This morning's New York Times' front page features a number of strong stories but the stand out one is Amy Waldman & Warren Hoge's "Bush Speaks Out: Promiss Long-Range Help as Impatience Grows in Region" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30quake.html?hp&ex=1104469200&en=441222f848c9ae89&ei=5094&partner=homepage):
As American planes and ships moved into place to help, Mr. Bush made his first public comments since tsunamis inundated about a dozen countries on Sunday, reflecting pressure on the vacationing president to appear more engaged in what aid groups are calling one of the worst natural disasters in history.
. . .
Three days after the calamity struck, survivors in Aceh and elsewhere were growing increasingly desperate for help to arrive.
"There is no food here whatsoever," Reuters quoted Vaiti Usman, a woman in Aceh, as saying. "We need rice. We need petrol. We need medicine. I haven't eaten in two days."
The well written article highlights the need for aid and what may be forthcoming. But it does something else as well. It highlights the power of the press in this country. For the fourth day in a row, the Times turns in some outstanding reporting on the aftermath of the tsunamis. As with the last three days, the Times has featured this crisis heavily on the front page.
The Times sets a tone that others in the media follow. By using it's power and it's prestige to highlight this issue and with other media doing the same, the press pressed and forced this issue and, as a result, after days of inaction, the vacationing Bush had to address it.
The lust for Kobe-Michael-Janet-has-a-boob-Peterson stories was in high evidence in 20o4. (To it's credit, the Times only heavily pushed one of those stories, Janet Jackson's breast.) And when this junk coverage of endless speculation overshadows real life events, we hear far too often "It's what the public wants" (who ever says, "We cover it because it's cheap and inexpensive to cover?"). The public got a chance at real news that was effecting countless real people and, I'd argue, their following of this story stands as a testament to not only a concern with real news but with international news. (Some will no doubt pin the interest off some
Irwin-Allen-disaster-flick lust.)
The Times flooded the zone repeatedly and they deserve credit for that. They, my opinion, set the tone and said "This is too important not to be covered" which forced others to cover it seriously. (And this site has heard from Nightly News viewers, World News Tonight viewers, and The Evening News viewers who have all said that each outlet's coverage stood as some of the finest reporting they'd seen all year.) That's the power of the press and we rarely see it used for anything of use these days.
His home gone, his family shivering and hungry, everything he owned swept out to sea, Velu Kannan wandered down a lonely road on Wednesday looking for a pen.
Stagnant salt water lay in the fields around him, reflecting a gray sky. In his hands he carried a piece of cardboard he had found among the debris.
"I need somebody to help me write 'Refugee Camp,' " he said. "All the cars drive past us. Nobody knows we are here."
Mr. Kannan and his family fled their fishing village when it was destroyed on Sunday and took refuge with 10 other families on a hillside where they hoped to be safe if giant waves crashed in again from the sea. Now he needed to survive.
The above is from Seth Mydans' front page article "Amid Chaos, Sri Lankans Struggle to Survive" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30lanka.html?hp&ex=1104469200&en=b0c9eed328ac9062&ei=5094&partner=homepage).
Also on the front page is David E. Sanger's "It's About Aid, and an Image" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30prexy.html):
But the aid effort that has now begun presents Mr. Bush with an opportunity to battle, with action rather than just words, the perception that took root in his first four years in office that he is all about America first.
"It's a tragedy but it is also an opportunity to demonstrate that terrorism doesn't drive out everything else," said Morton Abramowitz, who served as American ambassador to Thailand a quarter century ago and went on to become one of the founders of the International Crisis Group, which helps prepare governments to respond to unexpected shocks. "It's a chance for him to show what kind of country we are."
. . .
But perceptions set in a first term have a way of becoming the political canvas of the second. And America's response to this tragedy, some administration officials acknowledged, is crucial in places like Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where the earthquake and tsunami first hit and where Islamic fundamentalism, never a political force during the cold war, is seeking to make inroads.
. . .
And there are already signs that Democrats want to link the response to this disaster to spending in Iraq. "I just about went through the roof when I heard them bragging about $35 million," Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and a persistent critic of how the American rebuilding operation has gone in Iraq. "We spend $35 million before breakfast in Iraq."
Inside the paper, more stories are to be found.
Lawrence K. Altman and Denise Grady stress the health crisis that exists in "Water Is Key to Averting Epidemics Along Coasts" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30disease.html)
Tens of thousands of tsunami survivors are at risk from diseases spread by dirty water, mosquitoes and crowding, and the best medicine is large quantities of clean water, officials of the World Health Organization said yesterday.
While no epidemics have been confirmed in the vast coastal areas devastated by the tsunamis on Sunday, the officials said they were most worried about diarrheal diseases - cholera, typhoid fever and shigellosis - as well as liver diseases like hepatitis A and E. Those diseases are caused by bacteria or viruses in contaminated drinking water or food, in sewage and among people who lack clean water to wash their hands.
Health organizations like the W.H.O. and Unicef recommend that each person be given about five gallons of clean water a day. Dr. David Nabarro, the director of crisis operations for the W.H.O., said in a telephone interview from its headquarters in Geneva that water shortages had already occurred in the Maldives and Sri Lanka, and that tanker trucks would be needed to provide clean water.
Alan Cowell follows the issue from Sweden in "On Other Side of the World, Little to Do but Offer Prayers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30sweden.html):
In normal times, there might be no evident link between a wooden cabin in the snowbound forests of Sweden and the sunstruck beaches of Southeast Asia. But these are not normal times, and now there is a strand of pain that binds the pine-clad home of Solveig Uhlander to a beach in Thailand where her son, grandson and daughter-in-law have simply disappeared.
"I have a little hope. Only a little. But I must have hope," Mrs. Uhlander said on Wednesday, as if hope were all that survived the six days since she heard her 2-year-old grandson wish her Merry Christmas by cellphone, the five days since a photo of him on the beach arrived with a cellphone text message, and the four days since the tsunami waves pounded the resort of Khao Lak and the messages stopped coming.
Her loss is by no means unique here. Of all the European nations counting their dead in the disaster, Sweden may have suffered the most.
In "Aid Arrives in Worst Area of Indonesia" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30indo.html),
Eric Lichtblau and Wayne Arnold track early rescue efforts:
Rescue teams began arriving here on Wednesday to assist in picking through the rubble and to bring food, water and temporary shelter for the dispossessed. But already some residents in this city of 300,000 people say they have grown frustrated by the slow pace of the relief effort, which was only slipping into gear in this remote northwest corner of Sumatra three days after the catastrophe hit.
Thousands of people remain missing, including most of the staff of a local newspaper that last published on Saturday, the day before the earthquake.
. . .
Food is being carefully rationed, with some local shops charging double or triple the going rate for eggs, rice and other staples. Potable water is in short supply, as is fuel for cooking food or even boiling water for rice. The dire situation has left some residents to fend for themselves, with the aid of friends and relatives outside the region.
While hope is fading that any more survivors will be found in the wreckage, rescuers are now racing to recover and identify bodies and prevent the spread of disease. Concerns are already rising that a shortage of clean drinking water and medicine may bring a new wave of fatalities.
Stephanie Strom focuses on the monetary contributions of citizens here in the United States in
"Tsunami Followed by Another Kind of Flood: U.S. Citizens' Dollars" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30aid.html):
The money could not come at a better time, aid officials say. Many of the organizations that traditionally swing into action to address emergencies are already working in other parts of the world, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan, that are afflicted by crises, and they are stretched thin.
"Just having those three crises happening simultaneously and having them be equally contentious was unique, and now this has upped the ante," said Susan Laarman, a spokeswoman for Mercy Corps. "We're up to the task, but it is certainly an unusual time in history."
While the challenges of this disaster are typical of any emergency, in this case they are multiplied over several countries and regions, many of which were destitute.
. . .
An eight-member team from Doctors Without Borders landed in Aceh Province in Indonesia on Wednesday and set up a tent to provide primary health care services, supported by two planeloads of supplies, including water and sanitation support and installation systems.
"Things are really drastic there," said Catrine Schulte-Hillen, program director of the organization's United States operations. "There are no buildings standing."
. . .
Save the Children was one of the only organizations to have a staff in Indonesia's Aceh region when the tsunami hit, a situation that has been both a blessing and a curse. The organization's finance assistant, Suka Mardiah, and her baby were killed, two staff members are missing and two others are missing family members.
Jailani, the organization's driver, was swept out to sea and presumed dead until he walked into the office this morning, after swimming back to shore.
We'll focus on some other stories in this morning's paper later today but Frank in Orlando e-mailed that since the Times was doing their finest reporting all year, he'd appreciate it if we wouldn't just note but devote an entire entry into it. He also felt that while we had acknowledged the reporters covering the various issues involved, we hadn't highlighted their actual stories enough. (He's correct on that.)
Besides the reporters receiving credit for their stories, anyone assisting on these stories in the last few days or any editors contributing to the shape of them or anyone working at or for the paper (including delivery persons) has a right to feel proud to be part of the New York Times organization this week. (Reporters also include photographers. It's been my failure not to highlight them. The Times carries a powerful Associated Press photo on the front page, caption: "On the beach in Alappad, in southern India, funeral pyres yesterday consumed the bodies of the dead. India confrimed a death toll nationwide of 7,000, and said it could rise to 10,000." Two Reuters photos are used inside the paper and are credited to an individual photographer -- the AP photo is credited only to the AP -- Darren Whiteside, Adrees Latid. Another AP photo is credited to Dita Alangkara. New York Times photographers Sriyantha Walpola and Rob Schoenbaum are credited for inside photos. And lastly DigitalGlobe is utilized for satellite photos.)
[To see the names of the writers who've contributed to this strong coverage all week, please click on the following http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/12/17-pages-of-news-in-new-york-times.html, http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/12/amy-waldman-and-others-at-times.html and http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/12/praise-for-times-tsunami-coverage-and.html.]
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Alberto Salvato, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky and Mike Malloy
First, let's highlight two things in the New York Times before the new paper arrives.
Alberto Salvato's "Ohio Recount Gives a Smaller Margin to Bush" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/politics/29ohio.html):
A recount of the presidential election in Ohio that was finished on Tuesday showed that President Bush won the election here by about 300 fewer votes than initially recorded.
The recount of Ohio's 88 counties showed that Senator John Kerry gained 734 votes, with Mr. Bush picking up 449 after elections officials allowed more than 1,100 previously disqualified ballots to be counted in the second tally.
. . .
The state has become an emblem of continuing ailments in the nation's electoral process, because of Election Day events like seven-hour lines that drove voters away from the polls, malfunctioning machines, poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places and uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, which were given to voters whose registration was contested. The Green and Libertarian Parties asked for the recount and raised $113,600 to help pay for it as required under state law.
. . .
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also challenged the initial tally, has said the State Supreme Court should have thrown out the initial results and ordered a new election because people in some urban areas were never able to cast their ballots and many voters saw their ballots unfairly discarded.
Daniel Trevas, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Democrats supported the recount but found that county elections officials sometimes ignored requests by recount observers to see rejected absentee and provisional ballots, and were not informed about procedures used to recount and reject ballots.
Is the story perfect even if you overlook the fact that it's not delivering the results so many of us (including myself) wanted? I'd argue it's the best reporting the Times has done on the subject.
Outside of the editorial board and the op-ed writers, only Salvato has delivered anything like this to Times' readers. When the story was deemed only worthy of only a paragraph in an occasional National Briefing, the Times was happy to rely on Salvato.
When they finally began half-heartedly covering the story, they relied too little on him. Which is strange when you consider that of the writers sharing billing on any Ohio story in the Times, Ohio was Salvato's beat. But what made it into print too often appeared to be written by people phoning it in or having just landed in Ohio. [See http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/12/new-york-times-assigns-three-wise-men.html.]
Salvato probably knows the issues better than anyone at the Times. And that comes across in the story. (One wishes it had been given more space.) No, it's not going to please anyone who just wants to read "Bush Stole Ohio," but it's the best thing the Times printed on Ohio so I wanted to take a moment to note it. Whether he got his (solo) byline today because the "stars" (Dona's term) are all on vacation or for another reason, he's written the strongest news article the Times has done on the Ohio voting issue.
The second thing I wanted to draw attention was regarding Yukos. Krista, your "hottie" has written a letter that results in an Associated Press story in today's New York Times:
Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky (founder of Yukos who has been jailed since October 2003) wrote:
"Using selective justice, introducing new legal norms and applying them retroactively," he continued, the state has undermined trust in the legal system. "Such methods," he added, "damage the nation's reputation and hurt the economy, but those who initiated that don't care."
Mr. Putin has cast the 18-month crackdown on Mr. Khodorkovsky and Yukos as an effort to fight corruption and shady bookkeeping. But most analysts and commentators see it as a vendetta for Mr. Khodorkovsky's perceived political ambitions, including his financing of opposition parties.
. . .
In his letter, Mr. Khodorkovsky warned that Mr. Putin's bid to strengthen government controls would set off the nation's collapse. Mr. Putin has replaced the popular election of governors in Russia's 89 regions with Kremlin appointees.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/international/europe/29russia.html)
I'm finally listening to The Mike Malloy Show. My non-comments on Malloy and his show weren't intended to say that the show wasn't worthy of attention. But when Malloy's show is on, I'm usually cleaning or making a last minute trip to the grocery store or returning calls. (No, Tracee, I'm not watching Law & Order. Tracee's convinced that I must be watching TV during Malloy's show since he's only been mentioned twice. That's Tracee's calculation of two mentions, not mine.)
Mike Malloy is addressing the tsunami and the Bully Boy's four days of inaction:
"Why did it take George W. Bush four days, four days to respond. Because he doesn't have the language. He must wait to be told what to say. . . . When it comes to compassion or help or standing up like a man, he cannot do it."
Tony says part of what makes Malloy's show so worth listening to is "his excellent choices in bumper music." I'll agree that the songs have been outstanding (and that they are new to me).
Oregon e-mailed the story that Yahoo had posted regarding Sontag that neither Marcia nor I could find. Here's the link to the story http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_en_ot/obit_sontag. Here's the sentence:
In 1999, she wrote an essay for "Women," a compilation of portraits by her longtime companion, photographer Annie Leibovitz.
The article's by Hillel Italie ("AP National Writer") and entitled "Author and Activist Susan Sontag Dies."
Malloy:
"We will stand with him he says? How are doing that exactly? How are we doing that? I know that you, gentle listener, your heart is breaking. . . . The row upon row of corpses. . . About 35,000 of these are children. And George Bush says 'We Will stand with them.' How are we going to do that? . . . You don't call a press conference in a helicopter hanger and say we will prevail over this de-de-destruction. . . . "Mr. Bush were you offended?" Somebody asking if Bush was offended . . . by the suggestion that rich nations have been stingy in the aid for the tsunami. [Plays Bush clip] Do you hear the sneer? . . . 'The next tronch of relief" He doesn't speak like that. That's not a Bush word! . . . And he reads these statistics as though he's talking about a P&L statement about last year's business. . . . Don't you want to throw up blood, don't you? Can't you hear the desecration and the destruction going on in this monster's head? . . .
the next tronch will be spent wisely? Like what, they're going to be blow it on beer and cigarettes? . . . This can't be happening. Event after event, no matter what it is, war, disaster, destruction . . . Everything this monster touches is destroyed and Americans to the tune of 56 million voted for him. . . . This man stands out there and for the rest of the world he speaks for you, for you. I don't care if you live in Wisconsin, I don't care if your a New York liberal . . . this man speaks for you and he is defining you and me."
[Consider the Malloy quotes more paraphrased than exact quotes. I'm tired and my typing speed is way off. If you're able to check out his show and haven't yet, you should also know that printed words, even when word for word, will never accurately the capture the passion Malloy speaks with.]
Trina e-mails that today via Buzzflash (www.buzzflash.com) she learns something that "with all the ink NYT and other have devoted to the topic of the Urkaine, I can't believe I'm only now learning it. [The story she's referring to can be found at http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-ukewife28.html.] Little Kateryna Chumachenko grew up in Chicago, worked for the state department and the White House apparently under Reagan or H.W. Bush and then went on to marry Yushchenko in the nineties. Suddenly, I have to wonder why this story was pushed as hard as it was by the media and why details like this didn't emerge then."
My understanding is that the woman worked under both Reagan and Poppy. This was not the simple story that the media glommed on and kept repeating. If you followed it on Democracy Now! or in The Nation, you had a better picture of it. And as The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel said on The Majority Report (Air America radio program), the actions of the average citizens are to be applauded but there's another part of the story (U.S. involvement) that's not being covered in the mainstream media.
Marc saw the same story on Buzzflash and weighed in: "So the Ukraine wasn't just a way of distracting people from the stolen vote in this country, it was also a way to push off yet another Republican backed media story. If that seems like conspiracy talk, well gee, [Tom] Zeller [Jr., a writer for the Times] I'm just having a hard time grasping on why this never got mentioned until now. Seems to me that the mainstream press has a hard time covering anything in the rest of the world without a 'local angle.' Isn't it interesting how everyone took a pass on the 'local angle' to this story?"
Alberto Salvato's "Ohio Recount Gives a Smaller Margin to Bush" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/politics/29ohio.html):
A recount of the presidential election in Ohio that was finished on Tuesday showed that President Bush won the election here by about 300 fewer votes than initially recorded.
The recount of Ohio's 88 counties showed that Senator John Kerry gained 734 votes, with Mr. Bush picking up 449 after elections officials allowed more than 1,100 previously disqualified ballots to be counted in the second tally.
. . .
The state has become an emblem of continuing ailments in the nation's electoral process, because of Election Day events like seven-hour lines that drove voters away from the polls, malfunctioning machines, poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places and uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, which were given to voters whose registration was contested. The Green and Libertarian Parties asked for the recount and raised $113,600 to help pay for it as required under state law.
. . .
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also challenged the initial tally, has said the State Supreme Court should have thrown out the initial results and ordered a new election because people in some urban areas were never able to cast their ballots and many voters saw their ballots unfairly discarded.
Daniel Trevas, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Democrats supported the recount but found that county elections officials sometimes ignored requests by recount observers to see rejected absentee and provisional ballots, and were not informed about procedures used to recount and reject ballots.
Is the story perfect even if you overlook the fact that it's not delivering the results so many of us (including myself) wanted? I'd argue it's the best reporting the Times has done on the subject.
Outside of the editorial board and the op-ed writers, only Salvato has delivered anything like this to Times' readers. When the story was deemed only worthy of only a paragraph in an occasional National Briefing, the Times was happy to rely on Salvato.
When they finally began half-heartedly covering the story, they relied too little on him. Which is strange when you consider that of the writers sharing billing on any Ohio story in the Times, Ohio was Salvato's beat. But what made it into print too often appeared to be written by people phoning it in or having just landed in Ohio. [See http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/12/new-york-times-assigns-three-wise-men.html.]
Salvato probably knows the issues better than anyone at the Times. And that comes across in the story. (One wishes it had been given more space.) No, it's not going to please anyone who just wants to read "Bush Stole Ohio," but it's the best thing the Times printed on Ohio so I wanted to take a moment to note it. Whether he got his (solo) byline today because the "stars" (Dona's term) are all on vacation or for another reason, he's written the strongest news article the Times has done on the Ohio voting issue.
The second thing I wanted to draw attention was regarding Yukos. Krista, your "hottie" has written a letter that results in an Associated Press story in today's New York Times:
Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky (founder of Yukos who has been jailed since October 2003) wrote:
"Using selective justice, introducing new legal norms and applying them retroactively," he continued, the state has undermined trust in the legal system. "Such methods," he added, "damage the nation's reputation and hurt the economy, but those who initiated that don't care."
Mr. Putin has cast the 18-month crackdown on Mr. Khodorkovsky and Yukos as an effort to fight corruption and shady bookkeeping. But most analysts and commentators see it as a vendetta for Mr. Khodorkovsky's perceived political ambitions, including his financing of opposition parties.
. . .
In his letter, Mr. Khodorkovsky warned that Mr. Putin's bid to strengthen government controls would set off the nation's collapse. Mr. Putin has replaced the popular election of governors in Russia's 89 regions with Kremlin appointees.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/international/europe/29russia.html)
I'm finally listening to The Mike Malloy Show. My non-comments on Malloy and his show weren't intended to say that the show wasn't worthy of attention. But when Malloy's show is on, I'm usually cleaning or making a last minute trip to the grocery store or returning calls. (No, Tracee, I'm not watching Law & Order. Tracee's convinced that I must be watching TV during Malloy's show since he's only been mentioned twice. That's Tracee's calculation of two mentions, not mine.)
Mike Malloy is addressing the tsunami and the Bully Boy's four days of inaction:
"Why did it take George W. Bush four days, four days to respond. Because he doesn't have the language. He must wait to be told what to say. . . . When it comes to compassion or help or standing up like a man, he cannot do it."
Tony says part of what makes Malloy's show so worth listening to is "his excellent choices in bumper music." I'll agree that the songs have been outstanding (and that they are new to me).
Oregon e-mailed the story that Yahoo had posted regarding Sontag that neither Marcia nor I could find. Here's the link to the story http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_en_ot/obit_sontag. Here's the sentence:
In 1999, she wrote an essay for "Women," a compilation of portraits by her longtime companion, photographer Annie Leibovitz.
The article's by Hillel Italie ("AP National Writer") and entitled "Author and Activist Susan Sontag Dies."
Malloy:
"We will stand with him he says? How are doing that exactly? How are we doing that? I know that you, gentle listener, your heart is breaking. . . . The row upon row of corpses. . . About 35,000 of these are children. And George Bush says 'We Will stand with them.' How are we going to do that? . . . You don't call a press conference in a helicopter hanger and say we will prevail over this de-de-destruction. . . . "Mr. Bush were you offended?" Somebody asking if Bush was offended . . . by the suggestion that rich nations have been stingy in the aid for the tsunami. [Plays Bush clip] Do you hear the sneer? . . . 'The next tronch of relief" He doesn't speak like that. That's not a Bush word! . . . And he reads these statistics as though he's talking about a P&L statement about last year's business. . . . Don't you want to throw up blood, don't you? Can't you hear the desecration and the destruction going on in this monster's head? . . .
the next tronch will be spent wisely? Like what, they're going to be blow it on beer and cigarettes? . . . This can't be happening. Event after event, no matter what it is, war, disaster, destruction . . . Everything this monster touches is destroyed and Americans to the tune of 56 million voted for him. . . . This man stands out there and for the rest of the world he speaks for you, for you. I don't care if you live in Wisconsin, I don't care if your a New York liberal . . . this man speaks for you and he is defining you and me."
[Consider the Malloy quotes more paraphrased than exact quotes. I'm tired and my typing speed is way off. If you're able to check out his show and haven't yet, you should also know that printed words, even when word for word, will never accurately the capture the passion Malloy speaks with.]
Trina e-mails that today via Buzzflash (www.buzzflash.com) she learns something that "with all the ink NYT and other have devoted to the topic of the Urkaine, I can't believe I'm only now learning it. [The story she's referring to can be found at http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-ukewife28.html.] Little Kateryna Chumachenko grew up in Chicago, worked for the state department and the White House apparently under Reagan or H.W. Bush and then went on to marry Yushchenko in the nineties. Suddenly, I have to wonder why this story was pushed as hard as it was by the media and why details like this didn't emerge then."
My understanding is that the woman worked under both Reagan and Poppy. This was not the simple story that the media glommed on and kept repeating. If you followed it on Democracy Now! or in The Nation, you had a better picture of it. And as The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel said on The Majority Report (Air America radio program), the actions of the average citizens are to be applauded but there's another part of the story (U.S. involvement) that's not being covered in the mainstream media.
Marc saw the same story on Buzzflash and weighed in: "So the Ukraine wasn't just a way of distracting people from the stolen vote in this country, it was also a way to push off yet another Republican backed media story. If that seems like conspiracy talk, well gee, [Tom] Zeller [Jr., a writer for the Times] I'm just having a hard time grasping on why this never got mentioned until now. Seems to me that the mainstream press has a hard time covering anything in the rest of the world without a 'local angle.' Isn't it interesting how everyone took a pass on the 'local angle' to this story?"
Democracy Now! Isn't on Vacation
Democracy Now! is LWR today for all segments (Listen, Watch or Read)
Headlines for December 29, 2004-
Survivor From Aceh: "Destruction was of Biblical Proportions"-
U.S. Pledges $35 Million in Relief Aid; 1/4200 Amount Spent in Iraq-
Vacationing Bush Still Hasn't Publicly Spoken About Tsunami-
Thailand Held Off Warning to Protect Tourism Industry-
30 Die in Iraq House Explosion During Police Raid-
Powell Admits "[Iraq] Insurgency Will Continue"-
Ramsey Clark To Represent Saddam Hussein
Aceh: A Victim of Tsunami & Occupation; Will the Indonesian Army Use the Tsunami As A Cover to Continue Its Slaughter of the People of Aceh?
The disaster is killing thousands in Ache but the Indonesian military has been doing that for years. Now activists fear the Indonesian military will use the disaster as a cover to further the killing of the Acehnese and that the Pentagon may use the disaster as an excuse to restore aid to the Indonesian military which was blocked after the military's massacre in East Timor in 1999.
Of 67,000 Tsunami Victims, At Least 1/3 Are Children
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy discusses the mammoth relief effort that has begun to help the 10 nations hit the by the deadliest tsunami in two centuries. The death toll is 67,000 and rising. Doctors fear tens of thousands more may die from disease.
Susan Sontag, 1933-2004
Writer and cultural critic Susan Sontag died on Tuesday in New York after a long battle with cancer. She was 71 years old. Sontag was one of the country's leading literary figures as well as a longtime advocate for human rights.
Buzzflash has an interview with Nat Hentoff (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/12/int04062.html). Here's the strong opening of that must read
interview:
BuzzFlash: Let's start with the question you pose in your new book, The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance. The title of Chapter 46 is: "Is Bush the Law?" Is this Administration trying to replace the Constitution with executive branch decree?
Nat Hentoff: Well, what this Administration has been doing ever since soon after 9/11, with the passage of the Patriot Act -- which they rammed through Congress with many of the Congressmen not even having time to read it, and those who did being afraid to say anything because they didn't want to be considered unpatriotic -- this Administration is making up the law as it goes along. When the President said -- under the advice, by the way, of the coming new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales -- is that he had the right to imprison American citizens without charges, without trial, without access to lawyers, indefinitely. At least the Supreme Court last June said, 8 to 1, you can’t do that, you are not the law. But they keep on doing it anyway.
One of the things that is coming up now, for example -- they're starting to have a nationwide database of all college students, and that's never happened before, so they can track what they're doing in school and probably what they're doing after. And the CIA, with funds from the National Science Foundation, has been starting to research ways to monitor the Internet chatrooms; of course, the Chinese government is ahead of them on that.
If you haven't read Hentoff's book (The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance), please consider checking it out at your local library or purchasing it if you have the funds to do so -- besides book stores and online stores, Buzzflash is offering it as one of their premiums (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/). The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Reistance is 159 pages of text that will inform and outrage:
Much later, at the House Judiciary Committee hearing at which John Ashcroft testified, the ranking minority member, John Conyers of Michigan, accused him and the Bush administration of assuming "the . . . role of legislator, prosecutor, judge, and jury."
Unaffected by this charge, the attorney general claimed, in his testimony, that the president does have the power to arrest citizens on any American street, designate them "enemy combatants," and imprison them indefinitely, without access to lawyers or their families.
After all, Ashcroft said, "The last time I looked at Steptember 11, an American street was a war zone." So, all of us, not just aliens in America, can become the disappeared.
(from pp. 152-153)
"The last time I looked . . . an American street was a war zone"? Sounds as if J-Ass has spent too much downtime during his Bullying the USA tour watching the 1968 trash classic Wild in the Streets. Too much exposure to a tamborine-tapping, leather miniskirt wearing Senator (played by Diane Varsi), lines like "We outnumber the fuzz. We got more cats than little 'ol Mahatma Gandhi had" and Shelly Winters playing a matron on acid could have transported J-Ass into an alternate reality. (Wild in the Streets always makes Ben "howl with laughter" and he's e-mailed to request that we work it into a blog entry somehow. It's now been done.)
If you do have time to check out the Buzzlfash premiums (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/) you'll notice a number of interesting items. I want to stress the DVD Orwell Rolls Over In His Grave. Buzzflash is the exclusive source for that DVD and it's an amazing documentary about the sorry state of "news" today. (Disclosure, I buy many Buzzflash premiums. Further disclosure, like many, I'm waiting on that first check after the holidays having spent too much on gifts and food for entertaining.) What's catching my eye of the newer premiums is the book Guantanamo: What the World Should Know by Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/12/pre04090.html) which would be a 'high brow' purchase and National Corporation Radio's satirical spoofs of NPR (a target well deserving of mockery for most readers of this site). Marty Kaplan had NCR on his So What Else Is News? radio show (on Air America) and they were very funny. I'd love to go with a 'high brow' premium, but I have a feeling that once the first post-holiday check comes in, I'll be going with NCR (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/12/pre04085.html).
While we're talking about Buzzflash, they've picked their "Failure of the Year" and to see their choice click on http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/12/edi04091.html. Also worthy of note (and I saw this on Buzzflash, lest I pass myself off as someone who visits every strong web site first thing every day) TV News Lies has their year in review posted. It's entitled "2005 Ill Fated New Year" and can be read at http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/2005_ill_fated_new_year.html.
Francisco wrote in that he can't believe how many people are on vacation, not just the "stars" of the New York Times (as Dona dubbed them) but so many others. Democracy Now! hasn't gone on vacation, Buzzflash hasn't gone on vacation. I want to take a moment to highlight a few web sites that haven't gone on vacation:
Interesting Times (http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/) (a favorite of many who e-mail The Common Ills).
Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of The Nation) hasn't gone on vacation at the "Editor's Cut" and you can read her latest post at http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2091.
The Brad Blog hasn't gone on vacation (http://www.bradblog.com/).
Science and Politics (Kara and Erika's favorite blog) hasn't gone on vacation (http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2004/11/definition-of-theory-as-in-theory-of.html).
NOTE: Though the above is a wonderful entry, it's from November. It's worth reading; however, I intended to link to the site itself and not to a specific post. Science And Politics'
web site is http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/.
Random Thoughts (a favorite of Bernardo's) hasn't gone on vacation (http://snunes.blogspot.com/).
Bartcop has been posting throughout this. [Warning re: workplace guidelines regarding the web, Bartcop let's it all hang out. I believe I also once saw topless shots of Dr. Laura on the site -- though that might just have been a bad nightmare!] (http://www.bartcop.com/)
Matthew Rothschild hasn't disappeared on some ski trail in Aspen. He's been posting at The Progressive's home page throughout the holidays (http://www.progressive.org/). To read his latest "McCarthyism Watch" entry (Dec. 27th) or to check out the previous posts on this topic
click on http://www.progressive.org/mcwatch03/mcwatch03.html. And to read his latest from "This Just In" ("New York Times Says Tsunami Kills White People, Too!" which posted today) click on http://www.progressive.org/webex04/wx122904.html.
Feministing did take off from the 24th to the 26th but they're blogging again at http://feministing.com/.
Dahr Jamail had a post that went up on the 26th at Iraq Dispatches (http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/).
We highlighted Naomi Klein's latest (http://www.nologo.org/) yesterday.
OpEd News is offering not just their usual outstanding op-eds but also blogging (http://www.opednews.com/).
I'm not disagreeing that a number of people are taking time off and I'm not saying that "we don't need to maintain our focus" (as Krista feels the "on vacation, be back soon" message is sending out). I agree we need the strong voices we've grown accustomed to.
And your e-mails asking that we not reduce our posts during the holidays were the reason we rushed our year in review out (it's posted as being up at six something the evening of Dec. 24th, but again, that thing went up well after midnight on the 25th -- the time on each entry is apparently based on when the post was started). The plan had been to work on that at a later date (which was planned for today, right about now in fact). And I'm sorry to the two readers who were working on their picks for the best book of 2004. (If you select those, we'll be happy to post them when you send them in.)
I do know that not everyone celebrates, for instance, Christmas. And that some of you who do were away from your usual circles (such as Jim who was home from the holidays and therefore away from most of his friends on campus) and that, as two of you pointed out, you'd be sending the 25th alone. Even for those who were going to be busy (for any holiday or whatever), I know that when you get online, the expectation is that a page is going to load with something other than "on holiday."
So the choice here was to not "go on holiday" by reducing our posts. (I feel like we increased posts during this "break" but that just might be due to the amount of time spent on research --
Daniel Okrent's columns, scanning Susan Sontag's writings for quotes, piecing together the post
on Joan Baez that Liang requested, etc.)
Joan: "I can't believe that the left has decided that following this election, now is the perfect time to go on holiday! I can't believe that Air America thinks listening to repeats of Unfiltered, Al Franken and other shows is somehow keeping the focus and fighting the fight. Reno could have been substitute host during this time. Any number of people could have been substitute hosts. Don't want to call it 'Unfiltered,' then don't. But give the week to something that matters.
With the network not having one Latino host on its schedule, they could have brought in someone to address that need during this break. They could have brought on Tom Hayden during this period and let him host a radio mini-series. Gloria Steinem could have hosted a program and the rest of the week could have been her picks of voices that we don't hear on mainstream radio as hosts. I don't think that various voices from the left such as African-Americans, feminists, environmentalists, Asian-Americans, Latinos, and others would have responded universally 'no, we're all on holiday' to an offer to reach the nation wide audience that Air America has done an outstanding job building. I do not begrudge Lizz [Winstead], Al [Franken], Sam [Seder] or anyone a vacation. I do question the decision to give us dead air.
I've never listened to Rush Limbaugh but, during his quick leap into rehab, I learned from the press coverage that he had a guest host fill in. That's what Air America should have done for anyone who wanted to take a vacation -- one that was earned, I'm not arguing that it wasn't.
Instead, I've depended on Democracy Now!, KPFA's Free Speech Radio [http://www.kpfa.org/] and Free Speech Radio News [http://www.fsrn.org/]. If I want to hear a repeat or check a show I've missed on Air America, I'm perfectly able to go to Air America Place [http://www.airamericaplace.com/] and download it. Had Air America done special programming with a comedy special (one they could broadcast every holiday, hint, hint) that would have been fine for a day. But to expect listeners who tune in to hear about the day's events to be satisfied with repeats wall to wall is asking too much of the listeners."
I do understand what Joan's saying. But my understanding is that Mike Malloy's show didn't go into repeats. (I'm listening tonight, Joe, who feels Malloy hasn't been properly highlighted on this site.) I know that Morning Sedition (hosted by Mark Riley and Marc Maron) wasn't airing repeats and Thom Hartmann has filled in for Randi Rhodes. But as someone who listens to Air America, I do understand your frustration. I also think your idea of a taped special to be aired yearly would be a good one. They could make it a political comedy special and just update it with an introduction each year ("Now flashback with us to December, 2005 when the White House was brimming with their own idea of 'holiday cheer' . . .). Al Franken does a very strong impersonation of Dick Cheney so it would be very easy to center it around that. Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow do a great job at their "Transcript Theater." (Or is "Transcript Theatre?")
With them, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, Janeane Garofalo, Laura Flanders, the Marc/ks, Mike Malloy, Chuck D, Kyle Jason, Marty Kaplan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, Katherine Lanpher, Steve Earle and Betsy Rosenberg, the network has a host of talent that could really shine in something like that which would be worthy of repeating each year. It would also require a great deal of work in terms of writing it and recording it. But maybe they'll do something like that next year.
On the plus side, it's given Joan the opportunity to explore other programs she hadn't listened to before.
Joan: "I listen to Air America. I swore off NPR three years ago and in the time since have just listened to music at work. I've read a link to Democracy Now! every now and then but with Air America on vacation, I was finally able to check it out. It's a great show. Then the woman who's desk is next to mine told me I should check out KPFA and then I discovered Free Speech Radio News. When new programming resumes on Air America, I'll listen but not non-stop anymore. I'll take an hour for Amy Goodman's show [Democracy Now!] and thirty minutes for Free Speech Radio News. But the whole thing has been like CBS's Monday nights in the nineties.
They took Cybill off for about six weeks in the fall. That show was the only reason I watched their Monday night programming. I could take one week. But by the second week, I'd flipped over to Ally McBeal on Fox. I'd argue that CBS gave Fox that hit because the women I knew were big fans of Cybill and watched it regularly until CBS decided to pull it for some lame show I don't even remember now for sure but it may have been another of the many shows revolving around a a portly male married to a thin woman who was probably a homemaker. Otherwise it was George & Leo which featured such 'eye candy' as Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch and no strong woman in the cast. CBS basically handed the season over to the new and struggling Ally McBeal right then and there. When CBS finally returned Cybill to the air, we were too caught up in Ally to switch back."
[Note: This post has been corrected to site correctly the home page of Science And Politics.]
Headlines for December 29, 2004-
Survivor From Aceh: "Destruction was of Biblical Proportions"-
U.S. Pledges $35 Million in Relief Aid; 1/4200 Amount Spent in Iraq-
Vacationing Bush Still Hasn't Publicly Spoken About Tsunami-
Thailand Held Off Warning to Protect Tourism Industry-
30 Die in Iraq House Explosion During Police Raid-
Powell Admits "[Iraq] Insurgency Will Continue"-
Ramsey Clark To Represent Saddam Hussein
Aceh: A Victim of Tsunami & Occupation; Will the Indonesian Army Use the Tsunami As A Cover to Continue Its Slaughter of the People of Aceh?
The disaster is killing thousands in Ache but the Indonesian military has been doing that for years. Now activists fear the Indonesian military will use the disaster as a cover to further the killing of the Acehnese and that the Pentagon may use the disaster as an excuse to restore aid to the Indonesian military which was blocked after the military's massacre in East Timor in 1999.
Of 67,000 Tsunami Victims, At Least 1/3 Are Children
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy discusses the mammoth relief effort that has begun to help the 10 nations hit the by the deadliest tsunami in two centuries. The death toll is 67,000 and rising. Doctors fear tens of thousands more may die from disease.
Susan Sontag, 1933-2004
Writer and cultural critic Susan Sontag died on Tuesday in New York after a long battle with cancer. She was 71 years old. Sontag was one of the country's leading literary figures as well as a longtime advocate for human rights.
Buzzflash has an interview with Nat Hentoff (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/12/int04062.html). Here's the strong opening of that must read
interview:
BuzzFlash: Let's start with the question you pose in your new book, The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance. The title of Chapter 46 is: "Is Bush the Law?" Is this Administration trying to replace the Constitution with executive branch decree?
Nat Hentoff: Well, what this Administration has been doing ever since soon after 9/11, with the passage of the Patriot Act -- which they rammed through Congress with many of the Congressmen not even having time to read it, and those who did being afraid to say anything because they didn't want to be considered unpatriotic -- this Administration is making up the law as it goes along. When the President said -- under the advice, by the way, of the coming new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales -- is that he had the right to imprison American citizens without charges, without trial, without access to lawyers, indefinitely. At least the Supreme Court last June said, 8 to 1, you can’t do that, you are not the law. But they keep on doing it anyway.
One of the things that is coming up now, for example -- they're starting to have a nationwide database of all college students, and that's never happened before, so they can track what they're doing in school and probably what they're doing after. And the CIA, with funds from the National Science Foundation, has been starting to research ways to monitor the Internet chatrooms; of course, the Chinese government is ahead of them on that.
If you haven't read Hentoff's book (The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance), please consider checking it out at your local library or purchasing it if you have the funds to do so -- besides book stores and online stores, Buzzflash is offering it as one of their premiums (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/). The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Reistance is 159 pages of text that will inform and outrage:
Much later, at the House Judiciary Committee hearing at which John Ashcroft testified, the ranking minority member, John Conyers of Michigan, accused him and the Bush administration of assuming "the . . . role of legislator, prosecutor, judge, and jury."
Unaffected by this charge, the attorney general claimed, in his testimony, that the president does have the power to arrest citizens on any American street, designate them "enemy combatants," and imprison them indefinitely, without access to lawyers or their families.
After all, Ashcroft said, "The last time I looked at Steptember 11, an American street was a war zone." So, all of us, not just aliens in America, can become the disappeared.
(from pp. 152-153)
"The last time I looked . . . an American street was a war zone"? Sounds as if J-Ass has spent too much downtime during his Bullying the USA tour watching the 1968 trash classic Wild in the Streets. Too much exposure to a tamborine-tapping, leather miniskirt wearing Senator (played by Diane Varsi), lines like "We outnumber the fuzz. We got more cats than little 'ol Mahatma Gandhi had" and Shelly Winters playing a matron on acid could have transported J-Ass into an alternate reality. (Wild in the Streets always makes Ben "howl with laughter" and he's e-mailed to request that we work it into a blog entry somehow. It's now been done.)
If you do have time to check out the Buzzlfash premiums (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/) you'll notice a number of interesting items. I want to stress the DVD Orwell Rolls Over In His Grave. Buzzflash is the exclusive source for that DVD and it's an amazing documentary about the sorry state of "news" today. (Disclosure, I buy many Buzzflash premiums. Further disclosure, like many, I'm waiting on that first check after the holidays having spent too much on gifts and food for entertaining.) What's catching my eye of the newer premiums is the book Guantanamo: What the World Should Know by Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/12/pre04090.html) which would be a 'high brow' purchase and National Corporation Radio's satirical spoofs of NPR (a target well deserving of mockery for most readers of this site). Marty Kaplan had NCR on his So What Else Is News? radio show (on Air America) and they were very funny. I'd love to go with a 'high brow' premium, but I have a feeling that once the first post-holiday check comes in, I'll be going with NCR (http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/12/pre04085.html).
While we're talking about Buzzflash, they've picked their "Failure of the Year" and to see their choice click on http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/12/edi04091.html. Also worthy of note (and I saw this on Buzzflash, lest I pass myself off as someone who visits every strong web site first thing every day) TV News Lies has their year in review posted. It's entitled "2005 Ill Fated New Year" and can be read at http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/2005_ill_fated_new_year.html.
Francisco wrote in that he can't believe how many people are on vacation, not just the "stars" of the New York Times (as Dona dubbed them) but so many others. Democracy Now! hasn't gone on vacation, Buzzflash hasn't gone on vacation. I want to take a moment to highlight a few web sites that haven't gone on vacation:
Interesting Times (http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/) (a favorite of many who e-mail The Common Ills).
Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of The Nation) hasn't gone on vacation at the "Editor's Cut" and you can read her latest post at http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2091.
The Brad Blog hasn't gone on vacation (http://www.bradblog.com/).
Science and Politics (Kara and Erika's favorite blog) hasn't gone on vacation (http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2004/11/definition-of-theory-as-in-theory-of.html).
NOTE: Though the above is a wonderful entry, it's from November. It's worth reading; however, I intended to link to the site itself and not to a specific post. Science And Politics'
web site is http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/.
Random Thoughts (a favorite of Bernardo's) hasn't gone on vacation (http://snunes.blogspot.com/).
Bartcop has been posting throughout this. [Warning re: workplace guidelines regarding the web, Bartcop let's it all hang out. I believe I also once saw topless shots of Dr. Laura on the site -- though that might just have been a bad nightmare!] (http://www.bartcop.com/)
Matthew Rothschild hasn't disappeared on some ski trail in Aspen. He's been posting at The Progressive's home page throughout the holidays (http://www.progressive.org/). To read his latest "McCarthyism Watch" entry (Dec. 27th) or to check out the previous posts on this topic
click on http://www.progressive.org/mcwatch03/mcwatch03.html. And to read his latest from "This Just In" ("New York Times Says Tsunami Kills White People, Too!" which posted today) click on http://www.progressive.org/webex04/wx122904.html.
Feministing did take off from the 24th to the 26th but they're blogging again at http://feministing.com/.
Dahr Jamail had a post that went up on the 26th at Iraq Dispatches (http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/).
We highlighted Naomi Klein's latest (http://www.nologo.org/) yesterday.
OpEd News is offering not just their usual outstanding op-eds but also blogging (http://www.opednews.com/).
I'm not disagreeing that a number of people are taking time off and I'm not saying that "we don't need to maintain our focus" (as Krista feels the "on vacation, be back soon" message is sending out). I agree we need the strong voices we've grown accustomed to.
And your e-mails asking that we not reduce our posts during the holidays were the reason we rushed our year in review out (it's posted as being up at six something the evening of Dec. 24th, but again, that thing went up well after midnight on the 25th -- the time on each entry is apparently based on when the post was started). The plan had been to work on that at a later date (which was planned for today, right about now in fact). And I'm sorry to the two readers who were working on their picks for the best book of 2004. (If you select those, we'll be happy to post them when you send them in.)
I do know that not everyone celebrates, for instance, Christmas. And that some of you who do were away from your usual circles (such as Jim who was home from the holidays and therefore away from most of his friends on campus) and that, as two of you pointed out, you'd be sending the 25th alone. Even for those who were going to be busy (for any holiday or whatever), I know that when you get online, the expectation is that a page is going to load with something other than "on holiday."
So the choice here was to not "go on holiday" by reducing our posts. (I feel like we increased posts during this "break" but that just might be due to the amount of time spent on research --
Daniel Okrent's columns, scanning Susan Sontag's writings for quotes, piecing together the post
on Joan Baez that Liang requested, etc.)
Joan: "I can't believe that the left has decided that following this election, now is the perfect time to go on holiday! I can't believe that Air America thinks listening to repeats of Unfiltered, Al Franken and other shows is somehow keeping the focus and fighting the fight. Reno could have been substitute host during this time. Any number of people could have been substitute hosts. Don't want to call it 'Unfiltered,' then don't. But give the week to something that matters.
With the network not having one Latino host on its schedule, they could have brought in someone to address that need during this break. They could have brought on Tom Hayden during this period and let him host a radio mini-series. Gloria Steinem could have hosted a program and the rest of the week could have been her picks of voices that we don't hear on mainstream radio as hosts. I don't think that various voices from the left such as African-Americans, feminists, environmentalists, Asian-Americans, Latinos, and others would have responded universally 'no, we're all on holiday' to an offer to reach the nation wide audience that Air America has done an outstanding job building. I do not begrudge Lizz [Winstead], Al [Franken], Sam [Seder] or anyone a vacation. I do question the decision to give us dead air.
I've never listened to Rush Limbaugh but, during his quick leap into rehab, I learned from the press coverage that he had a guest host fill in. That's what Air America should have done for anyone who wanted to take a vacation -- one that was earned, I'm not arguing that it wasn't.
Instead, I've depended on Democracy Now!, KPFA's Free Speech Radio [http://www.kpfa.org/] and Free Speech Radio News [http://www.fsrn.org/]. If I want to hear a repeat or check a show I've missed on Air America, I'm perfectly able to go to Air America Place [http://www.airamericaplace.com/] and download it. Had Air America done special programming with a comedy special (one they could broadcast every holiday, hint, hint) that would have been fine for a day. But to expect listeners who tune in to hear about the day's events to be satisfied with repeats wall to wall is asking too much of the listeners."
I do understand what Joan's saying. But my understanding is that Mike Malloy's show didn't go into repeats. (I'm listening tonight, Joe, who feels Malloy hasn't been properly highlighted on this site.) I know that Morning Sedition (hosted by Mark Riley and Marc Maron) wasn't airing repeats and Thom Hartmann has filled in for Randi Rhodes. But as someone who listens to Air America, I do understand your frustration. I also think your idea of a taped special to be aired yearly would be a good one. They could make it a political comedy special and just update it with an introduction each year ("Now flashback with us to December, 2005 when the White House was brimming with their own idea of 'holiday cheer' . . .). Al Franken does a very strong impersonation of Dick Cheney so it would be very easy to center it around that. Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow do a great job at their "Transcript Theater." (Or is "Transcript Theatre?")
With them, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, Janeane Garofalo, Laura Flanders, the Marc/ks, Mike Malloy, Chuck D, Kyle Jason, Marty Kaplan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, Katherine Lanpher, Steve Earle and Betsy Rosenberg, the network has a host of talent that could really shine in something like that which would be worthy of repeating each year. It would also require a great deal of work in terms of writing it and recording it. But maybe they'll do something like that next year.
On the plus side, it's given Joan the opportunity to explore other programs she hadn't listened to before.
Joan: "I listen to Air America. I swore off NPR three years ago and in the time since have just listened to music at work. I've read a link to Democracy Now! every now and then but with Air America on vacation, I was finally able to check it out. It's a great show. Then the woman who's desk is next to mine told me I should check out KPFA and then I discovered Free Speech Radio News. When new programming resumes on Air America, I'll listen but not non-stop anymore. I'll take an hour for Amy Goodman's show [Democracy Now!] and thirty minutes for Free Speech Radio News. But the whole thing has been like CBS's Monday nights in the nineties.
They took Cybill off for about six weeks in the fall. That show was the only reason I watched their Monday night programming. I could take one week. But by the second week, I'd flipped over to Ally McBeal on Fox. I'd argue that CBS gave Fox that hit because the women I knew were big fans of Cybill and watched it regularly until CBS decided to pull it for some lame show I don't even remember now for sure but it may have been another of the many shows revolving around a a portly male married to a thin woman who was probably a homemaker. Otherwise it was George & Leo which featured such 'eye candy' as Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch and no strong woman in the cast. CBS basically handed the season over to the new and struggling Ally McBeal right then and there. When CBS finally returned Cybill to the air, we were too caught up in Ally to switch back."
[Note: This post has been corrected to site correctly the home page of Science And Politics.]
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