucks in front of an ammunition bunker were proof that Iraq was experimenting with chemical weapons there. However, an earlier visit by UN inspectors had already determined that the trucks were firefighting vehicles.

He said US officials exaggurated the numbers of soldiers and equipment Iraq had at its disposal. A UN inspection of an air defence base showed the United States had over-estimated the number of planes there by five times.

He also said US officials appear to have concentrated too much on satellite images, which could be interpreted different ways.

posted by Jenny at 12:06 AM |

Friday, June 06, 2003

VeganBlog reminds us that today is World Environment Day, with three posts relevant to water, this year's theme. First, Richard cites a PEW reports on oceans in crisis, focusing on the need for increased federal regulation from the United States. Then he cites the diminishing of groundwater sources around the world, deemed a life or death "commodity" by UN specialists; and, finally, his last post discusses the effects of the "Battle of Iraq" on the country's water supply. Important stuff to know, and well worth your time.

posted by Jenny at 9:45 AM |

Hesiod reports that Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" has been ranked by "fans" as the best country music song of all time (the complete list, compiled by "experts", is available here).

AHEAD of such classics as Your Cheatin' Heart, Ring of Fire, Blue Moon of Kentucky, and Crazy.

That pretty much explains why Toby Keith is so popular, doesn't it?

Here's the complete list of the top 100 country songs of all time, as ranked by a "panel of experts" put together by Country Music Television.

The highest ranked contemporary song is Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks at number 6. Wide Open Spaces by the Dixie Chicks is number 22. [Not even their best song, in my opinion. I'd put Cowboy Take me Away higher than that]
Noted absences? How about On the Road Again, by Willie Nelson? Instead you've got that "all time classic" Boot Scootin' Boogie, by Brooks & Dunn.

I was also quite happy to see Hesiod mention Glen Campbell's "Galveston", which evolved into an antiwar song around the time my parents were finding out if my father was going to be drafted for Vietnam. Where, oh where, are the "Galvestons" of today?

posted by Jenny at 7:02 AM |

There's a good article on "Cracking the Conseratives" over at TomPaine...check it out!

posted by Jenny at 6:50 AM |

The new Mark Fiore has this week's much-needed laugh: Michael Powell, the FCC "Minister of Information".

posted by Jenny at 6:47 AM |

John Ashcroft is at it again...

posted by Jenny at 6:42 AM |

A few days ago, Jake of LMB reminded us that in the past five years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 3 million people have died. Recently Jeanne d'Arc linked up on the possibilities of stopping the slaughter in the Congo, particularly this article from the Salt Lake Tribune. And today, Jessica emailed me this from the BBC. I'm pissed, so I'll just post the whole thing.

Fifteen-year-old Uvila shudders as she speaks. She is the victim of a monstrous crime.

Two months ago, on her way home, she encountered four men in military uniform. They told her to put down her sack of maize and strip naked.

"They began to do bad things to me, afterwards I couldn't walk. Then some women came by and heard me crying."

She says the men urged each other on.

"They didn't speak to me. They spoke to each other. They said, "Come on it's your turn. Come on it's your turn."

Uvila identifies her attackers as soldiers from the rebel group, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD).

Five-hour ordeal

Sitting alongside Uvila in the rehabilitation centre, is 15-year-old Odette.

She is a pretty girl, but her eyes are blank.

One night, RCD soldiers broke into her house, looking for money.

Men in uniforms of every hue have been accused

When they discovered there was none, they turned on her instead.

"The soldiers did bad things. My little brother who followed me, started to cry. They turned to him and put a knife to his heart. They said if he carried on making a noise, they would kill him."

Her ordeal lasted five hours. Each man raped her twice.

Serious wounds

Women and girls are bearing the brunt of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Throughout the four-year conflict, thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - have been subjected to rape, torture and humiliation.

In his consulting room at Panzi hospital, Dr Denis Mukaweye leafs through his patient book. Page after page detail terrible injuries.

"We've had cases of serious wounds to the women's genitals and anus. Sometimes after the actual rape, women have been shot in the vagina. Or they are cut with knives."

'Weapon of war'Human rights activists say rape is being used as a weapon of war. The goal is to subjugate the civilian population.

All sides - the Mayi-Mayi and Interahamwe militias, the Rwandan-backed rebels and Rwandan soldiers - have been implicated in this crime.

Mathilde Mahindo runs a support group at Centre Olame, in Bukavu, to help traumatised women. She says some suffer the same fate at the hands of different groups.

She recounts the case of 10 women and girls, some as young as 12, from the village of Ninja. They were coming to seek help, after being raped by RCD rebels.

"On the way they encountered an Interahamwe roadblock. They were told to remove all their clothes, and put their belongings on the ground. The women were told to lie on their stomachs. Then they were raped for the second time."

The penalty for refusal is heavy. In a room in Panzi hospital lies 24-year-old Mamie. Her arms are bandaged.

An iron cage protects the bottom half of her body. Two Rwandan soldiers tried to abduct her, and when she resisted, they shot her.

A nurse draws back the blanket, to show the wounds: two in the legs, one in the arm, one in the genitals.

Sliced to pieces

Mamie has no money to pay for her hospital treatment. "Help me," she says pathetically.

But Mamie is lucky to be alive. One young woman who refused Mayi-Mayi advances, was sliced to pieces in front of her mother's eyes.

A few kilometres across town, 36-year-old Seraphim is finally packing to go home. She has spent 10 months being treated for psychological and physical injuries.

She was among a group of women abducted from their home village of Shabunda by Mayi-Mayi militia.

For one month, they were held naked in a forest and raped by 10 men every day.

"The rapes were in public. They took place in front of everyone else. They did whatever they wanted to you."

Seraphim still experiences urinary problems. But she is looking forward to going home to see her husband and children.

Her return is brave. The men who raped her belong to the group in control of her village.

Does she think they can be punished? She shakes her head in disbelief at the question.

"The men who raped me have weapons, they have guns, they have control of the area. I don't know who will punish them."

An investigation by the New York-based Human Rights Watch group has found that despite the prevalence of rape, the perpetrators went unpunished.

The RCD authorities had little interest in meting out justice.

The author of the report, Juliane Kippenberg, writes, "Those who should protect (the people), instead preyed upon them."

Rape, in these circumstances, can be officially classified as a war crime.

At the International Tribunals for Rwanda and Bosnia, men who committed sexual violence have been found guilty and imprisoned.

But in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is a crime which is going unchecked and unpunished.

Haven't we learned anything from Bosnia, haven't we a grain of understanding after what the "West" has done in Vietnam, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, insert continent here? Pretty unbelievable that dominant United States cultural narratives assert that an attack on the World Trade Center justifies the rise of nationalist paranoia, justifies depriving civil liberties, validates behaving like the international bully on the block, while never once stopping to critique its own role in its own demise, never once questioning the privilege it continues to occupy, the privilege to denounce Toby Keith's denunciation of the Dixie Chicks as anti-American, the freedom to ponder the technosex sequences in the Matrix Reloaded? Alongside hours of coverage of Laci Peterson, one woman tragically killed in California, CNN would likely afford a thirty-second blurb to the sad-but-true story of the sexually-abused women of central Africa. When exactly did I fall through the rabbit hole, and how can I get back to reality?

posted by Jenny at 6:39 AM |

When does "responsible journalism" end and censorship begin? And who decides what is responsible, anyways? Maybe we'll find out shortly in the case of Iraq, where the occupying forces have proposed a new code to regulate the media. (Via Cursor.)

posted by Jenny at 5:34 AM |

Flee, but while fleeing, pick up a typewriter

Yet the trend, in journalism as in politics, and probably now in the political use of intelligence, is away from the facts and towards a neo-Orwellian world of manufactured reality. This is something slightly different from (though close to) straight lies.

At the Evian summit, for example, Chancellor Schröder came out on to the terrace of the hotel as Bush and Chirac were chatting awkwardly. Schröder was talking on his mobile phone. Schröder thrust the mobile phone into Chirac's hand, indicating this was an important call; Chirac stepped aside to take it. Bush was left with no alternative but to be seen chatting amicably with Schröder, whose forced guffaw could be heard many metres away. Schröder had his "Germany and the US kiss and make up" photo for the next day's German papers. Later it emerged that the caller with a message of world political urgency for Chirac was ... Schröder's wife Doris. Entirely stage-managed. Meanwhile, according to those in a position to know, the truth behind the picture is that Bush will never forgive Schröder for what he sees as his flagrant breach of a private promise over Iraq.

"Two million jobs in peril", trumpeted the Sun on Tuesday May 27. "EU to hijack our economy." This "news" story began: "Two million jobs will be lost if Tony Blair signs the new EU treaty, it was feared last night." On an inside page it emerged that this 2 million figure was just a guess of one Eurosceptic economist, Patrick Minford. Welcome to another corner of the Matrix.

And so it goes on. The best place to start combating neo-Orwellianism is at the end of the food chain, in the media. So if you want to fight the Matrix, become a journalist. Find the facts and report them. Like Orwell.

We think that Timothy Garton Ash is right on, but the text might be a bit more endearing if he'd said, "become a journalist...or a blogger!"

posted by Jenny at 5:30 AM |

Thursday, June 05, 2003

From FOXNews, via the Agonist:

NORTHERN LIBERTY, Iowa — A proposal to build a camp for young Muslims on federal land in Iowa is causing some controversy in the neighborhood.

...

Andrew Matthews, who lives across the street from the site, said he and his neighbors are collecting money for a lawyer and are ready to sue because they were originally told the camp would be small, like its predecessor.

"It turns out that it's a 17,500 square-foot convention center that's going to be used nine months out of the year as a private hotel center," said Matthews. "If they sized it according to what the Girl Scout camp is, none of it would be problematic."

Others are worried because the camp is for young Muslims.

"There is a widely held misconception that the Islamic religion is a peaceful, loving religion," said Greg Evans of the Concerned Citizens of Johnson City, Iowa. "It's really not."

E-mails and letters to the Army Corps of Engineers have charged that the youth camp could become a "terrorist cell." One went so far as to call Muslims "parasites."

While I sympathize with the environmental issue, and find it rather unfair, I think you probably know what I'll say about those who are worried about building a camp for those pesky Muslim "parasites". What's next, are we going to start sewing stars on their clothing?

posted by Jenny at 8:30 AM |

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

A new victory for biomass...

Cow pats fuel computers

Now if only we could persuade the Bush administration to look at the possibilities of using excrement instead of oil or hydrogen, then we'd really be in business.

posted by Jenny at 11:18 PM |

While Time magazine has acknowledged its astroturf victimhood to those who contacted them about it, they are yet to publish an explanation in the pages of the magazine itself. Sounds like they need some more reader mail, don't you think?

posted by Jenny at 11:14 PM |

The Undoing of Tony Blair?

BlogLeft shows us that Lord Healey, former chancellor and deputy leader of Britain's Labour Party, has called on Tony Blair to resign if WMD are not found in Iraq. This as the ruling government has acquiesced to a parliamentary probe into the intelligence on Iraqi arms Blair used to justify war. Lisa English reminds us that Blair had tried to squirm away from inquiry in the past; now the prime minister "welcomes" the probe. Could it be he's backed into a corner with nowhere to go?

posted by Jenny at 11:09 PM |

I am agape that they are actually admitting this stuff aloud...not even 10, 20 years after, but two months...and is anybody talking about this in Bushtown, USA? What's weirder--the fact that they are saying this, or the fact that "nobody" seems to care? Two perspectives on a Wolfowitz quote:

From the Guardian: The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

The AP: At the conference, Wolfowitz said North Korea would respond to economic action, unlike Iraq (news - web sites) where military action was necessary because oil money had been propping up its regime despite sanctions.

Update: Well, they may not being saying it as loudly as the Guardian would have us believe. Check out Tom Tomorrow's revised post on the Wolfowitz interview; looks like there's some fabrication going on here, although he certainly drove the WMD cause into the ground again...

posted by Jenny at 11:03 AM |

Billions for war on AIDS will go to drug firms, say activists

What business they do in the guise of compassion...

posted by Jenny at 4:27 AM |

Surely Congress would have come up with a plan to compensate those roughly 6.5 million low-income families who didn't get the tax credit passed into legislation last week...unless Tom DeLay has anything to say about it (yes, that's right, the same guy who tried to call in Homeland Security on Texas's fugitive Democrats):

Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, said the increased tax credits would be approved only if they were part of a broader tax-cut package, possibly including permanent repeal of the estate tax or making state sales taxes deductible. A package of that size would require 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and Democratic opposition to big new tax cuts would make such passage almost impossible.

Clearly irked at the mounting criticism of Republicans for the last-minute decision not to give the credit to minimum-wage families, Mr. DeLay said those who favored the increased credit had had their chance in the debate over the bill.
"There are a lot of other things that are more important than that," Mr. DeLay said in a news conference today. "To me, it's a little difficult to give tax relief to people that don't pay income tax."

Thanks to Magpie for the link!

posted by Jenny at 4:22 AM |

You may have already seen this US News article courtesy of Bob Harris and other bloggers, but it's worthy of mention if you haven't. The opening paragraph is promising in itself:

On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -."

Glad to know that Powell isn't completely the Gore-like automaton that I had chalked him up to be...

posted by Jenny at 4:16 AM |

My catch-up blogging involves some interesting reads...a skippy reader alerts us to a column in the Observer about blogs and big media, and why the moguls frown upon the blogosphere. An excerpt:

First, there is the contempt for 'amateur' writers, endemic in professional journalism. Hacks are always astonished by anyone who writes for no pay, so upwards of half a million such amateurs now publishing blogs leaves the pros speechless. It also leads them to deride blogs as an epidemic of vanity publishing rather than the glorious outbreak of free expression it actually represents.

Second is the assumption that anything written by an amateur is, by definition, worthless. Yet journalism has always been, as Northcliffe observed, 'the art of explaining to others that which one does not oneself understand'.

In fact, when it comes to many topics in which I have a professional interest, I would sooner pay attention to particular blogs than to anything published in Big Media - including the venerable New York Times. This is not necessarily because journalists are idiots; it's just that serious subjects are complicated and hacks have neither the training nor the time to reach a sophisticated understanding of them - which is why much journalistic coverage is inevitably superficial and often misleading, and why so many blogs are thoughtful and accurate by comparison.

Third, there is the problem - not often touched upon in the New York Times, by the way - that many controversial public issues are ignored by Big Media for the simple reason that the ideological and commercial interests of their proprietors preclude it.

This is why the US mainstream media has wound up misleading its audience about Iraq and the 'war' on terrorism. The fact that most US citizens believe a majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis rather than Saudis is a case in point.

If you ask me, point #3 is the most important in all of this...when you're not on Rupert Murdoch's payroll, you can afford to talk straight, from whatever perspective you have.

posted by Jenny at 3:02 AM |

Mac-a-ro-nies proves that there's no better way to piss off an angry, verklemmt person than to analyze them, and correctly. Maybe I'm alone in this, but it seems that Sam's response only confirmed everything Mac Diva has said. Incidentally, I want to add Mac Diva to my blogroll, but Blogger is STILL giving me trouble. So swing over and check her stuff out...since Sam so eloquently refers her to as a "worthless wad of wallpaper paste", she's certainly worth your time!

posted by Jenny at 2:55 AM |

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Super Diary Worries Privacy Activists

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon (news - web sites) project to develop a digital super diary that records heartbeats, travel, Internet chats, everything a person does, also could provide private companies with powerful software to analyze behavior.

That has privacy experts worried.

Known as LifeLog, the project aims to capture and analyze a multimedia record of everywhere a subject goes and everything he or she sees, hears, reads, says and touches. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has solicited bids and hopes to award four 18-month contracts beginning this summer.

John Ashcroft is salivating in the wings.

posted by Jenny at 1:28 PM |

Skippy got a job! Go congratulate him--he's headed to sunny Florida...

posted by Jenny at 1:00 PM |

Salam Pax Is Real

A delight to read: Peter Maass has the dirt on our favorite Iraqi blogger, Salam Pax.

Via Matthew Yglesias.

Update: Check out the Bagdad Blogger's first Guardian article on life in Iraq...

posted by Jenny at 12:54 PM |

When Trent Lott is in the same camp with the House Democratic Whip, you know something's wrong with this FCC decision. --Lisa English

RuminateThis has some good coverage of the FCC decision...and what happens next.

posted by Jenny at 12:48 PM |

Thank God my high school days are over...

Irradiated Meat OK'd for School Cafeterias

Via Vegan Blog.

posted by Jenny at 12:41 PM |

My eyes almost popped out of my head while reading this article. Number one, because so little is said about the unbelievable conditions in nursing homes nationwide. Number two, because I've probably visited the nursing home they mention here...

The Bush administration's $1 billion push to improve nursing home care does not include clamping down on nursing homes that violate the law, a Gannett News Service investigation has found.

More than 500 nursing homes across the nation have been cited in the past four years for repeated and severe deficiencies, violations that brought harm to residents and exposed some to life-threatening conditions.

Yet the federal agency in charge of enforcing nursing home standards, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has no program to target these repeat offenders.

...Ruth Tobey of Georgetown, Texas, found out the hard way just how wrong things can go in nursing homes.

Tobey, 65, placed her mother in a local nursing home because her mother's Alzheimer's disease made it too difficult to continue care at home. Tobey's mother remained in the nursing home for five years with few difficulties.

In 1997, Tobey visited her mother in the nursing home for Christmas.

"A nurse told me she had a spot on her bottom they were keeping an eye on," Tobey said. "I didn't think anything of it. I had not seen my mother naked for some time. I trusted those folks to care for her."

Less than two weeks later she received a disturbing phone call.

"I can remember it so clearly," Tobey said. "I got an anonymous call at home from someone who said I had better check on my mom."

Tobey rushed to the nursing home.

"When I saw my mom, it wasn't the same lady I had seen 10 days earlier," Tobey said. Her mother had developed an open wound near her coccyx, the bone at the lower end of the spinal column. Her wound was as large as a baseball and so deep her spine was exposed.

posted by Jenny at 12:33 PM |

*sigh*

posted by Jenny at 11:31 AM |

Finally home again--car trouble held me up an extra day! Will get the posts up in a bit, first I've got to find some grub. Sorry for the delay...

posted by Jenny at 9:39 AM |