Howdy Cindy Photo

Seen today at a "Bring Them Home Now" tour stop in Syracuse N.Y.

George Galloway - Christopher Hitchens Debate

George Galloway - Christopher Hitchens Debate
Galloway - Hitchens Debate
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
7:00 PM ET
Excerpts here
For online video streams of the Galloway-Hitchens debate, go to democracynow.org. The debate will also be broadcast on television on C-SPAN's Book TV. For details click here.

Two years after the invasion of Iraq, British MP George Galloway and journalist Christopher Hitchens will debate the causes and consequences of the Iraq war. Moderated by Amy Goodman.

George Galloway is Respect party MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in East London. He recently electrified the United States with his appearance at a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on May 17, when he turned the proceedings into a condemnation of the war in Iraq.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer described Galloway's speech in the Senate as "a blistering attack on U.S. senators rarely heard" in Washington. His new book, out in September, is "Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington" (The New Press).

Christopher Hitchens is a widely published polemicist and frequent radio and TV commentator. He is the author of "A Long Short War," "Why Orwell Matters," "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," and many other books. The London Observer calls him "One of the most brilliant journalists of our time."

This debate is part of a national tour of the United States by George Galloway, "Stand Up and Be Counted: No to War and Occupation." The tour will culminate in Washington, DC, during the anti-war protests on September 24th. For a full list of cities and events, please see the website: http://www.mrgallowaygoestowashington.com

Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading:

Read William Rivers Pitt's Story of Steve.
Anyone who has a Steve (like this Steve) in their life is blessed.



Jenny Ellerbe photo Cypress, September 5, 2005
will be auctioned off for Hurricane Katrina relief,
proceeds to go to the Louisiana SPCA.


Read Alice Sebold's Living With the Dead.
A beautiful piece from this fine writer. Don't miss it.






Chicago Man Reunited With 104 yr-old Grandfather, Katrina Survivor

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Amos Haynes, 104, can't hold back a flood of tears
as his grandson Maurice Kaufman finds him at
Christus Santa Rosa Hospital.
[San Antonio Express-News]

by Karen Adler
San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer
link
Excerpt:

As he sat in his suburban Chicago home watching newscasts of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Maurice Kaufman assumed the worst. For days, he hadn't heard from his 104-year-old grandfather, living with relatives in St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans. Kaufman, 57, and his family kept their eyes plastered to the television, wondering if one of the bodies they saw on the side of the road could be their beloved grandfather, Amos Haynes.....

...As waters began rising in New Orleans, Haynes and his elderly relatives evacuated their home and headed to the Superdome. Then, because of his failing health, Haynes was separated from his relatives and flown to San Antonio.

He arrived at Christus Santa Rosa on Sept. 3 severely dehydrated and incoherent, Dickerson said. After a day in the intensive care unit, Haynes finally was able to tell Dickerson the name of his grandson and where he lived. Dickerson got on the Internet and tracked down Kaufman.

Over the last week, Haynes has endeared himself to his caregivers at Christus, telling them stories of his life, Dickerson said."Everybody loves him," Dickerson said. "He's got a real sense of humor and he's feisty. He is a survivor and a piece of living history if there ever was one," she said.

Haynes was born in New Roads, La., and spoke French the first few years of his life. He and his wife, a nurse, moved to Chicago, where Haynes worked as an expediter for Railway Express Agency, ensuring rail loads were shipped on time.

During World War II, it was a good job for a black man, Kaufman said. Haynes moved back to New Orleans after his wife died in 1996. Monday night, Kaufman took his grandfather back home to Chicago, where he will live in a nursing home just a few minutes away from his grandson. "I've lived a good life," Haynes said. "I'm gonna try and make it another 10 years."

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Dan Froomkin has a lot of interesting material today. He begins:

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.

Maybe it's Bush's sinking poll numbers -- he is, after all, undeniably an unpopular president now. Maybe it's the way that the federal response to the flood has cut so deeply against Bush's most compelling claim to greatness: His resoluteness when it comes to protecting Americans.

But for whatever reason, critical observations and insights that for so long have been zealously guarded by mainstream journalists, and only doled out in teaspoons if at all, now seem to be flooding into the public sphere.

An emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us.