Our Country Victorious and Now a Happy Home - A Spanish-American War Drama in Six Parts (1899, Strohmeyer & Wyman). From Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire. "...an interpretive archive of 3-D stereoscopic photographs of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars, the colonies acquired by the United States at the turn of the century, and other representations of imperialism and empires produced at the end of the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth."

The World of Thomas Nast. "...Thomas Nast (1840-1902), perhaps the most important American political cartoonist of all time, is best known for his invention and development of popular symbols like the Republican Elephant, Democratic Donkey, a fat, jolly Santa Claus and a lean, goatee-wearing Uncle Sam."

U.S. Blueprint to Topple Hussein Envisions Big Invasion Next Year (NYTimes.com)

The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

August Walla... Fire House (1999, Pencil, colored pencil and ballpoint pen on white wove paper). From The Artists of Gugging at Galerie St. Etienne. "...'Gugging' is the abbreviated way of referring to the Haus der Künstler (House of Artists) at the Lower Austrian Psychiatric Hospital in the hamlet of Gugging, outside Vienna. The Haus der Künstler was established by the psychiatrist Leo Navratil, who began to notice that the art produced by certain of his patients far transcended the qualitative parameters of traditional art therapy. These artists, selected by Navratil with advice from local museum officials and artists (including the well-known painter Arnulf Rainer), began to publicly exhibit in the 1970s."

Cinemaniac: The Ghastly World of Andy Milligan. "...Milligan churned out 29 movies between 1965 and 1988: everything from sex melodramas to gory, heavily costumed period-piece horror films, with titles like The Filthy Five and Bloodthirsty Butchers. Cheap-looking, poorly acted, incredibly talky, Milligan's features are often tough to take. But his life represents an era that is forever lost - that of the grindhouse exploitation movie hack who thrived in the seedy pre-Giuliani Times Square."

The World Famous Supreme Team (via ethel)

"Washington DC- A recent poll of 800 Americans (April 4-8, 2002, MoE +3.5%) found that the nation is vastly unaware of WHO -- or even HOW MANY -- Justices sit on the United States Supreme Court."

"Nearly two-thirds (64%) could not name a single member of the current Court, and just 32% knew that there are nine Justices. Only five people (two men, three women) in the entire survey could name all nine. In contrast, a whopping majority -- 75% -- knew there are three Rice Krispies characters and 66% proudly cited their names."

heres a page i found useful for quick reference -- aboutgovernment.org.

Diplomacy US Style, by George Monbiot

Tony Blair might believe he belongs to an international coalition, but George Bush has other ideas. Bush's international war against terrorism has not stopped him from waging a parallel war against cooperation.

Two weeks ago, the US ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna failed, for the first time, to attend a meeting of the comprehensive test ban treaty. This may suggest that America is no longer prepared to abide by the rules against the testing of nuclear warheads. A week ago, the Washington Post revealed that the Pentagon had told the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, in the hope of undermining his credibility. When the CIA failed to discover any evidence of wrongdoing, the deputy defence secretary is reported to have "hit the ceiling".

On Friday, the US government succeeded in dislodging Robert Watson, the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr Watson had been pressing member nations to take the threat of global warming seriously, to the annoyance of the oil company ExxonMobil. Last year, it sent a memo to the White House requesting that he be shoved.

See also: Toxic Dipomacy: US unilateralism claims another victim, plus more related articles from the Guardian here.

Local Seattle activist Melissa Roberts had this to say about it: "We had five days, but we failed to prevent the ousting of Jose Bustani. We are on a runaway train. Bush is now an endangerment to US citizens and residents and must be asked to resign or be removed from office. It's gone over the edge. We are now facing the initiation of nuclear war."

Thanks to 'krokinol' for the topmost link, who titled his email: "usa planning to nuke iraq?" citing this passage:

.... It is also clear that at least three of these recent attempts to undermine international treaties are being pursued with an eye to the impending war with Iraq. As the American plans for destroying Saddam Hussein appear to involve new "bunker busting" nuclear weapons, the nuclear test ban treaty (which the US has never ratified) must be ignored. The US justification for war with Iraq is that Saddam Hussein may possess weapons of mass destruction. So the two foremost obstacles to war were Mr Blix and Mr Bustani, who have proposed non-violent methods of getting rid of these weapons. While the US government doubtless has genuine concerns about weapons of mass destruction, these are not the principal reasons for wishing to conquer Iraq.

Attack on Refugee Camp Shows How Israel Fights

Politics being made on the heads of people is what we have seen in Jenin, a refugee camp of 13,000 people in a space about 500 yards by 600 yards, churned into rubble by a thousand well-equipped Israeli soldiers in pursuit of about 200 Palestinian gunmen.

As the world debated and discussed whether Sharon was a predator or "man of peace," and just after Secretary of State Colin Powell had returned home empty-handed, Jenin's reality jumped into American faces from front pages around the world.

We must give up choosing sides and examine this destruction, as the American public examined its stand on the Vietnam War after seeing a young girl in an Associated Press photo stripped naked by napalm and running in terror over 30 years ago.

The whole world is watching, and appalled--and yet, at the very same time, our own politicians are meeting with the powerful Israeli lobbyists in DC and engaging in oral sex. NPR doesn't even mention the protest outside--involving many Jews. NPR reports this after reporting about Israel's refusal of the UN squad yesterday on ATC without also airing a single voice of dissent . . . then goes into some smarmy old-time Yiddish radio thing, which I have enjoyed previously but in the context of the previous two stories which were reported without a single note of questioning, I was two quivers short of shaking with anger. Where are the hammy Palestinian-culture series? Where are the protestors to the powerful Israeli lobbyist summit? Where are the people who are outraged--all across the world (including me)--that Israel has refused the UN from investigating Jenin? What is this, the fucking Daniel Schorr Show? Schorr recently on local NPR affiliate KUOW to a caller's question regarding the use of the word "settlers" responded: "Well, they're settlers. They settle." Bullshit on you, Murrow-boy! Oh, like it's the fucking Little House on the Prairie and the Israeli settlers are building log cabins and the little girls go down to the well with their buckets . . . TRY: ISRAELI ARMY EVICTS PALESTINIAN LANDOWNERS BY ORDER OF BULLET AND THEN MOVES IN! That's not fucking SETTLING! That's STEALING! That's fucking FUNDAMENTALIST ASSHOLISM! Supported by you, America! Have a Great Day!

Is Taking Psychedelics an Act of Sedition?

To paraphrase Terence McKenna, the late shamanologist and outspoken champion of psychedelic consciousness, if you remove stress and threat, add a lot of alkaloids, and perturb the brain, it will transcend three-dimensional space and unfold into a four-dimensional matrix.

Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City
Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors
America is suffering collateral damage...
Was Arafat the Problem? by Robert Wright

hi ho there fellow samizdats, dratfink has finally found his way to the promised land. now, where's that land i was promised? i want my 40 acres and a shul! uhh, nevermind, too crowded. i will wade into the fray with these four links. hopefully, they will provide you with plenty of fresh chaff for your millenarian pursuits.

Peter Cook talks to the Sheffield & North Derbyshire Spectator shortly after the release of Derek and Clive (Live). "...we went to Electric Lady Studios, armed with several bottles of wine, just to see, what happened if we talked with no prior ideas into two microphones. We had no preconcieved attitudes or inensions. What emerged, on the whole was a shower of filth, with no socially redeeming or artistic value. We heard it back the next day and found it to be funny, but on the other hand we had no idea what to do with it. What we did was very practical, i.e. nothing. A few weeks later we decided to try out the same sort of rambling filth on a small audience. We did and they laughed. This time we did something; we sent a whole bunch of unedited tapes to a long time friend of mine, Christopher Blackwell, head of Island Records. He and his good lady also laughed and wondered what the hell to do with them." From The Establishment: The Peter Cook Appreciation Society.

Portage: Stuff Worth Saving

Should History Record the Unvarnished Bush? Don't read the official transcripts if you want to be entertained by his bloopers and buffoonery — you'll barely find them there. Washington Post

A Gray Davis corporate lackey wants to sell California groundwater to the highest bidder.

Robert Fisk: Fear and learning in America. "...for the first time in more than a decade of lecturing in the United States, I was shocked. Not by the passivity of Americans – the all-accepting, patriotic notion that the President knows best – nor by the dangerous self-absorption of the United States since 11 September and the constant, all-consuming fear of criticising Israel. What shocked me was the extraordinary new American refusal to go along with the official line, the growing, angry awareness among Americans that they were being lied to and deceived."

Unravelling the myth of Barak's "generous offer". (via synthetic zero)

Bush Energy Policy Critic Ousted as Head of Climate Change Panel

The Bush administration was accused of pandering to the oil industry last night after an outspoken critic of America's energy policy was voted out of his job as chairman of the world's premier scientific body on climate change.

In a secret ballot held at a meeting in Geneva, the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change elected the India delegate, Rajendra Pachauri, as its chairman. He beat the current chairman, Robert Watson, the US delegate, by 76 votes to 49.

What Israel Has Done, by Edward Said

Despite Israel's effort to restrict coverage of its destructive invasion of the West Bank's Palestinian towns and refugee camps, information and images have nevertheless seeped through. The Internet has provided hundreds of verbal as well as pictorial eyewitness reports, as have Arab and European TV coverage, most of it unavailable or blocked or spun out of existence from the mainstream US media. That evidence provides stunning proof of what Israel's campaign has actually--has always--been about: the irreversible conquest of Palestinian land and society. The official line (which Washington has basically supported, along with nearly every US media commentator) is that Israel has been defending itself by retaliating against the suicide bombings that have undermined its security and even threatened its existence. That claim has gained the status of an absolute truth, moderated neither by what Israel has done nor by what in fact has been done to it.

Phrases such as "plucking out the terrorist network," "destroying the terrorist infrastructure" and "attacking terrorist nests" (note the total dehumanization involved) are repeated so often and so unthinkingly that they have given Israel the right to destroy Palestinian civil life, with a shocking degree of sheer wanton destruction, killing, humiliation and vandalism.

Alice's New Adventures in Medialand, by Normon Solomon

For instance, in contrast to the highly publicized case of John Walker Lindh, what about other Americans who also have been moved by religious fervor to go abroad and take up arms for a foreign government? Relocating from homes in such areas as Brooklyn, N.Y., quite a few Americans went to Israel and now serve that country's military.

This spring, no doubt, some of them have been part of the Israeli offensive in the West Bank. It is curious indeed that the same U.S. news outlets fascinated with the "American Taliban" are so uninterested in scrutinizing those Americans, who strengthen the ranks of the Israeli armed forces as they participate in the killing of Palestinian men and women and children.

Organizers Claim Largest Showing of Solidarity with Palestinians in U.S. History

Upwards of 75,000 people marched and rallied Saturday in downtown Washington D.C. for a number of causes including opposition to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Other themes included voicing dissent against the “war at home and abroad,” a reference to the war in Afghanistan and in Colombia, as well as problems with racism and discrimination against people of color (especially those of Arabic origin), and also to corporate globalization.

'Armed' Refugees Take Over Camp

Authorities in Australia say that hundreds of asylum seekers armed with home-made weapons have taken over part of the Curtin detention centre in a remote part of the country's north-west.

It follows a riot by 100 inmates at the camp on Friday, where property and equipment were damaged and a number of fires lit.

I'm on my way out the door to catch some of the Seattle proceedings planned today in solidarity with the actions going on in D.C. and elsewhere . . . More soon. My best wishes and most heartfelt thanks to all the harbingers on the left who have helped make the Samizdat such a wonderful alternative outlet.

Village Voice... The Outsiders - John MacGregor Unlocks Henry Darger's Unreal Realms. "...Virtually anonymous in his daily life, he has become, in the years since his death in 1973, an index of our fears and ambitions, an alchemist, a litmus test, an urban legend, a cautionary tale. Some records from the Lincoln Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children, where he passed most of his teenage years, give his name as 'Henry Dodger' - a fitting slip for this most elusive of culture heroes." (via Scrubbles)

Exquisite Corpse #11: THE MANIFESTO ISSUE

Yours truly did not make the deadline for this one, but they graciously included a link to the Samizdat here. If you scroll down on this page you will find a letter I sent them over 2 years ago, wherein I excitedly carry on about . . . blogs.

"Happy chickens make happy customers..." Matthew Moreau... Mr. Murdu. "...This comic contains graphic scenes of chicken stabbing, beheading, choking and chewing, which may be offensive to some viewers. In addition this comic presents certain moralistic viewpoints about the treatment of animals which may be offensive to members of the poultry and similar industries." From Big Old Future. Digital narratives, comics and animations by Matthew Moreau.

Happy Earth Day From George W. Bush: Will He Gut The Clean Water Act?

The Clean Water Act is supposed to protect these watersheds. Its rules explicitly forbid filling waterways with "waste." But for years, mining companies have used their influence to stop the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA from enforcing the act. The devastation is ongoing.

Now President Bush -- egged on by his King Coal political patrons -- is about to change Clean Water Act rules in an effort to legalize mountaintop mining and valley filling. It’s like stopping bank robbers from breaking the law by making bank robbery legal.

Dow Shall Be Liable,
by Darryl D'Monte and Nityanand Jayaraman

Over 500 survivors from Bhopal's 1984 gas disaster protested against Dow's refusal to assume liabilities for the disaster that killed thousands and continues to kill today.

. . . via CorpWatch sister site: CorpWatch India.

News From Inside the Jenin Refugee Camp, by Kevin Skvorak

Total numbers of dead inside the camp range from 200 to 500.  No one really has any realistic idea yet and no one here knows how many where removed by the Israelis, but witnesses in the camp saw at least two large refrigerated semi trailers in the camp, and the UN aid people here maintain it is a relatively open secret that the Israelis maintain an “enemies” graveyard in the Jordan valley for events like this.

Same article with pics here.

Ari & I: White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer : Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:30 PM, by Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber: Ari, last week, you called the Palestinian suicide bombers "murderers." I'm wondering if you believe that the Israeli Defense Forces committed murder in the Jenin refugee camp last week.

Ari Fleischer: Israel undertook a military operation. And the United States has continued to say that Israel needs to withdraw from that area. The United States has also called for the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian observers to be permitted into Jenin to see what is happening. As Secretary Armitage said, there is now a growing almost mythology about events that took place on the ground in Jenin. And I think what the United States would look for are facts.

Mokhiber: Ari, if in fact the Israeli defense forces destroyed buildings on top of innocent civilians and there were no terrorists in those buildings, would you consider that homicide?

Ari Fleischer: Again, this is the purpose of the international committee on the Red Cross, and the other fact finders who are in the region, to ascertain facts. I can't deal with questions that begin with "if."

I'm surprised they still let Mokhiber into the briefings . . .

The Enforcers: The Hague Convention and the Threat to Internet Freedoms and Consumer Protection, by Charlie Cray

Critics say that unless it explicitly exempts speech torts, the Hague Convention could expose writers, publishers and even people who post opinions on the Internet to defamation and libel suits in countries where free speech protections are weaker than those in countries such as the United States.

“There are a lot of countries that have laws that are far less protective of free speech than the United States,” Chris Chiu, an Internet policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union points out. “What has prevented a lot of foreign judgments from being enforced on U.S. soil is that courts in the United States have refused to enforce those decisions based on the First Amendment and other public policies. The concern is that the Hague Convention will shift the balance of power, and create some sort of bias towards enforcement of foreign judgments. It opens up the possibility that American publishers will face potential lawsuits from places like mainland China, Singapore and other countries where there are strong restrictions on what people can say about the government.”

Inside Jenin, Rubble and Decomposing Bodies, by Brian Wood

As we walked we saw many bodies buried under rubble, just in the remains of their homes and were killed. Their bodies are decomposing, there's all kinds of maggots and lice and flies eating their bodies. I won't go into more detail than that, but I'll just say that it's the most gruesome thing I've ever seen in my life, with body parts lying all over.

Three Days that Shook the Media: Online Journalism's Finest Hour, by Al Giordano

AP, Reuters, the New York Times, and CNN, the worst offenders in the English-language media among many others, have had to radically adjust their coverage of the events in Venezuela precisely because online journalists worked overtime in recent days to break the information blockade and get the true facts to the international public.

The same media professionals who cringe at the term "authentic journalism" are the ones who, for the sake their own future credibility, ought to pay close attention to what has just occurred. For there is going to be hell to pay over the professional misconduct by many of them in recent days.

Just as the Venezuelan majority - out-hollered, out-dollared, but not out-smarted - called the bluff of its nation's spoiled oligarchy and reclaimed its right to choose its own destiny, authentic journalism - in particular, the rapid response of independent online journalism - forced the mass media to eat its own dishonest words.

Let the banquet begin.

Palestinian Refugees - 1948....In the period from 1917 to 1949, Israel had occupied 78% of the land of Palestine and evicted or caused to flee more than 750,000 Palestinian refugees to Gaza Strip , West Bank and other Arab countries like Syria , Lebanon, Jordan and others.. It is the plight of the Palestinian refugees, who now number 1.5 millions, and the fate of the Palestinians, who now number 2.5 millions, as a people, which have remained the most pressing problems.
Why Bush dances to Sharon's tune

Part of a complete meal:
The three year old sandwich official site.
Why It's Needed:

In many of today's tactical scenarios, soldiers must be quickly mobilized and prepositioned. A high quality, eat-on-the-move ration component is needed to support these highly mobile and forward-deployed troops, under any environmental condition, climate and location - including temperate, arctic, jungle, desert, mountain, and urban terrain.

I was born human, but it was an accident of fate:
The Neural Connection is Kevin Warwick's site documenting his attempt to be a cyborg.
Frequently Asked Questions:


"Thought Communication"? Telepathy: Do you think "transparency" is a goal for humanity? Do you think it is better to be able to lie or to adapt what you think, for better communication?

I think what we are doing is shifting the boundary, not making things transparent. Instead of lying by speech, you will lie by thought.



Do you think telepathy will destroy the arts: poetry, literature, music and painting? Or even humanity itself?

No. It will dramatically change it, but not destroy it. Unless we think it is humanity itself that changes by becoming a Cyborg.

Memento Mori: Death and Photography in Nineteenth Century America by Dan Meinwald. "...The subject of this essay is an imagery of death characteristic of another time and place: nineteenth century America. Although the nineteenth century is much closer to our own era, these photographs and other images represent a concept of death that is in many ways as different from ours as that of the Europe of the Middle Ages."

JamesLileksisapunk.com--take my url, please.

buon giorno my friends
The sky is gray and I hope it rains. Today in Rome, as in Washington, I'm told, an Israel Day Manifestation. It begins at 6 pm at Campidoglio and ends at the Temple Israelitico Synagogue . It's been organized by Giuliano Ferrara, owner and editor of IL FOLIO. Ferrara, of course, is the Right of the Right (Berlusconi's wife Veronica is one of the investors in Il Foglio). Ferrara, the same guy that invited the audience at San Remo to throw eggs at Roberto Benigni. The same guy who threw eggs at his own TV while Benigni was on.
What is the significance of this manifestation?
I don't like Berlusconi but that doesn't mean I don't like Italians. I don't like Bush but that doesn't mean I don't like Texans. I don't like Sharon so why must that mean that I don't like Jews.
see: Israel/Palestine: A Requiem for the Damned (via Bornfamous)
see: REPORTERS UNDER ATTACK IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: ISRAELI SOLDIERS RAID THE OFFICE OF NEWS ORGANIZATIONS
see: Aish Ha Torah's Window on The Wall, webcam in Jerusalem...It is a centuries-old tradition to place a note with a prayer or request in the Western Wall.Type in your prayer. It will be printed out in the Old City of Jerusalem where it will be placed in the Wall by a student of Aish HaTorah. service note "Window on the Wall" offers a special Internet service for people who are not in Jerusalem who wish to place a note in the Wall. Can't get into Jerusalem to pray? Place a Note in the Wall via email. I sent one and got a reply that my message had been recieved and would soon be printed and taken to the wall. I wonder who's going to take it.

Stencil Graffiti by Tristan Manco (2002, Thames and Hudson). "...The book showcases over 400 examples of contemporary stencilled works from across the globe, their innovation and vitality achieved with new materials, methods and approaches." Yes! How much do I want this book?

Renegade View on Child Sex Causes a Storm: "When the University of Minnesota Press agreed more than a year ago to publish a book called Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, it was clear that it would be controversial." Written as an attack on the abstinence-only school of sex education, it has been roundly criticized as an apologia for pedophilia, which it does not in fact endorse. But, arriving in the midst of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, it has prompted attacks on its publisher which has responded by agreeing to an unprecedented review of the way it selects books for publication. Civil libertarians are alarmed at the implications for publishing. NY Times

The Bush Doctrine, R.I.P.

'As a statement of principle set forth by an American chief executive, the now defunct Bush Doctrine may have had a shelf life even shorter than Kenny Boy's Enron code of ethics. As a statement of presidential intent, it may land in the history books alongside such magisterial moments as Lyndon Johnson's 1964 pledge not to send American boys to Vietnam and Richard Nixon's 1968 promise to "bring us together."

(...) But even as he fudges his good/evil categorizations when it comes to Mr. Arafat and other players he suddenly may need in the Middle East, it's not clear that Mr. Bush knows that he can no longer look at the world as if it were Major League Baseball, with every team clearly delineated in its particular division. "Look, my job isn't to try to nuance," he told a British interviewer a week after the Passover massacre in Netanya. "My job is to tell people what I think. . . . I think moral clarity is important."

Mr. Bush doesn't seem to realize that nuances are what his own administration is belatedly trying to master — and must — if Colin Powell is going to hasten a cease-fire in the Middle East. Mr. Bush doesn't seem to know that since the routing of the Taliban his moral clarity has atrophied into simplistic, often hypocritical sloganeering. He has let his infatuation with his own rectitude metastasize into hubris. ' NY Times

The Hole in the Reactor: Incredible revelations from the former director of the Union of Concerned Scientists about how the Atomic Energy Commission did business in the face of known doubts about reactor safety:

It's appropriate now, I think, several years after his death, to identify the Deep Throat who helped acquaint Henry Kendall and me with the problems in American nuclear power plants. In 1974, at the Cosmos Club in Washington, Kendall and I were handed a briefcase full of papers by John F. O'Leary, the director of licensing of the A.E.C. He believed in nuclear energy, he said, but only if it were done right. And it wouldn't be unless more details of the problems got out and better regulation was demanded. We studied the papers and distributed them to journalists. Major reports ran in the national press.
Maintenance, quality control, equipment testing and inspection — these had been described as bywords of nuclear safety. But most nuclear plants, according to the commission's own internal audits, were failing badly on all counts. When we asked O'Leary how he could possibly sign off on more and more plant licenses, he offered his personal rationale: Things would leak before they broke. There would be some warning, and the surrounding area could be evacuated in time.

Patti Smith, r.e.f.m. "progess is not future - it is keeping up w/ the present..." A flyer given away at a May 1978 concert, b/w Poem #2, by Patti Smith and Richard Hell.

Uncensored: Graffiti Photography by Pete Maginnis. "...Graffiti is uncensored, anonymous and public. As a form of expression it sits outside usual constraints. The result is a huge variety of visual and verbal statements, spanning ugly to attractive, extreme to moderate, profound to meaningless, unique to repetitive, sacred to profane."

Global Women Intact

"OUR OVERALL MISSION: End female circumcision through education, information, and alternative form of initiation ceremony."

Hear! Hear! GLOBALIZE NO MUTILATION . . .

"The life of an Arab is equally sacred to the life of a Jew." --Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor-In-Chief, Tikkun

Now, there's a religious figure I can muster some respect for! I extend my most heartfelt love and appreciation to all Jews all over the world who are finding the courage to oppose Sharon and his policies right now.

Cybersmut and Debt Undermine Penthouse: Bob Guccione acknowledges that Penthouse is going under. Ill-conceived plans to diversify into 'legitimate' businesses have not succeeded and the highly-leveraged company's revenues are falling dramatically because of free online porn. Not to be outdone, Guccione has his sights set on moving his smut-peddling to the internet.

America is waiting for a message
of some sort or another.
Takin' it again. Again! Again!
Takin' it again.
Well now... no, no... now, we ought to be mad
at the government not mad at the people.
Takin' it again. Again! Again!
Takin' it again.
I mean, yeah, well... wha-what're ya gonna do?
America is waiting for a message
of some sort or another.
No will whatsoever. No will whatsoever!
Absolutely no honor.
No will whatsoever. No will whatsoever!
Absolutely no integrity.

Byrne, Eno... My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. 20 years ago.

Victor Rebuffo... Tribunes at the crossroads of despair (1952, woodcut). From La Rebelión: Cuento Gráfico - The Insurrection: A Graphic Story (Argentina, 1952). "...it tells a tense story of relations between labor and capital. It is not based on any specific event but rather real occurrences transformed in the artist's imagination. At the time these wood blocks were made, Juan Perón was in power. Since Perón saw himself as the perfect embodiment of workers' desires, no suggestion of labor discontent was tolerated outside of official channels. Hence the artist kept the blocks safely hidden away and they were never printed until 1978."

I've been meaning to add a way to leave comments about a particular post, but am not sure which blog-comments system is the best--any recommendations? Or do you have any other comments about the Samizdat, so far? You can post them here . . .

Muckraking pic courtesy of Lisa over @ the newly-minted Herd Of Cows

Menlo: "Don't you MOO on me, baby!"

Isidoro Ocampo... Be a Pioneer (1937, woodcut). "...You be the first in the struggle. Has one man fallen? Have two? It does not matter! Soon others will rise up to replace them. You should be the first to raise your protest against injustice; the first in forming the union at your factory; the first in going on strike." From Libro de Lectura para el uso de Escuelas Nocturnas Para Trabajadores - Book of Readings for use in the Workers' Night Schools, México 1937.

"His name was Abood Issa Al Omari. He was 75 years old. He was shot and then denied access to medical care. He bled to death in his home."

via Palestinian IMC

Also: "This afternoon, the Palestinian Red Crescent has announced the cessation of all its operations due the ongoing and massive Israeli assaults against its hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and medical staff in all areas targeted by the current Israeli military campaign."

I received this in the mail today from blogsnob@idya.net regarding my primary blog:

Hi!

This is an automated notifier to tell you that a member of the BlogSnob team has seen your page but we're sorry to inform you that we will not be able to display your ads in the program.

We recommend you to check the kind of sites that we accept at the following URL: http://blogsnob.idya.net/help.php?section=whatkind

If you feel that your site qualifies for the program, but it was still rejected, do reply to this email, we'll check it out rightaway.

Do check out the blogsnob website for the active Forum, and the sport that so many members indulge in, SnobJumping.

All this and more at the blogsnob site at http://blogsnob.idya.net

Let's keep the spirit of blogging alive!

regards,
The BlogSnob Team.

And now, let's ask John Ashcroft to join us in another rousing rendition of "Go Tell It On The Mountain:"

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN . . .
JESUS CHRIST WAS BORN
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN . . .
LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAA . . .

Members of the committee that awards the annual Nobel Peace Prize regret awarding it to Shimon Peres in 1994.

In an interview with a Norwegian newspaper, committee members said they regretted that Mr Peres' prize could not be recalled because, as a member of the Israeli cabinet, he had not acted to prevent Israel's re-occupation of Palestinian territory.

One member said Mr Peres had not lived up to the ideals he expressed when he accepted the prize.

"What is happening today in Palestine is grotesque and unbelievable," said Hanna Kvanmo.

"Peres is responsible, as part of the government. He has expressed his agreement with what [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon is doing," she said.

"If he had not agreed with Sharon, then he would have withdrawn from the government."

Sue Coe... The Tragedy of War print cycle.

Brendan Sexton II: What's Wrong With Black Hawk Down

"The film Black Hawk Down paints the Somali people as wild savages. Elvis Mitchell, who reviewed the film for the New York Times when it opened in December, wrote: 'The lack of characterization converts the Somalis into a pack of snarling dark-skinned beasts--intended or not, it reeks of glumly staged racism.'

"I think that's an accurate description."

. . . via the always indispensable randomWalks.

Fighting the Big Book Chains

" . . . what's going on now in book retailing is microcosmic of what's going on in the greater society.

"You probably haven't heard about it, though (which is microcosmic of mainstream media coverage of conglomerate America, but that's another column -- although I must point out the irony that the plaintiff in the case is the brother of the late CBS newsman Charles Kuralt). But anyway, in brief: Walter Kuralt, owner of a bankrupt mini-chain called Intimate Bookshops, is suing Borders and Barnes & Noble for illegal activities -- such as demanding secret discounts from publishers -- that gave them an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

"Sound familiar? Well, it didn't get much coverage either, but in another case last year, the American Booksellers Association and 26 independent bookstores sued the chains for the same thing."

Here is Walter Kuralt's website, titled: "Allegations and Proposed Reform: by Wallace H. Kuralt, Owner of the Famous, 40-Year Old, But Now-Failed Bookstore Chain," subtitled: "A NATIONAL DISASTER: THE WAL-MARTS AND MEGA-MALLS IN AMERICA, THE DAMAGES CAUSED BY THEM AND THE FACTORS USED BY THEM TO DISPEL COMPETITION, WITH APPROACHES TO SOLUTIONS."

How can I join this fight? I detest Borders and Barnes & Noble. Recently they helped inflict a new casualty among the independent bookstore community of Seattle: Beatty Books, formerly on Third a block north of the Bon. Beatty Books was my favorite bookstore in Seattle; I grieve.

Original source of above-mentioned article Fighting the Big Book Chains: Moby Lives, also recommended.

His boundless shadow extends
Over Paris and distant coasts.
What then is this grey-eyed ghost
Whose silence surges within?
Might it be you, Fantômas,
Lurking upon the rooftops?

Fantômas Lives.

JP, thanks for pointing us to yet another American idiot who seems to take the US corporate press at face value. You wanna see a real American IDJIT, world? Look no farther than the BARDCODEKING! With an intelligence etched via Etch-a-Sketch, oh he's sure to amuse!

No, but seriously folks, while the Ultimate Bonehead Dubya blathers on about "pathways to peace" (HEL-FUCKING-LO!) and the entire US administration sternly tells Arafat to "stop the violence" (while even Caspar Weinberger believes--among scores more--that Arafat can't control EVERY SINGLE DISAFFECTED PALESTINIAN FUCKING DUH!) let's look at the NUMBERS, shall we?

Dead Israelis: 400+

Dead Palestinians: 1200+

Now, if you can fucking COUNT, you can clearly see who the fucking terrorist is here. The hidden conceit buried within the US portrayal of this conflict is this: Israeli lives hold more value than Palestinian lives. Israel = South Africa circa 1980's, but worse.

Super Hitler and Super Stalin have at it. Whoa! Super Stalin kicks butt! Stalin. A comic by Alexei Lipatov. And, wow... Russian for diabolical laughter is, "Xa Xa Xa Xa Xa."