Op-Ed
On a cold, cloudy night, the lines threaded all the way around the Ohio State campus. News that Kurt Vonnegut was speaking at the Ohio Union prompted these “apathetic” heartland college students to start lining up in the early afternoon. About 2,000 got in. At least that many more were turned away. It was the biggest crowd for a speaker here since Michael Moore.
In an age dominated by hype and sex, neither Moore nor Vonnegut seems a likely candidate to rock a campus whose biggest news has been the men’s and women’s basketball teams’ joint assault on Big Ten championships.
But maybe there’s more going on here than Fox wants us to think.
Vonnegut takes an easy chair across from Prof. Manuel Luis Martinez, a poet and teacher of writing. He grabs Martinez and semi-whispers into his ear (and the mike) “What can I say here?”
Martinez urges candor.
“Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”
The students seem to agree.
“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”
In an age dominated by hype and sex, neither Moore nor Vonnegut seems a likely candidate to rock a campus whose biggest news has been the men’s and women’s basketball teams’ joint assault on Big Ten championships.
But maybe there’s more going on here than Fox wants us to think.
Vonnegut takes an easy chair across from Prof. Manuel Luis Martinez, a poet and teacher of writing. He grabs Martinez and semi-whispers into his ear (and the mike) “What can I say here?”
Martinez urges candor.
“Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”
The students seem to agree.
“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”
In its coverage Thursday of the latest White House Katrina scandal, the New York Times has unbelievably missed the entire main story that President Bush lied to Americans when, four days after the Hurricane hit, he declared on ABC's Good Morning America that"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." But a new videotape released Wednesday by the Associated Press clearly shows the president, along with Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, being warned the day before the storm struck that the levees in fact were in serious jeopardy. Yet the Times' story makes absolutely no mention of this contradiction. In fact, its opening paragraph is so way off the mark as to almost exonerate the Bushies over their inept response to the storm:
"A newly released transcript of a government videoconference shows that hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, federal and state officials did not know that the levees in New Orleans were failing and were cautiously congratulating one another on the government response."
"A newly released transcript of a government videoconference shows that hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, federal and state officials did not know that the levees in New Orleans were failing and were cautiously congratulating one another on the government response."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
There is a terrible profanity in George Bush's intention to lay a wreath at the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who uttered those words, during the president's trip to India on a mission of nuclear proliferation and at a time when his draconian occupation of Iraq is spinning into all-out civil war. "It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood" on the great pacifist's memory, writes novelist Arundhati Roy.
Few world leaders today less embody the ideals Gandhi represents than Bush. Does he not know this? Does he think some PR advantage will accrue from his hollow gesture in Rajghat, or that it will mask the horror of his incompetence?
There is a terrible profanity in George Bush's intention to lay a wreath at the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who uttered those words, during the president's trip to India on a mission of nuclear proliferation and at a time when his draconian occupation of Iraq is spinning into all-out civil war. "It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood" on the great pacifist's memory, writes novelist Arundhati Roy.
Few world leaders today less embody the ideals Gandhi represents than Bush. Does he not know this? Does he think some PR advantage will accrue from his hollow gesture in Rajghat, or that it will mask the horror of his incompetence?
AUSTIN, Texas -- The administration's competence problem is already at the yadda, yadda, yadda stage. They were supposed to protect us from terrorist attack, they said Iraq would be a cakewalk, that we only needed 50,000 troops. They failed to plan for the occupation or Hurricane Katrina or the prescription drug plan. Yadda.
But when you look at the details of what incompetence means, it becomes both chilling and really, really expensive. The Army announced this week it has decided to reimburse Halliburton for nearly all of the disputed costs in the more than $250 million in charges the Pentagon's own auditors had identified as excessive or unjustified.
According to the Pentagon's figures, it normally withholds an average of 66 percent of what the auditors recommend. In this case, the Pentagon wound up paying all but 3.8 percent of the disputed costs, a figure so far outside the norm it was noticed immediately. Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the New York Times, "To think that it's that near zero is ridiculous when you're talking these kinds of numbers."
But when you look at the details of what incompetence means, it becomes both chilling and really, really expensive. The Army announced this week it has decided to reimburse Halliburton for nearly all of the disputed costs in the more than $250 million in charges the Pentagon's own auditors had identified as excessive or unjustified.
According to the Pentagon's figures, it normally withholds an average of 66 percent of what the auditors recommend. In this case, the Pentagon wound up paying all but 3.8 percent of the disputed costs, a figure so far outside the norm it was noticed immediately. Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the New York Times, "To think that it's that near zero is ridiculous when you're talking these kinds of numbers."
For almost a year now, King George and the royal order of servants in his monarchy have mercilessly vilified grieving mom and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as an unpatriotic left-wing crackpot who is not only out of touch with mainstream America but also someone who's dishonoring the soldiers who've been killed as well as those still fighting Bush's vanity project in Iraq. Well guess what? Sheehan apparently does speak for America, and for our troops as well.
Evidently the president’s trip to India created an option too perfect
to pass up: The man who has led the world in violence during the
first years of the 21st century could pay homage to the world’s
leading practitioner of nonviolence during the first half of the 20th
century. So the White House announced plans for George W. Bush to lay
a wreath at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial in New Delhi.
While audacious in its shameless and extreme hypocrisy, this PR gambit is in character for the world’s only superpower. One of the main purposes of the Bush regime’s media spin is to depict reality as its opposite. And Karl Rove obviously figured that mainstream U.S. media outlets, with few exceptions, wouldn’t react with anywhere near the appropriate levels of derision or outrage.
While audacious in its shameless and extreme hypocrisy, this PR gambit is in character for the world’s only superpower. One of the main purposes of the Bush regime’s media spin is to depict reality as its opposite. And Karl Rove obviously figured that mainstream U.S. media outlets, with few exceptions, wouldn’t react with anywhere near the appropriate levels of derision or outrage.
AUSTIN, Texas -- With the Bush administration, it's important to have in mind the old carnival con game: Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it.
Among the many curious aspects of the administration's approval of the Dubai Ports World takeover of operations at six major ports (and as many as 21) is this exemption from normally routine restrictions: The agreement does not require DP World to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, which would place them within the jurisdiction of American courts. Nor does it require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government. So what's that about?
It makes DP World harder to sue and less subject to American regulation. The lovely thing about the ports deal causing such a commotion is that it allows us to bring attention to this fairly obscure provision, which is, in fact, part of a wave of similar special exemptions that's starting to turn into a flood.
Among the many curious aspects of the administration's approval of the Dubai Ports World takeover of operations at six major ports (and as many as 21) is this exemption from normally routine restrictions: The agreement does not require DP World to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, which would place them within the jurisdiction of American courts. Nor does it require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government. So what's that about?
It makes DP World harder to sue and less subject to American regulation. The lovely thing about the ports deal causing such a commotion is that it allows us to bring attention to this fairly obscure provision, which is, in fact, part of a wave of similar special exemptions that's starting to turn into a flood.
To the editor:
This regulation provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations.
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
Thomas Potter
Olmsted Falls, Ohio
This regulation provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations.
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
Thomas Potter
Olmsted Falls, Ohio
A march had been planned for February 28, the eve of the scheduled March 1 evictions of Hurricane Katrina victims. FEMA moved the evictions to March 15, so activists have moved the march to March 14. A press conference on Capitol Hill will be followed by a march through Washington, D.C., past FEMA, past the Department of Homeland Security, and to the White House, where a permit has been obtained to rally in Lafayette Square Park until midnight. If Bush does not meet the marchers' demands, however, many plan not to leave.
The demands are for a serious housing plan for those already evicted and those still in hotels, and an end to evictions. Another way of putting it is that the marchers will be demanding that the federal government cease violating the law by working to exclude people from a city on the basis of race and class.
The demands are for a serious housing plan for those already evicted and those still in hotels, and an end to evictions. Another way of putting it is that the marchers will be demanding that the federal government cease violating the law by working to exclude people from a city on the basis of race and class.
The NY Times Wednesday reported that under a 1993 amendment to existing foreign investment law, the U.S. government is required to conduct a mandatory 45-day investigation if the investing company is owned and/or controlled by a foreign government. The key word here is mandatory. During this period, Defense, State, Commerce and Transportation department officials, along with the National Security Council and others, would get to put the deal under a microscope, ultimately reporting its findings back to the president. And, Congress would also have the opportunity to more deeply vet the transaction. But the great Bushevik Monarchy once again skirted the law. King Bush once again declared that "I am not above the law, I am the law." The most secretive administration in United States history has once again just flexed its unitary powers, telling Americans and Congress to screw off. So much for mandatory.