On the threshold

Some scenes from the FDR memorial we saw this summer. Can we turn this moment around?



From his first inauguration speech, which my daughter's class read in school this week:

And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.

Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True, they have tried. But their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Ian Walsh at FireDogLake has some very concrete and specific ideas about how we could rebuild without caving in to bailout hysteria. Follow his links.

Yes we can can

Stephen White, an Obama supporter, made this video with one of my favorite songs of all time, by the Pointer Sisters. I wore that record out.


the polls on FiveThirtyEight: why voters thought Obama won

MNPublius has "the big moment"

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio: "Let's Play Wall Street Bailout!"

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio breaks it down in just five minutes: what's wrong with the government's proposed bailout, and WHAT THE ALTERNATIVE SHOULD BE! Preach it, Marcy!

Real reform now!

The day we made cider

Apples for cider.


Melon ready to be picked.

The end of summer...

Laugh so I don't cry

Time out for McCain to "fix" the economy? Uh oh. Remember what happened last time he did that?

"Something is going haywire with the campaign" says Letterman.


"Welfare for the rich"

UPDATE: As long as I'm linking to late night talk show hosts, I adore Craig Ferguson.

McCain "suspends" campaign, or Stick a fork in it, he's done!

McCain says he must rush back to Washington and cancel Friday's debate to deal with the nation's important business! O Rly?

This is the same Senator who missed 80 % of Senate votes in this year.

David Letterman and Chris Rock weigh in.

ACTION to oppose the plundering of the citizenry by the plutocrats

I received this email today. I'm posting it here, in the hopes that any readers of this blog will seriously consider acting on this important issue. We are NOT helpless before the winds of Wall Street and the band of thieves intent on plundering the taxpayers pockets.


September 24, 2008

Dear Joanna,

Thousands of you responded yesterday when I wrote. I'm writing to urge you to respond again. We are having an impact but it is going to take an avalanche of citizen input to re-think the bailout. The decision Congress is considering could affect us for a generation or even two.

One reported quote from an anonymous congressional staffer about the effect of our e-mails, phone calls, faxes, etc. indicates that support for the bailout plan in its present form is rapidly declining due to citizen pressure. The Congressional newspaper Roll Call reports:

"The Bush administration's forceful lobbying effort failed Tuesday to win support from rank-and-file Republicans or Democrats for a $700 billion Wall Street bailout package, though GOP and Democratic leaders still planned to move a bipartisan bill by the end of the week. . . .

"The rank and file in both parties expressed deep concerns about anything resembling the $700 billion that the White House wants, and leaders struggled to keep their Members open-minded in the face of surging outside opposition from a diverse range of voices from former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the Club for Growth on the right to liberal bloggers on the left. . .

"But both sides face heat internally, with liberals upset with what some see as a handout to Wall Street cronies and with conservatives who are appalled at the unprecedented intervention in the free market."

It is important to get more people writing (click here) and calling their legislators (202-224-3121). Please forward this newsletter to everyone you know or send them to www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net to take action. You can write/call again and update your representatives on your views as this drama is unfolding.

And, people are starting to ask very sensible questions that should slow down the process. One writer on economics and taxes that I have a great deal of respect for, David Kay Johnson of the N.Y. Times, is making some important points in a memo to the media:

"In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is.

"The coverage of the Paulson plan focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise. And be skeptical of what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors. . .

"Ask this question -- are the credit markets really about to seize up?

"If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

"If the problem is toxic mortgages then how come they are still being offered all over the Internet? On the main page AOL generates for me there is an ad for a 1.9% loan (which means you pay that interest rate and the rest of the interest is added to your balance due.) Why oh why or why would taxpayers be bailing out banks that are continuing to sell these toxic loans? . . .

"What steps are being taken to take back bonuses, fees and other compensation from the folks who got rich selling toxic mortgages and illiquid investments that Secretary Paulsen claims are threatening the whole system?

"How will adding $700 billion to the national debt ease strains on the credit markets?

"As of now we are, as a group, behaving just as we did the last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so gullible and naive? Whatever happened to the core value of journalism -- check it out?

And, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University, is describing the plan as a raw deal for taxpayers. What's needed most, Stiglitz argues, is to assist struggling homeowners. "We should begin with the core of the problem, the fact that millions of Americans were made loans beyond their ability to pay. We need to help them stay in their homes, including by converting the home mortgage deduction into a cashable tax credit and creating a homeowners' Chapter 11, an expedited way to restructure their liabilities." If these mortgages are fixed so the debts are paid, will that not make the banks solvent? It is time to build the economy from the base, rather than the top. Trickle down does not work - especially when it is debts that trickle down.

Please take action NOW. Three steps below.

1. Write Congress. We have a model letter but you can modify it to make the points you think are important.
2. Write the media. Use the information in the newsletter above to send a letter to the editor and get the media to do their job - approach this massive, record setting bailout with skepticism.
3. Forward this newsletter to everyone you know. It is going to take IMMEDIATE, CONCERTED citizen action to prevent this rush to judgment.

If you are able to make a donation to our work we would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for your support and efforts at this critical crossroads in American history.

Sincerely,

Kevin B. Zeese
Executive Director



www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net
2842 N. Calvert St.
Baltimore, MD 21218

443-708-8360

Copyright 2006-2008 Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics All rights reserved.

Wall Street and politicians go phishing in Congress

Every U.S. citizen is about to get their own personal copy of this latest phishing scam letter. Don't be fooled! It's not legitimate, and we should all tell our congressional representatives to go after these busy scammers!
Via Digby

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Upful

By way of Professor Zero: I am posting this video because it's funky, fun,and upful, and because my mama is for Obama, too!


I am also meditating today on how our very real and legitimate fears in this time of uncertainty, violence, and change can both paralyze us or galvanize us into action. It is tempting to react with suspicion, resignation, cynicism and despair. But I choose not to do so. I am going to have to get over my dislike of door-knocking, find a door-knocking buddy, and get out there.


I watched Ousmane Sembene's film Moolaade on Friday. It's a gorgeous, beautiful, luminous, great film about a community which confronts a deep-rooted tradition that is a source of suffering, and how somehow it becomes possible to think of changing that tradition when the youngest, the most vulnerable, the little girls of the village say no, when they are inspired by the only other woman in the village who has also said no, alone at first, and how their example is met with repression, with brutality, but how their example of resistance inspires others to stand with them and insist that there WILL be change. The film is a powerful work of humanistic art. It is not reductive--it loves all its characters-- but it is also committed to a vision of a better world.

Cultures change; they can change, and they do change. But they change when people stand up and stand together. Our country is confronting, not for the first time, deeply rooted beliefs and practices that cause great suffering: racism, sexism, the corruption inherent in savage capitalism. Our history includes many stories of people who said no, who suffered, but who also inspired and created community, solidarity, and change.

We have to say YES to hope in ourselves before we can say NO to oppression.

Don't know much about geography...

Oh, my. The next several weeks are going to be stressful. As an educator who struggles to ensure that my students know where Spanish is spoken in the world, this whole McCain/Spain thing hits home for me. Keith Olberman covers the story, and goes beyond the joke: Ignorance, senility, or belligerance toward our NATO ally? Wait for the part where he talks to Steve Clemons about Spain's role as our ally in Latin America, and with troops in Afghanistan.
Rachel Maddow has a new show on MSNBC. She also has a bit on McCain's confusion over Spain (after her observations about his economic confusion), and whether or not Spain is "one of our adversaries," as well as other geographical and political confusions.


Here's another Spanish-language joke about a conversation between McCain and Zapatero.

Our friends in Canada have a similar set of concersn about militant cultural ignorance (to see subtitles, click on the small arrow on the right of the YouTube viewer to enable transcription).

Where is Spain? don't ask McCain!

Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo and John Aravosis from AmericaBlog have been all over this story. Is McCain hostile to Spain? Does he think Zapatero is the president of a country in Latin America? is he senile? going deaf? you decide.

For my Spanish-speaking readers, here is the article in El País, the Spanish newspaper, about the radio interview between McCain and the reporter from Miami radio station Radio Caracol.

Here's a Spanish "translation" of the remarks McCain made in English when asked about José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, presidente del gobierno de España.

Here is Zapatero presenting the law for a vote that made marriage between same-sex partners legal in Spain.

Here is the Spanish transcript of the speech he made when the law was approved. Here is the English translation.

Now there are two

Remember Clay? the pigeon Loren rescued a few years ago and who was hand raised?
We now know Clay is female because she lays eggs. She thinks Loren is her husband and is jealous of Blas!
Clay now shares her home with Harley. They have nests in an enclosure in this cage along with food and water. During the day, the cage is open and they are able to fly around and hang out around the house. They also are able to return and take shelter if a hawk flies overhead, something that happens often. Loren tells the story of how he found Harley: he was driving along the county road, and saw a crow chasing something. He stopped and drove back, and found a young pigeon, just fledged, still with some of its baby feathers. It looked all black. He brought it home and put it in a box, fed it a few times a day, and eventually it emerged, with its broken wing healed enough so that he could introduce it (him? her?) to Clay. At first Clay was jealous, but soon she decided this new bird was a good companion. Harley is still shy, and doesn't let us approach her very closely, or sit on our heads or shoulders the way Clay did when she was young, but if she gets scared, Clay comes out to defend her. We are fairly sure Harley is female because she doesn't display male behavior, but she is still very young. We love the idea that they keep each other company.

Gondoliers for Obama!

via the fabulous Liza Sabater at culture kitchen
Gondoliers for Obama!


Those who are eligible to vote but living abroad can be involved in campaigning, as we can see in this interview with the organizer of Democrats Abroad.

That tune is "Nel blu dipinto di blu" a huge Eurovision pop hit in 1958.

SYTYCD on MadTV: President's Edition

While waiting impatiently for SNL to break out the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin bit, I caught MadTV's send-up of SYTYCD.
Brilliant!

The Obamas and the McCains compete for our "jidges" and get the Nigel perviness, the Mary Murphy scream, and the Mia Michaels cat-who-licked-the-cream vibe. The Cat Deely dress is perfect.

Sarah and HIllary on SNL

Tina Fey nails the accent, the two of them nail the critique of the mainstream media's cowardice and double-standards about sexism in the campaign.

Transcript courtesy of Crooks and Liars
PALIN: Good evening, my fellow Americans. I was so excited when I was told Senator Clinton and I would be addressing you tonight.

CLINTON: And I was told I would be addressing you alone.

PALIN: Now I know it must be a little bit strange for all of you to see the two of us together, what with me being John McCain’s running mate…

CLINTON: And me being a fervent supporter of Senator Barack Obama, as evidenced by this button.

PALIN: But tonight, we are crossing party lines to address the now very ugly role that sexism is playing in the campaign.

CLINTON: An issue that I am frankly surprised to hear people suddenly care about.

PALIN: You know, Hillary and I don’t agree on everything…

CLINTON: Anything…I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy.

PALIN: And I can see Russia from my house.

CLINTON: I believe global warming is caused by man…

PALIN: And I believe it’s just God huggin’ us closer.

CLINTON: I don’t agree with the Bush Doctrine…

PALIN: And I don’t know what that is.

CLINTON: But Sarah, one thing we can agree on is that sexism can never be allowed to permeate an American election.

PALIN: So please, stop Photoshopping my head on sexy bikini pictures.

CLINTON: And stop saying I have cankles.

PALIN: Don’t refer to me as a MILF.

CLINTON: And don’t refer to me as a “FLIRJ”. I Googled what it stands for and I do not like it.

PALIN: Reporters and commentators, stop using words that diminish us, like “pretty”, “attractive”, “beautiful”…

CLINTON: …”Harpy”, “shrew”, “boner-shrinker”…

It's Electric! (another earworm)

Yesterday someone showed me a new email name that triggered an earworm of massive proportions. I will not be able to lose this one for at least a week! Since I listened to the RadioLab podcast on how to get rid of earworms, I now know that one way people use is to pass it on to someone else! So here you are.


The Electric AKA the electric slide became a huge hit and sparked a line dance craze. It was originally recorded by Neville Livingstone (aka Bunny Wailer), but Marcia Griffiths, one of the I-Threes who sang with Bob Marley and the Wailers, had the big hit. Here's the original video.


You can't see it
[It's electric!]
You gotta feel it
[It's electric!]
Ooh, it's shockin'
[It's electric!]


Et ainsi de suite. Maybe I can replace "Boogie woogie oogie" with a different Wailers tune? One of the happier ones? How about Put in on (Feel them spirit)?
"I'm Gonna Put it on" in a ska version, then slowed way down, then a version with the I-Threes backing it, and finally the version most of us know.
Feel them spirit;
Feel them spirit;
Feel them spirit.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.

Feel all right now;
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.

Good Lord, hear me;
Good Lord, hear me.

I'm not boasting;
I'm not boasting;
I'm not boasting, yeah!
Feel like toasting;
Feel like toasting
Simply 'cause:

I'm gonna put it on;
(In the morning)
I'm gonna put it on;
(In the night)
I'm gonna put it on;
(Anytime, anywhere)
Good Lord, help me;
Good Lord, help me.

Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo.

No more cryin';
No more cryin';
No more cryin'.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.

And I'm gonna put it on;
I'm gonna put it on;
I'm gonna put it on.
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.

Elephant dreams

At the Oregon Zoo, there is a conservancy program for Asian elephants. Mother Rose-Tu was born at the zoo, and here she is with her new baby and Auntie Chendra. They are so tender and watchful, it makes me cry to see them at once so beautiful and enclosed by necessity.


Whe I hear the word elephants, this song always comes to me, although it's really about dreams and melancholy. It's called "The Kid" (written by Buddy Mondlock, and was sung by Richard Shindell, Dar Williams, and Lucy Kaplansky when they made their album Cry Cry Cry). Lucy Kaplansky sings it:


The amazing pictures in this National Geographic slideshow accompany this article about elephants families and the people who work to study and keep them safe in "Family Ties: The Elephants of Samburu" in the Samburu reserve in Kenya. You can also watch a video about the process of photographing the elephants here.

Serendipity links of the day.

I got an email that mentioned a talk coming up on Nov. 11 by the new Director of the Walker Art Center, Olga Viso, Cuban-American art curator and writer, whose latest book present the uncollected work of Ana Mendieta.

Looking for more about Viso, I started on one of those journeys through the links that takes me to new and marvelous things.
First stop: The Walker Art Center's Sculpture Garden, one of my very favorite places in town. It opened the year after I moved here. I love it now, in the fall, when it is green and all the late-blooming flowers are out. It's just as much fun in the winter when the snow-covered ground and bare trees give the art a different setting. Here is Olga Viso, talking about the garden. She joined the Walker this year, after working for many years at the Hirschorn.

The video is from the Minneapolis Convention and Visitors' Center site MeetMinneapolis.org which looks like a great site for interviews with other local folks of interests.

B. More on the sculpture garden? This video is wonderful guided tour of some of the art in the garden, and it includes my very favorite piece, the bronze horse statue by Deborah Butterfiedl that looks as if it is made of driftwood.

The YouTube video led me to Coolhunting.com's video channel
Here's how Coolhunting describes itself:

Cool Hunting is a daily update on ideas and products in the intersection of art, design, culture and technology, and features weekly videos that get an inside look at the people who create them. Money can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t buy you coverage on Cool Hunting. All of our content is editorially based using the standard of “stuff we like.” Published since February 2003 as a personal catalog and reference tool, the site today attracts and inspires more than 250,000 regular readers from around the world. The site is edited by Josh Rubin, Evan Orensten, Ami Kealoha and Tim Yu.

And one of the cool things I found right away on their site is a link to RadioNova, a marvelous French radio station that plays the kind of eclectic music mix I love, and allows me to listen to French.

Making cider in Carrie's barn

Friends brought over a cider press this weekend. While some of us had wine and the cheese that Carrie had made, others cut the apples, put the press together, and greased the squeaky parts with mineral oil. Then it was time to make cider! It tasted divine! The chickens got to eat the leftovers.

John Amato, whose site Crooks and Liars has been such an important source of the video record and polticial commentary in the last few years, has written a cri de coeur, a call for people to vote on the issues, not personalities.

I am totally behind what he says.

"A vote for McCain equals more War.

A vote for McCain equals No universal health care.

A vote for McCain equals a continued collapsing economy.

A vote for McCain equals higher gas prices.

A vote for McCain equals no help for the housing market.

A vote for McCain equals a further erosion of woman’s rights.

A vote for McCain equals ideologue judges being placed throughout the country.

And yet, so much of political discourse ends up sounding like advertising slogans, as these Twitter generated memes echo:

Sarah Palin is your new segway

is the new Barack Obama is your new bicycle.

How about listening to the man who can talk without using a Teleprompter and who can write his own speeches.

File under: Somebody had to do it!

I'm envious of those folks who have can do these creative video mash-ups. The Colbert Report recently issued the "Green Screen Challenge" (aka Make McCain Intersting); take a set bit of a McCain speech (the one where he was backed by the green screen) and add what should have gone in the background. The results are hilarious and creative.
via Pam's House Blend:
John McCain gets BarackRolled!


Priceless!

(What is Rickrolling? Wikipedia tells us here.)

(frame-by-frame comparison of the BarrackRoll with the original Rick Astley video)
.

Hanging out with the chickens

The geese run the show around here.

These chickens have just been fed the apple mush left over after we made cider.

Their last supper.

Pictures from the farm

When Loren painted the house last winter, it was all white. Against the snow, it looked blindingly white. He determined to repaint at least part with a softer color, and now the bedroom wing is a taupe ("Yearling Colt" is the name of the color!).

He and Blas have laid bricks for the last few weeks, creating a patio-walkway between the barn and the house. There are now three gardens; one has yielded buckets of tomatoes.

Some of the bricks were salvaged from the old farm, the ones with the pattern. Others were found at a re-use center.
We had a feast of sweet corn, and invited the guinea pigs, Louis and his new pal Keebler.

Free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, right to petition for redress

First Amendment? "America is a free speech zone"
Look at Nezua's pictures. He says what I feel.
At Thinkery, we have another extremely useful set of links that shows "the discrepancy story", the vast difference between what is being reported on TV and in the newspapers vs. what is being reported by citizen journalists, bloggers, and press from elsewhere. Thanks, again.

Here is one story that is NOT being covered by the mainstream press. After being labeled "anarchists" and even "terrorists", the
RNC Welcoming Committee finally has a chance to speak for themselves. Thanks to the citizen journalists of The UpTake, we can hear them, because the mainstream media has chosen to ignore this important story, characterizing those arrested as "anarchists" and their actions as "illegal" without actually speaking to any of them.


Elliot Hughes was arrested for falling off his bike. You can see the cops on bikes riding into the crowd. At about .50-55, Elliot is seized. As far as I can tell from watching the footage repeatedly, he had just stood up after falling from his bike when the cops rode into the crowd.


A group of legal observers, attorneys and from the National lawyer's go to the mayor's office to try to speak with Mayor Coleman. Kris Hermes speaks to a mayor's representative about the general situation, and describes what happened to Elliott. They also speak about their concerns that they will not be able to leave the building safely. The riot police come to the office and interrupt the discussion.


Here, Elliott Hughes recounts what happened to him while he was in custody: taunted, denied medical treatment, then beaten, hooded and tortured.

UPDATE:
More documentation of police violence, as witnessed by medical workers on the street, in clinics and hospitals.

Reactions to the RNC

Now that the elephants are leaving St Paul, the experts weigh in! For the adult conversation, click on GritTV over on the right.

For buffered responses, we turn to YouTubia, the great leveler, because Tina Fey won't be on SNL until Saturday.

First, a sample of the pundits ON the air:
Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow review the nomination on Sept 1.

Tom Brokaw and Chuck Todd on MSNBC.

CNN has Donna Brazile, Roland Martin, Toobin and more.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sums it up in five seconds at 3:20.
(Who is Rachel? Air America host who will now have a show on MSNBC).

Then the pundits when they think they're OFF the air: in first place this morning for views at YouTube: Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy, two conservative commentators, are caught saying what they REALLY think of McCain's VP choice: "It's over."

But enough of the pundits. What else is out there? Warning: the following contain satire, profanity and all-around bad taste.

McMoney

LisaNova imagines the conversation between McCain and Palin when he offered her the nomination!

Kevin Nalts does a Tootsie take on Palin in response.

Check out SarahPalinvlog #1!

Headzup! is a daily political cartoon you can view on your cell phone
Here's the McCain rap song (as part of the Headzup playlist).

They gave away a T-shirt for every time McCain said "my friends" in his speech last night: ten.

Famous people have opinions, too: P. Diddy's put up his own vlog about the Palin pick, and there are now a gazillion responses. I am fond of Michael Buckley of "What the Buck?".

After the P. Diddy parody, check out this hilarious song, a parody of I kissed a girl, rewritten as I picked a girl.

The Ballad of Sarah Palin #1 (to the Davy Crockett theme song)

The Ballad of Sarah Palin #2 (with a banjo!)

And here's an interview with Jon Stewart, who is now a more respected source of news than other TV newscasters. With the McCain campaign sounding identical to SNL, we can understand why.

Jesus was a community organizer

Re: Palin speech
Favorite quote of the day from a commenter over at dooce:

"Jesus was a community organizer...
Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Can I get an amen?

UPDATE: I have since discovered that this was originally said at the Alaskan blog Mudflats.

Prisoners denied medical attention in Ramsey County Jails

For RNC coverage, the mainstream media has been a joke. I have been relying on the excellent link roundups of citizen and blogger journalism by Krista at Thinkery. She is on day five now, and has a very comprehensive set of links to locally-based sites such as The Uptake, the Minnesota Independent, and others.

Blogs that reach a national audience that have provided detailed coverage include Pam's House Blend, where we have coverage of the speeches, of LGBT issues, and of what is going on in a militarized St Paul.

Glenn Greenwald who began blogging at Unclaimed Territory is now at Salon.com. He is a constitutional law expert and former civil right litigator, and his perspective on events is informed by the research he did for his books on the Patriot Act and the Bush legacy.

FireDogLake also cover the complete RNC, both inside and outsidie, and Jane Hamsher and Lindsay Beyerstein have been especially focused on the issues of police intimidation. All of them have been in the center of events, interviewing eyewitnesses, providing video, and especially important, providing historical and national context to these stories.

Most disturbing have been the posts by Dr. Kirk James Murphy, MD, who has been providing medical assistance at events like these for years. His latest post about how prisoners are being treated in the Ramsey County and St Paul jails. As he points out, unfortunately, this is no aberration but on a par of treatment of prisoners in the U.S. in general, and political prisoners in particular.
Here's are some of the events he has documented:

Jason was tased seven times on the street, while completely unresisting. We just heard from him-he's still pulling copper out of his hip from the taser gun, has a long, deep laceration in his leg that is still untreated, was beaten up badly and has a black eye, a hurt mouth and many lacerations, but says he's doing great. Elliot Hughes, a sweet, nineteen year old who came to our day camp, was badly beaten when the cops knocked him off his bicycle. They stepped on his chest, and he was coughing blood all night but received no medical treatment. The guards were calling him ‘Princess' and making homophobic remarks. We heard from Jason that last night, Elliot was making noises to protest not receiving any food for more than twelve hours. Twelve officers entered his cell. Screams were heard for over five minutes. He was tasered three times, maced, and beaten, then removed and the men were told he was being taken to a restraint chair.

[Starhawk]

To put it bluntly, uniformed "law" enforcement in St. Paul and Ramsey County:

* torture with electroshock weapons (Tasers)
* torture with chemical weapons
* stomp on a young man's chest
* cruelly (perhaps fatally) deny medical care to a victim spitting up blood (the fancy medical name is hemoptysis) from thoracic trauma
* respond to calls for food with torture by beating, Taser, and chemical weapons: the same chemical weapons known to cause respiratory arrest and death in victims with pulmonary disease. "Spitting up blood" is a symptom of pulmonary disease so severe as to require emergency medical evaluation.
* then tie up the victim in "restraint chairs" known to exacerbate pre-existing breathing difficulties in some victims of thoracic trauma.

The Ramsey County Jail officials did this in plain earshot of other detainees: that's a pretty strong sign they don't see anything to hide. Which—when one's been doing the same thing over and over for years—is a common assumption.

RNC coverage: Comedy Central

I can't bear to watch the RNC live on TV; I think my head would explode. So I have activated the Jon Stewart filter.

More eyewitness reporting of police abuse of journalists, bystanders.

"Police gas docile crowd" In one incident yesterday, police blocked of streets (in front of the Children's Museum) hemming in about 100 people who were marching peacefully--no anarchist window breakers, just the Poor People's March-- then launch tear gas grenades at them. Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthese, who has been doing a phenomenal job of reporting events at the RNC, was an eyewitness and links to her photo essay

"248 arrested yesterday in St Paul", many of them were not participants in protests, but were caught up when the police hemmed in a crowd on its way to a concert.Rich Broderick's editorial in the Twin Cities Daily Planet states that the armed forces: city and county police, national guard, FBI and Secret Service, are completely out of control in the Twin Cities right now. Who is in charge? Who is directing them? Not the mayors or the City Council, not even the Sheriff of Ramsey County who directed some of the actions. Most mainstream press coverage has presented those arrested as a bunch of "anarchists" who were plotting dreadful things, but local Aaron Landry tagged along,.He has the most astute and evenhanded account of the vandalism by a few, and arrests that I have yet read. He talks about how frightening it was for people who were just passing through and were caught up in the chase between police and the small number who did throw and break things.

But the vast majority of police actions were not directed at people who were breaking the law. What agency is coordinating police actions that have treated every citizen as an enemy, regardless of their actions (or lack of actions), press status, or the legal rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution.

Thinkery has the links for coverage of the RNC on the 4th day of police running wild in St Paul. She links to Mary Turck of the Twin Cities Daily Planet, who has a comprehensive day-by-day set of links that shows the "scorecard" of police actions starting this weekend.

Here's the entire story of the arrest of Democracy Now! journalists, including video, transcripts and interviews with the arrested journalists. It is worth watching the video, which ends with an interview with Congressman Keith Ellison (who practiced law in Minneapolis for 16 years).

Live footage of Nicole Salazar, Democracy Now! producer's arrest (she's screaming Press! Press! as police knock her to the ground and drag her by her leg on her face). You can hear her screams of pain.
Producer Sharif Kaddous was also violently tackled and kicked several times, while trying to show his credentials, yelling "Press!"

I was just on the outskirts of that, and I saw what had happened. So I ran in. I was holding a microphone. So I held it, you know, above my head with my left hand high to pose no threat. I held—I had a Democracy Now! press pass, as well as an RNC press pass, which gave me access to inside the convention, which is a hard one to get. You know, you have to get vetted through your Social Security number to get that one, so it’s a higher-degree press pass, as well. Anyway, I was holding my Democracy Now! one and screaming, “She’s press! She’s my co-worker! Let her go!”
And then, when I was doing that, three—two or three police officers tackled me. They threw me very violently against a wall. Then they threw me to the ground. I was kicked in the chest several times. A police officer ground his knee into my back. And I was handcuffed with plastic handcuffs. And I was also, the entire time, telling them, “I’m media. I’m press. I’m credentialed. I’m an accredited journalist.” But there was no—that didn’t seem to matter at all.

I looked over, saw Nicole on the floor on her stomach with her hands cuffed behind her back. I yelled over to her, and I saw her face was completely bloodied. This entire time, I kept telling them to let us go. There was a photographer right next to me who was also taken down pretty violently. He was screaming he was press, as well. He had credentials. He kept saying he was a photographer for the New York Post. And quite funnily, he said, “For Christ’s sake, it’s a Republican paper!” But that didn’t seem to matter.

Then when Amy Goodman tried to talk to police, she was arrested as well. All three were released, after their press credentials were taken from them by the Secret Police.

Shameful

I'm very grateful to Krista at Thinkery for collecting links to stories on today's events in Saint Paul around the truncated RNC. Not much is appearing in the national and mainstream media about the events, and most of it is presented as "all protesters were anarchists causing mayhem" but those elements were minimal compared to the peaceful and orderly protesters, and the enormous police presence (helcopters, mounted police, cops on bikes, SWAT teams and riot squads) have been systematically engaged in preemptive and illegal arrests and detentions and thuggish intimidation. But national and local bloggers and citizen journalists have been posting eye-witness accounts, video and documenting the events via Twitter and other media. And they arrested Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and two of her producers as they were doing their jobs of covering the news. They've been released now, but I'd say that this has done some real damage to the reputations of the Twin Cities, and to citizens' confidence in law enforcement here (not terribly high to begin with).

More vitally important citizen journalist coverage of RNC police intimidation

The events of the last few days are bringing back memories of police thuggery and repression of the past several decades. To anyone involved in political action, the police raids, beat-downs, and illegal and unconstitutional campaign of political repression is not new, but it still brings the outrage, because we are hammered night and day with propaganda about America's freedoms, our rights, blablabla. And many of us work to make those words a reality, not a hollow, empty, cynical appeal to jingoistic nationalism. Today's planned march, beginning at 11, will be big.. I warned my friends who are going to be very careful, but I'm glad they are turning out. I am feeling too ill to make it, although I really want to go.

Bloggers are covering the story, with interviews, video, and eyewitness accounts we are NOT seeing the local or national press outlets who are treating this as "police stop dirty anarchists from throwing urine at cops" story. Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law litigator and author, is doing a great job of bringing the news at his blog Unclaimed Territory, crossposting at Salon.com.

At Thinkery, thanks for another great link roundup of blogger and press coverage, as of Sunday evening, of the campaign of police intimidation of protest at the RNC. Krista notes with irony that the Canadians are wondering why the mainstream media is not telling this story. We have to look at Firedoglake to find the news that should be in the Star Tribune.

TC Sidewalks blogger billiam posts a unique insider's perspective of the campaign of police raids and intimidation from inside the RNC Welcoming Committee. Another local blogger, Phoenixwoman at Mercury Rising, continues her coverage. I hope all the mainstream press camera crews haven't left town chasing McCain for photo ops from Gustav, because even though the RNC has been scaled back, it is still going on, and the business of the party of corruption and fear is still newsworthy, as is the principled objection to it.