Peter, Shad, and I got together this Thanksgiving, as we've done in the past. Everyone ate way too much, as is the custom, and it was a pretty nice day. Shad went home, and called us later in the evening, terribly upset. His younger brother Heath- 33 years old- had been found dead in his apartment. Heath had a pretty serious drinking problem, and a very stubborn streak. He'd just gotten out of detox (after having been told by a doctor that he would die if he didn't stop drinking). He went up to visit his neighbors- to drink with his neighbors- who obliged him even though they knew he had a serious problem. They mentioned to the police later that Heath was drinking more heavily than they'd seen before- he was so drunk that they felt they should accompany him down the stairs, so he wouldn't fall. heath had been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning before- but his neighbors left him in his apartment, none-the-less, completely alone. He stumbled and fell, according to police, and asphixiated on his own vomit.
It's a tragic story in too many ways. It traces back to his parent's decision to leave their three boys (Heath, Shad, and Greg) in the care of a child molestor baby-sitter. The parents were experiencing marital difficulties (because of Joe's infidelity with Kathy's best friend) and just wanted the kids out of their hair. Both Shad and Heath remembered being molested. Then there were the years of verbal abuse by their father, a "man" who felt compelled to tell Heath that, in his opinion, he was a worthless, stupid human being.
Heath perpetuated some of this himself as an adult- he basically abandoned his own child, even to the point of quitting his job so as not to have to pay child support. He rejected his friends for their persistent attempts to try to get him to stop drinking.
Heath never stood a chance really. I think everyone knew that things weren't going to end well for him. He isolated from everyone, and absolutely refused help. It's just such a tragic situation.
I was so much luckier. I survived the physical and sexual abuse I experienced as a kid. I, long ago, stopped experiencing survivor's guilt. I can't stop thinking about Heath's 5 year old son- how horrible this whole situation has been (and will be) for this little boy. i can't help but wonder why some people survive abuse, while others are demolished by it. Had someone intervened in Heath's life when he was young, could that have saved him? If someone had only made him feel worthwhile, and important- couldn't that have made a difference? I don't know- I don't have a clue. I just know that a 5 year old boy lost his father on Thanksgiving, and it just doesn't make any sense at all.

Saw this online and thought it incredibly important, so I'm sharing...

1/3 of the world's food depends on honeybees, which look to become extinct within 4 years...

Last flight of the honeybee?

A bee-less world wouldn't just mean the end of honey - Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind. Alison Benjamin reports on a very real threat:

Dave Hackenberg's bees have been on the road for four days. To reach the almond orchards of California's Central Valley, they pass through the fertile plains of the Mississippi, huge cattle ranches and oilfields in Texas, and the dusty towns of New Mexico on their 2,600-mile journey from Florida. The bees will have seen little of the dramatic landscape, being cooped up in hives stacked four high on the back of trucks. Each truck carries close to 500 hives, tethered with strong harnesses and covered with black netting to prevent the millions of passengers from escaping. When the drivers pull over to sleep, the bees have a break from the constant movement and wind speed, but there's no opportunity to look around and stretch their wings.

Their final destination is some two hours north of Los Angeles. As the sun begins to fade over the vast, flat terrain, the convoy slowly snakes through orchards filled with row upon row of almond trees stretching as far as the eye can see. Every February, the valley plays host to billions of honeybees as trees burst into blossom, blanketing the landscape in a soft, pinkish hue which extends to the horizon.

The sandy loam and Mediterranean climate are perfect for the cultivation of almonds, but that's where any comparisons to picturesque orchards of Spain or Italy end. Here, there are no verdant weeds, wild flowers or grass verges to please the eye, just never-ending trees that form what looks like an outdoor production line.

In the cool hours after sunset and before sunrise, more than one million hives are unloaded at regular intervals between the trees by commercial beekeepers such as Dave Hackenberg, who have travelled from the far corners of the US to take part in the world's largest managed pollination event. The mammoth orchards of Central Valley stretch the distance from London to Aberdeen, and the 60 million almond trees planted with monotonous uniformity along the 400-mile route require half of all the honeybees in the US to pollinate them - a staggering 40 billion.

By February 16, National Almond Day in the US, the trees are usually covered in flowers and humming with the sound of busy bees. Attracted by the sweet nectar that each flower offers, the bees crawl around on the petals to find the perfect sucking position. As they do so, their furry bodies are dusted with beads of pollen. As they fly from blossom to blossom in search of more of the sweet energy drink, they transfer pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part, and so fertilise it. Not long afterwards, the plant's ovaries swell into fruit, which by late August turn into precious, oval-shaped nuts.

Without this army of migrant pollinators paying a visit for three weeks every year, the trees would fail to bear the almonds that are California's most valuable horticultural export. Last year, they earned the state more than $1.9bn, double the revenue from its Napa Valley vineyards. Moreover, 80% of the world's almonds now come from this pocket of the planet. But the supply of almonds in confectionery, cakes and packets of nuts is now threatened by a mysterious malady that is causing honeybees to disappear.

Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report that his bees had vanished. On a November day 18 months ago, he checked the hives in his Florida bee yard to find they were empty. "They weren't dead, they were just gone," he recalls.

Since then, close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.

In Britain, John Chapple was the first to raise the alarm. In January 2007, he lost all of the 14 colonies in his garden in west London. "It's too cold at that time of year to open the hives," he says, "so I always check on the bees by giving the hive a thump and waiting for what sounds like a roaring sound to come back. But there was nothing, just silence." When he opened the hives to see what had happened, he found them practically empty. Examination of a further 26 hives scattered across the capital revealed that two-thirds had perished.

"I was completely shocked," says Chapple, who chairs the London Beekeepers' Association. "I could attribute some losses to a failing queen bee or wax moths, but there were a few I could find no reason for. There was a healthy queen and a few bees, but nothing else." Chapple's inquiries as to whether the parks where he kept some of his hives had sprayed new pesticides also drew a blank.

He was not alone. Beekeepers in north-west London also reported strange losses. Chapple calls the disappearance the "Mary Celeste syndrome". A year later, a survey of hives by government bee inspectors across Britain has found that one in five colonies has perished this winter.

There are some 270,000 honeybee hives in Britain run by 44,000 keepers, more than 90% of them amateurs. According to estimates by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through their pollination of fruit trees, field beans and other crops. In addition, the 5,000 tonnes of British honey sold in UK stores generates a further £12m.

UK farming minister Lord Rooker, however, warned last year that honeybees are in acute danger: "If nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years," he said. Last month, he launched a consultation on a national strategy to improve and protect honeybee health.

People's initial response to the idea of a bee-less world is often either, "That's a shame, I'll have no honey to spread on my toast" or, "Good - one less insect that can sting me." In fact, honeybees are vital for the pollination of around 90 crops worldwide. In addition to almonds, most fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are dependent on honeybees. Crops that are used as cattle and pig feed also rely on honeybee pollination, as does the cotton plant. So if all the honeybees disappeared, we would have to switch our diet to cereals and grain, and give our wardrobes a drastic makeover.

According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."

Bees are a barometer of what man is doing to the environment, say beekeepers; the canary in the coalmine. Just as animals behave weirdly before an earthquake or a hurricane, cowering in a corner or howling in the wind, so the silent, empty hives are a harbinger of a looming ecological crisis. But what is causing them to vanish - pesticides, parasites, pests, viruses? No one knows for sure. The more fanciful theories when CCD was first detected included an al-Qaida plot to wreck US agriculture, radiation from mobile phones and even celestial intervention in the form of honeybee rapture.

Scientists around the world are trying to pinpoint the culprit, but it is proving elusive. They have even set up an international network to monitor honeybee losses - a sort of Interpol for bees - which is operating out of Switzerland. Its coordinator, bee pathologist Dr Peter Neumann, blames a bloodsucking mite called varroa. Little bigger than a pinhead, it has preyed on honeybees in Europe and the US since its arrival 30 years ago. Under a microscope, the reddish-brown mite looks like a cross between a jellyfish and a Frisbee. It activates lethal viruses in honeybees and carries them from bee to bee when it feeds on their blood, like a dirty syringe spreading HIV/Aids. "It has to be the backbone of the problem," Neumann says. "But it is probably not acting alone."

In the US, where the genetic code of the honeybee was unravelled by scientists two years ago, they have been employing advanced technology to discover if a new virus is responsible for killing the bees. Genome sequencing techniques uncovered the DNA of a virus called Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) that was found in almost all of the hives suffering from CCD. The discovery, published in Science, was hailed as a major breakthrough in the investigation. But honeybees are riddled with latent viruses. They become a problem and cause disease only when the bee's immune system is shot. Like humans, they are prone to illness when they are stressed and run-down. So the real question is, what is making the bees too weak to fight a virus?

The answer is probably overwork, coupled with various environmental factors that are the flipside of pollination on an industrial scale and intensified food production. After Hackenberg's bees have pollinated the almonds in California, they head north to the apple orchards of Washington State, then east for the cranberries and pumpkins, before reaching Maine in May to pollinate blueberries. In a year, they can cover 11,000 miles. It's a well-worn route that's travelled by many of the 1,000 commercial beekeepers in America who between them own 90% of the country's 2.4 million honeybee colonies. It is pollination, rather than honey production, that keeps US beekeepers in business. In 2007, honey production was worth $160m to the US economy, compared with pollination services that have been estimated at $15bn.

Joe Traynor is a California bee broker. From a small office in a quiet side street in downtown Bakersfield, on the southern tip of Central Valley, he runs a lucrative business matching almond growers with beekeepers. I put to him that surely all this moving around of bees, confined to their hives for long periods, must be stressful for them. He admits that too much travel is not good for their health: "When you're trucking bees, they need sleep, just as humans do, and the bumping around in the truck for two to three days keeps them awake, and this lowers their resistance to pests and disease."

Hackenberg, however, disagrees: "I've been doing this 40-odd years. We've done all the same things, but the rules have changed. Something's messing up."

Hackenberg, 59, wears cowboy boots, a checked shirt and blue jeans. He even has a hard hat in the shape of a Stetson, with netting attached that he wears when unloading beehives. He began his own investigations into what killed 2,000 of his honeybees at the end of 2006, by talking to growers and reading up on pesticide use and research into their effects on bees. "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home."

Honeybees have a sophisticated dance language they use to communicate with each other in the hive. Until Karl von Frisch unlocked the mysteries of this dance - his discovery won him a Nobel prize in 1973 - we didn't fully appreciate that bees returning to the hive laden with nectar and pollen will tell their sisters (all worker bees are female) where they got their supplies by doing a dance that points to the location of the flowers in relation to the sun's position.

Tests have shown that the pesticides Hackenberg refers to can interfere with the bees' communication and orientation skills, and also impair memory.

With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion. Because it is systemic, the chemical moves throughout a plant, so if it is applied as a seed dressing, it will travel to the shoots, stem, leaves and flowers where bees can come into contact with small doses. Many of these widely used pesticides are classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as "highly toxic to bees" and come with a warning label intended to help prevent their exposure to the pollinators.

"It's in such small print that the growers don't see it," Hackenberg says. He accuses farmers of "stacking" - or mixing - pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. "No one has ever tested what happens to the toxicity if they do mix, simply because the chemical companies are not required to by law, but this combination could be a thousand times more lethal than if the chemicals are applied separately."

In Britain, beekeeping is very small-scale compared with the US. There are a few hundred professional beekeepers, who run an average of 100 hives each; only around 50 of them transport bees to orchards, usually over distances of 25 or so miles, rather than across a continent. Many orchards provide a year-round home for hives kept by amateur beekeepers, so there is no need for migratory beekeepers. But in this country, as in the rest of Europe, it is hard to escape pesticides and the varroa mite.

In France, beekeepers have for more than a decade waged a war against the chemical giant Bayer CropScience. They hold responsible the company's bestselling pesticide, imidacloprid, trade name Gaucho, for killing a third of the country's 1.5 million colonies. In 1999, the French government banned the use of Gaucho on sunflower crops after thousands took to the streets in protest. Two further pesticides were banned because of their potential link to bee deaths. It appeared to stem the massive bee die-offs for a time, even though the manufacturers' own tests demonstrated there is no correlation, and a long-term study by the French food safety agency revealed no significant differences in death rates before and after pesticides were banned. This winter, bee deaths across France are reported to have shot up again to 60%.

Bayer is also being blamed by German beekeepers for the eerie silence along the Rhine valley, where the buzzing of bees is a common sound at this time of year. They say two-thirds of honeybees have been killed this month by the pesticide clothianidin, sold under the trade name Poncho, which has been widely applied on sweet corn. As a result of the bee deaths, eight pesticides, including clothianidin, have been temporarily suspended in Germany. Anecdotal evidence of pesticide-related bee deaths in Italy and Holland is also piling up.

European beekeepers accuse scientists and government agencies of being in the pocket of the chemical companies. It's a similar story in the US, where scientists maintain that there is no correlation between the bees' disappearance and pesticide use. According to Hackenberg: "Big Ag has control of the USDA [the US Department of Agriculture] from the secretary right down to the lowest guy on the totem pole."

Jeff Pettis is not sure where he comes on the pole. The senior manager at the federal bee laboratory in Maryland, he's the man responsible for coordinating the US government's response to CCD. Pettis advises some beekeepers may do well to forgo the almond pollination and rest their bees. "You are getting them ready for February when the sunlight hours and the temperature are telling them it's too early in the year to be foraging at full strength," he says.

Deceiving bees is an essential part of the business. Beekeepers dupe them into thinking it's already summer by moving them to warm locations in winter and feeding them an array of protein and energy supplements. The more food that comes into the hive, the more eggs the queen lays, to create more of the worker bees to go out and pollinate.

The bee broker Joe Traynor says the deception goes much further than trucking bees south. "We're interfering with their natural cycle because we want strong colonies for almond pollination. We're stimulating hives in August, September and October, and making the queens do a lot more laying. As a result the queens are suffering burnout. It used to be that a beekeeper could pretty much leave his bees alone during winter. That's no longer the case."

Moreover, scientists funded by the Almond Board of California are now experimenting with artificial pheromones that trick bees into thinking there are more larvae in the hive that need feeding, so they forage more, and in the process pollinate more almond blossom.

This is the Almond Board's profit-driven response to a potential shortfall of honeybees: to work even harder those that remain. Bees are being treated as a machine with no consideration for their life cycle and downtimes. And any machine pushed to its limits and not well maintained will break.

Environmentalists argue for conservation measures on land planted with single crops that will both improve honeybee nutrition and attract wild pollinators that could shoulder some of the honeybees' workload. Monoculture, the hallmark of modern agriculture, covers much of the world's 1.5bn hectares of arable land. Single-crop plantations and orchards can stretch for hundreds of kilometres. The advantages for the farmer are manifold: the crop blooms at the same time, can be treated with the same pesticides and can be harvested together for maximum efficiency. But for honeybees, pollen collected from one crop does not provide a balanced, nutritious diet. Scientists agree that malnourished bees are more susceptible to disease and pesticide poisoning, while the best-fed are the hardiest.

Planting hedgerows of wild flowers would give honeybees a more varied menu. While this has happened in Europe, US almond growers have proved resistant to the idea, concerned that the bees would make fewer visits to the almond blossom if they had a choice. But hedgerows would also provide food and habitat for other pollinators such as butterflies, bumblebees and solitary bees. There are 4,500 wild bee species in North America that are capable of pollinating myriad fruits and vegetables - some more efficiently than honeybees.

Could they prevent a pollination crisis if honeybees become extinct? Only if they have somewhere to make a home in the orchards and fields, and something to eat after the single crop has bloomed. Monoculture deprives them on both counts.

The Xerces Society runs a pollinator conservation project in northern California. Farms in Yolo County receive a mixture of plants that flower throughout the year and nest blocks for wild bees, and they keep large areas of soil untilled for native bees to live on. They say they have seen the return of native bees and benefited from their pollination services. But final details being hammered out in a farm bill on Capitol Hill look like trimming conservation budgets and reducing financial incentives for farmers to manage their land in a more pollinator-friendly way.

So growers will continue to be increasingly reliant on honeybees to do a job once performed by a host of different insects. Their profits now hinge as much on honeybees' availability to pollinate fields as they do on the sun and rain. This is why there is such urgency in solving the mystery of disappearing and dying bees.

This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, as now, the main suspects were deficiencies in the bees' diet, pollution in the environment, pests and parasites and mismanagement by beekeepers, but the killer was never identified.

When bees die, beekeepers can restock their hives quickly by buying a new queen who lays 2,000 eggs a day at her peak. Across the world, most have chosen to fill their apiaries with a type of honeybee renowned for its gentle nature and prodigious honey production skills. This race of bee, originally from Italy, now dominates beekeeping. The downside is that the honeybee gene pool has been diminished and with it traits that may have helped bees fend off mites and other parasites, such as a new fungal bacteria, Nosema ceranae, that attacks its gut.

There are fears that mites are becoming increasingly resistant to chemicals administered by beekeepers to kill them. Pettis says we are controlling too many bee ailments with drugs and a more organic approach is needed that includes stocking apiaries with locally reared bees better adapted to local climate and environmental conditions.

Meanwhile scientists are hoping to use the mapping of the honeybee genome to engineer in the laboratory a super bee that has the resilience to withstand varroa but retains all the qualities of the Italian bee. Biologists will tell you, however, that it will be only a matter of time before a super bee breeds a super parasite. Geneticists also discovered that honeybees have fewer genes providing resistance to disease than other insects. In particular, the number of genes responsible for detoxification appear to be smaller, making it unusually sensitive to pesticides and poisons. Its large-scale disappearance across the US and high death rates in Europe are signalling that industrialised farming makes demands on honeybees that are not sustainable.

Central Valley has been described as a big brothel where billions of honeybees from all over the US can pick up a contagious illness and take it home. It's spread by mites from infected to healthy colonies. And there are plans to expand Central Valley's almond orchards to the point where, by 2011, they will require 1.6 million honeybee colonies for pollination.

Despite around a third of all US honeybees being wiped out last year, and again this year after beekeepers had restocked their hives, the almond pollination has yet to suffer. Why?

There are two answers. The shortage of honeybees has pushed up the price of hive rentals for almond pollination to an all-time high of $140 per hive, so more and more beekeepers are making the trip west, and the Almond Board's requirement of two hives each containing 20,000-30,000 bees per acre to pollinate the almonds is excessive, but provides a buffer should some of the hives be empty.

As the sun rises over the almond orchards after another nocturnal delivery of east coast hives, Hackenberg says it's only the money that brings him and his waning bees to California each year. "I'd rather be back in Florida with my bees. They'd be feeding on the maple and willow. It's paradise down there. Why would anyone come to this godforsaken place? But something's got to pay the bills. I'm here for a $150,000 cheque."

· A World Without Bees, by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, is published by Guardian Books at £8.99 plus p&p. To order a copy with free UK mainland p&p, call 0845 606 4232, or go to guardianbooks.co.uk

"Hope" and "Change" are great ambiguities that sound appealing without any specificity. Now that Obama's won the nomination, he's not just moving to the "center"...he's moving to the far right. The Supreme Court just decided a decision in which they found the death penalty unconstitutional for child rapists. This decision was supported by sexual abuse advocates across the country. The reason? Because advocates fear that if the death penalty is applied to rapists, they will kill their victims knowing that the penalty is the same. Most child abusers are relatives of the child- if the death penalty is the punishment, family members will be more reluctant to turn the rapists in. Even the right-wing Supreme Court gets it. But not Obama. He just made a public statement against the Supreme Court decision, expressing his view that the death penalty should be expanded to include these crimes. Putting aside the fact that the death penalty has been abolished in many countries, and that the liberal position is not pro-death penalty, Obama is supporting executions for crimes in instances where victim's advocates oppose it. That's just insane.

Obama continues to oppose gay marriage, but now he does it in stronger terms. He doesn't "believe' in it- marriage is "one man, one woman" (language Hilary Clinton stopped using because she said it was offensive). He's voted for Fisa- domestic spying- after promising Move On.org that, not only would he vote against it, but he would filibuster it if it passed in Congress. Fisa is the greatest attack on American's constitutional rights yet (which is really saying something under this administration). It gives the government unprecedented powers to spy on Americans without oversight. Obama voted for it.

Then there's NAFTA. Obama opposed Nafta and lambasted Clinton in the primaries for having supported it. Now he's for it.

Campaign finance reform- he was one of the first people to sign on to MCcain/Feingold, and he blasted Clinton for not supporting it. He was a strong advocate of campaign finance reform. Now he's completely opted out of it.

We're in trouble. MCcain's a nightmare, and our only other option is an increasingly conservative Democrat who's saying that he'd be happy to appoint members of George H.W. Bush's administration to his cabinet (including as Secretary of Defense). This is just a terrible situation and it can presumably only get worse (particularly given Obama's list of names for possible V.P.)

This is a great piece that appeared on their site....


Media Advisory

Remembering Russert
What media eulogies remember--and forget

6/19/08

NBC's Meet the Press anchor and Washington bureau chief Tim Russert died of a heart attack on June 13. The outpouring from media and political elites only underscored Russert's status as one of most important figures in mainstream journalism. But amidst all of the accolades, critical assessments about Russert's record were scarce.

It would be difficult to imagine anyone more admired by fellow journalists. "He was the preeminent political journalist in America," declared pundit Al Hunt (6/15/08). "He was an American character right from Mark Twain," offered NBC colleague Chris Matthews (6/15/08). "He had an authority and insight in covering politics that the rest of us could only aspire to," remarked Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace (6/15/08).

Many of the tributes celebrated Russert's preparation for his Sunday morning interviews, the kind of performances that earned Russert his reputation as a particularly tough interviewer. "Tim Russert always did his homework," explained NBC's David Gregory. "He was always prepared for interviews." NBC producer Betsy Fischer agreed (6/15/08): "He would spend all week preparing for this show, reading everything."

Aside from the fact that this is somewhat unusual praise--shouldn't all journalists prepare for interviews?--Russert's supposedly aggressively posture was at times put to rather dubious ends. When Barack Obama appeared on Meet the Press (1/22/06), Russert grilled him about comments made by left-wing actor and entertainer Harry Belafonte: "I refer you to some comments that Harry Belafonte made yesterday. He said that Homeland Security had become the new Gestapo. What do you think of that?"

Russert followed up on the issue, despite the fact that the only apparent connection between the two men was the fact they were both black. When Russert moderated a debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton (2/26/08), he asked Obama about Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, despite the fact that the two had no discernable ties. Years earlier, Russert quizzed civil rights activist Al Sharpton about Farrakhan's views, telling him (8/25/00), "A leader in black America has said that Saddam Hussein is no more terrible than the president of the United States."

And Russert's tenacious interviewing style would alternate with a much more deferential one--depending on who was being interviewed. Surprisingly, some of Russert's journalistic colleagues praised him for being tough on the Bush administration over the Iraq War. CBS Evening News correspondent Anthony Mason said (6/13/08), "In 2003, as the United States prepared to go to war in Iraq, Russert pressed Vice President Dick Cheney about White House assumptions."

In reality, Meet the Press was the venue for some of the White House's most audacious lies about the Iraq War--most of which went unchallenged by Russert. On the morning that the New York Times published a front-page article falsely touting the now-famous "aluminum tubes" as components of an alleged Iraqi nuclear weapons program, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press (9/8/02), where Russert pursued open-ended questions that seemed to invite spin from the vice president on Iraqi nuclear weapons.

Recalling such softball questioning, it's easy to believe the advice that Cheney press aide Cathie Martin says she gave when the Bush administration had to respond to charges that it manipulated pre-Iraq War intelligence: "I suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used," she said (Salon, 1/26/07). "It's our best format."

In Bill Moyers' documentary "Buying the War" (PBS, 4/25/07), Russert expressed the wish that dissenting sources would have contacted him: "My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them." Of course, any journalist could have found such sources--and certainly few critics of the war would have passed up an opportunity to air their views on such a prominent media platform.

As David Folkenflik pointed out in the Baltimore Sun (5/19/04), Russert seemed to think the media were merely following public opinion in the run up to the war:

Folkenflik commented:

Indeed, the reticence to actually render judgment on those in power--particularly the Bush White House--was what many critics found so frustrating, especially coming from someone who enjoyed a reputation as a dogged interviewer. When author and comedian Al Franken appeared on Russert's CNBC show on April 1, 2006, the two got into a disagreement about the White House's oft-repeated claim that Congress had access to the same intelligence about Iraq's WMDs as the White House. Franken's point was that the president receives a daily briefing that Congress does not receive, so the claim is false. As Franken put it, "So what the president's saying isn't true, isn't that right, Tim?" Russert would only say, "I'll leave that for you to make a judgment."

Russert was not always so restrained about making judgments. He made a strange observation about Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry on October 31, 2004:

It's not clear what Russert meant, since Iraq did not have such weapons.

In some of the presidential debates he moderated, Russert often gravitated towards questions that were either irrelevant or framed from a right-wing political view. In one debate (9/26/07), he challenged the Democratic contenders to match Rudolph Giuliani's pledge that he would not permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. When Barack Obama suggested that talking about attacking Iran was "irresponsible," Russert responded: "So you would not offer a promise to the American people, like Giuliani, that Iran will not be able to develop and become a nuclear power?"

In the same debate, he asked Hillary Clinton if she would support an Israeli attack on Iran. When Clinton suggested this was a hypothetical, Russert interrupted with a curious non-sequitor: "It's not a hypothetical, Senator. It's real life." At a later debate (2/26/08), Russert asked Clinton about her proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq: "If this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in total and Al-Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind, as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?" When Clinton responded by saying, "You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals," Russert interrupted: "But this is reality."

One of Russert's signature issues was the so-called Social Security "crisis," a line he pushed relentlessly over the last decade or so. NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell credited Russert (6/15/08) for bringing the issue to prominence by "defining what is the political issue. Nobody talked about entitlements. Nobody talked about Social Security and Medicare and balancing budgets on television on Sunday morning until Tim, with the facts and the experience that he had learned at the feet of Daniel Patrick Moynihan of the Finance Committee of the Senate."

As moderator of two of the Democratic debates (9/26/07, 10/30/07), Russert was particularly aggressive in questioning the candidates about Social Security's finances. In a November 5, 2007 MSNBC appearance discussing the debates, Russert said, "Everyone knows Social Security, as it's constructed, is not going to be in the same place it's going to be for the next generation--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives."

Actually, as many economists have pointed out, the Social Security Administration projects that it will be able to pay full benefits to retirees for almost the next three decades. And just a few weeks before Russert made his statement, he interviewed former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan (9/23/07). When Russert asked him "how big a crisis" the country faced in paying for Social Security and Medicare, Greenspan told him: "Social Security is not a big crisis. We're approximately 2 percentage points of payroll short over the very long run. It's a significant closing of the gap, but it's doable, and doable in any number of ways."

Despite the perception that Russert excelled at holding the powerful to account, in reality Russert was among the most powerful members of the political-journalistic establishment in Washington. His insider status was reinforced during the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, when Russert was forced to testify about his contacts with high-level Bush administration figures and discussions about Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson.

As Tim Rutten wrote in one of the few critical commentaries about Russert (L.A. Times, 6/14/08), "Like former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Russert was one of the high-level Washington journalists who came out of the Libby trial looking worse than shabby." Rutten recounted that while Russert and NBC had publicly argued that these conversations were journalistic privilege, "it emerged under examination, however, Russert already had sung like a choirboy to the FBI concerning his conversation with Libby--and had so voluntarily from the first moment the Feds contacted him. All the litigation was for the sake of image and because the journalistic conventions required it."

Russert was, by almost every account, a warm and compassionate friend and mentor to many reporters, at NBC and elsewhere. The real question for citizens, though, is whether Russert performed as an aggressive and independent watchdog. Even some of his admirers explained that this was not the point. The Washington Post's David Broder explained (6/14/08), "His questioning was completely efficient but never officious. Both the viewers and the guests could tell he really liked the newsmakers he was interviewing."

"He respected politicians," right-wing pundit Mary Matalin explained (Meet the Press, 6/15/08). "He knew that they got blamed for everything, got credit for nothing. He knew how much they meant. He never treated them with the cynicism that attends some of these interviews. So they had a place to be loved. "

ABC's Sam Donaldson weighed in with one of the most revealing comments (This Week, 6/15/08): "He understood as well as anyone, maybe better than almost anyone, that the reason political reporters are there is not to speak truth to power. Today's truth is tomorrow's falsity. But to make those who say we have the truth-- the politicians--explain it. Defend it, explain to the American public where they're going and not pull your punches."

Asked about the failure to more aggressively challenge the White House on Iraq, Russert once explained (3/21/06):

He added that the White House claims:

In fact, there are journalists who examine the claims made by politicians at the time that they make them, and some of them were doing just that with the assertions Bush administration officials used to justify the invasion of Iraq (Extra!). Had a journalist with the prominence of Tim Russert done so, it's possible that the debate could have had an entirely different outcome.


, 3-4/06

Spring semester has ended, and I'm going to be moving soon. It's been an exhausting month. Going back to college after a 23 year absence has been a revelation. a somewhat disappointing revelation at times. My art class was "taught" by a friendly Professor who was perfectly lovely in many ways. She wasn't qualified to teach a class however. I really learned nothing- but far more troubling was the way in which she picked on some of the kids. As the other elder in the room, I'd come to their defense- but it all seemed so absurd. She seemed like a nice person generally, but her expectations were ridiculous. My interest in art waned after the class. Where I once enjoyed perusing art magazines while drinking my decaf mocha, I now just push them aside. My other class was also disappointing (for different reasons). I turn 48 years old this year, and the absurdities that were mere annoyances to my much younger self, now grate on me horribly. All the silly politics and personality issues that crop up in classes just annoy me- making me a cranky old man before my time. :) I hope next semester goes a bit better.

The New Hampshire primary brought Hillary Clinton a much needed win. It also brought some elation to those of us who were fed up with the constant misogyny being directed her way. I was an Edwards supporter...after Edwards felt compelled to mock Clinton for showing some emotion, I re-considered that support. Now, I don't know who I'm supporting. I've always been very conscientious about voting; for the first time in my life, I'm not so sure. Perhaps Diebold will do the voting for me?

It's peculiar that after so many years of consciousness raising, misogyny still rules. Liberal blogs are full of hostility towards Clinton, and message board posters attack her vehemently. Most of these diatribes are steeped in sexist language. Posters at HuffingtonPost, a supposed liberal site, talk about fish smell, dildos, vibrators, and the like, when mentioning Clinton. They use the typical words saved for such occasions, particularly the "b" word. National Public Radio greeted Hillary's win in New Hampshire with accusations of racism against New Hampshire voters (because, of course, people voting for a woman for President must be right-wing bigots...it logically follows).

Barack Obama talks a great deal about "hope", but he's headed in a rather disturbing direction as well. Reports today suggest that his campaign is planning to use accusations of racism against the Clintons to garner votes. One can say many things about the Clintons...many certainly have. That they are racists, however, is definitely not one of them.

What's an American voter to do? Ben Franklin once warned that, in the end, the selfishness of the American voter would undermine the democratic process altogether. Politics in America has become a narcissistic endeavor, motivated by egotistical desire for personal vailidation; unchecked personal and corporate greed; and bitterness over feelings of personal entitlement that go unfulfilled. Once, Americans' most fervent wish seemed to be that their children might enjoy a better life then the one they had themselves. Today, the wish seems to be a Suze Orman/Oprah/Dr. Phil fantasy about personal cravings unfettered by such grounded aspirations. Everyone wants "The Secret"...the magical power to garner riches, while people starve all around them. We seldom hear about "the poor" anymore; class issues go completely unaddressed. The safety net gets further and further torn asunder, while the upper class ponders its next fabulous purchase. The housing market dashes people's dreams. Beck and Dobbs rail against 'The immigrants", as if we weren't all, ultimately, "The Immigrants" ( Native Americans and Alaskan Inuit Peoples excepted, of course).

Am I hopeless? No. I grew up believing that nuclear war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. That turned out not to be quite so inevitable after all. In the course of history, Hitler was defeated, despots have been removed from power by their people, the air is still breathable (for now), and the world still hasn't run out of drinking water (ditto). There's still hope. I just wish that the American political process actually worked. I guess, ultimately, that's up to each and every one of us.

Ever have a day that seems inexplicably sad? Where, if you thought about it for a moment, you could probably trace the sadness back to its source...but you just don't care to go there? That's the sort of day I'm having today.

It's not tied in to anything particular...it's just sort of everything in general. Which is odd, because my life is really quite charmed in some respects, particularly where my present family is concerned. 

Even in an otherwise sunny life, there always seems to be a rather ominous looking cloud that pops up at times, looking as though it's going to rain on your perfectly happy picnic. So you pack up your sandwhiches, fold up the blanket, and head home. Sometimes, home is where it rains. Memories of that interupted picnic nip at your subconscious mind, making you wonder why rain has to fall at all. It's a funny life, isn't it?

I usually try to be optimistic. This isn't that sort of day. :) But as Scarlett O'Hara once observed, tomorrow is another day. Luckily, you only have to take them one at a time.

Mike Huckabee says that he'd like to turn America back over to Jesus Christ, and I believe him. He's gotten some flack for admitting this publicly, but really, is he any different than most of the candidates running? The Republican candidates are all one step away from drinking the kool-aid, for pity's sake (and that's being charitable). Then we have Barak Obama and his right-wing gospel tour of the south; Hilary Clinton attending prayers meetings regularly with the rightest of the right-wing in Congress; John Edwards stating that he can't support "gay marriage" because of his "faith", etc. 
What exactly is "gay marriage", BTW? Liberace plays the piano (from Heaven!) while two men wearing powder blue tuxedos recite vows written for them by Madonna? (Better yet-Margaret Cho?!). I need to know...I might want to get "gay married" one day, and I don't want to mess it up.

Of course, if it's left to the politicians listed above, I may never get to take that gay stroll down the gay wedding aisle. A pity really. I know exactly the Cher song that I want played as I saunter towards the preacher on my...um...father's arm? Harvey Fierstein's? It's so damn complicated! I mean...do we get diamonds from Cartier's, or just jewel encrusted nipple rings from Sax? I need to know these things people!

I have faith that one very enlightened day will come where Americans actually embrace the merit of separating church from state. Just imagine...a real democracy, where people can choose to believe in nothing fanciful or fantastic, and yet still get elected because of their wisdom and logic (rather than on the basis of their "charisma", 'faith", and "vision").

Rolling Stone once reported that, prior to being elected, George W. Bush got down on his kneees in front of christian author Timothy LaHaye (pause for effect...I know where you think this is going...wait for it...) and promised LaHaye that he'd remove Saddam Hussein from power. (Sorry, no toe-tapping involved). You see, LaHaye believed that Hussein was the "anti-christ", and he wanted Bush's assurance that Hussein would be disposed of as quickly as possible. So Bush took LaHaye's hand and pledged to him that this would be done. Comforting, no?

Wait a minute...I just thought of something. George (6) Walker (6) BushJr (6)...holy crap!!!And with that I bid you "sweet dreams". :)

Go Pats!! Great game.

Ron Paul. Ron Paul. Say it quietly and it almost sounds like praying...to the devil, that is. Hugely popular with young liberals, who only seem to look at the surface of the candidate..the media packaging, as it were. When I hear the name "Ron Paul" I think of three things: that it sounds like the name of Ru Paul's homophobic brother; that it sounds like an anti-semitic Catskill's comic who frequents hookers and bathes in the blood of virgins; or that it's a trans-phobic drag king who voted for Reagan (Maureen, that is). Who knew that he is, in fact, all three!
I keep seeing stories about how liberals are sending tons of dough to Paul, thinking him the savior of independence and peace. So disappointing. Because once you scratch beneath the all too shiny surface, you get to the putrid gunk that lies underneath. Paul, you see, is a facist in libertarian clothing. He believes that there's a "war on christianity" in this country, oppressing christians in their attempts to turn out nativity scenes in every public high school parking lot. He once stated that gays deserved AIDS, because it's the consequence of that "gay lifestyle" we're all so fond of. He stated that women who are sexually harassed at work are partly to blame, because if they don't quit, then they must like the attention. He's a doctor who doesn't believe in evolution...the cornerstone of biology, and he stridently opposes a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. It's "murder", ya know. Sounds pretty liberal, don't he?
Paul opposes the Iraq incursion because he's a classic right-wing isolationist. He wants to restore the gold standard, undo all programs that assist the disabled, the elderly, and the very poorest of the poor. Dismantle Social Security, Medicare, etc. Nut city!
Liberals are, generally, pretty suspicious of the corporate media. In these times, however, we don't seem to look much beyond the shiny facade that the P.R. shills in the press construct to market the horse-race aspect of the presidential election. That's a real shame.
Democracy requires engaged, attentive participants. It demands our full attention and involvement. It offers us hope only so long as we offer ourselves as willing, conscientious citizens ready to fight for the truth. Truth, Justice, and the American Way. It's not just for Superman anymore.

Benazir Bhutto gunned down; President Musharraf blaming terrorists. Indeed. Why are we alligned with this despot? What has happened to us? Huffington Post reports that someone in Barak Obama's camp is blaming Hilary Clinton for Bhutto's death? Unreal. Wasn't it bad enough that Obama went on his right-wing southern gospel tour with that homophobic 'ex-gay" singer? Why do so many liberals support him? His health care plan is a love letter to the health insurance companies, and his vow of openness to the religious right is beyond alarming. Now this?
I'm not losing faith. Sure, the Republican candidates resemble a more dapper Klan meeting, and the Democrats seem cowed by every  shadow cast in their direction. I'm still not giving up.We've come through worse times. We'll get through this as well. It just won't be terribly pleasant getting there. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy what's right with the world...my family and my friends. I'm also going to volunteer for Edwards. He may spend big bucks for a haircut (thank you corporate media), but he's the only candidate actually talking about the poor? Remember them? They're the folks that "The Secret" tells you not to think about, so that you can magically avoid becoming one of them. Just don't lose your job in Bush's America, in the meantime...he's trashed the safety net, and sold out your economic security for a few magic beans in Iraq.
That's it; first entry. That wasn't so bad, was it? :)