THANK YOU! Keith Olberman

Movement, finally movement. Orwell certainly must be watching all this from some remote location because he deserves to be watching.

On one of the C-span call in programs today, I gagged listening to a female caller pointing out that President Clinton was lying again in his retort to Fox News' Chris Wallace's crummy question during an interview this weekend. The caller said "Well Bill was wagging his finger - exactly like he did when he lied about not having sex with THAT woman... during the Lewinski scandal...". Blah blah blah.

For some years now I have questioned Clinton's coziness with the other members of the Bush family. But I could never have formed such alliances myself - so I cringed every time there was a photo op with President Clinton and Bush senior!! It's not just being a liberal Democrat we are talking about here. Actually the feeling defies description.

Apparently it still is not obvious to many in the public that the Lewinski scandal - and all the other attempts to discredit President and Mrs. Clinton during their time in the White House - were put forth as a starting point to create the atmosphere we live in now! That atmosphere: one of nearly total submersion in false, watered-down, or misrepresented and/or propagandized information? I recognized what was going on...it reminded me of the P.R. during a merger.

Television has become one giant infomercial. Keith Olberman's commentary today on President Clinton's retort to Chris Wallace's ....erm question - is an accurate and beautifully worded depiction of exactly what is happening, and what is at stake here. Starting in the mid 1980 I've faced and lived in similar situations with various employers due to the looming corporate mergers and reorganizations and downsizings that preempted my ability to hold a permanent job.

Perfunctorily my life was never the same. And at various break points I tried to talk to those around me about the reality of jobs being shipped abroad to call centers, how the contractor labor fees were given a boost through tax deductibility, and how the workers rights were one at a time being taken away and eroded. Many of us in this generation are dying rather young. My own life does not stretch out with pleasant possibilities brought about by a deep pension and padded bank account. All that remains is to not go quietly.

Boring as it has been for some to listen to me...and much as that has eroded or killed friendships, the only thing that does remain is for the truth of what has happened, to be brought out into the cold harsh light of day. There are still generations maturing who will have to live in, what remains of this world. Thank you Keith!!

Speakers: Silence is Golden?

Silence in the august body of the UN. What salient point was missed by our ivy league university educated leader, that left his audience looking dour - potentially even resembling that proverbial "oil painting"?

Inferring we are the positive and beneficent force for good - while our adversaries are the embodiment of evil? Just about as laughable as his holiness's subliminal suggestion through quotation of historical documents, inferring past Muslim wars and religious protocols caused more unnecessary bloodshed than the infamous Christian Holy Wars? Or that these mortals were perhaps worse or somehow more immoral than the sexually abusive behavior of more than a smattering of Catholic priests!

Men in charge here seem to have no training or understanding of statesmanship - much less of foreign policy, relations or religious doctrines beyond their own back yard experiences. We should all be deeply ashamed such people were "elected" (which of course they truly were not) or allowed to, hold office. Are we (as a nation) the 3 monkeys? grrrrr

For "Pete's" Sake

oooEEE What a week. Hmmm there's trouble in River City. And here I am, with mostly the same expression as friend Beardy's puzzy cat, waiting on a Coup d'état of some measurable degree. With rancor, it seems apparent some amount of dissention is transforming a few in the neocon camp. It's about time. If it is real, thank you Colin Powell.

Although perhaps it's just political expediency with the elections looming large? Put a good face on what has been seething in the background. After all these years of constant erosion, our policies no longer resemble what the constitution - much less the people - intended. Today there was another meeting, with attendance by yet others of "that" party and televised, including actual real life experts on middle east policy, politics and religious groups - regarding what is the best "path" to follow to extract our weary troups from the fracas...in the kindest and quickest sense.

That is to say, real intellectual experts on these issues, as opposed to the photo-op paid individuals placed in front of the public who supported the plans and desires of this administration. Individuals of no integrity, who long ago lost their ethical compass.

Far from convinced yet, I sit in my bedroom tea in hand with much the same expression as Beardy's cat. Gentlemen start your engines. Keep this going and let's not falter or stop now, we have many long years of corruption to put to right, rewritten and inverted laws to put to a new vote, many disowned human rights that need assurance that in the future, this country will return to what it once was. Then I will feel an air of confidence again: but we've a long way to travel. (Photo with permission of my friend Beardy)

A Perfect Storm of Too Much Information

A reality check? How? Where? Certainly not on CNN or any other major broadcast network news daily offerings, can we find moot information on today's crucial problems. With his flood pants hiked up around his whatsit, hourly rehashing of John Mark Karr's expensive extradition to the U.S. regarding the JonBenet Ramsey murder, stormed the airways 24/7 for the past several weeks. With an obvious attention-grabbing seizure of his moment of fame, from an also obviously not mentally stable man such as Karr, a few minutes of this coverage would have been enough for most sober thoughtful people.

Grrr What the heck is going on! Pouring over real estate offerings trying to find a new home during this out-take in time, I hoped for an escape from 'suffering' through total immersion in such a seedy sleazy story. Bright red from angry jabbing, my fingers ached: the buttons on my remote control could not find a station (or time) where Karr's face wasn't ever present. Not that the civil war in Iraq, the tenuous cease fire in the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict, the lack of progress in New Orleans reconstruction, the upcoming machinations over raising the minimum wage, or the questionable Diebold voting machine use in the fall elections - is of any importance.

Nope. Nada thing! Instead we have insipid prattle over vacuous topics...the night of writing this, the topic of choice was the issue over whether Katie "C's" promotional photo was airbrushed to give her a thinner appearance! Gag. Spam disguised as news. News comprised of spam. Omniscient writers ceating clever obfuscations through carefully worded propaganda in the guise of news! A total marginalization of the blood-curdlingly serious issues of our times.

Mundane uninteresting life events have taken over and been spun into a perfect storm through the use of titillatingly sleazy subject-matter punctuated by colorful videos into a fusion and cacaphony of complete drivel. It is no different than watching commercial wrestling.

Follow the yellow brick road...ermmm. A vanguard expression is that if ones throws enough excrement against a wall, a certain amount will stick. The wall in this case is the American public, numbed by decades of vacuous sitcoms, reality programming, faux news and the lifestyles of the rich and witless. Behind curtain number one, the wizards (one of whom may yet turn out to be the antichrist) in the form of TweedleRumDumb and TweedleDeChainsman and dRoveOfhearts are in charge. Or is it the Bushmeister, with his Queen of Heartless mum Barbed herself?

Fearful, loathing, shocked and awefully "confused" am I: this is the Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue. Oddly, I am proud to be labelled confused. Journalists stand-up...the time is nigh. We are way PAST "Time" for everyone to show gumption. Everyone else - turn off the boob tube, pickup the remaining real newspapers - and educate yourselves before it is too late. Register to vote if you have not done so...and prepare to fight through the next elections.

The grim reaper's bell tolls for us all if we remain idle and following along in a herd in the same group-think mentality that got us into this nightmare.