I'm definately late to the game (I remember sloughing this off on first view on a Friendly Frank's visit a year or so back) but my second impression is: This guy is good. The above illustration contains much of the "Real". But don't take my word for it: This fellow won a Xeric Grant

San Francisco native. Perhaps 'ennui' cannot be excellent, but his is. Check his stuff out

http://www.newbridgestrategies.com/index.asp

An Open Letter by Max Cleland http://www.workingforchange.com/action_center.cfm?itemid=15715

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html

http://www.peacexpeace.org/newsletter22/#pxpreport

By ROBERT PEAR
The number of people without health insurance shot up last year by 2.4 million, the largest increase in a decade, raising the total to 43.6 million, as health costs soared and many workers lost coverage provided by employers, the Census Bureau reported today.
Read more...

The wife and I saw Holly Golightly on the last night of her tour. Holly seemed...ready to go home, but she was still charming, and gave a great show. Her guitarist was one of the sharpest I've seen. Drunken heckler shamed & dismantled by a genuinely irked (but civil) Golightly. Balcony seats the whole evening. Great stuff. I was fortunate enough to speak to her for a moment before the show, asking her for a photo. She politely requested that I wait until afterwards. Still waiting, Ms. Golightly...

Short movie here. Stills of the other bands here and more Holly.

George W. Bush
The White House, USA

Past Work Experience:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; the company
went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took
land using taxpayer money. Read more...

from aoki takamasa i just want you to be happy
i hope someday we'll be living in peace
i just want them to think of loving someone else
cause you're living on a tiny
plaaanet
called the earth
earrrrrrth
earrrrrth

I didn't see this until now. Holding homemade paper lanterns and photos of their lost loved ones, thousands of people marched to Ground Zero last night in an elegant tribute to the victims of the 2001 attacks.

The peace vigil began at Union Square and attracted both the families of victims and an array of supporters.

"I have the greatest need to be here," said Lillian Tetrault, 72, whose daughter Renee Newell died aboard American Airlines Flight 11. "I wanted to walk through the street and show my daughter that I'm here."

About 5,000 people - including Buddhist monks, Muslim women and a contingent of Colombians honoring their 27 compatriots who died in the attack - marched down Broadway and stood along the fence surrounding Ground Zero.

Marchers called the ring of light they created with their lanterns the "Circle of Hope."

The march was organized by the Sept. 11th Families for a Peaceful Tomorrows - a group that has opposed military responses to the attacks.

"We're here not only to pay respect to the people who died," said Eddie Davis, 76, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, "we're here for peace."

- Maki Becker (NY Daily News)

from: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/116730p-105273c.html

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/092103C.shtml

...the worst news of all it that it’s not because of what was done to us by our enemies but because of what we’ve done to ourselves.

get the software that plays DIVX movies (mPlayer or Video Lan
on the Mac) and watch old Cheerios commercials. Cool

Prelinger Archives

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3128338.stm

We also delude ourselves if we think military force alone can defeat terrorism. It may sometimes be necessary... but we need to do much more than that

emailed to me from another 9-11 family member, one who has been working with the families independent comission.

This report card shud be very disturbing to all of the 9/11 families.

10 family members have worked so hard for better than a year and the cooperation they are receiving is terrible and unacceptable.

FAMILY STEERING COMMITTEE FOR THE
9/11 INDEPENDENT COMMISSION REPORT CARD Read more...

http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/conason.asp

From Andrew Sullivan about an encouraging report from the Independant regarding Iraq:

Johann Hari, a writer for the Independent in London, was close to many Iraqi exiles - refugees from the Baath dictatorship - and was worried when they went back home at the end of the war this spring. But many have just returned for a brief visit to London and have been reporting what they found. His worst fears dissipated when he first saw them in his apartment, "beaming and speaking at a hundred words a minute." They're the younger generation and had gone back specifically to engage students and the younger generations:

First, they wanted to establish debating societies and newsletters in the Baghdad universities. "These are going to be the seeds of democracy," Yasser explains. "Once you learn to argue against people instead of killing them as Saddam did, you're on your way.

Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. "Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public's access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism," Bush said at a press conference Monday. "For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself." Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty "in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff."

Joseph Wilson was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991. In July, he called into question the Bush administration's assertions about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa by revealing that he had been asked by the U.S. government to look into such claims -- and had reported in early 2002 that they were unfounded...

Read more...

http://babblogue.com/blog/archives/00001765.html#comments

Arianna Huffington's got a Friendster account.

What are Arianna's fave movies?

Hybrid vs. Hummer (www.HYBRIDvsHUMMER.com/movie)The Terminator, Total Recall, Pumping Iron, Twins, Predator, The Running Man, T2, True Lies, Conan the Barbarian. But T3? Awful. Just awful.

Sales list bucks right-wing trend

By Peter S. Canellos and Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 9/14/2003

WASHINGTON -- In a sales surge that surprised politicians and booksellers alike, five liberal books will be among The New York Times's top 15 hard-cover nonfiction bestsellers on today's list, mounting what some sales specialists see as a left-wing assault on the conservatives' decade-long hold on popular culture.
Read more...

http://rhizome.org/index.php

community artist directory wow

http://www.nabo.nu/

I was a part of the digital public art work 'Moving Visions' comissioned by the county of Arlington, VA which will be previewed tonight between musical sets featuring Kronos Quartet performing Terry Riley's 'Sun Rings.'

http://www.arlingtonarts.org/cultural_affairs/moving%20visions.html

http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/8_35/local_news/24988-1.html

http://www.rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=9748&text=19407#19407

Liz Canners Work: http://www.symphonyofacity.org/

From a favourite blog of a Ukrainian missionary, Le Sabot Post-Moderne, with a post about a dinner with Iranian friends:

One thing that always strikes me as I listen to them, is how much radical Islam has done to reawaken a sense of Iranian national identity...

http://www.theonion.com/3935/top_story.html

Given that this is the second anniversary of 9/11 I thought it appropriate to post this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The article highlights (is that the word?) two Missouri families that lost loved ones in the 2001 attacks. It is a bit harder for me to read personally, because I know one of the families pretty well, and I have an idea of what they must still be dealing with.

Another Mail from a friend in Israel/Palestine:

Hey ya'll.

Last night was my first time under fire. We were relaxing at the house in
Balata, just returned from a children's party, and someone calls me to say "Do
you know there are clashes in Balata?" Read more...

Divine Right

Ex-Envoy Criticizes Bush's Postwar Policy
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post

Friday 05 September 2003

"I Ask You, Is it Happening Again?"
A former U.S. commander for the Middle East who still consults for the State Department yesterday blasted the Bush administration's handling of postwar Iraq, saying it lacked a coherent strategy, a serious plan and sufficient resources.

"There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, and so, he said, "we're in danger of failing."
Read more...

http://drudgereport.com/flash5.htm
Report Finds Size Of Government Up Sharply Under Bush
Thu Sep 04 2003 12:53:44 ET

The Bush Administration has brought the era of big government back, say a Brookings Institution scholar and a growing number of conservatives dismayed about such growth under the Republicans' watch.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reports:

"While the number of official government employees declined slightly after President Bush took office, the Brookings study to be released Friday finds the number of full-time employees working on government contracts and grants has zoomed by more than one million people since 1999, bringing the overall head count to more than 12.1 million as of this past October."

The "eight-page report is likely to fuel debate about the administration's approach, at a time when budget deficits are ballooning and Mr. Bush is pressuring Democrats to hold down federal spending." The report "finds that the growth is happening entirely outside traditional civil-service hiring channels.

'The Bush administration is overseeing a vast expansion of the largely hidden federal work force of contractors and grantees,' according to the report, written by Paul Light, who directs the Center for Public Service at Brookings, a nonpartisan think tank."

http://eserver.org/govt/us-interventions.txt
OVER A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
Complied by Zoltan Grossman
(revised 1/1/95)

The following is a partial list of U.S. military interventions
from 1890 to 1994. This guide does not include demonstration
duty by military police, mobilizations of the National Guard,
offshore shows of naval strength, reinforcements of embassy
personnel, the use of non-Defense Department personnel (such as
the Drug Enforcement Agency), military exercises, non-combat
mobilizations (such as replacing postal strikers), the permanent
stationing of armed forces, covert actions where the U.S. did not
play a command and control role, the use of small hostage rescue
units, most uses of proxy troops, U.S. piloting of foreign
warplanes, foreign disaster assistance, military training and
advisory programs not involving direct combat, civic action
programs, and many other military activities. Among sources used,
besides news reports, are the Congressional Record (23 June
1969), 180 Landings by the U.S. Marine Corps History Division,
Ege & Makhijani in Counterspy (July-Aug. 1982), and Ellsberg in
Protest & Survive.
Read more...

While reading about the An-Najaf bombing, it was compared to a Beirut bombing that I was too young to think about:

The 1985 Beirut bombing was part of an operation, organized by CIA director William Casey and approved by President Ronald Reagan, to assassinate Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent anti-American Lebanese cleric. More than 80 civilians were killed and over 200 wounded, though Ayatollah Fadlallah escaped serious injury.

here

Mordechai Vanunu is in Ashkelon Prison in Israel, serving an 18-year sentence for informing the public about Israel's secret nuclear weapons program.

http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ Read more...

Yitzhak Frankenthal - father of Arik Frankenthal, who was killed by Hamas terrorists in 1994. Yitzhak is the founder of the Parents Circle, a group of 250 Israeli and Palestinian parents and kin of victims of violence.

The Palestinians and the Israelis are in a cycle of murder and revenge. There is a fundamental difference between the two: revenge is a punishment meted out for a murder committed; however, penalizing an entire population in response to a terror attack or to murder is not revenge, but murder per se. Unfortunately, we see the IDF performing - in my name as an Israeli citizen - acts of vengeance almost daily, thus penalizing an entire population, causing despair, revenge, murder and hatred. In their despair, the Palestinians take vengeance against the Israeli population and murder innocent people.

We must ask ourselves if we Israelis are really innocent, after we have allowed our governments since 1967 to go on controlling another nation. The killing of more than 3,000 Palestinians, including women, children and old people by the Israeli defense forces and by Jewish terrorists who were recently apprehended by the Shin Bet, is the main cause of the despair felt by the Palestinian population and the main motive behind their acts of terror.

The people of this region must address some fundamental questions. Indeed, the occupation is terrible, as are killings by the Israeli forces, but does the Palestinian response constitute revenge, or is it simply murder?

If it were genuine revenge, the Palestinians would be searching for those who killed their brethren and targeted them. What in fact is going on is that innocent civilians are being slain. However, the same question should be addressed to the State of Israel. Does Israel only target "ticking bombs" and those who try to kill Israelis, or does it also injure and kill innocent bystanders? If this is the case, the Palestinian and Israeli murderers all belong in the same category. Read more...

I got this in email from a guy who I interviewed with for an IT job, John Lubotsky.. he's in Palestine, and this is what he wrote..

Heythere.

Today in Balata we got a call that a dialysis patient had been detained at Asira checkpoint, aka "Sabatash" (17), on her way into Nablus to the hospital, a trip she has to make 3 times a week for treatment. Seven international and local activists arrived near the checkpoint about 11 am. Two waited on the road above while 5 of us went down to check on the patient. We were held up by two soldiers, who delayed us for about an hour by checking our bags and other delay tactics, not letting see the Palestinian detainees we had glimpsed on the way in. Finally one of us was able to sneak off to the detainees while the others distracted the two soldiers, and a few minutes later we were all able to join them, the soldiers apparently hoping that we would take the one international who was with the Palestinians and leave.