Hi. Today's LA Times carries a splendid promo (E-2) for tonight's Woody Guthrie special on PBS. I was already into folk music when Woody lived in Topanga Canyon, but was too young and shy to make the trip. Not so Ramblin' Jack Elliott, who left home to absorb Woody's ethos and style to a T. Woody once commented that Jack sounded more like Woody than he did. Jack, in turn, was the model for young Bob Dylan, finally acknowledged in his recent autobiography. What ties it all in is that Woody would have written volumes about both subjects in this email, that Bob is the only person living who could do so, but refrains, and that Jack will be here later this month -at the Largo and another venue. I'll send you details on that rare opportunity, next week. Tonight, we got Woody! Ed
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/guthrie_w.html A viewing recommendation: the American Masters biopic of Woody Guthrie airing Wed. on PBS (9 p.m. on July 12, check local listings). --- http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060710_molly_ivins_politics_greed/ Published on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 by TruthDig The Politics of Greed by Molly Ivins "Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers-this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts." AUSTIN, Texas-I don't get it. What's the percentage in keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour? After nine years? This is such an unnecessary and nasty Republican move. Congress has voted seven times to raise its own wages since last the minimum wage budged. Of course, Congress always raises its own salary in the dark of night, hoping no one will notice. But now it does the same with the minimum wage, quietly killing it. Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers-this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts. According to the current issue of Mother Jones: -- One in four U.S. jobs pays less than a poverty-level income. -- Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent-37 million Americans-are officially poor. -- Bush's tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700. -- In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, compared those who point out such statistics as the one above to Adolph Hitler (surely he meant Stalin?). -- Bush has diverted $750 million to "healthy marriages" by shifting funds from social services, mostly childcare. -- Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50 percent. A series of related stats-starting with the news that two out of three new jobs are in the suburbs-shows how the poor are further disadvantaged in the job hunt by lack of public or private transportation. Meanwhile, for those who have been following the collapse of the pension system, please note a series in The Wall Street Journal by Ellen Schultz taking a hard look at executive pension obligations: -- "Benefits for executives now account for a significant share of pension obligations in the United States, an average of 8 percent (of large companies). Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million." -- "These liabilities are largely hidden, because corporations don't distinguish them from overall pension obligations in their federal financial findings." -- "As a result, the savings that companies make by curtailing pensions of regular retirees-which have totaled billions of dollars in recent years-can mask a rising cost of benefits for executives." -- "Executive pensions, even when they won't be paid until years from now, drag down the earnings today. And they do so in a way that's disproportionate to their size, because they aren't funded with dedicated assets." It seems to me that we've seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism-it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal's editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom? It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair-"justice for all" seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the "lottery of life" in this country in ways we don't even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won't see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it starting to affect us already. Molly Ivins writes in this space every month. Her latest book is "Who Let the Dogs In?" © 2006 TruthDig LLC, Inc. *** http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/opinion/12dowd.html?th&emc=th He Let the Dogs Out! By MAUREEN DOWD NY Times Op-Ed: July 12, 2006 What better time than the dog days of summer to watch a dog-torture advocate get hounded? As three female protesters in Abu Ghraib-style orange jumpsuits and black headscarves stood vigil in the back of the Senate Judiciary hearing room, like the supernatural chorus in "Macbeth," William Haynes was grilled about his worthiness to ascend to the federal bench when his main claim to the promotion is complicity in letting Dick Cheney dance a jig on the Geneva Conventions. "The State Department characterizes the use of dogs as an interrogation aid as torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,'' Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said to the Pentagon general counsel. "We publicly condemned the countries of Libya and Burma for using dogs in interrogation. In November of 2002, you recommended that Secretary Rumsfeld approve the use of dogs to intimidate detainees at Guantánamo. "The Department of Defense's own investigation concluded that this technique migrated from Guantánamo to Iraq and Abu Ghraib. At least two members of the armed forces have now been convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for using dogs to frighten detainees. It is striking that as these soldiers were prosecuted, you were being promoted. What message are we sending our troops? And what message are we sending the world, in light of your role in promulgating abusive interrogation techniques, like the use of dogs, stress positions and forced nudity. What message are we sending if we promote you to the second highest court in the land?" The senator added that the message would be terribly unfair: "Well, we're going to dispatch a few privates, a few corporals, a sergeant, maybe it will get to a lieutenant, but it'll never get upstairs. ... Apparently, upstairs there's a promotion party. Downstairs people are being sent to prison.'' Mr. Haynes, 48, lamely resorted to the argument that Abu Ghraib was simply a few bad apples, "the work of the night shift, without any authority whatsoever." Even as the Bush administration was forced to concede, after being slapped back by the Supreme Court, that terrorism suspects must be accorded the rights enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, W. was trying to reward those who helped shred them. He nominated Mr. Haynes to sit on the Fourth Circuit court, the conservative Virginia go-to court for contentious cases on civil liberties and detention of foreign prisoners. A group of 20 retired military officers sent a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, expressing "profound concern" about Mr. Haynes and arguing that he promoted policies that "compromised military values, ignored federal and international law, and damaged America's reputation and world leadership.'' They asserted that the policies "fostered animosity toward the United States, undermined rather than enhanced our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added significantly to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.'' Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who is a military lawyer, a member of the Armed Services Committee and is close to the JAG Corps lawyers, is reported to oppose Mr. Haynes behind the scenes. Speaking to reporters in the hallway, he echoed Senator Durbin's fear that soldiers should not take the fall for superiors' decisions: "We just need to make sure that what we do in terms of promotion, of a civilian, who was part of policies that have led to military members being prosecuted and having their careers ruined, needs to be thoughtfully considered." If all the Democrats are opposed and even one Republican is willing to vote no, the nomination could stall on a 9-to-9 vote. Harry Reid, the minority leader, hinted that Democrats might try to filibuster it if it is reported to the full Senate. When Alberto Mora, the former Navy general counsel, recently won the Kennedy Foundation "Profiles in Courage'' award for trying to warn Mr. Haynes and others that unleashing dogs for psychological torture and turning America into a law unto itself would hurt the nation, he said this: "Cruelty disfigures our national character. It is incompatible with our constitutional order, with our laws, and with our most prized values. Cruelty can be as effective as torture in destroying human dignity, and there is no moral distinction between one and the other." He easily summed up something that the president, vice president and their toadies can't seem to fathom: "Where cruelty exists, law does not." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Check out the new improvements in Yahoo! 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