BartBlog

June 7, 2010

Corporatists’ real target: Teabaggers, America, you, me & Marcy Winograd

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 12:23 pm

I’m down here in Los Angeles at the LAX Motel 6, getting ready to take my two-year-old granddaughter off to Disneyland. At least that’s the plan. You never can tell with two-year-olds. According to “The Happiest Toddler on the Block,” they are basically cavemen — unpredictable! But I digress.

Anyway, this Motel 6 has wi-fi so when I checked my FaceBook page this morning, my friend Les Aaron had made the following comment: “During the time that America’s infrastructure has fallen apart and we haven’t been able to find money to fill potholes or rebuild bridges, China went from being a nation of peasants to a country of 121 modern cities with populations of over one million. In ten years, they built a city of skyscrapers in Southern China from nothing — at the same time that we were talking about leasing our roads and our ports to foreign interests. Something has to change.”

Les also stated that, “Over 1,750 out of 1,900 of WalMart’s leading suppliers are based in Asia. This is money flowing out of our country. No big deal, you say? Consider that WalMart is an entire category by itself. Its 400 billion-plus annual sales is more than our entire retailing sector combined. More than the business of Sears, Macys, Target, KMart, and…all other retailers combined!”

And then there’s all the American money that has been sucked up by Wall Street in the past 30 years. And all the American money that has disappeared down the rat-hole of “war”.

And who has benefited from all this — if not us? Lobbyists, politicians, corporatists, weapons manufacturers and a couple handfuls of nefarious faceless billionaires who you and I will never EVER meet face to face.

And who loses? You, me and even the Teabaggers who now seem to be so up in arms about everything except what really counts — outsourcing, Wall Street bailouts and War.

So here I am down in Los Angeles, staying in Inglewood, and steeling myself to spend a day in Disneyland with a two-year-old — when I drive past a campaign poster for a Democratic candidate for Congress, and the poster actually reads, “Jobs not War”. When have I EVER seen anything like that before!

Then I drive a little bit further and there’s another poster. “Homes not Banks”. Get outta town! Who IS this Marcy Winograd? And why aren’t all Americans, even Teabaggers, demanding not only that Winograd get elected but also that someone like her get elected by every Congressional district in America!

Screw warmongers. Screw Wall Street. Screw WalMart. I want my country back. “Jobs not War”!

PS: And while we are happily visiting some home truths here in LaLaLand, let’s also take a closer look at Israel’s recent violent attack on humanitarian aid ships in the Mediterranean. Israel has been trying to justify this brutal and illegal attack due to religious grounds or on the grounds of trying to protect its own safely or because it simply doesn’t like its own creation, Hamas. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-hijacking-of-the-truth-film-evidence-destroyed-1992517.html

But the real motivation of Israel’s attack and, indeed, the whole siege of Gaza itself, seems to be in order to keep things stirred up in the Middle East. Nothing else makes sense. If Israel was acting rationally, the Israel-Palestine problem would have been solved 20 years ago. However, if there is no peace in the Middle East, then there’s no excuse to spend American money on “war”. Your money. MY money. Israel appears to have been used (once again) as a cats-paw by corporatists, war lobbyists and all those money-grubbing billionaires who will NEVER be our friends or ask US over for dinner.

Winograd is right. “Jobs not War”!

PPS: Now we’re off to Disneyland. I’ll let you know how that goes.

June 6, 2010

Trouble over BART cop case?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 4:32 pm

Early on the morning of January 1, 2009, Oscar Grant was returning home in the east bay area of Northern California. He had been out celebrating the start of a new year. While traveling on the light rail system (BART = Bay Area Rapid Transit), an incident occurred at the Fruitvale station and a BART police officer started arrest proceedings. When it was over, Grant was dead of a bullet wound in the back.

Officer Johnannes Mehserle asserts that he intended to use his taser gun to subdue Grant, and mistakenly drew his pistol instead of the taser gun. When he fired the gun, it was a mistake.

The specifics of what precisely happened, who did what, and how much resistance was the suspect offering will be topics for debate during a trial that is just starting the jury selection process in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, June 2, 2010, while doing some radio station surfing we came across one replaying a tape, recorded the previous day in Oakland, of an activist throwing down the gauntlet saying that any violence resulting from an acquittal would have to rest on the consciences of the members for the jury.

Will Uncle Rushbo use this conflict to advance his policies or will he (and Bill O.) continue to focus their attention on the laws in Arizona? Will the trial, which was moved in a change of venue effort to lower public concern about the specifics of this unfolding story, deliver a verdict that sparks a new example of civil unrest?

Is there a possibility that an activist, such as the aforementioned one heard on the radio, might be accused of using a thinly disguised bit of extortion to achieve a stealth bit of jury tampering? Would that exacerbate a situation that is already dangerous?

There is a bit of graffiti in front of the South Branch of the Berkeley Public Library that proclaims: “Law Enforcement is a hate crime.” That would seem to be an extreme liberal sentiment, but it is an indication of local sentiment.

The conservative point of view will be to have police in riot gear standing by to maintain law and order in the hours after the verdict is read. This potential for high tension may come after the city of Oakland cuts costs by laying off police officers. The layoffs issue will be addressed later this month.

There are no predictions online concerning when the trial in Los Angeles may reach the verdict stage.

The folks who specialize in extreme conjecture (AKA conspiracy theories) will attribute all kinds of motivations for any delays in the trial’s time line. Would a bit of civil unrest, which gets saturation coverage on the cable TV news networks, be perceived as a way to influence the November election results if it occurs in mid or late October? Would some authorities be more pleased if an emotional response to the verdict occurs in late summer?

When one realizes that the resources for liberal theme talk shows are being stretched to their limits while the ranks of the conservative talk show hosts are massive, then one gets a limited idea of why a national debate about the particulars of this case might only serve to advance the conservative agenda.

Since the conservatives prefer to shape the public discourse on all levels for all topics, it might be best for liberals pundits to acquaint themselves with the particulars of Oscar Grant’s death now rather than having to do a crash course on it if and when things get out of hand. (Does Bob Herbert of the New York Times read my columns? It’s only fair because I read his.)

Obviously liberals have their hands full trying to cope with Sarah Palin, BP and the oil spill, Arizona’s illegal aliens, terrorists slipping into the USA for more than a vacation, and gun control issues, but when the liberal resources are spread so thin, that is exactly the kind of situation that he conservatives will perceive as a chance to exploit the liberals’ vulnerability due to a lack of resources to meet an additional challenge.

When one looks at the topic of right vs. left on the radio dial, images of Col. Houston drawing a line in the sand may come to mind.

A reference to the Alamo of course brings to mind the issue of immigration, which, in turn, brings us back to the dire predictions (from compassionate Christian conservatives?) of an impending wave of civil unrest before the elections.

A quick Google search indicated that the topic of the Oscar Grant trial had not been mentioned on this web site and so we thought the readers would rather get a hasty, quick take, column on it so that they can monitor the trial as it proceeds. Giving readers a heads-up now would be better than waiting until folks like Uncle Rushbo can, if the verdict displeases activists, skip over the particulars and cut to civil unrest itself as the topic of the day.

Traditionally the Republicans prefer to act and let the Democrats react. With that strategy in mind, it may be best for Democrats to read up on the case and the issues involved now rather than later.

Links for additional information on the Oscar Grant trial

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15205891?nclick_check=1

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15193890

and this one

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15239646

The trial has opened and one reporter says that: “A number of pretrial rulings by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry have been made in favor of the defense”

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_15230888

Meanwhile Oakland is considering laying off 200 police officers.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inoakland/detail?&entry_id=64574

Rodney King said: “Can’t we all get along?”

Now the disk jockey will play: “Wild in the Streets,” “Kung fu Fighting,” and Frankie Lane’s theme song from “High Noon,” titled “Do Not Forsake Me.” We have to go check the teletype because we just heard a four bell alert. Have a “Who saw that coming?” type week.

June 5, 2010

Is America Waking Up to Big Oil’s P.R. Routine?

cartoon-big-oil-us-wake-up

June 4, 2010

Gypsy cabbie: My windshield tour of Queens, New York

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 9:16 pm

Author’s note: The editors of Subversify Magazine (http://subversify.com/) are holding a writing competition for the best story written on the topic of either gypsies or carnies or cowboys. The winner gets chocolate. I’m there!

So here’s the story I sent them:

After attending the closing authors’ breakfast at the 2010 Book Expo last week and listening to Jon Stewart, Condoleezza Rice and John Grisham talk about their new publications, it was time to fly back home to Berkeley — loaded down with 50 pounds of free books.

Hauling 50 pounds of free books through the New York subway system to JFK airport in 90-degree heat is a daunting task. Trust me, I know. This is the third time that I’ve done it. Thank goodness for roll-away luggage but still…they obviously built those subways back before there were elevators.

To get down to below street-level with all those books, there’s a trick to it. You gotta stand at the top of the subway entrance and look pathetic until someone offers to help carry your suitcase down all those stairs. Usually it’s a young African-American, Latino or Arabic male whose mama has raised him right — to be polite and helpful to little old ladies in distress. But I digress.

Laden down with lots of stuff, I checked out of my hostel and started to head for the 28th Street station on the Lexington line — and was immediately stopped by some young Latino guy in a dark gray suit, a dark blue dress shirt and a pink silk tie. “Would you like me to drive you to the airport?” he asked.

Would I? Yeah, duh. But how much would it cost?

“Fifty-five dollars. No tip. I’ll pay the bridge toll.” Hmmm. Nah. Too expensive. But still…. It would be really nice not to have to lug around all these books.

“I’ll flip you for it,” I replied. “Do you want heads or tails?”

“Tails.” It came out heads. “I’ll do it for 50 dollars.” Heads again. “I’ll do it for 50 dollars and buy you a cup of coffee on the way.” Heads again. Sorry about that.

But I was still seriously dreading taking that two-hour ride on the subway with all those books. “Look,” I said, “how about you drive me to JFK but stop by Second Avenue on the way there. I have an errand to run.”

“Done.”

Whenever I can, I always stop by B&H Dairy on the Lower East Side, on Second Avenue between Seventh Stree and St. Marks Place. I’ve been addicted to their kosher rice pudding since 1965. B&H used to be run by a Jewish family. Then it was run by a Puerto Rican family. Now it is run by a family that appears to be Ukrainian. But B&H is still kosher — and still delicious (they also make an excellent borscht),

Anyway, Edward, my sharp-dressing Lexis-driving gypsy cabbie, waited for me outside B&H and then we were off to the airport and he started telling me about his life story.

“My grandmother was born in El Salvador and she came up here to work as a housekeeper and she really missed her family and so she moved back home. But then the people she had worked for here missed her and said that if she came back to New York, they would sponsor my mom and me to move here too. I was about one year old at that time. And now I’m a college graduate and an accountant.”

“So why did you decide to do this instead of that?”

“I like to move around.” Me too!

Then we got to talking about El Salvador. “I loved El Salvadore,” I said. “Archbishop Romero’s grave, Mayan ruins, Pollo Campero chicken….”

“Pollo Campero! You know that they’ve got one in Queens now?” Get out of town! “Want to go see it on the way to the airport?” Good grief, yes.

But then we got lost. Lost in Queens. It was so very Fran Dreiser. It was SO Ugly Betty. America Ferrera, where are you when we need you! We drove around for a whole hour.

“Sorry,” said Edward. No problem. I got my very own windshield tour of Queens. How cool is that.

Then we both got the Pollo Campero chicken dark-meat two-piece special with a side of fried plantains. The chicken was a bit dry. And then Edward got me to the airport on time. And then my plane was two hours late.

Pollo Campero. In Queens. Who would have thought.

PS: If you ever need a ride to the JFK airport, some rice pudding or a windshield tour of Queens, here’s Edward’s digits (he gave me his card): 347-414-0230. He’s not really a genuine gypsy cabbie because he’s all licensed and stuff but he is the only almost-gypsy I know — besides myself.

PPS: My son Joe is currently working on a new Indie film by director Maria Breaux and so he’s been on the road for the last few weeks, filming in Albuquerque, Austin and El Paso. And now the crew is finishing up the film in Los Angeles. And I’m going to drive down there next week and meet him and try to get a job on the set as an extra. I do a fabulous bag lady imitation.

The name of Breaux’s film is “Mother Country”. It’s a coming-of-age road trip movie and is bound to be fabulous. Here’s a blurb on it: http://www.sf360.org/features/breaux-leads-search-party-through-southwestern-country-

And while I am down in L.A., me, Ashley and two-year-old Mena are also hoping to go to Disneyland — so that I can do some investigative reporting on the teenage obesity problem in America. If you wanna investigate teenage obesity, Disneyland is definitely the place to go!

American,19, among dead on ship bound for Gaza as details of incident begin to emerge

Filed under: Uncategorized — Greg in cheeseland @ 6:38 am

Author’s note: Watch the discussion board on my Examiner page light up on this one, because anything not 100% positive about Israel brings out the religio-crazies.

Excerpt:
A 19-year-old Turkish-American citizen has been confirmed to be among the at least 9 humanitarian aid workers killed by Israeli commandos aboard a relief ship in international waters bound for Gaza.

MSNBC has identified Furkan Dogan, a U.S. born citizen who moved to Turkey after turning four, as one of the dead. According to a Turkish news agency, Dogan suffered a shot in the chest and four bullets fired into his head from close range.

Two other Americans aboard the relief aid flotilla included retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ann Wright and former U.S. Navy signalman Joe Meadors from Corpus Christi, TX. Meadors, ironically, was aboard the intelligence-gathering ship USS Liberty in 1967 when the Israeli Navy and Air Force attacked it, killing 34 U.S. Navy crew members and injuring 173.

According to Veterans Today, via Witness Gaza, all ships were thoroughly searched by local port authorities in Greece and Turkey prior to their departure. Additionally, the coalition hired an independent security firm to search the ships and certify that no weapons were on board. All passengers went through nonviolence training and were likewise searched for weapons prior to boarding. The Turkish government, a member-state of the NATO alliance, vetted all the Turkish passengers to insure that no one with ties to extremist groups boarded any of the ships.

Nilufer Cetin, a Turkish woman who was aboard the Mavi Marmara, which bore the brunt of the Israeli raid, said that the ship had “turned into a lake of blood” with clashes that were “extremely bad and brutal”. She said that after Israeli ships “harassed” the flotilla for two hours, starting around 10pm on Sunday, they returned at 4am and told the ships to turn back. “The operation started immediately with firing,” she told waiting reporters as she arrived in Istanbul carrying her baby. “First it was warning shots, but when the [ship] wouldn’t stop, these warnings turned into an attack.”

A Press TV journalist, Hassan Ghani, who was aboard the ship has this account of the ordeal:

We were some 90 miles off the Israeli coast and we were by no means within the so-called military exclusion area, which was originally 20 miles but later extended to 68 miles…Israeli commandos, each armed with at least two weapons, landed on the ship….They came down and we heard gunfire… at this stage we did not know if they were rubber bullets or live ammunition but we heard gunfire…activists used objects at hand and mostly their bare hands to defend themselves. The soldiers opened fire with their [automatic weapons] when they faced resistance from activists who held them back from approaching the cameras broadcasting the course of events live from the main deck….Passengers successfully disarmed some of the soldiers…with bare hands, when the Israelis started using live bullets causing fatalities….A man was shot in the head…and the gunfire continued for quite some time even after the activists had raised their white flags.

Rejecting Israeli media reports about the alleged use of firearms by the activists, Ghani said the only weapons touched were those seized from the Israeli soldiers. The weapons were taken and thrown overboard after bullets were removed to be preserved as evidence.

A Pakistani journalist, Talat Hussain, provides a similar account. He alleges that Israeli soldiers were shooting people in cold blood. “I witnessed myself the first Israeli assault on the ship. There was no weapon on the ship,” Hussain told Aaj news channel by phone from Jordan. “Scuffles broke out when Israelis tried to arrest people.”

“After that people threw at the Israelis whatever they got hold of. Four people were shot in the forehead in front of me. I witnessed four people dying,” said Hussain, executive director and anchor of Aaj Television. He added that he would provide video of the whole episode and further details in his television program.

Yet another account of the incident comes from Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH). Yildirim, who was on board the vessel, said some of the activists had grabbed guns off soldiers in self-defense. “Yes, we took their guns. It would be self defense even if we fired their guns,” he said, adding that people shouted to them not to use the weapons. “By this decision, our friends accepted death, and we threw all the guns we took from them into the sea.”

Yildirim said the Israeli commandos fired rubber bullets from close range before switching to live ammunition, after some activists on board had attacked them with chairs and bats. He also said an Indonesian doctor was shot in the stomach as he helped a wounded Israeli soldier. “We told the Indonesian doctor to take the soldier back. He took his patient back, and as he was going back, they shot him 5 times in the stomach,” he said.

Another report from the Telegraph UK quotes Paveen Yaqub, from Manchester, who was also on board the Mavi Marmara. She said she was later kicked and abused by two Israeli policemen. “They were kicking my legs to make me fall and mocking me in Hebrew,” she said. “They were trying to take trophy pictures with me and they liked laughing in my face. They also searched me but I won’t go into that. They took pleasure in humiliating us.”

The same report also quotes Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was also on board the Mavi Marmara. Insisting that no one on board the boat was armed, she said the attack was an act of piracy and a “massacre”. At one point, she saw a man being shot dead by an Israeli commando:

When I was on the upper deck I saw an injured person being brought to the back of the deck being tended to by a doctor and someone who is trained in first aid. He was shot in the head. As I walked up, the dinghies the Israelis used were bristling with arms. I couldn’t even count how many ships there were in the water. It was just literally bristling with ships, helicopters, gunfire. The whole thing was just horrific.

Thus far President Obama has failed to condemn the Israeli attack and some U.S. congressmen have applauded it. The paper of record, the New York Times, declined to interview any of the survivors of the incident, but managed to locate Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, and a couple of Israeli experts. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday defended Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and its decision to intercept the pro-Palestinian flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to the coastal territory.

While what really happened in this incident is still unclear due to a virtual media blackout, the eyewitness accounts seem to be consistent. Only an impartial investigation can lead to a definite conclusion. Four shots at close range to the head of a 19-year-old aid worker, however, would suggest the use of excessive force to most forensic examiners.

It will be interesting to see what sort of comments are generated on the discussion board here, because both the AP and Yahoo have been caught manipulating user comments regarding anything that is objective about the conflict in Gaza and not pro-Israel.

Read more, get links and a video clip of Cynthia McKinny ripping a CBS anchor a new one here: Orlando Independent Examiner: American,19, among dead on ship bound for Gaza as details of incident begin to emerge

BP’s Captain Tarball to the Rescue!

cartoon-capn-tarball

June 3, 2010

My front-row seat: Barbra Streisand tells all at the NYC Book Expo

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 6:43 pm

At the 2010 Book Expo in New York City recently, the keynote speaker was Barbra Streisand. “No videos, no photographs and no taping during the event please,” they told us beforehand – so I just took notes like crazy. If I didn’t get Streisand’s words exactly right or get all of the words down, it’s my fault. But I really tried. I even sat in the very front row.

“How many people do you think are at this talk?” I asked a woman sitting next to me, but she didn’t know. So I started counting all the people myself. I was up to 75 when an usher asked me what the freak I was doing. “Counting the house.”

“2,700 people.” Oh.

Streisand was here at the Expo in order to plug her new book, “My Passion for Design,” all about her experiences in building her dream house. And on the cover of the book, there’s a photo of her and her little white dog. Then, just before the lights went down, a man came out of the wings, carrying that very same little white dog. How totally cool! I just saw Streisand’s dog in the audience!

Then someone introduced Streisand. “She has spent the last ten years obsessing about getting her home just the way she wanted it,” said the person doing the introduction. “We went to her home recently and were supposed to only interview her for half an hour but we ended up staying for four and a half hours, fascinated with the craftsmanship and attention to detail that she put into her home. And all the care that she has put into her house, she has also put into her book.”

Then Gayle King came out on stage. She’s an editor and collaborator for Oprah Winfrey and was going to conduct the interview. Then Streisand walked out and got a 2,700-person standing ovation.

“Everybody knows that Barbra doesn’t like orange,” said King, “so I changed the color of my toenail polish color just for this event.” And if King is gonna call her Barbra, then so am I. “You seem to be a very private person, so why did you decide to let everyone into your home?”

“When I was directing ‘Prince of Tides,’ the script called for an old southern mansion and I needed to design that house – so I did. I did everything, including the closets. We live in our closets, don’t we? I visualized a two-story closet even, but never got to actually build that house. And then I wanted to do a movie, ‘The Normal Heart,’ and this project fell apart too. So instead of making the movie, I built a house.

“I have kept journals over the years and wanted to write an autobiography but that was hard so I wrote a book about design instead. It was easier.”

One subject that keeps coming up in the book, apparently, is the play between opposing forces. “The tension of opposites intrigues me – such as masculine wood combined with feminine roses. And also the soft complimenting the hard.”

“You had a hard childhood growing up?”

“We never had a couch. For me, couches were special. We sat on the dining room chairs. A1940s reproduction of European furniture. My brother slept on a roll-away cot. Then my mother remarried and we moved to a housing project and we finally got a couch. It was an ugly couch but I loved it.”

“So. What’s the matter with orange?” And Gayle also gently needled Barbra about not liking yellow either.

“I don’t know why I don’t like it.” Barbra doesn’t even have orange fish. They are mostly black and white. “Other people like orange. That’s fine with me. I personally just don’t like orange. It must be psychological, left over from our childhoods. When I was young, I went to a health camp because I was anemic. And we all had to dress the same – except that I had a burgundy sweater that the woman who watched me during the day knit for me. A burgundy sweater. With wooden buttons.”

Barbra really cares about detail. “I feel that the exterior of a house should match its interior.“ Good grief. She even matches the flowers in her garden with her couch.

“There’s a chapter the book called ‘The Elegant Barn’.” Then a photo of the elegant barn flashed onto a big screen on the stage. And the barn really was elegant. It had a waterwheel and everything. No, wait, that was the Mill House that had the waterwheel. There are four or five structures on the property. Streisand’s place is huge. It has a whole bunch of buildings, not just the house.

“I like photography and I also like the process of building. I took most of the photos in the book myself.”

And Barbra herself apparently had collected a lot of the furnishings found inside her home. “What is people’s reaction when you show up when you’re antiquing?”

“I don’t even notice. I’m too tied up in the search.”

Then Gayle changed the subject to Barbra’s recordings and movies. “You don’t like to look at your records or movies after you’ve done them?”

“Because there is so much work going into them. I’m so sick of a record by the time I’m through with it that I never want to hear it again!”

“If you had to pick a favorite song…”

“That’s a terrible question. Don’t ask me that. I don’t want to offend any of my songs!”

Then they got back to talking about the house. “Here’s a photo of the Mill House. The beams inside are 200 years old. It’s both a curse and a blessing to see things the way I do.” Streisand tends to be a perfectionist and to want things to be perfect – which has its good and bad aspects. “I see symmetry and that’s sometimes a curse because you can always see what is wrong. Like in that photo of the mirror – it’s 3/8 of an inch off. There are things that you have to compromise on and accept what the universe is presenting — so you have to accept what is here. But sometimes I don’t like to take no for an answer.” But she is also aware that sometimes you have to.

“One time a stone mason ripped out a little hill and replaced it with concrete blocks. But I had just returned from the north of England where there were no concrete blocks — so I had to say no.”

“She let another contractor go,” said Gayle, “because he made a storm cellar too large because he thought he was bound by the building code.”

“I have two men who work for me and if I need something done, then they do it. They have no patience with waiting. I’ve worked with these men for years. But professionals promise everything and don’t deliver.”

She is also sometimes taken advantage of. “There is that factor; it’s a reality. They will charge me more because I am Barbara Streisand.”

“But you like what you create.”

“When I was growing up, I had a hot water bottle instead of a doll and my caregiver knit her a little pink sweater. But it made me use my imagination. And I don’t regret it. It added to my success.”

And Barbra, who was raised in Brooklyn, has a fondness for the architecture of the northeast. “Architects in the western United States use Douglas fir because they work in the west. I was disappointed with western architects because they don’t know about eastern architecture.” I think she was talking about the use of mortar and bricks.

“Does your home remind you of your childhood house?”

“No. My childhood home was a $40-a-month apartment.”

Barbra also had something to say about the color red. “I do appreciate a good red — I’m not that crazy — but I prefer red in a lipstick.”

While Barbra doesn’t miss or regret anything that she has given away, she hates it when she loses things. “There was this pin that you wanted,” said Gayle, “and you tracked it down and paid four times too much for it — but don’t wear it.”

“It’s the hunt that I like. I never had a father. You can’t get a person back — but you can always get an object back.”

“Do your regret being called a perfectionist?”

“I search for excellence. And I also understand that nothing is perfect.” I thought that the interviewer was being a bit hard on poor Barbra and had a sort of pushy tone of voice, but Barbra didn’t seem to mind and talked openly and candidly about whatever subject the interviewer brought up. Listening to Barbra talking onstage before 2,700 people was less like listening to a performance and more like eavesdropping on two people conversing in private.

“When I worked with one contractor, he had his vision and I had mine. People called me difficult because a contractor said to me, ‘Can’t you just leave the plans with me and leave?’”

She had a draftsman or two on site most of the time. “Who is going to notice if a beam is off? I will. And if it’s off, it’s off. They say that men are commanding but women are demanding. I make no apologies. They say that a man is a perfectionist, while a woman is just a pain in the ass.”

She also thought that a king-sized bed is too big for two people and that a queen-sized bed is too small. “So I built a bed that was in between. And I used king-sized sheets and pulled them tighter with a string.”

“But wouldn’t that be tacky?”

“Hey, sometimes I can be tacky.”

“You? Not you!”

Then Barbra and Gayle talked about cars. “I never drive. My husband drives. I found myself going up a down-ramp on a freeway one day and realized that my mind was too occupied with other things to drive.”

“Does your husband accept that you do everything at the house?”

“But I don’t. He designed his part of the house, and I like that about him. He has a life of his own.”

“Where does your fascination with details come from?”

“Perhaps from my dad. He died when he was 35 and I was 15 months old. But he was a scholar. He taught English at a reform school. His thesis was about Shakespeare and Ibsen. So what is the DNA? I didn’t find that out until I was doing Yentl, when I discovered some of his old books.” And it surprised her that she too loves Shakespeare and Ibsen.

“I don’t like TV. My husband has a TV on his damn wall, but I hide them. And for a while I hid my awards too, thought it was too egotistical.”

And during the time that she worked on her house, for five of those years she was hoarse from shouting above the whine of power equipment. “And the house took so long to do that I just recently had to redo the den — based on a room that I saw 20 years ago. And it was a challenge to do that in just three weeks.”

“Do you have a junk drawer in your house?”

“I have several.”

Then as the interview ended and Barbra left the stage, she laughingly asked Gayle, “Can I take the flowers home?”

Since no one was allowed to take photographs, I didn’t. But almost EVERYONE in the room was snapping away surreptitiously. You could hear the cameras click and whir everywhere. So I figured I’d at least video part of the interview. My bad. So here’s my YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVQdnclhn0E. But only the sound part came out. I hope that I don’t get sued.

PS: As you may or may not remember, I had a choice of going to NYC to see Barbra or going on that ill-fated humanitarian aid flotilla to break the illegal siege of Gaza. And, due to financial constraints, I chose going to New York. But boy did I miss a hecka good story in the Mediterranean! The boat I would have sailed on got hijacked! You can’t get a better story than that.

According to an article in Global Research entitled “Terror on Aid Ship: Plan Was to Kill Activists and Deter Future Convoys,” all hell broke loose when the Israeli navy illegally seized the flotilla ships.

“An Arab member of the Israeli parliament who was on board the international flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to deter future convoys. Haneen Zoubi said Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla’s flagship, the Mavi Marmara, and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter directly above them.”

Global Research’s article also stated that, “Terrified passengers had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all unarmed. [The Knesset member also] added that within minutes of the raid beginning, three bodies had been brought to the main room on the upper deck in which she and most other passengers were confined. Two had gunshot wounds to the head, in what she suggested had been executions. Two other passengers slowly bled to death in the room after Israeli soldiers ignored messages in Hebrew she had held up at the window calling for medical help to save them. She said she saw seven other passengers seriously wounded.”

One of the dead was a United States citizen.

The article then quotes the Knesset member further: “’Israel had days to plan this military operation,’ she told a press conference in Nazareth. ‘They wanted many deaths to terrorize us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of Gaza.’”

So. I missed getting terrorized and executed? Wow.

Wonder what happened to the eight ships and the 10,000 tons of humanitarian cargo? It went on to Gaza? Yeah right. I’ll bet you anything that somebody somewhere scored a big bunch of booty on that one!

PPS: I just got the following e-mail from my friend Paul Larudee, who is currently receiving medical treatment in Greece after having been beaten within an inch of his life by Israeli commandos:

“I and my colleagues are practitioners of nonviolent resistance, in the tradition of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others. I have not struck anyone in decades, and refuse to do so. However, I also refuse to comply with illegal procedures and activities. Unfortunately, this fact was apparently lost on our captors. Their operating principle seems to be that if pain and misery fail to achieve compliance, apply more pain and misery. There’s hardly a joint in my body that was not twisted, or a bare patch of exposed skin that is not now multicolored.”

And, yes, the Israeli hijacking really WAS illegal — under the Geneva Convention (a document that American legislators signed on to originally but now pretty much chose to ignore).

****

Please vote for me ASAP so that I can get a scholarship to the Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas this July! Vote here: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/810-jane-stillwater

What a Difference Two Words Make

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:48 pm

Al-Qaeda operatives attack several states in the southern US, causing the deaths of 11 Americans outright, poisoning many others, destroying fishing, tourism and other businesses for generations to come and costing America billions of dollars. CIA spy satellites immediately identify the Al-Qaeda home base that masterminded and launched the attack, and bipartisan voices are raised in Congress and throughout the land demanding the president call in air strikes to destroy the base and send in the Marines to kill off any terrorists left alive. With the world’s support, President Obama acts that very day, ordering the military to bomb the Al-Qaeda base ‘back to the Stone Age’ and putting the Marines on alert. “I will not sit still,” says President Obama in a speech to the nation, “While organizations that plot and profit from destructive acts and cause vast devastation to our nation exist and thrive. We will take every available course of action to put them out of business permanently.”

Replace ‘Al-Qaeda’ with ‘British Petroleum’ and it makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

June 2, 2010

Oil slick within seven miles of Pensacola beaches, scientist says leak could last for years

Filed under: Uncategorized — Greg in cheeseland @ 9:45 pm

Excerpt:
According to the AP via Yahoo news, the edge of BP’s oil slick in the Gulf has moved to within seven miles of the beaches of Pensacola, Florida.

Officials said the slick sighted offshore consisted in part of “tar mats” about 500 feet by 2,000 feet in size. The wind has shifted and is now blowing the huge oil slick towards Florida.

Forecasters said the oil would probably wash up by Friday, threatening a delicate network of islands, bays and white-sand beaches that are a haven for wildlife and a major tourist destination.

Meanwhile, MSNBC reported today that BP’s seventh attempt control the leak a suffered a setback when a diamond-tipped saw was snagged in the pipe that is spewing oil. CNN, however, recently reported that the efforts to cut the pipe were successful and the next step will be placing a funnel-like cap over the pipe in order to siphon oil to tankers on the surface.

The operation, however, carries the risk that the flow of crude from the ruptured well could increase by up to 20 percent once the damaged riser is cut away. That appears to be the case, as live video feed showed a new flow of oil emerging after the remote-controlled submarine successfully cut into the well’s riser pipe. If the cap works, then most of the gushing oil can be captured until two relief wells can be completed in August. If it fails then the leak will be worse, much worse, for two more months.

BP’s approach to handling the disaster has led some to question their motives. Mike Adams, writing for Natural News poses a fundamental question: Is BP trying to cap the well or keep it flowing? According to Adams, who spoke to several people who have a work history with BP, “two of them told me they are certain that BP is not trying to stop the oil coming out of the well What they are trying to do, I was told, is save the oil well so that they can capture the oil and sell it.”

This claim stands in direct contradiction to what BP says. The company insists it is trying to stop the flow of oil from the well. But if one considers BP’s actions, they suggest that what they are really trying to do is siphon off the gushing oil so it can be pumped to a tanker ship and sold as crude.

Some scientists claim that this approach could lead to months, if not years, of oil leaking into the Gulf. Bloomberg also reports that Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said, “The worst-case scenario is Christmas time, this process is teaching us to be skeptical of deadlines.”

Another scientist who appeared on NBC’s the Today Show has an even more dire prediction. Physics professor Michio Kaku said that oil could gush from the leaking BP deepwater well for years.

“So this could be spewing oil for months. Could it last for a year?” asked Lauer.

“It could last for years, plural. Okay? If everything fails and all these different kinds of relief wells don’t work, it could be spewing stuff into the Gulf until we have dead zones, entire dead zones in the Gulf. For years,” Kaku said.

Read more, get links and a video clip here: Orlando Independent Examiner: Oil slick within seven miles of Pensacola beaches, scientist says leak could last for years

The Tattlesnake – The Bibi Tweak, the GOP Geek and the BP Leak Edition

– Does Not Compute:
If you believe the official Israeli government story regarding their boarding of those humanitarian aid ships that were bound for Gaza, Israeli commandos, thought to be among the toughest, best trained and equipped military outfits in the world, can be easily disarmed, beaten and stabbed by out-of-shape amateurs wielding metal rods. Either the Israeli commando force has turned into vanilla pudding or Netanyahu’s government is lying through its teeth regarding the events surrounding the deaths of at least nine aid workers aboard those ships. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is more believable.

– Old Soldiers (and Sailors) Never Lie, But They Do:
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, who awarded himself a military citation, ‘Intelligence Officer of the Year,’ he never received and even boasted about it in Congress and in his official bio; and who also claimed on his website he was part of Bush’s Iraq invasion when he wasn’t, just lost the race for Barack Obama’s US Senate seat in Illinois. Well, that’s if his Dem opponent, Alexi Giannoulias has the nachos to run an ad showing Kirk blabbering on about the mythical citation and then citing the fact that Kirk just made it up, and pointing our as well that Kirk was really safely in Washington when he said he was serving in Iraq. The tagline: ‘How can you trust Kirk to represent you honestly when he can’t even honestly represent himself?’ Sure, the same can be said about Democrat Richard Blumenthal in CT who inflated his military record to service in Vietnam, and you can bet the GOP will be milking that for all it’s worth. (Side Note: Vets never forget where they served or what medals or citations they received, and they don’t ‘misspeak’ when discussing them. Kirk’s full of it when he says otherwise, and so is Blumenthal, for that matter. A pox on both of these cheesy military resume-bloaters!)

– The World Turned Upside Down:
MSNBC reported this afternoon (6/2) that crude oil has hit the barrier shores of Mississippi and Alabama – you know, the ‘safe areas’ according the BP — and west Florida is next. While BP CEO Tony Hayward continues making cringing pronouncements that would befit a ditzy Monty Python character – yes, Tony, those 11 people who were killed on your Deepwater Horizon rig would no doubt like their lives back, too, as well as the tens of thousands who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods – watch for BP to declare bankruptcy soon and split up into several smaller companies. Bankruptcy means what’s left of BP will only be paying for a fraction, if any, of the cost of the clean-up and, regardless of Eric Holder’s tough prosecutor stance, there won’t be any senior BP execs heading for jail. (Most of them are in the UK and the Brits likely won’t extradite.) Uncle Sucker, that’s you and me fellow taxpayer, will get stuck with most of the tab and the generations of suffering that comes with it. I only hope our redneck friends down in the Gulf states get the hint and stop electing corrupt Big Oil-funded boobs to office; I hope the rest of us get the message that it’s time to get off the oil teat permanently and switch to renewable energy. Okay, and I want world peace and a flat belly by tomorrow, too.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

USS Liberty survivor among crewmembers of aid ships abducted by Israel

Filed under: Uncategorized — Greg in cheeseland @ 2:37 pm

Author’s note: You’ll only see this on the bartblog. I won’t touch anything that is critical of Israel on my Examiner page. All hell breaks loose for a writer in any media publication who does that. Even people in liberal talk radio have been defending Israel today.

After reading numerous reports in Greek, Italian, Turkish, Irish and other European and Middle Eastern media, I have found one consistent claim about reports of the incident from survivors. Everyone aboard the ships who have been quoted insists that Israeli commandos fired at people on the decks of the ships from helicopters before they boarded. That makes Israel’s claim that the commandos acted in self-defense ridiculous.

Israel has claimed that aid workers aboard the ships pulled knives on the commandos. Another report claims that aid workers managed to get a hold of the sidearms from two of the commandos, and the commandos opened fire to avoid a “lynching.” Yet another claims that weapons were found, but the weapons were no more dangerous than anything found in a common kitchen. This is all hog snot! Yeah right, aid workers managed to get the sidearms from highly-trained commandos armed with automatic weapons!?! Who makes this crap up?

It is clear we won’t get the truth about what happened from U.S. media. And congresspeople are already repeating these lies in defense of Israel. But I found one piece of information that I found to be truly ironic.

Here’s an article that may interest you from a blogger called “willyloman.”

It is a yet-to-be confirmed report that, ironically, one of the crew members aboard the Miva Marmara was a survivor of the USS Liberty incident. According to Greek media, 12 Americans were aboard the ship, 11 have been repatriated and one is reported to have been murdered. Israeli sources are now reporting 20 killed and up to 80 wounded. Israeli blackout of all communication currently prevents any confirmation of these numbers, however. One crew member who was forcibly abducted is former U.S. Navy signalman Joe Meadors from Corpus Christi, TX. He is a decorated navy veteran and was serving aboard the USS Liberty when it was attacked by Israel in 1967. As I’m sure you know, 34 Americans were killed and 173 were injured in that attack.

The AP reported, “Jean Meadors, wife of Joe Meadors, 63, of Corpus Christi, Texas, a Navy veteran also on board a seized ship, said Monday evening that she believed he was safe, ‘but I’d like to hear that from him.’” She said his exact status, whether under arrest, detention or otherwise, was unclear. Not only was Joe Meadors on the USS Liberty when it was attacked, but he has been helping to lead a movement to try to get an official investigation into the event for decades. Joe Meadors actually attempted to raise additional flags on the Liberty during the Israeli attack, according to eye witnesses, only to have Israeli pilots shoot them down…

“He hasn’t had much luck with the Israelis,” Jean Meadors said.

How convenient for the Israelis to have this man in their custody. What do you think his chances are of making it out of this one alive?

June 1, 2010

Update on Paul Larudee: Non-violent pacifist badly beaten by Israeli commandos

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Jane Stillwater @ 6:14 pm

San Francisco Bay Area resident Paul Larudee, who is instrumental in Berkeley’s Free Palestine Movement, was taken and detained by Israeli commando forces on Monday. Official Israeli sources are stating that their peaceful boarding parties were met with violent resistance by passengers on the ships they were boarding and that the boarding parties only used force when necessary to protect themselves.

However, I have known Paul for many years and his whole credo is one of non-violent resistance. Working with the NorCal branch of the International Solidarity Movement since approximately 1996, Paul is very much a believer in and practitioner of Gandhi’s principles of non-violence.

Given what I myself know about Paul, it seems rather odd that Paul would have been mercilessly beaten by Israeli forces. Yet I and other members of FPM just received the following e-mail stating that he was badly and, according to another e-mail I just received, “brutally” beaten:

“Hello, my name’s Lindsey, I’m living with Betty Larudee while her husband Paul is overseas with the Gaza flotilla. We just got an email from the Israeli Consulate General Andrew Parker in Jerusalem.

“He said that Paul is alive and seriously beaten. Paul told him to call us so this is the closest contact we’ve had so far. He asked us to spread the word as much as possible. Betty was the one that talked to Parker but now she is upset and doesn’t want to talk to anyone until she gets an email from the consulate tomorrow.

“Paul silently refused to follow Israeli orders so they beat him. Now he’s being held in prison. He’s in the same room with the captain of the boat. They have no windows, no telephone, nothing. He refused treatment by Israeli doctors, and only let the ship doctor give him aspirin.”

Furthermore, I am currently receiving several other reports from various European, Greek and Turkish eyewitnesses that the Israeli boarding forces hit the ground running, armed with stun guns, tear gas, metal batons, rubber bullets, etc., and with clearly violent intent.

Ye Olde Scribe Presents: The Bookkeeper

Filed under: Commentary — Ye Olde Scribe @ 3:57 pm

Cause ya NEVER know where your college degree might take ya!!!

Recently numero 3 at al Qaeda Inc was taken out by a drone. Scribe can think of no news other than yet again another 1, 2 or 3 taken out being more of a DRONE. It’s like taking out #3 roach. YAWN. At this rate yet will achieve only a lot more more number threes. And that goes for Junior or the Somewhat More Noble One. (New Scribe phrase alert!!!) Yet initial reports mentioned he was actually their bookkeeper. So what is it like to be a bookkeeper for an organization like al Qaeda? Thanks to yet another one of Scribe’s spy fly on the wall report, YOS productions presents…

Al Qaeda Bookkeeeper!!! (Or How I What They Don’t Teach You at Business School)

(more…)

“Pirates of the Mediterranean” alert: One more ship is still sailing to Gaza

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 1:30 am

Question: “When the Israel’s navy forcibly boarded an international fleet carrying humanitarian goods to Gaza last week, was this a justifiable military action or was it simply a case of hijacking on the high seas?”

Answer: “I don’t know. I’m not Captain Jack Sparrow. If you want to know about the finer points of piracy, you had better ask him. But to a mere land-lubber such as myself, it does seem to be a bit dicey that Israeli commandos attacked a humanitarian fleet in international waters, killing ten people and injuring a lot more in the process.”

Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the fact that the boarding attempt took place in international waters? Israel’s violent invasion of a ship sailing in international waters seems an awful lot like piracy to me. One would think that Israel’s navy could have at least waited until the fleet entered the territorial waters of Israel or until the fleet posed some sort of threat to Israel itself. Israel’s premature action has pretty much led the rest of the world to begin to think in terms of hijacking and piracy — and that’s just not cool.

Let’s leave hijacking to Somalia, okay?

However. We may soon have an instant replay of this whole event — wherein Israel may be getting a second chance to show that it is or is not still acting like Bluebeard or flying the Jolly Roger. An Irish cargo ship, the “Rachel Corrie,” is still steaming full speed ahead toward Gaza and it also contains humanitarian aid in its hold. So. What will the Israeli government do this time? Will it negotiate with the Rachel Corrie? Will it let the good ship Rachel Corrie go through? Or will it repeat last week’s disaster?

We’ll soon see.

But whatever happens during this instant-replay drama on the high seas coming up and whatever the government of Israel decides to do to the “Rachel Corrie,” all of this “Pirates of the Mediterranean” behavior on behalf of the Israeli government is still rather short-term stuff — and perhaps it’s time for the Israeli government to look at what is happening over the long run as well.

Perhaps it is time for the Israeli government to look at the big picture here, back off on its ill-conceived siege of Gaza and get OVER the fact that Hamas actually did win the 2007 Gaza elections fair and square. Perhaps it’s time for the Israeli government to forget about “Talk like a Pirate Day,” stop pretending that a country approximately the size of New Jersey has the same power, resources, invincibility and chutzpah as Russia or China or America — and to stop alienating all of its neighbors and more than a few of its friends.

At some point in time, Israel’s government may need to finally realize that it is NOT Johhny Depp or even Erroll Flynn, and does not have the wherewithal to indefinitely keep up all this swagger and booty-hunting — without pissing a whole bunch of people (and nations) off.

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