Of course, it wasn't for the oil...

Ya know, the curious thing about Iraq's oil and the US -- a war wasn't necessary for us to get it. Everyone forgets that Saddam didn't prevent the US from using Iraq's oil -- he'd have gladly sold it to us, even as he did to everyone before the embargo. He offered it. The US embargo was an attempt to prevent that.

If the US was offered the oil, what good was the war? Check out Iraq to lose up to US $194 billion in oil "rip-off" for the story of how the real winners of the "War for Oil" are the US Oil Companies. We know how much they need this extra money...

Adventures in Dynamic Tension

Propriety. Certain things are appropriate in certain places. Shouting "Fire!" when the Redcoats are coming = good. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater = bad. Things like that.

Call it a quirk, but I'm all for appropriate urination. I remember on Ross graphics jobs it was common to be far from a suitable facility when the call of nature arrived, and we had to make do in whatever surroundings we found ourselves. One morning the barely audible sound of flowing water woke me up (on the ground beside our camper) and I barely got myself out of the sleeping bag in time and out of the path of what was trickling downhill from the other side of the truck.

Bodily processes should not be a cause for anxiety. Once I was returning from Wyoming with friends and, despite feeling such a call as we crossed the Nevada California line, managing to hold it until we arrived in the Napa, several hours later. Ah, the powers of youth.

Just last week Bonnie was driving us back from Los Altos, maybe an hour and a half drive, and I forced her to pull off Highway 101 about a half hour short of Petaluma so I could run out in a field and release something that seemed more and more inevitable by the second. Ahhh... But my relief was tempered by a feeling that this event was a bad omen.

The very next night I was returning from a rehearsal at Jessel's. As I drove across town I felt a familiar urge. What? I'd just used the facilities at Jessel's! But logic had no influence on my bladder. Ten minutes after leaving Jessel's I pulled into the driveway of my folks' house. I dashed to the door and fumbled with my keys. Come on! Come on! I heard echoes of my dad saying the same thing at the door when, near the end of his life, he almost refused to go anywhere out of town for fear of being away from a bathroom.

The door opened. I didn't stop to take of my coat, but tore it off as I ran and threw it on the floor, along with my keys. Despite using my human imitation of a hoseclamp, a mere 20 feet from the bathroom I felt a growing area of warmth in a part of my pants that I much prefer to keep dry. Well, at least I could take my time now. There was still enough fluid left to dispose of that I continued with my plan to use the bathroom. After a few seconds the urine turned a distinct red. Hmmm. That's not supposed to happen.

The next day I spent hours on the phone talking to Kaiser information, appointments, day nurse, and, finally, my doctor. We agreed that the blood was probably a side effect of my attempt to hold back the flood, a flood that was probably the result of some sort of infection, which was verified a couple of days later at a visit to the urologist.

I'm now halfway through two weeks of Cipro, America's favorite anthrax remedy.

Meanwhile, I've been wearing my left arm in a sling after overusing it for months, trying to protect my right shoulder, which I blew out a couple of years ago. At the urging of my doctor I've been pumping ibuprofen for a couple of weeks. Pills, pills, pills. I'm finding new empathy for my mom. I was always giving her grief for forgetting to take her pills. Now it seems to be all I can to do keep track of what I've taken when.

(finished and posted 2/2/2006)

ei: Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity

This is as good an analysis of the Palestinian election as I've seen.

Warriors and wusses

Joel Stein, whose old columns in Time Magazine got so dreary and fashion-related and superficial that I stopped reading them, has written one with which I completely agree–Warriors and wusses.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else.

End of "Unalienable Rights"

Robert Parry, a journalist who broke much of the Iran Contra story, dismantles the October Surprise alibis of Bush Sr. and his cabinet, marking that as the beginning of the American Imperium, and writes a very sobering and bleak story about what has become of the US in The End of "Unalienable Rights" in www.consortiumnews.com.

Professor doubts bin Laden is alive...

And not just any professor. He's the Bruce E. Lawrence of Duke University, translator and editor of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden.

It's the water...

...that makes outsourcing to Halliburton so refreshing!

Twice the sparkle! Twice the refreshment! Twice the level of pollution of the Euphrates River!

But don't worry... They recommended it only be used for washing your hands and making coffee...

THE WAR IN CONTEXT

THE WAR IN CONTEXT:: Iraq, the War on Terrorism, and the Middle East Conflict - in Critical Perspective seems to be a very good source for information about those subjects.

Fooled Again

Lately I keep running into the name Mark Crispin Miller, and his new book Fooled Again. I see him mentioned on various blogs, or hear him on Air America. I do not see him mentioned on any of the mainstream media.

A few months back he had an interesting article about the 2004 election, dirty tricks, and exit polls in Harpers called None Dare Call It Stolen.

I most recently saw his name at an informal display someone had outside the Oakland City Council Chamber, where Bonnie and I had gone to support Loni Hancock and her Clean Money bill, which is slowly making its way through the California Legislature. The display in question had to do with obvious problems in the last few national elections, what with unreliable, manipulatable voting machines without proper paper trails.

Miller's publicist, Jamie Brickhouse, talks about Miller's new book, "Fooled Again" in this post, Scoop: Why Won't The Media Touch This Book? and why its topic is virtually forbidden in modern polite US society.

The Disclosure Project - National Press Club Conference

I personally think the whole idea of UFOs is a wonderful fantasy -- like the TV show the X-Files. Fun but not anything to take seriously.

If you agree with me, and wish to continue feeling this way, by all means do not watch the video at The Disclosure Project - National Press Club Conference -- because it may seriously affect your feelings of comfort and complacency.

It's been weird lately...

...possibly because last Sunday was both Martin Luther King's and my dad's birthday. My dad would have been 95. He never forgave Martin Luther King for being born on his birthday!

I was dreaming last night about being in some department store and buying something but then remembering my checkbook was outside in my car. So I went outside and was walking down the street to where I'd parked my car, and as I passed a bus stop I noticed my dad standing there, behind the bus stop, just standing, all dressed up in his finest Sunday best. And he saw me and was just smiling and waving like crazy. I was waving, too. It was nice.

Then sometime later I was dreaming again, and I was at my folks' house, and my mom was cooking dinner, which seemed completely normal, since she did that a lot, and I was on the phone with Lisa, an old girlfriend of mine and still a good friend, and we were talking about what was going on, and I mentioned that I saw my dad in the back room. She seemed quite incensed at this, since we both knew he's been dead for a couple of years. Somehow I just took it in stride, like, well, there he is, so what's the problem? I took the phone back to where he was and said, here, say something to Lisa. And he did. And she seemed quite upset, because, well, after all, he was dead!

It didn't seem to bother either of us that my mom was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, which is odd, since she's been dead herself for seven months.

It's been weird here. Here in my head. Lately.

Wayne Madsen Report

Ever heard of Wayne Madsen? Neither had I, before an hour ago.

There's so much stuff of interest at the Wayne Madsen Report that I can't find any one report more important to report than the other piles of largely-unreported reports.

Ok. I'll just pick some. How about his January 12, 2006 report about the involvement of Jack Abramoff scandal money in gambling deals all over the world, including Jerico, in the West Bank, with which both the PLO and Sharon's sons were involved? How Abramoff is involved in laundering money through casinos all over the world? And how Cheney and Netanyahu are mixed up in the whole mess?

Or a January 14, 2006 story about the "suicide" of the US Army's chief ethics expert, just as he was investigating potential contract violations and human rights abuses by the US Investigations Services, formerly a federal agency, but now owned by the Carlyle group?

Or an amazing January 16, 2006 piece about how both Senator McCain and his dad, Admiral McCain, were involved in two of the more deadly incidents of on-ship disasters in the Navy's history, just weeks apart, in 1967, one an attack by Israelis on the US spy ship Liberty, and the other involving use of 1000 pound bombs which were known to be unsafe on ships?

Or a January 9, 2006 story about how Abramoff, Grover Norquist, and Karl Rove are fabricating stories to try to snare Senator Dorgan in the web of Abramoff money, since Dorgan is the ranking member of the Senate Indian Affairs committee who, along with McCain, investigated Abramoff to begin with? They're trying to get Senate Minority leader Reid tarred with this as well.

I wish I knew enough about this stuff to know if it's real or bogus. What do you think?

I do know that I certainly agree with his January 13, 2006 statement about "What does Samuel Alito's "Unitary Executive," with presidential signing statements, look like?" followed by an old file photo of a previous Unitary Exectutive, followed by this:

Democrats running for Congress must be forced to sign an election manifesto pledging to impeach Alito from the Supreme Court for lying to Congress under oath, a crime. They must also pledge to impeach Bush, Cheney, and other cabinet officers who have committed crimes. If people like Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Lieberman refuse to sign, they should be challenged in their primaries and dumped from the November slate.

Oral Histories From Sept. 11 Compiled by the New York Fire Department - The New York Times

If you have some time to kill and would like some riveting reading, these oral histories from people who were involved in the World Trade Center disaster could keep you busy for days.

War's stunning price tag - Los Angeles Times

A former commerce secretary and a recent Nobel Prize winning economist have a few little additions to the official price of the Iraq War. Just a trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there.

That's Trillion, with a "T"!*

Does it seem warmer in here?

The Independent reports that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is not only increasing, but increasing at an increasing rate, particularly over the past four years. Hmmm. And that, coincidently, the Bush administration (and a group of other countries in competition with Kyoto Protocol) are going to concentrate not on getting the CO2 down, but on developing cleaner technologies, which may not arrive in time to make any difference.

That's Leadership!

"Let There Be Wi-Fi" by Robert McChesney and John Podesta

"Let There Be Wi-Fi" by Robert McChesney and John Podesta is a telling account of why the US is rapidly becoming a backwater in the world of the wireless internet.

While about 60 percent of U.S. households do not subscribe to broadband because it is either unavailable where they live or they cannot afford it, most Japanese citizens can access a high-speed connection that's more than 10 times faster than what's available here for just $22 a month. (Japan is now rolling out ultra-high speed access at more than 500 times what the Federal Communications Commission considers to be “broadband” in this country.)

Informed Comment

A great thing to do right now would be to read 10 things Martin Luther King would say about Iraq, according to Juan Cole in his blog, Informed Comment.

It's a good idea. It's full of good ideas. Really good ideas

New Orleans, four months later

Rude Pundit, someone I've hitherto not been familiar with, has an extraordinary little five part photo essay about how things in New Orleans are now. Not during Katrina. Not right after Katrina. Now. Check out parts I, II, III, IV, and V

and a Happy Cajun New Year

Got a message yesterday from Allegra Braughton of Solid Air (a duo of her and Sam Page) about New Year's gig in Santa Rosa with her cajun band, the Wild Catahoulas. Seemed a good chance their accordion player would be stranded in Ukiah by the flood -- Highway 101 was closed between here and there -- and so she drafted me to be a possible substitute accordionist. Luckily, I had no other gig lined up.

Called her back. I asked how loud the band was. "Better bring the accordion with the mics in it so we can run it through the PA" she said.

A verification call from Gus Garelick, the fiddler, verified the emergency, so I officially signed on. He suggested also bringing a piano, since Allegra would have to cover for the accordion player's vocal tunes with some of hers, and maybe piano would suit them better. Fine. When asked me if I knew cajun tunes, I said, yeah, sure, both of them...Jambalaya and the other one. He wasn't reassured. I think I frightened him.

I hauled out the monster accordion to make sure it still worked. Hadn't touched it in probably a year or so. Set up the Kurzweil to make sure it worked, too. Made a little list of the 8 or so easily available patches and taped it to the top. Last time I couldn't read the tiny screen on it well and hit the wrong button and lost the piano patch until the break. But it seemed to work ok. Tried it and the accordion through a little Boss mixer I picked up on Craigslist. It also had acted up once -- or I'd gotten it patched wrong. A patch cord seemed possibly noisy, so I replaced it with another. Had some trouble figuring out the controls on the accordion. I used to know how it worked...OK. Everything ready.

Loaded up the equipment and planned to head out around 6pm. As usual, I found other things to do, and diddled around, and got out late. Had forgotten I had to fill up the Echo with gas. Headed up Old Adobe Road, figuring the back roads would be faster on a holiday. Soon found myself behind a line of cars stopped by a flagman with a stop sign, and some sort of utility trucks working. "Hmmm," I thought, "must be a line down. Oh, what's that pickup across the road, upside down? Must be something more..." Got disgusted waiting and made a U-turn and headed back and out to the highway. Zoomed through amazingly little traffic to Santa Rosa, getting to The Black Rose only a few minutes late. Met Gus the Fiddler and Vic the fill in drummer. A five piece band, and the drummer had only played with them once, and I'd never played with them at all. And the accordionist who half fronts the band was gone. This could indeed be interesting.

We hauled in our stuff and got our free dinners -- part of the deal. Good fish and chips for several of us. Allegra and Sam, a fine bassist and her partner in Solid Air (as well as in life) and Gus worked through some setlists, trying to find tunes to do. They all looked the same to me -- various unintelligible French names. Oh well. How hard could they be?

I set up stage right, balancing the giant accordion on my lap, with the Kurzweil in front of me. Behind and to my left was Vic the drummer, and in front and to my left were Gus, Allegra, with Sam across from me, stage left, so I could see him well. Gus counted off some tune, and we just jumped in. Sam knew the tunes, fortunately, so between listening to Gus and watching Sam's fingers I could generaly tell what was up. My education begun.

Wait. That verse had two extra beats, I think. Ok, it starts on the 1 chord, and then goes to the 4, and then repeats, but not every time. Next time I'll count the measures. What? Oh, it's my solo? Ok, here goes.

And that's how it went all night. Gus helped cue me, and Allegra sung, and Sam gave me helpful hints through his imaginative facial expressions. As the night wore on I got into the swing of things and felt a little more assured. But my left arm got more and more tired. By the last set I'd given up on the accordion and stuck to the piano.

The crowd couldn't have been nicer and more enthused. At one point a trio of young college girls danced their way right onto the stage with us. We did the midnite countdown and everything. A good New Year's Gig.

Even better, the owner took our names down and wrote out individual checks for us. Cool. Nice waitress. Good cook. Great crowd. Excellent band. What more could I want?

Well, it would have been nice if Bonnie had come along. She'd have loved it. She had already promised to attend a neighbor's party, so that's what she did. Said she had a nice time.

Who knows. Maybe there will be some more cajun gigs in my future.