Food, Inc.

It was the last day today of the American Conservation Film Festival, and Elly and I went especially to see Robert Kenner’s documentary “Food, Inc.” It was the one film in the Festival that we really wanted to see this year… especially since we are now entering week 3 of our conversion to Veganism. What we had heard about the film is that it had convince many folks to stop eating “factory farmed” meat.

And it IS a brilliant flick. I’d encourage you to see it, if it is playing near you (we also found out that it’s in the DVD set in our library and it is also available at Amazon.)

About the film (from their web site):

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

BTW: you will have a hard time eating restaurant food or shopping in a regular grocery store when you see this film. You may even become a Vegan, too.

100 Years of Health Care Legislation

There’s a great TIMELINE in this morning’s NY Times. Shows how far we have come.

House Passes Health Care Bill 220 – 215

This from HuffPo:

11:07 PM ET — House health care bill gets votes needed for passage. 220 members of Congress — including one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana — voted in favor of health care reform, advancing the legislation by the slimmist of margins. Forty-nine Democrats voted against the bill, along with 176 Republicans.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) cast vote #218, solidifying passage. Speaker Pelosi was “near sobbing,” HuffPost’s Ryan Grim reports.

The only downer I can see is the Bart Stupak anti-abortion amendment passed and so was included in the bill. This was an unneeded addition and a lot of pro-choicers are not happy about this. Me included.

Oh well, now the Senate has to come through… then the Reconciliation of two bills to make the final law.

Putting Together Audition Materials

I’m about a month away from Auditions for The Hunting of the Snark at Full Circle Theater, and Elly, who is putting together posters for Full Circle, asked where the Snark poster was.

Well, here’s where it is so far. Feel free to post it around places on the Web that might be interested, Please, however, make sure if you post it that people can go to btchakir@mac.com for information, and to Full Circle Theater for schedule and reservations.

For singers interested in Auditioning, I am making parts of the score available (related to specific characters) that can be used as audition materials. Please let me know at my e-mail address (above in this post) if you would like to do this… but let me know your vocal range and perhaps send me a photograph so I get a sense of who you are if I don’t know you. We’ll be doing five to six weeks of evening and Saturday rehearsals through January and up to the opening.

I have a question for John Boehner…

My voice is getting hoarse from yelling at the television today when the Republicans debating the Health Care Bill make statements which are patently untrue. The primary statement is one Boehner and his biddies keep making, that the majority of Americans have come out against this bill.

Now where is it that this has been shown, John? The various polls for weeks have shown the majority of Americans for this reform. Especially, they have shown a strong favor of the Public Option, something you keep saying all Americans are against.

But that’s only the base misstatement (can I say “lie”? OK the base lie.) What about the statements that the Bill will cost us so much more in our economy? The Congressional Budget Office doesn’t agree. Consumers Union doesn’t agree. Oh, the Insurance Industry agrees, but right now they’ll agree to anything which kills the bill.

And you are saying how this is going to cost us millions of jobs. and that it is going to give us a health care system where we won’t get help for emergency heart conditions, and that Medicare will be cut to the point that millions of seniors will use their care. Where do you get this crap, John? From Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal? From Fox News (Oh, that’s the same source)?

I’m waiting for the point today when you put up the Republican Alternative. From what I’ve seen so far this will come so short on the problem that no Republican Congress person would give up their current free choice for.

So tell me, John Boehner, what will this fuly paid for legislation which does not add dime one to the deficit do that would be so bad?

Cartoon(s) of the Week – and a week defining America it was!

I’ve picked two that stood out for me on two issues, war and politics. There were more, but these will serve.

John Sherffius, Boulder (CO) Daily Camera:

As we get closer to a Viet Nam-like War, I remember my Uncle Butch who is on The Wall, as another war seems to be fought for invented reasons…

- and –

Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal – Constitution:

And we watch the Republicans move further towards shrinking their party…

Cantor Pushes Back Against Limbaugh, Hitler-Obama Analogies

From Sam Stein at HuffPo:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) criticized conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, on Friday, for drawing comparisons between President Obama and Adolph Hitler. And, in a sequence that seems rare in modern Republican politics, the Virginia Republican seems eager to publicize his rebuke. “Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics?” Cantor said. “No, I don’t, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful.” Cantor and his colleagues in the House have, to this point, walked a fine line in rebuking Rush — fretting about the pushback they might receive from his listeners. The Congressman is the lone Jewish Republican in the House. The issue, nevertheless, emerged once again on Thursday after a tea party protest that Cantor attended featured several signs equating health care reform with the Holocaust. On a more emotional and honest level, decorated writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel tweeted (yes, he’s on Twitter) that the signs at the Capital Hill protests were an “indecent and disgusting” form of “political hatred.” Cantor, of course, can’t be held responsible for the actions of a widely attended health care protest. But clearly, both he and his advisers saw the need to demonstrate some distance. “The Republican Party in its roots is a party of inclusion and we ought to be promoting that and making sure that voices are heard,” Cantor said in his interview with Bloomberg Television.

Saturday House of Reps’ Session… great TV!

I’m watching the House being chaired by Representative John Dingell (D – Michigan) as the House Health Care Bill is debated which has been scheduled for 4 hours. As the Democrats take their first half hour of bringing up their issues , the Republicans are injecting objection after objection laced with Parliamentary Inquiries to interrupt the Democrats. This is both to break up and perhaps expand the time allotted without getting anywhere.

Dingell is keeping his frustration level down, but I can see the blood bubbling up here. Initially, this is working in the Repub’s favor… but as it goes on it makes them look very silly. I’m very impressed with Dingell and this is not doing anything to make me think more of the Repiglicans… but I don’t think they care what people think of them.

If you are near C-Span this morning, get yourself some popcorn and settle in for the show.

Now it begins… The Claims Backed By NO EVIDENCE!

“Conservative Says Hasan Acted On Orders Of Muslim Brotherhood: What Do We Know?” – This article from Justin Elliott in TPM Muckraker:

clipped from tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com One conservative writer is already declaring — without citing any evidence — that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter who killed 13 at Fort Hood yesterday, was acting at the behest of the Muslim Brotherhood. So it’s a good time to lay out what we do and don’t know about the Fort Hood shooting case and the Army psychiatrist at the center of it. In an interview with Frontpagemag, author Dave Gaubatz blames the Fort Hood killings on, among other Muslim groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He says that Hasan was carrying out “the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood.” And he suggests that Hasan was sent out by radical Muslim leaders: Malik Nabal Hasan [sic] is a terrorist supporting the ideology of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and yes, CAIR. In Palestine, the leaders send out the young and vulnerable to carry out the murders in the name of Islam. The same is happening in America.

In fact, CAIR released a statement denouncing the shootings almost immediately after reports of the incident:

“No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. … American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”

Other Muslim groups have put out similar statements.

And here’s an advertising admission you’ll get a kick out of…

… Take it away, Andy:

What our TV Pres and First Lady (Sheen and Channing) want you to know:

Got it? Now go HERE.

A Farewell to Art D’Lugoff

Art D’Lugoff, the esteemed Village Gate impresario, has died at age 85. For years before the Gate’s closing in 1994, D’Lugoff brought audiences the greats of modern jazz (John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk and more), experimental theatre in the early days of the Off Broadway movement (which gave us Sam Shepard, Dustin Hoffman and others who worked as waiters while they performed there), and standup comedians from Woody Allen to Mort Sahl to Richard Prior.

One of my favorite theatre memories was seeing the original production of “Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” at the Village Gate in the late 60s.

D’Lugoff had an eye for controversy and publicity and was a master at economizing his productions in order to make enough money to stay in business. That the Gate had to close in the 90s reflects how the economy started to change and how, as things got more expensive, it affected our creative sources.

So I salute Art D’Lugoff and remember his contribution to theatre and the arts.

If you didn’t see Jon Stewart imitate Glenn Beck last night…

… you missed a comic masterpiece.

Go HERE to see it. Thank me later.

The Shooter at Yesterday’s Ft. Hood, TX, Massacre is Still Alive…

Apiis still alive.tical wounds, but parantly he is in hospital with critical injuries, but is not dead as was earlier reported. CNN posted this view of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as seen on a store camera yesterday:

Shepherd Smith (one of the few believable newspeople at Fox News) interviewed a Cousin of the shooter:

TALIBAN = 9/11?? Afghanistan by Hypnosis

By Greg Palast (for ZEEK.net)

______________________

Note from Bill: I received this article by Greg Palast in today’s e-mail… It came not from ZEEK, which is a progressive Jewish Magazine of Thought and Culture), but directly from Greg, so I am more than certain that republishing the whole thing here is well within Greg’s wishes to get this read.

As we are now getting ready to pull the kind of crap in Afghanistan that we spent the last eight years doing in Iraq, I think this SHOULD be read. It may convince you that we are about to do the wrong thing again.

______________________

On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis’ attack, America invaded … Afghanistan.

And here we go again. The New York Times (print edition) headline last Friday was: “Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11.”

Google it and you’ll find the Times report repeated and amplified 5,785 times more.

Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

Your eyelids are getting heavy. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.

It’s the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD, Dick Cheney’s chimerical tropes which the New York Times’ Judith Miller happily channeled to the paper’s front page.

And they’re at it again.

Every war begins with a lie. In addition to Saddam = WMD, I’m old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the war in Vietnam, based on a fictional Vietnamese gunboat attack on our Navy. (White House recordings have Lyndon Johnson gloating privately, “Hell, those damn stupid [US] sailors were just shooting at flying fish.”)

In the Glorious War against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the lie is thus: al Qaeda is “based” in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If we don’t fight the wily Taliban, as the British once fought the wily Pathan, al Qaeda will attack America again from Talibanistan.

The latest Taliban=9/11 fantasy is a yarn spun wildly outward from the finding of a passport of an al Qaeda flunky who worked with suicide pilot Mohammed Atta in the same mountain area where, years later, a Taliban group operated. It’s a stretch, but when you want to sell a war, it will do.

But selling the re-invasion of Afghanistan requires a repetition of Lie #1: that the original attack on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon were planned from Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s mountains with the connivance of the Taliban.

It’s not true, of course. The September 11 attack was neither organized nor directed from Afghanistan by the Taliban. In fact, as our BBC Report found, it was clear that the attack on my friends and co-workers was planned and carried out from Falls Church, Virginia; Paris, France; Sarasota, Florida; Hamburg, Germany;— and, I repeat, funded and manned from Saudi Arabia. Neither the Sunshine State nor the Aryan namesake of the original beef patty sandwich were, nor are they now, convenient targets for a revenge attack by the 101st Airborne.

And revenge was what it was and remains: on September 11 the skunks hit us and we, goddamnit, were going to HIT BACK. ANYONE. SOMEONE. So we hit the odious, and conveniently weak, Taliban, who’d, undeniably, given refuge to killer Osama bin Laden. Though let us not forget that Osama’s safe passage from the Sudan to Afghanistan was initially encouraged by the US government.

Today, we continue to throw our soldiers’ bodies into Afghanistan, and our drones’ rockets into Pakistan, to deny al Qaeda the supposed base from which to strike us again.

The media is eating it up and swallowing it whole. For example, CNN quotes a Pakistani from the Afghan border area, “Probably your next 9/11 is going to be from Swat.”

That’s not true either, of course: In the extraordinarily unlikely event Osama remains in the “caves of Tora Bora” (not where multi-millionaires with kidney disease tend to linger), any conceivable attack will be planned, funded and organized from comfy hotel rooms in Paris, Germany and Dubai as is the habit of these well-heeled hellions.

The truth is, we’re not in Afghanistan to stop al Qaeda’s US attackers, because they weren’t “based” there in the first place, and their leaders are not there now.

So, why are we now re-invading Afghanistan? Beats me. I just hope our President will give us a hint that doesn’t involve some cockamamie fairytale about 9/11 and al Qaeda.

Now, please don’t get me wrong: the Taliban are monsters. If you have any doubt, I suggest you read progressive journalist Michael Griffin’s masterful history of the Taliban, Reaping the Whirlwind. (Published in early 2001, Griffin presciently warned against the US policy of placating the Taliban.)

Undeniably, the Taliban gave sanctuary to the killer Osama, but that does not make the Taliban guilty of planning and participating in the 9/11 attack. However, the Taliban’s innocence in the 9/11 massacre does not wash their hands of the blood of Afghans, particularly Shia and Sufi Muslims, whom the Taliban have tortured, raped and murdered.

I can’t say I shed tears for the Taliban when, after my office towers fell, US troops ended their sharia dictatorship. And, honestly, there’s a case to be made that rocketing more Taliban, really nasty cutthroats that they are, is a laudable exercise. But let’s not pretend it has anything to do with preventing another 9/11.

And that’s the danger. As the poet T.S. Eliot warned,

"The last temptation is the greatest treason
    To do the right thing for the wrong reason."

Taliban = 9/11? Innocents, by the thousands and thousands, will pay in blood for this treasonous falsehood.

For BBC Television, Greg Palast reported on the US intelligence failures leading to the 9/11attack. Watch the BBC Newsnight episode. For the full story obtain a copy of the now classic BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes available on DVD or the now newly available download version. The author is donating all proceeds of the sale of the film, *Bush Family Fortunes, expanded from the BBC broadcast, to the Palast Investigative Fund, a not-for-profit foundation supporting investigative reporting. 100% of your donations for the film disc or download go to the fund and are tax-deductible.*

//

If I had the Money (which I don’t) and had the Time (which I don’t)…

… I’d take off for New York to see Richard Foreman’s “The Idiot Savant” with Willem DaFoe. Here’s a bit of the interviews about it:

The NY Times has a review and pictures from the show HERE.

HERE’S WHAT THE SHOW LOOKS LIKE (COULDN’T RESIST):

If you can get to NYC it’s at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village; (212) 967-7555. Through Dec. 13.

Everyone should read Nick Kristoff’s column in the NY Times today…

It’s called Unhealthy America and it deals with our Health Care System and where it falls short compared to other countries. Go HERE.

A quote that stands out for me:

“Moreover, there is one American health statistic that is strikingly above average: life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65. At that point, they can expect to live longer than the average in industrialized countries. That’s because Americans above age 65 actually have universal health care coverage: Medicare. Suddenly, a diverse population with pockets of poverty is no longer such a drawback.”

Today is Thursday, right? Watch for AARP Endorsement Today…

…or at least that’s what Salon says. Maybe this will get some Blue Dogs off the fence.

clipped from www.salon.com Report: AARP will endorse House healthcare bill The seniors’ group is reportedly planning to give the House’s legislation a big boost Endorsements just don’t matter as much as they did in the good old days of machine politics. Back then, when a big-name politician gave you his backing, you knew it meant more than just a photo opportunity: It meant foot soldiers, serious foot soldiers, plus walking-around money, clout and as many dead people voting for you as anyone could ever need. It’s just not that way anymore, at least not There are a few endorsements that still count for something, though, and the House Democrats’ healthcare reform bill is reportedly about to pick up one of them. The Associated Press is reporting that the AARP — “the nation’s largest membership organization for people 50+,” as it bills itself — will be officially endorsing the legislation Thursday morning. A nod from the AARP is a real boon to the Democrats on this issue.

Now lets see the AARP carry out its famous lobbying expertise.

McGovern to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan

It’s a sign of how old I am that I remember Viet Nam. Too many voters today don’t. I wish Obama did.

Claude Levi-Strauss Dead at 100…

Perhaps the greatest anthropologist of the 20th Century and one of the world’s top intellectuals (tu wit: 25 different countries officially celebrated his 100th Brithday this year), Claude Levi-Strauss died in Paris yesterday.

The author of such books as “The Raw and the Cooked,” “From Honey to Ashes,” “The Origin of Table Manners” and “The Naked Man,” Strauss completely changed the perception of what was once thought of as “Primitive Man” by analyzing the myths and legends of tribal nations in North and South America. In so doing, he created a philosophy of “structuralism” which is followed by anthropologists today.

Kos summed it up pretty well…

Over at the Daily Kos, the answer to why the elections went the way they did was pretty clear and Democrats ought to think about them good and hard:

clipped from www.dailykos.com There will be much number-crunching tomorrow, but preliminary numbers (at least in Virginia) show that GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight: If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary “bipartisanship”, you will lose votes. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes. If you forget why you were elected — health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform — you will lose votes. Tonight proved conclusively that we’re not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We’ll turn out if we feel it’s worth our time and effort to vote, and we’ll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action. The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home. And you aren’t going to make up the margins with conservative voters. They already know exactly who they’re voting for, and it ain’t you.

Morning After – Score is 2 and 1

So we now have Republican governors in Virginia and New Jersey (neither of which was much of a surprise given recent polls) and a Democratic Congressman from the 23d District of New York State.

Looking at Owens’ win in the 23d District, we have the interesting case of the first Democrat in over 100 years to take that office… but it is mostly because of a split between the nominated Republican and the total conservative candidate supported by the far right.

Looks like a lot of strategy has to get put in place for the 2010 elections.

Virginia went Republican

That’s the first of today’s elections to come through. McDonnell outscored Deeds by almost a 2 to 1 margin. This had been pretty much expected by the polls in the past couple of weeks. Interestingly, the polls of voters leaving the booths as to whether Obama was a factor in their decision showed that the President didn’t matter at all.

OK… waiting for New Jersey and NY States 23d District.

Listening to the House of Representatives make speeches on Health Care Bill

It seems like every available Republican has taken the floor today to tell us all the things wrong with the current proposals in the House for the final Health Care Bill which will go for merger with the Senate.

I’ve listened to them call it “Obamacare” and “Nancy Pelosicare” and “grotesque” and “the Worst Bill Ever” (which comes from the Wall Street Journal which, last time I looked, was run by Rupert Murdoch, just like Fox News, and has interest ONLY in supporting the conservative right.) I’ve heard them try to make it be seen as an “abortion bill”, a “tax increase for the American People”, and something that America has risen to speak against.

Now, this is what bugs the hell out of me. From what I can see, the great majority of the American people want to see this go through. Secondly, we WANT to see tax increases… that is on the top 1% of our fellow citizens who were given a gigantic tax-pass by Reagan-through-Bush and who can easily afford it and STILL BE THE RICHEST AMERICANS.

These Republicans keep saying that they have a better plan (but never reveal it), that the Democrats’ bill is 2000 pages long (but we’re never told why or how long the Republican Bill, which no one seems to be ready to reveal, is), then, to top it off, they make it clear that nothing will make them compromise with the Democrats on anything, no matter what the Democratic Bill is.

And now I’m listening to some boob from Texas (Ted Poe… I don’t know him) comparing this large, 2000-page-plus law as “socialist”, to his ideal of laws – the 10 Commandments (which he claims to be 2 pages – I guess he only reads big type.) Oh wait, some guy named Roskaw from Illinois sais the democrats’ bill will create 111 new bureaucracies… gee, he didn’t prove it though.

This is getting too hard to listen to… Let’s get this voted in and send the whining right home.

I’m not sure Reid has it covered with Lieberman…

…but here’s part of an article from The Hill where Reid says Holy Joe won’t block final vote on Health Care Bill.

Do you believe it? Naah, me either.

clipped from thehill.com Reid reassures left Lieberman on board Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter. The unpredictable Democrat-turned-Independent last week publicly stated he would join Republicans in filibustering the Democratic legislation after Reid (D-Nev.) announced he had included a government-run health insurance plan in the bill. But sources said Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill. “Lieberman keeps assuring Reid that he’s OK,” said one source. “But he’s one of those characters — you never know with Joe. When reporters later asked Reid whether he could trust Lieberman in the 111th Congress, Reid said: “The answer is yes, I trust Sen. Joe Lieberman.”

Of course, I hope I’m wrong.