RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER HARD HIT BY ASSASSINATIONS

Russia has devolved into one of the world's most dangerous nations for investigative journalism.  Many reporters have died, and there are no leads or prosecutions in any of the cases thus far. Here is a partial summary:

Yuri Shchekochikhin - died in July 2003.  Suspected cause of death: Ingestion of a radioactive substance.  As deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, Shchekochikhin was investigating corruption in Russia's FSB security service at the time of his death.

Paul Klebnikov - a U.S. citizen of Russian descent and editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine who was shot on a Moscow street in July 2004.

Anna Politkovskaya - shot dead as she entered her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

Ivan Safranov – fell to his death from his Moscow apartment building in March 2007. Although he had just returned from shopping with a bag of groceries in hand, Russian authorities ruled the death a suicide. He had been investigating sensitive arms sales days before his death.

Magomed Yevloyev - the owner of a Russian opposition Internet site was shot dead on August 31, 2008.

Stanislav Markelov - murdered on January 23, 2009, he was an investigative reporter with Novaya Gazeta.

Anastasia Baburova – an investigative reporter with Novaya Gazeta, she was murdered on January 23, 2009 alongside Stanislav Markelov.

This weekend, a crowd of protestors joined an estimated 250 mourners to commemorate the deaths of Marelov and Baburova.  Anti-war activist Anna Karetnikova, a friend of Anna Politkovskaya who was slain in 2006, blamed the double murders on orders from the Kremlin.

To date, four employees of Novaya Gazeta have been murdered: Shchekochikhin, Politkovskaya, Markelov, and Baburova.

Alexander Lebedev (a Russian billionaire and former KGB agent) and Mikhail Gorbachev (the last leader of the former Soviet Union) own a 49% stake in Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper hardest hit by these assassinations.  The employees own a 51% stake.  Lebedev writes a blog at alex-lebedev.livejournal.com.

Recently, Lebedev and Gorbachev joined forces to launch a new political party independent of the Kremlin. Called the Independent Democratic Party, it seeks legal and economic reform and the promotion of an independent media. Considering the Kremlin’s slide into oligarchy, Novaya Gazeta may represent the last outpost of free and independent journalism left in Russia.

In solidarity, I have added Novaya Gazeta (English version) to our list of news and information sources. According to the editors:

The killers have no fear because they know they will not be punished. But neither are their victims afraid, because when you defend others you cease to fear.

Keep it real

"F*cking espresso, Cappuccino, we invented this shit. . . now all these c*cks*ckers are making money on it . . . It's not just the money, it's a pride thing. . . This? this is the worst, this espresso shit."

-Pauly Walnuts-


So we're sitting at this rustic, open air coffee shop in Port Salerno, looking over the Manatee pocket and the old fishing docks where slick yachts, beat up trawlers, catamarans and open fishing boats are moored. The building is a collection of old fish houses that went bust years ago when commercial net fishing was outlawed in the area. A glass blower rents a corner and a potter, and there is a gallery and some workshops -- and a coffee house that's a great place to enjoy the view, the breeze, the sounds of a harbor; maybe have a cup of coffee, eat a home made cookie, play some checkers in the shade and watch the boats come and go. It's the kind of American ambiance that attracted me to the coast and to this part of Florida; an island in the river of change; a river that's ever rushing toward commercial strip mall plastic mass produced national franchise sameness. Panama hat and Ray-Bans, flowered shirt and deck shoes; you feel afloat in the serenity, you're part of the scenery. You remember why this feels like home rather than an address.

So when a young dude dressed in Urban Black sidles up to the counter and asks, without apparent embarrassment, for an "Americano" with soy and demerara sugar, I could feel the air turn stiff and brittle as a plastic strip mall sign.

Am I wrong to single out Starbucks as a singular agent of phoniness in America? Rightly or wrongly I do just that. Of course you can't cheat an honest man and you probably can't make a pretentious ass of him either. It was all here, that sense of provincial inferiority that makes people who've never been near Europe feel good about paying more for a 20 ounce coffee by calling it a Venti even though in Italy and the rest of Europe they don't use ounces. Perhaps we could solve the problems of General Motors by having them sell Voitures because for all our narcissistic nationalism, Americans hate being Americans -- or so it seems at Starbucks.

No matter how you feel about Starbucks, I had to smile at the planned closing of 600 locations in July and the additional 300 announced this last week. Perhaps now, that piece of untouched Florida wilderness still remaining where Bridge Road crosses US1, Starbucks has been trying to get a zoning variance on will remain the home of Sand Hill Cranes and alligators and not be replaced by "baristas" (baristi in real Italian) serving up overpriced, oversized plastic buckets of Italian breakfast coffee to pretentious lunchtime provincials.

Trying to open a Starbucks in the real Italy, where people want a glass of Vino Bianco with lunch and the salad comes after the main course and no two coffee shops are the same, would be as difficult as opening a ChopSuey joint in Shanghai. To the locals, as it is with Pauly Walnuts, our phony expropriation of their culture is just that: phony.



Truth be told, I find the coffee in Vienna - and the pastry that goes with it - far better and a morning "bica" at some hole in the wall shop in some Portuguese fishing village is incomparable. It's also not separable from the matrix. I do love espresso and I do love a plain ordinary cup of drip coffee from one of those Bunn coffeemakers you see in every diner on our continent. It's authentic, it fits, it's real and as American as red checked table cloths and waitresses named Flo.

So they've stolen one more piece of America from me. Oh sure, I can still go to Dunkin' Donuts or a Waffle house and get served a cup of coffee by a waitress and a damned good doughnut too and I don't have to feel like a jackass with pretend Italian nomenclature either. You can't see the water from there though.

The Mortification of a Child

Awhile back I was in the parking lot of Target putting shopping bags in the back of my car. My young child had already gotten into the car. A woman and a child came up to me. The child looked to be only a few years older than my own. The woman matter-of-factly asked me for money. She was polite, civil. She did not beg. She simply explained that she & her daughter were hungry & had no money - that she was hoping to get into a shelter later that day. If the woman was embarrassed to be begging in a Target parking lot – she did not show it. Not because she was arrogant or clueless about the dynamics of the situation but because, if anything, she seemed to be numb, necessarily detached. She had no money. She had a hungry child. She had no option but to beg – to request – a handout.

As she looked me steady in the eye I opened up my purse. I told her the truth – that I did not have much but that she could have what I had. I handed her the money. She thanked me with reserved, but genuine, gratitude in her voice. Then she & her daughter left.

Throughout my encounter with this woman – her daughter hung her head in shame, her face turned toward her mother – unable to face the reality, the meaning of my presence – her presence next to me as her mother was asking for help. The young girl’s body, her posture never moved. She was frozen in her mortification. Her mother’s hand resting gently, though not embracingly, across her shoulders. My heart broke for the child. So young to experience so much. How many times, I wondered, had the child been witness to her mother’s requesting of money from strangers? Would she ever forget the experience? Would it haunt her dreams, informing her sense of herself as she grew over the years?

These were my thoughts as I slowly got into my car. The child – whose face I never saw – broke my heart. I felt heavy inside. As I closed the car door behind me, my child asked – “Mommy, who were they? What did they want?” Another child about to learn a harsh life lesson. I told him the truth – or what I thought he could understand. I explained that there were people who had less than we did. I explained about homelessness. I explained that the mother was trying to care for her child as best she could. I hope he understood.

I hope the woman’s daughter understood. I hope the girl someday finds it in her heart to forgive her mother for so embarrassing her. I hope the girl finds it in her heart someday to be hopeful & happy and forgiving of her, our, harsh world.

The memory of the girl’s sense of shame, her lowered head and hidden face, is still etched in my mind, like a heavy scar.

I did not know then – I do not know now – the truth of the circumstances that led to my encounter with this woman and her child. Were they really on the streets? Was it because of a lost job? An abusive man? Drugs? Etc? Who knows. And I can not, will not bring myself to judge the “worthiness” of their victimhood – to look for accountability in their circumstances. Whatever the truth was, and still may be, it ultimately boiled down to the mortification of a young girl far too young to be blamed for anything.

GOP Heeds the call

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
Itll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.

-Bob Dylan-

Perhaps imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, perhaps it's coincidence, perhaps it's desperation, perhaps it's deja vu. After five rounds of balloting, Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is now the chairman of The Republican National committee. Governor Steele is, for those not familiar with him, an African American and while some call him a moderate, others find him staunchly conservative. Whatever he may be, he's a first for the GOP and in y opinion, it's about time.

“It’s time for something completely different. . . . We’re going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighborhood, every community. And we’re going to say to friend and foe alike, ‘We want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us. And for those of you who are ready to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over.’ ”

said Steele according to ABC this afternoon. A bit reminiscent of the 1960's hit Dylan song, if lacking in conviction.

Does this represent the beginning of a new RNC? Is the old order rapidly aging, or is Steele much more of the same old song? He has been a commentator on Fox News, he lead the crowd in cries of "drill baby drill" at the 2008 convention. Is it enough that his ancestry is African to bring more minorities into the GOP or will a change in complexion not be enough of a change in everything else?

It remains to be seen, but whatever Michael Steele is, he is not Barak Obama, much less Bob Dylan.

On the Dinosaur Gods, Any Other Gods Whatsoever, Perceived Lesbians, and “Tommy C”

I’m not a member of any church (though I admit to a firm belief in the Divine Toothsomeness of the Dinosaur Gods, may they loll ever peacefully beside the Pierian Watering-Hole) and I don’t agree with the Catholic view of contraception or family planning any more than most liberals. It seems to me that the Church speaks in metaphysical absolutes about the sanctity of life (which is understandable) and then supports policies that end up diminishing that sanctity. The Church’s leaders believe life is sacred, so they should approach the matter of how and why children are brought into the world with common sense: common sense and the sacred need each other more than either would care to admit. Still, I think it best to make that point with due respect for a man who is revered by millions as il santo papa.

As I grow older, I grow less patient with arguments extolling the merits of reason and human self-sufficiency as opposed to the alleged irrationalist abyss of religion. Perhaps it is true, as Tennyson says, that “Our little systems have their day, / They have their day and cease to be,” but I also have great regard for the lines that follow: “They are but broken lights of Thee, / And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.” It’s the spiritual principle that matters; it’s the willingness to put kind hearts before coronets, as his verse goes: to privilege decency and generosity over rank and lust for material things. The forms and rules are helpful only if they advance the principle, in my view. All of this is pure Carlyle – yes, George Costanza’s “Tommy C” – but there’s something to be said for believing in belief, even if (as an irate reader once wrote of Carlyle’s own ranting prose) it leads us into the wilderness and leaves us there.

Now on to the lamentable case of the “perceived lesbians.” Wilde wrote that Jesus’ greatest cause for sorrow was that so few people ever understood a word he said. Well, to adapt a Blake verse, “A fool sees not the same Jesus as a wise man sees.” Anyhow, the problem permits of a solution, even if it isn’t a happy one: the parents of the two girls will most likely come around to the conviction that it would be a mistake to want their kids to remain students at the school in question. If the school isn’t taking public money, I don’t see how the state can force it to accept or even overlook beliefs or practices most of its members probably find abhorrent. I think the school is behaving in a bigoted and harmful manner, but forcing it to change its admissions and retention policy won’t change hearts: “those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.” It would be different if we were dealing with a public school, or even a private country club that discriminated against minorities or gays without the veil of metaphysics to hide the nakedness of its ignorance. It’s true as Octo says that there’s a line to be drawn here: a church can’t abuse children, sacrifice puppy dogs, etc. – if they break the law, the offending parties can be prosecuted. Of course, what we’re dealing with here is the combustible mix of alternative sexuality and religious tenets, so that complicates things.

Perhaps the parents have learned a painful lesson about the belief system of the church to which they had given their allegiance (if indeed they were members – I’m not familiar with the particulars of the case and am therefore treating it in a general, hypothetical manner): if they were members, they should now be able to see how that system impacts people close to them, so it’s high time to put the girls in a more congenial school where they will not risk persecution or ostracism for what they either are or are “perceived” to be. I am very friendly to religion, but one feature of some religious communities is their tendency to define themselves by a process of exclusion: strict rejection of anyone who doesn’t hew to their notions and standards. There is room for the rejected to challenge the rejecters—else is no progress ever made—but I wouldn’t advise making a couple of children run such a gauntlet: I’d leave it to adults who know what they’re in for when they try to broaden minds.

The unfortunate side-effect of this kind of solution is that it encourages the perpetuation of sealed-off, self-defining communities. But there’s not much one can do about that in the short run. Jesus told his disciples to “shake the dust off their feet” when they ran into people who outright disrespected them; parents in such a bad situation might do well to follow that example.

Drop that Bible!

When will the time come when we no longer look to religion for moral guidance? Perhaps it should have come a long time ago; perhaps it never should have begun. The idea of rules for human behavior being based on compassion never really took hold in the Western world, although lip service has been paid to the notion, and our codes of behavior seem to owe more to fear of sexuality and the terror of what might happen if someone believes differently than directed by the priestly class.

At any rate, the idea that people should be left alone to pursue happiness and restrained only from acting to harm the same right in others is essentially American, essentially secular and essentially opposite to the teachings of American Christianity. Should young people be at liberty to form strong bonds of affection without the approval of Christian authority? Do I really have to ask? The religious say no to love, the secular humanist, the believer in the American way speaks for it.

I read in Raw Story this morning that A California appeals court ruled this week that a Christian high school can expel students perceived to be lesbians. [Italics mine] Of course a Christian school or a secular private school is not a public school, but it is, at least in part, subsidized by special tax treatment. Here they are denying the benefits of liberty and the pursuit of happiness without any protest from the law and with the assistance of your tax dollars.

I don't want to get into the legality of this and I recognize that those perceived to be too fond of each other have other educational choices, but haven't we come to the point where we can recognize that religious moral authority is not imposed for the good or the happiness of humanity but for the sake of fear mongering authority and those who make a living from it? I think most of us may be more morally evolved than Ted Haggard or Pastor Muthee or Pat Robertson or the ex-Nazi in the Vatican for whom minding your business, is their business. Yet we allow them to rule us and we don't find it strange.

I find it stranger still that people who profess patriotism and pretend to promote a government that only keeps us from killing each other and stealing each others' property and little else, will also promote a government that forces us to follow the mandates of ancient, bearded, angry and probably demented men against private consensual and harmless behavior? Why is it terrible to tax the population to support the elderly and sick but fine to force us all to adhere to their religious taboos? Where is the Christian morality in this -- unless Christian morality has nothing to do with love at all.

Of course it's all rhetorical. What I'm saying is that we can have prosperity, we can beat the swords into plowshares but we will never be free to love or live in peace until we stop allowing the perverts of "the cloth" to bend us over their Bibles and have their way with us.

A Norman McLaren Moment

This week, my intention was to contribute another article on right wing hate radio (in honor of my friend, Spocko), but an eye infection has been distracting me. Instead, I am posting this YouTube video:

Norman McLaren is one of the more inventive but lesser-known pioneers of animation and stop-motion photography in cinema history. Born in Scotland in 1914, he studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art and eventually moved to Canada where he started the animation studio at the National Film Board. This short film, Neighbors, won an Oscar for Best Documentary (short subject) in 1953.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox.

The Chinese Zodiac is said to follow the stations of Jupiter's orbit around the sun, which is just shy of 12 years. The animals mark years in a 12-year cycle that begins with rat, horse, ox, goat, tiger, monkey, rabbit, rooster, dragon, dog, snake and pig.

The animals were not always a part of the Chinese calendar and when exactly they were integrated is unknown, although there are several legends:

One story has Buddha, others, the Jade Emporer inviting all the animals in the kingdom to a meeting. Some animals outwit others to get there first, with their places in the zodiac assigned according to when they arrived.

Another involves a competition that includes a river crossing followed by a gathering at the emperor's palace. The kindly ox agrees to carry the scheming rat and the cat across the water on his back, but the rat betrays his friend the cat by pushing him into a swift current and hops off the ox to claim the top spot.

However the animals and their order were chosen, each animal has a set of characteristics said to be shared by any human born in their year. My year is the year of the Goat and, according to the Chinese zodiac, I am:

Creative, wise, gentle, artistic, passionate, elegant, warmhearted, honest, ability to solve their own problems, deeply religious, able to make money from their own business.
AND
Pessimistic, timid, shy, disorganized, vulnerable, like material much more than spiritual comforts, easily fail from pressure, complaining.

I don’t know, makes me sound like a multiple personality! You can find your own corresponding animal and traits, plus buy some very nice charms :) at this site. Scroll down to the end of Q4 and click on the animals to find your year in the sentence:

“An animal is rejected by the one on the right opposite site in the Zodiac Circle. Rat and Horse, Ox and Goat, Tiger and Monkey, Rabbit and Rooster, Dragon and Dog, Snake and Pig are all rejected each other.”

Or, just visit your favorite Chinese restaurant and read the placemats!

The golden finger

High above the Summer Palace outside of Beijing, there's a temple housing what is billed as a thousand armed Buddha. After some huffing and heavy breathing, one finds that it doesn't have a thousand arms and it really isn't the Buddha, but even this amazing, arm laden idol doesn't have enough middle fingers to flip the bird to every religious leader arrogant enough to tell us what to do.

I only have two of my own and so, being in the mood today, I'll concentrate on two of my favorites. Let's start with Ted Haggard. Remember Ted, the hypocrite who tried to use tears and maudlin prayers to regain his status as someone fit to tell you how to live your life after he was exposed as having "prayer sessions" with a male prostitute? Well it seems he liked amateurs even more, having had a lengthy affair with a very young male parishioner who cost the Church a good deal of money to pay off. I wonder if the upcoming HBO documentary intended to rebuild his reputation will include this new embarrassment and whether all this money taken from the pockets of pious parishioners and intended for good works will be enough to whitewash the hypocrisy and the impudence of advising other people about the immorality of his own favorite pastime: buggering young men. I'd sooner ask Bernie Madoff for investment advice than listen to this self-appointed con-man. This finger is for you, Ted.

And speaking of flim-flam, what about the fantastically finger-worthy ex-Nazi in a dress from Rome who has the arrogance to condemn the United States for sending aid to sick and impoverished Africans without their strings attached. The Vatican has now condemned the "arrogance of those in power who think they can decide between life and death." I'd briefly summarize the arrogance of the organization that has been doing exactly that for about 1700 years, but even the brief version is far too lengthy for this venue. I'll limit the summation of my discontent to Rome's disregard for the lives of millions and millions of raped African women and the millions of AIDS infected pregnant women and the millions of African women with infected husbands who need protection. Sure, the few bucks taken from widows and orphans elsewhere in the world often go to heal the poorer and needier, or what's left over after paying off the children raped by agents of Rome, that is -- but no mention of birth control and no mention of Abortion. That would be immoral.

The beauty of the Finger lies in its brevity -- and so this finger is for you, Ratzinger -- and I really mean it.

Foxed up

President Obama has made so many egregious mistakes that we're all in terrible danger. He's sending the "worst of the worst" from Guantanamo to your children's playgrounds. His appointments can't be trusted and most "shocking" of all, even though Mike Wallace all but forced Chief Justice Roberts to swear him in the second time, Obama isn't really the president because he didn't have his hand on "the Bible." No, I haven't gone completely insane, I'm quoting Fox News. If you watched The Daily Show Thursday night, you saw the following clip:




You see, I'm not making this stuff up. The same people who told you we have to, in the name of freedom and our safety obey the Führer president and the same people who supported each and every act that brought on our dire predicaments; who insisted that economic collapse was a liberal lie, that we were about to "win" in Iraq every day since we arrived, are telling you this one really can't be obeyed. Of course those with longer memories remember when Bill Clinton wasn't, for some Foxed up reason I no longer remember, really the president either and shouldn't be listened to.

So whether or not Fox lives up to its promise of revealing some hideous hidden "truth" behind every aspect of the Obama presidency once a day for the first hundred days, I won't be watching them. Unfortunately others will and for them the fiction will seem real and the fear will grow. I find it hard to feel any kind of optimism and those who think that we've "won" and that things are in good hands now may soon find that the process of losing started on November 20th.

The people who watch Fox usually don't watch anything else. They have no idea that the lies and distortions they've been hearing are often repudiated and disproved by all the other news services. They haven't a clue that one of the largest anti-American campaigns, indeed the most organized program of treason against truth, justice and democracy is broadcasting 24 hours a day. Fox is using and will use everything they can find to undermine confidence in our government and anything it does and as you can see is hoping our country will fall and our hopes will fail. To me, it constitutes as great a danger to our future as any foreign enemy or global economic collapse. Traitors, saboteurs, liars and purveyors of irrational hate, Fox News is the enemy and anyone who hopes not just for our survival, but our improvement owes it to the world to use every opportunity to expose them.