What’s happening out of camera range?

By now, millions of TV viewers have seen the video numerous times on television: Two police officers are beating a man on the pavement. It’s big news -- because a camera was there.

Robert Davis, a 64-year-old retired teacher, suffered injuries during the incident on the night of Oct. 8 in New Orleans. He’s scheduled to go on trial with charges that include resisting arrest and battery on one of the police officers who beat him. But under the circumstances, the man on the receiving end of the violence got lucky.

Ordinarily, there’s no evidence to dispute the accounts provided by police officers after such violence occurs. The news media and the legal system are oriented to accept the word of uniformed authorities and discount the claims of defendants. For journalists and judges, the official story becomes The Story.

Davis’ ordeal was unusual, and caused a national uproar, because an Associated Press Television News crew happened to be near. But for every exceptional incident that exposes official misconduct to national view, there are countless deplorable events that never see the light of media day.

Pensions

AUSTIN, Texas -- The entire political world is agog: Tom DeLay indicted, Scooter Libby in danger, Karl Rove rumors abound, Miers' nomination in doo-doo. So I'm writing about ... pensions. They're just so sexy, I couldn't resist.

Of course, the word pension is a terminal turnoff for anyone under 60 -- so redolent of the blue-rinse perm set. As one whose idea of financial planning consists of playing bingo at the Safeway, I'd prefer to be out listening to reggaeton, myself. Still, when you're getting screwed, you really should know about it.

This column is part of a continuing effort to see if we can keep our eyes on the shell with the pea under it, even while some other shells, mighty flashy and colorful, are whizzing around. Our particular shell bears the fatal rubric, "You are getting screwed again."

Protect abortion rights

Yesterday the Ohio House Health committee held a hearing on House Bill 239.  This politically-motivated and dangerous bill would make it more difficult for Ohio women to obtain safe, legal abortion care by:
Eliminating funding for Medicaid and public employee health plans for abortion care for rape victims, and women whose health is at stake.
Banning public hospitals and employees from providing abortion care—except to save the life of the woman. 

This bill has no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, for women who are at risk of losing a major bodily function or organ, or in cases where there are severe fetal abnormalities that will likely result in stillbirth.

At the same time that the bill limits women's ability to exercise their legal right to choose, it doesn't provide a single penny of funding for prenatal or postnatal care that would promote healthy mothers and healthy babies.  This legislation is full of rhetoric, but does nothing to prevent unintended pregnancies or to promote healthy pregnancies.

Outrage of the Week

AUSTIN, Texas -- On one of those television gong shows that passes for journalism, the panelists used to have to pick an Outrage of the Week. Then, each performer would wax indignant about his or choice for 60 seconds or so. If someone asked me to name the Outrage of the Week about now, I'd have a coronary. How could anyone possibly choose?

I suppose the frontrunner is the anti-torture amendment. Sen. John McCain proposed an amendment to the military appropriations bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

This may strike you as a "goes without saying" proposition -- the amendment passed the Senate 90 to nine. The United States has been signing anti-torture treaties under Democrats and Republicans for at least 50 years. But the Bush administration actually managed to find some weasel words to create a loophole in this longstanding commitment to civilized behavior.

Tell Congress -- Save Organic Standards!

Organic standards are under fire in Washington. An industry-sponsored "sneak attack" rider to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill would take away traditional organic community and National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) control over organic standards, and centralize control in the hands of White House-appointed USDA officials. This would likely open the door for non-organic animal feed and hundreds of synthetic ingredients and processing aids in organic foods.

The sneak attack rider is being pushed by powerful corporate interests such as Kraft, Dole, General Mills, and the Grocery Manufacturers of America (which includes Wal-Mart and the supermarket chains). Take action today to stop this "unfriendly takeover" of America's alternative food system by giant food processors and supermarket chains.

Click here to take action now: Save Organic Standards

Miers

“The War on Terror” -- in Translation

When the Bush administration fires off a new round of speechifying about “the war on terror,” the U.S. press rarely goes beyond the surface meanings of rhetoric provided by White House scriptwriters. But the president’s big speech at the National Endowment for Democracy on Oct. 6 could have been annotated along these lines:

* “We will not tire or rest until the war on terror is won.”

Translation: This is a war that can go on forever.

* “And while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil but not insane.”

As president, I am the world’s authority on evilness and insanity.

* “These extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace and stand in the way of their ambitions.”

Those who stand in the way of our ambitions are extremists.

* “They hit us and expect us to run. They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993, only this time on a

Dems Go After Bennett, Salem Radio Network, FCC

A growing list of Congress Members are not just speaking out about Bill Bennett's recent racist remarks on his radio show.  Some of them are pressuring the network that airs his show, Salem Radio Network, and asking the sponsors that fund it to withdraw their support.  One already has.  Other Congress Members are asking the Federal Communications Commission to censure, suspend, and fine Bennett.

If you've been wisely avoiding US mass media for the past week, you won't know that Bill Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education and "Drug Czar," and editor of "The Book of Virtues" (a collection aimed at showing how dumb ethics can become if you paste together the most boring excerpts of musings by mostly religious, mostly white, mostly dead, mostly male, mostly European authors) spouted off on his radio show on September 29 as follows:

BENNETT:…one of the arguments in this book "Freakonomics" that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up.  Well –

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

Bonnie Raitt's soulful masterpiece

A Review of Bonnie Raitt’s “Souls Alike” (Capitol Records: 2005)

The incomparable Bonnie Raitt has produced an another incomparable masterpiece. “Souls Alike” confirms that she can create cutting edge new art even after decades at the top, while still being able to connect deep into the mainstream.

Long enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Bonnie’s shelf full of Grammys has not compromised her commitment to her craft, her adventurism or the creative demands of her raw talent.

There are ballads on this new album that remind us how Bonnie manages to speak to the pop mainstream with an integral clarity of soul and vision. There are others that take us deep into a world of hard blues and experimental jazz. How she pulls it all off is why she’s, well, Bonnie Raitt.

Three ballads are for the ages.

Torture and the “Controversial” Arc of Injustice

Several decades ago, “controversial” subjects in news media included many issues that are now well beyond controversy. During the first half of the 1960s, fierce arguments raged in print and on the airwaves about questions like: Does a black person (a “Negro,” in the language of the day) have the right to sit at a lunch counter, or stay at a hotel, the same way that a white person does? Should the federal government insist on upholding such rights all over the country?

Some agonizing disputes, in the media and on the ground, came to a climax with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Suddenly, after many decades of struggles against Jim Crow, federal law explicitly barred racial discrimination in public accommodations and employment. After President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure, saying “Let us close the springs of racial poison,” controversy faded about access to restaurants and hotels.

But the need for civil rights protests continued, and for a time they increasingly focused on the right to vote. Banning poll taxes, literacy tests and other timeworn devices of discrimination that were

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