randomWalks

Faces in the Crowd by Carol Lay.

originally posted by xowie

When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high. And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, ‘ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,’ as the saying goes.

I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck explaining why we don't fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn't explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I'd tell them how we reproduce, how long we've been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. And one thing I would really like to tell them about is cultural relativity. I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to conitnue this way if we don't like it.

For several months he staked out the Gladstone Hotel on East 52nd Street, where she was recovering from her divorce from Joe DiMaggio and her summary dismissal from her contract at 20th Century Fox. On one of those truant mornings, Mr. Mangone took an eight-millimeter Kodak camera from his brother, headed downtown and met Monroe just as she was leaving the hotel for a therapeutic shopping spree. Then, just as in the movies, she waved, winked and asked him to come along.

originally posted by xowie

The founder of Maon Farm, Yehoshefat Tor, says he still thinks the bombing was a good idea. "The Torah says we should kill all the Arabs," he told me. "Not just Arabs who maybe help terrorists. Everybody." His neighbor at Maon Farm, David Ben Zvi, a 27-year-old shepherd who lives with his wife and children in a blue-and-white city bus, tells me that he would like to see a "Jewish Taliban" that would run the country according to the Torah. "This is my land, but it is not my nation," he says.

originally posted by daiichi

Google buys Blogger; randomwalks moves to Movable Type. Coincidence? Well, yeah.

Massive marches in
every city, in every
country on the globe

originally posted by xowie

We call upon the Spirit of the Founders to guide us as we create a new world where all may live in peace.

originally posted by daiichi

The case against the war by Jonathan Schell.

originally posted by daiichi

And the terrorists in Washington
Are drafting all the young men

And no one speaks

And they are rousting out
All the ones with turbans
And they are flushing out
All the strange immigrants
And they are shipping all the young men
To the killing fields again

And no one speaks

originally posted by daiichi

Most of the world cried out at the slaughter of the people of Guernica. Such bombings were considered highly inhumane and Picasso's painting caught much of the outrage that was shared by most civilized people... Perhaps remembering the original horror and revulsion that was felt in 1937 after the bombing of Guernica will remind us that the bombing of civilians is a hideous and immoral practice of eliminating helpless and innocent people whose only crime is living in a war zone.

originally posted by daiichi

Happy birthday, Domina Jane Die!

originally posted by daiichi

At the Coalition on Homelessness, Tracy has another idea: "There are very acute mental illnesses that are specific to the activist scene. For one, you have a society that ridicules and marginalizes your vocation. And second, people who come in and are expecting change now or change today are in for a big disappointment. If you don't have the long view, you're going to be in a constant cycle of raising your hopes and having them beat down. It's very easy to get into the 'nothing changes' mentality."

originally posted by daiichi

Bastard, by M. Shahid Alam.

originally posted by daiichi

Stop Mad Cowboy Disease.
Make Tea Not War.
War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it (Erasmus).

originally posted by daiichi

You can watch a bit of video (scroll down) at dc.indymedia and listen to a bit more of the town hall meeting on Pacifica’s PeaceWatch.

The audience — mostly middle-age professionals — broke into sustained applause when the veteran said the nation was being led into war by men who had never gone to war. He thundered off half a dozen names: "George Bush, hawk, did not fulfill his National Guard duty; Dick Cheney, hawk, did not serve; Paul Wolfowitz, hawk, did not serve; Richard Perle, hawk, did not serve."

originally posted by xowie

"I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent," he was quoted as saying. "I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic. But I have a bipolar personality, which is strange. I'm my own worst enemy. I have devils inside that fight me."

• These people are a breed apart. We're better off that way
• This Is Your Life, Phil Spector. Phil?
• Beyond the gates
• There is another Hollywood, one Lana knew all too well
• Phil Spector's Ghosts

"Don't move the mikes," Phil would warn if we got up to take our 5-minute break which we were lucky to get. He didn't want anything to touch the "sound-waves" of that room once he had gotten balance. "DON'T MOVE THE MIKES," so we were very careful. The whole band was in the room. Some were playing chess, or throwing darts to naked ladies drawn on the walls. Phil would sometimes dress in outlandish costumes and then use his psychological tricks on us. We were ready for him.

originally posted by daiichi

There is no real evidence. There is no smoking gun. There isn't even a smoking spit wad. There is only, basically, a smoking middle finger.

originally posted by daiichi

Evidence of an electronic cut-and-paste operation by Whitehall officials can be found in the way the dossier preserves textual quirks from its original sources. One sentence in Dr Marashi's article includes a misplaced comma in referring to Iraq's head of military intelligence during the 1991 Gulf war. The same sentence in Downing Street's report contains the same misplaced comma.

originally posted by daiichi

March on Melrose by Judith Lewis.

originally posted by daiichi

>christ this is all so depressing. Isn’t something good happening?

Well I was holding back on this one… ‘A Sea of Fire,’ or Worse? by Nicholas Kristof. (Verrry depressing.)

originally posted by daiichi

Rice for Peace: If we are going to send something to Iraq it should be food, not bombs.

She needed the rewrite by Wednesday. I told her that I’d do my best but that my lover, Walta, was having brain surgery on Tuesday. A shunt was being placed in his cranium to drain fluid that was building up because of an AIDS-related infection. Sarah listened to me. When I was finished, she paused and said, "Well, that excuse might work in Boston, but it won’t fly here in New York."

originally posted by daiichi

originally posted by daiichi

Iraqis and Americans who, doctors say, might die in the next war: 48,000 to 260,000
Additional deaths expected from the civil war within Iraq following an invasion: 20,000
Additional deaths expected from “post-war adverse health effects”: 200,000
Total deaths if nuclear weapons are used: 3,900,000

VV: Blood, Stats, and Tears. Also, Dying for War by Alisa Solomon.

originally posted by daiichi