Moving house: True's new domain

True is moving to a new domain. Alas, all the 550-plus old posts will have to stay behind but friends can always come back here to http://www.truenorthgm.blogspot.com to enjoy them all over again or use the labels to look up all entries under a topic of interest.
In future, you can also look to more changes, such as hiring an editor and spending more time on research and investigation as we seek alliances with other progressive blogs and websites across Minnesota and nationwide.
This sea change began after True attended the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis in June and was inspired by Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, Arianna Huffington, Naomi Klein, Louise Erdrich, Amy Klobuchar, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Jonathan Adelstein, Medea Benjamin, Byron Dorgan, Keith Ellison, Amy Goodman, Caroline Fredrickson, Robert Greenwald, Joel Kramer , John Nichols, and a hundred more progressive media luminaries who came together with 3,500 bloggers and activists to generate a truly independent and free press on the Internet as the print media is dying, strangulated by big corporate owners. The Owners have two agenda items: 1) suck the newspapers dry to feed huge proft margins and 2) get rid of all the best, most experienced journalists and replace them with Infotainment and Lite News so that nobody out there can possibly get any real news.
So, please, old friends, keep in touch with the New True at http://www.truenorthgm.com/ as we work toward an improved web site and more news coverage.

Thankful for Harbor Friends

True, a card-carrying charter member of Harbor Friends, is thankful for the selfless hard work by the dedicated founders. These folks have virtually single-handedly saved the Grand Marais Harbor as well as the RV Park and Campground from a takeover by misguided folks who would rather see a Bayfield-style marina in our tiny harbor than an eclectic shared space for campers, boaters, birders, rock skippers, hikers, and everybody else who loves Grand Marais. It wasn't an easy struggle and the Friends got grant support to show that a mega-marina was not likely to be successful based on a study of other marinas around Lake Superior.
Some recent letters about the Friends in the papers have delegated the level of public dialogue to somewhere near the scum layer in my septic tank. So, you didn't like the anti- snowmobile- skipping campaign by the Friends? Hmm, neither did True. But, that's only one issue and not a biggie at that, not like devastating the Grand Marais harbor with a mega-marina that would eat up all the RV Park and campground space for boaters' parking and send all revenue to the DNR. Not like allowing the city to dump toxic landfill in harbor wetlands or overturning the conservation easements adopted to protect the harbor permanently....
All of this, the Harbor Friends have saved us from, us being a public interest that reaches far beyond the nearsighted few who put dibs on the "process" and refused to allow any other public input.
One writer this week brings his old grudge forward as if it is relevant to snomo skipping, sniping at the Friends even though the marina issue has now been resolved by the city in a good way that benefits everybody. The writer conveniently forgets that the process was deeply flawed by rejecting public input, and that there would have been no Harbor Friends without a great outpouring of concern and longing to protect the harbor beloved by city, county and statewide residents.
Another letter writer who doesn't like the Harbor Friends decided to attack the lifestyle of its president, Lonnie Dupre. How mean-spirited, how petty, how unkind, and how inappropriate. Stick to the issues, folks, and stick to the facts.
Public dialogue needs to be respectful and thoughtful. Most newspapers recognize this and have standards for publishing letters. True doesn't only blame the letter writers; the papers ought to have more sense than to publish letters that exceed the bounds of decency and fair play and ignore or deny the reality of a broad public consensus regarding the harbor that belongs to all of us who love it.
Thank you, Friends.
True

Free press in Cook County?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
called the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1789

"Go now, and tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From your Web sites and laptops,tell it. From the street corners and the coffee house, tell it. On campus and at the mall, tell it. Tell it at the synagogue, sanctuary, and mosque. Tell it. Tell it where you can, when you can, and while you can. Tell America what we need to know--and we just might rekindle the patriot's dream."
-Bill Moyers, keynote address
National Conference on Media Reform
Minneapolis, June, 2008

Cook County is blessedly free of corporate-dominated media. Oh ya sure, the News Herald is owned by a media group but it's not Fox, not Murdoch, not even a very big player in the control-of-information game that was invented by the neocons who now control all three branches of the U.S. government--at which the founders would turn over and rise up from their grave to peaceably assemble and protest.
Lucky, yes, but well-served for the 21st century? True says no. Mind you, True is only a humble, ragtag collective. But She formed in response to a gap between the grapevine and the published Word a couple years back when Grand Marais was being invaded by Big Developers. That issue was happily resolved, to the benefit of most if not all.
New issues emerge, however, in our 21st century where technology daily changes the nature of the "press" even as most information is not now printed but rather published in cyberspace. And our backward local "press" have not joined the free and open Internet where anybody, anywhere can google something like "Poplar River impairment" and get all the published news articles from the local angle. Well, once we could get it from the News Herald but now it has gone private and you have to sign away your life story and pay money just to see an article. As for the Star, they are SO 20th century, you just have to save a copy of every paper.
And even here in our cozy little county our media have more serious limitations than Internet access. Let's name them:
The Star, the News Herald and WTIP are beholden to advertisers. Once the News Herald did editorials about issues in Cook County but now, nobody does.
WTIP is the emerging leader in comprehensive and substantive news coverage. They do a great job, covering issues and meetings that neither paper seems to manage to attend or explore.
But nobody gives us a big picture, nobody tries to put it all together (even inadequately, which would be a start), nobody fills in the gaps between the gossip mill and the deep truth.
Outsiders, even summer residents, can read and listen to every word but they still can't figure out what is really going on. That's partly because covering meetings, the basic stuff of the three branches of media, doesn't tell the stories but only describes the meetings.
OK, let's get specific, with a couple of examples.
1) The new major issue in Cook County is the big plans for development of Lutsen Mountain into an Aspen-like monstrosity. While this huge proposed travesty of the Cook County development ordinance looms large as an even greater threat than turning Grand Marais into a huge marina with Disney condos, there is scarcely a peep about it in the news.
2) Directly related to the Mountain Megalomania is the impairment of the Poplar River and the big misinformation being disseminated freely in both papers by--you guessed it--the OWNERS of Lutsen Mountain, who call themselves the "Poplar River Mangement Board." The irony here is that although these guys could well afford to BUY a page in both papers, they got it for free, in direct conflict with the policies that opinions and letters be strictly limited in word count. True will be exploring the Poplar River issues, trying to sift Truth from Sediment, in future posts.
But the point is, nobody else is looking at the big picture here, or taking any kind of a stand. Certainly not the county board which dances around and dodges with silly stuff about the legality of a special tax district that would force other Poplar River landowners to pay for the damage wreaked by the Lutsen Mountain owners, or the Lutsen Town Board that agrees to anything they want.
And here is the great failing of the media: what the Founders feared most when they wrote the First Amendment: that people can't make informed decisions without all the information. Both papers have printed full-page ads purporting to be "facts" by Lutsen Mountain owner Tom Rider. NOBODY has bothered to do any fact-checking.
Editorials have two purposes: one, to engage a public discussion and two, to bring a truthful perspective to the slipshod, piecemeal and disconnected stories that make up the daily news. We badly need them here, even without Rupert Murdoch's blockade of any facts at all.

Mr. True goes to Minneapolis (reprise: Mr. Smith goes to Washington)

Yes! True is going to join his lifelong media heroes in Minneapolis next weekend. Dan Rather, Bill Moyers, Katrina Van der Heuvel and a hundred more who, like the late great Molly Ivins, weren't afraid to speak the truth. For True it is like a Catholic gaining audience with the Pope, like a Daydream Believer as Homecoming Queen, like a lowly sadhaka in the presence of the Dalai Lama.

The National Conference for Media Reform on June 6th through 8th will focus on challenges to that Free Press that the Bill of Rights guaranteed. Nobody ever foresaw Rupert Murdoch, or big corporate takeovers of the formerly free press.

There are huge media issues in Cook County as well as everywhere else.... True hopes to bring the inspiration of the greatest journalists in his lifetime. So important to True, that he will be sleeping in his car.... Hey! It costs $150 per night minimum to stay downtown by the Convention Center.

Your True Correspondent

"My religion is kindness": US MSM strikes out again

The Dalai Lama is the most honored being on the planet, whether the US MSM knows it or not (mostly not). This holy man has sought a peaceful solution for his native Tibet by all nonviolent means for nearly 50 years of repressive rule by China. During that time he has never neglected his students. He has been tireless in his teaching of love for all sentient beings. "My religion is kindness," he once said.
This holy sage is being dissed by the Beijing government: not a new thing but escalated as the Tibetan people rise up against Chinese oppression as the Olympics draw near. The Dalai Lama will never associate himself with violent protest no matter what the Chinese propagandists say.
The US MSM has mostly reported that China is putting down "violent protests" against Chinese rule of Tibet. Although many Americans honor and revere the Dalai Lama, the Bus$cos don't want any interference with trade with China. Several news reports have quoted the spiritual leader of Tibet as barely speaking English. True knows this is bullshit, having read several books he has written about Buddhist philosophy. These erudite tomes would glaze over the eyes of your average MSM American journalist looking for the sleazy angle. They are filled with the wisdom of the Buddha and they aren't sound bites for the evening news.
Look, then, to this UK report on the truth, as mirrored by the rest of the world. No one alive is holier than the Dalai Lama. No one speaks more forcefully on behalf of peaceful dialogue. No one else declares a love for all sentient beings, especially those who Americans like to hunt, kill and eat.

Dalai Lama: "I Am Prepared to Face China. I Will Go to Beijing"
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent UK

Friday 21 March 2008

As crisis over Tibet deepens, Dalai Lama makes extraordinary offer to negotiate directly with President Hu Jintao.

Dharamsala - Almost half a century after he fled to India, the Dalai Lama has raised the extraordinary prospect of travelling to Beijing and holding face-to-talks with the Chinese regime in an effort to resolve Tibet's most serious crisis for two decades.

Having watched helplessly from exile as his Tibetan homeland has suffered under Chinese rule, the man regarded as a living god by millions of his followers said yesterday that he was ready to negotiate personally with the Chinese leadership. The Dalai Lama, 73, acknowledged the difficulty associated with a face-to-face summit, but said he was even ready to meet President Hu Jintao, notorious in Tibet for his hardline approach when he served as Tibet's local Communist leader. "I am always ready to meet the Chinese leaders, and particularly Hu Jintao. I am very happy to meet," he told a small group of journalists at his office in Dharamsala. "But as I mentioned earlier, to go to Beijing and meet leaders... that would be big news. Many Tibetans would think... may develop some unrealistic expectations. I have to think very carefully."

While a visit to Beijing would leave him open to criticism of appeasing the Chinese, the undertaking the Dalai Lama gave yesterday underlines his desperate wish to avoid further bloodshed in the country of his birth.

Seeking to put pressure on China, he said he was willing to travel to Beijing in a matter of weeks if there was a "concrete indication" that the Chinese authorities were prepared to negotiate and if the protests in Tibet had concluded. His spokesman later confirmed that while he did not wish to simply provide the Chinese with a photo-opportunity that could be used against him, he was ready to discuss a "mutually agreeable solution" to the issue of Tibet.

The remarkable prospect of a summit between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese leadership - either in Beijing or elsewhere - came as China said police had opened fire and wounded four Tibetan protesters in Sichuan province and arrested dozens of others who had ignored a deadline to end the most serious demonstrations to rock Tibet for more than two decades.

Earlier this week, the Chinese leadership indicated it would be prepared to talk to the Dalai Lama if he stopped "separatist activities" and recognised Tibet and Taiwan as parts of China. Gordon Brown told the Commons on Wednesday that the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, had told him he was ready to meet the Dalai Lama if he renounced violence. But assessing the genuine intentions of the Chinese leadership remains at best a guessing game. Beijing is concerned about sullying its reputation ahead of the upcoming Olympic Games, but while giving an undertaking to meet the Dalai Lama, various Chinese officials have continued to demonise him and accuse him and his "clique" of orchestrating the demonstrations in Tibet.

"For the Dalai Lama, we not only listen to what he says, but more importantly, we focus on what he does," said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang. "He has said he is not a separatist. But all of his propositions and actions prove that he has never stopped his splittist words and deeds."

The Dalai Lama knows his only real leverage as head of a Tibetan government in exile is in winning over international opinion to his cause. Today he is due to meet Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, while tomorrow he is scheduled to have lunch with the actor Richard Gere in Delhi. Both have supported him for many years.

Winning the backing of camera-friendly celebrities and power-wielding politicians has long been the strength of the smiling and avuncular 1989 Nobel laureate. Laughing, joking and yet utterly serious all in the space of a sentence, this is a role he continues to play to perfection as the cause to which he has devoted his life receives unprecedented world attention. Never more than now has he needed to stress the importance of non-violent protest and the limited nature of the movement's demands.

"The Chinese constitution already mentions autonomy [for Tibet]. So that should not be just a word on paper but implemented on the spot," he said, sitting in front of a statue of the Buddha. "The whole world knows Dalai Lama is not seeking independence, one hundred times, a thousand times I have repeated this. It is my mantra - we are not seeking independence."

In Beijing, the authorities admitted for the first time that the often violent protests that swept through Lhasa 10 days ago in protest against Chinese rule had spread to other Tibetan communities in additional provinces. Subsequently, the government has dispatched more troops and paramilitaries across the region as it seeks to reassert its control in those areas. It has banned the media and foreign tourists from travelling to the region.

Precisely how many people have been killed or injured as a result of the protests and the subsequent crackdown is unclear. The Chinese government says 16 people have died while the Tibetan exiles say the number stands at 80. On walls and buildings throughout Dharamsala, exiles have posted graphic and disturbing photographs of Tibetans apparently killed by Chinese police or soldiers.

"It's horrible. There are many bodies. The Chinese are holding the bodies," claimed Tenzin Thangh, who was participating in a candlelit vigil through the main street of the town - a procession that has become a nightly occurrence. "The soldiers are going into all parts of Tibet."

>From Dharamsala, a former British hill station established on the peaceful fringe of the Himalayas, Chinese accusations regarding the Dalai Lama's ability to direct events in Tibet and the description of him as "a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast", appear little short of preposterous. Indeed, his cautious "middle way" approach has been criticised by some Tibetans, including the Tibetan Youth Congress which seeks full independence from China. While many younger Tibetans have been outspoken in their criticism of the Dalai Lama's tactics, in recent days they have halted such comments in an apparent effort not to appear divided at a crucial juncture.

What certainly does not seem in doubt is the reverence with which he is held as the community's religious leader. Before meeting reporters yesterday, the Dalai Lama spent time in the flower-filled gardens of the compound receiving and blessing various visitors, including a family who had travelled secretly from Shanghai.

Asked later how he felt about the personal insults that Chinese officials had directed towards him, he said such comments mattered little to him. He also said he did not believe that the international community was taken in by what the Chinese said.

"As a Buddhist monk, it does not matter what they call me," he said with a chuckle. "The outside world doesn't believe that I am [a] devil."

A man's house is his castle?

The feds are spying on us, our phone and email conversations, and we can't get a driver's license or a post office box without providing our physical address location. What happens to that information? For a fee, anybody on the Internet can get it....
So True was dismayed to find another privacy leak courtesy of Cook County. ANYBODY, that's right, anybody, can pull up your name, property identification number, taxpayer information, property information and assessed property value.
Who lobbied for this Big Brother privacy invasion? Realtors? Collection agencies? Or maybe the NSA (for those of you who don't know: the NSA spies on all of us, all of the time, with no oversight, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al who nonetheless delete all of their own computer hard drives so we can't find out what THEY are doing about, say, torture memos, firing of federal attorneys who don't agree with them, big big payouts to crony corporations, lies to the media, to name only a few of their crimes....)
Please, dear Cook County, DON'T make it easier for anybody to invade my privacy. And WHY are you only announcing this new travesty of individual rights after the fact?
True

Relaxing with the Sunday paper: It's the news, stupid

How astonishing that only 40 percent of Americans know that nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq so far. If that is the case I imagine far fewer know that over a million Iraqis have died, mostly civilians, and four million have been displaced. Or that returning soldiers have huge suicide rates and are refused treatment for PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder for you dummies). Or that to the rest of the world the United States is synonymous with torture and unilateral aggression against other sovereign nations.
Ya ya, Fox news is a Repug mouthpiece and the MSM parrot the Bushcos. But, even an ordinary reader of the Sunday paper should know how many soldiers have died in Iraq. Even dummies ought to figure out that the Iraq war was a disaster which will also cripple our children's generation with debt, and that the impending war of aggression with Iran orchestrated by our nutty right wing neocons who welcome the Apocalypse will ignite a new world war with superpowers Russia and China against us. What IS it with you, amigos?
Hmm, reading on in the new Strib Lite, there's a story about how folks are leaving their houses behind so they can make their car and credit card payments. Say, what? Isn't that deja vu Depression all over again? Why aren't people asking that question? If you can make your own house payment, do you just blow it off?
Another story, about Tibet:
The repressive Chinese government is blaming the victim, not to mention killing them and rounding them up into jail. The Chinese regime has refused to acknowledge Tibetan Buddhism ever since their 1951 coup and takeover of this small country in the Himalayan mountains. The Dalai Lama, the holiest person on the planet, who now "rules" his worldwide constituencies of faith from Dharamsala, India, is being blamed for the violence perpetrated by the Chinese. Buddhits devotees and monks are imprisoned for their nonviolent protests. Look more closely at the photos: the monks are in pain on account of the "violence" by the Chinese police with their night sticks and guns.
People will rise up when their deepest beliefs are subjugated (except in the modern-day US of A where the pioneers have morphed into limp wimps who cave at the bogey "terrists"). This is sorta mentioned in the LiteStrib story but like everything else the MSM reports it favors the party line. In this case, the Chinese party line.... And who will stand up for the peace-loving Tibetans in the press? So far, nobody. Not even the groupies who reverently attend appearances by the Dalai Lama around the world, and who listen to his wise and loving message of peace to all beings.
Soldiering on, as we move into the afternoon and toss the junk pages that could have saved a couple acres of rainforest: Readers learn how fed reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is "improvising" and making "bold moves" to save the U.S. economy. Hmph. Jumping ahead: On Monday it appears that the latest bold move bails out Wall Street mega-giant Bear Stearns to the tune of billions, just a little blip, while children go without health care, our infrastructure crumbles and collapses, and people don't have jobs. Even AP reported this news but maybe you missed it on Fox.....
We get the government we deserve. True admits it is harder to get the real news now but it is the duty of us citizens to try. You just have to actually read the paper and skip front page which might as well be what we used to call the "Women's Page," back in the day.
The people divided will always be defeated. The people, stupid, will always be conned.
True

It's good because it's good

Recently my nephew Eric turned eight years old and for the occasion I gave him some removable tattoos and $30 in cash. By email he sent his thanks. He was saving the money towards a Wii, whatever that is, which he was sure he would be getting soon. "It's good because it's good," he wrote about my gift.
A couple of days ago, a reader accused me of being "Syndical" in response to my post, "America the Beautiful." I interpreted this to mean a combination of sinful and cynical. The post was about my longing for an idealized America and my frustation and grief at how the Bush administration has systematically destroyed all the best. I'm a Woody Guthrie kind of guy, a "This Land is Your Land" sing-a-longer. I'm a peacenik, a tree-hugger, a Buddhist and a vegetarian. But not a cynic or a sinner, I hope. My heroes are Cindy Sheehan and the Dalai Lama, who are just so good because they are good.
Anonymous and my nephew got me to thinking. There's a lot of stuff in Grand Marais and Cook County that is good because it's good.
For one, our transparent and responsive City Council. It's such a relief to know that they represent the voters, that they resist demands for inappropriate development, that if they have a conflict of interest they don't vote. I don't have to agree with every single action or vote to rest easy, because their interest is the public interest. Thanks, City Council!
Two, we are so blessed to have Harbor Friends. Always vigilant, these watchdogs caught the nasty infill of two harbor wetlands sites. The city is even now removing the landfill and restoring the wetlands. Thanks! I don't think it is too Syndical to ask who threw assorted junk in the first place. This has not been mentioned in any press reports. I am just curious.
Hey! Snowmobiles without mufflers skipping all over the harbor on the 4th of July? Well, as my mom used to say, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Sometimes a little live-and-let-live goes a long way.
Three, I am so delighted by the joint city-county decision to hire a housing coordinator. The Housing Study (previously reported on True) is a most excellent document and the joint decision to implement its findings deserves high praise. Everything we care about, we who live here, depends on the availability of housing for the young families, the working poor, the year-round residents, the senior citizens and retirees who give and have given so much to our history, culture, arts and well-being.
Four, WTIP continues to surpass itself in its outstanding coverage of local news. I dips me hat. Volunteer-driven, it still manages to achieve world-class coverage. BBC news every morning? You don't even get that on MPR. Hint: It's their fund drive. Please join up.
We are so lucky to live here. But having these fabulous resources: City Council, joint city-county affordable housing advocates, Harbor Friends and amazing radio coverage isn't just about luck. It's about people who care enough to make a difference.
True

Maureen Dowd | A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy

Here is True's blog pick for today.... Cheney being smarter than Bush (despite flunking out of Yale while Daddy's boy sailed through on Daddy's largesse), he is a much greater danger to the republic and the constitution.....
I wish people would wake up and act against the neocon terrorists who are destroying all that the nation has stood for. It's a replay of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
True

Maureen Dowd A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy

News Herald parent sold to Dallas media group

Yikes! Dallas, Texas: the site of the JFK assassination, the boiling center of the super-right-wing-oil rich and their anti-democracy agenda. Texas, the home of the lawless cowboy prez whose brother stole the election in Florida that brought him to office, whose wealthy entitlement family roots have convinced him that he deserves to end up on home plate without actually running around the bases.
Our wonderful, 117-year old Cook County News Herald, which has managed to survive intact despite many previous acquisitions after an un-named and unlamented owner sold out to the highest bidder a few years back.
But the local staff have soldiered on, despite staff cuts and long hours to the profit of the new owners. They have if anything raised the news coverage, as well as the photos and page layout, to an unprecedented high.
Well. Perhaps it won't matter what media conglomerate takes over next, so long as the local folks still put the paper together. This sort of takeover acquisition of newspapers in recent years is virtually universal. We can only hope for the best here in Cook County...
But, for all small local newspapers, it is not for the best that rich conglomerates take them over. Cui bono? Read the Duluth story below:
True


· Duluth News Tribune ·

On Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan is that one person who changed the world. When her son Casey died in Iraq she asked Dubya repeatedly why he died: For what noble cause? She was just a pest when she started out and Dubs brushed her easily aside. But today her devotion has brought the US and the world to ask the same questions: What noble cause?
Cindy did not relent when the Dems caved, providing funds without limits for the Iraq war to the crazed "Decider." She will never relent, and nor will True.
But, it hurts when your own base throws mud on you. It really hurts especially when you have given every penny, and every ounce of energy that you have to stop this insane, immoral, unjust, and yes, evil, war....
Check out this story about Cindy... Cindy, my heroine, my saint, my inspiration, and just another human being who needs us to stand up and be counted for peace.


On Cindy Sheehan - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

AlterNet: War on Iraq: One-Third of Troops in Iraq Support Torture, Majority Condone Mistreating Innocent Civilians

Our soldiers are our children, and we love them.....
They would never sanction torture unless they were mesmerized by propaganda. War is hell. Over all the centuries we know about the cruelty of the predators and conquerors is well documented.
In future the people of America will be dismayed at the shattering of Iraqi society sponsored by the Bush administration.... Our beloved former president Jimmy Carter finally announced that the emporer is stark naked.
Please, people, don't let the Dem cave-in stop us from standing firm against an immoral, illegal and tragic war...



AlterNet: War on Iraq: One-Third of Troops in Iraq Support Torture, Majority Condone Mistreating Innocent Civilians

We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Even though True predicted the Dems would cave, the pain remains just the same.... True's heart is broken, for those whose lives will be lost, who will be maimed in both body and spirit, and who will be totally innocent victims of the Iraq civil war.
Apparently the will of the American people is not subject to elections. Last November it was made perfectly clear: end the war in Iraq.
The Dems we elected caved. It is a dark day.


We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Vote Alert: Dick Cheney Dems Plan to Hide Votes On Iraq - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Oh, Cook County,
The personal is the political.... please don't act like Pelosi and Hillary and just play along... please keep informed with articles like this excellent one:

Vote Alert: Dick Cheney Dems Plan to Hide Votes On Iraq - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Democrats Cave on Timetable

True really really hates to say I told you so. What the hell did we elect these bozo Dems for? They are lily-livered cowards and just as beholden to special interests as the evil Repugs.
Some Americans and thousands of Iraqis will die because the Dems have no guts. Billions more will be spent that could better be applied to our desperate domestic needs. Hatred of our country will multiply without limits.
The people of the United States will .... what? Cave like those Deficient Dems? or, Just Say No to more evil, unjust, stupid war.....
With just the faintest hope from True


Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Democrats Cave on Timetable

With New Embassy, US Presence in Iraq Appears Permanent

Hello, Cook County,
Thought you might like to know that the US is looking to a permanent presence in Iraq. Can you say, stolen oil revenues? permanent military bases? global imperialism?
Check out this story:

With New Embassy, US Presence in Iraq Appears Permanent

GAO Says Homeland Security is Breaking Privacy Laws

What kind of country do we want to live in? I won't be flying to Hawaii like one of our luminous locals who found herself on the No-Fly list due to no fault of her own.
Well, I AM at fault in my unflagging criticism of this administration and its policies that increase terrorism and insecurity and death and dislocation and destruction and torture and hatred in our world. So, if I go, it will be across the border to Canada and I won't be coming back.
True

GAO Says Homeland Security is Breaking Privacy Laws

Rovian Reich dismantles social contract, health and safety oversight, including Pure Food

Okay, we know that the Rovians and their ultra-right think tankers have been trying to dismantle democracy, worker protections, Medicare, Social Security, environmental protection and just about every other domestic policy enacted during the 20th century in response to the excesses of the robber barons, the depression, and the preference of the rich to enrich themselves further at everybody else's expense like the emperors of old. They have reached the pinnacle of achievement under the Bushco junta by squelching a free media, stealing elections, stomping on individual rights, and privatizing even their illegal wars with obscene profits to shadow outfits like Blackwater and Hallibuton. But their greatest success has been achieved by installing incompetents in every federal oversight agency so that disasters like Katrina help to worsen the plight of those who might vote against them.
We know all this. But are we prepared for them to kill us by poisoning our food supply? After all, everybody has to eat, not just welfare queens and labor union members.
In the bad old days, 100 or so years ago, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair exposed lots of bad behavior in the Chicago meat-packing industry. True recalls reading about this in elementary school and being very shocked that rats, sawdust, cigarette butts and other unmentionables got stuffed into sausages.
But I don't recall reading that people were dying of E. coli in their spinach or peanut butter back in those utterly unregulated times. No, we can thank the Reich for that. They have gutted the Food and Drug Administration so severely that there is no way they can protect the food supply, even when they know (as they did in both recent cases) that there are serious problems. 101 years later, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 is slated to go the way of the horse-and-buggy. That will be one of the high spots of the "Bush Legacy."
True

ATVers Steal the Peace

True,

If the CCStar would once display some objectivity, some balance in their reporting and choice of letters I wouldn't write this weekly digression but , here we go again: if there are no letters that disagree with the pro ATV view of the paper it is either 1) anyone disagreeing is not likely to be published, or 2) those in disagreement don't bother writing to the CCStar because it is a waste of time.

Thomas Bernier writes that Cascade Beach Rd is noisy because of semis on 61 so we should put up with the additional noise of ATVs. Really. If you are having difficulty with the existing noise level it is OK to add to it because you are already disturbed? Really! I live a mile and a half back from 61 and the trucks don't make as much noise as the ATVs. I suppose I should invite the truckers to drive closer to me because the ATVs are already disturbing my peace! Sorry Tom, that analogy doesn't cut it. But you did ask if I ever "read the safety warnings in your motor vehicle"? Well, yes, Tom, I have and if ATVs met 10% of my motor vehicles safety standards I might be more accepting of them sharing road space with me. But, Tom, ATVs are exempt from almost every safety standard applied to road vehicles because they are not designed for road use, so, no, I am not willing to share the road with them.

Brian Silence suggests that since fatalities on the ski hill have been greater than fatalities illegally riding ATVs on the road we should allow ATVs the opportunity to challenge those casualties by permitting them to legally compete! Yes, Brian, there are risks in every activity, but the usual response is to try to REDUCE that risk, not increase it. And, Brian, I am glad you can laugh, and I hope you can laugh at yourself as Clyde's comments are at least statistically defensible, looking at who was at the meeting only tells you who was at the meeting, not how bright or how financially secure they are.

I think a quick and thorough search of economic data will support the thought that silent sports in general contribute far more to the area than the noisy sports and with less negative impact, and that birders are on the high end of that scale. But this isn't a laughing matter, Brian, it has serious impacts on a lot of lives up here, not just for the convenience of a few but for the impact the noise, added pollution, and added damage to the landscape has on all of us. The reason many of us have chosen Grand Marais is that it was a peaceful haven, an outpost of wilderness, a community of arts. If you like the noise, if you like the interaction of motorheads, if you like the cacophony of a mechanized society: live in the TC metro area. Me, I love big cities with their hustle and bustle, but only for short periods, for relief I live in Grand Marais, don't try to steal that from me.

fastjerry

C C Star Keeps Pushing ATVs, Sacrificing Credibility

The CC Star does it again. And again and again and again. This weeks edition contains a lead story about the ATV meeting at the county board: one certainly could came away thinking this was an event of millennial proportions, that we are on the cusp of a whole new era in transportation comparable to the dawn of the automobile society and perhaps on par with the invention of the wheel itself.

In fact one might get the impression that the wheel was invented FOR the ATV. One also might believe (if you weren't there) that the ATV crowd was overly generous in their hospitality to the tiny bunch of oddballs that just can't accept the inevitable progress of the "infernal" compression engine, and, oh yeah, we'll let "one" anti ATVer sit on the committee especially since it is otherwise so stacked with pro ATVers they couldn't possibly come up with even a compromise proposal.

If you believe THAT report, you probably could be convinced that the National Enquirer is a solid scientific journal, or that the world is flat.

Simply put, that article is one of the worst (or best?) examples of yellow journalism I've come across outside the National Review. It is advocacy journalism at its most stellar: the CC Star is not really a newspaper; rather it is the newsletter of the ATV club that happens to occasionally carry some news.

The paper's fact finding, use of made up statistics, and pseudo science are a monumental testimony to the misinformed, and yet they get to stuff it, wanted or not, into our mailboxes every week. Bill O'Reilly would cringe at calling it fair and balanced reporting; I'd need to get a caged bird to make appropriate use of it, or maybe I could go fishing.

Fastjerry