Checking In

Checking In

I saw the always-eloquent Pete Hamill speak about and read from his new book, "Downtown: My Manhattan" Tuesday night at Borders in Bethesda, MD. I can't wait to read the book. I'll have more on it upon my return.

I walked down by the MCI Center on Tuesday afternoon and noticed an unusually heavy presence of smartly dressed military men and women, along with tons of security all around. Turns out there was an event taking place where President Bush just happened to be in attendance. LA Times:

The audience of about 10,000 included 60 winners of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for combat bravery. As he began his remarks, Bush snapped them a sharp salute.

The roads around Washington DC were an incredible mess today. There was a snowstorm that produced just enough of the white stuff to disrupt traffic.

I hope the weather will be better for the inauguration tomorrow. I hope to have an insider's report; to be written by a reliable source. A family member will be in attendance. I'll be watching CSPAN for a glimpse of him in the grandstands from my (mercifully) warm hotel room.

I'll be away for a short while

I'll be away for a short while

I'll be in D.C. during inauguration week. I'll try and get back here with blog reports when possible, but due to limited online service, I can't promise regular bloggings.

Have a great week!


- Jude

Morally Empty Absolution

Morally Empty Absolution



President Bush: Don't blame me......and whatever you do, don't ABSOLVE me or my fellow Americans on your own cheap and easy behalf.

"Cheap grace" is worthless. Worthless, worthless, worthless. See Josh Marshall's comments about Bush's latest affront to our sense of intelligence and decency.

“Cheap grace" is absolution without personal confession.
Josh pretty much hit the nail on its head.
In President Bush’s mind, Election 2004–the “great American Communion”, has washed clean what we see as his foreign policy sin.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis, by the way.

See Melanie Mattson's comments.

See Echidne's comments.

Poor Babylon: Works of Ages Destroyed in Two Years' Time

Poor Babylon: Works of Ages Destroyed in Two Years' Time

It is with sorrow, this morning, that I quote the words of my fellow blogger Sapere Aude, a wise world historian and mystic wanderer:

"A profound thought is realized here, that a site that has survived human machinations for thousands of years can be destroyed in two years, a testament to this world's meme of "destroy or be destroyed", a parasidic attitude that has infected our civilization.

Perhaps what is left can be preserved for future generations to visit and study. It's a maudlin thought that future historians must relegate themselves to reading about the ancient city, rather than touch the edifices and stones that were touched by an ancient civilization of ages past."

MLK and the new Dream

"Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the Earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us
And the road that lies ahead.."

- James Taylor -

MLK and the new Dream

Martin Luther King said:

"You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive."

Reverend Martin was speaking about the tribulations of the people of his time. We often think about people of color when we think of the dear Reverend. Yet, he was not a prophet for people of color alone. He was a fierce defender of righteousness and justice. I look, today, for anyone on the horizon who could match Martin's heart and wisdom. People like him are rare. I see a new group of human beings, regardless of color, who are today's "creative sufferers"; unearned sufferers.

Martin suggested that those who suffered should know that somehow their situation can and will be changed. He said:

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King. We are bound together, every color, every man and woman living today...suffering today.

The task still stands before us, in our time.

Remember the American dream.

Work to see it fulfilled.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day in the hills and halls of America that the sons and daughters of Blue States and the sons and daughters of Red States will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.



I have a dream that one day even the state of Georgia, a state sweltering with the heat of political treason borne by the likes of Zell Miller, sweltering with the heat of hatred and fear of progress, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that our little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by their political ideology, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down at FOX News and Rush Limbaugh's studio, with their vicious propaganda, with their lips dripping with the words of lies and deliberate misinformation; one day, in spite of them, right there in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Alabama, Progressive Americans will be able to join hands with American Conservatives as sisters and brothers and get down to the real and meaningful business of healing a nation and a world in need of justice, mercy, and compassion.

I have a dream today.

On First Impressions: Gladwell's New Book "Blink

On First Impressions: Gladwell's New Book "Blink"

Robert Stribley has an interesting blogpost on Malcolm Gladwell's new book.

Random Ten Songs

Random Ten Songs

Roxanne asked for 10 random songs. She said:(1) Fire up your IPOD, MP3 or other digital media player
(2) Set to random play
(3) List the first ten songs

Here are the first ten that came to mind for the way I feel today:


Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man - The Byrds
From The Morning - Nick Drake
Beeswing - Richard Thompson
Streets of London - Ralph McTell
Steal My Sunshine - Len
Light and Day - Polyphonic Spree
Tiger In My Tank - Eels
Echo Park - Joseph Arthur
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
Late In The Day - Hot Rize

-- Jude

Cartoon

Credit: Tom Toles Cartoon/Copyright Washington Post

Me, Blaire, and G Star

Hanging out at my brother's place on New Years Eve with my niece, B. Hannah, and my pal G. Star

Bring 'Em On, Li'l Dawgies

Bring 'Em On,
Li'l Dawgies

Hank says: "Bring 'em on? Oh yeah?
We'll see how you swagger when I get
through with ya! Woof!"

LINK

*Thanks, Echidne
Hank rocks. ;)

Protecting Armstrong Williams, Right-Wing Lies About Kos

Protecting Armstrong Williams, Right-Wing Spreads Lies About Kos

Desperately trying to take the "heat" off so-called "journalist" Armstrong Williams, who was caught red-handed taking a government bribe for a secret political agenda, right-wing mud-slingers are suddenly trying to claim that Kos (Markos Moulingas of Daily Kos) secretly had a political agenda while leading one of the top blogs in the world.

THAT'S A LIE.

I have been a Kos diarist a long time. I knew who Markos was and what he did for a living. He has always made it clear.

Kos has NEVER hidden what he does for a living, and the fact that his consulting firm did some work for Howard Dean was made public long ago. Markos was never ashamed and never took taxpayer's money.

The question is: What other journalists have been taking taxpayer bribes from the Bush administration? Who's bribing them?

I want to know!

______________

Related Stories:

Kos speaks (and he's pissed - and I don't blame him a bit for feeling that way.)

American Street - Echidne, who asks: "Who in the government is BRIBING journalists?"

A Story from a YEAR AGO TODAY publicizing Kos' activities. It was no secret!

Wall Street Journal's totally lame-ass attempt to impugn the ethics and integrity of Markos-as-blogger

Digby speaks (via Anonymoses' link)

Disturbed & Deranged in Alabama

Disturbed & Deranged in Alabama

This is really and truly sickening.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. "A woman angry with her 12-year-old daughter for having sex forced the girl to drink bleach and sat on her until the child died..The girl's 9-year-old brother was forced to watch the attack...She told him that if he shed a tear that she was going to kill him, too."....she told authorities she was disturbed because "her daughter told her that she was no longer a virgin."..

LINK

WMD LIES AND BRING 'EM ON BLUNDERS

WMD LIES AND BRING 'EM ON BLUNDERS

What can YOU do?
-- Go to the above link and watch.
-- E-Mail Congress - ask them to stand up and challenge Bush's deceitful policy on Iraq.
-- E-Mail President Bush - tell him you know policy in Iraq is a failure and is based on a lie. When saving face means sacrificing and taking more precious lives, it's time to put it to a screeching halt.

This dismal puzzle has already been done for you.


credit: Christian Science Monitor, Bennett Cartoons

Want a laugh?

Want a laugh?

If you've seen the film Napoleon Dynamite, this is a must-see.

Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility

Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility

On January 9, I'd written about the upcoming invitation-only conference Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility to be held at Harvard on January 21 and 22. The schedule is here.
At Greensboro101 and Ed Cone, I was referred to a link at Raving Lunacy about the conference and
The 'Head Lemur' breaks down the strange fellowship of Blogging as tool, Journalism as occupation, and Credibility as goal. He comments that, while only time and events will bestow credibility to anybody, it's undeniable that the Internet is becoming the primary source for news and information for more and more people, and that there is both promise and danger to the intersection of blogging and journalism. Be sure to read his entire blogpiece.

Ed Cone, who will attend the conference, says that Greensboro has

"interesting things going on here with our traditional journalists as they try to figure out how blogging and newspapers co-exist."

Looking ahead to the time he gets to the Harvard conference, Ed says:

I think I have something to tell the media elite in Cambridge next week, and that is the way traditional and alternative journalism are being practiced on the web here Greensboro. It's not about blogging as punditry, or blogs as the bane of reckless TV journalists, it does not answer burning questions about the place of bloggers in the social hierarchy of Manhattan and DC, but it does address the issues of blogging, journalism, and credibility.

As a community blogger working in harmony with the Syracuse, NY newspaper, The Post Standard, I can relate to Greensboro blogger David Wharton, who will blog about a local issue one day and blog about the tsunami the next.

I wish Ed Cone and all attendees the best of luck at the conference.

Meet the next-door blogger/Syracuse.com

Meet the next-door blogger
By Brian Cubbison, Assistant News Editor
Syracuse Post Standard, January 13, 2005

My interaction with the Greensboro101 bloggers was printed on Page 2 of The Syracuse Post Standard yesterday.

If you live in Cazenovia, Parish or Camillus, your neighbor might be a blogger.

Syracuse.com is nurturing local bloggers who write about their neighborhoods. It’s a trend that’s also taking roots in communities in New Jersey, North Carolina and Washington state.

Jim Jurista writes the Cazenovia Free Press. The technology consultant writes about national politics or village events, such as the Cold War and a men’s night out.

Lou Guindon writes Positively Parish, sometimes in the classic style of a weekly newspaper: "Mr. and Mrs. James Anderson and Lloyd and Arreta Ware had dinner at a local restaurant Friday evening and then enjoyed a duel of cards, the men beating the women. Arreta’s home made chocolate cake soothed the ladies, but they pledged to get even another time."

In Faith Meets Life, the Rev. Jim Corl, of Christ Church in Manlius, wrote a post-election blog about values.

Donna Reynolds, of Syracuse, writes a daily blog, That’s Entertainment. This prolific freelancer is an assistant editor for Reality News Online, among other projects. She’s your source for Survivors, Idols, Amazing Racers and Elvis water on eBay.

Orange fans write blogs about Syracuse University sports. Downstate and Jersey fans weigh in on the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Jets and Giants.

Gridiron Grit covers local high school football and Track Smack follows auto racing. Dr. Scott Petosa, tennis coach at LeMoyne College, writes The Fitness Fanatic.

When the News and Record of Greensboro, N.C., wondered how to turn a traditional newspaper into an online destination of the future, it turned to the local bloggers at greensboro101.com and the visionaries at the Press Think blog at New York University.

From Camillus, Jude Nagurney Camwell urged them on. She writes The Rational Liberal at syracuse.com. She vouched for her experiences with syracuse.com and The Post-Standard and urged on the Greensboro experiment. "The people in Greensboro have such talent — and such heart!" she wrote. "I wonder — is it something in the drinking water?"

Maybe blogging is in your water. To check them out, or to start your own, go to
www.syracuse.com/weblogs

— Brian Cubbison, assistant news editor

For more, plus links to sources mentioned here, see the News Tracker blog at
www.syracuse.com/newslogs/ newstracker/

* The soundtrack:From "Hometown Hero" by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Copyright 2004 The Post-Standard

Press Think Comments on Rathergate

"If the anchorman is on the hook, you don't let him do the news from the hook position."
- Jay Rosen, speaking about Dan Rather

Press Think Comments on Rathergate

Don't miss Jay Rosen's Press Think coverage in the aftermath of the release of the CBS report on "Rathergate". I had recently said that Mary Mapes' superiors should have been held responsible. Mr. Rosen seems to agree, and gives his reasons. He says:

My other major reaction is that, like others, I am shocked that CBS News President Andrew Heyward still has his job. This is the reason.

As soon as the reporting of the Air National Guard story came under question, CBS had not one but two problems. The evidentiary problems with the story were one. The involvement--no, the immersion--of Dan Rather in the events thereafter was the other. Rather is the star of CBS News, the face of the brand, the personification of the news division. The anchor. Immediately it was clear that he had "bigfooted" the rest of the division and took over defense of a case in which he was accused. In effect, he was making policy for the network, as when he said that there is no investigation underway at CBS. There were huge dangers for Rather, for CBS News and for the network itself in allowing Rather to become so involved in defense of the story, which muted everyone else "under" Rather, leaving only Andrew Heyward, the boss, who did not act. He was the one who could have protected the brand and his friend, Dan Rather, by speaking truth to (star) power. The responsibility was his alone and he failed in the clutch.

See Mr. Rosen's Short Letter to Dan Rather.

"So I kind of resent your attitude toward your numerous critics who operate their own self-published sites on the Web. They were being more accurate than you were, much of the time. I don't speak for them, but I know my own archive." Plus: Lose the spokeswoman, Dan. Hire a blogger.

Not a bad idea, eh?

Democracy is a Means, Not an End

Democracy is a Means, Not an End
FEATURED COLUMN OF THE DAY:

Democracy is a Means, Not an End
by Michael Munger

Think carefully when reading this article by Michael Munger, Chair of Political Science at Duke University.

"When we help a developing nation design its government, we need unashamedly to advocate something like the U.S. model."

We may be totally disgusted (disappointed, at best) with the President with whom we are forced to endure for the next four years, but at the same time, we need to be careful not to abandon the hope of the PROMISE built into the American framework created by the Founders of this nation.

We can began to take matters into our own capable hands and become active in ensuring that the PROMISE is delivered, or we can watch the PROMISE of America die.

"We live together because social organization provides the efficient means of achieving our individual objectives and not because society offers us a means of arriving at some transcendental common bliss. Politics is a process of compromising our differences, and we differ as to desired collective objectives just as we do over baskets of ordinary consumption goods."

--James Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty

A good part of that PROMISE depends upon having a CONGRESS which fulfills its responsibilities to the American people. We are a people who must remember we have the Bill of Rights to protect us from the realistic tyranny that "liberal America" (I prefer to call us "Progressive America") is experiencing today.

If you are a liberal thinker and a Progressive in contemporary America, you are (sadly) in the (large-sized) minority. When you look at the big picture, a government poised to recognize pure democracy, in the United States today, is not something for which a truly liberal thinker would thirst.

Frankly, we have too many under-educated and misinformed people to trust the masses. If this sounds haughty to you, I ask you to consider that it is a reality. Americans have been systematically misinformed with false information (the most recent example is the WMD issue in Iraq). With an right-elitist mainstream media taking control of the radio and television airwaves, propaganda is allowed to reign, where a good and decent Civics/History education and an academic ability to discern truth from propaganda once took priority. Intellectualism, frighteningly, is a dirty word with today's American majority.

I do not believe, from his track record to date, that President Bush has ever carefully considered how his decided encouragement of a 'tyranny of the misinformed majority' has effected the nation he is leading. He has done tremendous damage to the spirit of civic unity of the people of America. Even after suffering the 9/11 attack, the U.S. is just as politically divided as in the Civil war era. Bush could never unite America because he has absolutely no spirit of civic compromise.

That said, we have a serious problem, in my opinion, with the Congress we have today. When I say "serious", I mean life-or-death for the PROMISE of democracy within the framework of government.

Those in the Legislative branch are not appropriately or adequately acting out the will of half the nation, fully knowing that the President exclusively embraces the (slim) majority in a nation so politically divided. 50% of the American culture and society is being politically ignored by a Congress which is too easily cowed by right-heavy popular media. They are also a Congress which has been virtually purchased, with political contributions, by corporations. ( No conspiracy theory - one look at the Open Secrets website will prove this to be true ). The fact that so many retiring Congresspeople move on to become high-paid lobbyists, perpetuating a corrupt system, takes the small amount of hope and trust that Progressive America has had in the "American PROMISE" and blows it away with an ill wind.

Chances are very good that there will be a need for Supreme Court nominations within the next four years. The odds that President Bush will offer any Judicial nominees who are from a moderate ideology is slim-to-none.

Progressives must understand that the Legislative branch is the only current hope for a change.

American Progressives tend to place all the blame for political isolation on the Bush administration, while neglecting to understand that our Congressional representatives have a duty to enact laws in accordance with the culture that actually exists in their nation. Does the Right have political capital to spend? Yes, thanks to dubious 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Does that require them to be duty-bound to the majority and to the wishes of the Executive, exclusively? Of course not! Yet, a wholesale political neglect of half a nation has taken place for the past four years, and I see little indication that we will soon see a change.

What has become of the American public's trust in their Federal government? We must ask ourselves: Is (small "d") democracy working against the liberal Progressive in America today?

Mr. Munger recognizes the serious problem facing today's America when he says:

"Policy makers must understand the twin anachronisms that complicate the failures of voting institutions and democratic ideologies in the U.S. There really are two distinct anachronisms, each of which requires immediate attention.

First, our technology of democracy is too old, and prone to abuse or at least distrust. We must bring voting technology into the 21st century, because we accept much less than is possible. We must immediately solve the problem of guaranteeing mechanisms for recording and counting votes that are beyond reproach. As the election of 2004 shows, we are nearly out of time.

Second, our ideology of democracy, our notion of what democracy can accomplish, is anachronistic also. But in this case, the anachronism is not out of the past, but out of a utopian science fiction future. So, we must also take voting ideology back to the 19th century, where it belongs. We have come to expect much more than is possible from democracy, and democratic institutions."

Headlines

Headlines

Aljazeera.net - A US National Guard unit has defied a Pentagon request that sought to stop television news crews filming six flag-draped soldiers' coffins arriving in Louisiana.

ColumbiaTribune.com - "Louisiana community mourns fallen soldiers" Quote: In civilian life, Bradley Bergeron was an air conditioning technician. Kurt Comeaux was a probation officer, and Warren Murphy was a tugboat deckhand. You could find Christopher Babin behind the wheel of his truck. Armand Frickey and Huey Fassbender III worked in restaurants. Each of the six also had another job: Members of the Louisiana National Guard.

MediaMonitors.com - "Church at war? :: An Overview of the Religious Front" by Abid Ullah Jan, the author of "A War on Islam?" Quotes: "Everyone who loves peace on this earth earnestly hopes that this is a war for oil but reports that emerged from left and right suggest otherwise..[..]..On the media front, ABC, CNN, NBC, etc. are as much for the global domination as Fox News. The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times are as radical in proposing solutions as the Washington Times. Friedman and Safire are as radical as Daniel Pipes.."

TLS - Tsunami myths by Wendy Doniger, Quote: "Philosophy doesn’t do the trick for most people; Leibniz failed, Voltaire failed, and in India, too, the myths pick up the pieces where philosophy throws up its hands. The great myths may help survivors to think through this unthinkable catastrophe, to make a kind of sense by analogy, to say, “This is not unlike anything else; this is like that. This tsunami is like the doomsday flood."

Democrats: How Long Before We Proudly Admit We’re a Party of Progress?

Democrats: How Long Before We Proudly Admit We’re a Party of Progress?
by Jude Nagurney Camwell
From: American Street January 13, 2005

I wonder how long the Democratic party thinks Progressive Americans can hold out on promises which never come close to realistically materializing? How long could any person dedicated to the principles of their party hold out hope for "the future" while core principles of the party are trampled upon and trivialized by both major political parties?

"[Tim] Roemer as head of the DNC sounds like a desperate effort to figure out which way the wind is blowing, long after the 2004 wind blew the Democrats away."

Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi is clearly not a proponent of Roemer's campaign for DNC chair. She views the current "win-at-all-costs" philosophic thrust of the DNC as nothing more than institutionalizing John Kerry's losing campaign strategy:

"When it comes to controversial issues, duck. Stand for everything and nothing. Whenever possible, avoid direct answers on issues like war and abortion."

Where the party's half-assed embrace of true values and principles may gain few firmly-entrenched Bush voters into the 'big tent', it may cause an elephant-sized hole in the rear of the tent where progressives have run from the circus of vague complacency that the Democratic party has become.