Addiction is not a crime; it's a health issue

"Help send a strong message that drug policy is a health - not a crime - issue." Jack Cole 26-year veteran cop New Jersey State Police

I'm writing to you from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition about an unprecedented opportunity to get our nation's lawmakers to finally realize that drug abuse and addiction is a public health - and not a criminal justice - issue.

As you probably know, President Barack Obama recently appointed Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as his White House "drug czar," more formally known as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

That means that the U.S. Senate will soon hold a hearing to question and confirm Chief Kerlikowske. Historically, the drug czar confirmation hearings are held in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel that handles crime and courts issues.

But, since many observers - including the president himself - have said that drug abuse is primarily a health concern, don't you think that the drug czar confirmation should be handled by the lawmakers who oversee such issues?

That's why I'm writing you today.

Please take one minute to visit http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/health and send a letter to your two U.S. senators, asking them to support moving the drug czar confirmation hearing to the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, a much more appropriate forum.

We've made it really easy for you to take action. All you have to do is enter your contact information and click "send." If you have an extra minute, you can edit our pre-written letter to personalize it for added impact.

With the new Obama administration, we are cautiously optimistic that there will be a humane shift in drug policy: from the current punitive and forceful model, to a more compassionate one founded in public health.

Indeed, President Obama has repeatedly called for a new health-based approach to drug policy, including when he told Rolling Stone magazine that he believes in "shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public-health approach."

Now, we have a brief window of time to get the message to our elected officials that we want to turn this rhetoric into reality.

Please take one minute to visit http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/health to do your part by taking action. Then, use the simple follow-up form to let your friends know about this opportunity, too.

Thanks so much for all that you do,
Jack Cole
Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com Sphere: Related Content

Not Insane

by Hendrik Hertzberg

On "Hardball" the other night, David Frum was complaining about the Republican Party—a popular activity at MSNBC, a cable news network whose prime-time hosts are non-Republicans, including "Hardball" 's Chris Matthews. Frum, however, is a non-non-Republican, and an overdetermined one: 1980 Reagan volunteer, Federalist Society activist, Wall Street Journal editorial-page editor, George W. Bush speechwriter ("axis of evil"), National Review contributing editor, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow. What conservatives are saying, he told Matthews, is increasingly not only counterproductive economically but also politically. We look like we don't care. We look like we're indifferent. We don't offer solutions. We're talking about a spending freeze in the middle of a 1929-30-style meltdown!

On ABC's "This Week," David Brooks, the Times columnist, was even more aghast. Brooks—whose conservative credentials (William F. Buckley, Jr., protégé, Wall Street Journal op-ed editor, Weekly Standard senior editor) aren't too shabby, either—said wonderingly, "There are a lot of Republicans up on Capitol Hill right now who are calling for a spending freeze in the middle of a recession slash depression. That is insane." Quite a lot of Republicans, actually, and they weren't just talking about it: On March 6th, John Boehner, the House Republican leader, made a motion on the floor for just such a freeze. His charges voted for it, a hundred and fifty-two to nothing.

The theory that preventing the United States government from spending more money will halt the cascading crisis of demand that threatens the world with recession slash depression is indeed crazy. And many Republicans, even as they rail against "government spending," at least understand that the government must cause more money to be spent, and that the fiscal deficit must rise in the process. They just want the government to do the job indirectly, by cutting taxes—especially taxes paid by the well-off, such as inheritance taxes, capital-gains taxes, corporate taxes, and high-bracket income taxes—in the hope that the money left untaxed will be spent. It is useless to point out to them that this approach was tried for eight years and found wanting, that in this economy the comfortable are less likely than the strapped to spend any extra cash that comes their way, that government spending often serves socially useful purposes, that "wasteful spending" is not a government monopoly (see corporate jets, golf-course "conferences," premium vodkas), and that the only way to insure that money is spent is, precisely, to spend it.

And yet, lurking underneath the anti-spending, pro-tax-cutting cant is one idea that might truly have merit. Frum mentioned it on that "Hardball" broadcast, touching off this rather cryptic exchange:

FRUM: I'm for a big payroll-tax holiday that would go into effect immediately.
MATTHEWS: I know about the payroll, uh—in other words, it gets money back in the hands of people who are working people, right?
FRUM: Up to a hundred and twenty dollars per week per worker, starting last month.
MATTHEWS: But it sounds like a liberal argument. The funny thing is, the liberals haven't pushed it. And I don't know why, because working people pay a very regressive tax when they go to work, right?

Right. The payroll tax—a.k.a. the Social Security tax, the Social Security and Medicare tax, or the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax— skims around fifteen per cent from the payroll of every business and the paycheck of every worker, from minimum-wage burger-flippers on up, with no deductions. No exemptions, either—except that everything above a hundred grand or so a year is untouched, which means that as salaries climb into the stratosphere the tax, as a percentage, shrinks to a speck far below. This is one reason that Warren Buffett's secretary (as her boss has unproudly noted) pays Uncle Sam a higher share of her income than he does. In fact, three-quarters of American households pay more in payroll tax than in income tax.

Where income taxes are concerned, even Republicans seldom argue that taxing added income over a quarter million dollars at, say, thirty-six per cent rather than thirty-three per cent is wrong because the affluent need more stuff. They argue that making the rich richer enables them to create jobs for the non-rich. More jobs: that's a big argument for capital-gains and inheritance-tax cuts, too. But the payroll tax is a direct tax on work and workers—on jobs per se. If the power to tax is the power to destroy, then the payroll tax is, well, insane.

Frum is not the only Republican on the case. "If you want a quick answer to the question what would I do," Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said recently, "I'd have a payroll-tax holiday for a year or two. That would put taxes in the hands of everybody who has a job, whether they pay income taxes or not." Other Republican politicians and conservative publicists have made similar noises. They haven't made it a rallying point, though; it would, after all, shape the over-all tax system in a progressive direction. Anyhow, their sincerity may be doubted: when President Obama proposed a much more modest cut along similar lines—a refundable payroll-tax credit of four hundred dollars—they denounced it as a welfare giveaway.

Liberals have been reticent, too. The payroll tax now provides a third of federal revenues. And, because it nominally funds Social Security and Medicare, some liberals regard its continuance as essential to the survival of those programs. That's almost certainly wrong. Public pensions and medical care for the aged have become fixed, integral parts of American life. Their political support no longer depends on analogizing them to private insurance. Besides, the aging of the population, the collapse of defined-benefit private pensions, the volatility of 401(k)s, and pricey advances in medical technology mean that, no matter what efficiencies may be achieved, Social Security and Medicare will—and should—grow. Holding them hostage to ever-rising, job-killing payroll taxes is perverse.

If the economic crisis necessitates a second stimulus—and it probably will—then a payroll-tax holiday deserves a look. But it's only half a good idea. A whole good idea would be to make a payroll-tax holiday the first step in an orderly transition to scrapping the payroll tax altogether and replacing the lost revenue with a package of levies on things that, unlike jobs, we want less rather than more of—things like pollution, carbon emissions, oil imports, inefficient use of energy and natural resources, and excessive consumption. The net tax burden on the economy would be unchanged, but the shift in relative price signals would nudge investment from resource-intensive enterprises toward labor-intensive ones. This wouldn't be just a tax adjustment. It would be an environmental program, an anti-global-warming program, a youth-employment (and anti-crime) program, and an energy program.

Impossible? A politically heterogeneous little group with the unfortunately punctuated name of Get America Working! has been quietly pushing this combination for twenty years.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/03/23/090323taco_talk_hertzberg

Sphere: Related Content

Artist paints herself having sex with each president of the USA

Posted by Cory Doctorow

Artist Justine Lai's new project is a set of oil paintings of her having sex with every president of the USA, in order.

In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.

I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that's strictly pornographic—the lurid and hardcore, the predictably "controversial." One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its "Fuck the Man" symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.

NOTES ON JOIN OR DIE

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/27/artist-paints-hersel.html

Sphere: Related Content

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

By Naomi Wolf

Legal expert Michael Ratner calls the legal arguments made in the infamous Yoo memos, "Fuhrer's law."

 

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo's memos outlining the destruction of the republic.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

It was as if Milton's Satan had a law degree and was establishing within the borders of the United States the architecture of hell.

I thought this was -- and is -- certainly one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, making the petty burglary of Watergate -- which scandalized the nation -- seem like playground antics. It is newsworthy too with the groundswell of support for prosecutions of Bush/Cheney crimes and recent actions such as Canadian attorneys mobilizing to arrest Bush if he visits their country.

The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

As a non-lawyer, was I completely off base in my reading of what this meant, I wondered? Was I hallucinating?

Astonished, I sought a reality check -- and a formal legal read -- from one of the nation's top constitutional scholars (and most steadfast patriots), Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been at the forefront of defending the detainees and our own liberties.

Here is our conversation:

Naomi Wolf: Michael, can you explain to a layperson what the Yoo memos actually mean?'

Michael Ratner: What they mean is that your book looks moderate in respect to those issues now. This -- what is in the memos -- is law by fiat.

I call it "Fuhrer's law." What those memos lay out means the end of the system of checks and balances in this country. It means the end of the system in which the courts, legislature and executive each had a function and they could check each other.

What the memos set out is a system in which the president's word is law, and Yoo is very clear about that: the president's word is not only law according to these memos, but no law or constitutional right or treaty can restrict the president's authority.

What Yoo says is that the president's authority as commander in chief in the so-called war on terror is not bound by any law passed by Congress, any treaty, or the protections of free speech, due process and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The First, Fourth and Fifth amendments -- gone.

What this actually means is that the president can order the military to operate in the U.S. and to operate without constitutional restrictions. They -- the military --  can pick you or me up in the U.S. for any reason and without any legal process. They would not have any restrictions on entering your house to search it, or to seize you. They can put you into a brig without any due process or going to court. (That's the Fourth and Fifth amendments.)

The military can disregard the Posse Comitatus law, which restricts the military from acting as police in the the United States. And the president can, in the name of wartime restrictions, limit free speech. There it is in black and white: we are looking at one-person rule without any checks and balances -- a lawless state. Law by fiat.

Who has suspended the law this way in the past? It is like a Caesar's law in Rome; a Mussolini's law in Italy; a Fuhrer's law in Germany; a Stalin's law in the Soviet Union. It is right down the line. It is enforcing the will of the dictator through the military.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/133273/do_the_secret_bush_memos_amount_to_treason_top_constitutional_scholar_says_yes/?page=1

Sphere: Related Content

History lesson from hell

New York Times warns that new financial rules could "wreak havoc" -- 1999

Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 27, 2009 6:00 AM | permalink

From the 11/5/99 New York Times: "CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS By STEPHEN LABATON":

''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,'' Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ''This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation's financial system

CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS (11/5/99)

Sphere: Related Content

History repeats itself

Sphere: Related Content

AIG Bonuses Could Be Closer to $450 Million

AIG: The company that keeps giving and giving.

Conn lawmakers said AIG is slated to award more bonuses in 2010

By  ANDREW PERGAM and LEANNE GENDREAU

AIG employees might be taking home $450 million in bonuses, rather than the $185 and $232 million figures tossed around last week, according to the co-chairs of the Connecticut banking committee and the state's Attorney General.

This chart from AIG shows that more bonuses could be awarded for a total of $450 million.

The anger in the threats against AIG executives is palpable in threats that were obtained from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Here are...

The discrepancy lies in similar payments that could be made in 2010, to the tune of $230 million or so.

The findings come the day after a contentious public hearing on the issue before the banking committee with Stephen Blake, who heads human resources for AIG, and attorney Patrick Shea, who wrote the memo that led AIG to believe a Connecticut law required the bonus payments. 

The committee received the documents, a whopping 465 pages, from AIG late Wednesday, the night before the hearing, which did not give them a whole lot of time. The lawmakers pointed to an AIG-created chart included in the documents the company handed over.

The bonuses could have amounted to more than $1.2 billion had the Financial Products division's performance remained strong, shows a chart included in the paperwork.  Instead, 64 percent of the awards were eliminated.

"Through their testimony, and through review of the documents provided to the committee, we have identified several key findings that were not previously apparent," according to a statement released by state Senator Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) and Representative Ryan Barry (D-Manchester), the committee co-chairs.

The two also point fingers at the company executives, who they say "put on a personal life vest … when they knew the ship was starting to sink."

At the hearing, they said, Shea suggested that the payouts would be due even without the Connecticut law on payment of wages. 

"He suggested that double payments plus legal fees could be awarded, although the law allows for an employer's refusal on a 'good-faith' basis," the statement said.

Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is urging Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to halt the $230 million in bonuses slated for payment next year.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/AIG-Bonuses-Could-Be-closer-to-450-Million.html

Sphere: Related Content

Dear Ex-AIG Guy:

The Rude Pundit

Proudly lowering the level of political discourse

The Rude Pundit responds to the resignation letter from Jake DeSantis, AIG's executive vice president of the financial products unit, published in yesterday's New York Times:

"Dear (soon-to-be) ex-AIG Guy,

"I read your letter with a great deal of interest. See, even though I'm just a member of the middle of the middle class who generally believes that vast sums of accumulated wealth are demonstrable proof of the corruption of the people who hold the wealth, I had your back, at least as far as your right to privacy and even, to an extent, as regards your contracted compensation. I believed that contracts could be renegotiated, sure, but barring that or anything actually illegal shown, that we just had to suck it up. And while I still believe that, lemme just say that your self-aggrandizing, whiny little bitch moan of a letter makes me wish whatever ill that comes your way is compounded by the number of times you lapped the average American worker in yearly compensation. If it's your karmic punishment to have to shovel shit in a stable for eternity, I hope it's got a hundred times as many animals shitting a hundred times as many turds for you to toss. In other words, and since my job is not to obfuscate to the point of denying comprehension, fuck you, you cockgobbling bag of fuck.

"Taking you down point by point would be a waste of time, especially since it's been done quite well by others. You want to come out of this clean. You want to be blameless. But even if you were the guy who filed food requisitions for the guards at Dachau, you still worked for the Nazis. Actually, to be more precise and only slightly hyperbolic, you're like the guy who cleaned floors for SPECTRE, the evil organization that James Bond was fighting. At the end of the day, you could look at where you mopped and say, 'Goddamn, that's one shiny motherfucker of a floor,' while behind you Ernst Blofeld is watching a giant fucking screen showing the launch of a nuke at London. When the British agents arrived, your ass would still get mowed down.

"Your life has been a lie. You have worked for a corporation that, when all is said and done, will have been responsible for as much harm to the average worker in this nation as those closed steel mills in the places you were raised. You're a glorified gambler. No, fuck that. Gamblers are more honest about what they are than you. You made bets in order for rich fucks to get richer, and you tried to convince yourself that it was a noble pursuit.

"You sanctimonious bastard. You want to pat yourself on the back because you took only a dollar in salary? The only fuckers who do that are the ones who can afford to. It's not like it caused you any suffering at all - did your kids have to go to public school? Did you have to give up the summer house in the Hamptons? Seriously, AIG guy, unless you're sucking Teamster cock for quarters to make ends meet, just don't talk in public about your sacrifices.

"I'll bet everyone you know is so fucking proud of you for saying what you said. I'll bet your lover fucked you so hard last night that you thought your balls were gonna send you their resignation. I'll bet your schoolteacher parents thought, 'What a good son' over your announcement that you were giving your 'payment from AIG amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes' to 'charity.' If you're so fucking right about being owed the money, then why are you giving it away? Because you can. And that was the problem to begin with. Hell, I'm guessing that along with your resignation will be a nice severance package, a golden parachute, and an antique umbrella stand to make sure your refinished floors don't get wet on rainy days. It's gonna make that three-quarter mill seem like a drop in a piss bucket.

 

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/dear-ex-aig-guy-rude-pundit-responds-to.html

Sphere: Related Content

Republican family values

Sphere: Related Content

Christmas on Wall Street

Sphere: Related Content

Earth hour

THIS SATURDAY 28 MARCH AT 8.30PM YOU CAN VOTE EARTH BY SWITCHING OFF YOUR LIGHTS FOR ONE HOUR - EARTH HOUR.

MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT

Turn off your lights for Earth Hour, record your vote and share it with the world! Here's how:

PHOTO

Take a photo on the night, upload it to flickr and add it to Earth Hour's flickr group.

VIDEO

Make a video of your event, upload it to YouTube and add it to our YouTube group.

BLOG

Write a live blog post during the event and tag it with earthhour or voteearth, and your location.

TWITTER

Update your Twitter on the night and write #earthhour or #voteearth and your #location in your update to tag it.

http://www.earthhour.org/home/

Sphere: Related Content

G20 Welcoming Committee Gets Ready

Posted by Richard Metzger

It's sure gonna be a long, hot FUN summer...

G20 Meltdown

Class War G20 issue

Summit police fear attacks on hotels used by the G20 leaders

G20 to be most expensive police operation in British history

Storm the Banks

Britain at risk of serious social unrest, report warns

G20 Protests Twitter Feed

UK IndyMedia

Mahalo G20 Protests round-up (frequently updated)

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/25/g20-welcoming-commit.html

Sphere: Related Content

Why secretly funded DEA surveillance planes aren't flying

By Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON — The first sign of trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration's new surveillance planes surfaced almost immediately. On the way from the manufacturer to the agency's aviation headquarters, one of them veered off a runway during a fuel stop.

The malfunction last spring was only the beginning. A month later, the windshield unlatched in mid-flight and smashed into the engine. Then, in a third incident on the same plane, a connection between the propeller and the engine came loose and forced an emergency landing.

In January, after less than 10 months of operation, the cascade of mechanical problems forced the DEA to ground the planes.

The planes recently were scheduled to be "cannibalized" so the DEA could sell the parts and recover as much of its money as possible.

The story behind why the DEA sought out the three planes, only to become the second federal agency to give them up, illustrates the pitfalls of "black," or classified, budgeting in which Congress approves tens of billions of dollars for intelligence agencies outside the public's view.

The twin-engine planes, manufactured by Schweizer Aircraft, likely came out of an even more shadowy funding provision known as "black earmarks," according to government officials with knowledge of the contract. The officials asked to remain anonymous because the planes, known as "Shadowhawks," received funding secretly.

Lawmakers often earmark projects to score sought-after contracts for companies back home.

The idea is to encourage cutting-edge research and development that wouldn't otherwise get approval during the ordinary budgeting process. During the regular and more transparent budgeting process, earmarks can sometimes pay for worthwhile projects, experts said.

Black earmarks, however, receive almost no scrutiny. Even worse, there's little accountability when the technology doesn't work.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/64789.html

Sphere: Related Content

US deploys warships as North Korea prepares to launch missile

The US has deployed two warships with anti-missile capabilities in the waters off Japan as tensions mount over North Korea's plans to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska.

By Peter Foster in Beijing

The deployment comes as America, Japan and South Korea threaten North Korea with 'serious consequences' if it proceeds with plans to conduct the missile test in defiance of a 2006 UN resolution.

North Korea, which has informed international agencies of its plan to fire the missile between April 4 and 8, says the launch is a "satellite test" which it is entitled to make under international law.

Recent satellite imagery has shown that the North Korea has now assembled two stages of the three-stage Taepodong-2 missile on a launch pad in the country's northeast. Experts estimate that missile could be ready to fire within four days.

Japan has threatened to shoot down the missile if it crosses over Japanese territory, a move which Pyongyang has already said it would consider an "act of war".

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has warned any launch would threaten to end the six-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. The talks have been stalled since December in a dispute over how to verify its disarmament.

"This provocative action, in violation of the United Nations mandate, will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences," she said while on a visit to Mexico, warning that the US would put the issue before the UN Security Council for additional sanctions.

It is unclear if China, Pyongyang's only major ally which has held talks with senior figures from both North and South Korea in the last week, would support a US move to deepen sanctions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/5053883/US-deploys-warships-as-North-Korea-prepares-to-launch-missile.html

Sphere: Related Content

Fat cats in terror after anti-capitalists attack Fred the Shred's home

Vandalised: A policeman outside the Edinburgh home of former bank boss

Sir Fred Goodwin today after it was attacked by vandals overnight

By Stephen Wright

Security will be stepped up around fat-cat bankers after the home of disgraced former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin was targeted by vandals.

A statement claiming to be from the group responsible for damage at his £3million mansion warned of further attacks, saying: 'This is just the beginning.'

The threat sparked fears of a terror campaign against those blamed for the collapse in the financial system.

The concern is that anti-capitalist groups will copy the tactics of animal rights militants by directly targeting individuals they hold responsible for the credit crunch.

Tensions are already high, with anarchists reported to be plotting mayhem at next week's G20 summit in London.

Their intention is to paralyse the Square Mile by staging sit-in protests and storming financial institutions, with the Bank of England and RBS among the top targets.

Effigies of bankers will be hung from lampposts. Security adviser Dai Davies, a former head of Scotland Yard's Royalty Protection squad, said: 'Risk assessments will have to be carried out by the police on individuals who are concerned about their safety. If there is cause for concern then appropriate advice will be given and pre put in place.

'The developments at Sir Fred Goodwin's home will almost certainly make some other high-profile bankers want to review their own private security arrangements.'

Sir Fred, nicknamed Fred the Shred because of his ruthless cost-cutting regime, is the first top banker to be personally targeted over the financial meltdown. Windows were smashed at his home in Edinburgh's upmarket Morningside area.

A Mercedes S600 saloon parked in the driveway came in for similar treatment in the 4.35am attack. Sir Fred, 50, a father of two, is abroad and has not been seen in public since giving evidence at the Treasury Select Committee on February 10.

His team of public relations advisers have told him to lie low until the furore subsides over his £700,000-a-year pension deal. Sources close to the disgraced banker said he had been left 'shaken' by the attack.

Shortly after the vandalism was discovered, a group calling itself Bank Bosses Are Criminals claimed responsibility in an email sent to news organisations under the name Moira McLeod and the address bankbossesarecriminals@mail.com.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164691/Fat-cats-terror-anti-capitalists-attack-Fred-Shreds-home.html

Sphere: Related Content

'Mandatory youth service' bill advances

 

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL

House version commissions panel to consider 'volunteer' requirement

 

by Jerome R. Corsi

Congress appears ready to pass an Obama administration plan that could create mandatory public service requirements for all American youth, fulfilling a campaign promise.

The bill, HR 1388: The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, otherwise known as the "GIVE Act," has already passed the House by a vote of 321-105.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted closure on the motion to proceed by a margin of 74-14 in a move that makes its ultimate passage likely.

The bill, promoted by the Obama administration as a means of encouraging America's youth to participate in voluntary community service, has received little scrutiny from Congress or the public.

Yet, a version of the bill in the House proposes to establish a Congressional Commission on Civil Service tasked with determining whether a mandatory service requirement for all young people in America could be developed and implemented, though it is not clear that provision will survive a conference committee.

Moreover, an amendment to the bill introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., one of the bill's 37 co-sponsors in the House, appears to severely restrict the First Amendment by prohibiting the youth participating in the program from attempting to influence legislation, organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts or strikes.

Funds under the bill are designated to be distributed through AmeriCorps, even though AmeriCorps volunteers have a history of being recruited and employed by community programs with an ideological purpose supported by Democratic Party politicians, including Planned Parenthood.

Under terms of the legislation, volunteers recruited into AmeriCorps through the GIVE Act could end up counseling Planned Parenthood clients to recommend and arrange abortions.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92902

Sphere: Related Content

States consider drug tests for welfare recipients

By TOM BREEN

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.

Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.

The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.

Those in favor of the drug tests say they are motivated out of a concern for their constituents' health and ability to put themselves on more solid financial footing once the economy rebounds. But proponents concede they also want to send a message: you don't get something for nothing.

"Nobody's being forced into these assistance programs," said Craig Blair, a Republican in the West Viginia Legislature who has created a Web site - notwithmytaxdollars.com - that bears a bobble-headed likeness of himself advocating this position. "If so many jobs require random drug tests these days, why not these benefits?"

Blair is proposing the most comprehensive measure in the country, as it would apply to anyone applying for food stamps, unemployment compensation or the federal programs usually known as "welfare": Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Women, Infants and Children.

Lawmakers in other states are offering similar, but more modest proposals.

On Wednesday, the Kansas House of Representatives approved a measure mandating drug testing for the 14,000 or so people getting cash assistance from the state, which now goes before the state senate. In February, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed a measure that would require drug testing as a condition of receiving TANF benefits, and similar bills have been introduced in Missouri and Hawaii. A Florida senator has proposed a bill linking unemployment compensation to drug testing, and a member of Minnesota's House of Representatives has a bill requiring drug tests of people who get public assistance under a state program there.

A January attempt in the Arizona Senate to establish such a law failed.

In the past, such efforts have been stymied by legal and cost concerns, said Christine Nelson, a program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures. But states' bigger fiscal crises, and the surging demand for public assistance, could change that.

"It's an example of where you could cut costs at the expense of a segment of society that's least able to defend themselves," said Frank Crabtree, executive director of the West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Drug testing is not the only restriction envisioned for people receiving public assistance: a bill in the Tennessee Legislature would cap lottery winnings for recipients at $600.

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/f/1310/03-26-2009/20090326022007_11.html

Sphere: Related Content

Wavy Gravy Leads Austin Musicians in March for Peace By Thorne Dreyer

By Thorne Dreyer

(Photos: The Rag Blog)

AUSTIN, Texas — They weren't quite a million, but they sure made some beautiful music.

As hundreds of locals, tourists, musicians and industry types attending South by Southwest — the massive technology, film and music fest — packed the streets of downtown Austin Saturday afternoon, March 21, the Million Musicians March for Peace — with hippie legend Wavy Gravy leading the way — snaked by in a rhythmic procession, creating its own lively soundtrack as it passed.

[SXSW is the largest event of its kind in the world, focusing the attention of the music industry on Austin for several days in March. In the face of a down economy, this year's event was a rousing success. It featured 2,000 musical acts from over 50 countries and drew hundreds of industry reps. It was highlighted by unannounced performances by Metallica, Kanye West, Devo and others.]

Marching behind a banner that said, "Be an Instrument for Peace," more than 200 singing, chanting and dancing marchers followed a second-line type brass band from the Texas State Capitol through the busy streets of downtown Austin — up Congress Ave. past the crowds queued up for a premiere at the Paramount Theater, then delighting the throngs along Sixth Street's music row, and on to City Hall for a rally and concert.

Wavy Gravy, aka Hugh Romney, wore a tie-dyed peace symbol-adorned t-shirt with matching baggy pants, a sideways beanie, a red clown's nose and a beaming smile.

Riding a yellow pedicab, he was the Grand Marshal. Gravy, of Hog Farm and Woodstock fame, was in town for SXSW, promoting a documentary about his looney life called "Saint Misbehavin'."

Also in the parade was Jim Fouratt, New York-based activist and cultural critic who was a founder of the theatrical Sixties new left group, the Yippies.

The Million Musicians March was organized by Instruments for Peace and sponsors included MDS/Austin, Texans for Peace, CodePink Austin, Texas Labor Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and The Rag Blog.

One banner shouted "Rich Man's War, Poor People's Fight." Demonstrators carried signs saying "Prosecute War Criminals" and "Truth is the First Casualty."

According to writer and graphic designer Jim Retherford, the event, which is an Austin tradition, "may not have been as large as in some years past, but it had a wonderful energy. There were affinity groups of musicians throughout the parade and it was great to see the ethnic mix and the kids with parents and grandparents laughing and dancing together along the way."

Jim Fouratt told The Rag Blog, "I was impressed that Austin Music Award winner Carolyn Wonderland was front and center. She warmed my heart. And I was proud to march beside Wavy Gravy. It will be artists and musicians who lead us out of the chaos."

Wonderland, a consistent activist for peace and other issues, joined noted musicians like Guy Forsyth, Leeann Atherton and Shelley King, the first woman to be named official Texas State Musician, in the concert at City Hall.

"It was great to see all my grey-haired colleagues alongside multi-generational families, all decked out in the costumes of old Austin like it was before the high-tech incursion," Jim Fouratt added.

The theme of this year's Million Musician March was to oppose the continuing occupation of Iraq and it also saluted the alternative media and its role in getting out the word.

Musician Richard Bowden of Instruments for Peace, the moving force behind MMM, said, "Of all the events worldwide in remembrance of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq disaster, the Million Musicians March for Peace was the only one led by musicians." He added, "I am so glad to be in Austin where we can do something like this."

[Thorne Dreyer, a Sixties activist and underground journalist, lives in Austin, Texas. He is a director of the New Journalism Project, a contributing editor to Next Left Notes and is co-editor of The Rag Blog -- http://theragblog.blogspot.com/.]

Thomas Good, Editor
Next Left Notes (NLN)
National Writers Union - UAW Local 1981
International Federation of Journalists

www.nextleftnotes.net
video.nextleftnotes.net

Sphere: Related Content

Schwarzenegger To Provide Government Camps For Homeless

Shut down and takeover of "tent cities" stokes fears of internment pretext

by Paul Joseph Watson

Plans to shut down tent cities in California and relocate homeless people to government-run facilities have stoked fears that the move could be a pretext for a wider internment of Americans in the event of a total economic collapse.

"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds," reports Bloomberg News.

Homeless people will be moved to the state facility known as Cal-Expo as the Sacramento City Council last night agreed to spend $880,000 to expand homeless programs.

"Together with the local government and volunteers, we are taking a first step to ensure the people living in tent city have a safe place to stay, with fresh water, healthy conditions and access to the services they need," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "And I am committed to working with Mayor Johnson to find a permanent solution for those living in tent city."

That "permanent solution" has some people worried that many more Americans could be interned against their will in the event of widespread rioting and the implementation of martial law.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/schwarzenegger-to-provide-government-camps-for-homeless.html

Sphere: Related Content

What happens when lemmings design navagational equipment

Man follows sat nav to cliff edge

Mr Jones said he relied on his sat nav system in his job as a driver

A car was left teetering on a cliff edge after the driver followed sat nav directions down a Pennine footpath.

Robert Jones continued to follow the instructions when they told him the narrow, steep path he was driving on in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, was a road.

Mr Jones, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, only stopped when his BMW hit a fence above Gauxholme railway bridge on Sunday morning.

Police have charged Mr Jones with driving without due care and attention.

The 43-year-old, who works as a driver, said he relied on his sat nav for his job.

He described Sunday's incident, during a visit to friends in Todmorden, as "a nightmare".

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "Officers received a call at 11.18am on Sunday March 22 reporting that a BMW was hanging off the edge of a cliff off Bacup Road.

"The driver was a 43-year-old man from Doncaster. He has been summonsed to court for driving without due care and attention."

 

The driver may face prosecution for careless driving

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/7962212.stm

Sphere: Related Content

Extreme Sheep Herding

Sphere: Related Content

Greenwash: Shell betrays 'new energy future' promises

The energy company has sold out on its renewable investments, claiming they are 'not economic'

by Fred Pearce

Shell has pulled back from its renewable investments, claiming they are 'not economic' Photograph: James Boardman/Public Domain

Shell, I have to report, is the new Exxon. The company that back in December was filling this and other newspapers with double-page adverts promoting its conversion to a "new energy future" of wind farms, hydrogen fuels, fuel made from marine algae and much else, has pulled the plug.

In the 1990s Royal Dutch Shell set its boffins on finding new green fuels, such as forest plantations to make biofuels. I remember them at the Earth Summit in Rio back in 1992. Not long after, Shell was for a time the world's second largest manufacturer of solar panels. In 2004, it opened the world's largest grid-connected solar park.

The company seemed to embrace the idea that a modern global oil company could and should transform itself into a green energy company. But, to rewrite its old advertising slogan, you can never be sure of Shell.

Just as the other European oil giant, BP, flattered to deceive when it began to call itself Beyond Petroleum, so too with Shell.

At a time when new bosses at Exxon in the US are making overtures to Barack Obama's idea of a new green deal to fight climate change, Shell is going back to the bad old days.

Last week, this and other papers reported: "Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydropower because they are not economic."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/26/fred-pearce-greenwash-shell-exxon

Sphere: Related Content

The best oil company in America is Venezuelan

CITGO Corpus Christi Refinery Receives 2008 OSPRA Award

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, March 26, 2009 -- The CITGO Corpus Christi Refinery was awarded on Wednesday the Texas General Land Office's prestigious 2008 Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act (OSPRA) Award.  For the first time, the award has been bestowed on the same company for two consecutive years, as a testament to the core values of CITGO and its commitment to environmental stewardship.  CITGO employees take very seriously their responsibility to comply with environmental regulations and serve as guardians of our natural resources and environment.

 

The OSPRA Award was established by the TGLO, the oldest state agency in Texas, to recognize organizations that have excelled in their efforts to comply with the state's Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act of 1991.  The agency's primary functions include managing state lands and mineral rights, leasing drilling rights for oil and gas production and protecting the state's natural resources.

 

Specifically, the 2008 award recognized the Refinery's initiatives and achievements during the 2008 calendar year.  These included:

 

• Zero oil spills from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008 while transferring some 6 billion gallons of crude, feedstocks and refined petroleum products across its marine docks.

• Commissioned an underflow dam to contain any residual oil within Refinery property while still allowing for movement of rain run-off and tidal waters between Oak Park waterway and ship channel.

• Purchased, retrofitted, and donated a portable trailer to the Texas General Land Office dedicated exclusively for treatment and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife affected by oil spills.

• Sponsored a "Regulatory Agency Day" for USCG, TGLO, TCEQ, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Texas Parks & Wildlife, U. S. Customs, and Corpus Christi Fire Dept.  representatives to educate them on the Refinery's operations and to tour its facilities.

• Sponsored a "Marine Consortium" for USCG, TGLO, U.S. Customs, Pilots Association, Corpus Christi Fire Dept., and local shipping companies' representatives to discuss various topics including dock operations, environmental, and safety issues.

• Launched a campaign named "Finish Great in 2008" in late October as part of the Refinery's "Eyes on the Environment Program" to focus on completing the year on a very positive note by emphasizing environmental awareness.

CITGO, based in Houston, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products.  The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

 

For more information visit www.citgo.com

Sphere: Related Content

Weird Mysteries

Sphere: Related Content

dailyplanet.com

Sphere: Related Content

Police raid Wikileaks.de domain owner Theodor Reppe's home over 'censorship lists'

By Chloe Lake

POLICE have raided a Wikileaks associate's homes in Dresden and Jena after the website published a list of banned websites.

Theodor Reppe owns the German domain registration for "wikileaks.de", one of the many URLs used by the whistleblowing website.

This morning, Wikileaks published a Twitter update:

"Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists - stay tuned."

Wikileaks, which offers an anonymous service, has previously published alleged web censorship lists from Thailand, Denmark, and Australia.

A statement on Wikileaks's website claims police were investigating the "distribution of pornographic material" and "discovery of evidence".

Wikileaks claims Mr Reppe is not involved in the website other than "sponsoring the German domain name and mirroring a collection of Wikileaks US Congressional Research Service reports".

Mr Reppe also reportedly maintains one of the most popular anonymous proxy servers in Germany.

Wikileaks told news.com.au it's not clear whether the raid was initiated after complaints from Australia.

"The raid is over the censorship lists, but which particular list, we can not be certain, although the Australian lists are the most recent and the most prominent due to their non-voluntary status."

In the past week, Wikileaks published three lists all purporting to be the Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA's) blacklist of websites.

While ACMA and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy last week denied the list belonged to ACMA, they both warned that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would investigate its distribution.

The lists contained apparent links to child pornography websites, gambling sites, as well as relatively innocuous sites including those of a dentist and canteen manager.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25240192-5014239,00.html

Sphere: Related Content

Beware Conficker worm come April 1

In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.

Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years.

Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent... though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm's code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What's known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything's possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day -- which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled -- but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can't be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.

Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128643/beware-conficker-worm-come-april-1/

Sphere: Related Content

Living on Eggshells: Lessons From The Depression

by Stinson Carter

My grandmother made the best lemon meringue pie you ever had. And when she cracked her eggs, she'd always dip her finger in the shells to get out every last drop of white. She was a child of The Depression, her mother died giving birth to her ninth child and my grandmother -- the eldest of the nine -- had to take her mother's place at sixteen. Whatever food my great-grandfather could buy on his country mailman's wages had to be stretched to feed a house full of hungry, squalling mouths.

We're all picking up our own versions of the eggshell ritual these days. Maybe you circle past the valet until you find a spot on the street, maybe you just don't go out to eat much anymore, or maybe you go to a matinee instead of Macy's on Sunday afternoons. Even if you're doing fine, you've probably started making your coffee at home, and you've finally found the courage to say, "tap" when the waiter asks, "sparkling or flat?"

True, we will always be the creators of the Hail Mary pass, and this is still the Republic of Risk and Reward. But when did we begin to cripple ourselves with the idea that "rich" is a stage of life as inevitable as adolescence or old age, and with the attitude that no amount of debt or deception can keep us from getting our due? When were we consumed by our own consumption? We've always heard that rich and happy aren't the same thing, but its been a while since we've been forced to prove it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stinson-carter/living-on-eggshells_b_177812.html

Sphere: Related Content

Homesteaders in the Hood

Squatters are multiplying in the recession—what should cities do?

By Eduardo M. Peñalver

To survive, everyone needs to have a place to be and to sleep, eat, and, let's face it, go to the bathroom. For most of us, that place is the home. As rising unemployment pushes more people out of their houses and apartments, however, and growing numbers of Americans cannot find a place to perform these essential functions legally, they will have little choice but to break the law. And so some of them are turning to a strategy that has cropped up repeatedly in American history—squatting. Governments are sometimes tempted to respond to a spike in this form of outlaw residency by simply forcing squatters out. The better strategy, however is to treat squatting as a symptom of a simultaneous failure of both the market and the government. Viewed in this light, an outbreak of squatting is a sign that governments should change their housing policies to make it easier for poor people to find the housing they need—as law-abiders instead of renegades.

Squatting, or unlawfully occupying and making use of land that belongs to someone else, tends to emerge when poverty and homelessness intersect with absentee ownership. It was widespread on the frontier of the 19^th-century West, where settlers who couldn't afford to purchase land at market prices often simply occupied land owned by Eastern speculators (as well as land owned by the federal government and by Native American tribes).

From the point of view of local officials, this was a win-win, of a sort. Far-away owners were more interested in free-riding on rising property values, and flipping their land, than in developing it productively. So they resisted paying property taxes or investing in infrastructure. As a result, governments in the West were happy to lend squatters a hand in their efforts to get property out of the speculators' hands. Local governments frequently made it easier for squatters to obtain title through the legal doctrine of adverse possession (sometimes colloquially called "squatters rights")—for example, by shortening the time period required for squatting to mature into ownership. Ultimately, even the federal government joined in. After years of using the Army to chase squatters off its lands, Congress decided to create a legal avenue for settlers without money to become landowners: the 1862 Homestead Act.

A century later, in the 1970s, squatting went urban. In city after city, the market for urban housing collapsed amid a toxic (and self-reinforcing) brew of riots, redlining, and the flight of the white middle class to the suburbs. City governments acquired thousands of vacant units from owners who had fallen behind on their property taxes. Rather than turning these properties over to remaining low-income residents searching for affordable housing, many cities sought to auction them off to speculators, who in turn frequently fell behind on their own tax payments. In the meantime, the vacant buildings became magnets for crime and illegal dumping. In response, groups of squatters—backed by community organizations like ACORN—began to take over city-owned, vacant housing. Many city governments cracked down on the squatters, but others took a more measured approach, coming up with programs whereby urban "homesteaders" could acquire vacant housing through "sweat equity."

http://www.slate.com/id/2214544/

Sphere: Related Content

March On The Pentagon

By Thomas Good

A protester outside the Lincoln Memorial
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

WASHINGTON — It was at the Pentagon that three thousand plus anti-war demonstrators met up with their pro-war counterparts — all thirty of them. 

Lynne Stewart spoke at the rally before the march
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

On Saturday, March 21, thousands of anti-war protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches and greet one another — before marching against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Members of Iraq Veterans Against The War on the
Arlington Memorial Bridge
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

By midday, on the second day of Spring, the protesters were marching across the Arlington Memorial Bridge -- en route to the Pentagon.

A small number of counter-demonstrators showed up
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

As the long column of protesters turned to enter the Pentagon parking area they passed a group of about thirty middleaged counter-demonstrators holding signs that said "love it or leave it" and "you never marched against terrorists". Some of the protesters stopped to take pictures of the counter-demonstrators and then continued on to Crystal City where they chanted outside the offices of several war profiteers while police looked on.

Police in riot gear lined the streets of Crystal City, Va.
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

Heard along the march route: protesters chanting "Hey Obama, yes we can - troops out of Afghanistan…"

View Photos/Videos From The Action…

 

(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

www.nextleftnotes.net
video.nextleftnotes.net Sphere: Related Content

The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler, 50 Years Dead

 

Writer who gave L.A. a lasting identity took the language of the street and made it sing

By Judith Freeman

Raymond Chandler died 50 years ago this week. On March 26, 1959, at 3:50 in the afternoon, he took his last breath in the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, having drunk himself to death, though the official cause of his demise was listed as pneumonia. He was 71 years old, an unhappy and lonely man who'd finally run out on his luck.

He died alone, with no friends at his side, which was pretty much the way he'd lived his life. His beloved wife, Cissy, had passed away five years earlier and ever since, he'd been trying to do himself in, first by taking a loaded gun into the shower and firing off a couple of rounds — what he later called the most inept suicide attempt in history — then later simply turning to gin and Scotch as his weapons of choice. Seventeen people showed up for his funeral, presided over by a pastor he'd only met once and didn't much care for.

He's buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego, in an undistinguished grave — just a simple, flat headstone set flush with the ground and surrounded by nearly identical markers arranged in long, boring rows. Nobody thought to plant him next to his wife, whose ashes were stored in a crypt not far away. By then nobody really cared what Chandler might have wanted. If you want to pay a visit to his grave, you have to hunt for it. And there it is: Raymond Thornton Chandler, Author, 1888-1959, In Loving Memory. The "author" part nails it in that sublimely minimal way. Still, it's a pretty lousy little headstone for such a great writer.

We remember Chandler for a lot of things. As the guy who put L.A. on the literary map, along with John Fante and Nathanael West, who published their first novels the same year The Big Sleep came out, in 1939 — a boffo year for L.A. letters. We remember him as the writer who gave the city a lasting identity. As the person who elevated the lowly mystery to the realm of literature. As a damn funny writer who mastered the art of repartee and the bon mot. The guy who took the language of the street, American slang, and made it sing. The King of the Simile. The Bard of Bad Blondes. And perhaps most of all, we remember him as one of the great American literary stylists, capable of tossing off lines like these:

"Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumor, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack."

"A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock."

"The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips."

"His smile was as stiff as a frozen fish."

"He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel."

And, a personal favorite: "It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."

He said he was the first to write about Los Angeles in a realistic way. To write about a place, he said, you have to love it, or hate it, or both, alternately, the way you do a woman. Vacuity and boredom were futile. L.A. never bored him. He found it banal, maybe, but never vacuous. He both loved it (when he first arrived in 1912) and hated it (by the time he left in 1946), until finally, he said, it became a tired old whore to him. Never mind that he, more than any other writer, helped to turn Our Lady of the Queen of Angels into a woman of the night. He got this city better than anybody else, its rhythms and rudeness, its gas stations filled with wasted light, the houses in canyons hanging in the blackness, the smell of the air, the feel of the winds, the very pulse of the place, which is why his novels never seem dated: He captured the essence of the city, not just its temporal surface.

http://www.laweekly.com/2009-03-26/art-books/thebig-sleep?src=newsletter

Sphere: Related Content

Oxford Literary Festival: George Orwell's son speaks for the first time about his father

John Carey talks to George Orwell's son, Richard Blair

What would it have been like to be brought up by George Orwell? Pretty grim, you might think. But you would be wrong. In June 1944, Orwell and his wife Eileen adopted a three-week-old boy whom they named Richard Horatio Blair (Eric Blair being Orwell's real name). Now a retired engineer living happily in an immaculate house in a picture-book Warwickshire village, Blair has never publicised the fact that he was related to Orwell, always preferring to remain in the background. But ahead of a talk at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival with Orwell's biographer DJ Taylor (details, below right), Richard agreed to speak to me about his memories of his childhood.

Richard was only six when Orwell died in January 1950, but he remembers him with great warmth. He had, he says, "a heart of deep paternal affection". As you might expect, Richard's recollection of their time together is patchy, and he cannot recall Eileen at all. What do remain vivid for him, however, are the years he spent with his father on the island of Jura off the west coast of Argyll.

Orwell had been drawn to Jura after the premature death of his wife in London in 1945. Eileen to my mind is the heroine of the Orwell story. She had not been keen on the idea of adoption, but agreed to it because she knew that Orwell, who believed he was sterile, was desperate for a son. Knowing she was ill with a tumour, she put off consulting a specialist, for her husband's and Richard's sake, until the adoption was finally legalised. As her letters show, she quickly came to love little Richard, but the delay in seeing a doctor cannot have helped her and she died on the operating table under anaesthetic.

Living, after Eileen's death, in a cramped, dark flat in Canonbury Square in north London, Orwell was determined that his son should grow up in the country, where he could fish and hunt and get back to nature. He had discussed the idea of moving away from London with Eileen before she died, and in 1946, at the invitation of his friend David Astor, the editor of the Observer, he spent a few weeks on the island. Captivated by the sea and air and emptiness, he decided to move up there permanently.

Barnhill, the farmhouse at the north end of the island that he rented for himself, Richard and Richard's nanny Susan (soon replaced by Orwell's bossy sister Avril), had no electricity or telephone and the mail came only twice a week. The nearest village, Ardlussa, was eight miles away along a rough track, and it was 25 miles to the nearest shop. To most settlers these might seem inconveniences, but they were positive attractions to Orwell, even though he was beginning to suffer badly from the TB that would eventually kill him.

He had always been critical of the "softness" of civilisation, and as the illness took hold the need to pit himself against physical challenges grew. Besides, Barnhill's remoteness would ensure that he was not pestered by visitors, and could settle down to a serious spell of writing. It was at Barnhill that he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5889541.ece

Sphere: Related Content