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UNDERNEWS
Jan 11, 2002
THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Inside the Beltway, Out of the Loop, Ahead of the Curve
Edited by Sam Smith
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
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WORD
The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in
an awful hurry. -John Jensen
LOOSE CHANGE
JONATHAN ROWE, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - No beliefs are more entrenched
in the United States than those regarding the economy. A couple of weeks ago
I saw a banner headline in the local paper. "San Francisco Retailers' Plea:
Shop 'Til You Drop," it said. "Economy needs holiday spending." There was
nothing exceptional about those statements. For weeks the media have been in
worry mode over laggard consumers. Still, the headline was truly strange.
The economy is supposed to meet our needs. And we are supposed to be the
best judges of those needs, not the government, not corporations, and not
the economic experts whom the media quote so dutifully. So, if we Americans
aren't shopping 'til we drop, it just might mean we don't feel like
dropping. Just possibly we don't need a lot of stuff right now. . . . The
theory says the economy serves us. That belief is embedded in the drone. But
in practice we end up serving the economy. Shopping has become a duty, a
form of service to the state. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the
president urged us onward to the malls, the way previous presidents urged
the citizenry to join the military or conserve fuel. This strange inversion
didn't happen overnight. It began about a century ago, when the economic
problem began turning upside down. For eons the problem had been a scarcity
of things; conventional economics is based entirely on that premise. But
now, thanks to technology and mass production, the problem increasingly has
been the opposite - a scarcity of desire for things. The then-emergent
corporations could turn out so much stuff. Who would buy it all? Before, the
nation needed things. Now, it needs a need for things
MORE
http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/getasciiarchive?script/2001/12/17/p11s1.txt
FURTHERMORE
"MODERN" HUMANS GO BACK FURTHER THAN ASSUMED
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020111-6365414.htm
BEHIND THE BUSHES
Audrey Hudson, WASHINGTON TIMES - The independent investigator at the
Environmental Protection Agency is suing Administrator Christie Whitman to
block her from eliminating his job. Ombudsman Robert J. Martin said the move
to dissolve his position came after he exposed a financial conflict of
interest between Mrs. Whitman's husband and polluters at two cleanup sites.
Mr. Martin and the Government Accountability Project yesterday asked for a
temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the transfer of his duties to
the inspector general's office. They also asked that Mr. Martin's files be
protected to complete the investigation of the Shattuck Superfund site in
Colorado and the Marjol Battery cleanup in Pennsylvania. According to an
agency memo, Mr. Martin will be assigned to an "unclassified position,"
which effectively dissolves the position of national ombudsman. "This is far
worse than a gag order. It is an effective death sentence for the concept of
an independent citizens watchdog at EPA," said Tom Devine, legal director
for the Government Accountability Project. MORE
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020111-29002479.htm
ENRON
*** ELISABETH BUMILLER, NY TIMES - The Treasury Department disclosed that
the president of Enron Corporation asked a top department official last year
for help in obtaining a credit extension to stave off bankruptcy. A
department spokeswoman, Michele Davis, told reporters that Under Secretary
Peter Fisher spoke with Enron's president, Lawrence Whalley, six or eight
times in late October and early November. ``As Enron's negotiations with its
bankers for an extension of credit neared a decision point, the president of
Enron asked Under Secretary Fisher to call the banks,'' Ms. Davis said. She
went on to say that Mr. Fisher ``inferred he was being asked to encourage
the banks to extend credit.'' . . . Today's disclosure of Mr. Whalley's
contacts with an influential Treasury Department official came a day after
the White House disclosed that Kenneth L. Lay, the chairman of Enron and one
of President Bush's biggest political contributors, telephoned two cabinet
officers last fall, and that one of them said Mr. Lay had sought government
help with its dire financial condition.
MORE http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/business/11CND-ENRON-1.html
*** KURT EICHENWALD & FLOYD NORRIS, NY TIMES - As the fortunes of the Enron
Corporation unraveled in late 2001, officials of its accounting firm, Arthur
Andersen & Company, destroyed "a significant but undetermined number" of
documents relating to the company and its finances, Andersen disclosed. The
document destruction began in September, a government investigator said, and
continued into November, after Enron announced that the Securities and
Exchange Commission was conducting a formal investigation of Enron's
finances. In November, the S.E.C. subpoenaed Andersen for records related to
Enron, and the accounting firm told its employees that such documents should
be preserved. But Andersen said documents may have been destroyed even after
that. "At this time, we cannot say whether that instruction was violated,"
said David W. Tabolt, a spokesman for Andersen. The documents including
correspondence and both electronic and paper records were destroyed by
employees involved with the Enron assignment, Andersen said. The 89-
year-old firm, the smallest of accounting's Big Five, said it had notified
the S.E.C., the Justice Department and members of Congress investigating the
Enron case of the records' disposal. The S.E.C. said that it would expand
its investigation of Enron's collapse to include Andersen's newly disclosed
conduct.
MORE http://nytimes.com/2002/01/11/business/11AUDI.html
*** TIME, 1997 - For a man who had supposedly vanished from the corridors of
power, Mack McLarty was the man to see in 1996. Bill Clinton's former chief
of staff, now a White House counselor tucked away in the basement, provided
assistance to businessmen who ponied up $1.5 million for the Democrats in
the last election. On Nov. 22, 1995, for example, Clinton scrawled an FYI
note to McLarty, enclosing a newspaper article on Enron Corp. and the
vicissitudes of its $3 billion power-plant project in India. McLarty then
reached out to Enron's chairman, KEN LAY, and over the next nine months
closely monitored the project with the U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, keeping
Lay informed of the Administration's efforts, according to White House
documents reviewed by TIME. In June 1996, four days before India granted
final approval to Enron's project, Lay's company gave $100,000 to the
President's party. Enron denies that its gift was repayment for Clinton's
attention, and White House special counsel Lanny Davis says McLarty acted
out of concern for a major U.S. investment overseas. Nevertheless, there
does seem to be a McLarty pattern . . . DRUDGE REPORT - McLarty was later
hired by Enron. Lay also played golf with President Bill Clinton and slept
in the Clinton White House. A master of political manipulation of both
parties, Lay served as an adviser to the Clinton White House on energy
issues. The Clinton administration, in turn, helped Enron get a contract for
a gas pipeline in Mozambique and other projects, according to reports.
*** ASSOCIATED PRESS - A federal judge says she has the authority to freeze
proceeds of more than $1 billion allegedly gained by top Enron Corp.
officials who sold millions of shares before the energy giant collapsed. But
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston also said in a ruling that
lawyers for Amalgamated Bank and other plaintiffs need to present a stronger
argument to convince her to freeze those proceeds . . . Mary Alice Robbins
Texas Lawyer - The federal judge hearing the suit brought by angry
shareholders of Enron Corp. against top executives and directors of the
former energy giant previously owned stock in the corporation, according to
her 2000 financial disclosure report . . . JUDGE ROSENTHAL PRACTICED law
with the firm of Baker & Botts before her appoints to the federal bench by
President Bush. A senior partner in the firm is James A. Baker III.
*** Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov 3, 1995 - The three-day Middle East and
North African Economic Summit in the Jordanian capital of Amman generated
Israel's first major business contract with a Persian Gulf state. The Amman
gathering, with the slogan "The Middle East is Open for Business," drew
nearly 2,000 government officials and business leaders from 60 nations for
meetings aimed at promoting regional development . . . One dramatic change:
the signing of an agreement by which Qatar would sell $2 billion worth of
natural gas to Israel via the American energy company Enron. Under the
memorandum of understanding, Enron will extract the gas from Qatari oil
fields and begin delivering some 5 million tons to Israel in the year 2001.
The gas will initially be delivered by tanker, but officials said gas may
ultimately be funneled via a pipeline linking Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and Israel.
MORE http://www.jewishsf.com/bk951103/ioil.htm
http://www.enron.com/corp/pressroom/releases/1996/33plane.html
*** ENRON NEWS RELEASE, 1996 - Enron Corp. today confirmed that no Enron
executives were traveling on U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's plane,
which has been reported missing in Croatia.
*** Vijay Prashad, PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACY, Nov 16, 1997 - On 28 October 1997,
Enron Corporation announced the entry of Frank G. Wisner Jr. onto its board
of directors. Most of the business press did not find this untoward and it
certainly did not emerge as part of the US discussions on corruption at the
highest level. Frank Wisner, as we know in India, was the US Ambassador from
1994 until this year and his entry into Enron must be seen in light of the
scandal of Dabhol. Enron, like most US corporations, uses its close
association with the state (both its elected and bureaucratic arms) for its
own ends. US campaigns are financed by corporations whose money not only
enables politicians to win elections, but it also buys businesses the
state's power both for domestic subsidies and for the use of US power in the
international arena. Frank Wisner, Jr. was a big catch for Enron
Corporation. His lineage is impeccable, since his father, Frank Wisner Sr.,
was a senior CIA official (from 1947 until his suicide in 1965) who was
involved in the overthrow of Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran
(1953). Wisner Junior was well-known in the CIA and he worked as Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy and Under Secretary of State for
International Security Affairs; his current boss, Kenneth Lay, Chief
Executive Officer of Enron Corporation, also worked for the Pentagon during
the US war in Vietnam. With "economic espionage" as a task for the CIA,
there is little doubt that Wisner used this instrument during his
long-tenure as Ambassador in Asian nations. A Wisner staffer told InterPress
Services this year that "if anybody asked the CIA to help promote US
business in India, it was probably Frank."
When Wisner was US Ambassador to the Philippines (1991-92), Enron was in the
midst of negotiations to manage the two Subic Bay power plants. When Wisner
left Manila in July 1992, Enron won the deal and began to manage the plant
in January 1993. During Wisner tenure in India, he fought long and hard to
secure various deals for Enron . . .
Enron, like most monopoly corporations in the US, uses money as a means to
buy influence and power. To gain access to a lucrative contract to rebuild
the Shuaiba power plant in Kuwait, Enron hired former US Secretary of State
James Baker as a consultant who traveled to the oil kingdom to negotiate
with his Gulf War allies for his new employer. The sons of George Bush also
helped Enron win this contract despite a lower bid from Deutsche Babcock, a
German firm. The Bush brothers also helped Enron in their deal to win a
contract to build a pipeline from Chile to Argentina in 1988. Finally, Wendy
Gramm (wife of Senator Phil Gramm) joined Enron's Board of Directors in 1993
after she resigned from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This
Commission, just days after Gramm's resignation, deregulated energy futures,
thereby allowing Enron to earn 10% of its profits by adventures on the
financial markets . . .
The story does not end there. In 1991-92, Enron donated $28,525 to the
Democratic Party and in 1993-94, it gave $42,000. These monies enabled Enron
to send its executives on international tours with the late Secretary of
Commerce Ron Brown in January 1995 (when Kenneth Lay came to India) and in
March-April 1994 (when Chief Executive Officer of Enron International,
Rodney Gray came to Russia). In the former, Enron was in negotiation for the
Dabhol plant among other things (such as the $1.1 billion offshore holdings)
and in the latter, Enron was interested in the marketing of Russian gas in
Europe. President Clinton noted that Brown's trips resulted in "expanded
opportunities for American business in [the USA] and abroad". The "pay to
play" project of US "democracy" is once again in evidence.
MORE http://www.igc.org/trac/feature/india/profiles/enron/enronwisner.html
*** KEN SILVERSTEIN, NATION, 1995 The chances that a U.S. firm seeking
business in Russia will receive official support seem to grow in direct
proportion to that company's links to Democratic power broker Robert
Strauss. A senior partner at the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
- where his colleagues include Vernon Jordan, President Clinton's friend and
golfing partner - Strauss served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 1991 to
1992. Two years ago he set up the U.S.-Russia Business Council, which has
received government funds to promote commerce between the two countries. At
least eight of the twenty-nine companies that were invited to go to Russia
are linked to Strauss and his firm. AT&T, Westinghouse, Dresser Industries
(a Dallas-based oil equipment company) and Enron (a Houston-based natural
gas conglomerate) are all Akin, Gump clients. Litton Industries and General
Electric have representatives on the board of the U.S.-Russia Business
Council. Rockwell International and Bristol-Myers Squibb are former clients
of Strauss . . . Enron, which closed a deal, backed by the U.S.
Export-Import Bank, to develop European markets for Russian gas, has been
one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Administration's export policy.
During the past two years, the Ex-Im Bank has supported Enron's agreements
with Turkey, India, the Philippines and China - deals worth nearly $4
billion. Kenneth Brody, head of the Ex-Im Bank, is a close friend of
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, having worked with Rubin at Goldman, Sachs.
Enron is listed on Rubin's 1993 financial disclosure statement as one of the
forty-four companies with which Rubin had "significant contact" during his
years at the investment firm.
MORE http://www.pacificsites.com/~mec/NEWSL/ISS19/13Brown.html
JUST POLITICS
WASHINGTON TIMES - Now that ex-Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich is running
for governor of Massachusetts, his former pals from the Clinton
administration may try to gain some revenge for Mr. Reich's loud and
frequent criticisms of President Clinton . . . One of Mr. Reich's Democratic
opponents in the race for governor is Steve Grossman, who served as
Massachusetts party chairman and then national party chairman under Mr.
Clinton. Mr. Grossman says he has Mr. Clinton's backing.
MEDIACRACY
*** NATIONAL ASSN OF HISPANIC JOURNALISTS - Out of 16,000 news stories that
aired on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN in 2000, only 84 stories, or 0.53 percent,
focused on Latino-related stories. A total of 348 stories, or 2.1 percent,
of all stories were on the Eli�n Gonz�lez controversy. CNN included in the
study for the first time this year aired 130 stories about Latinos, 110 of
which were on the Eli�n Gonz�lez controversy. In 1999, out of 12,000 news
stories that aired on ABC, CBS and NBC, 162 or 1.3 percent, were about
Latinos. Latino stories continue to be seriously underrepresented in
television news; portrayals are often stereotypical and highly divergent
from the news in the sample, the average story length dropped from two
minutes 45 seconds in 1999 to one minute, 50 seconds in 2000. The report
found that out of 45 Latino-related news stories that aired on location,
none were covered by a Latino reporter. There were 39 stories that were
covered from the studio.
MORE http://www.nahj.org
*** PAUL D. COLFORD, NY DAILY NEWS - Talk magazine has run up staggering
losses of $55 million so far and has now turned to a big gun media deal
maker Herbert Allen for help in finding new investors. The losses, reached
two and a half years after the celebrity and culture magazine debuted at an
extravagant party on Liberty Island, far exceed previous estimates. It also
raises questions about Talk's chances of ever turning a profit in these hard
times for all media.
MORE
http://www.nydailynews.com/2002-01-11/News_and_Views/Media_and_Business/a-13
7811.asp
LAND OF THE FREE
ANDY NEWMAN A judge has ruled for the first time that fingerprint evidence,
a virtually unassailable prosecutorial tool for 90 years, does not meet the
standards set for scientific testimony and that experts in the field cannot
testify that a suspect's prints definitely match those found at a crime
scene. The decision, by a senior federal judge in Philadelphia, comes after
two years of efforts by defense lawyers to hold fingerprint analysis to
standards set by the Supreme Court in 1993. The judge, Louis H. Pollak,
found that fingerprint analysis had not been subjected to the rigorous
testing required under those standards. Judge Pollak ruled that fingerprint
experts could still point out the similarities between prints from a crime
scene and those of a defendant. They may also still point out that no two
people have the same prints. But, the judge wrote, "what such expert
witnesses will not be permitted to do is to present `evaluation' testimony
as to their `opinion' that a particular latent print is in fact the print of
a particular person."
MORE http://nytimes.com/2002/01/11/national/11PRIN.html
AMERICAN NOTES
HEIDI HATCH, CHANNEL 4, UTAH - LDS missionaries are not allowed to phone
home, but now they've got the next best thing. Three years after a total ban
on e-mail to and from LDS missionaries, the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints has once again given the go-ahead to log on. For many
families with missionaries, this comes as a great relief. Thousands of
missionaries are serving in areas of the world where the mail is far from
reliable. That's why the seemingly insignificant announcement that e-mail is
okay is such a huge relief to so many families . . . Here are a few of the
guidelines: Due to limited resources, missionaries will not have E-mail
access in the training centers here or abroad. Like regular letter writing,
missionaries will only be allowed to log on one day a week. They will have
to pay for any expense incurred. They are asked not to bother other member
families for web access. They'll have to find a library or some other public
service.
MORE
http://www.4utah.tv/jacor-common/local_news_common.html?ID=20020110144252&fe
ed=local
Ty Tagami, HERALD-LEADER KY - When Joseph Mondelli woke up at 7:30, his
wife, Wilma, gave him the news. He just shook his head. The two 65-year-olds
had worked past midnight baking doughnuts to fill an exceptionally large
order. No, not exceptionally large. Historically large. The order was five
times larger than the largest order Joseph Mondelli's Bakery had ever
gotten. Unfortunately, the order was also 83.3 times larger than the order
the chef at the Four Points Sheraton on Newtown Pike remembers making.
``Somehow, 5,000 doughnuts showed up at our door at 6 o'clock'' in the
morning, said the chef's boss, hotel manager John Goodwin. Goodwin said the
chef ordered five dozen doughnuts Wednesday afternoon . . . The first
conversation yesterday between Goodwin and Wilma Mondelli was an unpleasant
one. But they agreed to split the $1,300 bill and donate the doughnuts to
charity. A van carried about 4,000 doughnuts to the Hope Center and the
Catholic Action Center. The other 1,000 doughnuts were divided among three
schools: Paul Laurence Dunbar High, Morton Middle and Glendover Elementary.
MORE
http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/011102/localdocs/11dougnuts
.htm
*** TODD VENEZIA, NY POST - It was one of the NFL's best-kept secrets - that
opposing players could get a steamy look into the Philadelphia Eagles
cheerleaders' shower through tiny peepholes in the visitors locker room.
That's the claim of more than 40 former cheerleaders who filed suit in
Pennsylvania against 29 NFL teams - including the Jets and Giants - claiming
that players routinely violated their privacy by leering at them before and
after every game. The peeved pompom girls say the peeping portals at
Veterans Stadium were a widely known pro-football secret, handed down from
player to player since 1983 before being publicly revealed. Holes allowed
players and other team insiders to gape at the Eagles' cheer squad putting
on and taking off their skimpy green outfits, showering and even walking
around naked, the suit says. "It really bothers me that grown men behaved
this way," said Susette Walsh, a former Eagles cheer squad captain.
MORE http://nypost.com/news/nationalnews/38694.htm
ECOLOGY
KEITH ROGERS LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL - The nation's Energy secretary
delivered the message that Nevada officials had dreaded for two decades,
that Yucca Mountain is suitable to become the world's first repository for
high-level nuclear waste. Spencer Abraham's notice that he intends to
recommend the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to President Bush
infuriated Nevada leaders, who vowed that their fight against the repository
wasn't over and that the battlefield would be the courts. Gov. Kenny Guinn
received the news from Abraham at about 11:10 a.m. during a meeting with
advertising executives in Las Vegas. "I told him I think this decision
stinks, the process stinks and we'll see him in court," Guinn told reporters
in a conference call shortly after his five-minute telephone conversation
with Abraham. "I told him I was damn disappointed in this decision and he
was to expect my veto. . . . Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman personalized the
matter, calling Abraham "that piece of garbage." . . . Polo Towers owner
and anti-Yucca activist Stephen Cloobeck said: "We'll give 'em this one.
They won this round, but that was only the second round of a 12-round-fight.
If you look at the possibilities for defeating it, there's still a lot we
can do." . . . Another environmentalist, Kevin Kamps, of the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service, warned that opening a repository could
result in violent demonstrations. The decision "triggers a whole lot of
other legal actions," said state nuclear agency chief Loux. "We may litigate
the secretary's decision. We may litigate this 30-day notice, the EIS
(environmental impact statement) and the presidential decision, assuming he
makes one. Maybe we'll see three, four or five lawsuits. We only have to win
one of them. They have to win all of them."
MORE http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-11-Fri-2002/news/17846551.html
THE WAR AGAINST WHATEVER
*** SATIRE WIRE - A delegation of American high school students today
demanded the United States stop waging war in obscure nations such as
Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and instead attack places
they've actually heard of, such as France, Australia, and Austria, unless,
they said, those last two are the same country. "Shouldn't we, as Americans,
get to decide where wars are?" asked sophomore Kate Shermansky. "People
claim we don't know as much geography as our parents and grandparents, but
it's so not our fault," Josh Beldoni, a senior at Fischer High School in Los
Angeles, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Back then they only had
wars in, like, Germany and England, but we're supposed to know about places
like Somalia and Massachusetts." "Macedonia," corrected committee Chairman
Carl Levin of Michigan. "See?" said Beldoni.
MORE http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/geography.shtml
GREAT MOMENTS IN CRIME
John Innes, Scotsman - A masked intruder terrorized a mother and two
children by bursting into their home then politely apologized because he
was in the wrong house. The thug, in a balaclava and waving a baseball bat,
brushed past the 16-year-old boy who answered the front door. He then
marched into the living room but realized he had blundered when he found
only a single mother and her seven-old-son cowering in fear. Last night the
woman, who asked not to be named, said: �It was all very weird and
frightening but at least he was polite. He was 6ft tall and built like tank,
but when he saw me I could tell he was as shocked as we were. He just kept
saying, �I�m sorry� and started backing off as I walked toward him. Then he
turned round and casually walked out the door and down the street.�
MORE http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=37022002
GREAT MOMENTS IN FIDUCIARY OVERSIGHT
ECONOMIST - One of the world's best museums recently filed suit alleging
fraud by a small Dallas firm called Integral Investment Management, along
with related parties. The museum, which put $43 million of its endowment
into funds run by the defendants, says that it faces losses of up to 90% on
the investments after they soureddespite repeated assurances that the funds
were doing well. Before a Texas judge slapped a gag order on the parties, a
lawyer for the defendants said that the museum's suit was �premature� and
that all its money could be accounted for. The episode raises eyebrows in
Chicago, not least because it appears that nearly three-fifths of the Art
Institute's $670 million endowment is invested in hedge funds (mostly
unrelated to Integral Investment). Some of the city's leading executives sit
on the museum's board of directors, including the president of the Chicago
Board of Trade (the museum board treasurer), a former chairman of Sara Lee
and the chairman of Hyatt Hotels. Museum officials say the institute is on a
sound financial footing. They defend their investment strategy, arguing that
it has produced average annual returns of 10.5% over the past five years.
All the same, the institute has launched an internal audit . . . Why did the
museum board's finance committee invest so much in a group that touted a
�proprietary low-risk� strategy but failed to answer basic questions about
its investments? Believing that 70% of its money would be kept in cash, the
Art Institute was shocked to learn that much of it was tied up in illiquid
private investments, including a portfolio of distressed debt. The
defendants' presentations to museum officials were full of talk about a
complex �master feeder structure� involving offshore funds, and about
investment strategies equivalent to �synthetic options." Two events alerted
the museum to something wrong. One was a visit last autumn from FBI agents
seeking information on museum dealings with Integral Investment. The other
was an October letter in which Integral Investment told investors that, due
to a steep fall in markets after September 11th, the liquidation value of
one product, the Integral Hedging fund, would probably �reflect a loss of
over 90%�. Withdrawals were temporarily suspended.
MORE http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=922809
FEEDBACK
[TPR: Come on, Cornel, if you're doing anything worthwhile, it's going to
happen. Besides, what do want? The disingenuous respect of, say, one of the
Bushes? You've got a great case, but it's not about you. It's about Harvard
and the hypocrisies of academic liberalism. Keep your ego down and your
style up and it'll be one for the books.]
JESSE: If Cornell West kept his ego down, what would be left of him?
JOHN GEAR, LANSING MI: The January 8 AP story on "US aims to add info to
driver's licenses" and the new Federal education bill show just how fast the
Bush administration and federal government can move to impose uniformity in
areas historically controlled by the states - when it wants to. It sure says
something that, even as we are told that federalism requires us to forget
about national standards for voting procedures and machines, de facto
national ID cards and school testing schemes are up and running faster than
you can say "stolen White House."
CYBER NEWS
Kevin Kelly Wall Street Journal - Right on cue, the demise of the dot-com
revolution has prompted skepticism of the Internet and all that it promised
. . . In our disappointment of grand riches, we have failed to see the
miracle on our desks. Ten years ago, it was easy to dismiss visions of a
wondrous screen in our homes that would provide the whole world in its
magical window. The idea of a universal information port was considered
uneconomical, and too futuristic to be real in our lifetimes. Yet at any
hour of today, most readers of this paper have access to the full text of
the Encyclopedia Britannica, precise map directions to anywhere in the
country, stock quotes in real time, local weather forecasts with radar
pictures, immediate sports scores from your hometown, any kind of music you
could desire, answers to medical questions, hobbyists who know more than you
do, tickets to just about anything, 24/7 e-mail, news from a hundred
newspapers, and so on. Much of this is for free . . . Why don't we see this
miracle? Because large amounts of money can obscure larger evidence. So much
money flew around dot-coms, that it hid the main event on the web, which is
the exchange of gifts. While the most popular 50 websites are crassly
commercial, most of the 3 billion web pages in the world are not. Only
thirty percent of the pages of the web are built by companies and
corporations like pets.com. The rest is built on love, such as care4pets.com
or responsiblepetcare.org. The answer to the mystery of why people would
make 3 billion web pages in 2,000 days is simple: sharing. While everyone
was riveted by the drama of companies such as pets.com, we overlooked the
steady growth of enthusiast sites and governmental depots such as Usenet and
nasa.gov, to name some larger ones.
*** WHILE IT'S NICE THE FCC has backed off on prosecuting Eminem, it is
still going after the tiny KBOO, a non-commercial community station in
Portland OR facing a $7,000 fine for broadcasting the clearly political rap
song "Your Revolution" that took misogynistic rappers to task for their
trashy anti-women lyrics. This station, which operated on less than $400,000
a year has already spent $16,000 just to appeal an FCC order and
contemplates having to spend $50,000 just because they dared to play a
powerful political song . . . YOU CAN contribute to the KBOO Defense Fund,
by sending a check to Box 14165, Portland, OR 97293.
LYRICS http://www.kboo.org/about/fcc.htm#lyrics
KBOO http://www.kboo.org
DOWN THE PIKE WITH LARRY KING
LARRY KING, March 19, 1990 - "Even though I appear as myself in 'Crazy
People,' you'll have to take my objective view that it's one of the funniest
movies to come down the pike in a long, long time."
LARRY KING, April 26, 1993 - "Put aside that I make a cameo appearance in
the film 'Dave.' Ivan Reitman's latest is one of the funniest movies to come
down the pike in a long time."
LARRY KING, July 16, 2001 "I have a cameo role in the movie 'America's
Sweethearts,' opening Friday. That said, it is one of the funniest comedies
to come down the pike in years."
[Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times]
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