I Just Called To Say I Love You

Stevie Wonder
(There are reasons why I love Stevie Wonder)

No New Year's day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact here's just another ordinary day

No April rain
No flowers bloom
No wedding Saturday within the month of June
But what it is, is something true
Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

No summer's high
No warm July
No harvest moon to light one tender August night
No autumn breeze
No falling leaves
Not even time for birds to fly to southern skies

No Libra sun
No Halloween
No giving thanks to all the Christmas joy you bring
But what it is, though old so new
To fill your heart like no three words could ever do

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care, I do
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart
Of my heart,
...... of my heart

Interesting Conversation

I just had a conversation with someone I know, who is also from Chicago and just went back for the Christmas break. When I asked how he was enjoyed the city, the response was "I'm not." This befuddled me a bit--how can you not enjoy being in the city? Especially as there are pubs, clubs, museums, art, music, all sort of culture. So on probing further he let on that he did not like hanging out in the city because he didn't know anyone and he also didn't like going out to bars and drinking alone. I find this response quite interesting, as I so enjoy my anonymity. I love being a nameless face in a crowd...just another wild, carefree dancer,singer,actor on that stage of Cosmopolitan living. Mind you, I do enjoy having my name and I want to be known-- I want to be recognized.....but then also I simply enjoy throwing on my cloak and wandering the streets exploring and discovering the indefinite beauty of the unknown.

I was just thinking about this one time when I went to lunch with someone, a friend of mine--who had claims to being a progressive. That day when I met him for lunch though he was dressed head to toe in designer, expensive clothes that just said "I am a bourgeois capitalist." It was an interesting moment.

South Africa Spreading Light

A tremendous step in the world as South Africa becomes the fifth nation to legalize gay marriage.

Bush is quoted by ABC News as saying that terrorists "want to attack America again and kill the innocent and inflict even greater damage" than four years ago. "Congress has a responsibility not to take away this vital tool that law enforcement and intelligence have used." Talk about scare rhetoric. Please pick this apart. And alas,I find it utterly reprehensible and absurd that this man would DARE to go before the public and justify his allowing for wiretapping and covert spying operations as "dire to our national security. This is even worse than Richard Nixon or J.Edgar Hoover ever were. Someone needs to start making cracks in this goddamned system.

I think Russ Feingold has some integrity.

The Senate Has Some Integrity!

Kudos to the Senate for standing up to this goat in the white house(that should never be capitalized again)and refusing to reaffirm the Patriot Act!

There is no good food in Lafayette. The best place for a hamburger though is Chumleys.

Bush does however allow for COINTELPRO activities to occur, including spying on people in the United States(including those called citizens). This we do believe. This man needs to loose his penis.

Bush signs on to the torture ban. Does anyone believe this bullshit
?

I so enjoyed my classes this semester and especially my class at Ivy tech. It was beautiful and always a learning experience. Its always sad to see a semester end....

There is this boy that I see all of the time. He is arab--full, beautiful lips.. gorgeous body.... my mouth waters when I see him. God forbid I could definitely ravish him...alas, he is terribly straight....so far....

France had two Josephines, both beautiful, gorgeous women--magnificent with an animallike magnetism to them that attracted the attention and admiration of all. One, the granddaughter of a martiniqan slave and the wife of a Corsican general, the other the daughter of a St. Louis washerwoman who captured the eyes and attention of the world with her angelic voice and the enchanting movement of her body.

I Liked My Response--So Im Posting It Here

I am revisioning my SOP as we speak. I am still thinking of your
proposition as to what ethnicities role will be --and it has made me think --
especially looking further at it, that perhaps it is not simply ethnicity that
will be the major factor--but I perhaps it will be the place where intersecting
oppressions meet. As such, it will be a very complex picture-- one where it
isnt simply a question of race(even though I think that is a fallacy, so even
ethnicity if you may), or gender, or even simply class-- but the places where
these things intersect--I think Patricia Hill Collins calls it the interlocking
systems of oppression or something like that. It will be where all of it comes
together--race, class, gender, and sexuality. I am thinking of Hurricane
Katrina--that was not simply racial that was race and class. Alas, I believe
this entire assault upon abortion (although it may spread) is not even simply
gender-- it is class,gender, and race all together. So that in terms of race
and gender perhaps you have people like Condoleeza Rice sititng in the power
structure while poor people are sitting on rooftops in New Orleans, or people
like Ann Coulter speaking for the Conservative agenda while poor women get
denied access to safe, legal abortion. What do you think? I think perhaps this
is perhaps the picture we are seeing.

An Afterthought from the Previous Post

Before I left that engagement, I hit on her very cute Indian friend and got an email address from him;-) I love being subversive.

Tonight was interesting. I went out for a drink....thats what we will call it, with a friend of mine and we met some friends of his(which includes a boy that I know, and who I didn't know was going to be there). So, there is this friend of mine, two Indian boys, and a white girl. and we are all sitting at a booth and this girl starts talking about effeminate men and butch women...and I don't know, very heteronormative rhetoric coming from both sides of the conversation that was being had...so I threw into the conversation ," Have you ever seen the film Myra Breckenridge?" Ha!! I mean really....heteronormativity really catches me by surprise when I hear it--not because I don't know or think that it is prevalent and dominates this culture....but because we have BEEN THROUGH THE 1960s ALREADY? And there has been a progressive movement underfoot to cut down some of these established hierarchies, systems of oppression, and restricted and coformativity-inducing ways of thinking. Mind you, I don't care or mind or even concern myself with people's right and want or need to hold these values, that is absolutely well and good---but to enforce them as rules of a society is another thing altogether. Alas, I think they hinder the liberation and human possibilities of ALL people--and I suppose some people feel the need for those restrictions and so be it, for them.

So, I told them what Myra was about and what occurred in the picture and the table got realy silent..and this girl got a ve sour or annoyed perhaps would be more appropriate look on her face.... and I was quite amused. So, I think the girl had either heard about it or seen and she asked me who was in the film and I told her Raquel Welch and Mae West. I was surprised to see that she knew who Mae was and I was startled when she described Mae as being butch. Oh My God! Mae West? Butch? What in the hell? I didn't press that further other than to say, "you think so?" Now, talk about gender construction and concepts of gender, masculinity and femininity. Mae West, the sexual goddess of the 20th century, who made men's mouths water and who also had every drag queen and gay man at her feet and in her court--butch? Oh my...what a concept...and Ill leave it at that. Alas, the strict adherence to heteronormativity at that table was something to witness.... my god what a military fortress. Strict codes.....oh what a world we live in...

A Litany for Peacemakers

Obedience to God comes before obedience to human authority
Render Unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's
Let your will be done, not mine
With the help of God's grace
With the waging of war
We will not comply
With the preparation and training of war
We will not comply
With the forces of fear
We will not comply
With the legalization of murder
We will not comply
With the legalization of genocide
We will not comply
With laws that betray human life
We will not comply
With the bombing of civilians
We will not comply
With the bombing of cities
We will not comply
With the violating of our earth
We will not comply
With the destruction of peoples
We will not comply
With the raping of women
We will not comply
With governments that are blind to the sanctity of life
We will not comply
With economic structures that impoverish and dehumanize
We will not comply
With the manipulation and control of public information
We will not comply
With economics that manufacture instruments of death
We will not comply
With the perpetuation of violence
We will not comply
With the hypocrisy of political maneuvering
We will not comply

I wish to have and always have the integrity of Josephine Baker.

My Poem

by Nikki Giovanni
i am 25 years old
black female poet
wrote a poem asking
nigger can you kill
if they kill me
it won't stop
the revolution
i have been robbed
it looked like they knew
that i was to be hit
they took my tv
my two rings
my piece of african print
and my two guns
if they take my life
it won't stop
the revolution

my phone is tapped
my mail is opened
they've caused me to turn
on all my old friends
and all my new lovers
if i hate all black
people
and all negroes
it won't stop
the revolution

if i never write
another poem
or short story
if i flunk out
of grad school
if my car is reclaimed
and my record player
won't play
and if i never see
a peaceful day
or do a meaningful
black thing
it won't stop
the revolution

the revolution
is in the streets
and if i stay on
the fifth floor
it will go on
if i never do
anything
it will go on

An Admission on My Part

I have not always been as Black* as I have been. I remember my sister used to tell me that I was "so Euro it wasn't funny." Indeed, I was all about European History and things concerning Europe. I can still perhaps recite all of the Kings and queens of England who actually reigned from memory, with a few pauses for thought...and I must say that I take a great distinction(one which I share a bit with my mother) in being sort of an amateur royalist....I could literally name for you all of the royal houses that ever were in all of Europe--from all of the tiny little kingdoms and duchies of Italy to the House of Vasa in Sweden and Denmark, all the way over to Russia, not to mention England, France, and the rest of Western Europe. I was all up into it--and still do enjoy it somewhat. But then, I dont remember which came first-my finding Souls of Black Folk in my Uncle Lawrence's library or my Uncle Donald giving me his copy of Langston Hughes'I Wonder as I Wander, but around that time I began to develop a consciousness--and become interested and appreciative of learning things about myself--and where I came from(I'll add more to that in a few minutes).... I remember reading the Ebony History of Africa...by Johnson...I can't remember the correct name of the book or the author, I believe he is the son-in-law of the main Johnson. Anyway, it was quite influential. Then I read a lot of other Black,Diasporic, and African histories...and I began to read about many other peoples of color...and from there I developed my consciousness into what it is today. WIth that said, in reference to knowing who I am and learning things about myself--I already knew things about myself...and appreciated it--for, even before I was Black... I was a Deramus and a Goodson.;-)

Writers Possess a Double Consciousness

Anais Nin provides such wonderful truths in her diaries. "Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting, the delayed reaction."

The Carnival

Anais Nin summed up my interpretation of Bakhtin's idea of the carnival(building off of the ideas of Umberto Eco and Julie Kristeva) in one sentence, "Henry, with his clowning, whips the world into a carnival."

Naked Capitalism

I spent most of the day trying to get a new phone. The people at the mall sent me to circuit city and that was where my journey ended--at least the busy/crazy part of it. Alas, I got to circuit city, handed the lady the phone that she was supposed to program and do whatever to and then I politely said that I was going to go to the restroom and would return before she finished with my phone--which I was not being charged for. When I got back to her counter, she was done and so she handed my phone and other packacges and before I left she looked at me with this look that just sent horror down my spine, it was a chilling look, the face of some kind of death and she asked me "would you like to buy the kit that goes with that for $49.99?" It was in this horrid, beseeching voice that was just completely in the market. It sounded like death. I told her no, but that perhaps I might need it in the future. I grabbed my things and I left. I put the name on it, Naked Capitalism....just the death-drive urge running in pure rampant abandon through our culture.

I find it atrocious that the president of Iran has taken to denying the Jewish Holocaust.

To add to the thoughts from the previous post, my mother graduated from high school when she was 16 and graduated from college when she was 20, I wanted to have done that too--but I finished High school at 17 and college at 21, which I suppose is perhaps the norm. I also was thinking about alabama State University. I have been told that they have a building on the campus that bore the name Deramus, but if they don't they certainly need one as many of us have been through that institution--my grandmother and her sisters and brothers and first cousins(not to mention second cousins and other relatives) and my sister. We should have some part in it;-)

Check out this article from the Federation of American Scientists.

I do believe that my great-grandfather could have seen to it that my mother didn't have to go to that school. I think though, he was teaching her a lesson. However, it was not as dire as she made it out to be.

The story of how my mother integrated Hicks Memorial is quite an interesting little story to tell. She was staying with my great-grandparents while my grandmother was in Birmingham and then Chicago(where my mother eventually joined her).So, they got the letter in the mail asking if she wanted to stay at the colored school, Autaugaville, or if she wanted to take the opportunity to go to the white school(doesn't that sound like something from some game show....you have the opportunity to win a trip to Hawaii!...mhm). Well, my great-grandfather told her about the letter and asked her what she wanted to do. My mother says she was being sassy and smart and thought she was doing something big, so she told him "I'll go to the white school." That was at the beginning of the summer.

By the end, when it was time for her to go to school, she was reminded that she chose to go to Hicks Memorial. My mother said she had the biggest crying fit and threw herself upon the mercy of her grandfather to please not make her go to that school.Haha. He told her "You made your choice, and it's too late now, so you're gonna have to go." My mother tried to die. Haha! I believe her grandfather was for her what she is for me perhaps...the one who can do everything...even save her from going to the white school. Well, she was highly upset and dissappointed. Haha. Terribly funny. After that one year at Hicks Memorial, my mother then went to St. Michael's on the Northside of Chicago, where she graduated from. It was integrated---not so much Black and white as it was Latino, Black, Polish, Irish, and even Jewish(according to my mother). She also went to school there with my aunts Janice, Joyce, and Barbra, my fathers' sisters.

I was just thinking about, my mother integrated the junior high white school in the town where my maternal family is from. The DA in that town when we first moved back there, a white man, went to that middle school at the same time that my mother did. She used to tell me about how when she first got there he and some of his friends tried to be nasty to her and bother her in hallways. After she slammed them into the lockers a few times, she said she didn't have to worry about them anymore. So, it was always an interesting moment for me to see my mother and this man be quite cordial and sometimes even friendly to each other when they saw each other. That always was in the back of my mind.

Mary Maxine is such good people.

Bloggers take up case of Mississippi death row inmate

Late on the night of December 26, 2001, Cory Maye, 21, laid asleep in his Prentiss, Mississippi duplex apartment, with his 1-year-old daughter in a crib nearby. A armed man entered his bedroom. Maye shot the man, who turned out to Ronald Jones, 29, part of a police SWAT team searching for drugs. Jones, the son of the local police chief, died from his wound. No drugs were found in Maye's apartment, although a search of the grounds and the adjoining property produced evidence leading to the arrest Maye's neighbor, Jamie Smith, for drug possession and trafficking. Despite Maye's contention that the shooting was in self-defense, a jury convicted him of murder in January, 2004, and he was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

These are the facts I learned about Cory Maye from reading the five brief stories about his case listed in the Lexis-Nexis database. All told, there were four AP stories and one from the Advocate of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana, with a total count of 1946 words, with the last story running at the time of Maye's sentencing nearly two years ago.


The reason that the world knows about the case at all is because Radley Balko, of The Agitator did some investigative reporting on his own (and be sure to read more here and here and here. He posts an e-mail from the prosecutor here. Battlepanda reports that bloggers are lining up across the red-blue divide to denounce the government's actions in the case.
I'll be paying attention to whether Maye's case attracts renewed mainstream press attention to his case. Stay tuned.

I cant sleep and I feel anxious as this atrocity is about to happen. I hope someone takes this power structure out.

I have adopted the goddess Bastet as a god.

I Love Dolly Parton

Go to Hell
By Dolly Parton

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong
Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me the Hell alone
Take your wars and your politics, your lust and your greed
And go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong
Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me alone
You're a cheat, you're a liar, you're a scoundrel and a thief
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me
Go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Oh I tried hard to conquer my fears and my doubts
But everywhere I turn I see your evil doin's all about
I have suffered your sorrow, your heartache and grief
You keep dealing me a bad hand with a trick card up your sleeve

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong
Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me alone
Take all of your bad guys, your demons and flee
Go to Hell in a handbasket, heaven's calling me
Go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Oh, I know I'm no angel, but I'm better than that
And God is still my hero, and he can knock you flat
There is nothing but sorrow in that wicked place that you dwell
Take your pain and your misery and go straight to Hell

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong
Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me alone
Take your drugs and your alcohol, your vices and leave
Go to Hell in a handbasket, just get away from me
Go to Hell (go to Hell), go to Hell (go to Hell)
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Spoken:

My brothers and my sisters (ah)
I'm here to tell you that Satan is real (ah)
He is real and walking around amongst us trying to destroy everything
That's good and beautiful (ah)
He wants to break our hearts and minds (ah)
Destroy our dreams and plans (ah)
He wants to tear us up in little pieces,
Break us down and send us straight to Hell (Oh, my God)
Ah-ha, you said a mouthful brother
Oh, my God. Oh, my God can do anything (ah)
My God can heal the sick (ah)
Mend broken hearts and take our souls to heaven (ah)
So Satan, listen up (ah)
In God's name I rebuke you (ah)
I stand up in his name,
Look you in the eye and laugh in your ugly face (ha, ha, ha)

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong
Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me alone
Take your weapons of mass destruction, terror and sleaze
Go to Hell with your corruption, just get away from me

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me
Go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell, go to Hell
Go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Tag:

Go to Hell in a handbasket, heaven's calling me
Heaven, heaven waits for me, so go to Hell

Spoken:

Oh, my brothers and my sisters (ah)
God can deliver us from Satan's evil grip
Satan, listen to me,
My Father in Heaven can kick your astronomical ego right back to the pits of Hell (ah)
Can I get an amen on that one?
Oh, hallelujah. Oh, Satan, you ol' devil you
God can flatten you like a Sunday morning pancake (ah)
Can I get a hallelujah on that one?
Oh, ain't it so, ain't it so?
Don't you love it, don't you love it?
Satan, you can go to Hell

What I'm Thinking About Now

Is that final scene in Whoopi Goldberg's The Long Walk Homewith all of those women standing there, shoulder to shoulder standing ground to those white men." I started in Jesus....and I'm going through." How beautiful was that?

Someone should dig Ronald Reagan up and burn him in effigy. Americans are just not worth the any kind of shit from any other kind of animal.

There is a real need for some real progressive movement. People are too lackadaisical, too complacent, too well-fed, and too comfortable. Perhaps there are no more progressive people left. In which case, the United States should just burn in hell.......

Someone should seriously cut Arnold Schwarzenegger's penis off.

I remember I once found my grandmother's old gradbooks and I had a time pretending that I was teaching and handing out grades.

What I Read Leaving My Mouth Open

But out of my naivete or simplicity, or whatever. Anyway, I was on Wikipedia doing some research and, and I totally will not quote this for source or accuracy because everyone knows that Wikipedia is bullshit. Anyway, someone wrote on there that Angela Davis and Bettina Aptheker were lovers! My mouth is completely open--totally a new revelation. I mean I know, of course, that Angela is a lesbian--and that she and Bettina went to high school together--but this is a revelation, provided it is true. Perhaps only to me, but it leaves my mouth open. A totally new revelation. No wonder they are both at UCSC.

Someone should castrate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I am definitely a child under my mother.

My grandmother used to tell me that when she was in school they would have to walk (or sometimes ride the horse)from Joffre to Autaugaville to go to school, which is a good twenty miles. Fess(McDavid) though, was very strict. If anybody was late, he would be standing there in the road out from the school and as they approached, having walked a distance to the schoolhouse, Fess would be waving his arm and shouting "Go Back! Go Back!" You didn't go to school that day. Haha. I would have been pissed to hell though if I had had to walk that long and turn back around though. Fess, god love him. He was something of a man for sure.

This uprise in ethnic violence in Australia peaks my interests ( and also makes me think that there is a need for castration in that corner of the world as well). Alas, all of this ethnic conflict that is occuring around the world really

Greg Salyer is simply wonderful. Alas, I am blessed to have such people influencing me.

De barge was such a special sound.

We Black Americans rise every morning and petition for the right to live to the end of the day. And your Thursday petition is not good for Friday, for Friday you got to start all over again. And this is what makes us so alienated…so estranged. And who do we take it out on… each other…because we are not prepared to identify the real enemy and deal with that enemy. We are not ready to make an admission and eliminate the effects of the admission. We have been successfully played for fools…that’s cruel, that’s hard. The game has been played on us and it has been a success. Now the only way to stop the game…is to study the players in the game and the game is about power…how you get it and how you keep it.”
–John Henrik Clarke

I Love Maureen Dowd

"Dick Cheney may be the most unnecessary man in the world."-Maureen Dowd at the National Bookfair.

Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media

By Peter Phillips

Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being
tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the US corporate media
are covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist
Church.

A recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posting of one of forty-four
US military autopsy reports reads as follows: "Final Autopsy Report: DOD
003164, (Detainee) Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain)
due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the
neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right
thyroid cartilage. Autopsy revealed bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in
mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions,
lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left
fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right
4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries,predominately recent
contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities.Abrasions on left
wrist are
consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural
disease. Manner of death is homicide. Whitehorse Detainment Facility,
Nasiriyah,Iraq."

The ACLU website further reveals how: "a 27-year-old Iraqi male died while
being interrogated by Navy Seals on April 5, 2004, in Mosul,Iraq. During his
confinement he was hooded, flex-cuffed, sleep deprived and subjected to hot
and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his
body and hood. The exact cause of death was "undetermined" although the autopsy
stated that hypothermia may have contributed to his death.

Another Iraqi detainee died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad,Iraq,while
being interrogated. He was standing, shackled to the top of a doorframe with a
gag in his mouth, at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and
blunt force injuries.

So read several of the 44 US military autopsy reports on the ACLU website
-evidence of extensive abuse of US detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan 2002
through 2004. Anthony Romero, Executive Director of ACLU stated, "There is no
question that US interrogations have resulted in deaths." ACLU attorney Amrit
Sing adds,"These documents present irrefutable evidence that US operatives
tortured detainees to death during interrogations."

Additionally,ACLU reports that in April 2003,Secretary Rumsfeld authorized
the use of "environmental manipulation" as an interrogation technique in
Guantánamo Bay. In September 2003, Lt. Gen.Sanchez also authorized this
technique for use in Iraq. So responsibility for these human atrocities goes
directly to the highest levels of power.

A press release on these deaths by torture was issued by the ACLU on October
25, 2005 and was immediately picked up by Associated Press and United Press
International wire services, making the story available to US corporate media
nationwide. A thorough check of Nexus-Lexus and Proquest electronic data
bases, using the keywords ACLU and autopsy, showed that at least 95percent of
the daily papers in the US didn't bother to pick up the story. The Los Angeles
Times covered the story on page A-4 with a 635-word report headlined
"Autopsies Support Abuse Allegations." Fewer than a dozen other daily newspapers
including: Bangor Daily News, Maine,page 8; Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque Iowa,
page 6; Charleston Gazette, page 5;Advocate, Baton Rouge, page 11; and a half
dozen others actually covered the story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and
the Seattle Times buried the story inside general Iraq news articles. USA
Today posted the story on their website. MSNBC posted the story to their
website,but apparently did not consider it newsworthy enough to air on television.

"The Randi Rhodes Show," on Air America Radio, covered the story. AP/UPI
news releases and direct quotes from the ACLU website appeared widely on
internet sites and on various news-based listservs around the world, including
Common Dreams,truthout, New Standard, Science Daily, and numerous others.


What little attention the news of the US torturing prisoners to death did
get has completely disappeared as context for the torture stories now appearing
in corporate media. A Nexus-Lexus search November 30,2005 of the major
papers in the US using the word torture turned up over 1,000 stories in the
last 30 days. None of these included the ACLU report as supporting documentation
on the issue.

How can the American public understand the gravity of the torture that is
currently being committed in our name when the issue is being reported with no
reference to the extent to which these crimes against humanity have gone? Has
the internet become the only source of real news for mainstream Americans
while the corporate media only tells us what they want us to know?

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and
Director of Project Censored a media research organization.

www.projectcensored.org

ACLU source documents online at:
http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/

Commemorating Two Very Outspoken, Courageous People

Today was quite a blow with the death of RIchard Pryor. He was a beautiful man-courageous, funny, and a beautiful soul all around. He was one of the icons in my periphery when I was growing up, delivering the message to me of what it means and what it is to be Black and Beautiful, to be Black and Proud. His death marks the passing of an era. He, among other beautiful souls, presided over an era of progressive movement, radical social experimentation and change. I think perhaps, if anything could be said to sum up his legacy it is this: be very bold, speak truth to power, and never be afraid to stand and speak your mind at any given occassion.

Also, Senator Eugene McCarthy, former U.S. presidential contender and outspoken anti-war advocate, has died. He will also be mourned.