Turning Away From the Truth
September 16, 2051

And then there was failure.

Ironic that those words opened an article of the New York Times the last time a retrospective was done--fifty years ago—on November, 2001. The Times was celebrating its 150th anniversary then, and it published a two part retrospective on various newsworthy issues over those years. One piece entitled "Turning Away From the Holocaust" examined a dark blemish on the reputation of The Times—when The Times had failed to report to the American people the atrocities of the Holocaust in a manner the public could understand. The author of the piece, Max Frankel, wrote that the majority of holocaust reports in The Times "were mostly buried inside its gray and stolid pages, never featured, analyzed, or rendered truly comprehensible." Frankel listed various reasons for the decision to hide stories on the plight of the Jews, namely that "papers owned by Jewish families like The Times, were plainly afraid to have a society that was still widely anti-Semitic misread their passionate opposition to Hitler as a merely parochial cause." These reasons cannot be excuses, however; the American public and the Jews in Europe suffered because the truth was hidden. The Times should have led the way in reporting the truth. It did not.

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Times is no exception.

Two days before that retrospection piece was published in the Times, a major story broke on the front page—not the war in Afghanistan, or the prospect of more Middle East talks. This story was about an election. An election which required a year for all the votes to be tabulated, and even then, the results were slow in coming.

Every school child knows the story of the 2000 Presidential election. The close election that began with an election-night call for George W. Bush, followed by subsequent requests by Al Gore for a recount, followed by legal bickering, followed by the initiation of a statewide recount, followed by the halt of that recount by the U.S. Supreme Court. George W. Bush's subsequent term in office is not noted by historians for the intense recession it created, or the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington D.C. that began the Afghani conflict, but because Bush served as president without being elected as such. Historians recognize that today. Unfortunately, The Times did not then.

That day, November 12, 2001, The Times published the results of a massive recount of the Florida ballots. The recount examined undervotes, where there seemed to be no apparent vote for president, and overvotes, where more than one presidential candidate was selected. The Times article focused on the fact that Al Gore's request for partial recounts in four Florida counties would not have netted him the votes he needed to win. It focused on the narrow margin of victory Bush enjoyed in two out of five scenarios, stating "Bush would have won… the statewide manual recount of the votes." It focused on absolving the U.S. Supreme Court of wrong doing by stopping the recount. "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote," declared the headline.

In retrospect, the recount article was focused on hiding the truth.

As we know now, the focus of that article should have instead been on the thousands of Floridians who attempted to vote for Al Gore but were unable to do so. Some were prevented from even casting their ballots because their names were falsely included on a list of ineligible felons. The vast majority of these voters were African-American and would have voted heavily in favor of Al Gore. Other voters were confused by poorly designed ballots and ultimately were silenced when they accidentally voted for another candidate along with Gore. Even those who attempted to be extra cautious, marking their ballots for Al Gore and then writing "Al Gore" in the write-in section of the ballot found themselves silenced. In interviews, Florida judge Terry Lewis, who would have been responsible for running the recount, said he would not have ignored such ballots. Ironically, if these valid votes had been counted, Al Gore would have won by at least 100 votes—the other three out of five scenarios stated as much. The focus of the article should have also been that the U.S. Supreme Court Justices did cast the final vote on the election issue with their decision. No matter who won the media recount, the Supreme Court did not have the right to overturn a state's decision in a state matter. These points should have been brought forth and pounded upon like a drum.

Instead, they were buried. And there was silence.

There are numerous reasons for the silence. The environment of patriotism while the country was at war was not the place to be suggesting the president was illegitimate. Likewise, the publishers of many media outlets had vested stock in the Republican party, which favored corporations. Whatever the reasons, the outcome remains the same—The Times failed to take the lead on a major story and instead became a follower again.

Just as stories of the Holocaust from 1939-1945 were, the truth in the November 12, 2001 recount article was hidden in gray, stolid pages, buried under incomprehensible numbers and statistics. More Floridians went to the polls in 2000 to vote for Al Gore for president, and Al Gore received more valid votes for president than George W. Bush. This may be obvious to us as we look back fifty years into the past, but hindsight is 20/20. Max Frankel concluded his Holocaust retrospective with: "And to this day the failure of America's media to fasten upon Hitler's mad atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors." Likewise, the failure of America's media to report the true story behind the 2000 election stirs those same consciences. The media ultimately learned their lesson, even if they required fifty years to do so.

Too Self-Absorbed to See

I saw today on the CNN (Conservative News Network) website that Laura Bush, wife of the Commander-in-Thief, spoke today on the end of self-absorbtion for the current generation. Call my cynical, call me crazy, squeeze my toes and call me a jelly donut, but I have two letters for that... and they're not "ok"... I'm thinking "BS".

Self-absorbtion is alive and keeping in the good ol' US of A. It's the self-absorbtion that leads almost a dozen of published letters to the editor sent to the Courant, criticizing the newspaper for printing the picture of a dead Afghan baby on the front page. Most of these letters were outraged because death is a horrible thing that should be avoided... no, but because the Courant was *gasp* showcasing that our actions have consequences. "What about the victims of Sept. 11?" these letters asked. "The next time you want to show a dead Afgan baby, show it next to the picture of a dead pregnant woman from the World Trade Center." Or "I bet they don't print pictures of our dead in Afghani newspapers." Comments like these, while all admittedly paraphrased since I don't have the letters in front of me, demonstrate the ignorance of our country. The only time death matters in when it happens to an American, apparently. And then we're shocked to hear that the rest of the world hates us.

Or what about the self-indulgence of the Republican party in the house, passing a "stimulus" bill that's meant to affect the richest of the rich corporations, while Senate Republicans blast a Democratic stimulus plan because it *gasp* gives money to people who don't make much, who were affected more by Sept. 11.

Or perhaps Vice President Cheney going on a hunting trip or the Commander-in-Thief's countless weekends off the job. The end of self-absorbtion? Far from it.

At best, this speech was an attempt by Mrs. Bush to build up American patriotism and congratulate us on doing THE RIGHT THING. Unfortunately, the world doesn't operate in black and white... and it's self-absorbed to think it does... and that we always at on the side of good. At worst, this speech is a dig at the last elected president, Bill Clinton, whom Republicans are always claiming was representative of the self-absorbed 90s. Take her speech as you want to take it... pretty words or a condemnation. But one thing is for certain... self-absorbtion is still alive and strong in America, for the current generation and the ones that came before it. And I have the feeling it's going to stick around for a long time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I simply must get my beauty sleep or I'm going to look a mess tomorrow when I get together with Buffy and Lance. And I don't have anything to wear!

Welcome to the Castle Anthrax... It's Not a Very Good Name, Is It?

You know, before the last few months, I didn't ever fully understand why that wasn't a good name for a castle. How things change. Now, I don't think there's a single person who doesn't know what anthrax is or what it's capable of... actually, I should take that back. There has to at least be one person who is unaware... I mean, just look at the Federal government.

Yes, I know, that probably stings more than getting the anthrax vaccine (which consists of six shots, so I'm told.) But seriously... as the last month has shown, bioterrorism is very real, and it could be potentially very dangerous. As we've also seen during the last month, the government is completely incapable of dealing with bioterror threats. All right, maybe not completely incapable... but they're receiving more ciriticism than praise over decisions that, when you come right down to it, were really quite stupid.

Let's start from day one. Bob Stevens, a photo-editor from The Sun tabloid died, and it was discovered he died from anthrax. What was the government's immediate response? Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson suggested that the man had probably gotten infected by drinking some bad water on a camping trip. He basically dismissed the idea of an intentional attempt to infect people with a deadly bacteria. Well, hopefully Tommy enjoyed eating his words with ketchup... within days, it was shown just how wrong he was. Anthrax bacteria was found at the office building where the editor worked... and so of course, to ensure that no one else could be threatened the spores, the government shut down the entire building. Wait, no... that must have happened in some alternate universe... because the building stayed open in ours and more people became infected! The first brilliant move by the people who are supposed to be protecting us... luckily, no one else died in that case.

Then, we had an anthrax filled letter sent to Tom Brokaw at NBC. It was postmarked in New Jersey, and opened by an unsuspecting staffer. That was cleaned up... and then another letter was sent to Tom Daschle in Washington, D.C. The anthrax spores in this letter were very refined... so refined, in fact, that the anthrax in the letter could have infected and killed 2 million people with the amount of anthrax in the envelope. So of course, logically, after the anthrax letter was received by Daschle's office, the government closed down the Senate office building the letter was found in. They also shut down all the mail processing plants in Washington that the letter could have gone through, in order to check for possible contamination and save the lives of postal workers.

Oops... screwed that up again. Yes, the Senate office building was closed down... along with most of the Capital. The House even shut down thanks to the fears. But did the mail processing centers? Nope. They stayed open, because the government didn't see a risk there. A handful of infections and two deaths later in that Brentwood mail processing facility, and yet again we see how a stitch in time could have saved nine.

So now the government is telling the American public to continue with life as usual when it comes to the mail. Steps are being taken to protect the public and postal employees, they say. The chances of ordinary mail being infected is small, they say. The anthrax letters were specifically targetted to government offices and news outlets, they say.. Ordinary Americans need not worry.

This son of a former postal employee would beg to differ.

Anthrax spores are very small. Very very very small. Envelopes are not completely solid. Pieces of paper have little holes in them, little pores just like skin does. But see... anthrax spores are smaller than the pores in a piece of paper... or an envelope. Jostle an anthrax filled letter just a little, and there's no doubt spores will shake lose. (Want to see this in action? Over at CNN.com they have a video demonstrating this fact. Just click on the archived videos for October 30 to view the clip.) Shoot an anthrax-filled envelope through a cancellation machine... and you're basically releasing confetti in front of a fan. Those spores are going to shoot out of that envelope and cover the machinery, the workers... and any other mail nearby. The fact that Daschle's letter still had 2 grams of anthrax powder in it when it arrived is frightening... but not as frightening when one considers just how much anthrax must have been in there originally. How many spores end up sticking to another envelope is questionable... and it's said that over 10,000 spores are needed to cause an infection. But the threat is there... the chance is there for it to happen. Who knows where the letter you get today has been? And yet the government keeps on acting like nothing is wrong. It ships out mail and equipment across the country to be cleaned instead of cleaning it where it is. It drags its feet in closing down postal facilities that might be at risk. And it refuses to accept that cross-contamination is a very likely scenario.

Kathy Nguyen and an unidentified woman in New Jersey might beg to differ. Neither women worked at a post office, newspaper, or for the government. But both tested postive for anthrax... Nguyen died of it. The woman from New Jersey's office mailbox tested positive for it. Various satchels and parsels being sent across the world are testing positive for anthrax. But it's business as usual....

Then again, why should these government officials worry too much? They don't have to open their mail... they have secretaries and interns for that. If the buildings they work in tests positive for anthrax, they can shut down the building and work somewhere else, or not work at all. Postal employees don't have that luxury. The people who are supposed to be protecting us from the anthrax threat are not doing their job... they aren't doing their best to protect us. They aren't shutting down post offices long enough to get them decontaminated and install devices to irradiate the mail and thus lessen significantly the threat of anthrax of other bacteria being sent in envelopes. They certainly aren't inspiring confidence with their handling of this anthrax stuff.

Anthrax is real... scary... and it's up to us to protect ourselves from it. Keep your mail apart from the rest of the house... wash your hands after touching it. And try to convince your representatives and senators to push for more action against anthrax.

Sigh... I miss the virgins.

When the Past Comes Back to Haunt You

Ever since the September 11th tragedies, I've read many accusations made by conservatives that President Clinton's lack of focus on terrorism during his term allowed the attacks to occur. Ironically, while many Republicans were quick to criticize the last truly elected President of our country, Democrats tried to stay above the fray... not pointing out the various instances when Republicans stood in the way of anti-terrorist steps.

Let's examine some of those instances shall we?

In 1996, the Congress passed and President Clinton signed a bill designed to combat terrorism. Unfortunately, this bill was a much watered-down version of the proposals initially offered up by President Clinton. Republicans stood in the way, then, of many of the new laws and freedoms for law enforcers that they are backing now. Note in this CNN story that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) mentions he had problems with some of the President's ideas for expanding wiretapping. In this CNN story, we discover just what those wiretapping proposals were. "What the terrorists do is they take one cellular phone, use the number for a few days, throw it out and use a different phone with a different number," said Rep. Charles Shumer (D-NY). "All we are saying is tap the person, not the phone number." Now take a look at this story from ZDNET regarding the most recent anti-terrorism legislation. Senator Hatch is singing a different tune from before, saying that it's necessary to give law enforcers the tools they need to track down those responsible for the attacks. And, later on in the article, you see John Ashcroft mentioning that he will soon be asking Congress to approve legislation to give him the wiretapping authority that Clinton proposed in the first place (makes you wonder if Ashcroft was one of the Republican Senators who worked to get those wire-tapping proposals watered down doesn't it?) Of course, it can be said that hindsight is 20/20... but one wonders what would have happened had those proposals been in place.

And we can't forget about the airline industry. Years ago, Vice President Gore put forth a series of security recommendations to the airlines designed to make flying safer and prevent occurences like what happened on the 11th. And what happened? The airline industry laughed at him... why should we waste money on those proposals? they asked. Ha ha! they laughed. Well the thousands of people entombed under the World Trade Center aren't laughing. Those proposals could have made a difference... that much is undoubtable since the SAME proposals were put forth and passed by the Senate within the last month to improve airline security. I guess it all depends on who's proposing the bill, eh Congress?

And last but not least, less us not forget about the Hart-Rudman Commission. Established to examine how the nation can better protect itself from a terrorist attack, the committee presented its report to the Bush Administration in February... and was ignored. But do we hear any criticism of our current Resident? No no, that would be unpatriotic... best to direct all criticism to the man that came before him... the man that actually tried to do something to prevent a tragedy like that occuring, and was blocked by members of the opposite party.

By the way, it's worth noting that it's members of the Republican party that are holding up aviation security legislation in the House because they don't think the Federal government should take over security at airports. That same legislation, by the way, passed the Senate 100-0... so what are Tom DeLay and Dick Armey thinking? Oh yes, and they're also blocking terrorism-fighting legislation in the Senate in order to force the Senate to approve more of Bush's judicial nominees... the Republicans accuse the Democrats of trying to prevent Bush's nominees from coming for an approval vote... they should be familiar with the practice, they did just that to Clinton while they held control of the Senate.

It's definitely high time that a more critical eye be directed at the actions of the Republican party... and not just for their actions over the last ten years, but even the last twenty. Don't forget, the CIA helped to fund and train Osama Bin Laden. Orrin Hatch has even said that if they had the choice to do that over, they'd fund and train him anyway. Seems some people just don't learn... but that doesn't mean their pasts can't come back to haunt them.

Humor! I love it! Whee!

That's right… you guessed it… the topic for today's entry is… cheese! Ha! Just kidding! No, today we're going to talk about humor and its importance in times like these.

I've long been a believer in humor being the best medicine. I'm sure those of you that wallowed through my last post got a hint of that. Humor allows us to take a step back from the world and laugh at ourselves for a little bit. It helps us to not take things so seriously. And when you live in a world where terrorists might fly a plane into your office and free samples of laundry detergent are no longer the only white powders shipped through the mail… you need to have humor.

Understandably, a lot of comedians took some time off after the tragedies last month. It was about a week before Letterman, Leno and O'Brien were back on the late-night air, but the anyone who watched, I'm sure, was glad to see them return. And not just because they were funny… because they were human. We got to see them deal with what had happened just like the rest of us… and try to move on. It was inspiring in a way. They helped us laugh at the world and at ourselves… and it was sorely needed.

Of course, most of the humor right after the attacks tended to stay away from using the attacks as a source of humor. This too was understandable. When something big like that happens, you need time to get a grasp of it. You need time to mourn and pay tribute… and just deal with it (to quote a classmate in Editorial Writing). But it didn't take too long before humor started to work its way into the events of the 11th. Some of the first instances I saw were on the online webzine "The Onion"… which managed, I think, to sum up the events of September 11 far better than any news slogan I've seen so far. "Attack on America," they declare in big bold letters, and then underneath, "Holy F*cking Sh*t" (minus the asterixes of course.) It was so true… and so perfect in many ways, especially in that it mocked the dramatizations the news have come up with over the last month. Other things that caught my attention on the site… a "What's on TV Tonight" listing post-9/11… a report from Hell on the surprise of the terrorists involved in the disasters at not finding themselves in Heaven… and a particularly poignant piece where God reiterates that when He said "Thou shalt not kill", He meant "Thou shalt not kill."

There have been many other examples of humor over the last six weeks or so. The whole Bert/Bin Laden connection springs to mind. I'm sorry, I know the people at Sesame Street don't find it amusing… but in a way, seeing Bert there looking over Bin Laden's shoulder… it makes the whole thing less scary for a moment. I'm not saying it desensitizes or anything… I'm not going to forget what dangerous men these people are… but just for a moment, to be able to laugh at something ridiculous like that… something that wasn't even planned… is a treasure in itself. What is Bert whispering to Bin Laden? Perhaps using pigeons to deliver bioweapons? Getting revenge on Ernie for eating cookies in bed? It's silly… and it makes me laugh.

Now somethings, of course, just aren't funny. I've mentioned the anthrax hoaxes that got out of control in the last post. That's not right… true humor should not be at the expense of anyone… well, all right, you should TRY not to make it be at the expense of anyone. It should be something we can all enjoy… with the exception on the terrorists in hell piece. But jokes like the anthrax hoaxes are just wrong… they're insulting, hurtful… it's like getting into an argument with Prince Charles and demanding, "Who died and made you king?" (Answer: Nobody.)

Humor is essential in our lives. Hu-mor helps keep us hu-man. It's watching a big burly Klingon warrior, looking out for the first time on a holographic representation of his home city, declaring quite seriously, "I can see my house from here." It's watching Ben Stiller as an idiotic male model in "Zoolander" being brainwashed "Clockwork: Orange" style by Will Ferrel. It's escapism… for just those few moments in a day that help us get on with the rest of the day. It's the little wacky occurrences that let us hear a "WAH WAH WAAAH" in the background or a Homer Simpson-ish "DOH!"

And sometimes, as demonstrated at the beginning of this post, it's just a really cheesy joke.

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this... a plethora of other projects requiring online research took the majority of my focus for a while, but no longer. It's time to play catch-up. So where to begin? So much has happened in the last two weeks... but hey, you've got to start somewhere.
And I'm going to start right here... in the midst of the anthrax scares, there have been hundreds and hundreds of calls about suspicious white powders. Most of those calls turn out to be false... no fault of anyone, just the result of precaution. But the sad thing is that people are apparently taking advantage of the scares... and what really gets me is that the first two federal charges for people creating anthrax hoaxes are both in Connecticut.
The above article comes from the CNN webpage... and it's just sad. To think that people in this state could be that... sick. I mean, there's the guy in Bridgeport who pretended to be a terrorist. Calling the FBI and saying he was going to go after schools and whatnot... what kind of sick, attention-craving mind would do that? And the other guy... standing by while officers investigate the prank he set up himself... and then attempting to blame it on his co-workers. Every single time a call comes in, law enforcement has to check it out. That costs money and time... it's like prank-calling 911. What is wrong with us? What happened to the country that united after the tragedies last month? It makes me sick... absolutely sick.
I have no problems with jokes... humor... when it's contained. When the people you're joking with know it's a joke. When law enforcers aren't forced to report to the scene of a hoax. Humor is important. It's a stress-reliever... it helps us get through life. After all, if we take ourselves too seriously, we'll have lives without joy... without pleasure. I even joked to my co-worker today that I'd found some suspicious white powder in packets near the coffee. It was marked S-U-G-A-R... we laughed. It didn't get blown out of proportion. The two people in Connecticut went too far... and let me just say... right now I have no desire to hear their side of the story. There's no excuse for what they did... and as far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve being called Connecticut residents. I don't want to have any connection with people like that... and for now, until my anger abets, I'm putting them in the category of George W. Bush... the People I Wish Had No Connecticut Connection category.
And it takes a lot to earn that dishonor.

Just a quick little entry here... I'm sure many of you that have followed the recount fiasco are aware of the big massive media recount that was announced shortly after the Republicans stole the election from right under our noses... well, suffice to say, that recount was just about coming to a close, until it was "announced" that because of the Sept. 11 tragedies, those results were going to be put on ice. The major newspapers involved in the recount cited the need for their reporters to focus on the attacks as the reason why the recount was shelved, but this piece on the recount posted on Oct. 2 suggests otherwise... and to be honest, I wouldn't doubt it. Now I'm not one to claim anything I read on the internet is true just because one person says it is... but I think questions do need to be asked. I don't know who David Podvin is, or what his credibility is either. Could he be a Matt Drudge for the 21st century? Only time will tell... but if this article is true... if the recount was shelved because the findings discovered that Gore won decisively... then why is the media not reporting this? Do they not want to bring down a president? They didn't seem to have that problem with Clinton. Perhaps someone bought them out? But who would have the money and the complete lack of morals to buy the press? Hmm... perhaps the same people who stole an election? Just something to think about.