Talked to Lawrence Fishburn Backstage at the Taper

Lawrence Fishburn is onstage at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where he's doing the play Without Walls. When he came into the building today, he said hi as he went by the coffee machine, and I said hi and said I'm a big fan but I just had one question.

He stopped on the first stair and said, "Sure, what?"

I said, "What was it like being there with Stephen Colbert ripping Bush?"

He looked bewildered. I'm sure he's a busy man and that was a few weeks ago. His assistant said, "The Correspondent's Dinner" to remind him.

That big Lawrence Fishburn smile spread over his face and he said, "Man, it was great. Those people had no idea what was going on."

Just as I thought. Washington too wrapped up in itself to realize when they were being made fun of. I said, "Well, you looked like you were enjoying it in the cutaway to you."

He said he thought it was fantastic, and said, "Those people don't have a clue."

So, there you have it from someone who was there. The beltway crowd was completely blindsided by Colbert. No clue. This fact is further proven by the fact that Tom DeLay's people thought Colbert was a real conservative who ripped Robert Greenwald a new one.

My Union Is Locked out of the LA Forum

When the Lakers were winning all those Championships, I think they called it "Showtime." Well, the shows in the Laker's House, the Inglewood Forum (AKA the Great Western Forum), were done by IATSE Local 33. I did several shows there, including Gloria Estefan. We were the stagehands in that building from the day it was built until this past April 10, when Local 33 was locked out by SMG and the Faithful Central Bible Church, the management group and owners of the LA Forum.

Now, Madonna is crossing our picket line. We're having a massive rally down there for her show Sunday, the 21st. We're asking people going to the show to please refrain from buying concessions as a show of support. And we're hoping Madonna might have something to say, too.

To find out more you can do to help us, check out this page about the lockout of IATSE employees from the LA Forum.

Erin Aubry Kaplan: Labor vs. the Lakers' old lair - Los Angeles Times

"I HAVE A DAILY ambition of taking an hourlong walk around the Forum in Inglewood. I don't realize that goal every day, but I have managed to fulfill a few others in the process, including staving off weight gain and literally keeping an eye on signs of life (or decay) in my fair city.

Usually my walk is a reaffirmation of small-town stability and continuity that counters a sense of urban decline; from day to day, not much changes around the Forum. That lack of change, while frustrating in one sense, is also comforting. I was jolted out of that comfort a couple of weeks ago. Turning the corner at 90th Street, I came upon a knot of picketers outside the Forum."

As Kaplan's article goes on to say, the picketers were from my stagecraft union, IATSE Local 33. We're there because, contrary to the SMG position, we were locked out of a venue where we have been since it was built. I would like to personally thank Erin Aubry Kaplan for this article, which does a very good job of pointing out the ironies of this situation, namely that the Faithful Central Bible Church, the owners of the LA Forum, are in a very labor friendly neighborhood, and are bussing in scabs to replace the union workers there. Very awkward. You can see for yourself in the pictures on the downloadable fliers at our union's web page about this action.

We also have pictures of Madonna crossing our picket line, which we found very disappointing. We hope that people will help us by finding out more at our web page, and telling friends, co-workers, and other union members. Please post our fliers at your job and your church. Follow the links on our site to Fax or email a letter to the Church. We appreciate any help we can get.

Tom Gilroy: Bush's Trojan Christ

It used to be that Christians were known to all by their good deeds, but after almost four decades of the GOP's cleaving the populace into warring sects to be manipulated at the polls, 'being Christian' is no longer defined by doing good deeds, it's defined by an arrogant mission to tell others how they must live---who they can marry, who they can adopt, what they can say in public, what they must teach in schools---all the way down to what kind of medicine they should have access to.

Seems like there are some really angry people out there. After having it out with a Bush voter today about the effects of FAUX news brainwashing on American voters, I read this. I'd like to be able to strap the guy down, Clockwork Orange style, with his eye lids pried open, and have Tom Gilroy read this to him for about two weeks. But that would be torture. And I'm against that.

And of course there's Tom Delay, the great born-again purveyor of moral rectitude, the man with his hand in so many tills even Texas republicans had to cut him loose. The President salutes him as a great patriot who 'served his country well' and the Rove-minions repeat ad nauseum, 'the Dems don't have their poster-boy for corruption to kick around anymore.' What does that mean, exactly? Did he do it, or not? If he's innocent, then how could he possible be a poster-boy for corruption? And if he's guilty, why is the president saluting his patriotism? And if he's a thief and a liar, what are we to think of his relentless touting of Christian values? Doesn't that mean he's a hypocrite, and that Christian values, in a political sense, are meaningless?

Read the whole thing. Then head over to my wife's site, Questions for Christians, and vent.

Illegal Immigration

I'm so sick of the over generalization that liberals are pro-illegal.

I'm pro legal immigration. The way my Slovakian great-grandparents did it. Through the name shortening process at Ellis Island.

Listen to Big Ed on Air America.

Plenty of liberal American workers like me are very upset at the effects of illegal immigration. Besides the costs, there is the downward pressure on wages, and the fact that big companies that hire these illegals do so without legal ramifications. It allows them to lower wages, bust unions, and reap bigger profits for fat-cat CEOs.

And in case you weren't paying attention, that's Bush's base.

So all you people who have voted Republican for whatever reason, maybe you thought you'd get rich someday and you want those big tax cuts if you do, or maybe you believed the FAUX news morphing of Ossama Bin Forgotten into Saddam Hussein (who 85% of troops in Iraq still think attacked us on 9-11), but you better stop voting against your interests. The Republican party has been taken over by idiots who believe anything Sean Hannity says, Christian Zionist zealots who want to bring on the Rapture, and Big Business sleaze bags like the CEO of Exxon Mobile, who's retirement package is going to pay him $150,000 per DAY.

There are plenty of fiscal conservative Democrats who will not raise taxes on the middle class, who will fight not just to keep unions, but to empower them, and who will ENFORCE the laws we already have to stop corporations from hiring illegals. Unless you do that, you will never stop them from coming. Who can blame them. The ruling class and the Catholic church (c'mon, telling one of the poorest, overpopulated countries not to use birth control, what does that do for immigration numbers?) do nothing for them in Mexico. US agribusiness has ruined the small rural farmer in Mexico, as they have here. We need a comprehensive plan that includes refusal to extend trade agreements like NAFTA unless Mexico does something to stop the waves of people coming here, especially the criminals and gangs.

From a what-can-I-do perspective, purchase fair trade products from Mexico, like the shade-grown organic coffee that we buy at Trader Joe's. This kind of voting with your dollars creates sustainable jobs in Mexico, resulting in less illegal immigration.

A reply to a post about illegal immigration

When it comes to the cost of illegal immigraton, as estimated by Professor Huddle of Rice, you left out this nugget (from here): "According to Dr. George Borjas of Harvard University native born workers lose $152 billion annually because of job displacement and wage depression caused by immigration." To me that's the real issue. Republicans, and many others, like to say that these people do jobs Americans won't do. That's a lie. Americans would do those jobs if they paid more. John McCain recently had the balls to question the work ethic of a bunch of union construction workers. He said they wouldn't pick lettuce for $50 an hour. He was booed. Plenty of Americans would do the dirtiest, hardest jobs on earth if they paid well and had health benefits.

Plus, when there are more people willing to work cheap, eventually they find their way into trades that traditionally paid well. Pressure on wages is down. Average income of workers in this country has dropped under Bush, creating a "wageless recovery" that is the direct result of people willing to work for less than the job has traditionally paid. Just look at what's happened to the construction and meat packing industries. I don't think I need to tell people who profits from that. I'll give you a hint. Bush has lowered their taxes, while the rest of us make less, and pay more for fuel, food, health care, homes, and much, much more.

But then comes the last paragraph.

Just watch the "demonstrations" and listen to Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosas, they want a Mexican Government in much of the United States. He and many now in California government were "La Raza demonstrators" in the 60's. Their radical agendas then are unchanged now. They want "old white fogeys" out of the "Aztlan" territories and they want to be part of Mexico. They deny this vehemently, but you only need look at the signs and banners in recent demonstrations all over this country but most particularly in Los Angeles and Phoeniz.

I've listened to Mayor Villaraigosa, who is no Aztlanist, not by any stretch of the imagination. Just because he spoke at a rally where some extremists were protesting doesn't mean that's how he feels. The last thing they want is a corrupt Mexican government controlling them. They love this country, that's why they're here. They are pro-union. That's why you're seeing such a rise in membership with SEIU and other service unions.

One of the problems is that large agri-business (which gives 95% of it's political donations to Republicans) has ruined rural agriculture in Mexico (and in the US and many other countries for that matter), so many rural Mexicans have no way to survive. Since their government does nothing for them, they come here.

As for the crime, well, that's because Mexico sends their problem people to us. They literally empty their prisons and encourage the prisoners to come here. Corrupt officials profit from the drug and people smuggling these criminals perform, and the cycle perpetuates. We have a vested interest in getting the Mexican government to clean up its act, and stop these crooks before they come here. Instead, we reward the Mexican government with all kinds of aid, and by signing trade agreements that have no worker protection, environmental protection, or conditions for control of the border from the Mexican side. As long as we keep electing big business Republicans in this country, we will never see any change that limits the waves of cheap labor coming across the border, or the criminals who hide out in those waves.

Let's not forget what we're up against here. The rich people in this country didn't get that way by agreeing to pay raises for their workers. The immigrants are not our enemies. It is in our interest to make their home country a better place, if it means canceling NAFTA, or imposing sanctions until they do so. We should have partnership programs to help small rural farmers live in Mexico, where they can grow crops organically for fair trade certified crop programs. There are many creative answers to this problem. But the people who profit from the cheap labor don't want to change anything.

A Public Argument with a Local Buffoon

One of the things that really pisses me off is when religious people tell me I can't be truly ethical without believing in God. Evangelical Christians take it even further and claim that if you don't believe in their particular vengeful God, you're doomed to be evil. In my local paper, I answered one such moron, and he responded with a long, rambling, disjointed letter that you will get the gist of by reading my response:

In Wayne Moore's response to my letter to him via the Signal, he says that I still don't get it. I don't think he ever has.

Moore claims that atheists have no logical basis for understanding right and wrong. What a crock. He suggests that my understanding of right and wrong "seeped in" from a society that already had a Christian ethos. His certainty that I got that framework from his God is a scary thing. How does he know I didn't get my ethical framework from Jews or Buddhists? To assume that I got it from his "God" is the kind of presumptive evangelical certitude that President Bush used to get us into Iraq. How's that working out, Wayne?

The assumption that an intelligent human being can't logically deduce that ethical behavior is better for society is preposterous. I don't need the fear of hell or the promise of heaven to do what's right. I do it because I have deduced that society benefits from ethical behavior. And, unlike Moore and his right wing friends, who don't seem to mind survival of the fittest when it comes to economic policy, I believe society, and government, should help people. That might very well be a Christian ethic (one which Republicans conveniently ignore when it doesn't suit their purposes), but it is not exclusively Christian. Many other religions and philosophies had come to the same logical conclusion well before Christ.

People who believe in evolution are not doomed, as Moore suggests, to finding that Hitler was cool or that slavery was OK. Moore fails to give a source for his "recent survey of college freshmen," but the fact that he suggests that their uneducated views lead to the conclusion that, without God, morals are determined by a vote couldn't be more wrong. If this "survey" is real, I'd sure like to see what those freshmen think after four years of college, in which, I presume, they are still required to take a philosophy class. In fact, I think Moore should take one, because he really doesn't understand philosophy at all. If there is no God, right and wrong are not determined by a vote. Atheism does not require moral relativism. I can believe there are moral absolutes that should be followed, regardless of who invented them, because they are good for all people. Ideas like the Golden Rule or the Harm Principal (I don't care what you do as long as it doesn't harm me) have been around a lot longer than Wayne Moore's vision of God.

As for evolution, it's ironic that I am writing this letter on the day that scientists announced the discovery of the missing link. For years, people like Moore have been using the missing link as an argument against evolution, and now, they have lost that point. However, people like Moore conveniently dismiss the fossil record as having been put there by God to test our faith. How can a logical person who respects science argue with that? It's impossible. They believe that dinosaurs didn't exist, that things are the same as they were initially created, and all those fossils are creations of God, not life forms that evolved, then became extinct. This literal translation of Genesis is a dangerous mindset in a world beset by problems that only science can solve.

I can point out to Moore that he should have paid closer attention during biology class. Changes in genetic information, called mutations, happen naturally. When an organism mutates into something that's helpful to the species, those with the mutation thrive, and those without it don't. That is natural selection. Over billions of years, this produces the process known as evolution, which Moore states is not "observable." This is because he throws out the fossil record as evidence. But what about viruses? President Bush, a noted creation scientist, recently said that viruses like the bird flu "evolve." What the President was reading was a statement of fact from government scientists that virus mutations have caused observable evolution in different species of viruses. The mutation and evolution of viruses has been observed for quite some time now. The genetic structure of any organism, even a small one like a virus, offers trillions of possible combinations. There doesn't have to be "added information," only a recombination of existing information.

I'm sure Moore will have more nonsensical rebuttal to this fact, all based on something other that scientific reason. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of scientists, even religious ones, believe in evolution. The only people running scared in this country are evangelicals whose hateful treatment of those who don't believe like them is being exposed everywhere. But, hey, don't worry, Wayne. If you and your buddies keep hoping for the Rapture, you'll cause a bloody end to the world you seem determined to destroy, and none of this will matter.

No one will ever convince Wayne Moore, or those like him and President Bush, that life didn't start all at once 5000 years ago. So why do I try? Because I hope that other people reading these letters will realize that just because some of us don't believe in God, it doesn't mean we're bad people. And others, including the Catholic Church, believe that evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. The big bang had to happen somehow. Maybe that was God. I have no proof of it, and I don't do leaps of faith. I'll wait for the theories to be tested, and for new theories to evolve. Maybe, as our studies of quantum mechanics and the intricate workings of the universe get better, science will actually discover a kind of underlying "spirituality" to the universe. I doubt very much that it will look like the vengeful, closed-minded, hateful God that Wayne Moore wants me to be afraid of, or that George Bush uses to justify his cruelty, crusades, and war mongering. I look forward to a day when science is free from religion, when the EPA and the FDA make decisions based on science and not the religious views of political appointees, and when schools aren't forced to teach, or even mention, religion in science class. In short, I look forward to the day when Wayne Moore and his ilk spew their backwards views to smaller and smaller groups of believers while the rest of the world gets on with its evolution.

Didn't Work the Oscars this Year

I thought it was a good one. We love Jon Stewart. I love it when Hollywood gets political. Hollywood should stand up and point out that being "out of touch" is a very good thing. Giving an Oscar to a black woman when people in red states wouldn't give her a seat on a bus is a good thing. Making movies about gay men so afraid to show it because they'll be killed, that's a good thing too. To my ears, the people saying gays shouldn't marry sound just like people who wanted to stone Sidney Potier for making a movie about mixed race dating. George Clooney is right. If George Bush is in touch, I'll stay out.

Watching the show tonight, I remembered all the Oscars I worked, from Tom Hanks telling jokes to the orchestra when I was doing pit microphones, to my first Oscar, when I was doing the light for the balcony statue they use going to and back from commercial. I have to admit, with the car on fire and the big screen during Itzhak Perlman, the show was, from a stagehand point of view, a good one as well. Hats off to my IATSE Local 33 brothers who are the Oscar stagehands.

ALL REPUBLICANS READ THIS

But you won't, will you? Just more drivel from another angry liberal who
wants to take your guns and make your church pay taxes.

Here's a couple of excerpts:

The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)

The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 million acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come "at the expense of 'The Deer Hunter' crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west." Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits. The magazine (hardly a Marxist rag, remember) describes Mr. Cheney's own expedition as "a lot closer to 'Gosford Park' than 'The Deer Hunter' - a group of fat old toffs waiting for wildlife to be flushed towards them at huge expense."

Here's another:

As great wealth has accumulated at the top, the rest of society has not been benefiting proportionally. In 1960 the gap between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was thirtyfold. Now it is seventy-five fold. Thirty years ago the average annual compensation of the top 100 chief executives in the country was 30 times the pay of the average worker. Today it is 1000 times the pay of the average worker. A recent article in The Financial Times reports on a study by the American economist Robert J. Gordon, who finds "little long-term change in workers' share of U.S. income over the past half century." Middle-ranking Americans are being squeezed, he says, because the top ten percent of earners have captured almost half the total income gains in the past four decades and the top one percent have gained the most of all - "more in fact, than all the bottom 50 percent."

Here's a good one:

But let's be realistic here. When the notorious Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he answered, "Because there is where the money is." If I seem to be singling out the Republicans, it's for one reason: that's where the power is. They own the government lock, stock, and barrel. Once they gained control of the House of Representatives in 1994, their self-proclaimed revolution has gone into overdrive with their taking of the White House in 2000 and the Senate in 2002. Their revolution soon became a cash cow and Washington a one party state ruled by money.

Look back at the bulk of legislation passed by Congress in the past decade: an energy bill which gave oil companies huge tax breaks at the same time that Exxon Mobil just posted $36 in profits in 2005 and our gasoline and home heating bills are at an all-time high; a bankruptcy "reform" bill written by credit card companies to make it harder for poor debtors to escape the burdens of divorce or medical catastrophe; the deregulation of the banking, securities and insurance sectors which led to rampant corporate malfeasance and greed and the destruction of the retirement plans of millions of small investors; the deregulation of the telecommunications sector which led to cable industry price gouging and an undermining of news coverage; protection for rampant overpricing of pharmaceutical drugs; and the blocking of even the mildest attempt to prevent American corporations from dodging an estimated $50 billion in annual taxes by opening a PO Box in an off-shore tax haven like Bermuda or the Cayman islands.

And, finally:

Let's start with the "K Street Project." K Street is the Wall Street of lobbying, the address of many of Washington's biggest lobbying firms. The K Street Project was the brainchild of Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist, the right wing strategist who famously said that his goal is to shrink government so that it can be "drowned in a bathtub." This, of course, would render it impotent to defend ordinary people against the large economic forces - the so-called free market - that Norquist and his pals believe should be running America.

Tom DeLay, meanwhile, was a small businessman from Sugar Land, Texas, who ran a pest extermination business before he entered politics. He hated the government regulators who dared to tell him that some of the pesticides he used were dangerous - as, in fact, they were. He got himself elected to the Texas legislature at a time the Republicans were becoming the majority in the once-solid Democratic south, and his reputation for joining in the wild parties around the state capital in Austin earned him the nickname "Hot Tub Tom." But early in his political career, and with exquisite timing and the help of some videos from the right wing political evangelist, James Dobson, Tom DeLay found Jesus and became a full-fledged born again Christian. He would later humbly acknowledge that God had chosen him to restore America to its biblical worldview. "God," said Tom DeLay, "has been walking me through an incredible journey. God is using me, all the time, everywhere. God is training me. God is working with me..."

Yes, indeed: God does work in mysterious ways.

I hope all you Bush lovers, and even those of you who voted for him but are now saying you didn't, will read this great speech, Restoring the Public Trust, by Bill Moyers. Because of your voting for, and defense of, these thugs, you have seriously screwed up this country and this world for a long time to come. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

BBC - Religion & Ethics - Revelation: The End of the World?

I've been having a little fun with a Christo-fascist Rapture lover in my union news group. You can read my reply to his American Taliban philosophy on my Bush Treason Blog today. What I'd like to share here, hopefully with some more level-headed people who believe in Critical Thought and Science, is a very interesting documentary that just happened to be on the Discovery Times channel when I got this thug's mail this morning. Spoiler alert:

BBC - Religion & Ethics - Revelation: The End of the World?: "So it seems that the Book of Revelation is not prophesising the end of the world but is a polemic against the Roman Empire. John frames his attack in a way that parallels other religious writings of the time and which would have made sense to early Christians. John was for first century Christians telling them to galvanise themselves against compromising with Rome, and that their faithfulness would be rewarded."

These aren't some anti-Christian, secular humanist propagandists. These are actual biblican scholars, and many Christians who believe in the teachings of Jesus, critically evaluating evidence that Revelation was not written by John the Disciple of Jesus. It's very interesting stuff, even for a Bright like me. After all, history is history, no matter how crazy the people who made it were.

Southern California Catering Friends

A few weeks ago, my wife's cousin's husband, Eric Glass, a Hudson Valley caterer in Woodstock New York, got a call from a southern California caterer who wanted to know who did his web site. She had found his site and liked it. So, he sent her to me. Her site was a mess, one of those done cheap by someone with no clue using an online WYSIWIG editor. Ugh. So I told Emma, sure, I could help her, and I redid the whole thing, from bottom up, and her Los Angeles catering company, Culinary Delight Catering, has a really nice web site that should get her much higher search engine rankings.

Now that I've been doing business with Emma for a few weeks, I can tell she's a really cool lady. If you read the story of her business adventures as a home party consultant and southern California wedding consultant, and how that started from humble beginings as a sandwich shop, you'll get the idea. Her elegant touches as a Los Angeles wedding caterer are impressive. Her talents in corporate event planning are celebrated. Her her weekly meal plans are like having a personal chef, but without having someone messing up your kitchen.

Gee, I can't wait to get some food from her!

Dana Spiotta's New Book is Out to Rave Reviews

My wife's sister, Dana Spiotta, has a new book out: Eat the Document. She's getting rave reviews, including this one from Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times. This is Dana's second novel. Her first, Lightning Field, also receieved great reviews.

Dana lives with her husband and daughter in Cherry Valley New York, where they run a gourmet restaurant, The Rose and Kettle.

California Home Loans with Ken Go: FIVE DO’S TO GET THE BEST MORTGAGE

Blogs help small businesses. My clients are starting to figure it out. Ken Go, my friend who is a southern California mortgage broker, just did. His California home loans blog will be a great resource for people who want to know more about California home loan products and processes.

Another in a Long Line of Great George W Bush Quotes

I'd love to hear some dumbass explain why they voted for this genius. Are you all chicken hawks now? Hell, I've even seen my neighbors scratching the Bush stickers off their cars!

Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

Al Gore's Challenge to America

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." -- George Orwell

"Whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded." -- Al Gore

Big Bear Cabin Rental

My friend Vince has this great Big Bear Cabin for rent. It's within walking distance of the Big Bear ski slopes. It has room for two couples, with a full kitchen and a great stone fireplace. It's very reasonable for a Big Bear rental cabin any time of year.

The web site I made for Vince's cabin also has links to other Big Bear rentals, plus free desktop wallpaper of winter pictures from Big Bear California, taken by my wife Robin from the top of the ski slopes. We also offer other goodies, like links to other vacation rentals worldwide, including other Southern California Ski Resort rentals and skiing and snowboarding posters.

Liberal hordes attack Christmas

"So, as usual, the bureaucratic solution was to kill the mosquito with a shotgun: Instead of exempting those minority students from participation, red-tape artists concluded that any display of Christmas at school had to be prohibited."-- What We Now Know, week of Dec. 20

When I went to an all white public school in rural Arkansas, minority students (those who weren't Christian) were "exempted from participation" by being allowed to stand in the hall doing nothing while the rest of the class read the King James bible parts referring to the birth of Jesus. I was the only one in the hall. I would later be attacked in the school yard by "Christian" bullies who were too chicken shit to attack me one at a time. I would have to fight three or four of these crusaders who were teaching the heathen a lesson, while their good "Christian" friends cheered them on.

So, the next time someone spews a generalization about how liberals react to being force-fed beliefs, in a public institution, that aren't their beliefs, and how ALL liberals and liberal bureaucracies over-react to this treatment, I'll remember the crusading red-necks who kicked me in the face while I was on the ground. And I'll think, gee, maybe if someone kicked Bill O'Reilly in the face while he was being beaten by a gang of vicious liberal Atheists, maybe he would be a little less likely to to complain when we try to force the LACK of religion in public places.

But I agree that if the "Christians" who want to force their beliefs on everyone would tone it down, do their worshipping in church instead of in court (how ironic that the Republican Reverend Falwell would threaten Boston with hundreds of swarming lawyers - aren't liberals the ones who sue over the littlest things?) or schools, this argument would be gone. The fact is, it is the Christian right that has created this fight, and it is mostly FAUX news and O'Reilly who started it. Their whining about attacks on Christmas are pitiful attempts to further separate this country in terms of religiosity. If Bill and his friends think this country isn't religious enough, I know a brand new theocracy they could go help liberate from the sectarian hordes.

In the mean time, I'll wait in the hall while you people pray to your lord. I hope you remember all the great things he said, like that which you do to the least among us (see the recent budget cuts be republicans to pay for tax cuts to millionaires), and a camel going through the eye of a needle before a rich man will get into heaven (see the presidential cabinet with the most millionaires ever).

Pesticide-free tropical Hawaiian flowers

Yes, Hana Flowers is one of my Search Engine Optimization clients. No, I don't get a cut of each sale. I believe in what they do. The good folks at Hana Flowers, in Hana, Maui, Hawaii, grow pesticide-free flowers, which are hand-picked, hand-washed in bio-degradeable soap, and hand-packed in wet paper, before they are shipped to your door anywhere in the world.

Floral workers who work for the major on-line florists are subjected to horrible working conditions, including heavy doses of pesticides. By voting with your dollars and buying tropical flowers from Hana Flowers, you will be doing yourself, floral workers, and the planet a big favor.

Besides, just look at those awesome tropical bouquets!

Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates

America's most famous advance team gets a little lost.


Cross posted at dKos and My left wing.

After four months of discovering how the state disability insurance program of California works, I'm back at the Mark Taper Forum theater in LA, tech rehearsing Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates. The last play I did here was Stuff Happens, which was a critical look at the run up to the Iraq war, featuring Keith Carradine as George Bush. That was back in July and August. Since then, Bush's poll numbers have steadily tanked. While this play isn't as directly critical of the Bush administration, it does explore American interventionist policies in wars based on questionable intelligence, and I'm hoping it will lead us to Bush approval numbers somewhere in Cheney land (end snark). When it comes to actual impact on Bush’s numbers, hopefully there will be many more Lawrence Wilkersons.

Meanwhile, over here on the West Coast, Lewis and Clark, sent by President Jefferson to explore the new Louisiana Purchase, get a little lost in time and space. After trying to entice the Sioux Nation to convert to capitalistic democracy, they stumble into US wars of aggression, starting in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt and the rough riders, then to the Philippines, where a US commander laments the guerrilla tactics used against the US Army, to Viet Nam, and eventually, Iraq. We're still in tech rehearsals and we just got to Viet Nam, but I've gotten the idea. Throughout US history, leaders have lied to pursue an interventionist, if not outright imperialistic, foreign policy.

There's a lot of comic relief in this play (Lewis and Clark are smoking a joint in Vietnam right now, complaining that it’s the worst tobacco they’ve ever tasted), and it's probably necessary considering the seriousness of the subject matter. I'll be able to get a better feel for it's effectiveness when I see the whole thing at our first preview Thursday. What I've seen so far is intriguing, if only for its ambition. Taking these two American icons into the future they helped create is an adventurous way to compare and contrast the early American vision of expansion with the corporate military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about.

Lewis and Clark are, to say the least, confused. But their views of the role of the American Philosophy actually fit into every time and place. Their denial of their predicaments is eerily reminiscent of Bush administration’s insistence that everything will be OK. Their superiority, politely expressed as conviction that everyone would want to be like America, inadvertently insults or unconsciously instills confidence, depending on whether they’re dealing with Native Americans, a black slave, Teddy Roosevelt, Army commanders in the Philippines, a CIA agent in Vietnam, or when they finally reach the Euphrates. The point, it seems, is that they might actually fit into any American adventure, and that's a scary thought.

While the fear of an enemy hasn't changed much over the centuries, our knowledge, or at least our potential to learn about an enemy, has. In Lewis and Clark's day, America was a little country, afraid of the superpowers of the day. Even in Roosevelt's day, America was still limited in what it could know about the rest of the world, in the diplomatic and military sense. It was extremely difficult for us to find out about the world, especially with the likes of William Randolph Hearst practicing yellow journalism. But as we move into Vietnam and Iraq, we have become a huge power with the ability, if not the balls, to find out the truth about our supposed enemies, And the thread of powerful people ignoring facts, or generating lies, for profit, runs as clear as an 1806 river through time, from Hearst's yellow journalism whipping up “humanitarian” enthusiasm for the Spanish American war, to the gulf of Tonkin fiasco furthering our involvement in Vietnam, to the fact that as late as October of 2004, Seventy-five percent of Bush supporters said they believed that Iraq was providing "substantial" support to al Qaeda.

Maybe this is something every generation has to learn for itself, the hard way. Perhaps even the greatest generation, if not threatened with an actual threat, would have allowed someone in power to manufacture one. But maybe, just maybe, if we write about it, create plays about it, film movies about it, and tell our kids about it, perhaps a generation soon will figure out how to avoid these messy, expensive frauds we let these egomaniacal plutocrats get us into.

Hey, Bill O'Reilly, come on over to my house...

O'Reilly Blasted for Coit Tower Comments

Bill O'Reilly:

"If al-Qaida comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

John Hanley, president of the San Francisco Firefighter's Union Local 798:

"Coit Tower is a monument to the bravery of the men and women of the San Francisco Fire Department. When Bill O'Reilly makes an attack on Coit Tower, he's attacking us and our bravery. Mr. O'Reilly, maybe we should bring you into some of our burning buildings and see how brave you are."

Bill O'Reilly Enemies List - Sign Up Tonight

Bush: Please come campaign for Arnold next year...

I mean think about it, other than the war in Iraq, the Katrina disaster, the deficit, the CIA leak, torture, stopping stem cell research, homeland security, global warming, and undercutting science, we've yet to really feel the negative effects of the Bush administration. -- Bill Maher

In Ohio, the Republican party used Diebold and discrimination at the polls to beat back the Reform Ohio proposals. Big suprise. In NYC, a liberal billionaire got re-elected as Mayor, but he is a Republican, so that was a win. In Texas, the red-neck right passed an anti-gay-marriage bill that is going to make all marriages illegal.

Other than that, the negative effects of the Bush administration were felt far and wide yesterday, when Democrats won two governorships, beat a traitor from their party for Mayor of St. Paul, beat an anti-gay marriage proposal in Maine, a crazy anti-tax proposal in Washington, and all of Arnold's $60 million dollars worth of idiocy.

On to '06.

Millions of deaths at BushCo's feet

I've seen arguments about why we shouldn't compare Bush to Hitler, and I agree with Bill Maher. We shouldn't do that because Hitler was a decorated soldier who fought on the front lines. But, generally, I think comparisons to Hitler make the left look a little loony, unless, of course, we carefully explain why we're making the comparison.

The environmental damage being done by the Bush administration will, in the long run, cause more deaths than the Nazis ever dreamed of.

Raping the world for the sake of corporate profit is the name of the BushCo game. Be it war, drilling, mining, logging, anti-environmental trade pacts, killing environmental treaties, not cleaning up Super Fund sites, or gutting rules and regulations meant to conserve and protect the natural world, these vicious thugs are seriously screwing up the planet, and it's going to kill many millions of people. Lung diseases, cancers, starvation, unsanitary and polluted water supplies, you name it -- the BushCo is doing everything they can to maximize profits at the cost of people's lives everywhere.

And this isn't like the "collateral damage" of 100,000 dead civilians in Iraq. The BushCo PR agents can't say, well, we honestly try to minimize the damage done by global warming. Hell, until very recently, the denied it was even happening. And it wasn't until very, very recently that Bush admitted that humans are causing climate change. But has he done anything about it, aside from some lame us suggestion that we conserve more energy?

Climate change is just a small part of the picture. Through globalization, the process that allows Bush friends to spread environmental harm to third world countries, the deaths are really piling up. From e-waste to strip mining, from clear cutting to industrial sludge, BushCo makes sure that third world countries do whatever they have to do to their environments and their citizens to pay off the debts they've accrued from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and countless other capitalist sources for economic invasions of third world countries.

By stripping these countries of their natural resources and forcing them to privatize their public utilities, the Global robber barons ensure that the poor people of these countries will remain poor, further expanding the corporate sponsored economic cleansing of millions of people who do not contribute to their bottom line. From Monsanto's global proprietary seed campaign to deforestation of the Brazillian rain forest, the BushCo lead in viral irresponsible capitalism has opened the door for global conglomerates to do whatever they want, to whomever they want, with no threat of repercussions or criminal investigations. Enron was just the beginning of a perverted type of corporate accounting that is, to put it bluntly, completely unaccountable.


Cross-posted at the Daily KOS.

Bush Approval Ratings

Paraphrasing here:

66% of Americans think George W. Bush is doing a poor job on Iraq. The other 34% think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church. -- Amy Poehler, SNL, 10-29-05

Boycott List

Please, when you can, boycott these companies (and their products, following) that gave heavily to the Republican Party. Of course, anything to do with FOX should be punished.

TOP 25 REPUBLICAN PARTY DONORS WITH CONSUMER BRANDS

1. Altria
2. Microsoft
3. UPS
4. AT&T
5. MBNA
6. Citigroup
7. Pfizer
8. FedEx Corp.
9. Wal-Mart
10. Bristol-Myers
11. GlaxoSmithKline
12. ExxonMobil
13. Anheuser Busch
14. Time Warner
15. ChevronTexaco
16. PepsiCo
17. Schering Plough
18. Wyeth
19. Ford
20. Alticor Inc.
21. Archer Daniels Midland
22. AMR Corp
23. General Motors
24. BP plc
25. Disney

The following products are produced by the above companies and should be boycotted. Print out this list and keep it handy when shopping.

Tobacco
Marlboro, L&M, Basic, Virginia Slims, Parliament, Merit, Benson & Hedges, Lark, Chesterfield, Cambridge

Beverages
Capri Sun, Country Time, Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, Tang

Coffee
General Foods, International Coffees, Gevalia, Maxwell House, Sanka, Yuban

Desserts
Baker's, Balance, Breyer's yogurt, Calumet, Certo, Cool Whip, Dream Whip, Ever-Fresh, Handi-Snacks, Jell-O, Light n' Lively low-fat yogurt, Sure-Jell

Cereals
Alpha-Bits, Banana Nut Crunch, Blueberry Morning, 100% Bran, Bran Flakes, Cranberry Almond Crunch, Cream of Wheat, Cream of Rice, Fruit & Fibre, Golden Crisp, Grape-Nuts, Great Grains, Honey Bunches of Oats, Honeycomb, Oreo O's, Pebbles, Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, Toasties, Waffle Crisp

Cookies and crackers
Barnum's Animals, Better Cheddars, Kraft Cheese Nips, Chips Ahoy!, Handi-Snacks, Honey Maid, Newton's, Nilla, Nutter Butter, Oreo, Premium, Ritz, SnackWell's, Stella D'Oro, Teddy Grahams, Triscuit, Wheat Thins

Snacks
Cornnuts, Planter's nuts

Pet snacks
Milk-Bone

Confectionery
Altoids, Creme Savers, Fruit Snacks, Gummi Savers, Jet-Puffed, Kraft caramels, Life Savers, Milka, Terry's, Toblerone, Trolli

Cheese
Athenos, Cheez Whiz, Churny, Cracker Barrel, Deli Deluxe, Easy Cheese, Hoffman's, Kraft, Philadelphia, Polly-O, Temptee, Velveeta

Dairy products
Breakstone's sour cream and cottage cheese, Knudsen sour cream and cottage cheese, Kraft dips, Light n' Lively low-fat cottage cheese

'Ready meals'
Fresh Prep, It's Pasta Anytime, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Minute, Stove Top, Taco BellTM, Velveeta shells and cheese

Condiments, sauces, etc.
A.1. steak sauce, marinades and Worcestershire sauce; Bull's-Eye, Good Seasons, Grey Poupon, Kraft barbecue sauce, mayonnaise, salad dressings and mustard; Miracle Whip, Oven Fry, Seven Seas, Shake 'N Bake

Meats and meat alternatives
Louis Rich, Lunchables, Oscar Mayer, Boca

Pickles and sauerkraut
Claussen

Pizza
California Pizza KitchenTM, DiGiorno, Jack's, Tombstone

Microsoft Windows

UPS

AT&T

MBNA Credit

Citibank - various financial products including banking services, credit cards, mortgages and loans.

Actifed, Anusol, Benylin
Benadryl, BENGAY, Corn Huskers, Cortizone, Desitin, Dramamine, e.p.t,
Emetrol, Efferdent, Effergrip, Fresh 'n Brite, Gelusil, Hemorid, Kaopectate, Listerine, Listermint, Lubriderm, Luden's, Micatin, Nasalcrom, Neosporin, Nicotrol, Pacquin, Pediacare, Plax, Polysporin, Progaine, Rogaine, Rolaids, Sinutab, Sudafed, Tucks, Unisom, Visine, Wart-Off, Zantac 75

FEDEX

Wal-Mart

Exedrin analgesics (painkillers), Boost energy drinks, ChoiceDM diabetic snacks, skin care, oral care and footcare products; Enfamil infant formulas.

Abreva cold sore remedy
Alluna herbal sleeping tablets, Aquafresh toothpaste
Citrucel laxative
Contac cold and 'flu remedies
Ecotrin aspirin
Gaviscon heartburn remedy Nicorette nicotine patches
Os-Cal calcium supplements
Tagament and Tums heartburn remedies

Exxon petrol and lubricants

ExxonMobil credit cards.

Alternative
Shell

Beer
Budweiser, Michelob, ZiegenBock, Pacific Ridge Pale Ale, Busch, Natural

Malt liquors
Hurricane Malt Liquor, King Cobra

Malt beverages
Bacardi Silver Raz, Bacardi Silver O3, Bacardi Silver, Tequiza, "Doc's" Hard Lemon

Non-alcoholic beverages
180, O'Doul's, Busch NA

Theme parks
Busch Gardens, SeaWorld

Internet service providers and browsers
AOL, Netscape Navigator

Television networks
HBO, Cinemax, Warner Bros, CNN, Cartoon Network

Movie companies
Warner Bros studios, New Line Cinema, Hanna-Barbera, Castle Rock Entertainment

Books
Little, Brown and Company, Warner Books

Magazines
Time Inc magazines, DC Comics, IPC magazines

Chevron and Texaco petrol

Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Code Red, Sierra Mist, Lipton Brisk, Lipton Iced Tea, FruitWorks, AMP, Aquafina, Mr. Green, Mug Root Beer, Slice, Frappuccino, Quaker, Sugar Puffs

A+D babycare products Afrin nasal spray Claritin allergy treatment CoricidinHPB cold and 'flu remedy Correctol Drixoral allergy/sinus remedy GyneLotrimin Dr Scholl's footcare, Coppertone sun lotion

Advil painkillers, Alavert allergy remedy, Anbesol toothache remedy, Caltrate calcium supplement, Centrum vitamins, Chap Stick lip balm, Dimetapp cold and allergy medicine, FiberCon and Freelax laxatives, Preparation H haemorrhoid cream, Primatene asthma treatment, Robitussin cold and 'flu remedy

Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin Hertz car rental

Quixtar toiletries and cleaning products, Body Series toiletries, Artistry cosmetics, Satinique shampoo, Glister toothpaste

Novasoy calcium supplement NutriSoy protein supplement Soy7 pasta, Natural Source supplements

American Airlines flights

Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Isuzu, Oldsmobile, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Subaru, Suzuki, Vauxhall

BP, Amoco and ARCO petrol and diesel

Walt Disney toys, stores, publications and films.

Treason in the White House