Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.21.06

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     07.21.06

1. Rove in Stillwater  7.21 11am

2. Vietnamese festival 7.22 9am
3. NE farmers market   7.22 9am
4. Artcar parade       7.22 2pm
5. PeaceGarden/950AM   7.22 3pm
6. Community housing   7.22 7pm

7. NV peace/brunch     7.23 10:30am
8. Holocaust           7.23 12noon
9. Peacnik picnik      7.23 3pm
10. KFAI uprising      7.23 4pm
11. Leftist Spanish    7.23 7pm

12. Ralph Nader   - US responsibility for Israeli war crimes
13. Jonathan Cook - Israelis are dying: it must be an escalation
14. Helen Kennedy - Hil, Rupert sly as Fox at fund-raiser
15. Kennedy/White - Was the 2004 election stolen?
16. ed            - Half-worm in apple  (poem)

--------1 of 16--------

From : "Sarah Burt" <sarah.burt [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Rove in Stillwater 7.21 11am

Karl Rove - the evil boy genius behind this disasterous administration
will be in Stillwater on Friday, July 21 at a luncheon fundraiser.

I don't need to tell you about how evil this guy is, and how his influence
on this administration has led us down the path to war. Not to mention the
greedy corporate bullies they let run everything. AND THEN there's
everything they've done to the environment, our schools (no child left
behind - what a disaster), the economy and health care.

So I am asking you to join a group of us who are meeting at Pioneer Park
in Stillwater to protest Rove and the Administration's policies.

We'll be gathering at 11am. Bring signs and friends. Pioneer Park is at
Cherry and North 2nd street - just up the hill on the North side of
Downtown Stillwater.

So let's make sure our voices are heard on July 21st!!

Pioneer Park
Corner of Cherry and North 2nd Street
Friday, July 21
11am

---
From: Jesse Mortenson <teknoj [at] gmail.com>

Fellow Stillwater Area High School graduate Liza Baer informs me that
Karl Rove will be in town campaigning for Michelle Bachmann today
(Friday) and there is a protest planned. Join them if you can:

ebaer [at] macalester.edu wrote:

just wanted to let you know that karl rove is going to be in stillwater
tomorrow, campaigning for michele bachman, the republican state senator
from my district who's running for the 6th district congress seat (as if
you didn't know).  anyway, there are going to be at least a few people
protesting down at the waterstreet inn, right by the bridge, which is
where the event is being held.


--------2 of 16--------

From: Krisrose02 [at] aol.com
Subject: Vietnamese festival 7.22 9am

Vietnamese Community Festival.  It will be open 9 am through 9 pm and is
at Phalen Park in StPaul.


--------3 of 16--------

From: tom [at] organicconsumers.org
Subject: NE farmers market 7.22 9am

COME AND GET IT!!!!
While the heat has broke the NE Farmers Market is still heating up more
than an over taxed Edsel radiator!  Ok, you may not know what an Edsel is
but trust me, that's pretty dang hot ~ at least I think it is.

While the thermometer rose into the triple digits last week the Northeast
Farmers Market was graced with the first local sweet corn of the season.
Those bi-colored beauties were gone in no time at all!  All bets are off
if there will be more this week but it would be worth your time to come
see if they are because there is always the beautiful selection of other
produce, cut flowers and the sustainable pork products raised from the
Trebesch farm to select from and MAN, their cottage bacon makes for a BLT
that you will not soon forget.  Speaking of tomatoes, none were in as of
last week but they should not be far behind.

The fusionTastic sounds of Tri Tipo will be there this week and you MUST
stop by and visit with Chowgirls - those purveyors of killer catering, who
last week not only had iced sweet tea (take me back to my home in
Georgia!) but iced coffee too AND that great selection of lovely savory
pastries that make for a delicious breakfast, RIGHT THERE AT THE FARMERS
MARKET.

Mark your calendar for our annual CORN FEED and Brat-A-Palooza that is
coming up on Aug 12th where we will be featuring the brats from the
Trebesch's farm as well as the legendary organic sweet corn from Gardens
if Eagan.  We will be serving up those ears with local herbed butter so
come support the NE Farmers Market and COME HUNGRY!!!  If you would like
to volunteer for the Aug. 12th Corn Feed you can call me at the number
below or come see Rod Stevens or me at the Market.

We are conveniently located at the corner of University AVE and 7th AVE,
in lovely lower NE MPLS.  There is plenty of free parking and we got SHADE
too!  9:AM till 1:PM EVERY Saturday; your direct connection to all of
summer's rewards from the earth.

Please feel free to spread this message around, like manure, it does not
do a lot of good sitting in one place,
Tom Taylor
612-788-4252


--------4 of 16--------

From: Lisa Fink <lisa [at] intermediaarts.org>
Subject: Artcar parade 7.22 2pm

INTERMEDIA ARTS PRESENTS
12th ANNUAL ARTCAR PARADE
Saturday, July 22  2pm  Free
Minneapolis Lyn-Lake Neighborhood

ArtCar Artist Exhibit at Outsiders and Others Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, July 21,  7pm

On Saturday, July 22, ArtCar artists will hit the streets in full force
for the 12th Annual ArtCar Parade, a highly successful annual parade in
South Minneapolis organized by a grassroots affiliation of artists who
creatively alter cars and other wheeled vehicles for display and everyday
use. More than 80 wildly decorated cars, bikes, scooters, chairs and other
wheeled vehicles will be on display by local and national ArtCar artists.
Drivers and ArtCars are revving their engines and ready to burn rubber-at
a speedy 10 mph. Our very own home-grown MTN cable celebrities Viva and
Jerry return for their third year as Grand Marshals, giving the parade a
"thumbs up" all around!

The parade route begins at Lake Street and Grand Avenue and goes west on
Lake Street to Lyndale Avenue. It turns north onto Lyndale and ends at
28th Street. Announcers will be located at Lake Street and Lyndale Avenue
and will announce in English and Spanish. Parade goers can meet the
artists and view cars up close after the parade at Intermedia Arts and
Salem Lutheran Church (both near the intersection of Lyndale and 28th
Street).

On July 21 (the evening before the parade), ArtCar enthusiasts can view
their favorite ArtCar artists' works at the Outsiders and Others Gallery,
located in downtown Minneapolis at 1010 Park Avenue South. The next day,
art rumbles down Lake and Lyndale for the 12th Annual ArtCar Parade.

ArtCars - often humorous, sometimes surprising and always inventive -
spark a creative impulse. The ArtCar Parade helps bring together people of
all ages and backgrounds to create, participate and enjoy as a community.
It has become a phenomenon in the Twin Cities and beyond. For more
information on ArtCar events call (612) 871-4444 or visit
www.intermediaarts.org or www.artcarparade.com.

Intermedia Arts is a catalyst that builds understanding among people
through art.

Sponsored by 89.3 The Current and Pizza Luce

PHOTO / INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
ArtCars on Parade
Diverse Crowd of Parade Attendees
ArtCar Artists
Intermedia Arts' spokespeople

CONTACT: Theresa Sweetland Phone: 612-874-2813 E-mail:
theresa [at] intermediaarts.org www.intermediaarts.org


--------5 of 16--------

From: Burt Berlowe <bberlowe [at] mn.rr.com>

Spirit Road Radio will travel Saturday to the Lyndale Peace Garden in
Minneapolis to discuss the upcoming commemoration of the
Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombing and its current meaning during a time of
nuclear threats.

The show runs from 3 to 4pm on Air America Minnesota 950 AM.  For more
info, call 612-722-1504 or visit www.spiritroadradio.net


--------6 of 16--------

From: David B. <dboehnke [at] macalester.edu>
Subject: Community housing 7.22 7pm

A Flicker of Light in the Belly of the Beast: Benefit Get-Together for
Rise Like Lions Community Housing

7pm Saturday 7/22
1709 Selby Ave.

We (Rise Like Lions Community Housing) doth hereby cordially invite thee
to Ye Olde Rise Like Lions Inaugural Fundraiser and Evening of
Camaraderie, on the Twenty-Second Day of July, in the Two-Thousand and
Sixth Year.

Enough of the huff-puffery. In case you aren't fluent in the parlance of
Medieval times, Rise Like Lions Community Housing will be hosting a
fundraiser and back-patio cookout on Saturday, July 22 to raise money to
establish a housing cooperative in St. Paul. We're gathering at 1709 Selby
Avenue (at the corner of Selby and Aldine) in St. Paul.

The evening will begin at 7pm with tasty organic (and, of course, both
vegan and non-vegan) food for you, and at 9:30pm, self-described
"acoustic-core" sensation Ba Ba Blacksheep and another, yet to be
confirmed, musical act will grace us with their fine tunes. There will
also be hookahs set out for your enjoyment (yes, they are legal), and
copious amounts of merriment will surely ensue.

The goal of this benefit is to begin the work of fundraising to make a
down payment on a house to turn into a housing cooperative. We're asking
you for a donation (and suggesting $10, with a sliding scale) in order to
help make this vision more possible. Bring friends and loved ones; we'll
enjoy getting to meet them as well.

For more information both on the event and Rise Like Lions, visit our
website at www.riselikelions.org.


--------7 of 16--------

From: Nonviolent Peaceforce <MelDuncan [at] NonviolentPeaceforce.org>
Subject: NV peace/brunch 7.23 10:30am

You are invited to a Brunch at St. Stephen's Church, 2211 Clinton Ave. S.
(near Franklin and 35 W) in Minneapolis
Sunday July 23 from 10:30am-1pm
A Fundraiser for the Nonviolent Peaceforce.
Sliding Scale donation:  $5.00-$25:00+

Put on by Sisters of St. Joseph and Consociates of St. Stephens.
This brunch is truly delicious and a great community event.


--------8 of 16--------

From: Stephen Feinstein <feins001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Holocaust 7.23 12noon

Sunday July 23  Minnesota History Center
Family day for LIFE IN THE SHADOWS: HIDDEN CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST,
12-4PM

Activities including Holocaust survivor Sabina Zimering, accordian player
Dee Langley, vocalist Natalie Nowytski and Partners in Praise Girls Choir
with David Harris and Friends. Admission is $8 for adults, $4 for children
(6-17) information: 651-296-6126


--------9 of 16--------

From: Diane J. Peterson <birch7 [at] comcast.net>
From: Peace In The Precincts <info [at] peaceintheprecincts.org>
Subject: Peacnik picnik 7.23 3pm

Please join other peaceniks at the Potluck Picnic this Sunday. Bring
toys - croquet, frisbee etc. if you have them.

Dunning Rec Center just off 94 and west of Lexington
1221 Marshall Ave
St. Paul MN 55104
Sunday, July 23rd 3-6pm

Exit Lexington south, go to Marshall, turn right, go past Central High
School to rec center (Griggs St) turn right into parking lot. Proceed thru
or around building to back of building for picnic!

We will have tables and folding chairs, kitchen access and indoor shelter
if the weather's bad. Bring games, lawn chairs and blankets if you want to
be more comfy! No grills available.

We'll look at this year's accomplishments at the conventions, plan for
important events ahead, and just plain have fun!

THE PEACE IN THE PRECINCTS STEERING COMMITTEE
Phil, Cathy, Sharon, Santwana, Maggie, Brian, and Tim


--------10 of 16--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI uprising 7.23 4pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising, July 23, 2006

WHY ARE INDIGENOUS (AMERICAN INDIAN) SOLDIERS SERVING IN IRAQ? by Dr.
Michael Yellow Bird (Sahnish and Hidatsa First Nations citizen), Letters
to the Editor, Dakota Lakota Journal, July 7-14, 2006.  Open Letter to all
indigenous peoples:

As the United States prepares for its annual Independence Day
celebrations, I strongly urge all of our nations to hold critical and
independent discussions n why we are committing our young people to serve
the U.S. military in its occupation of Iraq.

The recent reporting (including revelations of a cover-up) of the murders,
executions, and massacres of innocent Iraqi citizens by United States
troops prompts me to ask, "Why are Indigenous (American Indian) soldiers
serving in Iraq?

I wonder why our tribal communities have not had critical debates on the
immorality of this war, on the lies of the present Bush Administration
that got us into this war, and on the spiritual, economic, social, and
psychological costs that both our people and the Iraqi people will pay for
this war.  It is clear from the history of many of our tribes that our
people understood the grave costs of war and so took this act very
seriously.  Before engaging in war, many of our tribes initiated peace
councils and sent emissaries to negotiate goodwill and friendship with the
"enemy" in order to avoid war.  As sovereign Indigenous nations, we did
not to this before or during the invasion of Iraq.  We instead let the
United States make the decision for us as to whether we should or should
not enter into this war.  I wonder when was the last time that the United
States asked our people for our opinion about war and its costs.  Our
history tells us that because war was so...

Dr. Yellow Bird, Ph.D. is the Founder and Director, Center for Indigenous
Peoples' Critical and Intuitive Thinking and Associate Professor,
Indigenous Nations Studies Program, The University of Kansas, Lawrence.
E-mail mybird [at] ku.edu, http://www2.ku.edu/~insp/

* * * *
Indian Uprising is a one-half hour Public & Cultural Affairs program for,
by, and about Indigenous people broadcast each Sunday at 4:00 p.m. over
KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.  Producer and host is
Chris Spotted Eagle.  KFAI Fresh Air Radio is located at 1808 Riverside
Avenue, Minneapolis MN 55454, 612-341-3144.


--------11 of 16-------

From: Corey Mattson <coreymattson [at] maydaybookstore.org>
Subject: Leftist Spanish 7.23 7pm

Mayday Books hosts...
the Leftist Spanish Conversation Group

Are you looking for a place to speak in Spanish about political issues
that matter to you?  Are you interested in discussing the mass movement
for immigrant rights in the United States? Or the current political
situation in Latin American countries?  Come to Mayday Books on Sunday,
July 23rd at 7:00 pm for a meeting to kickoff a Spanish conversation group
that will focus on these issues from a Leftist perspective.

Location: Mayday Bookstore (301 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Sunday, July 23, 7pm
For more information, contact Lisa at 651-636-3769 or email her at
starangel187 [at] hotmail.com


--------12 of 16--------

From Amy Goodman & Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/20/1434256

Thursday, July 20th, 2006
Ralph Nader: U.S. Carries "Inescapable Responsibility" for "Israeli
Government's Escalating War Crimes"

Former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader wrote a letter to President Bush
this week that harshly criticized the White House for its response to
Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora
has issued an urgent appeal to the international community to intervene
saying his country has been "torn to shreds." While many countries have
called on Israel to halt its military assault, the Bush administration has
so far openly rejected calls for a ceasefire. U.S. and Israeli officials
have reportedly agreed the bombings will continue for another week.

In a letter to President Bush this week, former Presidential Candidate
Ralph Nader harshly criticized the White House for its response to the
crisis. Nader is perhaps the most well known Lebanese-American in the
world. He ran against George W Bush for president twice - in 2000 and
2004. He is also the most prominent consumer advocate in the country.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: In a letter to President Bush this week, former presidential
candidate Ralph Nader harshly criticized the White House for its response
to the crisis. Ralph Nader is perhaps the most well known Lebanese
American in the world. He ran against George W. Bush for president twice,
in 2000 and 2004. He is also the most prominent consumer advocate in this
country. Ralph Nader joins us on the telephone right now. We welcome you
to Democracy Now!, Ralph Nader.

RALPH NADER: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what you wrote to President Bush.

RALPH NADER: I wrote him a letter that basically described the need for
him to get advice from his father and Brent Scowcroft and James Baker
about how he should deal with this Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which of
course violates a whole range of international treaties and Geneva
Conventions, to which the United States has been a longtime signatory. And
the first priority that Bush should adopt is to recognize that the U.S.'s
indiscriminate support of Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon -
ports and hospital and roads and wheat silos and residential areas - puts
a responsibility on the President, who is shipping a lot of tax dollars to
Israel, as well as a lot of weapons, to put a stop to this through a
ceasefire and to take a stronger initiative in resolving the core problem,
which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

AMY GOODMAN: You also take on the issue of President Bush's father and
where he should go for advice.

RALPH NADER: Yes, I wanted to draw a contrast as to just how extreme and
messianically driven President Bush is, even in comparison with his father
and his father's key advisers, Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft, both of whom
opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Bush, in 2004, was quoted as saying,
quote, "I trust God speaks through me," end-quote. We're dealing here with
not just a phenomenally ignorant man, but a messianically driven man, and
so when the Prime Minister of Israel visits the White House, he, Bush,
knows who the puppeteer and who the puppet is, but he doesn't like to
appear like a puppet, so he embraces messianically anything that Israel
chooses to do militarily and to, in the words of the combat reservists who
have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli combat
reservists, they refuse to serve in Gaza and the West Bank and in their
words they, quote, "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders
in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people,"
end-quote. And that is exactly what George W. Bush's unqualified support,
weaponry, diplomatic cover, vetoes in the UN against UN resolutions, is
providing the Israeli military regime an opportunity to do, the
Palestinians and anybody in the area that the Israeli military regime
wants to dominate, damage.

What's interesting here is that the Israeli peace movement, just like the
peace movement in our country, was cowed when the hostilities began a few
days ago. But that doesn't mean that the Israeli peace movement and
leading commentators, former ministers of justice and defense and
intelligence officials, who in prior months and years spoke out against
the occupation, colonization, domination, destruction of the West Bank and
Palestine cannot reassert themselves. But when they're up against George
W. Bush and a supine congress and an absurdly compliant Hillary Clinton,
and others, it's very hard for the Israeli peace movement, in the Knesset
and elsewhere, to reassert itself. And that's the cardinal failure of the
Bush regime, that they have sided their positions with the militarists in
Israel, but not with the broad, deep and prominent Israeli peace movement.

Read or listen to the rest here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/20/1434256


--------13 of 16--------

Israelis are dying: it must be an escalation
By Jonathan Cook
The Electronic Intifada - 17 July 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5056.shtml

Here we go again - another "serious escalation" has begun in the Middle
East, or so BBC World was telling audiences throughout Sunday. So what
prompted the BBC's judgment that the crisis was escalating once more?

You can be sure it had nothing to do with the more than 130 Lebanese dead
after five days of savage aerial bombardment from at least 2,000 sorties
by Israeli war planes that are making the country's south a disaster zone
and turning Beirut into a crumbling ghost town. Those dead, most civilians
and many of them women and children, hardly get a mention, their lives
apparently empty of meaning or significance in this confrontation.

Nor is it the Lebanese roads and bridges being pounded into dust, the
petrol stations and oil refineries going up in smoke, the phone networks
and TV stations being obliterated, the water and electricity supplies
being cut off. The rapid transformation of a modern vibrant country like
Lebanon into the same category of open-air prison as Gaza is not an
escalation in the BBC's view.

No, the BBC proffered a first, hesitant "escalation" on Thursday night
when Hizbullah had the audacity to fire a handful of rockets at Haifa in
response to the growing Lebanese death toll. The worst damage the
Katyushas inflicted was one gouging a chunk of earth out of the hillside
overlooking the port.

But the BBC felt confident to declare the escalation had turned "serious"
on Sunday when Hizbullah not only fired more rockets at Haifa but one
killed a group of eight railway workers in a station depot.

Now that Israeli civlians as well as Lebanese civilians are dying - even
if in far smaller numbers - the BBC's battalions of journalists in
northern Israel finally have something to report on.

So BBC World's broadcast at 9:00 am GMT (noon Israel/Lebanon time) hardly
veered out of Haifa or Jerusalem. After the presenter's headline
declaration that the Hizbullah strike on Haifa was a "serious escalation",
the news segued into a lengthy and sympathetic interview with an Israeli
police spokesman in Haifa by Wyre Davies; followed by another lazy
interview, lasting the best part of five minutes, with an Israeli
government spokesman in Jerusalem; followed by Ben Brown in Beirut
interviewing a British holidaymaker about her night of horror in her
hotel.

And in those 15 minutes that was about as close as we got to hearing what
the Lebanese had been enduring from a night and morning of Israeli aerial
strikes on Beirut and the country's south. If there was any mention of the
suffering of Lebanese civilians - and doubtless the BBC will tell me there
was - the reference was so fleeting that I missed it. And if I missed it,
then so did most BBC World viewers.

The true nature of the "serious escalation" was soon apparent - or at
least it was if one watched Arab TV channels. They showed an urban
wasteland of rubble and dust in the suburbs of Beirut and Tyre that was
shockingly reminiscent of New York in the immediate aftermath of the 9-11
attacks.

They cut intermittently to local hospitals filled with Lebanese children,
their faces a rash of bloody pockmarks from the spray of Israeli shrapnel.
More terrible images of children burnt and lying in pools of blood
arrrived in my email inbox from Lebanese bloggers.

But in the BBC's lexicon, escalation has nothing to do with the enormous
destruction Israel can unleash on Lebanon; only the occasional,
smaller-scale blow Hizbullah scores against Israel.

Switching from the Arab channels back to the BBC for their 11:00 am
broadcast in the hope of finding the same images of devastation in Tyre
and Beirut, I stumbled on yet another timid interview with Israel's
ubiqitious spokesman Mark Regev. It was followed by the two headlines:
Nine dead in Israel after a "barrage" of attacks on Haifa; and foreign
governments prepare to evacuate their nationals out of the region.

At noon James Reynolds as good as gave the game away: the Hizbullah strike
on Haifa, he said, proved that the rockets are "no longer just an
irritant". Now it was clear why a "serious escalation" had begun: Israel
was actually being harmed by Hizbullah's rockets rather than just
irritated. Until then the harm had been mainly inflicted on Lebanese
civilians, so no escalation was taking place.

As I regularly flicked to the BBC's coverage all afternoon, I found almost
no mention of those dead in Lebanon. They had become "non-beings",
irrelevant in the calculations not only of our world leaders but of our
major broadcasters.

It wasn't till the 7:00 pm news that I saw meaningful images from Lebanon,
as Gavin Hewitt followed a fire crew trying to put out an enormous oil
refinery blaze in Tyre. Although we saw some of the suffering of the
Lebanese population, the anchor felt obliged to preface the scenes from
Lebanon with the statement that they were Israeli "retaliation" for the
Haifa attack, even though Israel had been launching such strikes for four
days before the lethal rocket strike on Haifa.

In the same broadcast, an Israeli cabinet minister, Shaul Mofaz, was given
air time to make the claim that parts of the rockets that landed in Haifa
were Syrian-made. Allegations by the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud,
widely shown on Arab TV that Israel had been using phosphorus incendiary
bombs - illegal under international law - received no coverage at all.

On the 8:00 pm news, one of the headlines was a menacing quote from Sheikh
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, that "Haifa is just the
beginning". Mike Wooldridge in the Jerusalem studio made great play of the
quote, taken from a broadcast Nasrallah had made several hours earlier.

The BBC may have lifted the sentence from the Israeli media because they
missed out the important conditional context inserted by Nasrallah - it
was only the "beginning" of what Hizbullah could do if Israel continued
its attacks.

They could have found this out even from the Hebrew media if they had
taken the care to look more closely: "As long as the enemy pursues its
aggression without limits and red lines we will pursue the confrontation
without limits and without red lines," Nasrallah was quoted as saying by
the daily Haaretz newspaper. In other words, Nasrallah was warning that
Hizbullah would give back as good as it gets - a standard piece of
rhetoric from a military leader in times of confrontation.

The BBC is no worse than CNN, Sky and, of course, Fox News. It is possibly
far better, which is reason enough why we should be outraged that this is
the best international broadcast coverage we are likely to get of the
conflict.

The reporting we are seeing from the BBC and the other broadcasters is
racist; there is no other word to describe it. The journalists' working
assumption is that Israeli lives are more precious, more valuable than
Lebanese lives. A few dead Israelis justify massive retaliation; many
Lebanese dead barely merit a mention. The subtext seems to be that all the
Lebanese, even the tiny bleeding children I see on Arab TV, are
terrorists. It is just the way Arabs are.

That is why the capture of two Israeli soldiers is more newsworthy to our
broadcasters than the dozens of Lebanese civilians dying from the Israeli
bombing runs that have followed. The eight Israelis killed on Sunday are
worth far more than the 130-plus Lebanese lives taken so far and the
hundreds more we can expect to die in the coming days.

There is no excuse for this asymmetry of coverage. BBC reporters are in
Lebanon just as they are in Israel. They can find spokespeople in Lebanon
just as easily as they can find them in Israel. They can show the far
vaster scale of devastation in Beirut as easily as the wreckage in Haifa.
They can speak to the Lebanese casualties just as easily as they can those
in Israel.

But they don't - and as a fellow journalist I have to ask myself why.

My previous criticisms of British reporters over their distorted coverage
of Israel's military assaults in Gaza a few weeks back appear to have
struck a raw nerve. Certainly they provoked a series of emails - some
defensive, others angry - from a few of the reporters I named. All tried
to defend their own coverage, unable to accept my criticisms because they
are sure that they personally do not take sides. They are not
"campaigning" journalists after all, they are "professionals" doing a job.

But the problem is not with them, it is with the job they have to do - and
the nature of the professionalism they so prize. I am sure the BBC's Wyre
Davies cares as much about Lebanese deaths as he does about Israeli ones.
But he also knows his career at the BBC demands that he does not ask his
bosses questions when told to give valuable minutes of air time to an
Israeli police spokesman who offers us only platitudes.

Similarly, we see James Reynolds use his broadcast from Haifa at 12:00
noon to show emotive footage of him and his colleagues running for shelter
as Israeli air raid sirens go off, only to tell us that in fact no rockets
landed in Haifa. That non-event was shown by the BBC every hour on the
hour all afternoon and evening. Was it more significant than the images of
death we never saw taking place just over the border? These images from
Lebanon exist because the Arab channels spent all day showing them.

Matthew Price knows too that in the BBC's view it is his job as he stands
in Haifa, after we have repeatedly heard Israeli spokespeople giving their
version of events, to repeat their message, dropping even the quotes marks
as he passionately tells us how tough Israel must now be, how it must
"retaliate" to protect its citizens, how it must "punish" Hizbullah. This
is not journalism; it's reporting as a propaganda arm of a foreign power.

Can we imagine Ben Brown doing the same from Beirut, standing in front of
the BBC cameras telling us how Hizbullah has no choice faced with Israel's
military onslaught but to start hitting Haifa harder, blowing up its oil
refineries and targeting civilian infrastructure to "pressure" Israel to
negotiate?

Would the BBC bother to show pre-recorded footage of Brown fleeing for his
safety in Beirut in what later turned out to be a false alarm? Of course
not. Doubtless Brown and his colleagues are forced to take cover on a
regular basis for fear of being hurt by Israeli air strikes, but his fear
- or more precisely, the fear of the Lebanese he stands alongside - is not
part of the story for the BBC. Only Israeli fears are newsworthy.

These reporters are working in a framework of news priorities laid down by
faceless news executives far away from the frontline who understand only
too well the institutional pressures on the BBC - and the institutional
biases that are the result.

They know that the Israel lobby is too powerful and well resourced to take
on without suffering flak; that the charge of anti-semitism might be
terminally damaging to the BBC's reputation; that the BBC is expected
broadly to reflect the positions of the British governmment if it wants an
easy ride with its regulators; that to remain credible it should not stray
too far from the line of its mainly American rivals, who have their own
more intense domestic pressures to side with Israel.

This distortion of news priorities has real costs that can be measured in
lives - in the days and weeks to come, hundreds, possibly thousands, of
lives in both Israel and Lebanon. As long as Israel is portrayed by our
major broadcasters as the one under attack, its deaths alone as
significant, then the slide to a regional war - a war of choice being
waged by the Israeli government and army - is likely to become inevitable.

So to Jeremy Bowen, James Reynolds, Ben Brown, Wyre Davies, Matthew Price
and all the other BBC journalists reporting from the frontline of the
Middle East, and the faceless news executives who sent them there, I say:
you may be nice people with the best of intentions, but shame on you.

[Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, is the author of Blood and Religion:
The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, published by Pluto Press
and available in the US from University of Michigan Press. His website is
http://www.jkcook.net.]


--------14 of 16--------

Hil, Rupert sly as Fox at fund-raiser
BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/436080p-367343c.html

Two of the most public people in the world had a chummy breakfast
yesterday, but media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Sen. Hillary Clinton
(D-N.Y.) tried to keep their political get-together as secret as possible.

There were no Fox News cameras to record the odd couple breaking bread
together at Murdoch's News Corp. headquarters in midtown, where, after
years of attacking her, the conservative Murdoch hosted a fund-raiser for
Clinton's Democratic Senate campaign.

The campaign refused to even confirm the time or location of the
controversial fund-raiser. No estimate of the take or number of people who
attended was released.

New York's junior senator did not make an appearance on "Fox and Friends"
on her way out of the building just after 10a.m. She didn't even go
through the News Corp. lobby, slipping out a side door onto W.48th St.,
where the CBS show "Without a Trace" was filming up the block.

Fans of Clinton and Murdoch were shocked and upset when the fund-raiser
was announced, and the senator and the mogul have since sought to downplay
the event.

Murdoch insists he is stuffing more cash into Clinton's overflowing
coffers simply because she's an effective senator.

After hosting Clinton, Murdoch was expected a few blocks north at a
Republican Senate campaign fund-raising luncheon featuring Clinton's rival
in the 2008 presidential opinion polls, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Asked whether Murdoch was playing both sides of the street, McCain said
with a smile, "He's a great American."

Former Sen. Al D'Amato, who hosted the GOP fund-raiser, said the
Clinton-Murdoch coziness was just good business. "She's a force to be
reckoned with and if you're in the business community, you have to
understand that," he said.

Originally published on July 18, 2006

[With money, you can control both major US parties. If you control both
major US parties, you control the US. If you control the US, you control
the US military. If you control the US military, you can try to control
the world.
Hillary and the Dems know this, but let themselves be bought anyway.
The only question is, Why do we put up with it? -ed]


--------15 of 16--------

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Summary of an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Rolling Stone, June 15, 2006
By Mary White, Twin Cities Peace Activist

Overview

Any election will have anomalies.  The U.S. voting system is a confusing
patchwork of polling rules run by 13,000 counties and municipalities.  But
what is suspicious about the election of 2004 was its decidedly partisan
bent.  Almost without exception, the anomalies of the presidential election
in 2004 hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush.

Despite the lack of interest from corporate media and the general public,
these facts have emerged:

· The first signs that something was gravely wrong were the discrepancies
between exit polls and actual voter counts.

· Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad did not
receive their ballots or received them too late to vote after the Pentagon
unaccountably shut down the Web site used to file overseas registrations.

· Sproul & Associates, a consulting firm hired by the Republicans National
Committee to register voters in six battleground states, was discovered
shredding Democratic registrations.

· In New Mexico, malfunctioning machines failed to register a presidential
vote on more than 20,000 ballots.  Bush won New Mexico by 5,988 votes.

· Nationally, as many as one million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting
equipment.

· It was in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's
victory, that the reports were most disturbing.
 *Tens of thousands of eligible voters were purged from the polls.
 *Registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives were not
processed.
 *Democratic precincts were short changed in the allocation of voting
machines.

· A recount that could have given Kerry the presidency was derailed.

The Exit Polls

Exit polls in 30 states deviated from actual tallies to an extent that
cannot be accounted for by their margin of error.  On election day, exit
polls showed Kerry winning in four crucial states: Nevada, New Mexico,
Florida and Ohio.  Bush's odds of winning were less than one in 450,000.
However when the ballots were counted, the four states went for Bush,
depriving Kerry of 57 electoral votes and the presidency.  In examining
the discrepancies in three states, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Steven
Freeman, a specialist in research methodology at the University of
Pennsylvania, said, "the odds against all three of these shifts occurring
in concert are one in 660,000.  As much as one can say something is
impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and
actual votes counted in these three crucial states could have been due to
chance or random error.. When you look at the numbers, there is a
tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election
fraud."  (Freeman is the author of the forthcoming book, Was the 2004
Presidential Election Stolen?  Exit Polls, Election Fraud and the Official
Count).  Freeman says of himself, " I am not even political.  I despise
the Democrats."

The Case of Ohio

The evidence of wrongdoing is especially strong in Ohio.  The man in
charge of vote counting in Ohio is Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell
who was the co-chair of President Bush's Election Committee.

· Frustrated by the Democrat's failure to follow-up on the widespread
evidence of voter intimidation and fraud, Representative John Conyers (D)
held public hearings in Ohio where they received 50,000 complaints from
voters.  The Conyers report concluded that the problems were caused by
intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving
Blackwell.

· A total of at least 357,000 voters in Ohio-most of them Democratic-were
prevented from casting ballots or didn't have their votes counted in 2004.

 *174,000 were unable to vote because of long lines.
 *72,000 were disenfranchised by avoidable registration errors.
 *66,000 had ballots invalidated by faulty machines.
 *30,000 were purged from voter lists for failing to vote in two previous
elections.
 *10,000 had ballots discarded because they stood in the wrong line.
 *5,000 were turned away by Republican challengers.

· Caging Prior to the election, registrations were up 250 percent in
traditional Democratic strongholds, compared to 25 percent in Republican
leaning counties, according to a New York Times analysis.  To stem this
tide, the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican party
attempted to disenfranchise minority and urban voters through illegal
mailings known as "caging".  Caging involved sending registered letters to
over 200,000 newly registered voters in 65 counties, targeted by zip code.
Voters who failed to respond to this mailing or whose letter came back as
undeliverable were stricken from the rolls. · Registration Forms On
September 7, less than a month before the deadline for new voters,
Blackwell announced, citing an arcane election law, that only
registrations printed on 80 lb. unwaxed paper would be processed.  This
decision threw registration efforts into chaos.  Under the threat of court
action, Blackwell withdrew his order on September 28, just six days before
the registration deadline.  His revocation was too late.  Election Boards
already backlogged, were unable to process all the new registrations in
time.

· Provisional Ballots Under the Help America Vote Act, would be voters
whose registration is questioned at the polls must be allowed to cast
provisional ballots that can be counted after the election if the
registration proves valid.  Blackwell worked to prevent thousands of
voters from receiving provisional ballots.  He decreed that poll workers
could judge whether the voter would be given a provional ballot.  This
ruling was challenged in federal court where Judge James Carr ruled that
this was illegal, a decision upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, the ensuing confusion caused untold number of voters to be turned
away.

· Long Lines Many voters were prevented from reaching the polls because of
long lines.
      The Democratic National Committee concluded that three percent of
all Ohio voters who showed up to vote left without casting a ballot.
Voters in inner city precincts in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo-- which
were voting for Kerry by margins of ninety percent--often waited up to
seven hours.  At Kenyon College, students stood in line for up to 11
hours.  The Conyers report concluded that the vast majority of the lost
vote was in urban, minority and Democratic leaning areas.  Republican
officials created the long lines by reducing the number of precincts and
by failing to distribute enough voting machines to inner city precincts
and to places like Kenyon College.  By mid-morning when it was already
apparent that people were dropping out of line, precincts asked for the
right to distribute paper ballots.  Blackwell denied the request.

· Faulty Machines Voters who made it through the hurdles, often found that
the voting machines didn't work properly and produced errors.  Of the 5.6
million votes in Ohio, 800,000 were cast on electronic voting machines.
Some voters who entered "Kerry" on the screen saw "Bush" pop up instead.
Others saw Kerry's name light up but it had disappeared by the time they
completed their ballot.  In addition to problems with electronic machines,
Ohio's vote was skewed by old-fashioned punch-card equipment.  All but 20
counties relied on antiquated machines.  Many of these counted the ballots
by automatic tabulators, which were manufactured by Triad Governmental
Systems (the same company that supplied the butterfly ballots used by
Florida in 2000).  Some 95,000 ballots recorded no vote for President;
most of these were on punch-card machines.  The vast majority of these
ballots would have been discernable, if counted by hand.  However, only
one county hand counted its votes.  Black districts had more than twice
the rate of spoiled ballots than white districts.  In April 2006 a federal
court found that Ohio's use of punch-card ballots violated the equal
protection rights of the citizens who used them.

· The Case of the 12 Rural Counties An examination of election data
strongly suggests widespread fraud in these 12 rural counties: Auglaize,
Brown, Butler, Clermont, Darke, Highland, Mercer, Miami, Putnam, Shelby,
Van Wert, and Warren.  Key indictors of voter fraud are large
discrepancies between the presidential vote and other races on the ballot.
In each of the 12 counties, Kerry's numbers were low and Bush' were
unusually high.  For example, stateside Kerry received 667,000 more votes
than a defeated Democratic Supreme Court candidate, Ellen Connally.  In
the 12 counties, Connolly out-polled Kerry by 19,621 votes and Bush's vote
appears to be inflated by almost the exact same number of votes.  He
outpaced Connolly's opponent by more than twice the rate he did elsewhere
in Ohio.  If Kerry had maintained his statewide margin in the 12 counties,
he would have won by 81,260 votes.  That's a swing of 162,520 votes from
Kerry to Bush in a race decided by fewer than 119,000 votes.  Freeman, the
expert in poll analysis said: "This is very strong evidence that the vote
is off in those counties.  To me this provides every indication of fraud."

· False Terrorist Alert The most transparent incident of fraud took place
in Warren County where a fraudulent Level Ten Terrorist Alert allowed
officials to count votes behind closed doors.  Under the threat (which was
subsequently declared to be false by the FBI), reporters and election
observers were kept away from the polls and the ballots were counted in
secret.  Warren County was one of the last counties in Ohio to announce
its results.  The results showed that Kerry received 2,426 fewer votes
than Ellen Connally. This was a large departure from statewide patterns.
Later the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the alert was an
unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

· Rigging the Recount After Kerry conceded the election, his campaign
helped the Libertarian and Green parties pay for a recount of all 88
counties in Ohio.  Under state law, three percent of each county's
precincts were randomly selected for a recount by both hand and machine.
If the two totals were exactly the same, machines alone could be used to
tally the rest of the recount.  According to charges brought by a special
prosecutor in April, election officials in Cleveland fraudulently and
secretly recounted precincts by hand to identify those that would match
the machine count.  These pre-screened precincts were then used to select
the "random" sample of three percent.  Prosecutor Kevin Baxter stated: "If
it didn't balance, they excluded those precincts." Voting machines were
also tampered with prior to the recount.  An employee of Triad in Hocking
County was reported by Deputy Elections Director Sherole Eaton for making
unauthorized changes to a tabulating machine.  Eaton told the Conyers
Committee that this same Triad employee also provided county officials
with a "cheat sheet" so that " the count would come out perfect and we
wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."  After making the
report, Eaton was fired.  The same Triad employee was dispatched to work
in five other counties.

What's At Stake

After the election, there was almost a complete blackout in the corporate
media regarding the many allegations of fraud.  The only news anchor who
seriously questioned the outcome was Keith Olbermann of MSNBC who was
stunned by the lack of interest by investigative reporters.  He attributed
the lack of coverage to self-censorship by journalists.  Even more
alarming is the failure of federal officials who are charged with
safeguarding the vote to contest election results.  In Ohio, the time
frame for contesting results is fast closing.  On November 2, 2006, state
officials will be allowed to destroy all ballots from the 2004 election.

To help prevent a repeat of 2004, Kerry has co-sponsored an election
reform act, Count Every Vote.  The legislation would provide these
protections:  voters would be allowed to register at the polls on election
day;  provisional ballots would be given to voters who show up at the
wrong precinct; paper print-outs would be required from electronic voting
machines; election officials like Blackwell would be required to resign if
they joined a political campaign.  However, Kerry is fearful that if the
Democrats push these reforms, the Republicans will use their majority to
create even more obstacles to voting.

U.S. history is filled with examples of voter fraud.  But instead of
cleaning up the system, we have allowed the problems to become even worse.
The greatest threat to our democracy is the failure of our voting system.
If people no longer believe that their votes will be accurately recorded,
they will stop voting.  The entire idea of a government by the people is
at stake.  As Thomas Paine put it: "Voting is the right upon which all
other rights depend."  Unless we safeguard that right, everything else in
our form of government is in jeopardy.


--------16 of 16--------

 Half-worm in apple.
 Piss in pool. Crap in diaper.
 Rove in Stillwater.


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