August 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

CNN Lies.
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

CIA scrambles to catch up By Richard Reeves BILL Harlow, who is the spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that rarely speaks and is even more rarely forthcoming, is apparently one of the more candid of his breed. Last weekend he was called by Judith Miller of the New York Times and asked why CNN rather than the CIA was able to find 250 videotapes, somewhere in Afghanistan, that seem to be an authentic archive of the terrorist activities of al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 bombing of the World Trade Center. Said Harlow: ``There are more of them in Afghanistan than there are of us, and they are paid better.'' Mercifully, the Times used the quote in the 32nd paragraph of its report on dogs being gassed and men making bombs, some of them in training films for terrorists. People in the White House are too busy to read long stories, so the president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, spinning like a top, could say that the important thing about the tapes and stories was that: ``This is a good reminder to the people of the world that these are the type of people that we are facing in the war on terrorism.'' That's true, these are bad people, but we knew that and were talking about it already. What was more striking and known to few people, including presidents, was the CIA's admission that journalism, even television journalism, often and publicly presents a better picture of the world as it is than do our intelligence agencies. Sometimes it seems that the CIA's top-secret multi-multibillion-dollar budget exists to allow high officials in both the White House and Congress to answer questions about, say Iraq, with a wink: ``If you knew what we knew, you wouldn't question what we are saying and doing.'' Over the years, I have asked three presidents, a vice president, and a dozen or so well-placed members of Congress whether they got more information from the intelligence agencies than from the New York Times. All of them, except for new members of intelligence committees in the Senate and the House, who are dazzled by their first ``top secret'' briefings, answered, ``The Times.'' Bill Clinton gave that answer, saying that every once in a while the CIA scooped the newspapers, particularly on matters of timing. ``Sometimes,'' he said, while he was still in office, ``the CIA was about 24 hours ahead of the press or interpreted events differently.'' The point here is not that the press is so great. In fact, the weakness of the press was almost certainly a factor in the nation's ignorance about the looming dangers of organizations like al-Qaida around the world. With the decline of the Soviet Union and communism itself, and the rise of budget-cutters and profit-maximizers at newspapers and television news organizations, American news operations called home their correspondents in Asia, Africa and even in Europe. The theory (or rationale) was that the world could be covered by ``parachuting'' correspondents from New York or London into the war or outrage of the week, into massacres and natural disasters. The background of the parachuters often was no more than a briefing on how to pronounce or spell the names in the news. Most of the film we saw on television during those years came from British or other foreign sources, which was the reason channel-surfers moving from one news show to another saw the same pictures everywhere over the voices of different anchormen and the parachuters. Harwood, of the CIA, as candid as he may be, still suffers from having lousy intelligence on the news business. CNN, in fact, has only 10 people in Afghanistan. The CIA, which refuses to talk about such things (in the name of national security), probably has hundreds working in and on Afghanistan -- and some of them are probably being paid more than they're worth. http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/3922496.htm MORE ON http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/08/23/0913572 "Yes, We Censored News About Afghanistan" The Lapdog Conversion of CNN by Kurt Nimmo In an August 15 news item carried by Press Gazette Online, Rena Golden, the executive vice-president and general manager of CNN International, admitted censoring news regarding the US war in Afghanistan. This censorship, she explained, "wasn't a matter of government pressure, but a reluctance to criticize anything in a war that was obviously supported by the vast majority of the people." How exactly the American public are expected to judge the validity of the US war in Afghanistan--and, indeed, the entire war on terrorism--when news organizations refuse to provide crucial information is not explained. In essence, Golden admits public opinion is cast by one source--the government--and the media has essentially abrogated its responsibility to provide additional, even contrary information on these momentous issues. Additionally, CNN New Delhi chief Satinder Bindra said many journalists pushed "harder than they should for a story," thus endangering the lives of other journalists covering the war from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bindra did not comment on how exactly journalists might be expected to receive information for their stories, or what precisely constitutes pushing "harder than they should." Maybe Bindra expects them to remain ensconced in their Islamabad hotel rooms and wait patiently for the news to arrive by courier? Or stay in Washington and rely on Donald Rumsfeld as their only source? While many journalists complained about military imposed censorship during the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, it now appears the corporate media has decided on its own to censor the news without external limitation imposed by the Pentagon. In other words, the corporate media has in essence become a rather short-sighted and assentive propaganda organ for the Bush administration. Remarkably, they attribute this lapdog conversion to a desire not to offend public opinion, which they arrogantly assume is entirely monolithic. It would seem CNN is now the official government news agency. As official Bush administration propaganda mills, CNN and other corporate news networks have obsequiously agreed to a White House demand not to broadcast unedited remarks by Usama bin Laden. The White House wasted no time in exacting likewise from newspapers in regard to print transcripts. "In a bizarre and unprecedented move," Veronica Forwood, chairwoman of the British branch of Reporters without Borders, remarked, "the five major networks--CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News Channel--have rolled over and acquiesced to the call for censorship from the US president's security adviser Condoleeza Rice." During the Persian Gulf War, however, things were different--some of the media did not so easily roll over and play dead like a dog straight out of obedience school. In 1991, Harper's, The Village Voice, The Nation, and others sued, claiming government censorship was a violation of the First Amendment. Predictably, the major corporate newspapers and TV networks refused to join the lawsuit. Instead, as now, they simply ingratiated themselves with the Pentagon and dutifully spoon-fed the public censored and heavily excised information (if not outright lies and fabrications). The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by a judge who didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. It would seem the media of decades past was made of brawnier stuff than the media of today. John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, wistfully entertained the idea of suing again, but he was less than sanguine about the prospect. "We might sue again, some small lawsuits, some civil libertarians may do so, but it's hopeless," he told the German journalist Gerti Schoen back in September. "This will be the most censored war in history... It won't just be censorship, but silence." While we have not exactly received complete silence, the news trickling out of Afghanistan is, to say the least, highly stage managed and tilted for a world of spin. So confident is the Pentagon corporate media resides in its hip pocket that back in December they dropped a requirement demanding journalists covering Afghanistan be part of an exclusive and authorized group, otherwise known as a "press pool." The press pool concept was devised in 1983 when the US invaded Grenada. It was updated in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War after publishers such as MacArthur began murmuring about military censorship. The relaxation of the press pool rules in December, however, did not prevent the military from denying journalists access to the war zone. On December 6, when American troops were hit by a stray bomb north of Kandahar, photojournalists were locked in a warehouse by Marines to make sure they didn't take pictures of wounded soldiers. More recently, media access to the Uruzgan wedding massacre was sharply curtailed. When journalists in Kabul submitted a request to join press officers at the Bagram air base--in order to travel by helicopter to the site--they were steadfastly denied permission by the military. Only two journalists traveled with US investigators to villages near Deh Rawud--one was a reporter from the US armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes and the other was cameraman from the Associated Press Television Network. The chief US media officer at Bagram, Colonel Roger King, told those left behind they would have no right of access to the pool reporters' work. King's statement was a contradiction of the Pentagon's own press pool guidelines. As a result of this decision, it took four days for information about the Uruzgan wedding massacre to be made public. Allegations were later leveled by United Nations workers, accusing the military of changing the press pool rules in order to limit access to the area and thus destroy evidence, a charge the Pentagon naturally denied. But the Pentagon's war against media coverage in Afghanistan is not limited to reporters and news crews on the ground. In October, as the brass busily prepared for war, they used public money, at the none too shabby tune of $2 million per month, to secure exclusive rights to all new high-quality commercial spy satellite images of Afghanistan. During a policy debate on the release of satellite imagery, the idea was floated that the Pentagon might shoot down the commercial satellites if they were not allowed to control the images. Regardless, in December the Pentagon decided not to continue the exclusive contract. Considering CNN's recent admission of tailoring news in deference to the sensitivities of the American people, access to satellite photography is a moot point--chances are they would not publish them anyway. It would seem Americans need to be protected from the harsh realities of war--or, more likely, as in the case of Vietnam, their visceral abhorrence to it--when it comes to documentaries, as well. When Irish director Jamie Doran released his controversial documentary--Massacre in Mazar--in Europe, not one major US newspaper or television network covered the story, which essentially resulted in a news black out in the United States. Doran's film documents the aftermath of the massacre of hundreds of Taliban fighters at the Mazar-i-Sharif prison Qala-i-Jangi. In the documentary, dead prisoners are shown with hands tied behind their backs. Eyewitnesses describe the torture and slaughter of some 3,000 prisoners who were subsequently buried in the desert. While the Pentagon has denied any complicity in the torture and massacre of the POWs, many European parliamentary deputies and human rights advocates have called for an independent investigation into the atrocities. The human rights lawyer Andrew McEntee said it is "clear there is prima facie evidence of serious war crimes committed not just under international law, but also under the laws of the United States itself." Nonetheless, CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, et al, decided not to run coverage of the film or announce the possibility of an investigation. Much later, however, when the massacre story simply became too high profile to ignore, it did receive a degree of limited coverage in the United States. Fortunately, the press in Britain and Europe has an excellent track record of covering stories the US media have consistently (and deliberately) ignored at the behest of the Pentagon and the Bush administration. Thanks to the Internet, these stories can be read by Americans without access to foreign newspapers. Both the Guardian and the UK Independent carry alternative news (available via the Web)--and also carry reports and editorials by award winning journalists such as Robert Fisk and John Pilger. These are news stories and opinions The NY Times would never touch. We no longer live in a world of hermetically sealed information. For those Americans thirsty for truth--and who do not take kindly to their news being sanitized and rubber stamped by the Pentagon and unelected presidents--there are more than a few sources out there. Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo(a)zianet.com Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo0823.html

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DEW on AWE
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

And GM modded animals,EU sugar dumping. See also this ENS coverage The AWE Aldermaston Site Development Strategy Plan Public information leaflet on development of the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Aldermaston in England, in preparation for production of 'next generation' nuclear armaments ( AWE ) See also this blog entry from June Animal Biotechnology: Identifying Science-Based Concerns Report on the threat to the environment posed by the introduction of genetically engineered animals into wild populations ( NAP ) The Great EU Sugar Scam (PDF) NGO briefing paper on gross inequities in the world sugar market - 'Under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU has emerged as the world's largest exporter of white sugar. Subsidies and tariffs generate vast profits for big sugar processors and large farmers - and vast surpluses that are dumped on world markets. Smallholder farmers and agricultural labourers in poor countries suffer the consequences' ( Oxfam ) See also this press release, this Guardian coverage (1) (2), and this blog entry from April Other interestin' stuff and LINKS http://www.hullocentral.demon.co.uk/site/anfin.htm

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The economy,shrubs 'credibility',major reasons for war,WTF!?
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

http://www.unionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=13552 Jim Bell in 04. Buy this magazine or we shoot this dog Dept. http://www.gulufuture.com/future/gaswag.htm Buy our war to save those dogs,speaking of dogs... http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4942033%255E9… Am I mirroring JOrlinn Grabbe? How clever of you to notice! He is supermans uncle isn't he?http://www.aci.net/kalliste/

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Nation on probation.
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

The law is an ultradonkey...http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-24aug2002-19.htm One out of every 32 adults in US either in jail, on parole One out of every 32 adults in the United States is either in jail, on parole or on probation, the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics says. The Justice Department says the total correctional population in the country in 2001 was approaching two million men and women, or 3.1 per cent of the nation's adult population. Those on parole have been released from prison before their sentences expired on condition of future correct behaviour and remain under supervision. Probation is the suspension of the sentence of a person convicted but not yet imprisoned for a crime on condition of good behaviour and regular reporting to a probation officer. Documents show Govt knew 'Pacific solution' costs disproportionate A $90 million package to house asylum seekers on the Pacific island of Nauru was drawn up by Australia less than two weeks after the controversial Tampa incident a year ago. Documents issued yesterday show the Nauru package, estimated to cost that amount for six months, acknowledges some costs for processing the Tampa asylum seekers would be two to four times higher than in Australian. A total of 434 Afghan asylum seekers and four Indonesian crew were rescued from their foundering boat by the Norwegian container ship Tampa near Christmas Island, in August last year. When Australia refused to allow them to land, New Zealand agreed to accept 150 people for processing, and Nauru offered to take the rest. This was the start of the 'Pacific solution', widely criticised by human rights advocates. Nauru President Rene Harris has since labelled the Australian Government's policy of turning away all boat people from the mainland a "Pacific nightmare". The Prime Minister has again been greeted by protesters outside a Liberal Party function in Adelaide. About 100 protesters waving placards and chanting slogans flanked the entrance to Adelaide's Festival Theatre, where Mr Howard was due to address a gathering of the party faithful. The protesters heckled guests as they arrived for the function, with mounted police on stand-by. Mr Howard was about to have a repeat of his arrival at Adelaide University, where he was pelted with rubbish, and was ushered in through a side door. A judge on an inspection visit to a Brazilian jail discovered a straw scarecrow dressed in police uniform on the watchtower "guarding" some 735 inmates, police said on Friday. The judge removed the scarecrow, which had apparently been staffing the watchtower for days and took it to the court as evidence. Police have opened an investigation. "It is considered a grave breach of security rules," a police spokesman said, adding that a prison guard or a police officer should have been on the tower at all times. The Taubate Provisional Detention Center for prisoners awaiting trial near Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo was opened at the end of last year and has already had one publicised escape via an underground tunnel. Brazil's prison system is plagued with breakouts and violent riots due to extreme overcrowding, lack of funds and poor pay for prison officers. Toto and the wizard of OZ escaped earlier this year.

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REPLY NEEDED(URGENT)
by AHMED SALEH 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

MR.AHMED SALEH DIRECTOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION, FEDERAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA (FAAN) LAGOS-NIGERIA. CELPHONE:234-803-3035481 ATTN:PRESIDENT/CEO I AM A DIRECTOR IN THE FEDERAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA.I SEEK THE ASSISTANCE OF A RELIABLE FOREIGN COMPANY OR INDIVIDUAL INTO WHOSE BANK ACCOUNT l CAN TRANSFER THE SUM OF US$25.5M (TWENTY FIVE MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS). THE SUM AROSE FROM THE DELIBERATE OVER INVOICING OF CONTRACTS BILLS OF SOME CONTRACTS AWARDED TO FOREIGN CONTRACTORS BY THE FEDERAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE FORMER MILITARY LEADER, GEN. SANI ABACHA WHO DIED ON 8THJUNE, 1998 AND SINCE THEN IT HAS BEEN LYING IN A SUSPENSE CURRENT ACCOUNT OF THE FEDERAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY WITH THE INTERCONTINENTAL BANK NIGERIA LIMITED. HOWEVER, THE CURRENT FAVORABLE POLITICAL/ECONOMIC CLIMATE IN THE COUNTRY PROVIDED AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THIS MONEY TO BE TRANSFERRED OUT OF THE COUNTRY WITHOUT HITCH. l HAVE PUT IN MOTION THE MACHINERY FOR THE TAKE OFF OF THIS TRANSACTION AND FURTHER ACTION WILL COMMENCE IMMEDIATELY l HEAR FROM YOU. l HAVE AGREED THAT AFTER THE TRANSFER OF THE MONEY INTO YOUR ACCOUNT, YOU SHALL BE ENTITLED TO 30% OF THE TOTAL SUM, I SHALL TAKE 65% WHILE 5% HAS BEEN MAPPED OUT TO REIMBURSE ALL LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL EXPENSES THAT MAY BE INCURRED IN THE COURSE OF THE TRANSACTION. THE NATURE OF YOUR WORK/BUSINESS IS NOT PARTICULARLY RELEVANT FOR THE SUCCESS OF THIS TRANSACTION, ALL l REQUIRED IS YOUR WILLINGNESS TO COOPERATE AND ASSURANCE THAT MY OWN SHARE WILL BE GIVEN TO ME WHEN THIS MONEY HITS YOURS ACCOUNT. ALL NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO ENSURE A NO RISK SITUATION ON THE SIDES OF BOTH PARTIES AND IT IS BELIEVED THAT THIS TRANSACTION WILL TAKE 10 WORKING DAYS TO FINALIZE. PLEASE IF THIS PROPOSAL IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, INDICATE BY RETURN MAIL. SHOULD INCASE YOU HAVE ANY QUESTION, FEEL FREE TO ASK. INCLUDE YOUR PRIVATE TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS WHILE REPLYING. I EXPECT YOUR RESPONSE. BEST REGARDS MR. AHMED SALEH.

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Military mass murderers to start dumping at sea?
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

It worked quite well for white South Africa and may have been widely used in East Timor and Argentina,whats wrong with trad mass graves? http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/23/1030052973604.html It's about Spain so there may be some spittle spray from long time trot lunatic jamesd.Switch and bait? By Giles Tremlett Madrid August 24 2002 More than 60 years after one of Europe's bloodiest civil wars, campaigners believe Spain will set up a truth commission to find out what happened to the tens of thousands of people who disappeared after being arrested by Franco's rebel forces. The commission was one of the demands made at the United Nations this week by a group of relatives of the disappeared. They also want the government to dig up and identify the corpses of 30,000 people believed to have been summarily executed by Franco's followers and buried in mass graves. The campaigners took their case to the UN's working group on forced disappearances after Spanish judges and the People's Party government refused to start the search for the bodies. Santiago Macias, of the Association for the Recovery of Historic Memory, said: "This is like the victims of Pinochet in Chile or those of Videla in Argentina. "We know who the assassins were but in this case we are not after them. What we want is the historic truth." Something jamesd is shit scared of.

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Blame RSA
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/23/1030052974105.html Net surfers refuse to stay between Beijing's flags August 24 2002 New official Net cafes offering only restricted Web access don't have the allure of unrestricted pirate cafes, writes Hamish McDonald from Beijing. There is a lull mid-afternoon in the Internet cafe in Yanjiao, a fast-growing dormitory city of new apartment blocks and shopping malls an hour's drive outside the Chinese capital. Only one web-surfer, a shirtless teenager with spikey hair dyed flamingo pink and tattoos on his shoulder, is still at his screen. Three friends lie sprawled asleep across chairs. But soon the sound of gunfire and explosions from the game of Counter-Strike he is playing, arouses the sleeping surfers. One by one, they log on and join in the interlinked combat simulation. As evening approaches, all 60 computer booths fill up with teenagers and young people. A girl in a chic sundress and pale lipstick puts on headphones and joins an online chatroom. Her friends have gone out to buy snacks for the evening. "What time is the last bus back to Beijing?" she calls out to a staff member. Officially, this cafe is closed, like all the others across Yanjiao that have "Closed for Rectification" signs in their windows. But, entered through a neighbouring shopfront and up some backstairs, the cafe is all systems go: every seat occupied, in some cases by boy and girl pairs, and air-conditioners struggling to cope with the fug of cigarette smoke and 60 young bodies. Yanjiao had a brief moment of fame last Sunday when the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper ran a front page article that showed it as a kind of Nevada for Nerds, where students from Beijing flocked for all-night benders on the Net, attracted by its low charges (two yuan or 45 cents an hour) and anything-goes atmosphere. Police raids followed on Monday but, within a day, it was business as usual in many Internet cafes. The Chinese Government's campaign to rectify the fast-growing Internet of "unhealthy" and subversive content, most recently using the pretext of a tragic fire at an unlicensed Net cafe in June that killed 25 young people, is meeting resistance at several levels. On one level, it comes from frustrated young surfers such as those at Yanjiao, who mostly access games and chatrooms, who don't have access to the Web at home (China has about 16 million Internet-linked computers, but an estimated 45 million regular surfers), and who can't afford the higher fees (around eight yuan an hour) at the few registered cafes. At another level, the issue is engaging human-rights activists. A petition circulating Beijing is calling for freedom of the Web, and it has been signed by about 200 prominent intellectuals, including the Tiananmen activist Liu Xiaobo. The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has criticised Western Internet service providers, such as Yahoo!, which have signed a "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry" promoted by Beijing in March. About 300 local and foreign companies have also signed the pledge. In a letter to Yahoo! Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth wrote: "Yahoo! would be seen in China and around the world not so much as a portal offering access to new ideas, but as a gatekeeper for an oppressive government." The company has not yet responded. New regulations for the Internet have been drafted by a panel from four ministries and approved by the State Council (the cabinet). An official in the Ministry of Culture said the new rules would be promulgated in two weeks. Just what the authorities have in mind can be seen at one of the 30 registered Net cafes allowed to open in Beijing over the past month, in place of the estimated 2400 licensed and unlicensed cafes operating before the June fire. The Internet-Coffee centre in Hongmiao is new and spacious, with well-marked fire escapes and safety equipment. Mostly young men play war games such as Counter-Strike and it has a military theme. Customers register by showing identity cards, under-18s are not allowed (except between 8am and 9pm on national holidays), and the centre shuts from midnight to 8am. Rules posted on the wall list information on bans: porn and violence, anything deemed "splittist" (ie pro-Taiwan, or supporting separatism), subversive of the communist regime or socialism, or anything "damaging the reputation of state organs". Another rule requires Net cafe proprietors to keep a log of every site accessed by each customer for 60 days, and to make it available to security officials. The computers are brand new. But they have one unusual feature: not one has an a:/ drive or CD portal, meaning customers cannot bring in their own storage discs to upload information on to the Net, or download to them either. By eliminating the anonymity of the Net cafe and preventing publication on the Net of documents, the authorities clearly hope to suppress the subversive potential of the World Wide Web. You RSA ho's will pay one day.

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Curse you Boston.
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

POLITICAL REPRESSION Aug 23 2002 The Execution of Sacco & Vanzetti: 75 Years Later When Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death on August 23, 1927, radical America wept. Despite the dedication of people from Emma Goldman to Albert Einstein and demonstrations from Paris to Portugal, the worldwide fight to save the two Italian immigrants had failed. Accused of a 1920 robbery, the anarchists were tried amidst the xenophobic and anti-leftist sentiments of Palmer-raid United States. They sat before an admittedly biased judge and were convicted contrary to evidence of their innocence. In the years following, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial became the best example of radicals in the U.S. being railroaded for their political beliefs. New Yorkers will mark the trial with a 5 p.m. memorial in Union Square on Friday. On Thursday, a teach-in a teach-in was also held. [ The Red Scares: Then & Now | A Contemporary View of the Trial and Aftermath | Infoshop.org's Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial ] http://www.indymedia.org/index.php3?newswire=open 1977 -- US: Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis proclaims "Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti Day" on the 50th anniversary of their death. See Heroes & Martyrs: Emma Goldman, Sacco & Vanzetti, & the Revolutionary Struggle, an audio CD by Howard Zinn. >"What Need Be Said" by David Wieck >Italian Anarchism in America: An Historical Background to the Sacco-Vanzetti Case by Paul Avrich >La Salute é in Voi: the Anarchist Dimension by Robert D'Attilio >The Idea of Boston: Some Literary Responses to the Sacco-Vanzetti Case by Daniel Aaron >The Governor Dukakis Proclamation all at: http://www.saccovanzettiproject.org/pages/home.html http://www.infoshop.org/sacco_vanzetti.html 1927 -- Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchist labor militants, executed in the electric chair Judge Webster Thayer, during the Sacco-Vanzetti episode, was heard to boast while playing golf, "Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards?" They are subjects of many songs, poems & books. http://www.torremaggiore.com/saccoevanzetti/intro.html http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/vanzettipoem.htm

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Shrubs chickens come home to roost.
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=199678&group=webcast Don't hate the media,become the media. "...I was at the speech. The protester (Ian Goldsmith)was a member of the SSTC (Stockton Save the Trees Coalition). He jumped up during Bush's speech in his tree costume (see photo) and began singing "don't cut me down" to the tune of the Beatle's song "Don't let me down". He was able to yell "Tree Butcher!" "Trees are people too!" and "Boycott Wood!" before being carried away by the Secret Service Goons. I don't know what happened afterwards because I had to go and bail Ian out of jail. Bush and the Chickens (english) stockton 2:16pm Fri Aug 23 '02 comment#199719 Good for you Ian and we wish you all the best of luck in the struggle for what is Right! We watched on TV and it happened in the middle of Bush's chicken ramblings. Seems Russia reneged on a deal with US to buy chickens. Then, according to Bush, the Russians agreed to deal and buy the chickens. Bush attributed this to our unique ability to unite and work together. (leaving the impression that one cannot do business with the Russians - or the Russians are backstabbers.) But my question remained unanswered - Why did the Russians not want our wonderful chickens? After all China wants our Rice. Columbia wants our coffee. Cuba wants our sugar and the world cannot live without our pineapples. Soon we will be shipping snow 'made in USA' to Siberia! Either or, end of story. Seems Russia rejected the chickens because of Health and Safety issue. (could it be e-coli?) USA backed down and agreed to tighten regulations to satisfy their requirements - and that is why the deal was finally consummated. Did you noticed that the males behind him on the podium, except for the mayor, were not wearing ties, in open shirts. My theory - to give the impression that Stockton is full of a bunch of farm yodels who worry about the size of tomatoes. I love this town. I love its diversity. Bush's stereotyping is an insult to the people. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings irrespective of race, color , or sex, are born with the equal right to share at the table of life" - Emma Goldman (and that goes for the TREES and the animals too)

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Attn Architects.
by Matthew X 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4957067%255E1… Edification, not edifices By Phillip Adams August 24, 2002 DURING rites of national passage, we colonials discuss the appropriateness of the Australian flag. Is it right to leave the Union Jack stuck in the corner, like a postage stamp on a letter addressing our thoughts back to Britain? Or is it time to do something analogous to Canada, perhaps a eucalyptic counterpart to its maple leaf? During the bicentenary, any number of brave and bold alternatives were proposed, including . . . a Dicky's towel. It was my suggestion that we unfurl a well-worn, rather frayed Dicky's on which could be seen the oily imprint of a basted sunbather, the body impressed on the fabric like the image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin. But I had to acknowledge that Mike Leunig's idea was better. What he wanted to see, waving proudly in the wind, was a sheet of galvo. Specifically, rusty galvo. Here, for the first time in history, was a flag that wouldn't need any wind to flutter in. Mike's galvanised effort would remain tumescent on even a windless day. But Leunig isn't the only person to have put galvo up the flagpole to see who saluted. The architect Glenn Murcutt is as much a man of iron as the sainted Ned Kelly or those muscular young men who run around in Kellogg's Nutri-Grain commercials. While others agonise over the national identity as it's expressed in film, theatre, poetry or painting, Murcutt tries to keep the flag flying the galvo flag in architecture. And because he's chosen to build houses rather than corporate HQs or five-star hotels (Murcutt expresses a strong preference for the horizontal over the vertical) he's done a lot less damage to the landscape than most in his profession. Which is one of the reasons he was recently anointed the 2002 Pritzker architecture prize laureate. No small thing, given that it was brought into being to "fill a hole" in the Nobel prizes. Murcutt's latest accolade led to a brief encounter on the stage of the Sydney Town Hall. I was asked to interview him on his career in front of a live audience, and we were astonished when 1500 people turned up, thus proving that architecture is increasingly significant in public debate. Just between us, architects worry me. Too many of the best and brightest recall the central character in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, being almost fascist in their authoritarianism. One Australian example (I won't mention his name because he's notoriously litigious) was responsible for one of our most important buildings and, on its completion, issued instructions for all who worked within. No one on the premises would be permitted to put anything personal in their workspace. The great man would choose the knick-knacks that would go on his desks in his offices in his building. I learned this in a letter from one of his victims complaining that she felt as if she were working in a prison. Like ambitious generals or Machiavellian bureaucrats, architects have always needed powerful patrons. They've attached themselves to pharaohs or kings or popes or tycoons or, like Albert Speer to Hitler, to dictators. Architects see themselves at the top of the cultural food chain. Not only do their buildings dwarf all other works of art making them hard to avoid but they're almost invariably an expression of cultural, political, religious or financial dominance. Yet architects, for all their self-importance, are mendicants to and boosters of the mighty. They are lap dogs to the top dogs in any given society. Murcutt is fortunate to escape this world of the all powerful. Unlike Speer, he doesn't need to be a Uriah Heep to a madman or to the other little Hitlers who, all too often, run companies or countries. He's one of the handful of architects, along with Frank Lloyd Wright, who's better known for buildings of a more domestic scale. Since Imhotep built that massive tomb for Zoser, a 5th-dynasty pharoah, famous architects have been linked with the mighty buildings pyramids, palaces, parliaments, town halls, basilicas and skyscrapers of the mighty. In historical terms, of course, these are the buildings that last. The igloo, as elegant a shape as an egg, tends to melt. The Tambaran houses of Papua New Guinea, built from leaves and branches, quickly rot in the tropical conditions. And the homes of ancient Romans and Greeks weren't as durable as the marble temples. Like the wolf huffing and puffing at the homes of the three little pigs, time huffs and puffs at the houses of humanity and they are lost forever. So if Murcutt has noble predecessors, we don't know their names. Yet their rewards have been significant, principally the avoidance of political or ideological brutalism. And if you want to think how political architecture can be, think of the immense controversies that raged over the recent rebuilding of Berlin, and at the growing controversy in New York over what to do at ground zero. Where, as in the attempt to destroy the Pentagon, architectural and cultural symbolism were turned against themselves. Should New Yorkers get their old skyline back, as many of them want? I put this question to Murcutt. And he answered by talking about the monument to the Americans who died in the Vietnam War that great diagonal slab of black marble covered with an endless list of names. He regarded it as miraculous the design had survived the disapproval it attracted. Horizontal rather than vertical. Grim rather than romantic. Murcutt would like to see something similar replace the World Trade Centre. But given Manhattan real estate prices, don't hold your breath. Murcutt's designs echo the feelings of the simple buildings he knew in PNG as a child or saw on Australian farms after his family had moved here. And that's where much of his work began, as extrapolations from barns and shearing sheds into houses that are open to the environment, the scenery, the wind. Some of his buildings sit in the landscape quite assertively, like windmills in a paddock. But others seem to hide, as camouflaged as bush critters. Well done, Glenn Murcutt. Long may your galvo flag flutter. Well done also jya for recent expose and Cryptome,a shining cypherpunk light on the hill.

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