2009/03/12

Heads Should Roll - Obama's Staff his Worst Enemy

 
 

Heads should roll

President Obama's clumsy, smirky staff is sinking him -- and resurrecting a deflated GOP! Plus: Lay off Rush! And a Brazilian diva, up close and electric

By Camille Paglia

Mar. 11, 2009 |

Free Barack!

Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons -- his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship.

Heads should be rolling at the White House for the embarrassing series of flubs that have overshadowed President Obama's first seven weeks in office and given the scattered, demoralized Republicans a huge boost toward regrouping and resurrection. (Michelle, please use those fabulous toned arms to butt some heads!)

First it was that chaotic pig rut of a stimulus package, which let House Democrats throw a thousand crazy kitchen sinks into what should have been a focused blueprint for economic recovery. Then it was the stunt of unnerving Wall Street by sending out a shrill duo of slick geeks (Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag) as the administration's weirdly adolescent spokesmen on economics. Who could ever have confidence in that sorry pair?

And then there was the fiasco of the ham-handed White House reception for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which was evidently lacking the most basic elements of ceremony and protocol. Don't they read the "Iliad" anymore in the Ivy League? Check that out for the all-important ritual of gift giving, which has cemented alliances around the world for 5,000 years.

President Obama -- in whom I still have great hope and confidence -- has been ill-served by his advisors and staff. Yes, they have all been blindsided and overwhelmed by the crushing demands of the presidency. But I continue to believe in citizen presidents, who must learn by doing, even in a perilous age of terrorism. Though every novice administration makes blunders and bloopers, its modus operandi should not be a conspiratorial reflex cynicism.

Case in point: The orchestrated attack on radio host Rush Limbaugh, which has made the White House look like an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys. I returned from carnival in Brazil (more on that shortly) to find the Limbaugh affair in full flower. Has the administration gone mad? This entire fracas was set off by the president himself, who lowered his office by targeting a private citizen by name. Limbaugh had every right to counterattack, which he did with gusto. Why have so many Democrats abandoned the hallowed principle of free speech? Limbaugh, like our own liberal culture hero Lenny Bruce, is a professional commentator who can be as rude and crude as he wants.

Yes, I cringe when Rush plays his "Barack the Magic Negro" satire or when he gratuitously racializes the debate over Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who is a constant subject of withering scrutiny for quite different reasons on sports shows here in Philadelphia. On the other hand, I totally agree with Rush about "feminazis," whose amoral tactics and myopic worldview I as a dissident feminist had to battle for decades. As a student of radio and a longtime listener of Rush's show, I have gotten a wealth of pleasure and insight from him over the years. To attack Rush Limbaugh is to attack his audience -- and to intensify the loyalty of his fan base.

If Rush's presence looms too large for the political landscape, it's because of the total vacuity of the Republican leadership, which seems to be in a dithering funk. Rush isn't responsible for the feebleness of Republican voices or the thinness of Republican ideas. Only ignoramuses believe that Rush speaks for the Republican Party. On the contrary, Rush as a proponent of heartland conservatism has waged open warfare with the Washington party establishment for years.

And I'm sick of people impugning Rush's wealth and lifestyle, which is no different from that of another virtuoso broadcaster who hit it big -- Oprah Winfrey. Rush Limbaugh is an embodiment of the American dream: He slowly rose from obscurity to fame on the basis of his own talent and grit. Every penny Rush has earned was the result of his rapport with a vast audience who felt shut out and silenced by the liberal monopoly of major media. As a Democrat and Obama supporter, I certainly do not agree with everything Rush says or does. I was deeply upset, for example, by the sneering tone both Rush and Sean Hannity took on Inauguration Day, when partisan politics should have been set aside for a unifying celebration of American government and history. Nevertheless, I respect Rush for his independence of thought and his always provocative news analysis. He doesn't run with the elite -- he goes his own way.

President Obama should yank the reins and get his staff's noses out of slash-and-burn petty politics. His own dignity and prestige are on the line. If he wants a second term, he needs to project a calmer perspective about the eternal reality of vociferous opposition, which is built into our democratic system. Right now, the White House is starting to look like Raphael's scathing portrait of a pampered, passive Pope Leo X and his materialistic cardinals -- one of the first examples of an artist sending a secret, sardonic message to posterity. Do those shifty, beady-eyed guys needing a shave remind you of anyone? Yes, it's bare-knuckles Chicago pugilism, transplanted to Washington. The charitably well-meaning but hopelessly extravagant Leo X, by the way, managed to mishandle the birth of the Protestant Reformation, which permanently split Christianity.

Oh, the incestuous mediocrity of American politics and media -- compared to the splendors of Brazil! As a direct result of the two articles I wrote about superstar singer Daniela Mercury in Salon in June and August of last year, I was invited by the publisher Editora Abril to observe the 2009 carnival in Salvador da Bahia and write about it from an American perspective for the Brazilian magazine Bravo. Two weeks after my return, I am still trying to process the enormity of my experience in Salvador, which was staggering on every level.

As Daniela Mercury's special guest, I was generously granted amazing access to her home, dressing room, van, and the performance platform of her trio elétrico (amplified truck), where she has never permitted anyone to stand before. For someone like myself who has been studying and writing about the arts for over 40 years, this was a priceless opportunity to see a major contemporary artist in action. I doubt I will ever again witness a performance equal to the one of heroic dimensions that occurred on the fourth night of the carnival: Exhausted after two prior nights of intermittent problems with rain and electrical short circuits, Daniela went out there and exploded with fiery intensity as she sang 63 songs over six hours, with only one 15-minute break. And she was also dancing!

Here's a selection of photos of the Salvador carnival (with my captions) from Daniela's official Web site. They capture only a fraction of the immensity of the crowd, which on this beachside route of the carnival (from Farol da Barra to Ondina) surely exceeded a million. Of the striking costumes Daniela wore for each of the five nights, my favorite was the stunning white vinyl and lace Barbarella outfit, which Daniela had requested Martha Medeiros to design. What a spectacle, whose images will be burned forever in my brain: Daniela dancing in luminous white against the black sky as the trio elétrico slowly moved among the floodlit palm trees with the rippling sea glittering far below.

The ecstatic, inspired atmosphere of the Salvador carnival is well caught in this video of Daniela performing her new song, "Oyá Tê Tê," an ode to Iansä, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of wind and storm. Daniela is wearing a gold lace dress in the style of Carmen Miranda (whose international fame is often cited as the sole parallel to Daniela's among Brazilian performers), while her star guest, Margareth Menezes (whose rich lower voice can be heard), is in white. When the camera pans left, I'm visible with my Brazilian liaison, the intellectual Gunter Axt, at the rear of the platform. Standing next to us is Daniela's handsome and super-smart boyfriend, Marco Scabia.

"Oyá Tê Tê," evoking the mood and movements of a Brazilian candomblé ritual with roots in Africa, put the crowd into a delirium every time it was performed. The video cannot possibly duplicate the mammoth power of the drums pouring out from the second floor of the trio elétrico (my legs were vibrating for days!). But the eerie magic that I felt from the first moment I visited Salvador last year is manifest in this video, even in the mist hanging in the air -- which no one who was there that night actually saw.

In explaining Daniela's sense of connection with Iansä, Gunter Axt wrote this to me about the goddess: "Iansä is a woman warrior, a woman general, the synthesis of femininity and sensuality. She is the queen of all souls. It is she who can dispel the dark spirits that take to the streets when the candomblé is in recess during carnival. Iansä is the butterfly, the wind, and the lightning. Her colors are red and white. She is the fruit of the Surinam cherry. She is plenty. Iansä is a woman's pleasure but also all wars and conflicts. She is protective of gays, prostitutes, and transvestites -- those who are not protected. She is next to every woman who needs to fight and all women who express their sensuality." This is the ancient poetry of religion, without which the world would be a very barren place.

One of my strongest impressions of the carnival in Salvador was the vast sea of young people, who had come not just from all over Brazil but also from distant nations such as the U.S. and France. From the top of Daniela's trio, one saw in those glowing faces a sublime panorama of the life force, a throbbing vitalism that embodied a global humanism beyond politics. I will elaborate on my more specific reflections for Bravo magazine, but let me just say that dozens of times, as Daniela communed with the crowd or whipped past me with garments flying on her monumental chariot, I had visions of Egypt, Babylon and Rome.

The bottom line is this: The carnival in Salvador should be a major destination for young people worldwide. The great carnival in Rio de Janeiro is now a highly formal and regulated stage show, with rows of bleachers and strict police oversight. But what is happening in Salvador is pure energy unleashed, an improvisational celebration in the streets like the true source of carnival in the Roman Saturnalia. There are discreet and reassuring files of military police, but the real controls are provided by the Filhos de Gandhy, Brazilian men wearing blue and white turbans and robes in honor of the spirit of peace represented by Mahatma Gandhi. But over five nights of the carnival, I saw from my bird's-eye view very few negative incidents of any note. On the contrary, I was amazed at the concord and mutual respect of the people in the street -- especially as it pertained to beautiful and scantily clad young women, who would be mercilessly harassed at any street fair in New York.

In Salvador da Bahia, young people will find a profound multicultural experience that cannot be reproduced by any university. They will be enveloped by the thrilling spirit of music and dance, which is at the heart of Bahian culture. The main issue is finding a place to stay; cheap food and drink are easily available from the multitude of street vendors at carnival. My recommendation is that young visitors purchase an abadá (T-shirt) for one or more of the major performers so that they can revel in the streets while following a trio elétrico. But they should at least once view the long and majestic procession of trios from a high vantage point, such as the big balconies of restaurants, which charge a fee. No one who visits the carnival in Salvador will leave untransformed.

Ever since I returned to humdrum reality in Philadelphia, I've been working my way through the CDs that Daniela Mercury heaped in my welcoming arms at her lovely home. I was thrilled to finally get a copy of her epochal 1997 album, "Feijão com Arroz," which has been called a masterpiece. Of course, I now recognize many classic songs on it, but I've been obsessing over a relatively obscure one, "Vai Chover," which YouTube has in a rather blurry clip from a Brazilian TV show. The intoxicating level of musical excitement that is standard in Brazil is obvious in this video. I'm going to lobby Daniela's company (Canto da Cidade) to get the original of "Vai Chover" (a rain-filled love song) onto the Web, because it's a phenomenal example of her distinctive fusion of personal lyricism and syncopated articulation with fantastically complex percussion.

And then there's another obscure song that's blown me away: Carlinhos Brown's "Todo Canto Alegre" from Daniela's first and self-titled album (1991). Its intricate rhythms demonstrate the marriage of Brazilian samba with Caribbean reggae (descending from James Brown and funk) that produced Bahia's revolutionary axé style, which Daniela helped pioneer. Her soaring, melting, vamping vocals here are exquisite -- and at times almost spiritual. Why isn't this great song on YouTube? Hey, Daniela fans, get cracking!

Daniela Mercury will be performing at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, as the headline event of Brazil on the Beach, a three-day celebration of Brazilian music and sports on Hollywood Beach near Miami. Daniela's concert will be at the water's edge, and admission is free and open to the public. Oh, yes, I'll be there!

Camille Paglia's column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.

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Carol Thomas and Connie Canney Activist Interview

 

 
 

Walking the path of most resistance: The story of local social activists
By Rachael Anne Ryals
Herald Staff Writer

Connie Canney, 79 (right) and Carol Thomas, 74, have been social and political activists for decades, playing crucial roles in the Civil Rights Movement, Cuban humanitarian projects and local community projects in the city of Alachua.

ALACHUA -- Anyone attending an Alachua City Commission meeting will surely notice two elderly ladies sitting near the front of the room, scribbling notes throughout the meetings and then asking the Commission the hard questions at the end of the evening.

Their gray hair is usually styled in a similar manner, a short, bobbed cut, and they are about the same height and weight, often dressing in sandals and jeans.

Recently, they began wearing strips of masking tape on their shirts with the latest number of American soldiers killed in the Iraqi war written in thick, black marker.

Though many have assumed the ladies are sisters, twins even, they are not related, though they do refer to themselves as "sisters in struggle."

Connie Canney, 79, and Carol Thomas, 74, have been involved in the "struggle" for more than half a century. And while the specifics of the struggle change over the years, they explain, the basic premise is always the same: to help give a voice to those whose suffering or injustice may otherwise be ignored.

From the city of Alachua to the country of Cuba, Canney and Thomas have walked the path of most resistance, never taking the easy way out. They have been speaking out against injustice, protesting against wars and trying to make the world a better place for decades.

And they are not done yet.

Sisters in Struggle

On a warm summer day, with the breeze blowing through the kitchen windows blending with the smell of herbal tea, Canney and Thomas tell the story of their lives, a story that is intertwined with each other and many major events of the past 50 years.

The two women share a spacious house in the city of Alachua that used to be an adult care facility, but now the house is bursting with books, art and oftentimes, many people.

Bob Canney is shown in photographs on a table at Connie Canney's house. Connie said that carrying on the work that she and Bob did together is very important to her.

The women have files from over the years chronicling events, protests and court cases they have been involved in.

In fact, if a discrepancy in an incident comes up, even one that is decades old, Canney will excuse herself into a back room and come back with a news clipping, a photo or some other documentation.

"She's organized and I am not..." Thomas said.

"...but she is an organizer, you know, in a different way," Canney said, and the two laugh.

"She does things that I can not do," Canney said. "She gets people together. She has been an inspiration for my family, for my kids and for myself ever since we heard of one another. She has always had the courage and the convictions."

The women are obviously fond of each other and they both said that their lives in their older years would be different were it not for each other encouraging and continuing to stay involved with local and world issues.

After Canney's husband died and Thomas and her husband divorced, the two women found even more solace in each other's company -- especially because the two are still active in fighting for what they believe in.

In fact, in 2001, after a lifetime of being involved in political issues, the two women, in their late 60s and early 70s, decided to move to Alachua and continue their work.

The house in Alachua was meant to be a home base, a place where the two could continue their activism work, especially their humanitarian work for Cuba, they said.

"I guess that is one of the reasons we decided to come back here," Thomas said. "Because this is where it all began. We got more education in the streets than we did in the university."

Connie Canney and Carol Thomas are pictured in Gainesville selling raffle tickets for a car to raise money for a community center in the city of Alachua. The women said helping to bring the community center to Alachua was their most proud accomplishment locally.

The 60s

Canney and Thomas have always been unlikely political activists.

Even in the 1960s, the two were somewhat unique compared to the other protesters. Both were in their 30s, had children and were married to professors.

But that did not prevent them from standing up for what they believed in -- even if that meant doing time behind bars.

Both Canney and Thomas have spent time behind bars as what they call "political prisoners."

But if it were not for the jail time, then the two women may never have met.

Canney's husband Bob was a college professor at Coca Brevard Junior College before he led a teacher's strike in the 1960s.

Bob was not rehired following the strike, so a series of sit-ins were held to protest the firings of his and other teachers.

Many of those protesting were students, but Canney, a married woman with children, was also on the front lines, so close in fact that she was arrested for disrupting normal business "or something like that," she said.

Even in jail, she continued the protest.

Those arrested -- Canney, two male students and a female student -- refused to leave the jail when they were allowed to the next day.

Canney explains that her children were in school and her husband was home able to take care of them, so the four decided to continue the protest in the jail cell, refusing to leave despite the fact that the guards had unlocked the jail cell doors.

"We said we would get out when they agreed with what we had sat in front of the (college) doors for," Canney said.

Canney remembers making protest posters and hanging them on the cell walls. They stayed for a week in the unlocked cell.

"We were trying to make a point," Canney explained.

Subsequent work resulted in the firing of the president of the college who had allegedly intimidated and threatened the teachers who were thinking about joining the teacher's strike and union, Canney said.

"I think that was the only jail time I ever did," Canney said, pausing a moment, then laughing. "It may not be the last."

Thomas' jail time in the 1960s was more serious, and she ultimately served eight months.

Thomas was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville, so much so that her house became a kind of mecca for those involved in the movement.

"My house became a rally point for where people came to get on the picket lines," she said.

She helped with a variety of issues in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville, including voter registration.

"We registered enough people that we made a difference in the state election," Thomas said.

But her involvement with the Civil Rights Movement turned more weighty when Thomas, 35 years old at the time and also a mother and a wife, was arrested for contempt of court.

Jean Chalmers was involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville with Thomas and Canney, and remembers the two women as strong and fiercely dedicated.

"During the Civil Rights Movement, they were right out on the front lines and had more courage then the rest of us," Chalmers said. "I think they were willing to put their lives in the line."

One of Thomas' arrests stemmed from a pamphlet called "Black Voices" that Thomas and a friend started.

One pamphlet in particular wrote that the Grand Jury in Alachua County was biased and racist. Thomas and a man named Irvin "Jack" Dawkins were distributing the pamphlet around the courthouse square at the same time the named Grand Jury was meeting to discuss a case involving the alleged sexual mistreatment of black women at the county jail.

At the time, Thomas explained, there were only male wardens for the segregated black women inmates, and allegations of sexual mistreatment were brought to light by Dawkins and Thomas, both of whom were called to testify to the very Grand Jury they were calling racist.

Thomas remembers being a little shocked when she was arrested for contempt of court for distributing the pamphlet.

Chalmers took care of Thomas' children while she was in jail.

"I don't think they put themselves first at all," Chalmers said. "They put society and their country first and they come second. They are willing to not be comfortable."

And it was devotion such as that which Chalmers said was such an important part of the movement.

Thanks to Thomas and Dawkins, the black women in the jail were integrated and received female wardens instead of the male ones who had been allegedly sexually abusing the women.

Even now, more than 50 years later, Thomas' eyes shine clear with pride as she tells the story, clouding only when she speaks softly of her time in solitary confinement.

And it was while serving her time in jail that Thomas wrote Canney's husband Bob, who was the chair of the ACLU at the time, asking for help getting out of jail.

That was the first that Thomas and Canney ever heard of each other but it would not be the last.

Cuba

Canney and Thomas both left Florida in the late 1960s -- neither one by choice.

Canney's husband was forced to leave the state as part of his sentence for an arrest that occurred for cursing during a protest in St. Petersburg, an arrest that would set Connie Canney on a lifelong quest against police wrongdoing and social injustice.

Thomas left because she was afraid that she would be locked up for contempt of court -- again.

The two women spent time in different states, fighting for different issues.

Thomas did work for the National Tenant's Union and for the Civil Rights Movement, while Thomas did work for many social issues and the Green Party.

But due to connections with the same groups of people and organizations, the two woman stayed in touch.

Part of the connection that kept the two women together was their shared passion for helping the Cuban people.

Even though they were living in different states, the two worked on a common cause, to send humanitarian aid to Cubans.

Each woman was involved in a group dedicated to changing policy issues, collecting supplies and writing a newsletter about Cuba.

"Both groups became like sister groups," Canney said.

And Cuba was the reason that the two women came back to Florida.

The supplies that the women collected over the years were just as important as the work they did to try to change U.S. policy toward Cuba, such as trying to get the travel ban and trade embargo lifted, they said.

Some of the supplies sent helped to save lives because the U.S. embargo against Cuba prevents many items from being shipped to the country, Thomas said.

Thomas worked in a hospital and remembers collecting anything she could to send to Cuba.

Sometimes the smallest items in the school buses full of supplies were the most important.

Thomas knows of someone's wife who died waiting for a simple medical device that is easy to get elsewhere in the world.

"She died just waiting for that piece of tubing," Thomas said, sounding like she can't believe such a thing could happen.

Collecting the supplies was the easy part; getting the supplies to Cuba was another thing entirely, the women said.

After collecting the school bus full of supplies, they would pass the job on to friends who would do what it took to get the items to Cuba.

One time, a bus of supplies was trying to cross the Mexican border in Texas, when their friends had to get creative, the women said.

"The government said, "You can't take those buses across," so the people got off the buses and made a chain across the bridge and carried it by hand," Thomas said.

Thomas did so much work to help the Cuban people that she had a day named in her honor in Cambridge, Mass.

"We tonight thank her for her many contributions in creating awareness in all of us of the never-ending need for social and economic justice for all women and men throughout the world," the proclamation declaring Nov. 16, 1998 as Carol Thomas Day reads.

Inspiring Many Generations

David Hoch, 63, remembers giving a speech on the Plaza of Americas at the University of Florida in the 1960s.

The speech was a political, blunt speech about the war and other issues of the day, Hoch said.

He remembers Canney approaching him after the speech, smiling and laughing, telling him that he had to meet her husband, also a political activist.

Hoch was a student, just 24 or 25 years old, and Canney was in her 30s, her husband Bob was a teaching assistant professor at UF.

The Canneys became important role models in Hoch's life.

"I think Bob was definitely a mentor to me as to how to be organized," Hoch said. "I was a cowardly wimp. He was fearless."

Hoch has since gone to law school and has retired from teaching at UF, but he is still active in political and environmental issues.

Part of the reason he is still active today is from the experience he gained at the Canney's home, a place that activists of the day gathered, Hoch said, still amazed at their generosity.

"They were far from rich and they were trying to feed all the kids that came in," Hoch said. "They would let children stay with them -- they must have been dead broke."

Canney was a "fierce and bright" woman, Hoch said, who had a "generosity of spirit to all sorts of people that came to her house," but she was not afraid to tell someone to leave if they showed up too inebriated.

Even in those atypical times, when everyone from professors and students who shared political beliefs would co-mingle, Hoch said he knew that Canney was different.

"Her intensity and her drive and level of commitment is quite remarkable," he said.

And the fact that she is still active today does not come as surprise to Hoch.

"I would have been stunned if she stopped," he said.

Chalmers said that the women and all others involved in the movements of the 1960s influenced their children whose lives were directly changed as a result.

"Their children are still out there, supporting the causes," Chalmers said.

Gladys Perkins, whose mother Lucille worked in the Civil Rights Movement with Thomas and Canney, said her life would be different without the two women's involvement.

"These ladies have inspired me so," Perkins said.

Perkins was just a child when her mother and the women were involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but Perkins remembers meetings held in their home, with people crowded in the kitchen, eating and planning events.

Lucille Perkins' and Thomas' children would play together, an experience that was significant in shaping Gladys Perkins' view on the world.

"I did not see color when I saw people," Perkins said. "I think had I not had that experience, my life would have been a little different."

Even today, Thomas is an integral part of the Perkins' life, helping with her brother Alonzo Victor Perkins' campaign for property appraiser, and also by just coming by the house and sharing stories.

"I wanted the kids to be inspired by Carol," Perkins said. "You pass on the history. You may not see the signs immediately, but they will come."

Not All Protests and Arrests

When the smoke settles from Canney and Thomas' activism, their life's work really boils down to making people's lives and their communities better, they said.

And in the city of Alachua, while the women said they are not always well received, they have accomplished many community improvements.

The one they are both most proud of is helping to bring a community center to the city.

They helped start a group called NUBA -- Neighborhoods United for a Better Alachua -- which raised money through yard sales, car raffles and more to help turn a dilapidated building into a community center.

When asked what they are most proud of accomplishing locally, the community center is the quick answer from both women.

"For me, I am going to say the community center," Thomas said.

Canney adds, almost at the same time: "I was going to say the same thing. That's the most concrete, the most visible."

Other local accomplishments of the women include helping to organize the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the city.

The free event, which brought more than 500 people from around the local neighborhoods, was a beautiful event, the women said, with King's speeches playing on a loudspeaker, a barbecue lunch and games for children.

"People said they had not seen anything like it for 20-25 years," Carol said.

Future plans of the women to help unite the community include starting a community radio station.

The women said they also would like to have a forum and invite people to speak on government issues and share with the public how the government works.

That's because a well informed citizen is more likely to feel empowered and participate in the government process, Thomas said.

"I know that it does make a difference being at meetings," Canney said.

But making a difference, like during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s, does not come without resistance.

The two women may seem tame at first glance, but they are quick-witted and sharp tonged, and oftentimes the city of Alachua bears the blunt of their criticism.

From public records to accountability of funds, the women are not shy in demanding the city stay accountable.

And that, along with the fact that Canney's son, Michael, has filed several lawsuits with Charles Grapski against the city, has led to some conflicts.

In fact, when The Herald asked Alachua Mayor Jean Calderwood to be interviewed about how Canney and Thomas have contributed to the city, an e-mail with news articles about the various lawsuits and other controversial issues was sent to The Herald from City Manager Clovis Watson Jr. on behalf of Calderwood.

A handwritten note on the e-mailed pages read: "The Grapski lawsuits have cost the citizens thousands of dollars."

But Chalmers said that friction comes with the territory and that Thomas and Canney are highly intelligent and are used to standing up for what they believe in.

"You have to have people on the fringes...to keep a moderate society," she said.

Looking Back While Moving Forward

At a time in their lives when many people are winding down, relaxing and enjoying the ability to do nothing, Canney and Thomas are still working as hard as ever.

"I keep telling Carol you have to slow up," Perkins said.

Their activism is something that the women say is the equivalent of having a full-time job.

"This is not something you start out thinking about doing," Thomas said. "It chooses you."

Hoch, though not surprised that they are still active, is nonetheless impressed.

"I am 18 years younger than Connie, and I can't keep up with her," he said.

After a lifetime of work, the women said they still feel like activism makes a difference.

"Any big demonstration -- even little ones are encouraging," Canney said. "I feel good. I mean I can go to Gainesville and stand on the corner with three or four people and it feels good -- you feel good when you are standing there and you are standing up for something."

Some days, though, the women said they feel like they have not accomplished anything, but that usually passes quickly and they go back to work.

Seeing young people at demonstrations -- Canney even took her granddaughter and friends to an anti-war protest -- is encouraging, the women said.

Canney said she knows she has influenced her family and others to stand up for what they believe in instead of just watching the news and getting depressed.

Thomas said she has come to terms with what she can and can't accomplish.

"I have lots of projects in my head, and I want to see them come to fruition," she said. "Now I know that I won't live long enough to do that."

She said that fact used to depress her, but she now knows that what she and Canney have accomplished is important.

"I am helping to leave something behind that is positive, and I know that we made a difference in a few people's lives," she said.

The women hope that people start to think more critically and pay more attention to what is really going on in the world instead of being distracted by television, video games and iPods.

"I don't know if people have come to the point where their vision is so narrow and their lives so wrought with consumption, that is what they think life is about," Thomas said. "I think people are misinformed and mis-educated. I don't think people are stupid or anything like that."

Thomas said that when she was registering black voters back in the 1960s, she never thought that a black man would be president in her lifetime. She said she is excited about Barack Obama's presidential nomination but said she thinks that a lot of issues concerning blacks and the American power and political systems in general still need to be addressed.

For now, she is cautiously optimistic that the change Obama speaks of will actually happen.

"At his time, for the people of this country, for the everyday people who do all the work and all the suffering, we desperately need a change but I am afraid that it will all be more of the same," Thomas said.

Canney, looking at newspaper clippings from the 1960s of Thomas, comments on how lovely she looked in the photo, with a tidy haircut and a smile on her young face.

Holding up the faded clipping, Canney asks rhetorically why would anyone be afraid of her?

Then, with a chuckle, Canney answers her own question:

"Now I know why," she said. "You were dangerous -- you made people think."

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UN experts to investigate secret U.S. jails

 
 
UN experts to investigate secret U.S. jails
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-11 08:14:22   Print

    GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Two UN human rights experts said on Tuesday that they would conduct a global investigation of secret detention centers used by the United States and other countries in their counter-terrorism efforts.

    The yearlong investigation is aimed not only to clarify facts, but also to ensure that such secret jails would not be used in the future, according to Manfred Nowak, UN envoy for torture, and Martin Scheinin, UN envoy for human rights and counter-terrorism.

    Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, the two experts described secret jails as "one of the most horrendous practices" adopted by intelligence services.

    There was "credible" evidence that the United States had transferred terror suspects for interrogation at secret detention centers in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia, they said.

    In many cases states receiving detainees had "reportedly engaged in torture and other forms of ill-treatment," they said.

    Scheinin welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but he said scrutiny of the U.S. counter-terrorism policy would not be relaxed.

    "We will not let the United States off the hook simply because of the change in administration," he said.

    He also stressed those investigations of abuses at the Guantanamo Bay prison should continue until everything was revealed.

Editor: Xiong Tong
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Rachel Maddow's Life and Career

 

Rachel Maddow's Life and Career

By Rebecca Traister

This article appeared in the August 18, 2008 edition of The Nation.

July 30, 2008

 
Rachel Maddow reports from the MSNBC newsroom in New York City, January 3. VIRGINIA SHERWOOD/NBC NEWSWIRE VIA AP IMAGES

VIRGINIA SHERWOOD/NBC NEWSWIRE VIA AP IMAGES
Rachel Maddow reports from the MSNBC newsroom in New York City, January 3.

In a year bursting with memorable moments in televised political punditry, the first may have come on January 8, when MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow explained one of the quick-spreading theories behind Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire, a surprise win that had knocked many of Maddow's on-air colleagues on their asses.

"You want to know who they're blaming for women voters breaking for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama?" a delighted Maddow asked co-panelist Pat Buchanan and host Chris Matthews, her eyes flashing. "They're blaming Chris Matthews! People are citing specifically Chris...not only for his own views but also as a symbol of what the mainstream media has done to Hillary Clinton."

Matthews sputtered dismissively, but Maddow wasn't done yet. "People feel the media is piling on Hillary Clinton," she said, "and they're coming to her defense with their votes." For Matthews, who'd been enjoying near rapturous pleasure over the presumptive early-season thumping of his personal hobgoblin, there could not have been worse news than that his own commentary might have paved the way for Clinton's triumph. Yet here was just this headline, delivered by Maddow, looking like Sylvester the Cat, practically licking yellow feathers from the corners of her mouth.

"I didn't mean it in a mean way at all," says Maddow over breakfast on a summer day many months and many MSNBC promotions away from that indelible January night. "But I knew that it was just going to blow his mind."

Matthews is far from the first talking head to get this treatment. Long before this primary season, clips of Maddow, an Air America host often invited on cable news shows as a ballsy gremlin of the left, zipped around the Internet. Her specialty was making Tucker Carlson's head explode, or getting under Buchanan's skin until all he could do was gibber at her about socialism. But presidential election cycles provide the hot klieg lights under which character actors mature into media leading ladies, and at 35, with fewer than five years of national broadcast experience under her belt, Rachel Maddow is the explosive star of the season. She's gone from being a popular guest analyst on MSNBC to an exclusive commentator to a regular guest host for the network's prize pig, Countdown With Keith Olbermann. Now there is increasing clang and clamor over the possibility that she will get her own show on MSNBC.

What's remarkable about Maddow's ascension is not its velocity--Hurricane Katrina made Anderson Cooper in less than a week--but the shifts in media it may demarcate. Maddow is one of the few left-liberal women to bust open the world of TV punditry, which has made icons of right-wing commentators like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Unlike her beautiful, bilious conservative female counterparts or the cocksure boys-on-the-bus analysts, however, Maddow didn't get here by bluster and bravado but with a combination of crisp thinking and galumphing good cheer. Remarkably, this season's discovery isn't a glossy matinee idol or a smooth-talking partisan hack but a PhD Rhodes scholar lesbian policy wonk who started as a prison AIDS activist.

All of which raises a crucial question: does Maddow's unlikely success, reliant on her ability to defy cliché and categorization at every turn, signal a move in punditry away from the thuggish and the angry and toward the lucid and sophisticated? Or has her powerful charisma and canny career management allowed her to break the rules--without actually breaking a mold?

When we meet, Maddow is halfway through an eight-night stand filling in for a vacationing Olbermann on Countdown, and she is vibrating with energy from the previous evening. She believes she has three distinct responsibilities when subbing: not messing anything up for the show's permanent stewards, keeping Olbermann's ratings high and just being Rachel Maddow. "Trying to do it as if I'm Keith isn't the best way to go," she explains.

Maddow fulfilled all three responsibilities in her July stint, showcasing her obvious facility with the medium while putting her own stamp on the program. Nonetheless, she still dwells on her anxieties about the mechanics of hosting--when to look at the camera, when to turn to the script--which she says Olbermann has tutored her on. "It's like rocket science, honestly," she says. "And I feel like I've got a learning curve that's like the Matterhorn! Holy mackerel!"

Of course, Olbermann recently told the Kansas City Star that his protégée mastered the technical stuff in about ten minutes, and that on the first night she stepped in for him, she didn't make a single teleprompter mistake, while he averages four or five a night. But Maddow's signature mixture of self-deprecation and gusto, her holy mackerel-ness, is as good a place as any to start thinking about her singular success. Everything about her radiates competence and a deft, bright careerism. She wants to succeed, makes no bones about campaigning for her own television show and yet evinces a regular-person charm and self-doubt that ensures you'll never mistake her ambition for bloodthirst or bullying.

Unlike her Air America founding classmates Janeane Garofalo and Al Franken, Maddow is not a professional comedian. Still, it's clear that she finds many of the characters lumbering across the tableau of American politics a total hoot. She finds her own story pretty hilarious, too. Asked if her television career is the culmination of a plotted path, Maddow laughs. "You mean when I started working on AIDS in prisons, was this where I thought it would end up? Yeah. This is pretty much it. Phase forty-seven of my master plan."

Maddow grew up in the Bay Area; she came out just before college in 1990 and became an AIDS activist at the epicenter of the epidemic. She earned a degree in public policy from Stanford before beginning work with ACT UP and the AIDS Legal Referral Panel. But Maddow had trouble breaking into treatment activism, which was then the rock-star world of AIDS policy. "It was boys' land," she says. "I knew like two women total who were doing treatment activism. And I didn't totally get it. I'm not like Barbie--'Math is hard!'--but it was a techie world, and I didn't feel like I could be all that helpful."

What she discovered instead was the nexus of the radical prison reform movement of the '70s and modern AIDS activism. It was an area where Maddow felt progress--like allowing secure hospices to take dying prisoners--was possible. "Dying behind bars?" she says fourteen years later. "Wicked expensive. And wicked stupid. And also mean. So let's make the hospices get what they want and also do the right thing!"

In 1995 Maddow traveled as a Rhodes scholar to Oxford, where she began a doctorate in political science, focusing on the intersection of the AIDS and prison movements. She moved back to the United States to finish her dissertation, crashing with friends in Western Massachusetts. "I wanted to live somewhere where I'd be unhappy," she explains. "And I have no interest in New England, hate winter, don't like the country, not fond of animals." More than a decade later, Maddow still divides her time between her home in Northampton, Massachusetts, and an apartment in Greenwich Village, both of which she shares with her girlfriend, artist Susan Mikula. The couple have been together for almost ten years, and Maddow calls their relationship "my proudest accomplishment."

After defending her dissertation, Maddow picked up work on AIDS in prison again, as well as a series of odd jobs, from cleaning buckets at a coffee bean factory to being a handyman who didn't know how to fix anything. As part of her patchwork career, she attended an open audition to replace the "news girl" at the local radio station. She got the job and took a shine to the airwaves. When Air America launched in 2004, Maddow lobbied the network to bring her aboard. It did, hiring her to co-host Unfiltered with Chuck D and Lizz Winstead. When the show was canceled a year later, Maddow got her own two-hour weekday slot. "They had no business hiring me," Maddow says of the flier Air America took on her. "As it turned out, it worked out for them. I mean, I hope it did. I hope they're happy!"

Maddow is one of the only original Air Americans to be left standing after the company's rocky four-and-a-half-year history, and her mainstream success is an unqualified victory for the network. If she got plucked away by grabby television hands, it would be a tough loss. "We view her as a homegrown talent," says Air America chairman Charles Kireker, who has run the network since February. "We hope and expect to have her continue hosting a radio show on Air America for a long time."

In an e-mail, Maddow confirms her desire to host both a TV and a radio program: "If O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck can do that, so can I." Still, Kireker has reason to be nervous. Calling from the Netroots convention in Austin, he'd just come from a panel during which mention of a still-imaginary Maddow TV show prompted an eruption of applause. "We've seen the potential for greatness in Rachel for years," says Kireker. "What's so remarkable is that now it's coming so quickly. This election cycle has propelled it forward in a meteoric fashion."

No kidding. Love is too weak a word to describe how some people feel about Rachel Maddow. They lurve her, loave her, luff her. New York magazine's online Intelligencer column recently ran an item headlined Why We're Gay for Rachel Maddow, and the blogosphere is dotted with posts like "I'm totally gay for Rachel Maddow." The "gay for Rachel" meme appears to transcend gender and sexuality. Women, men, straight and not straight: they're all gay for her. In a year in which we have decided to become postracial and postgender, Maddow may embody a media in which adoring fandom is postgay.

That's appropriate, since part of the hypnotic hold Maddow has on her audience is that while she is one of the first fully forged stars of the "liberal media," her commentary is, in a funny way, also postpartisan. During an incendiary primary season, Maddow maintained an almost maddening equilibrium, expressing dismay and appreciation for just about every candidate. She was very hard on Clinton; her face still hardens when she talks about the 3 am red phone ad, which she calls "an abomination," and Clinton's war vote, which she says is "unforgivable." But Maddow also finds herself "frequently underwhelmed" by Obama. "He got it right in opposing the war," she says, "but his war policy stuff now is bullshit. It's total bullshit, and I've never been impressed by it. One or two brigades a month? You want your son to be in the last brigade?"

Contrary to widely held opinion, Maddow did not endorse a candidate in the primary. "I have never and still don't think of myself as an Obama supporter, either professionally or actually," says Maddow, adding that she feels "liberated by having a professional role in which it's probably better for me not to take sides."

"She is a civics geek," says Vanessa Silverton-Peel, executive producer of The Rachel Maddow Show. "She wants to talk about AIDS in prison and the Constitution and the war in Iraq. Policy is her main focus. Not winning elections."

On radio, Maddow starts every day with war news. She focuses hard on policy and on the politics of the absurd. "I'm fascinated by the evil child actor twins that run Poland," she says, as well as inflation in Zimbabwe ("How many bails of hundred-dollar bills does it take to buy bread today in Zimbabwe?"). She's obsessed with the Iraqi national soccer team, librarians and cocktail mixology; she once said that she'd like to "professionally bully people about what they drink." Then there are her specialties: foreign policy, the GI Bill, veterans groups. "That's the most satisfying thing about being able to do my own story selection," she says. "You get to pick that stuff. And whoever is President or in control in Congress is not going to affect that."

It's ironic that Maddow, perhaps Air America's most successful product, has traveled through the looking glass of partisan journalism and come out the other side an electoral agnostic, a liberal in the purest, almost mineral sense of the word. She loves the country, loves the Constitution and loves what is moving about politics. A worldview shaped by these concerns, one that maintains a well-manicured distance from electoral Sturm und Drang, could be a powerful asset for Maddow and the rest of the left-leaning media, an inoculation against future tune-out should they get their wish--an Obama administration that could rob them of their fury-fueled audiences.

Maddow, who has not owned a TV since 1990, tries to limit her exposure to online and print criticism of herself. If and when she lands her own berth, and with it a nightly viewership unused to seeing a brainy lesbian with rock-solid expertise on military policy or the IAVA, that will become more difficult. She already bristles slightly when talking about how she gets all the girl questions. "I love the idea that I am the voice of woman," she says, gesturing at her T-shirt, baggy jeans and Red Sox cap. "Look at me. It's like: really? The one woman in the room is really mannish." In real life, as advertised on her website, Maddow dresses "like a first-grader" and hypothesizes that her mild androgyny might have greased her infiltration of boyworld punditry. "I look like a dude," she says. Of course, for her television gigs, Maddow gets coiffed and painted and dressed up in what she calls "lady clothes" to fit a more traditional bill, a process she says she used to "resist and get angsty about," but to which she has now surrendered.

When I ask whether some of her signature habits--the fascination with the evil twin Polish dictators, the obsession with the nuts and bolts of foreign policy--will go the way of her chunky glasses and naked lips, she balks. "The only reason I get these opportunities is because of my sensibility," she says. "I'm not being invited to do these things because of my looks or my facility with language. What they're after is the thing you're saying I have to trade off."

She continues, "My instinct sometimes is to trade it off. Like, 'Oh, I'm in the big leagues now so I better dial it back. But they don't want it dialed back. They are booking me or asking me to host because they like what they see."

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Chas Freeman Resigns from National Intelligence Council

Chas Freeman Out: Intel Chair Withdraws

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AP/The Huffington Post   |   March 10, 2009 04:44 PM

 
Freeman

WASHINGTON -- A former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia resigned Tuesday from his new post as chairman of the National Intelligence Council following congressional criticism for comments about the Israeli government and alleged ties to foreign governments.

Charles Freeman's resignation came just hours after National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said at a Senate hearing that he was standing behind his appointment of Freeman as chairman of the council, which analyzes national security issues. Freeman had not yet begun his work as chairman, and Blair said he accepted the resignation "with regret."

The council draws information and analysis from all U.S. intelligence agencies to produce national intelligence estimates. NIE's are the intelligence agencies' most comprehensive statements and are meant to be unvarnished and apolitical.

"I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office," Freeman wrote in a posting on the Web site for the magazine Foreign Policy.

"The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country," he wrote.

Freeman has aggressively criticized the Israeli government, the war in Iraq and the war on terror. In the last two weeks almost three dozen lawmakers, primarily Republicans, have questioned his ability to be objective in his analysis.

Freeman's financial, personal and business ties with the governments of China and Saudi Arabia have also been called into account. He was president of the Middle East Policy Council, which received some funding from the Saudi government, and he is on the international board of advisers to a Chinese-government owned oil company.

The congressional complaints resulted in an inspector general's investigation into Freeman's ties to the Saudi government.

Story continues below
 

On Monday, all seven Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Blair expressing concerns about Freeman's suitability for the job. They joined more than a dozen members of the House who over the last two weeks have sent similar letters and requested the inspector general's investigation.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., warned Blair at a hearing Tuesday that the Freeman controversy would not be going away anytime soon. Blair stood firm, saying Freeman's strong opinions would be valuable on the council.

"I think I can do a better job if I am getting strong analytical viewpoints than if I am getting precooked pablum," Blair told the committee.

Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., one of Freeman's chief critics, said Tuesday that Freeman's resignation "preserved the impartiality of U.S. intelligence."

"We learned from eight years of the Bush administration that intelligence cannot be cherry-picked. It cannot be colored by opinion or even the appearance of conflict," Israel said.

Freeman, in his online statement, criticized as dishonorable and deceitful the tactics of the "Israel lobby" he said aims to control the policy process by vetoing the appointment of people "who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors."

EARLIER:

The office of Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has released a statement announcing that Chas Freeman will not be National Intelligence Council Chairman:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman's decision with regret.

Foreign Policy magazine's Laura Rozen has reprinted a long email that Freeman sent out explaining his decision to withdraw, which he blames mostly on the increasingly aggressive tactics of his critics. Here's a taste:

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.


There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government - in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

Earlier on Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) summoned the ambassador to a chat with her fellow Senators to assuage their concerns.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has taken credit for Freeman's withdrawal:

"Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top and went beyond anything I have seen from any administration official," he said in a statement. "I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing."

Update: Freeman denies that Schumer had any role in his withdrawal in an email to Foreign Policy late Tuesday.

    WASHINGTON -- A former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia resigned Tuesday from his new post as chairman of the National Intelligence Council following congressional criticism for comments about the Isra...
    WASHINGTON -- A former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia resigned Tuesday from his new post as chairman of the National Intelligence Council following congressional criticism for comments about the Isra...
     

     

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    2009/03/11

    Rachel Maddow Validates Bin Laden as the 9/11 Master-mind

    It's very disappointing to see Rachel Maddow swallow the Bin Laden myth hook, line and sinker. This is her worst "on-air" moment yet. If you parse Brzezinsky's words carefully, he stops short of personally agreeing that Bin Laden is the 9/11 boogey-man. But Rachel laps it up. (...or has been told to.)
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    The Peace Movement Seeks 9/11 Truth

    Robin Hordon talks to 9/11 activists about the need link the 9/11 message to the ultimate goal of PEACE that is shared by 9/11 Truth activists and universally embraced by the anti-war movement groups ...and others who are just plain sick of paying for a war while the economy tanks. Robin Hordon's Website is well worth exploring. http://www.robinhordon.tk/
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    2009/03/10

    Global Warming on Hold?

     

    Global Warming On Hold March 6, 2009

    Posted by honestclimate in Global Cooling.
    Tags: ,
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    Global Warming On Hold

    From ICECAP

    By Michael Reilly, Discovery News

    For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful. But climate is known to be variable—a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.

    Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.

    For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful. But climate is known to be variable—a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.

    Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat. For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful.

    But climate is known to be variable—a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades. Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.

    "This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn't have one."

    Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.

    How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat, even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.

    The discrepancy gets to the heart of one of the toughest problems in climate science—identifying the difference between natural variability (like the occasional March snowstorm) from human-induced change.

    But just what's causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths. Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the sun's energy than usual back out into space.

    Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years. But he warned that it's just a hiccup, and that humans' penchant for spewing greenhouse gases will certainly come back to haunt us. "When the climate kicks back out of this state, we'll have explosive warming," Swanson said. "Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be very aggressive." Read story here.

    image
    See larger image here.

    Swanson had it right up to the last paragraph. The warming and cooling relates to the cyclical nature of the oceans (and sun). The Pacific and recently the Atlantic went into strong cooling the last few years, taking surface temperatures down with them. In 30 years, they will bounce back and temperatures will do also. CO2 plays no role.

     
     
    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    FBI acknowledges evidence for CONTROLLED DEMOLITION by Architect, Richard Gage as:  "backed by thorough research and analysis."  
    See what Gage calls "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" in:  9/11: BLUEPRINT FOR TRUTH: http://gators911truth.org/PDF/FBI-CD-FF.pdf
    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
     

     

     

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    2009/03/09

    Mossad linked to 9/11 attacks: Report

    Blank
    Report Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:26:15 GMT
    At least 2,970 people died on the morning of September 11, most of them civilians.
    New found information has implicated the Israeli Intelligence agency Mossad in the staging of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. According to a recent article published in the American Free Press weekly, the revelation that the cousin of alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad al-Jarrah was in fact working as a longtime Mossad agent is proof that Israel had a hand in the terror attacks on US soil. The New York Times recently reported that Lebanese national Ali al-Jarrah, a supposedly earnest Palestinian supporter, had been actually working as a highly valued spy for Israel over the past two decades. Al-Jarrah reportedly admitted that he had been conducting covert espionage activities against Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Hezbollah since 1983. "It is not the family's first brush with notoriety. One of Mr. Jarrah's cousins, Ziad al-Jarrah, was among the 19 hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," said the Times. His connections with one of the key masterminds of the terror attacks have fueled speculations about Israel's recruitment of people claiming to be Muslims as undercover assets. Israeli connections to 9/11, according to the New York Times, can be traced back to the five 'dancing Israelis' who were witnessed jumping and high-fiving with shouts of 'joy and mockery' as Flight 11 and Flight 175 slammed into the World Trade Center in New York. The Israelis were reportedly held in custody for 71 days before being quietly released after they were suspected of being Mossad agents. Citing two former CIA operatives, the Forward weekly then reported that at least two of the detained Israelis were found to be members of a Mossad surveillance team. "There was no question but that [the order to close down the investigation] came from the White House. It was immediately assumed at CIA headquarters that this basically was going to be a cover-up so that the Israelis would not be implicated in any way in 9/11," the weekly stated. At least 2,970 people died on the morning of September 11, most of whom were civilians. Former Italian prime minister Francesco Cossiga has touched on the issue, suggesting that the events of 9/11 were none other than a CIA-Mossad inside job. "All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe ... now know well that the disastrous attack has been planned by the CIA and the Mossad in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part ... in Iraq [and] Afghanistan," the Italian ex-premier was quoted by Corriere della Sera as saying.
    Jewish personnel working at the center were reportedly advised to skip work on September 11, 2001.
    His argument was further strengthened by leaked reports that employees of Israeli telecom firm Odigo -- which provides instant messaging services -- received a warning two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers and forewarned Jews to stay away from work that day. Odigo headquarters is situated 2 blocks away from the former location of the World Trade Towers. SBB/AA
    http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=87982§ionid=3510203
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    Kucinich will submit Legislation to Nationalize THE FED

    Rare common sense

    Why is the US money supply controlled by a consortium of privately owned banks? That's been the case since the creation of the so called "Federal Reserve" Bank, which is neither federal nor a reserve. Dennis Kucinich proposes something that some historians believe have gotten past politicians assassinated: take the money supply and control over it back from the bankers. Source
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