LiP Media Blog

THiS WEEK: John Stewart calls Crossfire host "a dick" on live television, but that's the least interesting part; libidinous political blogging; an encyclopedia of white collar and corporate crime; US finishes "a strong second" in Iraq War; Indymedia being targeted; free markets & death squads; American passports to get microchipped; "How I Loved Living in the Mental Hospital;" the reality and dreams of "empire;" right wing think tanks targeting NGOs; how to tell if the water from your tap is clean; how Mary Cheney apparently hates lesbians; the new COINTELPRO; Two insightful articles about the "development" of China's economy and industrial capacity; and perhaps one of the only pieces of fiction you'll see in LiP's media picks: a subversive "Borgesian" pop-culture narrative...

This Week's Picks

1. VIDEO | John Stewart Goes on Crossfire; Speaks Truth...
   On October 15, Jon Stewart was invited to appear on Crossfire. Early on, he appealed to the Crossfire hosts: “So I wanted to come here today and say... Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America,” and closed by telling host Paul Begala: “You know what’s funny? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show. . .” All points between are just as pointed.

   http://forums.pcper.com/printthread.php?t=357345

And here’s an article about Stewart’s appearance, from the Toronto Sun:

Dumb Show Earned Below-the-Belt Barb
Last Friday afternoon, when comedian Jon Stewart called CNN Crossfire co-host Tucker Carlson a body part exclusive to men, maybe half a million viewers finally saw an honest moment on this program. Too bad. While it was not the first time ever on TV that the American media punditocracy was ripped for its failures, it was probably the most satisfying.

Antonia Zerbisias | Toronto Sun / Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1019-02.htm



2. The Adolescent Mind of Washingtonienne
   As author of the famed blog Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler gleefully published the sexual secrets of people she purports to care—and it's this, not her libido, that should incur our eye-rolling.

   Juliet Eastland | Bitch Magazine
   http://www.bitchmagazine.com/archives/09_04washington/index.shtml



3. The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
   The agency is withholding a damning report on intelligence failures before 9/11 that points at senior officials.

   Robert Scheer | AlterNet
   http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/20222/



4. The Encyclopedia of White Collar and Corporate Crime
   If we want to do something about the powerful institutions and individuals that shape our lives, we need to educate ourselves about their culture of criminality—and the public efforts to bring them to justice.

   Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman | Common Dreams
   http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1020-33.htm



5. US Finishes “A Strong Second” in Iraq War
   BAGHDAD—After 19 months of struggle in Iraq, U.S. military officials conceded a loss to Iraqi insurgents Monday, but said America can be proud of finishing "a very strong second."

   The Onion
   http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4042



6. FBI Shutdown of Indymedia Threatens Free Speech
   In a chilling attack on free speech, U.S. authorities on October 7 seized two internet servers in London belonging to the independent media network Indymedia. More than 20 Indymedia sites around the world were taken down as a result of the raid. The servers were returned on October 14, but no formal charges have been announced and no explanation has been given for the raid. Sign the solidarity statement in support of the Indymedia Network and against the seizure of its servers:

   http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk

   
   and
   
   Indymedia's Hardware is Returned, but Many Questions Remain
   On Wednesday, October 13th, Indymedia's seized hardware was mysteriously returned in the same way it disappeared—without any information provided as to who took it or why, and on whose orders. An employee at Rackspace, the U.S.-based web hosting company that handed over Indymedia's disks to the U.S. government on 7 October, emailed an Indymedia volunteer to say that the disks were returned and that "the court order is being complied with... I will pass along any more information that becomes available and that I am allowed to."

   http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/112147.shtml



7. Timeline: Under Homeland Security
   A break-down of domestic policies and practices affecting immigrants in the "war on terrorism."

   ColorLines
   http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/timeline.shtmlL



8. Free Markets and Death Squads
   Days after right-wing troops took control of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, they began attacking factory workers and sharecroppers at the behest of factory owners and large landowners.

   Ricky Baldwin | Dollars & Sense
   http://www.dollarsandsense.org/0904baldwin.html



9. Remote Access: American Passports to Get Chipped
   The United States plans to issue passports with personal data stored on radio frequency identification chips. The documents would be harder to forge, but might leave holders vulnerable to identity theft.

   Ryan Singel | Wired News
   http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65412,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1



10. My Days of Being 5150-ed: Or how I Loved Living in the Mental Hospital
    

    Jessalynn Castaneda | YO! Youth Outlook
    http://www.youthoutlook.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=a8f360ab8cf4833a910f67dde4f786f4



11. The Reality Of Empire And Campaign Rhetoric
    Try to digest radio blasts of campaign rhetoric amidst nerve-wracking traffic jams and insistent billboards. In a massive mall parking lot, designed to divert the brain from human themes, I try to understand my country's empire. The energy spent involved in avoiding promotional barrages leaves me with barely enough motivation to parse John Kerry's convex sentences or George Bush's convolutions.

    Saul Landau | ZNet
    http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-10/20landau.cfm

    
    and
    
    Dreams of Empire
    Talk of "empire" makes Americans distinctly uneasy. This is odd. In its westward course the young republic was not embarrassed to suck virgin land and indigenous peoples into the embrace of Thomas Jefferson's "empire for liberty." Millions of American immigrants made and still make their first acquaintance with the US through New York, "the Empire State." From Monroe to Bush, American presidents have not hesitated to pronounce doctrines whose extraterritorial implications define imperial authority and presume it: there is nothing self-effacing about that decidedly imperious bird on the Presidential Seal. And yet, though the rest of the world is under no illusion, in the United States today there is a sort of wishful denial. We don't want an empire, we aren't an empire—or else if we are an empire, then it is one of a kind.

    Tony Judt | The New York Review of Books
    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17518



12. Policing Civil Society
    On June 11, 2003, an international group of right wing think tanks organized a conference held at the American Enterprise Institute offices in Washington, D.C. The conference laid the ground for the launch of "NGO Watch," a website and political campaign designed to monitor and critique "liberal" U.N.-designated NGOs. This campaign will undoubtedly be applied to other nonprofits with similar liberal politics...

    Jean Hardisty and Elizabeth Furdon | The Public Eye
    http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v18n1/hardisty_ngo.html



13. Mind the Tap
    How can you tell if the H2O cascading from your faucet is clean?

    Grist Magazine
    http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2004/10/18/umbra-pipes/



14. The L Word
    Richard Kim shows that Mary Cheney has devoted her career to covering for lesbian-hating organizations.

    Richard Kim | The Nation
    http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041101&s=kim



15. FICTION | “Prisoners of Uqbaristan"
    A Borgesian pop-culture tour de force featuring Borges on the Love Boat, reality-alteration by postmodern narrative, Romulan warbirds over Argentina, Gary Coleman lookalikes, covert psyops warfare, and a talking animated George W. Bush action figure.

    Chris Nakashima-Brown | Strange Horizons
    http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041018/uqbaristan-f.shtml



16. The New COINTELPRO
    The feds are spying on—and harassing—political activists with a fury not seen since the 1960s. Early this month, the federal government launched the latest crude offensive in its so-called war on terror. Titled the October Plan, the program called for "aggressive – even obvious – surveillance" of a wide range of individuals (regardless of whether or not they're suspected of any criminal wrongdoing) until the Nov. 2 presidential election, according to an internal document leaked to the press.

    Camille T. Taiara | San Francisco Bay Guardian
    http://www.sfbg.com/39/03/cover_anniversary_cointelpro.html



17. When The Tide Goes Out, the Rocks are Revealed
    Transnationals say they’ll bring free speech to China. Yuezhi Zhao explains why they won’t.

    Yuezhi Zhao | New Internationalist
    http://www.newint.org/issue371/tide.htm

    
    and
    
    China’s Future, the World’s Future
    China is poised to become the world’s biggest oil importer and greenhouse gas polluter. A veteran China correspondent searches for signs that China might choose a greener path.

    William Brent | Yes!
    http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=1016

- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin Wiegand and Brian Awehali

THiS WEEK:Vijay Prashad, Michael Albert, Naomi Klein and Robin Kelley on getting "beyond Bush;" the renewal of psychedelic drug testing; two stellar pieces on why polls are not to be believed; interviews with Le Tigre's Kathleen Hannah, former Public Enemy front man and activist Chuck D, and filmmaker John Waters; a look at how this past year saw the creation of 51 new billionaires in the US; Vandana Shiva, breaking it all down; the Stupid White Man Quiz; and about 13 more items of merit in this 23-item double-dose of LiP Media Picks.

This Week's Picks

1. AUDIO | Beyond Bush
   Several weeks ago, activists and organizers gathered in New York city for the second Life After Capitalism Conference. Here is the opening plenary, "Beyond Bush," with Vijay Prashad, Michael Albert, Naomi Klein and Robin Kelly.

   The A-Infos Radio Project | Vancouver Cooperative Radio
   http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=10090%20



2. A Long Trip For Psychedelic Drugs
   A group of persistent scientists are struggling to renew testing of psychedelic drugs like ecstasy and psilocybin for use in combating cancer, mental disorders, and chronic headaches.

   Kristen Philipkoski | Wired News
   http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65025,00.html



3. The Numbers Game
   Election 2004: Despite mounting evidence that poll results can't be trusted, pundits and politicians continue to treat them with a reverence ancient Romans reserved for chicken entrails.

   Arianna Huffington | AlterNet
   http://www.alternet.org/election04/20105/



4. Republican Bias at Gallup?
   Connoisseurs of polling have been confused by the presidential preference polls of the last few months. Some are portraying a tight race, and others a Bush runaway. Some of the strangest numbers have been coming out of our most famous pollster, Gallup. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson | Rolling Stone

   Doug Henwood | Left Business Observer
   http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Gallup.html



5. Sex Education, John Waters-style
   Movie Mix: "I don't care what people do in bed, or if they don't do anything. I just don't think that everybody else has to feel how you feel about it, whether it's sex, religion or politics," says the director of "A Dirty Shame."

   Todd R. Ramlow | PopMatters
   http://www.alternet.org/movies/20109/



6. Global Warming: Epic Droughts Possible, Study Says
   Tree ring records suggest that if past is prologue, global warming could trigger much longer dry spells than the one now in West, scientists say.

   Bettina Boxall | Los Angeles Times
   http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1008-04.htm



7. EXCERPT | Don't You Stop: An Interview with Le Tigre's Kathleen Hanna
   Things are looking up for Le Tigre. The planet, on the other hand, needs some help

   Cori Tararoot | Pop Matters
   http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/le-tigre-041006.shtml



8. Boom Time for Billionaires
   The economy is booming again, if you're a billionaire. The new Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans has 313 billionaires—up 51 billionaires from 262 last year.

   Holly Sklar | Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
   http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1005-34.htm



9. I Never
   From Francisco Pareja’s 1613 Confessionario: A Documentary Source for Timucuan Ethnography. Pareja, a Franciscan missionary, wrote the following questions in a guidebook for converting the Timucuan Indians, who occupied large portions of what is now Georgia and Florida. The Timucua were extinct by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and much of what is known about their culture has been reconstructed using documents such as the Confessionario.

   Harper's
   http://www.harpers.org/INever.html



10. Chávez's Social Reforms Impress American Liberals
    Under the leadership of the left-wing Chávez, Venezuela has become a magnet for North American liberals and anti-globalization activists interested in learning about Latin American social movements. Chávez's reform program promises to use the country's oil revenue to reduce spiraling rates of poverty, making him a hero for anti-globalization activists and prompting a burgeoning interest in Venezuela.

    Brian Ellsworth | Florida Sun-Sentinel
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1007-09.htm



11. AUDIO | Real Wealth, Real Poverty: How Economic Globalization is Robbing the Poor of Wealth
    This stirring and important lecture by Vandana Shiva was part of the Scripps College Humanities Institute's Fall 2003 program "Poverty."

    L.A. Sound Posse | Recorded by Cheryll Roberts and Dave Adelson
    http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8203



12. Kenyan Ecologist Wins Nobel Prize
    Environmentalist Wangari Maathai of Kenya becomes the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1970s, Maathai, known as "The Tree Woman," led a campaign called the Green Belt Movement to plant tens of millions of trees across Africa to slow deforestation.

    BBC
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3726024.stm



13. Rapping the Vote: an interview with Chuck D
    The former Public Enemy front man and long-time activist talks about the political power of hip-hop.

    Jeff Chang | Mother Jones
    http://www.motherjones.com/arts/qa/2004/09/09_100.html



14. RESOURCE | RaceWire
    A new news service geared specifically to the ethnic press and its readership. Features news, features, and op-ed articles that focus on issues of race, politics, and culture in communities of color.

    ColorLines
    http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/racewire/index.html



15. The Stupid White Man Quiz
    Elites say the darnedest things...

    Mickey Z. | ZNet
    http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=6290



16. Banking on Elections: Finance sector invests heavily in candidates
    When former Texas Senator Phil Gramm came out of the Tavern on the Green one recent August morning, his disposition turned edgy. Now a vice chairman of the Swiss financial corporation UBS, he had just left his colleagues at the Financial Services Roundtable breakfast. He wasn't keen on talking to waiting journalists, certainly not to the CorpWatch team...

    Lucy Komisar | CorpWatch
    http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11553



17. Our Bodies, Ourselves: First-World Women Face Unique Environmental Threats
    A typical American woman—let’s call her Sara—wakes up to the sound of her toddler crying from the crib. She decides to make coffee and reaches for a paper filter that could leach dioxin. She’s heard dioxin causes women’s health problems but didn’t have time to buy the unbleached kind.

    Melissa Knopper | E Magazine
    http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2019



18. Documents Reveal Gaps in Bush’s Service as President
    The most damning documents were generated at roughly one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this week...House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) is one of many Republicans who demanded an independent investigation into the authenticity of the documents. "We're fairly confident that these so-called 'news stories' will turn out to be partisan smear tactics," DeLay said. "I wouldn't be surprised if all 11 billion of these words turn out to be forgeries."

    The Onion
    http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4039



19. Remembering Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004)
    As a "threshold person," a nepantlera, Anzaldúa moved among worlds in her art, her politics, and her spirituality.

    Mickey Z. | ZNet
    http://www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview/archive/2004/10/highlt.html#keating



20. Another Lapse of Journalistic Integrity at The New York Times
    Here at LiP, we've never held the NYTimes up as some hallowed ground of journalistic integrity. But still...The Times Magazine recently published an article entitled “The Autonomist Manifesto (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road)." It is arguably the most pro-suburban sprawl article ever published in a major American newspaper. But the quality of its information is abysmal.

    Joel S. Hirschhorn | Common Dreams
    http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0928-13.htm



21. Who are the Progressives In Iraq?
    The Left, the Right, and the Islamists...

    Frank Smyth | Foreign Policy in Focus
    http://www.fpif.org/papers/0409progiraq.html



22. EXCERPT | Taqwacores
    From a novel of the same name that depicts day-to-day life in a Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York. Characters include Rabeya, a burqa-clad riot grrl; Umar, a straightedge Sunni; Muzammil Sadiq, who struggles against orthodox Islamic homophobia; and Jehangir Tabari, a drunken Sufi saint who dreams of putting on a Muslim Punk show in Buffalo.

    Michael Muhammad Knight | Autonomedia
    http://www.muslimwakeup.com/sex/archives/000937.php#more



23. Can We Live Without Oil?
    Some of the most effective ways to cut our dependence on oil are startlingly simple. Here are 10 "cool technologies" that may make it happen.

    Yes! Magazine
    http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=1012

- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin Wiegand and Brian Awehali