Since the last time I wrote...

Newsweek's article regarding the desecration of the Koran at Quantanamo has been 'semi-acknowledged' by the Bush Administration. Nothing so bad as flushing it down the toilet, of course, but other 'minor' acts of disrespect have admittedly occurred. Such as, a soldier urinating through a vent onto a prisoner holding the Koran. But really, can that be considered an act of desecration? Not unless the Koran itself was the target and not the prisoner. If the prisoner was the soldier's intended target, then it's deemed just another stealthy act of interrogation.

Typically, the fair and balanced reporting of our national media has skimmed over the irony of the Administration's late Friday night admission, leaving us to wonder once again, "what's the true story here?" Or maybe not. The citizens of this country do not seem consumed with concern for the Koran, or the Quantanamo prisoners, Muslims at large and presumably more dangerous than ever, or even themselves for that matter, given the direction this country has turned.

But all is well in the world: Michael Jackson was acquitted on all charges of molestation and serving alcohol to a minor. The King of Pop is now plopped on his bed recovery from this ordeal, presumably alone. Or maybe with a pet monkey --- but no more boys under the age of 18; Attorney Mesereau assured us of that.

Barely a whisper was lip synched here in the U.S.A. in response to the London Time's May 1st disclosure of what has been called the "Downing Street Memo," now infamous throughout Europe. This memo, so-called, is actually a document containing the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Blair's top advisers in which it is very clear that plans to remove Saddam were in the making. That is to say, being fabricated. The memo in part states:

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

The memo is dated July 23 2002, eight months before the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

[The full memo can be read at this site: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html]

Today another memo has been unearthed, again by a London Times' reporter. The 'introduction' to that memo, also dated July 23, 2002, states:

"1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it. "

The full memo can be read at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758_1,00.html

The Washington Post ran with this new disclosure on its front page today. No doubt the outpouring of angry Americans tired of the media self-censoring itself as it kowtows to the Bush Administration, has made an impression. People, including myself, have been inundating the network and cable news channels demanding coverage on this topic, with minimal success to date. We have gone to the websites and signed the petitions. (If you haven't yet, you still can: http://www.johnconyers.com/; http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/; http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/.)

It's this type of grassroots effort that can bring about change for the better.

While the established national media failed to pursue this explosive issue, the internet, with its bloggers and investigators, succeeded in keeping the Downing Street Memo alive here in the U.S., despite the efforts of George and his press agent to downplay and kill it. It just may be the smoking gun that will ultimately bring this Administration to its creaky knees. Maybe while there, George will learn the true purpose for prayer: To beg forgiveness. (Now THAT would be truly be a miracle and make believers out of all of us, no?)

Long before George W. Bush's vulgar presence in the White House, the Project for a New American Century sent then President Clinton a letter stating that US policy toward Iraq was not succeeding and that he needed to form a new strategy that would no doubt include US military involvement in the removal of Saddam's regime. That letter, dated in January of 1998, is signed by Bush Administration neocons Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, among others. Even William J. Bennett got his 'Hancock' onto it. [See http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm]

If you've never read the Project for a New American Century's Statement of Principles, it is definitely worth the five minutes it'll take. [http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm ]

That document, signed by our very own Vice President Cheney, along with all the neocons listed above plus George's brother Jeb (but surprisingly, not George himself. Guess he was off bicycling that day.) and dated June 3, 1997, clearly sets out the Bush administration's foreign policy. While nothing specific is stated regarding an attack on Iraq, the ideology gleaned between the lines clearly supports such tactics.

Congratulations are in order...

to the moderate senators who were able to strike a deal to stop (for now?) the demise of the filibuster (for judicial nominees) and maintain senate rules. I suspect it's merely a delay of the inevitable, however. When Bush nominates a Supreme Court justice, which is coming sooner than later, certainly that nomination will be an extremely conservative judge (in keeping with his spending spree of that political capital he claims he earned, by mandate no less!), and this will provoke the Democrats into screaming, "EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES," and begin their filibustering. Then we'll see how Dr. Frist is able to handle this "good will based upon mutual trust and confidence" agreement between centrist senators. Frankly, I doubt he will. Senator Frist is not a happy man tonight, by his own admission; he was chomping at the bit to show his evangelical base that he was their man, now and more importantly, later; willing to break rules to have his way and ultimately theirs. And to be upstaged by Senator McCain! That's adding insult to injury.

I have to wonder if this is much of a win for the Democrats. Judge Priscilla Owens will be allowed an up-down vote, as will two others, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor---all extremely conservative judges. The Republicans get three of their nominees, and the Democrats get to nix two, apparently. Unless a number of those moderate Republican senators side with the Democrats and vote against confirmation of one or more, these three judges will sit on federal appeal courts for the rest of their lives, or for a very long time.

Senator Reid's comment that "the integrity of the Supreme Court has been protected from the undue influence of the vocal, radical right wing," seems premature and overly optimistic. But you can't blame Reid for gloating. I sure hope he's right.

That John McCain has positioned himself as forerunner for the Republican presidential nomination come 2007 must also irk Frist. It's been a bad day for Frist. And overall, a fairly good one for the American people.

A better day for the average citizen of this country (aka "Joe Public," as George demeaningly refers to us) will be when there is true bipartisanship in Congress once again. How that will be acquired, who can say? It's up to the voting public, of course. Yet if you believe the Red/Blue U.S. map, the voting public is as mindlessly partisan as those they elect. I frankly would like to see more Independents and third-party candidates elected, to insert a little creative, outside-the-partisan-box thinking into what's become a feckless institution. Beyond that, how to take the special interest money out of the equation is the real issue.

Where are Messrs Jefferson, Adams, Payne and Franklin when we need them?

Rolling in their graves, no doubt.

Today the nonevent was Saddam in ....

his underwear. His tight white briefs. Now how did that photo get to be splashed across newspapers, the internet, and every cable and network news channel? Supposedly it's an old photo, taken around the time Saddam was first incarcerated, some 19 months ago. Nineteen months this guy has been held in an undisclosed, so-called "safe" location, uncharged. I guess former cruel mass-murdering dictators who don't have weapons of mass destruction but are unable to prove that have no right to due-process in their newly formed democratic country, or under U.S. military law, or however it is we are holding him... uncharged. And he is also fair game for being globally humiliated. Not that anyone cares about Saddam Hussein, least of all me. It's just the point. We have laws against this sort of thing, something known as the Geneva Convention. What next in this ridiculously mismanaged unnecessary war?

I think our dear George personally commissioned someone to take those photos of Saddam so that he could splash them across the media. What pleasure that must give him, seeing the man 'who tried to kill [his] daddy' in his "tightie whities." Victory at last, and in ways far more enjoyable than he imagined.

Ultimately it's too boring to hold center stage for long. One look at that photo was more than enough for me. And it's also just another diversion from what's really important: that human beings, both American and Iraqi, as well as other nationalities, are being blown up, shot, decapitated, or otherwise untimely sent to their respective 'maker' every day, courtesy of U. S. tax dollars.

Meanwhile, the South Koreans have made a major breakthrough in stem cell research. That news had George reiterating that he will veto any bill from Congress budgetting tax dollars for similar research by U. S. researchers. Better to keep funneling it into Iraq.

George is unable to wrap his little mind around the importance of stem cell research. It violates his sense of Christian morality. Killing tens of thousands of Muslims doesn't violate that sense, nor does sending our military personnel into harm's way for ... (if you can fill in the blank, good for you; I can't), that's okay. I guess there's something somewhere in the bible that says it's okay. But using a discarded embryo for potentially life saving research, well that's too horrifying, too evil, to allow.

I sure am looking forward to January 2008. Anything and anyone has got to be better than this. Well, anyone other than ... Dick Cheney.

Having yesterday set forth my political leanings...

in a forthright and, I believe, charming manner, today I'd like to share my observations regarding this -- the blogosphere. Even H. G. Wells himself never dreamt up such a fantastic world (although in E. M. Forster's turn-of-the-twentieth-century short story, The Machine Stops, he writes about instant messaging and "cinematophoes," or visual imaging machines!). Here, diversity and creativity team with information both sound and insane and sometimes mundane, punctuated with the ramblings of the highly intellectual, the cleverly thoughtful and the occasionally moronic.

As I navigated through this site, I clicked on a number of blogs written by teenagers and young adults. Most often they spoke about "what I did today." One notable blog was written by a 20-something female who meticulously described in great detail how she turned off her computer, turned off each lamp in her home then, having decided to go for a walk outside, in the darkness with hands outstretched, she walked face first into a door jamb. Ouch!

Some, though perhaps not that one, display maturity beyond their years, whether they were aiming at that or not. But all were consumed in the immediate world in which they live; experience on a visceral level only youth can enjoy. Music--lots of blogs about music, or current TV shows, great places to visit or just go and 'hang.' All Things New, Young and Hip.

It all came to back me. I was the same when I was a teen and young adult. Through long tedious classes of history and political science, or at the desk of my first job, my thoughts might focus on the fantastic prospect of having a date with that cute boy I saw the other night, or I'd plan out my outfit for the coming weekend's venture to Greenwich Village, wondering if my jeans were belled and frayed sufficiently. Might I borrow my best friend's purple suede jacket? Oh, I'd look so groovy. Never would I think about things so prosaic as our country's involvement in Viet Nam, or the war which was raging--in all its various forms--at that time, or whether Nixon really was the crook he claimed not to be. Yet many youth at that time were concerned with such things; they were politically involved, motivated by altruistic outrage at the mishandling of all things governmental. They, or rather WE (for obviously I included myself among the members of my g-g-g-generation) would change the world. Peace and Love to the soundtrack of Hair, or flag burning to the anthem, Ohio, by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I can claim attendance at only one peace rally, quite by accident, when I climbed out of the subway station at 59th and Fifth Avenue one Saturday afternoon and found myself in the midst of one. You might say I skirted it, waving an occasional 'peace' hand sign to show approval. It was lost in a sea of them.

I didn't understand the politics of war or government at the time, nor did I care. There were more important things, as there are with the youth of today. If you stumble into a wall, you could break your nose, or at least make it bleed, and that's more at issue: personally, physically, monetarily even, than whether congress passes the latest budget, or social security goes bye-bye.

So it was fun in a nostalgic way to read some of the blogs. I envy them their innocence, their carefree yet often careless freedoms, their spontaneous pleasures. But I'm happy in my own skin too, and in my 50-something mind, with worries that extend into a future I'll never see, and with freedoms the young will take decades acquiring. Here in the blogosphere, in ways small or possibly large, each of us can make a difference, regardless--or perhaps because--of the interests we share.

This may sound like a rant...

but every week there is some new "non-news" event preoccupying the entire media that ultimately does nothing but diffuse our attention from what's really going on in our opaque government.

This week it's Newsweek's blurp and subsequent retraction regarding the "alleged" but highly likely desecration of the Holy Koran by personnel at Guantanomo. That similar accounts have been circulating throughout various global media for quite some time apparently has no bearing when it comes to the Bush Administration's wielding of this as its own political football. This, from an Administration that will stop at little, if anything, to skewer and spin its own press. But if Newsweek is to be held accountable for the riots and deaths in Afghanistan based on its publication of erroneous information (stemming from government sources, by the way), then why has Bush gotten off scott-free for basing his preemptive attack of Iraq upon specious, illogical and disputed "erroneous information" in the first place?

Presidential-accountability is just too much to ask for from our declasse cowboy masquerading as Commander-in-Chief, isn't it? He'll let his press secretary field inquiry for the time being, until someone writes him some charming platitudes to pitch to oath-signing supporters.

And let's not go the conspiracy-theory way and suggest that Newsweek was set up, just so the Bush Administration can point its crooked little snot-infested finger and say, "See? You guys always get it wrong! You are not to be trusted!"

Give me a break.

In the meantime, while everyone's attention is on this nonevent, the Republican-lead senate is getting ready to chip off a little bit more of our democracy and stick it to the Democrats and, by extension, at least half the population if not more, by once again changing rules for its own power-crazed benefit. This time it's the filibuster rule. What will it be next?

I shudder to think.