Visits to Baltimore this Summer!

Yes. Away we and I went on several trips to the Baltimore. The best television show ever was filmed there. I. Pleas enjoy these pictures from my trips to Bmore.

sorry, I had to steal this from the Philadelphia Enquirer

When will cops stop acting disorderly?

By Buzz Bissinger

Buzz Bissinger is the author of A Prayer for the City, about Ed Rendell's first term as mayor of Philadelphia.

_____________________________________________________________

A black thing? A racial-profiling thing? A racist thing?

Those are the motivations most often proffered in the saga of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. vs. the Cambridge police. What other possible explanations are there for a white officer stopping a 58-year-old black man with a cane, in the heinous act of trying to open the door of his own house? But it wasn't a black thing. Or a racial-profiling thing. Or a racist thing.

It was a cop thing.

It was a thing motivated by the very nature of many police officers - more thin-skinned than a supermodel, filled with self-pity and feelings of persecution over a perceived lack of appreciation, poised to disturb the peace rather than try at all costs to keep it because of their innate aggressiveness and thirst for action, disdainful of the public regardless of race and color and creed.

They are cops. And if you have dealt with a cop in your lifetime, you know their propensity, the nervousness you feel in even approaching one for a traffic direction and the look given in return, as if you have just interrupted the study of the Talmud. You know that the interaction has too many times been unpleasant, unless you are some law and order right-wing radio show snake-oil salesman crafting your beliefs to the reactionary masses who would like to change the name of the tooth fairy to the tooth don't-ask-don't-tell.

Has there been racial profiling in the past? Of course there has. But something new has taken hold in the last decade to make police officers equal-opportunity offenders. Part of it is the post 9/11 reign of tyranny enacted by Bush-Cheney, in which every American, except for those meeting the twin requisites of zealous nationalism and avoidance of military service, became a would-be terrorist. Which empowered law enforcement officials more than ever before and reduced the rights of American citizens more than ever before.

There is also the stark truth that inferior officers are being hired by police departments all over the country because of a lack of qualified applicants. A two-year college degree was once required by some departments, but not anymore. So-called "minor" offenses such as using cocaine, or even past gang activity in the case of one department, are no longer a bar to admission. What happens when you have an officer on the street with no college education, a criminal record, and a ninth-grade reading level? Let's just agree that deductive reasoning, never a well-stocked commodity in police departments anyway, has taken another constitutional blow.

Can cops be heroic? More than any other profession. Was their bravery on 9/11, knowing they were going to die in the service of saving others, the greatest act of self-sacrifice ever on American soil? Yes. Is it true they take their lives into their hands every day? I know this can happen, having written in Vanity Fair about the cold-blooded murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner by Mumia Abu-Jamal during an ostensibly routine traffic stop in 1981, the only mercy in the case that the ego-crazed Abu-Jamal has slid into irrelevance. No city in the country had more officers killed in the line of duty in 2008 than Philadelphia, a tragic distinction. There are good cops, great cops, understanding cops, kind cops.

But patrol officers often look for the slightest excuse to be confrontational, surly, and menacing when dealing with the public in situations that are obviously minor (because despite what cops say, many situations are obviously minor). Instead of looking to defuse, they look to detonate. Instead of remembering they are servants of the public, they believe that the public is in servanthood to them. They like to intimidate; it is a form of job satisfaction.

In a piece in the NYU Annual Survey of American Law in 2008, author Jeremy Lacks quoted that ultimate commonsense criminologist, Detective Jimmy McNulty in the highly praised HBO series The Wire: "The patrolling officer on his beat is the one true dictatorship in America."

In keeping with McNulty wisdom, no charge in American jurisprudence is more abused than disorderly conduct, which predictably was the charge applied against Gates during the July 16 dispute before it was dropped. It's not really a charge, but what Los Angeles criminal attorney Stephen Rodriguez described on his Web site as a catch-all "to give police officers a way to make an arrest when they get annoyed with a person's behavior."

In Philadelphia in 2003, because of the rising trend of lawsuits and complaints against officers for indiscriminately resorting to it, then-Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson had no choice but to issue a terse memo to all commanders. "It appears that a significant number of officers are either intentionally or inadvertently misusing this statute to arrest belligerent or argumentative persons they encounter on patrol," the memo said. "As commanders, it is your responsibility to ensure that the citations issued under your command are lawful and fully supported with sufficient probable cause." In other words, cut the crap.

Several months later in December of 2003, a scathing report on the department by the city's Integrity and Accountability Office, authored by Ellen Green-Ceisler, now a Common Pleas Court judge, concluded among a slew of findings that officers were often rude, unprofessional, and verbally abusive to citizens.

There is no doubt that the job of the line officer is often miserable, dealing with a clientele that is often miserable, pining away in work conditions that are often miserable, buried in often miserable paperwork and often miserable bureaucratic and political protocol as well as often miserable defense attorneys and often miserable judges. It creates what Philadelphia lawyer Alan Yaptin, who has specialized in police-misconduct litigation for 26 years, calls an "us against them mentality." And it is not only blacks that feel the brunt.

I am a 54-year-old white man. I am 5-feet-6 and only slightly more physically menacing than Danny DeVito. Roughly 15 years ago, I was walking to my home in Chestnut Hill when I saw a patrol car following me. As I approached the pathway to my front door, I saw the car pull up to the curb. I had no idea why, until the officer got out and demanded to see my identification. It became clear that he thought, without any justification, I was a would-be burglar, except perhaps for the leather jacket I was wearing, which I admit in Chestnut Hill does stand out in a place still favoring corsets and frock coats. Instead of standing up for my rights, which we as Americans still have, I copped out, a conciliatory choirboy. Frankly, I should have done what Gates did. I should have become indignant, and the cop should have said what I don't think has ever been said by a patrol officer in history - "I'm sorry." His actions forever bothered me.

Roughly 15 years later, I was at the gulag of American life, the airport, where the aphrodisiac of authoritarianism extends not simply to law enforcement but to gate agents, who may be even nastier. When I caught one from US Airways blatantly lying about the planned departure of a plane that was already two hours late, I challenged her. She treated me as if she was the one paying for my services when, stupid me, I thought it was the other way around. I refused to let it go, which resulted in the hotline phone call. Three law enforcement officials showed up. They asked to see my ID, which I reluctantly gave to them. They asked what I did for a living. "Don't I have any rights?" I asked, including the right to complain about despicable service that I was paying for. He looked at me with those burning eyes of the post 9/11 era. "Not anymore, you have no rights," he said. Case closed.

Perhaps the most recent proof of cops' acting with disregard for the color line lies right here in Philadelphia, with the stunning revelation by Daily News reporter Dave Davies just 13 days ago of the conduct of an officer named Alberto Lopez Sr.

A year ago, Lopez's son had rear-ended another car, and according to the Daily News account, he did what the good son of a police officer apparently does - ran to his daddy on duty and cried foul even though he was the one who initiated the accident. Father and son Lopez swung immediately into action. In an admittedly fine bit of police work, they found the other car involved in the accident at a Lukoil convenience store in the Northeast at 3 in the morning. They went inside, whereupon Father Lopez took out his gun and pushed it into the neck of one of the occupants of the car that son Lopez had hit, a 20-year-old white woman named Agnes Lawless.

After already achieving the daily double of being dangerous and violent, Father Lopez hit the trifecta by apparently suggesting to the clerk of the store that he should do himself a favor and get rid of the tapes that are a routine feature of convenience stores. The clerk, to his credit, shook off the obvious blackmail; the tape was given to the Internal Affairs Bureau. Then the real fun started.

A 5-year-old would have recognized in 10 seconds of watching the tape that Lopez should have been dismissed from the force. But the byzantine police disciplinary procedure makes a Rube Goldberg illustration look simpleminded.

Internal Affairs indeed concluded that Lopez had pressed a gun against Lawless' neck. But Lopez was never suspended and still spent roughly seven months on full duty until the Daily News story on July 20. Afterward, the high command of the department, shamed into action, took the bold step of removing him from street duty. Which means he is still ostensibly being paid. Which means his case won't have a departmental hearing until this month to decide further action. Which means Commissioner Charles Ramsey will still have the ultimate decision. Which means that whatever decision there is against Lopez, the case can be taken to arbitration. Which means more ridiculous and unnecessary delay. Which means that whatever you do out there, don't let your car be fender-bendered by the son of a cop on street duty unless you want to run the risk of being killed by the father (guns do accidentally go off).

Which means that whatever race and color you are, nothing will ever change unless police departments, not just in Philadelphia but around the country, start bouncing officers who wield their power on an innocent public, whether it's a gun to the neck or a reckless-conduct charge because of the outrageousness of an American citizen to point out that their rights are being violated. But I am not naïve. It will never happen, because if a cop can't harass the public and come back to the precinct with a story of testosterone to tell, then what's the payoff?

I was just thinking this this morning and it pissed me off...

I'm fucking sick and tired of this country being run like an oligarchy under the bullshit cover of democracy. I was thinking this as I looked out from my front porch. Each house is dotted w/ people who don't care and don't vote and as much as I hate their apathy I understand it and realize its one of the sad realities of a Faux-democracy. Ironically, everything in life is connected as I learned from The Wire and even more ironically I happened on a great interview from Allan Sepinwall in which David Simon takes what I was thinking and lays it out better than I. This is part of his answer in response to this question:

"This one I'm paraphrasing from a reader: Given the show's roots in Greek tragedy, how different are modern institutions from ancient institutions? "
David Simon:

"I just think at this point the institutions in America -- and by that I mean the manner in which power and money are actually routing themselves and controlling the political infrastructure -- I live in a state where 9 times out of 10 my vote will not matter. My vote will not matter in this coming election. Why does it not matter? Because the voting structure of this country has been set up since the birth of this country in a manner that is anti-democratic. It is oligarchal. When 40 percent of the people elect 60 percent of the senators, as is true in America, you cannot call it a democracy. You can say it has some democratic principals, it has some democratic roots. You can mitigate it however you want. But if 40 percent of the people elect 60 percent of the higher house of a bi-cameral legislature, it's an oligarchy. We're being led by the rich and the powerful, and I don't know about you, but I sure wish they were doing a better fucking job."

THANKS AND HAVE A FUCKIN' GREAT LIFE BITCHES!

David Simon, Right Again and Again and Again

Hello people that do not read my blog. I'm pretending you all exists so that I can have a reason for living. Just back from my trip to the mecca also known as Balamer, Murrayland. More details to come as time permits.
Found this editorial at inthesetimes.com. It is from the great David Simon and was pulled from his testimony to the Senate in early May.

Death of the Newspaperman

Don’t blame the Internet, the industry’s decline is self-inflicted.

By David Simon

The captains of the newspaper industry, martyrs all, claim they were heroically serving democracy to their utmost, only to be undone by a cataclysmic shift in technology and the arrival of all things web-based. Partisans of new media, weblogs and Twitter assure us that American journalism has a perfectly fine future online and a great democratization in newsgathering is taking place.

In my city, there is a technical term we often administer when claims are plainly contradicted by facts on the ground. We note that the claimant is, for lack of a better term, full of it.

High-end journalism is dying in America and, unless a new economic model is achieved, it will not be reborn on the Web or anywhere. The Internet is a marvelous tool and clearly the informational delivery system of our future, but thus far it does not deliver much first-generation reporting. Instead, it leeches that reporting from print publications, whereupon aggregating Web sites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from the aggregators and abandon its point of origin, namely the newspapers and magazines themselves.

In short, the parasite is slowly killing the host.

It is nice to get stuff for free, of course. And it is nice that more people can have their say in new media. And while some of our Internet commentary is—as with any unchallenged and unedited intellectual effort—rampantly ideological, ridiculously inaccurate and occasionally juvenile, some of it is also quite good, even original.

I am not arguing against the Internet and all it offers. But you do not run into bloggers or so-called citizen journalists at city hall or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars and union halls where police officers gather. You do not see them nurturing and then pressing sources. You do not see them holding institutions accountable on a daily basis.

Why? Because high-end journalism—the kind that acquires essential information about our government and society in the first place—is a profession; it requires a daily, full-time commitment by trained men and women who return to the same beats day in and day out. I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and corporations can be held accountable by amateurs working without compensation, training or sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom they are lying or from whom they are withholding information.

The idea is absurd. Yet to read the claims of some new media advocates, you would think they need only bulldoze the carcasses of moribund newspapers aside and begin typing. They don’t know what they don’t know—which is a dangerous state for any class of folk—and to those of us who do understand how subtle and complex good reporting can be, their ignorance is as embarrassing as it is seemingly sincere. Indeed, the very phrase “citizen journalist” strikes my ear as Orwellian. A neighbor who is a good listener and cares about people is a good neighbor; she is not in any sense a citizen social worker. Just as a neighbor with a garden hose and good intentions is not a citizen firefighter. To say so is a heedless insult to trained social workers and firefighters.

‘Old’ media’s excuses

So much for new media. But what about old media? When a newspaper executive claims that his industry is an essential bulwark of society and it stands threatened by a new technology as of yet unready to shoulder the same responsibility, you may be inclined to empathize.

But when that same newspaper executive then goes on to claim that the industry bears no blame, that it has merely been undone by new technologies, feel free to kick out his teeth. At that point, he is as fraudulent as the most self-aggrandized blogger.

I took a buyout in 1995. That’s 14 years ago, well before the Internet ever began to seriously threaten any aspect of the industry. That’s well before Craigslist and department store consolidation gutted the ad base, well before any of the current economic conditions applied.

In fact, when newspaper chains began cutting personnel and content, their industry was one of the most profitable ever discovered by Wall Street money. We know now—because bankruptcy has opened the books—that the Baltimore Sun eliminated its afternoon edition and trimmed nearly 100 editors and reporters while the paper was achieving 37 percent profits. In the years before the Internet deluge, men and women who might have made the Sun a vehicle for news and commentary strong enough to charge for its product online were ushered out the door so Wall Street could command short-term profits.

Such short-sighted arrogance rivals that of Detroit in the 1970s, when automakers—confident that American consumers were mere captives—offered up Chevy Vegas, Pacers and Gremlins without the slightest worry that mediocrity would be challenged by better-made cars from Germany or Japan.

In short, my industry butchered itself and did so at the behest of Wall Street and the same unfettered, free-market logic that has proved so disastrous for so many American industries.

Cash before quality

And the original sin of American newspapering lies, indeed, in going to Wall Street in the first place.

When locally based, family-owned newspapers consolidated into publicly owned newspaper chains, a trust between journalism and the communities it served was betrayed. Economically, the disconnect is now obvious. What do newspaper executives in Los Angeles or Chicago care whether readers in Baltimore have a better newspaper, especially when you can make more putting out a mediocre paper than a worthy one?

The profit margin was all. And so, where family ownership might have been content with 10 or 15 percent profit, the chains demanded double that and more. And so, the cutting began—long before the threat of new technology was ever sensed.

But editorially? The newspaper chains brought an ugly disconnect to the newsroom and, by extension, to the community as well.

A few years after the A.S. Abell Family sold the Baltimore Sun to the Times-Mirror newspaper chain, fresh editors arrived from out of town. They didn’t look upon Baltimore as essential terrain to be covered with consistency and explained in all its complexity year in and year out for readers who live their lives in Baltimore. Why would they? They arrived from somewhere else, and if they could win a prize or two, they would be moving on to bigger and better opportunities within the chain.

So, well before the arrival of the Internet, veteran reporters and homegrown editors took buyouts, newsbeats were dropped, and less and less of Baltimore and central Maryland were covered with rigor or complexity.

In Baltimore, a city in which half the adult black males are without consistent work, the poverty and social services beat was abandoned. In a town where the unions were imploding, the working class eviscerated and the bankruptcy of a huge steel manufacturer meant thousands were losing medical benefits and pensions, there was no longer a labor reporter. And though it is one of the most violent cities in America, the Baltimore courthouse went uncovered for more than a year and the declining quality of criminal casework in the state’s attorney’s office went largely ignored.

Meanwhile, the editors used their manpower to pursue a handful of special projects—Pulitzer-sniffing. The self-gratification of my profession does not come from covering a city and covering it well, from explaining an increasingly complex and interconnected world to citizens or from holding basic institutions accountable on a daily basis. It comes from someone handing you a plaque and taking your picture.

The prizes meant little, of course, to actual readers. What might have mattered to them was comprehensive coverage of their region and its issues, with real insight, sophistication and consistency.

Where 500 men and women once covered central Maryland, there are now 140. And the money required to make a great newspaper—including the R&D funding that might have anticipated and planned for the Internet revolution—went back to Wall Street, CEO salaries and big-money investors. The editors took their prizes and got promoted; they’re probably on what passes for a journalism lecture circuit these days, offering heroic tales of past glory and jeremiads about the world they, in fact, helped to bring about.

Financing future media

It might be too late for American newspapering. So much talent has been torn from newsrooms over the last two decades and the ambitions of the craft are now so crude, small-time and stunted it’s hard to imagine a turnaround. But if there is to be a renewal of the industry a few things are certain and obvious: The industry has to find a way to charge for online content. Yes, I have heard a rallying cry that information wants to be free. But information isn’t. It costs money to send reporters to London, Fallujah and Capitol Hill, and to send photographers with them, and to keep them there day after day.

Second, Wall Street and free-market logic, after decades of gutting journalism, are not now suddenly the answer. Raw, unencumbered capitalism is never the answer when a public trust or mission is at issue. If the last quarter century has taught us anything, it’s that free-market capitalism, absent social imperatives and responsible regulatory oversight can produce durable goods and services, glorious profits and little of lasting social value. Airlines, manufacturing, banking, real estate—is there a sector of the American economy where laissez-faire theories have not burned the poor and the consumer, while bloating the rich and mortgaging the very future of the industry itself?

Similarly, there can be no serious consideration of public funding for newspapers. High-end journalism can and should bite any hand that tries to feed it, and it should bite a government hand most viciously. Moreover, it is the right of every American to despise his local newspaper—for being too liberal or too conservative, for covering X and not covering Y, for spelling your name wrong when you do something notable and spelling it correctly when you are seen as dishonorable. And it is the birthright of every healthy newspaper to hold itself indifferent to such constant disdain and be nonetheless read by all. Because in the end, despite all flaws, there is no better model for a comprehensive and independent review of society than a modern newspaper. As love-hate relationships go, this is a pretty intricate one. An exchange of public money would pull both sides from their comfort zone and prove unacceptable to all. But a non-profit model intrigues, especially if that model allows for locally-based ownership and control of news organizations. The government should pursue making a nonprofit status for newspapers and creating financial or tax-based incentives to facilitate the transfer of ailing newspaper chains to local nonprofits.

Lastly, Congress should consider relaxing certain antitrust prohibitions with regard to the newspaper industry, so the Washington Post, the New York Times and other newspapers can sit down and openly discuss protecting their copyright from aggregators and plan an industry-wide transition to a paid, online subscriber base. Whatever money comes will prove essential to hiring back some of the talent, commitment and institutional memory that has been squandered.

Absent this basic and belated acknowledgment that content has value and content is what ultimately matters, I don’t think anything else can save professional journalism. 

I don't know if you care to know but this from the streets of Tehran

...pick it up from a NYT column by ROGER COHEN
Here is part of the story if you are interested in more click this link

“Here is my country,” a young woman said to me, voice breaking. “This is a coup. I could have worked in Europe but I came back for my people.” And she, too, sobbed.

“Don’t cry, be brave,” a man admonished her.

He was from the Interior Ministry. He showed his ID card. He said he’d worked there 30 years. He said he hadn’t been allowed in; nor had most other employees. He said the votes never got counted. He said numbers just got affixed to each candidate.

Another response to a question from The Wire HBO group moderator! SO MUCH FUN.

Jim King asked this in one of his posts and I answered his question or I hope I did.



Why does everyone else think they have to explain everything?

In short, management colliding with the fear of not making substantial enough Profit.
Lots of media based industries have been moving more and more towards the "sure" thing as opposed to getting back to the basics of Write a good song, Write a good story, put on a powerful show etc..

Those basics have been eschewed and power has been consolidated to the managers who are responsible for growing profit. As if, a modest gain in profits was a bad thing, but these people answer to a higher power. Jackass shareholders who know nothing about music, newspapers, TV or whatever. (just think of Gus Haynes asking the higher ups about why there were cuts to the newsroom when the company was still profitable...because they wanted more profit...honestly not always the case but many times it is the case)

I'm not saying they shouldn't be concerned about profits but taking all the risk out of writing a piece whether it be a song, a newspaper piece, a movie or a TV show means that good and great writers have to battle not only the demons of writing but also the guys in the room who don't get it. Artistic vision be damned.

The challenge should be telling the story and not fighting with the suits whose sole concern is the bottom line. That ironically turns them into instant experts and gets their brains going and pretty soon they're the ones in charge and we get NCIS, Britney Spears, an expanded section in the paper in showcasing anything but actual news. Its a brave new world or not.

It is as if they got into this type of business without regard that their "product" was more than just a basic necessity in life. We need good reporting to be informed in our democracy so that we can make decisions at the polls. Music is necessary to people in that said democracy in order to be entertained, comforted, released or whatever people get, either indivually or communally, by listening. TV can be entertainment on some basic level and that is pretty much what it has become lately, but it also can be educating. However, I'm guessing I'm not going to learn much about crime and life in Miami by watching CSI Miami.

There is the other way in which artists have the tools and resources/money to tell their story. KUDOS to HBO, who with the exception of Episode 1 Season 1 of The Wire, have allowed writers, actors and producers to tell intriguing stories that educate. (David Simon knows what scene I'm referring to...aka flashback to witness on the stand while witness lies dead in the courtyard).

Maybe I have no clue. Either way.

jo nathan dudley

Newspapers and Such.

HBO is awesome.

HELLO KITTIES!
This is my response to Jim King who runs The Wire HBO group @ Yahoo.

Doesn't anyone have an opinion about David Simon's recent TV appearances and speeches? Seems like his "Wire" street cred is taking him into the realm of national spokesperson about the war on drugs and the decline of journalism.

Jim

Jim,
Great observation about David Simon. This is exactly what is needed at this time. I have watched every single speech. However, I don't believe there are that many people out there (as opposed to those who agree with Simon) that actually understand what he is trying to say in regard to content. Sure, as a consumer it is great that Huffingtonpost.com is a clearing house for some good reporting. However, what happens when that free content dries up all of sudden because those providing the content (aka newspapers), go out of business or try to do "more with less". Which as Simon puts it, is really "less with less".

Another claim that Simon makes is that bloggers really don't cover the details and "game" of city hall even if they were to show up at the municipal meetings. Even if they were there for the "Kabuki Dance", what will that tell the so called Blogger-Citizen journalist if that person did not know the what was happening behind the curtain? A paid professional reporter learns his or her beat, makes contacts and works with his or her editor to pull together good pieces of journalism. Some days, as Simon points out, this means working 14 or 15 hours and during those long days some of the best information is gathered while sharing a beer with a municipal worker i.e. a cop, a middle manager or a low rung bureaucrat.

Being a reporter is actually one of the most important roles in a democracy. People should be trained for this job in a 4 year institution or through a equally long term working under the tutelage of a veteran reporter or possibly both. Either way, without pay and resources, no one is going to cover city hall as good as WE need them too cover in order for our democracy to function and for us to be thoroughly informed.

Good topic Jim. Thanks for bringing it up.

In TheWireHBO@yahoogroups.com

Jon Ziegler is a fucking moron. Here is proof. However, Contessa needs to answer his ridiculous charges which are not an example of conservative thought but rather conservative ignorance. Yes Virginia, there are people with thoughts who are conservative just not this guy.

FUCK WALMART!

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on Wednesday hosted John Ziegler, documentary filmmaker and professional Sarah Palin-supporter, for another one of those vertiginous interviews that have become Ziegler's stock in trade. Serving as the news peg for this one was a comedy bit from David Letterman that made fun of Sarah Palin, at times rather viciously. Of course, the problem with interviewing John Ziegler about anything, is that pretty soon, the subject of conversation becomes John Ziegler.

And this interview was no different. Basically, it's five minutes of Contessa Brewer attempting to ask questions and Ziegler responding with tangentially-related anti-MSNBC agitprop. Ziegler led off the interview by referring to MSNBC as "Barack Obama's official network," grousing about how the topic of the interview wasn't Keith Olbermann, answering questions glancingly and with subtle digs, and, OF COURSE, making sure to plug his website and movie. Brewer played her part by being miffed and appalled right up until the moment where she calls a halt to the discussion and asks for Ziegler's mike to be cut.

One of the substantive points that Brewer brings up is the fact that a new Gallup poll indicates that Palin doesn't rate among self-identified Republicans as any sort of party leader. Ziegler blamed MSNBC for that: "You find this surprising or shocking that because you and the media portray Republicans as old white men, that the public perceives Republicans as old white men?" Yes. The perception that the GOP was filled with old, white men was invented by the media, in 2009, to hurt Sarah Palin's electoral chances. Truly, a cunning bit of subterfuge.

I tend to think that public favor of Palin has diminished because every time someone says something about her that should simply be beneath her, like a late night host's Top Ten List, Palin turns it into a national opera of personal outrage. She doesn't seem to understand that she'd be better off ignoring it. Sometimes, you just have to act like the small stuff doesn't affect you. And, hey, maybe you should avoid having a guy who's trying to earn a living selling you as a documentary film subject as your chief spokesman in the press. But if Ziegler is going to step up and fight those battles for you, there's even less of a reason to become personally invested. Sarah Palin should let the small people sweat the small stuff, instead of constantly retreating behind them.

Naturally, the whole exchange sort of loses its impact when you understand that there is no way that MSNBC could have expected this interview to turn out any differently, given Ziegler's prior performances. I suppose Brewer should be commended for pretending to be surprised at Ziegler's behavior so convincingly.

[WATCH]

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

BIG THANKS TO THE WASHINGTON POST for letting me steal this from their site and post it on my blog.
READ IT ON THE POST PAGE IF YOU LIKE
This is a great read. Not too long but long on the truth. Fuck Walmart. Fuck the Communist Party of China.

Beijing's Favorite Capitalists

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Marx railed against "the idiocy of rural life," by which he meant its isolation and its lack of social differentiation, but 20 years ago, it was that very "idiocy" on which the Chinese Communist Party depended to maintain its hold on power. Once Deng Xiaoping decided to suppress the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square by force, the challenge for the Chinese leadership was to find army units that wouldn't shy from shooting unarmed Chinese students.

Deng's henchmen quickly despaired of finding such soldiers in the cities; they had been contaminated by too much contact with the very kinds of people they'd be called upon to kill. The military units that rolled into Beijing 20 years ago today came chiefly from the sticks. Isolated by geography and indoctrination from the liberalism flowing through Chinese cities and packed into Tiananmen Square, they were the perfect shock troops for Deng's murderous reassertion of authoritarian power.

Two decades later, however, the troops who pulled the triggers have reason to wonder who won and who lost in the class-and-culture war in which Tiananmen was but the bloodiest battle. Today, the Communist Party has proven itself, in all but one particular, a friend to the urbanites and professionals who now prosper in China's cities -- socioeconomically, the very kinds of people it gunned down in Tiananmen Square. All it asks of them in return is that they not actively seek democratic rights. For their part, the hundreds of millions of beneficiaries of China's new prosperity have kept up their end of that bargain. Knowing that they'd face the brute wrath of the party and state if they did, they've made an understandable decision.

In the countryside, where hundreds of millions of Chinese still reside, the benefits of the nation's economic miracle are far harder to detect. For many, the backbreaking drudgery of peasant life persists as it has for centuries. Some Sinologists believe that one reason the urban Chinese haven't demanded more rights is their fear that in a democratic China, they'd be outvoted by a peasantry that would demand a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth.

According to the nostrums of Reagan Age America, the current Chinese system -- in equal measure capitalist and authoritarian -- cannot actually exist. Capitalism spread democracy, we were told ad nauseam by a steady stream of conservative hacks, free-trade apologists, government officials and American companies doing business in China. Given enough Starbuckses and McDonald's, provided with sufficient consumer choice, China would surely become a democracy.

And yet, it hasn't. And this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has traveled there to assure its government that America won't permit China's massive investment in our government's notes to diminish in value, even if that means we have to cut back on needed public programs.

In explaining China's rise and America's decline, historians may well note that capitalism -- American capitalism, anyway -- far from spreading democracy, actually has played a key role in transforming China into an authoritarian superpower. The transfer of manufacturing from the United States to China -- driven by the rise of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart that have been able to enforce a regime of low wages all along their global supply chains -- has diminished our middle class and expanded theirs. American companies such as Wal-Mart have not been deterred in the slightest by China's authoritarian practices; indeed, before China enacted a law that infinitesimally increased workers' rights last year, the American chambers of commerce in China joined with communist hard-liners in opposing the statute.

The attraction of authoritarian regimes to America's more authoritarian business executives is long established, if seldom noted. Henry Ford, who routinely spied on and abused his employees until the United Auto Workers came along, built and owned factories in Stalin's Soviet Union. Wal-Mart, which used to lock its night-shift stock clerks and janitors inside a number of its stores until the morning managers arrived, prefers production in Guangdong to manufacturing in the Midwest. Indeed, the director of purchasing for Wal-Mart is based in China.

As historian Nelson Lichtenstein and others have documented, Wal-Mart inspires in its managers an almost fanatical allegiance to the company's cause. In Wal-Mart world, the provincialism (if not "idiocy") of rural life is fused with a brilliance in the art of low-cost, low-wage logistics to create a company that is both authoritarian in its inner workings and a friend of authoritarian regimes abroad. The butchers of Beijing could not have found any more compatible capitalists.

From Bob Cesca of Huffingtonpost.com

Sorry to have to use the Huffington Post to make a point. I swore off them after last week's David Simon testimony in front of the Senate committee tasked with Commerce. It was a discussion on the current state of the Newspaper Industry. Suffice to say, I am not a huge fan of the arrogance that is Arianna Huffington. However, she at least is now a liberal.


Bob Cesca: The Real Motive Behind the Cheney Family Torture Tour

I never thought I'd ever lead off a column by quoting Jesse Ventura. Not because I don't respect him. I do. Hell, he was in Predator! But rather, I never really had a specific reason to quote him. Until today.

The following is perhaps the best elevator pitch against the Bush administration's criminal torture policy, and it cuts the heart of exactly why torture was employed:

"You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

For several weeks now, I've been attempting to unravel the answers to a pair of important "why?" questions, and Jesse's quote helped to crystallize some possible answers. Why did the Bush administration authorize torture when other methods were more successful? And why is Dick Cheney so desperate to exonerate himself and to skew the debate with trivialities?

The second question first.

I don't know if it's even possible for a vampiric supervillain like Cheney to experience the human emotion known commonly as desperation, but I tend to question the motives and stability of anyone who, as part of his public defense against a possible criminal investigation, shoves his daughter into the ring to absorb some of the punches intended for his own translucent-fleshed cheek. This was a guy who, when questioned about his other daughter's homosexuality, made it perfectly clear that his family was off limits. And now he's enlisted Liz Cheney as a surrogate in a bit of parental psychosis not seen since the contents of Cody and Cassidy's poopy diapers became unofficial sidekicks on Regis.

That's not to suggest Liz is doing this against her will or that she can't hold her own. She was clearly blessed with daddy's Freon chromosome.

Personally, however, I grapple with the very idea of herein mentioning that I have a daughter. It's impossible to even fathom the notion of asking her to somehow go forth and publicly defend my work. And if she were to volunteer for such an effort, I would physically block her. You know, lay down in the path of her car and the like. Yet here's Dick Cheney employing his daughter, who, until now, we never even really heard from, to defend his decision to authorize the domestically and internationally illegal act of torture.

What motivates a man to exploit his daughter like this -- and in the context of an issue possessing such serious consequences?

I believe it's the desperation of a crook who's under significant strain and duress. And as information related to his authorization of torture trickles out, the reason for his desperation becomes increasingly evident.

This isn't just about torture or a tangential debate about ticking nukes or "keeping us safe."

It's apparent that torture was authorized for the purpose of fabricating a case for invading Iraq.

According to multiple accounts and experts, the efficacy of torture is limited to ascertaining what the torturer wants to hear -- rather than information that's actually true. In other words, if Jesse Ventura tortured Dick Cheney with The Waterboard, he could very likely force Cheney to confess to the Sharon Tate murders even though, obviously, Cheney didn't have anything to do with them.

April 21, 2009:

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

On Monday, the body of terror suspect Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi was found in his Libyan cell following what appeared to be a suicide. Andrew Sullivan, who has been tracking the relationship between torture and Iraq for some time now, wrote:

...Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi was first captured by the US and tortured by CIA surrogates in an Egyptian cell. Apparently, they beat him and put him in a coffin for 17 hours as a mock-burial. To end the severe mental and physical suffering, he confessed that Saddam had trained al Qaeda terrorists in deploying WMDs. This evidence was then cited by Colin Powell as part of the rationale for going to war in Iraq.

We still don't know if they coerced al-Libi to confess to the Sharon Tate murders. But we do know that the torture of Abu Zubaydah began only after CIA operatives ascertained this false information about Iraqi WMD from al-Libi. (On Wednesday, former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan told Congress that he was able to get actionable intelligence from Abu Zubaydah within about an hour by employing legal interrogation techniques.)

For the record, here's what then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said about al-Libi in his now infamous speech at the UN:

I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it.

And, as we're all aware, that UN speech outlined the administration's entire case for connecting Iraq, al-Qaeda and WMD, and thus the case for war. We now know that one of the chief conclusions in the speech was actually formed from the tortured confessions of a man, al-Libi, who was flogged, buried alive, then forced to confirm the administration's mushroom cloud fantasy. (By the way, I'd like to hear from the cable news and talk radio sadists about whether or not the so-called interrogation techniques used on al-Libi were torture or not. I doubt Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh would submit to being beaten and stuffed in a coffin for 17 hours. Charity or not.)

Sadly, the complexities and parameters of torture appear to be open for debate these days. But using torture as a means to falsify evidence for war is a far more damning and despicable can of worms. So it stands to reason that Cheney would roll out whatever ammunition he has in order to obfuscate and sidetrack the issue. Including the use of his daughter as a spokesperson. This way, we're all wrapped up in debating whether waterboarding is actually torture, or whether the Bushies kept us safe (they didn't), or, in the case of the cable news talkers, whether or not the Cheney family "closed the deal" with their various TV performances. It's all horseshit to prevent us from seriously examining the Bush administration's motives for deliberately breaking the law and selling-out our American values. And the evidence is pointing to a motive for war.

If we eliminate the idea that torture works; if we eliminate the fact that the terror suspects who were tortured had previously revealed valuable information without being tortured; if we factor in the reality that these techniques were invented in order to gather intentionally false confessions; and if we look at the evidence showing that detainees were tortured so they would specifically connect Iraq and al-Qaeda, we're left with no conclusion other than this. Or sadism as sport.

No wonder Dick Cheney is so frantic.

For the asshole who posted about torture....

This is for the people who don't want to hear the truth and want to equate torture, which by the way is illegal, with finding out the facts. It actually doesn't work and makes us look like the enemy as opposed to the ones with true values and convictions. 83 times they water boarded whats his name and they got nothing from it. Go figure.

FUCK CHENEY and his dumb ass daughter who he didn't have the balls to support in 2004 when the Bush/Cheney campaign was overwhelmingly assisted in states with anti-gay legislation on the ballot. Way to go Dick Cheney!

By Paul Begala

If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you'd be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.

Not Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney has stepped up his attack on Pres. Obama's security strategy, telling CBS's Bob Schieffer that Obama's refusal to use waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture) endangers American lives.

The truth is the Bush-Cheney policies did not keep us safe, and Mr. Cheney is not a credible spokesman on issues of national security.

First, this awkward fact. When it came time to risk his hide to serve our country during the Vietnam War, Cheney got five draft deferments. He later told the Senate, "I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." John Kerry did not. Nor did John McCain. Nor Gen. Colin Powell, nor Gen. Jim Jones, nor Gen. Wes Clark, nor Jim Webb. These warriors - and so many others - strongly oppose the use of torture. They were willing to die to protect America. It is insulting for a doughy draft dodger like Mr. Cheney to suggest they would endanger us today.

Indeed, the public record offers evidence that torture has endangered American security. Not only by breeding more terrorists, but by producing false intelligence - which Mr. Cheney and President Bush used to mislead America into invading Iraq.

The case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi is instructive. Al-Libi was a senior al Qaeda operative captured trying to make his way out of Afghanistan into Pakistan. In US custody, he initially said he knew of no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, and, according to Newsweek, "he had difficulty even coming up with a story about the relationship between the two." An FBI agent urged that al-Libi be read his rights and be treated with respect, "as a shining example of what we feel is right." There was a practical, as well as moral, reason not to torture al-Libi: veteran interrogators believe establishing a rapport with a prisoner is the key to obtaining actionable intelligence. There are reports that, after hours of bonding with his FBI interrogator through discussions of religion, al-Libi provided useful information about alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" who was arrested just before 9-11.

But even after the bonding experience, al-Libi continued to deny a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. He was rendered to Egypt, where he faced certain torture. "You're going to Cairo, you know," a CIA agent reportedly told al-Libi at the airport. "Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f*** her."

So much for building rapport.

In Egypt, al-Libi was placed in a coffin-sized box for 17 hours, then beaten. Al-Libi cracked. He gave the information Cheney and his crowd most wanted: a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Al-Libi, (who reportedly died this week in Libya), said Iraq had provided al Qaeda with training in the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Bingo! Vice President Cheney and others cited the information to justify the war in Iraq. Trouble is, it turned out to be false. As early as February, 2002 - just two months after al-Libi's "confession" -- the Defense Intelligence Agency reported to the White House and the National Security Council that it had doubts about al-Libi's charge. The DIA's Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary (DITSUM) all but destroyed al-Libi's credibility. The report said, in part:

"However, he (al-Libi) lacks specific details on the Iraqis involved, the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.

"Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." (Emphasis added.)

The timing here matters. In December, 2001 al-Libi, under torture, claims Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. Two months later, the Pentagon's intelligence agency says he was probably lying. And yet on September 25, 2002, Condoleezza Rice continued to spread the myth, telling PBS's The News Hour, "We know too that several of the (al Qaeda) detainees, in particular, some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, President Bush and several other leading Administration officials kept banging the al-Libi drum.

In January 2003, the CIA joined the chorus of skepticism about al-Libi's claim that Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons, noting al-Libi "was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."

More than a year and a half after al-Libi's claim was discredited by the DIA, and nine months after it was poo-pooed by the CIA, Dick Cheney was still sighting it as Gospel, appearing on Meet the Press on the week of September 11, 2003 and telling Tim Russert, "We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW [biological weapons] and CW [chemical weapons], that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved."

It may well be that torture was used to advance the Bush-Cheney march to war in Iraq rather than to obtain intelligence about al Qaeda plots against the American homeland. A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue told McClatchy Newspapers, "Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies." Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

Next, consider this inconvenient truth: 9-11 happened on Mr. Cheney's watch. Tom Kean, the Republican co-chair of the 9-11 Commission, has said the attacks could have been prevented. He's right. That fact ought to weigh heavy on Mr. Cheney's conscience. As should these:

• Before they took office, senior Bush administration officials were briefed repeatedly about the al Qaeda threat. Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, "I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.''


• Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism chief under both Clinton and Bush, presented the new Bush-Cheney administration with a plan to roll back al Qaeda. He briefed Dr. Rice on the plan. Nothing. In February, 2001, he briefed Vice President Cheney on the plan. Nothing. Time magazine has reported, "Some counterterrorism officials think there is another reason for the Bush administration's dilatory response. Clarke's paper, says an official, "'was a Clinton proposal.'" If true, Bush and Cheney were allowing partisan politics to endanger America.


• On May 8, 2001 - three months after being briefed by Clarke - Cheney was instructed to chair a task force on terrorism. It did not meet before the 9-11 attacks.


• The FBI asked the Bush-Cheney Justice Department for58 million to beef up its domestic counterrorism capacity by hiring more translators, more field agents and more analysts. The Bush-Cheney Administration told the FBI no.


• Congressional Democrats sought to shift 800 million in the Pentagon budget from Star Wars (the Bush-Cheney faith-based missile defense system) into counterterrorism. The Bush-Cheney administration threatened to veto the entire defense budget. Congressional Republicans sided with Bush and Cheney, and blocked the Democrats from transferring the funds.


• In July, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix reported that Middle Eastern men - possibly al Qaeda - were taking flying lessons. He suggested that al Qaeda operatives might be trying to infiltrate the US civil aviation system. His warning was not acted on.


• On August 6, 2001 Pres. Bush received a classified briefing, the President's Daily Brief. On that day, the headline blared: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, Bush told the briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Dick Cheney, who has called the President's Daily Brief "the family jewels," presumably received the same briefing. Neither Bush nor Cheney acted on it. The "family jewels" were pearls before swine.

And the attack came. Over three thousand Americans were killed. In the heartache and rage that followed, Bush and Cheney instituted their "enhanced interrogation techniques." Uncovering a pending plot against the homeland was, doubtless, an important motivator. But the al-Libi case is a cautionary one. Rather than finding a ticking time bomb, the al-Libi torture may have been used to build a spurious case for war - a war that has weakened America.

Perhaps what's most galling about Mr. Cheney is how, without irony, humility or apology, he holds himself out as someone who has protected America when in fact he shirked his responsibility before 9-11 and misled us into war after. The closest Dick Cheney has ever come to fighting for America is when he shot his lawyer in the face.

Why David Simon matters by jonathan dudley (buckingham)

WHY Newspapers and David Simon matter. I don't know if you have notice this lately but newspapers are in the shithouse. The once mighty informer of news and opinions have fallen on hard times. I was born in a time in which my parents passed the paper around before they woke my brother and me during the week. Same thing on the weekends too but with a bit more time to scan the articles, opinions and even the ads.

This was a time when reporters and the newspapers reallyreallyreally mattered. I was born in 76'. Right after Woodward and Bernstein chased the hell out a story that included a break-in at the Democratic Headquarters in the now famous Watergate building that sits on the Potomac.

Through the late 80's and even part of the 90's, newspapers allowed the journalist time to cover an issue and report to the masses have taken many hits. Sure, Network news @ 6:30 pm eastern is not terrible, but is basically boiled down to the "big" news of the day followed by incomplete stories on how Americans are getting fleeced by some government program, nefarious or not. YES, you little jackass from Louisiana, we do need to pay for Volcano monitoring. Many of these Nightly News stories do a great job at telling the viewer 1 side of the story but certainly not the big picture. This maybe a time consideration/issue but that certainly does not get them off the hook.

In addition, the network news and the better internet news sites (huffingtonpost.com in particular) won't cover my city hall meeting not even if I lived in Nu Yawk. So called citizen journalists surely won't be down at my city hall covering the tough debates and the local TV news won't be there unless there is something salacious to cover. "COUNCILWOMAN STRIPS OFF BLOUSE TO MAKE POINT ON HOUSING ASSESSMENTS...NEWS AT 11."
Our society is unfortunately in decline in many areas including the news but this shit pile is not limited to news sources.

Television in general is in a similar state as well. There a hell of lot of programs that fit everything into the allotted 40 minutes (for most TV dramas) and the bad guy gets arrested, the troubled teen is saved and most major issues become resolved in the 39th minute (don't forget the commercials). HBO, the alternative to bad mainstream network television and its pay cable and basic cable counterparts, see FX, AMC, Showtime and USA take quite a different approach to storytelling. Where the main story line takes place over several episodes even several seasons.
Examples you say, how bout' USA's Monk and Burn Notice, HBO's whole lineup, Showtimes Dexter and many others, AMC's Mad Men and my AMC favorite Breaking Bad and FX's Rescue Me.
Of course I don't believe that TV is completely dead just in decline. When the EMMY's miss The Wire for 5 straight seasons with the exception of the occasional writing nomination in favor of such shows as Boston Legal, you must ask yourself the question, WHY? WHY? WHY?

David Simon is America's curmudgeon. Unfortunately, as smart as he is and as much as people would be wise to listen to him, Americans and people in general don't really like the truth especially if it involves any amount of doom and gloom. The doom and gloom usually has to break their fear-o-meter for them to pay attention.

Sure, people love television when its bang bang, sex sex and (false) reality reality, but they tend not to tune in when its actual "reality" or based on "reality". However, as small of an audience as The Wire did get is actually growing. In England, the terrestrial TV channel, BBC2, is now showing back to back episodes in order Monday thru Friday. This is extraordinary. In addition, people have been passing around the DVD sets from each season spreading the show like wild fire...ok, more like somewhat "wild" fire.

Each season The Wire took a look a different aspect of the city of Baltimore. In season 1, what began as a cop/drug dealers show or at least in the minds of the execs to the great HBO and I actually mean that. HBO does for TV and TV writers what the printing press did for novelists. An unhindered (mostly unhindered) means to getting words, thoughts, ideas and characters out to the masses. A book costs you $10 t0 $25 bucks a pop and similarly, HBO costs roughly the same per month.

After Season 1, which was as much about bureaucracy as it was about cops and drug dealers, The Port of Baltimore was the main new location and the death of work was the theme. Consequently, each following season kept changing its main focus but the theme was the same.

In The Wire's final season, the lens focused its attention on local & regional journalism or the lack thereof. Unfortunately, as I've have seen firsthand and my friend EJ has seen up close as well, journalism, especially the journalism that comes from newspapers is on a serious decline unfortunately. Why is it unfortunate? Turn on the bullshit 10 0'clock news and the slightly less bullshit 11 O'clock news and look for local news that is in depth and does not pertain to a murder or something shocking. Shock value rules. I'm not saying murders are not important to cover but there is no attempt to put that coverage in any context whatsoever.
MORE TO COME




March 9, 2009, Greencastle, Ind. — David Simon -- called the "creator of some of television's most critically acclaimed and relevant work" by Associated Press -- is coming to DePauw University. On Thursday, April 2, Simon will deliver the keynote address for DePauw's Undergraduate Communications Honors Conference. Titled "The Audacity of Despair: The Decline of American Empire and What's In It For You," the talk begins at 8 p.m. in the ballroom of the Memorial Student Union Building and is free and open to students and the public.

Simon is the force behind such acclaimed series as The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street and Generation Kill. This week he and HBO are "set to begin production this week on the pilot for Treme, a drama set three months after Katrina ravaged New Orleans," notes AP.

"The overall thing has to feel like the truth about post-Katrina New Orleans," Simon says of his new project. "Not just to people down here, but to a lot of people who may have been paying attention elsewhere."

After graduating from the University of Maryland at College Park, Simon served as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In 1991, while still with the newspaper, he authored Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which won the won the 1992 Edgar Award for "best fact crime book." It was the basis for the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer after he left his newspaper job.

In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. It was named a "notable book of the year" by the New York Times and became a six-hour HBO miniseries which Simon co-wrote and produced. It won three Emmy Awards.

Simon then served as creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire, which aired its final episode one year ago today after 5 seasons. The critically-acclaimed series, which focuses on the role of mass media in society, was honored last month with the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series.

He also Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill, a miniseries which also aired on HBO and was a collaboration with Ed Burns.

The Atlantic's Mark Bowden wrote,"As The Wire unveiled its fourth season in 2006, Jacob Weisberg of Slate, in a much-cited column, called it 'the best TV show ever broadcast in America.' The New York Times, in an editorial (not a review, mind you) called the show Dickensian. I agree with both assessments. 'Wire-world,' as Simon calls it, does for turn-of-the- millennium Baltimore what Dickens's Bleak House does for mid-19th-century London. Dickens takes the byzantine bureaucracy of the law and the petty corruptions of the legal profession, borrows from the neighborhoods, manners, dress, and language of the Chancery courts and the Holborn district, and builds from them a world that breathes. Similarly, The Wire creates a vision of official Baltimore as a heavy, self-justified bureaucracy, gripped by its own byzantine logic and criminally unconcerned about the lives of ordinary people, who enter it at their own risk."

In a 2004 Reason interview, Simon noted, "The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage. I think if you look at what journalism has achieved in terms of parsing the events that got us into this war in Iraq, or the truth about what happened in the election -- I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."

David Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications as varied as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details magazine.

Speaking of "Spirit"...here is a post on "the spirit" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

I'm coming clean. Yes, I believe in God or a higher power...whatever you want to call it. I was raised a Methodist, left the church and the faith, and in recent years I have rejoined faith but my faith/belief is most likely different from most in this world. This may not be breaking news and I certainly am not "born again", but I figured I'd put it out there for the masses that don't exist in jwonderland and also its a great way for a lead into...NIRVANA!. Yes, that group from Seattle.

Yes, when I was young, before the liberty that comes with being 18 years old, I attended many a church functions. I attended them willingly and had a good time. Even went as far as to sneak out on some church retreat a couple of times and do some juvenile type things. Once, I even snuck out w/my friends with help from one of the chaperons. We wanted to run some underwear up a flagpole or something akin to that.

For the most part the gatherings were enjoyable probably because I was part of the Methodist Church. See, the Methodist, at least in my case, were the least worse in terms of going to church. We had as many moderates as conservatives and hell, we even had some liberals too. Not too much overbearing brain washing.
Speaking of brain washing, we had this great lady named Mrs. Stevenson who would have us over (her daughters were part of the group) to hang out and in the end most functions were at her place. Yeah, she was overbearing to a certain degree w/ her comments but no big deal because it was tempered with great sweets and a sunny disposition.

I can remember 1 evening real well. I was 15 or 16 at the time and I had just recently transitioned from basketball freak to surfing freak and increasingly music was a big part of my life. I had been raised on Jazz, R & B (especially Motown and Stax Records) as well as a healthy dose of classic rock (CCR, Hendrix, Zepplin, The Who to name a few). Mostly, at the time (1991), I listened to old music. Music that had already come out w/ the exception of U2, REM and a few other bands. I was too young to be a part of the NEW WAVE and PUNK movements of the 80's, which I now appreciate greatly especially The Minutemen.

However, I was old enough to be exposed at a great length to Hair Metal. Not cool metal, but hair metal and I absolutely hated that shit.

So there I was at this event and we are all playing pool in garage having a blast high on life and shit like that. Next thing I know, Daniel Ross pops in "NeverMind" into the Tape Player. I had heard the main single Smells like Teen Spirit by that fall, but not the whole album. It wasn't long before I was freaking out my fellow party goers by playing the tape over and over. At some point the garage was cleared and it was just me and the music of Nirvana. "This is it" I was thinking and that was was it. I liked Metallica (they were increasingly popular at the time...Enter Sandman anyone) and never thought of them as hair metal, but they didn't do it for me although I did enjoy the tunes. However, Nirvana's new album did do it for me.

It was the start of the 90's Alternative movement that was the catalyst for so much original music. I wanted to be a part of it and I wanted to be in a band right then. Click the link to get the background on this record.
THIS IS IT

After hearing the album, I remember thinking that the guitar my aunt had given me was probably a good start. However, one of my best friends, Drew Dunn, was too good of a guitarist to need a second guitarist to play with and certainly since at the time I wasn't a singer. At the time, I really had no claim on guitarist/singer. So I played bass and did it poorly all the while playing acoustic guitar on my own time and learning as much as possible about music in general. Little did I know that the bass is probably the most important instrument in Western "band" music. Over time I got better but by that time I was singing and no one wanted a singing bassist for some reason.

What makes Nirvana so important to me and of course even more important to others at the time was the newness of the sound and the message of the lyrics. The message of being an outsider with being uncomfortable with conformity. Believing something because other people believe it and for no other reason than that. The 80's were a shitty time for thinking and a great time for greed and for me the "white" racist standards of my community really didn't appeal to me. Conformity was the norm coming up in Great Bridge of CHesapeake, VA. Sure, others were saying what Kurt said, but Kurt reached a whole crap load of people. The outsiders who had not been interested in Punk or Alternative music. Why is this important? Well, from a strictly revolutionary perspective it makes money and gives opportunity to similar bands/artists worthy of delivering their music to the people.

NOTES:
The Baby on the cover

He was a reporter, Cobain that is. He was reporting what he felt and what he saw others experience. Those others were people his age. Youth trying to find their way in an increasingly confusing world that gets more complex as we are thrust into modernity. More to come on the great music of the 90's.
Thanks for reading.

Bush, Obama and Cheeeeney

Bush was bad but Obama is making him look worse.
A new poll finds that 60% of the American Public wants someone to investigate Bush and his colleagues for their wiping of their ass with The Constitution. Yes they took a dump on our civil rights and wiped their tight white asses with the document that guarantees those civil rights. Horay for the last 8 years but now those days are over we don't have sell our beliefs to the night. Sorry Sting I had to use that.

Torture

There is an argument, the proponent of which is Dick Cheney or Cheeeenie as Chris Matthews like to call him, that says that we must torture terrorists in order to win the so-called "War on Terror". Not so fast Dick! So the way to get to these guys is based on doing what we scold them so much for doing. How ironic. How hypocritical. Is that really the best way to get moderates on our side. Contrary to some ignorant opinion,even though a good number of the Islamic world may have negative opinions about US, it was only a handful who attacked us on 9/11. Some in the Islamic world like us and understand that aside from some of the piss poor military attacks perpetuated in our name, they know the American people are not necessarily bad.

GET OUT OF JAIL ZIGGY!

How I wish Ziggy wasn't in jail but hey maybe Nicki can help me with this. Is has been reported in the Baltimore Sun that slow car sales have backed up the new imports at the Baltimore docks. In fact, it was mentioned in the article that the Port Authority of Baltimore had to buy an additional 15 acres of land to store these aforementioned automobiles.


If double G Glekas was still alive we could get score him some Mercedes or a Toyota...possibly a hybrid if that dirty bastard even cares about the environment. Either way we would probably have to kill him because you know he's gonna try to low ball us upon delivery of said cars. Bastard.