RIP DENNIS HOPPER

THERE JUST ISN'T ANY WAY TO EXPRESS THE LOSS OF A GREAT GUY

ALSO, HERE

OH, THOSE GHOSTS!!!

CounterPunch Diary
Vietnam MIAs: Ghosts Return to Haunt McCain and the US Press

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

The ghosts that haunt Senator John McCain are about 600 in number and right now they are mustering for an onslaught. McCain, one of America's foremost Republicans and President Barack Obama's opponent in 2008, is currently locked in a desperate bid for political survival in his home state of Arizona. After 20 years of immunity from challenge from his fellow Republicans, he's now involved in a close primary battle with J.D. Hayworth, a former congressman turned radio broadcaster who sports the Tea Party label. Hayworth says McCain is a fake Republican, soft on issues like immigration. The polls have been tightening, and if McCain got bludgeoned by some new disclosure, it could finish him off.

That very disclosure is now bursting over the head of McCain, the former Navy pilot who was held in a North Vietnamese prison for five years, and returned to the US as a war hero. His nemesis is Sydney Schanberg, a former New York Times reporter who won a Pulitzer prize for his reporting from Cambodia that formed the basis for the Oscar-winning movie, The Killing Fields.

In recent years Schanberg has worked relentlessly on one of the great mysteries of the Vietnam War, one that still causes hundreds of American families enduring pain. Did the US government abandon American POWs in Vietnam? By 1990 there were so many stories, sightings, intelligence reports, of American POWs left behind in Vietnam after the war was over, that pressure from Vietnam vets and the families of the MIAs prompted the formation of a special committee of the US Senate to investigate. The chairman was John Kerry, a Navy man who had served in Vietnam. McCain, as a former POW, was its most pivotal member.

Down the years Schanberg has pieced together the evidence, much of it covered up by the Senate committee. In 1993, an American historian unearthed in Soviet archives the record of a briefing of a Vietnamese general to the Soviet politbureau. The briefing took place in 1973, right before the final peace agreement between the US and Hanoi. What the Vietnamese general told the Russians was that his government was intent on getting war reparations, $3.25 billion in reconstruction money, pledged by the US in peace negotiations headed on the US side by Henry Kissinger. The general told the Russians that Hanoi would hold back a large number of POWs until the money arrived. It seems the Vietnamese had successfully used the same tactic with the French, to elicit promised funds, after which POWs were transferred.

But Nixon and Kissinger had attached to the deal a codicil to the effect that the US Congress would have to approve the reparations – which the two knew was an impossibility in the political atmosphere of the time. Thus they effectively sealed the POWs fate. On signature of the 1973 treaty Hanoi released the names of 591 POWs scheduled to be returned. , At the time there was widespread consternation in the US – in the New York Times for example -- at the unexpectedly low number. In fact, as top official in the US government knew, about 600 POWs were being held back, against delivery of the promised $3.25 billion.

All of this was suppressed by the Kerry-McCain committee, with the complicity of the US press, enamored of both McCain and Kerry. McCain was particularly vicious in mocking what he and his press allies suggested were the fantasies of MIA families and Vietnam vets.

"In a private briefing in 1992,” Schanberg writes, “high-level CIA officials told me that as the years passed and the ransom never came, it became more and more difficult for either government to admit that it knew from the start about the unacknowledged prisoners. Those prisoners had not only become useless as bargaining chips but also posed a risk to Hanoi's desire to be accepted into the international community. "The CIA officials said their intelligence indicated strongly that the remaining men - those who had not died from illness or hard labor or torture - were eventually executed."

Schanberg stigmatizes the indifference of the press:

“In recent years, I have offered my POW stories to a long list of editors of leading newspapers, magazines, and significant websites that do original reporting. And when they decline my offerings, I have urged them to do their own POW investigation with their own staff under their own supervision. The list of these news organizations includes the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, Salon, Slate, Talking Points Memo, ProPublica, Politico, and others. To my knowledge, none have attempted or produced a piece. Their explanations for avoiding the story have never rung true. … Some said they didn’t have enough staff to do the story. Others said the story was ‘old’ —even though we have never found out what happened to the missing prisoners. …

“I asked these editors about the mountain of hard evidence attesting to the existence of abandoned men. In particular, I asked about the witness evidence, the 1,600 firsthand live sightings of American prisoners after the war. Did these journalists believe that every last one of the 1,600 witnesses was lying or mistaken? Many of these Vietnamese witnesses were interrogated by U.S. intelligence officers. Many were given lie-detector tests. They passed. The interrogators’ reports graded the bulk of the witnesses ‘credible.’

“I would run through the long gamut of known intelligence—official radio intercepts of prisoners being moved to and from labor camps in Laos, satellite photos, conversations overheard by Secret Service agents inside the White House, ransom offers from Hanoi through third parties, sworn public testimony by three U.S. defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam era that ‘men were left behind.’ The press wasn’t and isn’t interested.” In late 2008 The Nation published a shorted version of Schanberg’s investigation, and Hamilton Fish put a much fuller account up on the National Institute’s website."

In the presidential campaign of 2008, as we reported more than once here in CounterPunch at the time, McCain faced accusations that in fact, as a POW, he had broken and cooperated with his North Vietnamese captors, who regarded McCain as a valuable prize because his father was a prominent US admiral, at the time commander of all US forces in the Pacific. McCain Jr., so his accusers said, disclosed vital information, and made broadcasts denouncing the US, which were then used by the Vietnamese to break other POWs.

The issue never became a big one in 2008 - but now it's coming back with a vengeance. This last Wednesday, the American Conservative, a monthly, released a special issue, 'The Men our Media Forgot', with Schanberg’s full story and accompanying commentary by the veteran reporter. The US media, pressured in any number of ways by successive US governments to ridicule and suppress enquiries into the missing POWs, are the prime target, but McCain also bulks large in The American Conservative's sights, since McCain’s present political crisis forms an excellent peg for Schanberg's story. The calculation is evidently that this could be a huge boost to Hayworth.

In one of his two pieces in The American Conservative, titled 'McCain and the POW Cover-Up', Schanberg insinuates, without saying so directly, that the Pentagon blackmailed McCain to squelch the MIA hearings:

"It's not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his postwar behavior in the Senate. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo - to try to break down other prisoners - and was broadcast over Hanoi's state radio.

"Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed civilian targets. The Pentagon has a copy of the confession but will not release it. Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a non-redacted copy of the debriefing of McCain when he returned from captivity, which is classified but could be made public by McCain."

Can this nation's major newspapers and television networks sedulously refuse to discuss assertions that US servicemen were abandoned by their government? The answer is yes. An example: On October 22, 2003 the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, resulting in the deaths of 34 US crew members and the wounding of 173, issued its report on Capitol Hill. Among its findings:

"There is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew; evidence of such intent is supported by statements from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Undersecretary of State George Ball, former CIA director Richard Helms, former NSA directors Lieutenant General William Odom, USA (Ret), Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN (Ret)." The crew, the report said, were "abandoned by their own government... fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the US Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty... due to the influence of Israel's powerful supporters in the United States, the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people... there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history."

Signing these emphatic conclusions were some of America’s best known military men: Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen Raymond G. Davis, former assistant commandant of the Marine Corps; Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, and Ambassador James Akins (Ret), former United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. And how were these categorical conclusions dealt with in the press? Reviewing the record four years later, Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew, reported here on the CounterPunch website that a review of the hundreds of newspapers indexed by Lexis-Nexis "does not turn up a single US newspaper that mentioned this commission, a single US television station, a single US radio station, a single US magazine. "While it was mentioned in an Associated Press report focusing on one of the commission's most dramatic revelations, Lexis reveals only a sprinkling of news media printed information from this AP report, and those few that did failed to mention this commission itself, its extremely star-studded composition, and the entirety of its findings."

And who, in the case of the Liberty, conducted the initial, cursory Navy Court of Inquiry in the immediate aftermath of the attack? None other than Admiral John S. McCain, father of Arizona's senior US senator, preparing the hasty cover-up under the supervision of Johnson's White House and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

Millions of words have been expended down the decades on the matter of the press’s role in “cover-ups.” Every cover-up has its own specific mix – whether it be fear of the Israel lobby, as with the saga of the Liberty; or direct pressure from a government agency, as when the CIA persuaded Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times to suppress Sydney Gruson’s reports of the Agency’s role in the 1953 Guatemalan coup overthrowing President Arbenz; or the competitive rivalries that prompted the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Times to launch a collective onslaught on the San Jose Mercury News for Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series in 1996, charging CIA complicity in the importing of cocaine into the US. The blend varies from case to case but there are consistent features, starting with the extreme unease with which the corporate press approaches a story which casting grave discredit on the government of the United States.

The onslaught on the Isolationists who strove to keep America clear of both World Wars furnish the clearest illustration here of this antipathy. In the case of the Second World War, there is a mountain of evidence attesting to FDR’s prolonged, devious and ultimately campaign to get America into the war. The role of the British intelligence services in this enterprise has been slowly excavated down the years. Professor Thomas Mahl, who published a brilliant excavation of the covert British campaign in his 1998 book Desperate Deception -- British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44 writes in his introduction that “until recently, the study of the intelligence history of World War II has lacked respectability. The conventional charge is that it smacks too much of conspiracy – a word with a very unprofessional ring among American historians… Graduate students are warned about the ‘furtive fallacy.’… How does the historian avoid the charge that he is indulging in conspiracy history when he explores the activities of a thousand people, occupying two floors of Rockefeller Center, in their efforts to involve the United States in a major war? What should we properly call the public rigging of an opinion poll, the planting of a lover, or a fraudulent letter by an intelligence agency in order to gain information or to influence policy?”

The ruthless campaign to discredit Charles Beard’s pioneering 1948 book, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War 1941 attested to the determination by the foreign policy and academic establishments to crush the Non-Interventionists and neutralize them as a political force amid the postwar rise of American Empire. Denouncing “conspiracy mongering” was an integral part of this campaign – never more vehement than when addressing the whole issue of FDR’s conduct in the run-up to Pearl Harbor.

Sometimes a conspiracy does surface, propelled into the light of day by a tenacious journalist. But by then the caravan has moved on. Webb’s charges became “an old discredited story”, just as the murder bids on Castro became, by the mid-80s, “alleged” once more. Despite the conclusive and damning record the assault on the US Liberty reverts in many references these days reverts to the comforting rationale of a case of possible “mistaken identity on which the jury is still out.” As so often, the jury came back in and issued its verdict, but by then the press box was empty.

But maybe now, with the decline in power of the established corporate press, the far greater availability of dissenting versions of politics and history, the exposure of the methods used to coerce publish support for the 2003 US attack on Iraq, have engendered a greater sense of realism on the part of Americans as to what their government is capable of. And maybe in this more fertile soil, Sydney Schanberg’s long battle to get the press t focus on the fate of the POWs will be rewarded, with the bonus of McCain’s discomfiture in Arizona.

America’s Fastest Growing Cult: the Confederate Flag

In our latest newsletter, read Kevin Alexander Gray on the folks who REALLY think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a big mistake. Kevin, who set fire to a confederate flag on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds a few years back, has written a marvelous piece about the comeback of the Confederacy, memorialized in parks, graveyards, front yard flags, gubernatorial tributes, “confederate history months” and a hundred other ways of saying that in the Civil War the wrong side won.

“The perfect moral compass of a climber and a lickspittle” – that’s how Norman Finkelstein describes her in our latest newsletter, looking back on how Elena Kagan covered for Alan Dershowitz during the plagiarism face off. How did she seem at Princeton? Fellow-class member Fritz Neal remembers. Also, Carl Ginsburg on how Wall Street is making billions, betting on national collapse.

Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn@asis.com.

SMASHING PUMPKINS (2)

Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock

The Smashing Pumpkins - Try, Try, Try

Mayonaise - Smashing Pumpkins Live

Smashing Pumpkins- "Perfect"

Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide

Smashing Pumpkins - Doomsday Clock [AOL Music Sessions, 2007-09-14]

Smashing Pumpkins - That's The Way (My Love Is) [AOL Music Sessions, 2007-09-14]

SMASHING PUMPKINS (1)

ARE AN AMERICAN ALTERNATIVE-ROCK BAND THAT FORMED IN CHICAGO

Smashing Pumpkins Tonight, Tonight [Rock am Ring 2007]

Smashing Pumpkins: Day in the Life Billy Corgan writing

Brokeback Mountain - The Smashing Pumpkins - "Landslide"

The Smashing Pumpkins - Stand Inside Your Love

The Smashing Pumpkins - Today - Live

The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings

Smashing Pumpkins - Song for a Son (Live w/ Official Audio)

Smashing Pumpkins Disarm video

The Smashing Pumpkins - Atom Bomb

RAVI SHANKAR AGAIN

Ravi Shankar on the Dick Cavett Show

the heart of bangladesh

RAVI SHANKAR & GEORGE HARRISON. PRABHUJEE

George Harrison & Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar - Panchem Se Gara

Ravi Shankar - Gat Kirwani

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Rag Charukeshi

RAVI SHANKAR

Ravi Shankar - Raga Rangeela Piloo

Ravi & Anoushka Shankar - Raga Anandi Kalyan

Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass - Ragas In Minor Scale!

AHEM, THE PROFESSOR!

David Horowitz on Hannity & Colmes

Borat on Hannity and colmes

David Horowitz - UC Santa Barbara

David Horowitz - Free speech denied

UCSD Muslim Student favors Extermination of all Jews while talking to David Horowitz

David Horowitz on Al-Jazeera; Part 1 of 2

David Horowitz on Al-Jazeera; Part 2 of 2

I DUNNO, WOULD YOU SAY CONSUMED BY HATE? WOULD YOU SAY A TEENY BIT PARANOID?
IT WOULD SEEM TO MAKE SENSE IF YOU PREACHED HATE, YOU WOULD FEAR FOR YOUR LIFE,
WOULDN'T YOU? NOT TO MENTION TOTALLY NUTS!

UNFORTUNATELY, WE'RE TALKING THIS PLANET RIGHT HERE, AND NOW

THAT PHRASE 'FLIM FLAM' HAD TO BE INVENTED BY A GENIUS, WITH A PENCHANT FOR DESCRIPTION

Horowitz the Flim Flam Man
Among the Teabaggers

By RICHARD WARD

I had less fun than Voltaire and am not a philosopher but a certain curiosity found me at a dinner a few evenings ago held by the Albuquerque Tea Party featuring as guest speaker the right’s own aging billy goat, David Horowitz. Flim flam man, wannabe Borscht Belt entertainer and pint-sized demagogue, Horowitz held forth for two hours in a room at the Albuquerque Convention Center, thoroughly teabagging the credulous crowd of middle-aged and older white folks, ordinary Americans justifiably outraged at the mendacity, hypocrisy and sheer elitist arrogance of their own government, whether Republican or Democrat, and who, to their credit, are actively seeking avenues for a redress of grievances.

The gathering was overwhelmingly white—no African Americans and very few even moderately brown faces. Unusual was a tall young man who looked Central Asian, a Pakistani, or Indian, maybe, certainly not a Muslim. Horowitz expelled half his verbal gas hatefully excoriating the Muslim religion, which the crowd seemed to accept routinely and in some cases with vociferous approval. The vibe in the room when Horowitz talked about immigration and the “corrupt culture” of Mexico (“culture,” not “system,” or even “culture of corruption”) was palpably ugly. Our waiters and waitress were mostly brown skinned people who served us impassively. When Horowitz praised the “great governor of Arizona” the crowd cheered heartily.

I sat at a table with five others, all white, middle class, elderly, perfectly nice people. The guy on my left, Dan, was a retired electrical engineer from Sandia National Labs who moved to Albuquerque in 1953 when many of the city’s main streets were still unpaved. I tried engaging him but he was so tight-lipped that after a while I gave up. Maybe it was the years working in the labs. He was a lifelong Republican and not normally active politically but moved by the present situation to check out the Tea Party. The guy on my right, Tony, was a long time Albuquerque resident, originally from Corning, New York, home of Corning Glass Works, the folks who brought you Pyrex. Tony was an affable, remarkably fit guy for someone in his mid seventies, more interested in talking sports than politics. Next to him was his wife, Joan, demure and pleasant-looking, probably 20 years younger than Tony, the most outwardly political of the group. Her main concern was education and the leftists who control it, a big theme of Horowitz’s.

This was a pretty dull table and a pretty dull gathering but there were pockets of true believers scattered around the room, including one woman near me who intoned loud amens as Horowitz spoke and one large, powerful-voiced woman who, during the Q & A, vowed to defend the country from progressives. It takes a lot to get the older set worked up, which is one reason fear of the Tea Party is likely exaggerated. No flesh-rending Brown Shirt brigade this group, though younger, more passionate recruits remains a possibility.

At the end of the function I asked some questions of one of the event’s organizers, a pleasant middle-aged man a bit uptight in his responses, which he formulated carefully. One of the founders of the Albuquerque Tea Party (which, by the way, has one of Jasper Johns’ flag paintings as its website background, a curiosity), his main concerns were the wastes of taxation, which he sought to prove in a brief mental exercise taught by one of his economics professors, government intrusion on privacy (he disliked the Patriot Act, which he thought Obama would eliminate or at least weaken, alas) and the strengthening of the free enterprise system, which he felt was under unrelenting attack by progressives. When I asked him to define progressivism, he said it was the most dangerous of all movements, lumping socialism, statism, Nazism, fascism, FDR and Woodrow Wilson together in a toxic brew lapping at the shores of liberty. He was nervous throughout, asking at one point if I was recording his words. Only up here, I said, pointing to my head.

The main attraction though was Horowitz, the awareness and pleasure of which he barely concealed standing in front of the silver-haired rubes gazing in polite if not rapt attention. He is a man comfortable with his notoriety and reputation as one of the right’s leading intellectuals, especially in front of a crowd he obviously feels superior to. After all, this was Albuquerque. He hammered the Democratic Party relentlessly, a pathetically easy target, deservedly despised by sensible people for their mealy-mouthed hypocrisy. But for Horowitz the evil of the Democrats lies much deeper. Forget liberals, he said, waving his arms, these guys are communists. Communists! Collectivists whose dangerous messianic beliefs control academia, the media and even the Pentagon! Surely, I thought, as Horowitz carried on, the guy can’t be serious. Islam is the only religion, he railed, that makes martyrs out of mass murderers. The males go to heaven and consort with 34 Virginians. Virginians! Was he making a joke? Does he know something about Virginians that I don’t? Maybe.

Horowitz is a curious cat. A guy who was raised by communist parents and spent his youth involved in leftist causes who now goes at it with equal fervor from the other side. He is probably not a self-hating Jew, but he could be a self-hating communist. Nothing, certainly not facts, will deter him. Nidal Hasan killed 39 people at Fort Hood, he said. The number, still horrific, was 12. Maybe he was confusing him with Baruch Goldstein, but then, that was only 29. There was nothing in Palestine except “three strips of desert” and the scattered remnants of a dead Turkish empire when the state of Israel was created in 1948. “There were no Palestinians!” a woman in the audience shouted when he said this. “Amen!” said the woman at the table next to me.

Horowitz assured the audience repeatedly that he knew what was really going on with the communists because he’d been there and seen the light—a special envoy, as it were. He and a few others were “second thoughters.” He talked about the Manichaeism of the Democrat/communists and how they saw the world in dangerous, simplistic, religious terms. Earlier in his talk, to get things warmed up, he’d said the Democrats were the serpent in the Garden of Eden, wanting to be as gods. The audience loved this. His two great enemies are the Muslim world, determined to wipe Israel and the United States off the map, and the Democrat/communists, infiltrating every corner of American life. Horowitz seemed genuinely passionate about the communist stuff but he didn’t look as menacing as McCarthy. No firm numbers on the infiltration either, though liberal academia, another bête noire, is filled to the brim.

The Tea Party is not a dangerous or powerful movement but, as others have pointed out, prone to capture or influence by venomous oddballs like Horowitz with more clearly delineated right wing agendas. There is too much muddled thinking, lack of focus and old age to solidify into a strong independent movement. What likely will happen is that their angry, confused energy will be swallowed by an increasingly right wing Republican Party, the Patraeuses and Palins, resulting in a stronger, deadlier version of business as usual. The Teabaggers have at least one thing right: our present government is an enemy. But like any gusher without real direction, they’ll likely as not get swept away by a stronger, loopier current.

Richard Ward lives in New Mexico. He can be reached at: r.ward47@gmail.com

David Horowitz Laughed off of Larry King

YOU GOTTA BE A NUT TO DEFEND THAT CUNT COULTER WHEN SHE ATTACKS THE 9-11 WIDOWS
BEYOND A NUT, MORE PRECISELY, A WING-NUT

AND FINALLY, IMAGINE!

Imagine Live - John Lennon - 72

A Perfect Circle - Imagine

Neil Young - Imagine

Elton John - Imagine

Madonna Imagine

Patti LaBelle & Anna Oxa - Imagine

Charlotte Church - Imagine

David Archuleta -"Imagine" American Idol Finale 5/20/08

WOW, ALL THE WAY TO AMERICAN IDOL, JOHN, NOT BAD!

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS - LAST FLIGHT - STS132

Space Shuttle Atlantis' Final Landing 5-26-10 (FULL HD)

May 26, 2010 — STS-132 Commander Ken Ham and his five crewmates: Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Steve Bowen, Mike Good and Piers Sellers are safely back on Earth after space shuttle Atlantis glided to a picture-perfect landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on Wednesday morning, May 26. It was Atlantis' 32nd and final flight, traveling a total of more than 120 million miles. The 12-day, STS-132 mission delivered the Russian Mini Research Module-1, Rassvet ("dawn") to the International Space Station. (NASAtelevision) 5-26-10

STS-132 Launch

Watching STS-132 launch from the causeway, Friday, May 14th.

Shuttle Astronauts Happy to be Home

STS-132 Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Steve Bowen, Mike Good and Piers Sellers speak with journalists about the accomplishments of their twelve-day, round trip journey to the International Space Station and how it feels to be back on Earth.

IT'S HUMAN NATURE, IT'S OK! WOW

STS-132: The Mission Highlights

From pre-launch preparations to a safe landing twelve days later, the milestones of STS-132 and its crew's accomplishments are recapped in this comprehensive look back at the latest shuttle mission to the International Space Station. Along with Atlantis' launch and return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, other highlighted events include the mission's three spacewalks, the installation of the Russian Mini Research Module-1, Rassvet ("dawn") on the ISS's Zarya module, and media interviews of the STS-132 crew of Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Steve Bowen, Mike Good and Piers Sellers. This was the final of 32 flights by shuttle Atlantis, completing a 25-year career covering more than 120 million miles.

JEALOUSY

Jealousy

Directed by Dean Collins and Logan Lerman Starring Logan Lerman

COMMENTS MADE IN THE GREYSON CHANCE VIDEOS INCLUDED:
A PERSON SAYING GRAYSON WAS GONNA BE GAY
PLEASE, YOU MUST BE SOME SORT OF REVERSE PEDOPHILIAC IF YOU LOOK AT THIS KID AND THINK OF SEX,
AND EVEN BOTHER TO MAKE SUCH A COMMENT
ANOTHER CRITICIZED (HIS) PARENTING AND LACK OF MANNERS BECAUSE HE HADN'T HEARD HIM SAY 'THANK YOU'
IN ANY OF THESE VIDEOS
ERM, YOU'RE TURNING A VISIBLE, FLUORESCENT GREEN
JUST WATCH THIS VIDEO ABOUT JEALOUSY
I HOPE YOU EVEN GET IT

AND DON'T FORGET THIS ONE, TOO

Scouts

THOSE VIDEOS WERE JUST HYSTERICAL, GUYS, WELL DONE

GREYSON CHANCE

Greyson Chance Returns to Ellen

Ellen and Greyson's Big Announcement

THAILAND

Mourning victims of deadly Bangkok clashes

Safe ground amid Thai clashes

Bangkok burns as Thai protest heats up

Thai protest hit by grenade attacks

Bangkok placed under emergency

CREEP

Creep - Radiohead

Creep Glastonbury 97

Creep by The Pretenders

Moby - Creep (Radiohead's cover) (RADIOHEAD NEVER DID 'CREEP' THAT WEEKEND, AND FANS HAD GONE JUST
FOR IT)

OK, I KNOW IT'S GOING TO PIN ME TO THE TIMELINE, BUT WHO CARES?

ROUGH TRADE RECORDS UK

JEFF'S HISTORY OF THE COMPANY:

Jeffrey Lewis - A History of Rough Trade Records

THIS IS THE GROUP WHOSE NAME THEY USED:

ROUGH TRADE - High School Confidential

THIS A VIDEO BY JEFF:

Systematic Death - Jeffrey Lewis Video

I JUST LOVE TRIVIA LIKE THIS

RONGELAP ATOLL

Rongelap Atoll, Marshall Island.

Chp 1- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 1 of Nine

Chp 2- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter Two of Nine

Chp 3- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 3 of Nine

Chp 4- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 4 of Nine

Chp 5- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 5 of Nine

Chp 6- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 6 of Nine

Chp 7- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 7 of Nine

Chp 8- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 8 of Nine

Chp 9- Newsday's "Fallout: Brookhaven National Lab's Legacy in the Pacific" -- Chapter 9 of Nine

MORE PESKY LITTLE FACTS TO TOTALLY SPOIL YOUR DAY

WHY? BECAUSE YOU SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THIS EONS AGO, BUT DIDN'T CARE TO

Cancer and Injustice in the South Pacific
The Radiological Legacy of Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

By ROBERT ALVAREZ

The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on their homeland. They received more than three times the estimated external dose than to the most heavily exposed people living near the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It took more than two days before the people of Rongelap were evacuated after the explosion. Many suffered from tissue destructive effects of radiation and subsequently from latent radiation-induced diseases.

In 1957, they were returned to their homeland even though officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that radiation doses would significantly exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision. A scientist in a previously secret transcript of a meeting where they decided to return the Rongelap people to their atoll stated: ”While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners, or civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”

By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll, after determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to the Bikini atoll where people were re-settled in 1969 and evacuated by the early 1970’s after radiation exposures were found to be excessive. They fled for good reason. In 1981, a policy was secretly established by the Energy department during the closing phase of negotiations between the United States and the nascent Republic of the Marshall Islands over the Compact of Free Association to eliminate radiation protection standards, so as to not interfere with the potential resumption of weapons testing. Within a year, this resulted in a sudden and alarming increase in radiation doses to the Rongelap people.

These circumstances were subsequently uncovered in 1991 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. As a result, the U.S. Congress terminated DOE’s nuclear test readiness program in the Pacific and in 1992 the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior entered into an agreement with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Local Rongelap Government that re-established radiation protection standards as a major element for the re-settlement of Rongelap. This agreement was reviewed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1994 and found to be viable. According to the Academy:

"A crucial provision of the MOU is that resettlement will occur only if no person returning to Rongelap and subsisting on a native-foods-only diet will receive a calculated annual whole-body radiation dose equivalent of more than 100 mrem above background."

In 2006, a radiological expert for the people of the Rongelap Atoll reported that the 100 millirem limit would be exceeded based on a local food only diet, if potassium fertilizer were not repeatedly applied. Apparently, this was not done for the southern islands of the atoll where local food is obtained. Despite this warning, the Departments of Energy and Interior did not take steps to ensure this would be done, in accordance with the 1992 agreement. Give the long and unfortunate legacy of nuclear testing it appears that this critical element of safety was lost in the shuffle.

Moreover, the 100 millirem limit stipulated in the agreement, should have a safety margin, in which the doses fall beneath this limit to encompass uncertainties. Keep in mind that the limit set for the general public in the U.S. by the EPA is 15 millirems. DOE is self-regulating and has a public exposure limit nearly 7 times greater. However, DOE is required under the Superfund program to meet the 15 millirem limit as it proceeds with cleanup of weapons sites. As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland, the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States.

Until the U. S. Government can assure that steps to mitigate doses to the same levels that are protective of American people are demonstrated, current efforts to force the Rongelap people back to the home by members of Congress and the Obama administration is unjustified and unfairly places the burden of protection on the Rongelap people. It appears that DOE and Interior have quietly crept away from the 1992 agreement without verifying that its terms and conditions to allow for safe habitability will be met.

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to compensate to residents living near DOE’s Nevada Test Site uranium miners, nuclear weapons workers, and military personnel for radiation-related illnesses. These laws provide for a greater benefit of the doubt than for the people of the Marshall Islands where 66 nuclear weapons were exploded in the open air.

In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that an estimated 500 cancers would result from radioactive fallout among the 14,000 inhabitants who live in the Marshall Islands. The risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout are greater than one in three. The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for the national security interests of the United States. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress should promptly correct this injustice.

Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary from 1993 to 1999. www.ips-dc.org
This article is adapted from Alvarez's May 20 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environemnt.

FROM COUNTERPUNCH
I'M QUITE FAMILIAR WITH THAT CLAIM OF IGNORANCE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO ABSOLVE EVERYONE,
BUT REALLY, THIS AIN'T ABOUT FORGIVENESS KIDS

GRACE JONES

GRACE JONES I'M NOT PERFECT(BUT I'M PERFECT FOR YOU)

Grace Jones - Do or Die

Grace Jones Libertango

Grace Jones with Pavarotti (Pourquoi Me Réveiller, FUNDRAISER FOR ANGOLA)

'FRAGILE PSYCHES!!!'

'Gays Too Precious To Risk In Combat'

SAID WITH A STRAIGHT FACE!

PALESTINIAN FOLKLORE

folk·lore
–noun
1.
the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people; lore of a people.
2.
the study of such lore.
-CULTURALLY
Traditional stories and legends, transmitted orally (rather than in writing) from generation to generation. The stories of Paul Bunyan are examples of American folklore.

Palestinian Dabka in Athens - greece

Palestinian dabke in Athens 2

Palestinian dabke in Athens 3

Palestinian dabke in Athens 4

Palestinian Dabke in Athens 5

Palestinian dabke in Athens 6

Palestinian dabke in Athens 7

THANK YOU TO GUPS ATHENS DABKE TEAM

FARAWAY LAND

THE HOOTERS' VERSION:

The Hooters - Always A Place

AND JOHN DENVER'S:

John Denver... In A Faraway Land

FINALLY, ALISON KRAUSS AND UNION STATION'S:

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Faraway Land

Faraway Land

When years seem like days to me
No time on my hands
I run away to a place in me to a faraway land

When home seems so far from me
Heaven's lights grow dim
It's just as far as my deepest heart
Where my heart's father lives

His quiet voice speaking in silence every day
If I will only listen to the words he has to say
I'll walk in his spirit and see him in my face
I will live, 'cause he will live in my place

When life seem so hard to bear
When shadows look real
The circumstance is your father's care
Don't find faith by what you feel

If you have been running to
Stop now in your tracks
Turn again to the one in you
And put your burdens on his back

His quiet voice speaking in silence every day
If I will only listen to the words he has to say
I'll walk in his spirit and see him in your face
I will live, 'cause he will live in my place

When years seem like days to me
No time on my hands
I run away to a place in me to a faraway land

I THINK MAYBE THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT HEAVEN

THE BEST PART

3:10 to Yuma Ending

AWESOME

MATTHEW MORRISON OF 'GLEE'

WAS FOUND ON THE COVER OF A MAGAZINE

AND INSIDE VOGUE

AT A CITI FIELD METS/YANKEES GAME
IN A METS JERSEY (THE METS WON)

BEFORE SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM:

Matthew Morrison Sings national Anthem at Mets Vs Yankees game

GO MATTHEW!

BRIGHT SUNNY SOUTH

Bright Sunny South - Alison Krauss & Union Station (LOUISVILLE PALACE KENTUCKY)

Bright Sunny South (Music by Jim Phillips, Video by Dinosaur Music)

Brent Berry Band-"The Bright Sunny South"

CHOCTAW HAYRIDE: FIVE PRICELESS PERFORMANCES OF A FAVORITE

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Choctaw Hayride (LIVE, LOUISVILLE PALACE KENTUCKY)

Choctaw Hayride (The Lovell Sisters AT THE Variety Playhouse in Atlanta - February 9, 2007)

The Newgrass Troubadours - Choctaw Hayride

Young bluegrass musicians Gaven Largent on dobro and Jack Dunlap on guitar "Choctaw Hayride"

Bluetastic Fangrass - Choctaw Hayride

SIMPLE LOVE

Alison Krauss - Simple Love

Simple Love

Little yellow house sittin' on a hill
That is where he lived
That is where he died
Every Sunday morning
Hear the weeping willows cry

Two children born
A beautiful wife
Four walls and livin's all he needed in life
Always giving, never asking back
I wish I had a simple love like that

I want a simple love like that
Always giving, never askin' back
For when I'm in my final hour lookin' back
I hope I had a simple love like that

My momma was his only little girl
If he'd had the money he'd have given her the world
Sittin' on the front porch together they would sing
Oh how I long to hear that harmony

I want a simple love like that
Always giving never asking back
When I'm in my final hour looking back
I hope I had a simple love like that

I want a simple love like that
Always giving never asking back
When I'm in my final hour looking back
I hope I had a simple love like that

IN MEMORIAM ALBERTO DOS SANTOS CARNEIRO (1912-2000)

JACOB'S DREAM

Alison Krauss Jacob's Dream

JACOB'S DREAM

In the spring of 1856 with the snow still on the ground
Two little boys were lost in the mountains above the town
The father went out hunting the boys had stayed behind
While mother tended to her chores they wandered from her side

The two had gone to follow him and lost their way instead
By dusk the boys had not been found and fear had turned to dread
200 men had gathered there to comb the mountain side
The fires were built on the highest peak in hopes they'd see the light

Oh mommy and daddy why can't you hear our cries
The day is almost over, soon it will be night
We're so cold and hungry and our feet are tired and sore
We promise not to stray again from our cabin door

Now Jacob Diverd woke one night from a strange and erie dream
He saw a path between two hills near a dark and swollen stream
He told his wife he saw the boys huddled close beside a log
For two more nights the dream returned this vision sent from God

Oh mommy and daddy why can't you hear our cries
The day is almost over, soon it will be night
We're so cold and hungry and our feet are tired and sore
We promise not to stray again from our cabin door

a thousand men had searched in vain the west side of pop's creek
But Jacob's wife knew of this place and said to travel east
With a guide to take him there, Jacob came upon the scene
And found the boys cold and still beneath the old birch tree

Oh mommy and daddy, look past the tears you cry
We're both up in Heaven now, God is by our side
As you lay us down to rest in the presence of the Lord
Know that we will meet you here at Heaven's door

Oh mommy and daddy, look past the tears you cry
We're both up in Heaven now, God is by our side
And as you lay us down to rest in the presence of the Lord
Know that we will meet you here at Heaven's door

TINY BROKEN HEART

Tiny Broken Heart (PECAN RIDGE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL)

Tiny Broken Heart by Tyler Williams

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Tiny Broken Heart

Tiny Broken Heart

He was just a little farm lad, so busy at play
With his little playmate outside the gate
He stopped to watch a truck that was parking next door
At the home of his tiny playmate

Then he saw his daddy watching too
As the men swiftly walked to the cottage door
He knew they were strangers that came from the town
Men he had never seen before

They soon went to work when he heard his daddy say
?Our neighbors are moving today?
?Oh no!? he cried, ?Dear God don't let it be
They can't take my sweetheart away?

I know dad, you don't understand
How a heart so young could conceive a plan
I'm only seven now but it's just like you say
Daddy, someday I'll be a man

The man who owns the farm where your playmates do live
He told me it'd have to be this way
For winter time has come and the work is all done
That's why they are moving today

Let us buy the farm so they can stay
And give them all the toys that dear Santa gave
And give them all my pennies in my little piggy bank
Pennies that my darlin' help me save

WHISKEY LULLABY

Brad Paisley & Alison Krauss - Whiskey Lullaby (live)

WHISKEY LULLABY

She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night

[1st Chorus]
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby

[Sing lullaby]

The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night

[2nd Chorus]
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby

STAY

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Stay

Stay

Where have you been
My long lost friend
It's good to see you again
Come and sit for a while
I've missed your smile
Today the past is good-bye

Time can't erase
A lover's embrace
Can't you hear it calling
A new day dawning
You were longing to find...

Love's taken you far
Away from the heart
And I've been here all along
Have your eyes failed to find
What took you from mine
A vision that's faded through time

But you sailed away
That fine summer's day
Cause you heard it calling
A new day dawning
You were longing to find

There is a way
To make you stay
Darling, don't turn away
Don't doubt your heart
And keep us apart
I'm right where you are
Stay

[Bridge]

There is a way
To make you stay
Darling, don't turn away
Don't doubt your heart
And keep us apart
I'm right where you are
Stay

A VIDA DE ANTÓNIO VARIAÇÕES

A Vida de António Variações - 1ªparte

A Vida de António Variações - 2ªparte

A Vida de António Variações - 3ªparte

A Vida de António Variações - 4ªparte

A Vida de António Variações - 5ªparte

A Vida de António Variações - 6ªparte

ANTÓNIO VARIAÇÕES

Antonio Variacoes - Cancao Do Engate

António Variações - Muda de Vida (som de maquete original)

Antonio variações - o corpo é que paga ( semi-original )

António Variações - Visões Ficções

António Variações - Sempre Ausente

António Variações - Quando Fala um Português

António Variações - Perdi A Memória

DA LITERATURA: NOTAS SOBRE O CASAMENTO: UI, UI! PRICELESS!

Os sectores mais conservadores da direita (e de alguma esquerda) andaram anos a dizer que o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo provocaria alarme social, fazendo desmoronar a família tradicional. Fracas convicções por parte de quem devia respeitar o conceito de família. Na realidade, o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo provoca um enorme bocejo na larga maioria da população. A generalidade dos portugueses heterossexuais dá-lhe a importância que eu dou aos arraiais populares: não frequento, passo ao largo, mas longe de mim pensar em acabar com eles. Os arraiais são parte da tradição (i.e., da cultura), animam a economia e fazem muita gente feliz. O casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo vai tornar mais justa a vida de muita gente. Há menos de cem anos, o casamento civil entre homens e mulheres ainda era uma heresia no nosso país. É fatal: o mundo pula e avança.

Se houvesse alarme, a sociedade tradicional tinha-se mobilizado. Ora nem a Igreja, que se limitou a cumprir os mínimos, nem os partidos da direita, desobrigados de acção directa para lá da retórica parlamentar, fizeram mais do que salvar as aparências. Em Fevereiro, a marcha da indignação deu a medida do desinteresse do país real.

Dentro de dias, quando for publicada a Lei ontem promulgada pelo Presidente da República, Portugal tornar-se-á o oitavo país a legalizar o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo. Para já, os outros sete são a África do Sul, a Bélgica, o Canadá, a Espanha, a Holanda, a Noruega e a Suécia (seis monarquias!). Além destes, o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo é legal em seis estados americanos: Connecticut, District of Columbia (Washington), Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire e Vermont. E também na tribo Coquille da Nação Navajo. E ainda na cidade do México e no estado de Coahuila. Israel, por exemplo, não casa mas reconhece os casamentos efectuados noutros países. Estamos a falar de casamento.

Porque se falarmos de uniões civis registadas (casamentos que não se chamam casamentos), a lista de países inclui: Alemanha, Andorra, Áustria, Colômbia, Dinamarca, Equador, Eslovénia, Finlândia, França, Gronelândia, Hungria, Islândia, Luxemburgo, Nova Caledónia, Nova Zelândia, Reino Unido, República Checa, Suíça, Uruguai, bem como as ilhas Wallis e Futuna da Polinésia francesa.

Isto para dizer que não estamos a falar de extravagâncias residuais, como pretendem umas dezenas de bloggers e meia dúzia de articulistas. A título de exemplo: são cinquenta e dois os países (a que se juntam vinte estados americanos) onde o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo está no centro de iniciativas legislativas.

E escusa a D. Isilda de preocupar-se: «Quem é que trata destas pessoas na velhice? Não têm filhos, nem podem ter netos. Também têm direito a ser tratados, logo, vai sobrar para todos nós. Vai sobrar para os contribuintes.» — vd CM. Infelizmente, todos os Verões, os hospitais civis têm de abrigar centenas de homens e mulheres de idade avançada que os filhos ali deixam, abandonados, antes de partirem para os Algarves e as Cancuns da vida. Sim, estou a falar de famílias tradicionais. Nada que a D. Isilda não conheça.

UM PASSO EM FRENTE, OBRIGA-NOS A DAR DOIS PASSINHOS PARA TRÁS, NÃO É???

SO HERE IS CELINE, THANKING PRESIDENT BUSH FOR RESCUING ALL THOSE CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS,
AND ALL OF THOSE WHO SUPPORTED THE 'HAPPY' CAUSE

Because You Loved Me - Celine Dion Live in Memphis (WIND BENEATH MY WINGS)