What does the Republican Party of Florida know that we don't?

I noticed a post-script in a recent Paul Krugman column:

P.S.: Another story you may not see on TV: Jeb Bush insists that electronic voting machines are perfectly reliable, but The St. Petersburg Times says the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the machines lack a paper trail and cannot "verify your vote."

Here are the opening paragraphs of an AP story by Brent Kallestad--"GOP tells some Florida voters to skip touchscreens, vote absentee":

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Jeb Bush has tried for months to persuade Florida voters that the computerized touchscreen voting machines are perfectly reliable, but his own political party apparently hasn't got the message.

The state Republican Party paid for a flier dissing the new technology and sent it to some voters in South Florida. It features a smiling, thumbs-up picture of Bush's older brother, President George W. Bush.

"The new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," the message read. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today."

That's what Democrats and a coalition of civil rights groups have been saying in legal challenges, trying to force the state to provide a paper trail in case the touchscreen machines malfunction.

Ghost Town Orange agrees with the Florida Republican Party: if you live in an area with touch-screen voting, vote with an absentee ballot. Senator Kerry will win if all the votes are counted.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Electoral predictions and thoughts on the Democratic National Convention

It has been a good week of speeches at the Democratic National Convention. I watched on C-SPAN so I wouldn't have to listen to Republican pundits and the SCLM tell me what I just heard.

The only sour moments:

• Senator Kennedy misusing FDR's "nothing to fear" to make a cheap political shot at President Bush.
• I do not like the Democratic Party's position on abortion.

Even Rev. Sharpton's speech was better than I thought it would be.

This is my modest prediction, based on hunches, not polling data: Senator Kerry wins even without some of the battleground states. Use the Wall Street Journal's Electoral Vote Calculator to test out different scenarios. To paraphrase John Kerry, we are not really divided into "Red" and "Blue" states; we're all "Red, White, and Blue States!"

I am making a commitment to read columns by the Hippie Chick Pie Wagon to see what Republicans think of me. This will keep my anger level high enough to keep working for John Kerry's election. Here are some examples from her column of July 28 [my responses in brackets].
According to her, Democrats ...

• ... are representative of the nation only if the nation we're talking about is Brazil. For Democrats, there is [sic] only the maid and millionaires. There are no Americans in the middle. To the extent Democrats are forced to recognize working-class white men, they call them "fascists."
[as a working-class white Democrat, I wonder what she's talking about.]
• ... weren't interested in liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from woman-hating Islamicist fanatics.
[What about Saudi Arabia? As evil as Saddam Hussein was, he wasn't an Islamicist fanatic. He was more of an Arab-nationalist Stalin.]
• ... don't believe in capitalism and don't worry about taxes on earned income because they can't imagine there is any way to "earn" money other than the Teresa Heinz-John Kerry way.
[I don't believe in capitalism? Huh?]
• ... unable to conceal their America-hating pacifism were relieved of their anti-war signs and escorted to the free-speech veal pens a few blocks from the convention center.
[I am unable to conceal my God-fearing pacifism.]
• Convention organizers even forced the delegates to choke their way through the Pledge of Allegiance -- something the teachers' students are not allowed to say. The delegates play along, pretending they know the words and making the occasional random reference to "God," trying not to sound ironic.
[Here in Oklahoma, my children still say the Pledge of Allegiance, and I know the words and recite it with them, at Scout meetings, for example. I have reservations about the potential for flag-idolatry--I am a citizen of God's kingdom first.]
• ... are not angry about 9/11.
[Well, I am still angry that Osama bin Laden has not been the focus of my country's response to 9/11.]

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Hippie Chick Pie Wagon (aka Ann Coulter)

Here are some excerpts from Ann Coulter's unpublished [unpublishable by any legitimate media outlet] column for July 26:

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazened with the "F-word" are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling.

[snip]

...My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention.

Apparently the Hippie Chick Pie Wagon thinks she's a pretty girl. Pretty = Republican; ugly = Democrat. Who says Republicans aren't divisive name-callers?

The nuts in the cages are virtual Bertrand Russells compared to the official speakers at the Democratic Convention. On the basis of their placards, I gather the caged-nut position is that they love the troops so much, they don't want them to get hurt defending America from terrorist attack. Support the troops, the signs say, bring them home.

That's my new position on all government workers, except the 5% who aren't useless, which is to say cops, prosecutors, firemen and U.S. servicemen. I love bureaucrats at the National Endowment of the Arts funding crucifixes submerged in urine so much -- I think they should go home. I love public school teachers punishing any mention of God and banning Christmas songs so much -- I think they should go home.

Echoes of the Reagan era theme that 'Government is bad' [except for that part of government that carries guns and can send people to prison. {I wonder how firemen got in the Hippie Chick Pie Wagon's favored list--they don't carry guns!?}]

Looking at the line-up of speakers at the Convention, I have developed the 7-11 challenge: I will quit making fun of, for example, Dennis Kucinich, if he can prove he can run a 7-11 properly for 8 hours. We'll even let him have an hour or so of preparation before we open up. Within 8 hours, the money will be gone, the store will be empty, and he'll be explaining how three 11-year olds came in and asked for the money and he gave it to them.

[snip]

...I want Americans to get a good long look at the French Party and keep the 7-11 challenge in mind.

Ad hominem attacks are the best the Hippy Chick Pie Wagon can come up with? This is a prime example of Republican divisiveness: nothing about policy, public service, etc. Just government-bashing and name-calling.

I apologize for resorting to name-calling myself, but whenever politicians and pundits engage in it, they have earned a nickname from me:

• Arnold Schwarzeneggar= "Girly Man"
• Ann Coulter= "Hippie Chick Pie Wagon"

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Convention blogging

Here is a site that accumulates posts from many bloggers attending the Democratic National Convention: Convention Bloggers. The site uses RSS feeds to accomplish this. Neat use of the technology!

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

New Old Bridge at Mostar, Bosnia

From the New York Times: Bridge Is Restored in Bosnia, and With It Hope of Peace


Tom Dubravec/European Pressphoto Agency
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: July 24, 2004:

MOSTAR, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 23 - With music, dance, colored lights and speeches about reconciliation and a better future, this afflicted Balkan town formally reopened on Friday the famous and historic bridge that was obliterated a decade ago during the fighting in the former Yugoslavia.

It was not really the old bridge of Mostar that was reopened. The original bridge was built in 1566 under the Ottoman Turks and celebrated during the 427 years of its existence for the grace of its arched 95-foot span. What has been completed is a painstakingly faithful, stone-by-stone replica of that bridge, destroyed on Nov. 9, 1993, by a Croatian bombardment that has since stood as an emblematic act of the senselessness of the long Bosnian madness.

But the new ancient bridge of Mostar, a picturesque mountain town of about 120,000 people that was one of the deadliest battlegrounds of the conflict, nonetheless emerged Friday as a metaphor for revival, or, if not revival yet, at least the durability for almost a decade now of something resembling ethnic peace.

"The opening of the old bridge in Mostar is a victory of peace," Sulejman Tihic, the head of the collective presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, said in a speech on this sun-baked Friday afternoon, "a victory for Bosnia as a multiethnic and multicultural society."

[snip]

The destruction of the bridge was so senseless because it was used by all sides. In the view of local people, it was obliterated for its fame and beauty, for its status as a treasure of Ottoman and Muslim architecture.

The bridge in this sense reopened at a time when, clearly, conditions are better for Mostar and for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, but it would be difficult all the same to describe them as good. Symbolizing the general improvement, the Croatian commander who ordered the bridge bombed, Slobodan Praljak, is in The Hague awaiting trial for war crimes, along with others accused of instigating and perpetrating the Balkan slaughter of 1992 to 1995.

[snip]

And then there was the bridge itself - all 1,228 stones of it, including 140 of the original pieces retrieved from the river and put back in their original places. It stands over a narrow, rippling portion of the river, its high span, commonly likened to an arrow pointing to the sky, gleaming a bit too newly, needing a bit of the patina of age. It looks like a slightly whitened reincarnation of the old bridge, as seen on picture postcards, paintings and the beaten copper plaques available in the local tourist shops.

The Neretva River was lined on both sides by ancient stone buildings, some restored, others still in ruins. The minarets of mosques and church steeples, those twin symbols of Mostar's multiethnicity, stood on the horizon, also on both banks.

Here are some views of the old bridge:
source [my stitching]

Some Bosnian stamps featuring the Old Bridge at Mostar (from 1906):
source [my stitching]
Another picture of the old bridge:

Annual diving contests were held at the Old Bridge.
source
History of Stari Most, found at www.domovina.net

Mostar's most famous landmark became a single-arch stone bridge over the Neretva River. It was designed in 1566 by the Turkish architect Mimar Hairedin, who studied under the greatest of all Ottoman architects, Sinan. The bridge was a masterpiece of Ottoman baroque architecture, and is one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. Known as the "Old Bridge" or "Stari Most", it is the city's namesake.

[snip]

For Bosnia's Muslims, raising the "Old Bridge" is an act as deeply symbolic as its destruction. However, putting Bosnia-Herzegovina back together will take more than rebuilding a bridge. In Mostar, Croats have shown little willingness to reunite the city, remaining stubbornly separate from Muslims.

Since the war, organized crime is on the rise. The anarchy of war can provide new opportunities for criminals to thrive and profit. In Mostar men who were in and out of prison before the war now drive through the city streets in modern cars and sedans. They have little use for peace agreements or the return of law.

Mostar had a population of 130,000 before the war. The devastating fighting left approximately 60,000 people, split between Muslim and Croat. From the devastation of shelling a few short years ago, the good life is starting to re-emerge in Mostar, shops are opening with displays of Levis and Italian shirts. An ABC Sweet Shop is open, located in the old town. The situation is improving slowly as some factories reopen and start to hire people. The city's previous economy was based on textile, tobacco, food-processing and bauxite mining and all these industries have survived.

On the west side of the Neretva River, cafes, boutiques and restaurants are in abundance as well as two discos full of young people. Remarkably, in some places in Mostar it is now possible to believe there never was a war. More and more people are beginning to cross the border of hate.

The western bank of the Neretva River is the modern, predominately Croatian side of the city. During the war, after uniting to fight off the Serbs, the Muslims and Croats turned their guns on each other. The western portion of the city Croat area, was not as severely damaged as the eastern bank of the Neretva River in which Muslims predominate.

Links:

1. RealVideo links [source]:
• Reopening Stari Most - RealVideo report recorded from German ARD TV
• Reopening Stari Most - RealVideo report recorded from BBC TV
<>Reopening Stari Most - RealVideo report recorded from Euronews TV

2. Many pictures of the new Old Bridge
3. Mostar webcam
4. Re-opening ceremony program (Mostar city site)
5. big website on Mostar by John Kozlich

John Kozlich's site on Mostar contains some coverage of the re-opening of the bridge:

In a city long an emblem for the bigotry and apartheid blighting Bosnia, Milan Milesovic this week struck a small blow for decency and common sense. On Sunday evening, the ambulance driver from the Croat west side of a city divided ethnically for 10 years switched on his flashing blue lights and raced across the bridges over the Neretva river to respond to the emergency call of a sick Muslim on the other side. "I am just doing my job. It's normal," Mr Milesovic shrugged.

But in a town where the takeaway pizza joint will not deliver to the Muslims across the river, where Croats and Muslims can be identified by their different mobile phone numbers and servers, where education from kindergarten to university is strictly segregated, and where you still cannot take a city bus across the old frontline from the Bosnian war, the ambulance driver's mission of mercy was anything but normal.

Here is a photo from Mr. Kozlich's website, showing how Mostar residents attempted to save the Old Bridge from Croatian shelling:
The Old Bridge festooned with old automobile tires. Source.

A historic city clings to the hope of survival. The "Old Bridge", festooned with old automobile tires in a gallant attempt to protect it from the ravages of shell and mortar fire, stood in testimony to the most fervent hope of the trapped citizens of the shattered town of "MOSTAR" - that somehow the gap between war and peace can be bridged and life allowed to resume again.

Mr. Kozlich's site is a bit misleading about the re-construction of the Old Bridge--very few pieces of the original bridge were able to be used in the re-construction. For more on the engineering of the bridge restoration project, spend a few hours browsing the Stari Most website of General Engineering of Florence, Italy. It has wonderful detailed drawings and descriptions of all aspects of the project--and I mean all aspects. Here is part of an interview with a member of General Engineering's team:

Journalist - Will those portions be composed by the same ancient stones of the former structure ?

Mr.Romeo - No, no way… We have to understand that with war something has been definitely lost and it will not be possible to recover it. At the very beginning of this assignment everybody involved in this ambitious project was thinking and hoping to have the technical possibility to rebuild the bridge following a sort of anastilosis technique…

Journalist - what do you mean by "anastilosis technique" ?

Mr.Romeo - You perform an anastilosis reassembling when you remount single destroyed elements of a small portion of a monument in the original locations trough the help of wide and reliable documentation and by declaring the portions that underwent to these peculiar procedure in respect of the original ones. This way the integrity of the monument is preserved with its historical value, but those portions will have a lower relevance. Of course this is generally possible only if applied in small portions of the whole structure: it was not the case of the Old Bridge of course.

Journalist - Why wasn't it possible to proceed this way also for the Bridge ? was this only a matter of quantities and percentage of portion of the monument that was blown in to pieces ?

Mr.Romeo - Not exactly: it was the small quantity of recovered stones from the river: think that, counting also those stone blocks still on site next to the abutments wall, we could reposition in the original location not more than 22% of the global amount. But this was an optimistic evaluation since many of these stones were fractured in the inner portions and moreover most of the voussoir, (arch stones), were assembled in big blocks trough the ancient anchoring system. This would have required to disassemble those stones with a procedure that might have provoked further damages to the stones and the definite loss of the examples of the ancient refined assembling technique used at the time. In other words even in the case that technical issues could be faced, there were so little stone of the former bridge available, that we would have gained a new bridge with some stones of the old one inserted as spots. It was decided that this was not acceptable.

Journalist - This is really disappointing… but how is it possible that so many stones have been lost ?

Mr.Romeo - I have no precise idea… but as far as I'm concerned, I can say that trough careful examination of the video documentation of the destruction of the bridge it was clear that a large amount of the stones of the bridge were reduced to powder due to multiple direct hits of the shelling. Moreover I think that if you take a stone and let it fell down from an height of 20 meters together with other stones and over the rocks in the bottom of the river… then I presume that you might find many small fragments and a few preserved blocks…

Journalist - Therefore the bridge will be a new bridge ?

Mr.Romeo - Yes, we can call it "the new Old Bridge"

Journalist - How can this bridge have the same value and same symbolical meaning of the former one?

Mr.Romeo - It will not have the same value, nor the same symbolical meaning, and it couldn't be otherwise. The destruction of the bridge is now part of our history and it would be simply an utopia to cancel it. The new old bridge will be spanning over the Neretva and everybody will know that this is a copy of the former one: there will be different declarations devices in order to show the limit from which the new structure starts, and this will be also the way to remember tragic war events trough the observation of this bridge that will restore the global view of the monumental complex, the memory, the cultural identity and the symbol of the people. But for sure we can not, and we should not, consider it the same old bridge.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Criticism of the Post Office is not new

Issued at Project Gutenberg today: America To-day, Observations and Reflections by William Archer. Here is what Mr. Archer said about New York's postal services in 1899:

In one of the essential conveniences of modern life, New York is far behind London; but the blame lies, not with the city, but with the United States. Its postal arrangements are at best erratic, at worst miserable. Letters which would be delivered in London in three or four hours take in New York anywhere from six to sixteen hours. It was a long time before I realised and learned to allow for the slowness of the postal service. At first I used mentally to accuse my correspondents of great dilatoriness in attending to notes that called for an immediate reply. On one occasion I posted in Madison Square at 3 P.M. a letter addressed to the Lyceum Theatre, not a quarter of a mile away, suggesting an appointment for the same evening after the play. The appointment was not kept, for the letter was not delivered till the following morning! To ensure its delivery the same evening, I ought to have put a special-delivery stamp on it--price fivepence--in addition to the ordinary two-cent stamp. No doubt it is the universal employment of the telephone in American cities that leads people to put up with such defective postal arrangements.

But it is not only within city limits that the United States Post Office functions with a dignified deliberation. The ordinary time that it takes to write (say) from New York to Chicago, and receive an answer, might be considerably reduced without any acceleration of the train service. It sounds incredible, but it is, I believe, the case, that the simple and eminently time-saving device of a letter-box in the domestic front-door is practically unknown in America. I did observe one, in Boston, so small that a fair sized business letter would certainly have stuck in its throat. One evening I was sitting at dinner in a fashionable street in New York, close to Central Park, when I was startled by a distinctly burglarious noise at the window. My host smiled at my look of bewilderment, and explained that it was only the letter-carrier; and, sure enough, when the servant came into the room she picked up three or four letters from the floor. The postman was somehow able to reach the front window from the "stoop," open it, and throw in the evening's mail--a primitive arrangement, more suggestive of the English than of the American Gotham. Even the gum on the United States postage-stamps is apt to be ineffectual. When you are stamping letters in hot haste to catch the European mail, you are as likely as not to find that the head of President Grant has curled up and refuses--most uncharacteristically--to stick to its post.

Emphasis added. Once upon a time, large cities had multiple mail deliveries every day. Typical of a Brit to expect a flock of messengers to deliver his urgent missives when telephones are available.

The fee for special delivery in 1899 was 10 American cents--five times the postage for a letter. Mr. Archer mentions a postage stamp portraying President Grant. It probably was the 5 cent dark blue of the Bureau [of Engraving and Printing] issue of 1898, which paid the postage for the international letter rate. So this would be the stamp Mr. Archer used to write to his friends back in Great Britain:
United States #281: found at zillions of stamps
1898 was the year the United States Post Office changed the color of stamps to meet the requirements of the Universal Postal Union. Earlier 5 cent Grant stamps were chocolate brown.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Bush promises a more peaceful world

I see President Bush is making promises he can't possibly keep:

I want to be the "peace President." (Applause.) I want to be the President -- after four years, four more in this office, I want people to look back and say, the world is a more peaceful place. (Applause.) America is a safer country. Four more years, and America will be safer and the world will be more peaceful. (Applause.)

It will take many years to clean up the mess Mr. Bush has made; the sooner he leaves office, the better.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Girly Man gets a stamp

Source: Austria Post 
Reuters has the story:

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian fans of their famous compatriot Arnold Schwarzenegger will be able to lick the back of the California Governor when his image appears on a special edition of postage stamps at the end of this month.

The former bodybuilder and film star chose the portrait of himself that will be used on one-euro stamps to be issued in Austria on his 57th birthday, July 30, a postal service spokesman said on Friday.

Here is a link to Austria Post's page on the Schwarzenegger stamp.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Fahrenheit 911 misses the mark

Found at wood s lot: John Chuckman at Yellowtimes.org presents a distinctly Canadian [or ex-patriate American] view of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11:

The film is at its heart a thoroughly conservative document, a fact which generally has gone unnoticed except in Robert Jensen's acute review, 'A Stupid White Movie' [at Counterpunch] Worse, it explains virtually nothing about events it claims to examine.

Michael Moore's role is to make American liberals feel good about themselves without having to question the practices of a society which cast an increasingly long, cold, dark shadow over the planet. The job pays well, and Moore is becoming a wealthy man, a kind of well-kept court jester for those with occasional twinges of liberal conscience or human decency.

[snip]

Moore told the world some months back that he had found his presidential candidate in former General Wesley Clark. That announcement should have been a warning, because Clark is indistinguishable in his views from George Bush, and the general's behavior in the former Yugoslavia was arrogant, provocative, and dangerous.

Moore simply wants to be rid of Bush, and he was ready to support an opportunistic and dangerous man like Wesley Clark to do it. Now, in his movie he has assembled a pastiche of attitudes, assumptions, and interesting, but largely unenlightening, film clips hoping to elicit enough of an emotional response to be rid of Bush.

Why does Moore, and I use him to represent all of liberal America, so want to be rid of Bush that he takes what I regard as the unprincipled position of supporting someone as bad or worse?

I do not believe it is because Bush represents a danger to American values, the favorite charge of many fuzzy-thinking American liberals, because in many ways Bush accurately reflects those values. I think they are desperate to be rid of Bush because he is an embarrassment. There is something excruciatingly American about Bush, revealing some painful truths about the society he represents, much the same as was the case with President Nixon's brother and his efforts to create a fast-food empire based on Nixon-burgers or President Carter's whining, beer-swilling brother, Billy.

[snip]

The truth is that Bush is a fairly typical white, suburban, middle-aged American. He talks and thinks the way a great many Americans talk and think. He jogs and plays golf. He has a fondness for school-boy pranks, although less clever ones, similar to Michael Moore's. He unquestioningly accepts America's fairy-tale, official version of itself as God's own chosen place on the planet with liberty and justice for all - something shared by Michael Moore and most flag-waving American liberals.

[snip]

You may ask, we know Bush is a brutal, rather psychopathic man, so how can he be like so much of middle America? You see, middle America is not the harmless, gentle place it seems in Hollywood's confections. It is the place where thirty-year old couples assume they are entitled to a five-bedroom home on a sprawling lot in the suburbs with at least two lumbering vehicles in the driveway. It is the place which ignores the ugly parts of its own society, the ghettos, the broken-down schools, the lack of healthcare. It is the place where the relentless demand for still more endangers the planet's future. And it is the place that drives America to global empire.

Bush is not, as so many American liberals claim, out of step with American history. Childish slogans about taking back America or, even worse, 'Dude, Where's My Country?' are just that, childish. Bush is an awkward, unpleasant exemplar of enduring American behavior and values. Did the invasion of Iraq represent different values or attitudes than the 'Remember the Maine' invasion of Cuba? How about the invasion of Mexico, or the seizure of Hawaii, or the holocaust in Vietnam and Cambodia? Does the Patriot Act represent anything different than the Alien and Sedition laws of John Adam's day or the dark excesses of the FBI under Hoover?

[snip]

I have a problem with all the liberal whining in America over professional soldiers being killed in Iraq, actually still a small number compared to the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed both in the war and in the decade-long run-up of brutally harsh American-imposed restrictions, and it is no different for Moore's scene of a mother's tears. No, I'm not talking about the poor mother herself whose loss is real, but about the calculation of Moore's film in using the scene and about the very predictable result on American audiences. Pictures of a small number of flag-draped coffins appear to be almost the only thing fueling America's limp antiwar movement.

When I see pleas about dead American soldiers I can't help but think of all the tears shed at the Vietnam memorial for the relatively few who died helping in the work of bringing overwhelming destruction to another land, but there is never a tear shed for the millions of souls extinguished by America.

Mr. Chuckman concludes up condemning Senator Kerry:

. . . be very careful how you vote to get rid of Bush. Kerry has never so much as condemned the war. He has never condemned Bush, except by repeating official-report findings all thinking people on the planet understood a year before the official report. Kerry's view of the Middle East, frantic pandering to Israel's darkest interests, promises no end to future troubles. He is an unrepentant, unimaginative supporter of global empire.

That brings us to the real tragedy of America and the real cause of 9/11 and so many other horrors: America's swaggering readiness to play the game of global empire with all the brutality and incivility that it implies. You tell me how a confused film like Moore's, even if it contributes to toppling a confused President like Bush, adds anything to resolving America's great dilemma of insatiable greed and willingness to do terrible deeds while mouthing high-sounding ideals.

I suppose Mr. Chuckman would have us vote for Mr. Nader. Ugh. That won't be an option in Oklahoma!

Mr. Chuckman refers to Robert Jensen's piece--Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire :

I have been defending Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" from the criticism in mainstream and conservative circles that the film is leftist propaganda. Nothing could be further from the truth; there is very little left critique in the movie. In fact, it's hard to find any coherent critique in the movie at all.

The sad truth is that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a bad movie, but not for the reasons it is being attacked in the dominant culture. It's at times a racist movie. And the analysis that underlies the film's main political points is either dangerously incomplete or virtually incoherent.

Read Mr. Jensen's piece for more on the subtle racism of Fahrenheit 9/11, and the half-baked sloganeering about the war on terror, the Bush-bin Laden family connection, etc. For me, the most persuasive part of Jensen's article is this:

The claim that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a conservative movie may strike some as ludicrous. But the film endorses one of the central lies that Americans tell themselves, that the U.S. military fights for our freedom. This construction of the military as a defensive force obscures the harsh reality that the military is used to project U.S. power around the world to ensure dominance, not to defend anyone's freedom, at home or abroad.

Instead of confronting this mythology, Moore ends the film with it. He points out, accurately, the irony that those who benefit the least from the U.S. system -- the chronically poor and members of minority groups -- are the very people who sign up for the military. "They offer to give up their lives so we can be free," Moore says, and all they ask in return is that we not send them in harm's way unless it's necessary. After the Iraq War, he wonders, "Will they ever trust us again?"

It is no doubt true that many who join the military believe they will be fighting for freedom. But we must distinguish between the mythology that many internalize and may truly believe, from the reality of the role of the U.S. military. The film includes some comments by soldiers questioning that very claim, but Moore's narration implies that somehow a glorious tradition of U.S. military endeavors to protect freedom has now been sullied by the Iraq War.

The problem is not just that the Iraq War was fundamentally illegal and immoral. The whole rotten project of empire building has been illegal and immoral -- and every bit as much a Democratic as a Republican project. The millions of dead around the world -- in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia -- as a result of U.S. military actions and proxy wars don't care which U.S. party was pulling the strings and pulling the trigger when they were killed. It's true that much of the world hates Bush. It's also true that much of the world has hated every post-WWII U.S. president. And for good reasons.

It is one thing to express solidarity for people forced into the military by economic conditions. It is quite another to pander to the lies this country tells itself about the military. It is not disrespectful to those who join up to tell the truth. It is our obligation to try to prevent future wars in which people are sent to die not for freedom but for power and profit. It's hard to understand how we can do that by repeating the lies of the people who plan, and benefit from, those wars.

Fahrenheit 9/11 has not shown in my town (not surprising) so I probably won't get to see it. No great loss.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Eureka Stockade: Australian Postage Stamps

Australia Post has recently issued stamps commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade--a rebellion at the Ballarat gold mines in Victoria.
Image source: WADP Numbering System [2 images stitched together.] Click image to enlarge.

The $2.45 stamp uses an image of Peter Lalor, the man who led the diggers at the stockade. The 50c stamp features a representation of the Eureka flag, which at the time was called the flag of the Southern Cross.

The stamp to the left includes part of this painting in the background [I notice that the flag pole was shortened to make the flag fit better on the stamp]:

Gold miners swearing allegience to the 'Southern Cross' on 30 November, 1854. Painting by Charles Doudiet, a participant in the rebellion. [Ballarat Fine Art Gallery]

Some five hundred armed diggers advanced in real sober earnestness, the captains of each division making the military salute to Lalor, who now knelt down, the head uncovered, and with the right hand pointing to the standard exclaimed in a firm, measured tone: -

"WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER, AND FIGHT TO DEFEND OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES."

An universal well rounded AMEN was the determined reply; some five hundred right hands stretched towards our flag."

[quote from Raffaello Carboni's book, The Eureka Stockade. (see link at Project Gutenberg below)]

Here is a link to the Archives of the Eureka Stockade.

The State Library of Victoria has pages devoted to the Australian gold fields in general and to the Eureka Stockade in particular.

Project Gutenberg has a couple of books about the Australian gold fields:

• Read The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni for an account of the rebellion. Here are some excerpts from the beginning of the book:

  I undertake to do what an honest man should do, let it thunder or rain. He who buys this book to lull himself to sleep had better spend his money in grog. He who reads this book to smoke a pipe over it, let him provide himself with Plenty of tobacco--he will have to blow hard. A lover of truth--that's the man I want--and he will have in this book the truth, and nothing but the truth.
  
  [snip]
  
  . . . I was an actor, and therefore an eye-witness. The events I relate, I did see them pass before me. The persons I speak of, I know them face to face. The words I quote, I did hear them with my own ears. Others may know more or less than I; I mean to tell all that I know, and nothing more.
  
  Two reasons counsel me to undertake the task of publishing this work; but a third reason is at the bottom of it, as the potent lever; and they are--
  
  1st. An honourable ambition urging me to have my name remembered among the illustrious of Rome. I have, on reaching the fortieth year of my age, to publish a work at which I have been plodding the past eighteen years. An ocean of grief would overwhelm me if then I had to vindicate my character: how, under the hospitality of the British flag, I was put in the felon's dock of a British Supreme Court to be tried for high treason.
  
  2nd. I have the moral courage to show the truth of my text above, because I believe in the resurrection of life.
  
  3rd. Brave comrades in arms who fell on that disgraced Sabbath morning, December 3rd, worthy of a better fate, and most certainly of a longer remembrance, it is in my power to drag your names from an ignoble oblivion, and vindicate the unrewarded bravery of one of yourselves! He was once my mate, the bearer of our standard, the "Southern Cross." Shot down by a murderous hand, he fell and died struggling like a man in the cause of the diggers. But he was soon forgotten. That he was buried is known by the tears of a few true friends! the place of his burial is little known, and less cared for.

• A Lady's Visit To The Gold Diggings Of Australia In 1852-53 by Ellen Clacy which tells about earlier days in the gold fields--before the rebellion:

  . . . For the sake of order the Governor attempted to put a stop to the increasing desertion of the capital by proclaiming that the gold-fields were the prerogative of the Crown, and threatening gold-diggers with prosecution. It was all in vain. The glitterings of the precious metal were more attractive than the threats of the Governor were otherwise. The people laughed good-humoured at the proclamation, and only flocked in greater numbers to the auriferous spot.
  
  Government now took a wiser course, and finding it impossible to stem the torrent, determined to turn the eagerness of the multitude to some account. A licence-fee of 30s., or half an ounce of gold, per month was imposed, which, with few exceptions, has always been cheerfully paid.

  [emphasis added. The license-fee was one of the gold miners' primary grievances.]

In 1853, the miners submitted a petition to Victoria's governor, which you can read here [at the State Library of Victoria.] The governor,Charles Joseph La Trobe, argued that the license fee was not an illegal tax:

It may be well here, at once, to correct a false impression entertained and insisted upon by some, that the license Fee is a tax, and as such moreover, unjust... The term is in in no way applicable... It is a charge made upon the individual for the liberty of seeking and appropriating to his own use that which, according to Law, is the property of the public, Property from which it is but reasonable and just, that the community at large... should reap some advantage for the common good...

After June 1854, La Trobe's successor as governor, Sir Charles Hotham, insisted on rigorous enforcement of the license fee. In October 1854, when a miner was murdered and a court [made up of mining officials, apparently] discharged the arrested suspects, miners protested the unjust verdict; some form a mob that burned the hotel owned by one of the suspects. Unrest continued. Late in November, miners burned the licenses at a mass meeting.

The next day, 30 November 1854, Commissioner Robert Rede demanded to see miners' licenses:

There was a large mob assembled just at the corner by the Express store. I addressed them, and begged them not to go against the law - that nothing would grieve me more than to have recourse to violence; but as long as the license fee was the law it was my duty to maintain it, and I would do so. I then begged of them to go back to their tents and to their work... There were a great many stones thrown at me, and a good deal of abusive language. I called on them three times to disperse; they would not disperse, and I read the Riot Act. I had that with me, written on a large sheet of paper so that all the world should see, if they could not hear... When I had read the Riot Act the greater number... went away; a good many did not... There was one man most abusive and uproarious, and I went up to him myself and said, 'Have you got your license?' He said, 'No'. 'Then,' I said, 'I will arrest you'... A large number of people came around me and rescued him; there were so many I could not hold him.

[--Robert Rede, Minutes of Evidence, Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Condition of the Gold Fields, p. 309. Victoria. Legislative Council. Votes and Proceedings 1854-5, v.2. ]

This was the day that the miners gathered to swear their allegiance to the 'Southern Cross' and began to build and provision the Eureka Stockade. On Sunday, December 3, 1854, police with calvary and infantry troops attacked the stockade, killing about 30 and arresting over a hundred. Many miners had left the stockade to get supplies, thinking that the government wouldn't attack on Sunday! Later trials acquitted 13 of the suspected 'rioters.' The editor of the Ballarat times, Henry Seekamp, was convicted of seditious libel and was imprisoned for six months. The State Library of Victoria's time-line concludes in March 1855:

Report of Gold Fields Commission recommends replacement of licence fee with an export duty on gold, issuing of a £1 annual 'miner's right' constituting the miner's title deed to his claim, and the opening of Crown land to small holders. Recommendations promptly adopted by government.

Hotham resigns as Governor.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

A Little Politics and a Little Religion (no mixing, please!)

From links found at the ever-informative Eschaton:

• If the election were held today, the electoral vote totals would be:
  John Kerry . . . 312
  George Bush . . . 215
  [In other words, it ain't even close!]
• Jerry Falwell should lose his tax-exempt status [New York Times]

  
  Citing Falwell's Endorsement of Bush, Group Challenges His Tax-Exempt Status
  By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
  
  Published: July 16, 2004
  
  Hoping to send a warning to churches helping the Bush campaign turn out conservative voters, a liberal group has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service charging that an organization run by the Rev. Jerry Falwell has violated the requirements of its tax-exempt status by endorsing Mr. Bush's re-election.
  
  "For conservative people of faith, voting for principle this year means voting for the re-election of George W. Bush," Mr. Falwell wrote in the July 1 issue of his e-mail newsletter "Falwell Confidential'' and on his Web site, falwell.com. "The alternative, in my mind, is simply unthinkable. To the pro-life, pro-family, pro-traditional marriage, pro-America voters in this nation, we must determine that President Bush is the man with our interests at heart. It is that simple."

  Of course, any church or 'ministry' that endorses political candidates should lose tax-exempt status [and I mean that even if Democratic candidates are supported!] Some Christians will call this persecution--they don't even know the meaning of the word.

And here's some real persecution--what's happening to Christians in Vietnam:

• Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, general secretary of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam, remains under arrest and held in an unknown location.[from the blog Radio Free China]
• A sixth Vietnamese Mennonite reportedly has been arrested amid an apparent wave of persecution aimed at the growing house church movement. [from Mennonite Weekly Review]
• Vietnam and the Montagnards[from the blog Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist]

  On the eve of the 2004 Easter celebrations, the Montagnards organized a demonstration starting from their widespread villages, across municipalities and reaching provincial capitals in the central highlands of Vietnam, to come together and pray publicly before the buildings of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
  
  The motto was "Moak Hrue Yesus Kgu Hdip" -- Joyful Day, Christ Has Risen. According to local sources, there were 130,000. Government forces used arms causing about 400 deaths.
  
  It is difficult to confirm what really happened because the Vietnamese government impeded foreigners from going to the region.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

R.I.P. Prize Goldfish in a Bag

In Britain, animals [such as goldfish] can no longer be given as prizes at carnivals:
BBC NEWS Magazine has an obituary:

While some [goldfish] would have been cherished and lived for 20 years or more, others undoubtedly perished before they even made it to a tiny underwater castle in a bowl on the sideboard.

Their future is to be sealed by proposed laws forbidding the giving of animals as prizes.

As well as worries about the standard of their care while waiting for their new home and, indeed, once they found it, the government believes winning an animal as a prize is 'not thought to be consistent with a responsible approach to becoming an owner'.

As one commentator remarked: '[The new owner] may be good at darts or hoop-la, but that does not qualify them as fish-keepers.'

Whatever happened to goldfish eating contests?

A global intelligence failure, indeed

From the Guardian: A global intelligence failure

The principal claims justifying the invasion of Iraq - that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons and was developing nuclear weapons - were fundamentally wrong and the result of a "global intelligence failure", a Senate investigation concluded yesterday.

"We went into Iraq based on false claims," said Senator Jay Rockefeller, one of the authors of yesterday's report on the debacle, said. He added that he now regretted his vote in October 2002 to support the war.

"The fact is that the administration, at all levels ... used bad information to bolster its case for war, and we in Congress would not have authorised that war ... if we knew what we know now," Mr Rockefeller said.

Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, insisted the war was still justified on humanitarian grounds, to liberate the Iraqi people. He also argued that the intelligence failure was not solely the fault of the CIA.

"While we did not specifically address it in our report, it is clear that this group-think also extended to our allies and to the United Nations and several other nations as well, all of whom did believe the Saddam Hussein had active WMD programs," Mr Roberts said. "This was a global intelligence failure."

If you want to read them yourself, here are links to PDF versions of the report [from the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]:

• The full report on prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq
• The conclusions

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Anti-smoking postage stamps

Here is a page with images of anti-smoking postage stamps.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Controversy at Voice of America

• From Radio Netherlands: Dissenting voices
• From National Public Radio: Staffers: Voice of America Independence in Peril
• Straits Times, Singapore: Voice of America news director demoted