I'm Back to Blogging

I’m back to the blog, and happy to be here. I’ve missed it.

DebtorsPrison started about two years ago, when we had $23,000 in credit card debt. We still have some debt, around $9,000, your basic average US household credit card debt. Of course, we are luckier than a lot of those average debtors, since ours is locked in at 2% special deal interest rates. Things could be a lot worse.

Of course, DebtorsPrison was never really about the debt per se. This blog was more about the social, political and economic forces that make debt so easy a trap to fall into in the United States. The opening entry of this blog two years ago can still serve for its reintroduction today:

I used to think that responsible behavior like paying your bills on time was the
key to earning good credit. I now realize that what brings you the
whopping high credit limits is irresponsibility, the willingness to surrender
your good judgment to the lure of desire.

I love my credit and am
grateful that it has allowed me to build a happy life for my wife and me, to own
a home, to have traveled to over thirty countries, and to own a hell of a lot of
stuff. Nevertheless, for all the freedom my credit has brought me, the
accumulated debt brings a powerful burden of worry. Even worse, now serves
to constrain my freedom. I have entered a type of debtors’
prison.

This weblog, DebtorsPrison, intends to examine this
peculiar consumer society of ours. Life with easy credit and abundant choice can
be very sweet indeed. And yet we are also living in a kind of madness,
continually tempted and urged to do things which are not necessarily good for
ourselves, for society or for the planet, things we might not have done if we
had the constraints of tight money and fewer choices.

I don’t
intend simply to rant and blame society, corporations, the government or the
media. That would be too easy. It’s true that my politics are
generally left-leaning, pro-conservation, suspicious of big capitalism, and
generally appalled by much of the mindless consumption I see around me.
Nevertheless, it is also true that despite my political beliefs, my good
intentions and my low wages, I too have been lured into the debtors’ prison.

I’m sure there are plenty of out-dated news and broken links in the the old posts and archives, and I’ll be cleaning them out from time to time. A few of my favorite essays from the past will still be linked to in the column on the left. But now it is forward, into the renewed, interest-compounded DebtorsPrison…

"Perhaps You'd like me to Hold Your Dick for You...?"

That is, of course, a line memorably delivered by Sir John Gielgud playing the butler to Dudley Moore's spoiled rich kid character in the 1970s-era movie 'Arthur.'

It's a line that came to my mind today as Bush and Cheney perform their ventriloquist-and-dummy act before the 9/11 Commission.

What a bind they got themselves into. It had become politically untenable for Bush to continue stone-walling the commission, and yet the administration also knew that Bush is too stupid, ill-informed, transparently dishonest and immature to be trusted to testify by himself. They had no other option but to have Cheney right in the next seat to, if I may, hold Bush's dick for him.

They've trotted out a number of explanations for the joint appearance-- 'it saves time,' 'they were in different places that day so this lets them give the commission a broader picture'--but each of them is laughably inane. No one believes them and they know it.

All they can do is brazen it through, while knowing full well in their hearts that in the eyes of the world, they have all but admitted that Bush is a pretty-boy figurehead who lacks the capacity to be president.

But you're not fooling anyone, boys.

No Shame and No Morals

Utterly amoral and utterly shameless. How else to describe the Bush Republican attack machine for trying to smear John Kerry's military record? This, from a president who pulled all the strings available to him to avoid service in Vietnam, and then barely showed up for the stateside duty he landed, along with garnering mediocre reviews from his superiors, losing his flying status, refusing to submit to drug testing (and why would that be, unless you knew you would test positive?).

For a good short side-by-side comparison of the military records of Bush and Kerry, CLICK HERE.

For an administration that's constantly braying about how it values our men and women in uniform, they sure seem to have few qualms about disparaging one when it suits their purposes. Of course, this is also the administration that outed a CIA agent out of political vindictiveness, so why should we be surprised?

Draped in the Flag

I wonder how many of the soldiers you served turkey to in Baghdad on Thanksgiving are dead now, Mr. Bush? Maybe some of them are even in this picture that you don't want the American people to be able to see:



A policy adopted by the Pentagon during Daddy Bush's first Gulf War in 1991 prohibits news organizations from photographing caskets being returned to the United States. Allowing the public to see row upon row of these flag-draped coffins, they say, would be insensitive to the grieving families.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy confirms Bush's support for this policy: "In all of this, we must pay attention to the privacy and to the sensitivity of the families of the fallen, and that's what the policy is based on and that has to be the utmost concern."

Which is bullshit, of course. The names and faces of the fallen in Iraq are shown in the print and broadcast media every day--real names and actual faces. These images of coffins are completely anonymous. There are no names, no faces, no personal identification of any kind.

No, it's not for anyone's privacy that Bush wants these images suppressed. He wants them suppressed because he knows they are powerful in their stark simplicity. Oddly enough, it is the anonymity itself which helps lend them power, as the hearken back to our long collective visual memory, dating to Vietnam, World War II and beyond, of similar pictures of war. Vital human beings, soldiers, now reduced to silent flag-draped cargo.

This president who so loves draping himself in the flag, does not want us to see these images of flag-draped coffins of those who have died in the service of his ill-advised policies.

Oh, and woe to any who try to cross the Bush administration's censorship. The flag-draped coffin issue originally arose when the Seattle Times published a similar photograph on its front page last Sunday. That photo had originally been taken by Tami Silicio, a 50 year old American working in Kuwait for the Maytag Aircraft Corporation, a government contractor providing ground handling services for military air bases. She since has been fired from her job. For good measure, they fired her husband too.

Silicio says she shared the photo because she hoped it would portray the care and devotion with which civilian and military crews treat the remains of fallen soldiers. In return, she was squashed by the petty vindictiveness of the Bush administration.

Cheney Endorses Freedom to Sell Guns to Terrorists

At least that what he seems to be saying in his speech yesterday to the National Rifle Association convention. According to the news reports, Cheney blasted John Kerry for supporting various gun control initiatives over the years, including one that allows random federal inspections of gun dealerships.

OK, I happen to be in favor of strict gun control, but I recognize that there is a middle ground where reasonable people may disagree. To oppose legislation like this, however, seems totally unreasonable. Our entire commercial business code includes as part of its standard operating principles the idea of random unannounced inspections. Agricultural inspectors check out slaughterhouses, health inspectors inspect food production facilities and restaurant kitchens, weights-and-measures inspectors make sure the prices posted and the scales used in retail establishments are accurate, fire marshals and building inspectors make sure that structures are up to code.

These inspections are done to help ensure that our food is unadulterated, our buildings are sound, and that we are not being cheated. Believe it or not, businesses have been known on occasion to cut corners in ways that make their products less healthy, less safe and more dangerous. They may do it innocently, not having the time, resources or workforce to make sure things are done to a certain standard, or they may do it for unscrupulous reasons, a greed for more profits.

You know this is true.

Gun dealers are no different than anyone else. The vast majority are honest and diligent in their business practices. But there may be a few who are lax in making sure that the rules and regulations concerning the sale of guns are followed, and there may be a greedy, corrupt few who are tempted by the money to be made selling guns outside the regulatory system.

All the law says is that gun dealers should be in the same position as virtually every other business in the United States: to be aware that on occasion, someone will check to see that you are fulfilling the requirements to which you agreed when you received the license to operate your trade, to make sure that you are not selling to people with criminal records, and to ensure that all the weapons you have procured are accounted for either in stock or in sales records.

In short, to help ensure that you are not acting, either through laxity or design, as a conduit for criminals and terrorists to obtain weapons.

This is a well-established feature of our commercial code, Mr. Cheney. Perhaps you have not had to deal with it so much in heading such crony-capitalist companies as Halliburton, but for most businesses in the United States it is accepted, and our society enjoys safer food, buildings, transportation and fairer services because of it. There is no reason gun dealers should have a special exemption from having their businesses subject to inspection.

If you had your way with the Patriot Act, even the book buying habits of every American would be open to government inspection. Yet you want the vendors of weapons to be free from inspection!

And we're supposed to believe you take the 'war on terror' seriously?

Where's the Money, George?

Here's one question I wish some reporter had asked of President George W. "I never make mistakes" Bush at his press conference this evening:

"Mr. President: Given your stated determination to 'stay the course' and do whatever necessary to follow through on your policy in Iraq, and given both the increasing costs of our Iraqi operations and of the burgeoning budget deficits here at home, would you be willing to raise taxes, or even to consider forgoing any of the new tax cuts you seek, in order to finance our military operations?"

I wonder how he would answer that. Somehow, I don't think his determination to do whatever has to be done to "achieve victory" in Iraq would include cutting back any of the goodies he's passing out to the wealthy. No, let the little people pay for his war, both with their lives and with the economic well-being of the future generations who will be forced to foot the bill for our economic recklessness today. Let no cost fall on the wealthy and the powerful.

THIS is the interview the Bushes claim show Richard Clarke is a liar?!

The Bush administration is in a real panic over former counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke's revelation of how clueless they have been in dealing with terrorism. As part of their flailing, desperate attempts to smear and discredit him, they gave permission to Fox News and other media outlets to disclose Clarke as the 'anonymous administration official' who gave a background briefing in 2002.

They claim that in that interview, Clarke praised the Bush administrations anti-terror policies.

Well, I've read the transcript of that backgrounder, and I certainly wouldn't call it a ringing defense, even though at the time he was still working for Bush and dutifully trying to put the best face on things. As you read it, you can sense his struggling, complete with umms and uhhhs, to make it sound like the Bushies were actually doing something.

Helpful hint to the Bush crowd: you may hope people will see Clarke's words back in 2002 as praise, but in truth, any intelligent person can see that they are in fact damning with faint praise.

Of course, the most laughable part of the Bush smear campaign is still their decision to send Vice Presdient Cheney to sit in on Rush Limbaugh's show to badmouth Clarke. (Read that transcript HERE) Rush Limbaugh? Sheesh! What next? Condi Rice appearing on The Simpsons?

A Little Too Truthful

The Philadelphia Inquirer last Thursday started out an article about the continuing attacks in Iraq with a sentence that perhaps conveyed a bit more truth than intended:

"As military analysts see it, yesterday's car bombing of a downtown Baghdad hotel is the latest in a surge of attacks on "soft targets" - poorly protected civilians - in the shadowy war to disrupt Iraq's march toward pro-U.S. democracy."

Oops. Usually we're told that we're fighting for just plain old democracy in Iraq, but here someone forgot to delete the modifier 'pro-U.S.' It seems that some democracies are more equal that others. Should Iraq dare to ever democratically elect an Islamist government that isn't sufficiently "pro-U.S.," I guess it will be regime change time all over again.

In the meantime, we've probably got a division of troops readying an invasion of Spain now that their voters have democratically turned out their pro-U.S. prime minister.

Let's make this clear to the world: democracy doesn't mean you get to vote for what YOU want; it means you get to vote in favor of what the United States says you can have.

Why Do They Keep Saying 'Re-Elect?'

I don't know why they keep talking about the re-election campaign of George W. Bush, since he was never elected in the first place.

I know, I know, get over it already, you're probably thinking. And I have gotten over it, for the most part. I don't call it a stolen election anymore, but rather accept that it was an unusual situation in which the party most willing to use lies and deceit won the day. I occasionally will write the words President Bush, rather than 'President' Bush or President* Bush or President (sic) Bush or White House Resident Bush.

No, I've mostly gotten over the stolen election (oops), even though his White House Residency has been much worse than I ever envisioned. All I care about now is semantics, about accuracy, about a pure and simple love for the English language. I hate to see the word "re-elect" used improperly.

Now if you're talking about the nine Supreme Court justices, you may validly use the term "re-elect." Strictly speaking, the vote of those nine people was the only election that George W. Bush actually won in 2000. Next time Vice President Cheney goes duck hunting with Justice Scalia, he can feel free to urge the re-election of Bush, should circumstances once again lead to that situation this year.

But Bush lost the election in popular votes--there is no disagreement that more votes were cast for Gore. And after reading many analyses both for and against Bush of the Florida voting irregularities, it seems convincing to me that had the ballots been properly counted, Gore would have won the electoral vote count as well.

So lets honor the proper use of the English language and stop using the term 're-elect.' You can work to elect George W. Bush for the first time. You can work to bestow legitimacy on his future time in office after four years of illegitimate rule. But it is not possible to work for his 're-election.'

Put Away Those Almanacs!

Happy New Year to all from DebtorsPrison. One of America’s most beloved annual publications has been in the news at this start of 2004: The World Almanac and Book of Facts.

Yes, the annually updated World Almanac has been the bestselling reference book for millions of Americans since it was first published in 1868, and has played a supporting role in our nation’s history as well. During World War II, the US government commissioned a special print run of over 100,000 copies each year for distribution to our fighting men and women. In White House photographs, the Almanac can be seen close at hand on the desks of presidents Kennedy and Clinton.

You might want to hide that Almanac of yours for the time being, however. According to the Associated Press, the FBI has put out an alert to 18,000 police departments warning that terrorists might be using World Almanacs to assist them in their nefarious plans.


They urged police to be on the lookout for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if they seemed to be loitering or writing in them, for that "may point to possible terrorist planning."

Wow!

Now it’s true that the World Almanac and Book of Facts does have a lot of information. It lists the airports, rail lines, port facilities and truck cargo stations for the 100 largest US cities. It names the highest buildings, notable bridges, longest tunnels, biggest dams and reservoirs. It lists the Most Widely Known Americans of the Present.

Of course, it also lists the most commonly confused words in the English language. Who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Who had the highest batting average in the National League.

But you can never be too careful. Who knows what evil plots these bastards could be hatching?

The Associated Press story goes on to quote publisher John Pierce of the Old Farmers’ Almanac as saying that his publication is of little use to terrorists, unlike the book put out by those traitors over at the World Almanac. Nevertheless, he vows that "while we doubt that our editorial content would be of particular interest to people who would wish to do us harm, we will certainly cooperate to the fullest with national authorities at any level they deem appropriate."

We’re still waiting for other publishers of reference guides to say whether they are on the side of America or of the terrorists. Will Zagats exhort us to be suspicious any under-nourished persons of a certain nationality checking out what eateries are most likely to be packed? Is Spa Finder watching out for those who would soil our favorite mudbaths? Are the Kelly Blue Book people making sure that no one uses their books to make sure that their potential car bomb isn’t a lemon? Is The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book making sure that those people prowling Beverly Hills for glimpses of movie stars’ homes are only fantasizing about kidnapping their favorite sex god or goddess?

Perhaps the safest course is to not publish any reference books at all. Yes! Add the slogan to the Department of Homeland Security website: “Ignorance is the Best Prevention!”

The On-Off Economic 'Recovery'

I don’t know why economists and pundits seem so puzzled by the merry-go-round of good news-bad news economic statistics that are announced each week.

You know, one day in the news they’ll be trumpeting that the economy is back, that the Gross Domestic Product rose at an 8.2% clip in the third quarter, that personal income rose 0.5% in November, that company inventories are dropping which means consumers are buying which means that any day now companies are going to start hiring…

And then the next day there will be a report that orders for durable goods dropped unexpectedly in November or that new housing starts dropped in November, and the story of the day will express surprise at such weakness in the economy because damn, didn’t yesterday’s statistics show promise of everything starting to boom?

I don’t think there’s any mystery to it at all.

The economy rose because Bush gave Americans tax rebates and tax cuts early in the year, and people spent them. But the economy continues to stall because Bush gave most of the tax cuts to the rich, who don’t need the money.

I said it BEFORE and I'll say it again: the rich have no pent-up demand, because they can already buy anything that their greedy little hearts desire. Non-wealthy Americans, on the other hand, have been scrimping for years as their wages stagnate, their expenses rise, their jobs are ‘downsized.’ They’ve been making do with old clothes so they can save for their children’s education, nursing along their failing automobiles and appliances because they can’t afford to buy new ones.

Give them a little windfall of a tax cut or a tax rebate, and they’ll give a boost to the economy by spending it. Problem is, now it’s spent, and they’re financially strapped again, though perhaps with a new suit or new washing machine to show for it. Even worse, since their pent-up demand exceeded their tiny tax rebate, they probably spent more than Bush had handed them. After all, credit card debt is still rising, personal bankruptcies are still rising, and our savings rate remains abysmal.

Two-thirds of the US economy is built on consumer purchases, and it is consumers who have managed to keep the economy afloat. They’ve done it through refinancing their houses (as we here at DebtorsPrison did) and by going into credit card debt. All Bush’s tax cut did for the average consumer was to give them a couple months of financial reprieve and tempt them into going a little further in debt to make some of the purchases they had been deferring for so long.

Bush dazzled average consumers with a few hundred dollars in their pockets and a whole lot of talk about how his tax cuts benefited the average person, but it’s all lies. The Bush tax cuts were all about giving more money and power to the rich and doing nothing for the economy. It is even a lie to say that taxes have been cut for the average person, because the under-financing of the federal government has meant all sorts of increases in government service fees, as well as in state, local and property taxes. These increases usually hurt the average person with a tiny tax rebate more than they do the wealthy person with a windfall tax cut.

Bush is hoping that the buying boomlet stimulated by his tiny tax cut to the average person will carry the economy at least to the next election, so he can get away with his deceitful lies about his massive give-aways to the rich.

Lets make sure he doesn’t get away with it.

Happy Holidays from DebtorsPrison

Happy Holidays to all from DebtorsPrison. It’s been a lean Christmas in the DebtorsPrison household, with Mrs. DebtorsPrison having had only sporadic employment over the past six months. We exchanged modest gifts, and took care of gifts to others by baking lots of goodies. All in all, Christmas cost us well under one hundred dollars. I realize everything is relative, that many people in the United States were unable to afford even that much, and that for many people around the world, one hundred dollars represents months of earnings.

Still, Christmas would have been a lot leaner had we not gotten rid of the $23,000 credit card debt that was the original inspiration for this blog. You can read those early entries about the debt HERE. Or you can just read on, as I’m in the mood to recap the story.

We are a liberal and fairly non-materialistic couple who nonetheless slowly found ourselves drowning in credit card debt. Indeed, the debt is only part of the story…Mrs. DebtorsPrison had gotten a legal settlement of around $30,000 in 1995, so the actual turnaround of our finances—running through the 30 grand and building up the debt—is actually more like a $50,000 hole.

Some of the money went towards the down payment for our house. Some of it went towards a ‘new’ used car, since deceased and never replaced—we’ve been car-less for going on two years now. Much of it went towards our stubbornly striving to live our lives the way we want to. In that period, we took three two-month trips, one to Kenya and two to India, Nepal and Tibet, as well as shorter trips to the US southwest and to Peru. Immersing ourselves in other cultures and seeking to become more global citizens is important to us. These trips were financed partly from savings, but also partly from the settlement money and in smaller part on credit. Another chunk of the debt came from both of us voluntarily giving up stressful jobs for less-stressful ones, despite pay cuts in each instance. Some of the money went towards Mrs. DebtorsPrison’s efforts to develop a consulting business in which her considerable experience with comedy improvisation could be used both for corporate training and for wellness workshops for those suffering from chronic and/or terminal medical conditions, a venture which so far has brought us a minor stream of income.

Very little of the debt came from the accumulation of ‘stuff,’ per se. Nevertheless, the money we devoted towards the pursuit of our life goals meant that ever-so-gradually even our day-to-day expenses eroded our financial position.

Last Spring, thanks to rising real estate values, we refinanced our house, taking out enough additional debt to pay off the credit cards. The debt didn’t actually get paid off, in other words; it just got folded into a new, higher mortgage, and we gave up whatever equity we’d built up in our house over the previous five years. We didn’t really save much in interest costs, since the entire credit card debt was at very favorable 6% and 7% rates. Nevertheless, the ‘nut’ we had to come up with every month for minimum payments decreased dramatically.

It is those reduced monthly payments that have allowed us to stay afloat and virtually debt-free these past seven months despite our greatly reduced income. In fact, thanks to my fistful of credit cards no longer tied up with debt, I’ve even managed to make some money back off of them.

With the accumulated ‘points’ on one card, I had enough to cash in for $175.00 worth of gift certificates at various retailers. In addition, I took advantage of a couple limited-time, no-interest, no fee deals that two cards offered me. I borrowed $13,000 on the cards and used that money to open up accounts at two internet banks. Both banks offered $50.00 bonuses for opening new accounts, so that alone earned me one hundred bucks.

In addition, the accounts paid 2% interest, so over the time I was able to keep the large sums in the accounts, I earned an additional $65.00 in interest. I simply paid the minimum payments out of the borrowed money itself, and when the no-interest period expired, paid the debt off. No interest paid, $165.00 in interest and bonuses earned, and I’ve managed to keep both accounts open with smaller sums, continuing to earn interest.

Finally, two cards offered me limited-time 5% cash back on purchases up to two thousand dollars. I took each of the cards up on the deal and have been charging everything, including groceries, and paying off the balance each month. I already hit the two thousand dollars on one card, thus earning the maximum $100.00 back, and am well on my way to doing the same on the second card.

In short, over the past six months, I’ve made about $540.00 off of my credit cards. Sure, they’ve made more off of me over the years in interest, and yes, a truly daring person might have taken that limited-time, no-fee interest-free thirteen grand and swung a real estate deal to make more money, but I’m happy. Unfortunately, now that my credit profile no longer shows me as a home-owner with a large yet manageable credit card debt, the best deals are no longer coming in the mail so often. But I remain alert for ways to earn more money off these cards, and we are resolute in never getting back into those huge debt problems.

Anyway, it has been a wonderful Christmas, despite our strained finances and all the craziness in the world. We feel refreshed, focused and ready to continue trying to make the world a better place. I hope all who read this have had a wonderful holiday as well.

Roast Turkey in Baghdad, Cooked Goose in Tikrit

George Bush has had a very good few weeks in the photo op department. First, there was his surprise Thanksgiving drop-in on the troops in Baghdad, and then there was the capture of Saddam Hussein.

I’m certainly no fan of this unelected president currently residing in the White House, but I’ll confess to feeling a rush of happy gratitude and admiration when I saw those pictures of Bush serving turkey to the troops. What a surprise, what a thrill to the men and women in that mess hall, what a daring and magnanimous gesture.

But also…what a stunt. Because in the end, that’s all it was: a stunt. I truly believe that Bush went to Baghdad in part out of a true goodness, a desire to show his support and appreciation to those soldiers he has asked such sacrifice from. But I also feel that an even stronger motivation was pure political calculation…his political team was looking for visuals that would really wow the voters, razzle-dazzle ‘em and make them forget their increasing discontent. After all, the video footage of his prior stunt, flying onto that aircraft carrier in his flight suit and addressing a crowd of cheering sailors before a huge banner announcing “Mission Accomplished” after the fall of Baghdad, had become largely unusable, what with the hundreds of slain and wounded soldiers and the continuing chaos and violence in Iraq showing that, well, maybe that ‘mission accomplished’ had been a little premature. (And will the flight-suited George W. Bush action figure inspired by that stunt now be joined by a second, this time in army fatigues with a roast turkey in his arms?)

Yes, Mr. Bush. It was very nice of you to spend Thanksgiving in Baghdad (foolhardy too, perhaps…I have to question the judgment of a President who flies to a war zone for a publicity stunt.) But I can’t help thinking that those soldiers you dined with would not have rather been home enjoying Thanksgiving with their own families. And I can’t help thinking that the families of the soldiers who have died in your little war would not have rather had their sons and daughters at the dining table rather than in a casket.

Nor can this stunt obscure the fact that this war in Iraq is bad policy, a forfeit of hundreds of young lives and a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars in pursuit of a policy that has little to do with justice or with lessening the threat of terror, and much more to do with oil money, defense contracts, and the worldview of a few rightwing zealots who believe that America’s greatest destiny lies in bullying the world and ignoring global cooperation.

And finally, (because Americans love to dwell on gossip more than issues of substance), what kind of son invites his parents and children to the ranch for Thanksgiving dinner, but then at the last minute flies off to have turkey with the guys instead, without even telling anyone? Sheesh. My parents woulda killed me….

Bush’s other great publicity coup is, of course, the capture of Saddam Hussein. Here again, I feel some gratitude in seeing one of the world’s tyrants having his goose cooked. This does not mean, however, that I agree with the way it was done.

Removing Saddam Hussein from power was not the job of the United States nor should it in any way have been a priority of our foreign policy. Iraq was not an immediate and direct threat to the United States. He had no connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. His weapons of mass destruction program was largely contained by UN sanctions and inspections. This was still an unnecessary war undertaken for ill-considered if not corrupt reasons. Hundreds of US soldiers have died, thousands have been wounded, thousands of families have been disrupted, hundreds of billions of dollars squandered. The Bush administration flat-out lied to the American people about its reasons for waging war. We have alienated our allies, lost the respect of much of the world. And we have, through arrogance and poor planning, fostered a chaotic situation in post-war Iraq that may very well give rise to a worse nightmare than Saddam.

To the American audience, seeing the humbled, humiliated and cowardly Saddam crawl out of his hole was a cinematic moment worthy of Hollywood. His haggard appearance was shocking (the jokes have already begun…Santa Claus goes Goth, he had a suitcase full of $750,000 and he couldn’t afford a haircut….) Seeing his head checked for lice and his mouth checked for sores was humiliating. Yes, the good guys had won and the bad guy had gotten his due.

But those same visuals that play so well to the American cowboy mentality don’t play so well in the Arab world. There, they see an Arab leader being humiliated by the United States, and that just feeds into the simmering resentment and suspicion. Anti-Western sentiment in the Arab world found voice in two major political philosophies in the 20th Century. One was the secular nationalists who came to power in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, people like Gamal Abdul-Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein. The second political philosophy was the fundamentalist Islam that has steadily increased power since the 1980s. The fall of Saddam represents the fall of the last of the powerful secular Arab nationalists, and thus increases radical Islamic fundamentalism as a home for those who seek an outlet for their resentments.

After all, that is why the United States supported Saddam Hussein throughout the Reagan administration. Yes, it’s true: Saddam was our boy, and many of the very acts that Bush has cited as justification for overthrowing him were, in fact, done with US complicity in the 1980s. Sure, we knew he was a devil, but when the choice was between him and the other devil as represented by the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, we threw in with Saddam. We sold him weapons, sold him technology which could be used in his nuclear weapons program, offered him intelligence which he in turn used to gas his own people, and we even sold him anthrax, bubonic plague and other biological horrors. I’m sure all this will come out when Saddam goes on trial, a trial I suspect will bring more embarrassment than satisfaction to our government. But until then, you can read up on it all at the following links:

From the National Security Archive comes the tale of US support for Saddam in the 1980s, and from testimony in the Congressional Record by Senator Robert Byrd (D-Va) comes the story of our furnishing Saddam with all he needed to make those biological weapons

And finally, there is that wonderful picture of our current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld making nice with Saddam in Baghdad back in 1983…

...Or Maybe It's Worth A Comment After All

Last week I offered without comment a story about a woman being trampled in a Wal-Mart by a horde of shoppers racing for a bargain DVD player.

At least I thought then it needed no comment: it seemed to perfectly illustrate the self-absorbed greed which people can exhibit. But it turns out that this tale has several different levels of greed involved. Here is a follow-up news story:

Associated Press
ORANGE CITY, Fla. - A woman who was reported trampled by Wal-Mart shoppers during a holiday sale on DVD players has filed numerous injury claims against stores since 1987, including nine against the huge retailer.

Patricia VanLester, 41, a former Wal-Mart employee, has received thousands of dollars in injury and workers' compensation settlements from Wal-Mart, records show.

Paramedics reported finding VanLester unconscious atop a DVD player Nov. 28 amid a frenzy of shoppers during an early-bird holiday sale. She was airlifted to a hospital, where she spent two days.

Orange City Police Cmdr. Peter Thomas said yesterday that his department had found no evidence of a crime and had closed its investigation.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said he had no details about the past settlements, including one filed by VanLester's sister. "We're going to investigate this claim as thoroughly as we have investigated the other 10 claims that this woman and her sister have brought against us in the past," he said.

The sister, Linda Ellzey, said VanLester had suffered a seizure and other injuries caused by shoppers who trampled her "like a herd of elephants." A case manager for VanLester's attorney said VanLester had not filed a formal injury claim against Wal-Mart from last week's incident.

VanLester collected more than $1,800 in workers' compensation claims for slip-and-fall incidents at a Publix supermarket and another Wal-Mart store in 1995 and 1996.

Well. It certainly takes blind greed to stomp over someone in order to get a good price on a DVD player. But what sort of greed does it take to understand so well how greedy people are, to know that if you stumble there in front of them they will trample you, and to use this knowledge for your own gain. I mean, the dozens of people who trampled over her only wanted to gain a few dozen dollars in savings on a DVD player, but this woman seems to have been out for both the DVD player and swindling Wal-Mart out of thousands of dollars. Now, if she can only sell the rights to her story to the National Enquirer on top of that....

Maybe Now They'll Do Something About Global Warming...


Climate change seen as threat to ski resorts
By Andrew Dampf
Associated Press

TURIN, Italy - Global warming is threatening the world's ski resorts, with melting at lower altitudes forcing the sport to move higher and higher up mountains, a U.N. study says.

Downhill skiing could disappear altogether at some resorts, according to the report, issued Tuesday by the U.N. Environment Program. At others, a retreating snow line may cut off base villages from their ski runs as soon as 2030.

"Climate change is happening now. We can measure it," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. program. "This study shows that it is not just the developing world that will suffer."

Wow! I mean, when it's just a question of worrying about suffering in the developing world, of devastated agriculture and flooded coastal cities, who really cares? But how dare they let anything happen to our ski resorts?

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What Exactly Do You Mean, Santa, "If I'm A 'Good' Girl or Boy?"

A bit of seasonal news...

Santa's Knee Off-Limits For Some Children
AFP, Dec. 3, 2003
A small town in New Zealand has banned children from sitting on Santa's knee because organizers fear liability if anything goes wrong, organizers said.
Instead, children in the South Island village of Mosgiel would be asked to sit next to him, on specially decorated "elf chairs", as they discuss their Christmas wish list.

Organizer Gail Thompson, secretary of the Mosgiel Business Association, which is organizing the event, said the precaution was "ridiculous" but necessary. She feared children coming back in at a later date with allegations about Santa's behavior.
"None of us really wants the risk of someone saying in 15 years' time 'When we sat on Santa's knee at market day ...', so they are sitting on elves' chairs."

Graham Glass, who will be Santa, was less than impressed. "It's bloody ridiculous — I can't believe we have become so politically correct."

The town has also declared that scrambling for lollipops in a free-for-all would be too dangerous for the children, who will instead be handed sweets from a basket.

At Least They Offered Her A Raincheck

Some stories are so perfect they don't need any additional comment...


Shopper trampled in Fla. Wal-Mart

Associated Press

ORANGE CITY, Fla. - A mob of shoppers rushing for a sale on DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.

"She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants," said VanLester's sister, Linda Ellzey. "I told them: 'Stop stepping on my sister! She's on the ground!' "

Ellzey said yesterday that some shoppers tried to help VanLester, and that one employee helped Ellzey reach her sister, but most people just continued their rush for deals.

Paramedics found VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player, surrounded by shoppers seemingly oblivious to her, said Mark O'Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance.

She was flown to Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach, where doctors told the family that VanLester had a seizure after she was knocked down and would likely remain hospitalized through the weekend, Ellzey said. Hospital officials yesterday said they did not have any information on her condition.

"She's all black and blue," Ellzey said. "Patty doesn't remember anything."

Ellzey said that Wal-Mart officials called Friday to ask about her sister, and that the store offered to put a DVD player on hold for her.

"We are very disappointed this happened," said Karen Burk, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The New $20 Bill

Well, I've been staring at the new twenty dollar bills that have been passing too quickly through my fingers these past several weeks, and I can't say I'm impressed. When they were touted in advance as our first multi-colored currency, I was really looking forward to it. After all, I've traveled all over the world and spent thousands of incredibly beautiful and richly hued pieces of paper. US currency always seemed very drab in comparison to the wonderful banknotes used elsewhere in the world (though that never prevented people all over the world from wanting to swap theirs for US greenbacks).

Imagine my disappointment when all our national graphic designers could come up with was this patchwork of sickly pastels so pale that the bills look washed out even when brand new.

But while the design of the new twenty is bankrupt when it comes to creative design, the more I look at them the more I feel they’ve been invested with all sorts of subliminal messages.

The main element of ‘color’ in the new bill seems to be the beige blob smearing across the center of the front. The first time I saw the bill, I thought it was an old bill that someone had spilled their coffee across, and I still suspect that was how the design originated in some sloppy office of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It’s also possible that the spilled coffee motif was meant to symbolize the workaholic American culture.

But it’s the placement of this color right across Andrew Jackson’s super-sized face that I find most striking. When I was a little boy, there was a crayon in my box of Crayolas that was that exact same color. Today I think it is called ‘Peach’ but back then it was called ‘Flesh’—this was the late 1950s and early 1960s, when crayon makers still considered it inappropriate for children to draw non-white people.

Maybe our currency designers just wanted to remind us that Andrew Jackson was a ‘flesh-colored’ guy. These Bush administration Republicans have a lot of nostalgia for those pre-Sixties days before consciousness was raised and culture was diversified, so it’s not surprising that they would prefer our currency to celebrate white people in power.

But while the new currency reflects the Bush administration yearning for the days when white people were unchallenged in running things, it seems to suggest a much gloomier view of the present and future. Take, for example, the color-shifting ink of the “20” in the lower right corner of the bill’s front. Depending on the way you hold it to the light, the number changes from a shining gold to dull brown and finally to black. That’s right: they’ve produced money that tarnishes before your very eyes. This is not the design of a government that feels optimistic about the direction our economy is heading.

But the weirdest visual of all is to be found on the back of the bill. The White House is surrounded by a swarm of tiny yellow $20s that make it look as if it is being besieged by bats or locusts. I know that the Bush administration has a lot of evangelical Christians among both its officials and its supporters—perhaps they are the inspiration for this apocalyptic vision. Or perhaps it is a subliminal exhortation to support the ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile program. After all, the White House appears to be shielded from the attacking legions of $20s by some sort of force-field bubble—labeled, I might add, “In God We Trust.”

Well, I’m not surprised that the Bush administration would retool even our currency to reflect its retrograde politics, fundamentalist Christian philosophy and bankrupt economic policies.

Bush voted 'Most Corrupt'

Philadelphians had a chance to vote last week on who was the most dishonest, venal and corrupt: their own city government or the Bush administration. Bush won in a landslide, handily voted ‘most crooked.’

Actually, the election was a mayoral race in my home town of Philadelphia, a rematch between incumbent Democrat John Street and Republican Sam Katz. Four years ago it had been a squeaker, with Street winning by only 9,000 votes. This year it was shaping up to be just as close, with the two candidates neck and neck in the polls up to the closing weeks of the race.

Then an FBI bug was found in the mayor’s office, leading to the exposure of a federal probe into corruption in City Hall. You’d think that would spell the end of Street’s re-election chances, but the opposite happened. Street’s numbers soared, and he ended up wiping out Katz by 80,000 votes and 17 percentage points.

Not only that, but the outpouring of anti-Republican voting helped to unexpectedly elect some Democratic judicial candidates in statewide races.

That’s right. The FBI put a bug in the mayor’s office, confiscated his Blackberry handhelds, raided the offices of several of his major campaign contributors and political associates…and voters reacted with a massive shift of support towards him.

How can this be? Easy. Because voters believed George W. Bush and his gang of cronies are way more unethical and underhanded than their mayor. Huge numbers of people concluded that the timing of the investigation was a Bush administration attempt to sway a close election to the Republican candidate. Philadelphia is a stronghold of Democratic voters in a largely Republican state, so a Republican mayor might dampen next year’s Democratic turnout enough to give the state to Bush in the presidential election.

Sound far-fetched that so many people could believe the Republicans are capable of such fraud? Well, not after seeing the recall election in California, where a Democrat in another crucial state was turned out of office for a Republican (Arnold Schwarzenegger, for Chris’sake!). Not after seeing the Republican legislature in Texas seek to undo a done deal in order to redistrict the state more in favor of their candidates. Not when the stories about the potential for rigging the electronic voting machines being installed around the country by the Diebold company, run by an ultra-conservative crony of the Bush administration, are leaping from internet rumors to mainstream media like Newsweek and the New York Times. Not when people remember how second place finisher Bush stole the election in his brother’s state of Florida three years ago.

As economist Paul Krugman writes in his recent book “The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century:”

It seems clear to me that one should regard America’s right-wing movement—which now in effect controls the administration, both houses of Congress, much of the judiciary and a good slice of the media—as a revolutionary power…a movement whose leaders do not accept the legitimacy of our current political system….Why don’t the usual rules apply? Because a revolutionary power, which does not regard the existing system as legitimate, doesn’t feel obliged to play by the rules.

It doesn't even particularly matter to people whether or not in this case the Bush administration really was trying to interfere in the election. The point is that so many people are so ready to believe it. They've heard Bush lie about Iraq, about the economy, about who actually benefits from his tax cuts for the rich, about the environment, about social security, and on and on.

Philadelphians more and more see through Bush’s lies and his reward-the-rich political cronyism. I think a lot of Americans are starting to see through them as well.

Getting A Load of Schick

I see where Schick has introduced a brand-new razor which they promise will revolutionize shaving: the Schick Quattro, featuring not one, not two, not three, but four blades packed into its little plastic cartridge.

A couple thoughts pop immediately into my mind.

First, I'd love to know how I can get a piece of the research and development money Schick will be spending to come up with its next revolutionary idea. I mean, I'd love to get paid millions of dollars to sit around in a room, staring at the Quattro until I finally jump up and yell "Eureka! Let's add a fifth blade!"

And second, I can only say I'm glad I won't be alive a hundred years from now. Considering that Gillette marketed the first twin-blade razor in 1971, and then introduced the triple-blade Mach-3 in 1998, and now we have Schick's four-blade Quattro--well, I figure by the year 2103 they'll probably be up to the nineteen-blade razor. Can you imagine having to wake up every morning and hoist that sucker to your face?

Of course, Schick says that there's more to the Quattro than simply adding yet another blade (along with a second vitamin E and aloe conditioning strip--so I guess there'll be ten of those on the 19-blader of the future). No, it has an ergonomic handle design for advanced precision and control. It has anti-clog technology for superior rinsability. And it has a synchronized, wire-wrapped dynamic blade pack.

Wow.

Of course, no matter how ergonomically designed the handle is, 99% of the precision and control still comes down to your fat fingers and shaky hands, staring at your reversed self in a steam-fogged mirror, feeling sleepy, hurried, hung-over and stressed out.

And superior rinsability still means holding the thing under the faucet for a couple seconds.

As for the fourth blade in its dynamicly wired and engineered plastic cartridge...well, has it really been a problem before this? Has your old razor been missing a lot, leaving big ugly clumps of bristles sprouting out all over your face, forcing other people to avert their eyes? Hell, half the time I'm in such a hurry to get out the door I just drag my three-week old generic drugstore twin-blade across my cheeks without even using shaving cream. Not the closest or most comfortable shave, true, but it doesn't leave me feeling flayed or looking grotesque.

Still, Schick wants us to believe that it seeks to improve the shaving experience of everyone, that it's taking YOUR face into consideration. Funny thing is, if you go to their website, shaving.com, you find they have links for selecting shaving information for different countries and regions around the world. Yet no matter where you go, whether it's the page for Japan or for Africa, all you see are white guy faces and white women legs. Oh yeah, Schick knows a lot about skin.

Schick thinks we're stupid enough to fall for all this. We're not, are we?