The Christmas season is upon us

"Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born..."

--from a famous quote by John Oldcastle

The Christmas season is upon us
May we be reminded of the Word, wonderful counselor, glorious messenger of peace

From the Celtic carol Don Oiche Ud I mBeithil (That Night in Bethlehem)

"I sing of a night in Bethlehem, a night as
bright as dawn
I sing of that night in Bethlehem, the night
the Word was born.
The skies are glowing gaily, the earth in
white is dressed
See Jesus in the cradle drink deep in
His mother's breast



And there on a lonely hillside the shepherds
bow down in fear
When the heavens open brightly and God's message
rings out so clear
Glory now to the Father in all the heavens high
And 'peace to His friends on earth below'
is all the angels cry."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don Oiche ud I mBeithil, beidh tagairt ag grian go brach
Don Oiche ud I mBeithil go dtainig an briathar slan
Ta griosghrua ar spearthaibh 's an talamh 'na cludach ban;
Feach Iosagan sa chleibhin, 's an mhaighdean a dhiul le gra.

Ar leacain lom an tslebhe go nglacann na haoiri scath
Nuair in oscailt ghil na speire ta teachtaire De ar fail
Cead gloire anois don Athair I bhFlaitheasaibh thuas go hard!
Is feasta fos ar talamh d'fhearaibh dea-mhein siochain!


small photo credit: ed-waco.com

Ukraine: The Orange Revolution Goes On

Click photo for CNN International's coverage
photo credit: AP

Ukraine: The Orange Revolution Goes On

The NY Times reports:

"The demonstrators' desires..transcend the destiny of their candidate. In conversations over the past few days, protesters expressed a wish to carry Ukraine not only to democratic rule but also to alter the fundamental direction of the country's history.

For more than three centuries, Ukraine has been the prize of Russian czars and Soviet leaders. Its territory has been a battlefield of vicious wars and political repression. Yushchenko's supporters say their goal is to face West, a compass point they believe will end Ukraine's history as a pawn of their northern neighbor."

Clueless: Bin Laden trail is as cold as a Superbowl tit

Clueless: Bin Laden trail is as cold as a Superbowl tit

"Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that the search for Osama bin Laden has gone completely cold..."

WaPo

Sorry to see John Danforth Go

Sorry to see John Danforth Go
Madison Capital Times editorial

The editorial on today's Madison Capital Times' webpage shows how they believe "Bush and his fellow Republicans went out of their way to disregard and disrespect the international body [of the UN] in ways that embarrassed" exiting UN Ambassador John Danforth, who spent a mere seven months in the position.

With unrealistic calls for Kofi Annan's resignation, it is believed that Danforth was never given an real opportunity to improve relations between the United States and the United Nations.


Related commentary about the US/UN politics at my Progressive Women's Blog ring colleague Carla's Preemptive Karma.

Courage: Mark Halperin Interview with HPR

Courage: Mark Halperin Interview with HPR

With no offense intended toward Mark Halperin of ABC Political News, I found his reply to a Harvard Political Review interview question, regarding the topic of courage, to be ambiguous and decidedly pusillanimous, in and of itself. The question pertained to limited news coverage of photographs of American bodies coming home from Iraq. Sometimes I think our journalists attempt to look so very unbiased, even in interviews like these, that they miss the mark of truth by a mile (or much more).

Mark Halperin: ....the press's courage and capacity to press the government on these matters is less than it's been in years past for a variety of reasons. And that means that the press's capacity to give Americans the full view of the costs and benefits of this war is really limited in a way that I think is bad for the country...

HPR: How can you deliver the news if you don't have the courage to show the full consequences of the war?

Mark Halperin: It's very hard when we're not able to travel all around [Iraq] because of security reasons. Unfortunately we have to rely on government officials, and without singling the Bush administration out, we know for a fact that all governments lie, and that governments tend to lie particularly during wartime. So it's a challenge to show a complete picture, positive and negative, because of the circumstances of this war.

Why not "single the Bush administration out"? Who else was directly accountable during the Iraq war?
If "the circumstances of this war" are in question, (not WWI or Vietnam, etc), then why not be straight about who is being criticized?
Why are journalists afraid? Mainstream political journalists weave and wind their logic around their fear of being labeled as biased. We wind up with a meaningless, tangled ball of junk.

In defense of Mr. Halperin's performance in this interview, he did later admit:

"The Bush administration is very aggressive about protecting their interests, and not necessarily always balancing First Amendment rights."

I thought this was a good inteview, although I would have liked to have seen the interviewer take some of these questions a bit further. I think we may have received many relevant and helpful clues from Mr. Halperin as to how the media can improve on safeguarding the media's First Amendment rights on behalf of themselves and for the dual benefit of American democracy.

Harvard Political Review: Blogosphere Rising

Harvard Political Review:
Blogosphere Rising

In its December 11th issue, Ben Milder of the Harvard Political Review reveals that "progressive blogs are now a media force with which to be reckoned".

Excerpt:

Today, blogs are treated by the mainstream media as a novelty, and have at best a niche audience. Yet if they continue to grow at their current pace, they could indeed someday succeed in their goal of making the media and even the entire political system more accessible to the average American.

HPR's current issue covers Election 2004.

Civil War Rears Ugly Head in Baghdad

Civil War Rears Ugly Head in Baghdad

Iraqi insurgents have suicide-bombed a Shiite mosque, a holy place. It was brutal in its sectarian targeting.


Make no mistake, this is a sure sign that civil war has broken out in Iraq.

If we didn't already know or if any American was unsure, this is a horridly easy foretelling of things yet to come.




photo credit: CTV

Related: Scrutiny Hooligans

San Diego Union-Tribune loses Jim Goldsborough

The San Diego Union-Tribune loses Jim Goldsborough
by Jude Nagurney Camwell, American Street, Dec 4, 2004


"The spike of the column was "almost like prior restraint." Don't criticize Bush, or you column won't be run."

--Jim Goldsborough, from an Editor and Publisher article by Mark Fitzgerald

_______


Veteran columnist Jim Goldsborough of the San Diego Union-Tribune, who calls himself a moderate, is quitting the paper. While he may be losing a paycheck, which is never an easy choice to make, I applaud him for doing so. He's already been offered a job with a soon-to-be-available daily online newspaper, the Voice of San Diego.

Mr. Goldsborough is quoted as saying, "I've written columns for everybody. I've been edited, criticized. … But never have I gotten a call Sunday night that the column is not running Monday, and there's no discussion......."

Goldsborough's publisher David C. Copley, in eleventh-hour fashion, pulled a column scheduled to run Monday, saying that the column "might be offensive". Jim has asked, " Offensive to whom? That's the question. The column is not offensive to Jews. Maybe to Bush."


Mr. Goldsborough won't sit back and watch the newspaper's editorial page tilt in one right-heavy direction. Not while he's still part of the team. He's leaving on principle.

Dick Needs New Shoes

Dick needs new shoes

US offers to let Taliban off the hook

US offers to let Taliban off the hook

So much for the great moral clarity of Bush.

There are bigger fish to fry (and more things to blow up and rebuild) in Iraq, where we unilaterally obliterated a regime which had nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of over 3000 of our citizens on 9/11.

poem by jude- 'alone'

alone
by jude nagurney camwell




a pebble in my shoe has made
it hard to keep on going
long day's heat reminds me
of each needed breath i'm towing

clothing snatched up just before
my leaving has become oppression
like autumn drop them without caring
where they land, glad lost possession

with firesound this body shakes
spasm scream conditioned reflexion
my own reflection could disappear, next
crack of mirrorlight inspection

a neighbor's dreadful season's
come, his eyes by now have seen
too much of this nomadic
form, survivalism mean

soldiers beg us "move keep moving"
blasting sun brings whitewash blessed
too quaked by qualm and quiver
to remember all the rest

evening camp is built i lie
upon the rockhewn sacred ground
it's then one sees the span of sky
in darkness starry 'round

the haunting stalks me when i stop
to take this nightly rest
it's then i see my hasan as
the heart beats out my breast

a rock is thrown he comes too close
a shot wends from above
my rose hasan oh my hasan
was all save God i knew of love

i long to join this desert
unknown open empty bare
and wish for all who'd tread on me
to weep for this night's suffering there




photo credit: mapw

iddybud "--The next best thing to being there."

politics

humor

philosophy

poetry

A Beautiful Blog

A Beautiful Blog

I love to share new blog finds which I know my readers would appreciate.
Lorianne's blog is one of them.

CBS and NBC Refuse UCC Ads

CBS and NBC Refuse
UCC Ads
American Street, by Jude Nagurney Camwell, December 2, 2004

"It's ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial. What's going on here?"

-- Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The CBS and NBC networks have refused to run a paid advertisement from the United Church of Christ.
Americans should be concerned. CBS and NBC are categorizing the UCC ad as nothing more than controversial “advocacy advertising”.

"All ads are advocacy; what else is an advertisement if not an opportunity to advocate for your toothpaste or your cause?” said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, president of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ, the largest Protestant denomination in the state. "The ads are about hospitality and a wide welcome. And how that is controversial – I find that extraordinary. We are stunned."[quote from Boston Globe story by Michael Paulson]

The ad has been accepted at ABC Family, AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, History, Nick@Nite, TBS, TNT, Travel and TV Land. Potential media buys are still pending with CNN, Lifetime, Comedy Central and MSNBC. UCC church executives said they accepted the ABC network's position that it did not accept any religious advertising.

According to the UCC website,

"The consolidation of TV network ownership into the hands of a few executives today puts freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression in jeopardy," says former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani, currently managing director of the UCC's Office of Communication. "By refusing to air the United Church of Christ's paid commercial, CBS and NBC are stifling religious expression. They are denying the communities they serve a suitable access to differing ideas and expressions."

Adds Andrew Schwartzman, president and CEO of the not-for-profit Media Access Project in Washington, D.C., "This is an abuse of the broadcasters' duty to inform their viewers on issues of importance to the community. After all, these stations don't mind carrying shocking, attention-getting programming, because they do that every night.

According to the NY Times, the commercial offers the message, "Jesus didn't turn away people and neither do we." It concludes with a panorama of people, including two young women, one of whom has her arm around the other. It never mentions the word "gay."

Janet Jackson’s tit was more likely to see the light of day on CBS than a commercial from this Christian church.

On ABC, you’re far more likely to see a scantily clad Desperate Housewife breathlessly humping her neighbor than to see a commercial from this bedrock church.

NBC can show you a Cialis commercial with that incredibly annoying and lame “blues” (white man’s sex) music 60 times a day, but they shirk from showing a welcoming and inclusive ad from a mainstream American church.

It was perfectly fine to air and discuss the radical cleric Jerry Falwell’s accusation of gays being “enemies of America” just last Sunday on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask Reverend Falwell about something and broaden the conversation. We talked about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Something that you said two days after September 11, when you were with Reverend Pat Robertson: "I fear... that [September 11th] is only the beginning. ...If, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve ... I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle ... all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say `you helped this happen.'"

DR. FALWELL: And I went on to say in a sleeping church, a lethargic church likewise is responsible.

What has changed, you ask? Why are CBS and NBC turning their backs on a church whose foundations are as old as America itself?

The White House political agenda. It's the only reason I can imagine NBC and CBS are cowering. They're under the Bush administration's careful eye and powerful thumb. They are willing to shut out the UCC's ad on behalf of assuring their own comfortable market survival by towing the corporate/government line. One hand feeds the other. They know they won't be able to survive on five loaves of bread and two measly fish. Blessed are the meek, but when it comes to letting them advertise on CBS or NBC, they can take a long walk off a short pier.

The hypocrites at the head of these morally warped networks aim to show American people eating worms and bugs for cheap ratings, and then ban a liberal American church with a message of kindness and unconditional acceptance from advertising on their network. (I direct that toward ABC as well, for why should we allow a major network to shut out mainstream religious advertising, taking into consideration all the crappy and mind-numbing advertising to which we're now subjected?)

UCC's Talking Points are here

You can take action here Contact the national offices of NBC and CBS and express your disappointment at their decision not to run the ad

"This is an opportunity for the United Church of Christ to renew its distinctive voice as a people of welcome, justice and passion for the Gospel. This initiative will help us fall in love again with the United Church of Christ, be generous in financial support, and turn our hearts toward a world that needs to experience the presence, embrace, and encouragement of Jesus."

-- John H. Thomas, UCC General Minister and President

See Chuck Currie's blog for additional commentary.

The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time

The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time

Don't miss John Scalzi's list of the ten Holiday duds. It's a great laugh.

A Tapestry of Recent History

"I've been trying to pull together several seemingly unrelated threads of thoughts out of inchoate contemplation and weave them together into a tapestry showing how these radically different ideas and events form a coherent picture, a picture that can warn and guide us.

It hasn't been easy..."

A Tapestry of Recent History

At Random Fate, Jack says he's going to sort through disparate threads and pull together what I picture as a quilt composed of many patches. Each patch depicts a chaotic scene from the world's most recent history. What are we to make of the finished product?

"I see relationships between quantum mechanics, the pre-election video released by Osama bin Laden, the apparent divide between the Red States and the Blue States, the reaction in blogworld to the retirement of Dan Rather, the controversy over the Marine shooting an apparently surrendered man in Iraq and the reporting of the incident, other aspects of the ongoing fighting in Iraq, the opposition of France to almost every US foreign policy, the election in Ukraine and the consequent increased visibility of the attempt by Vladimir Putin at establishing a Russian version of the Monroe Doctrine, and several other threads in the tangled skein of the world.

Hopefully, I can get this pulled together before the beginning of next week, which is going to be a very busy at work for me."

FBI Searches Pro - Israel Lobbyists' Office

FBI Searches Pro - Israel Lobbyists' Office

FBI agents on Wednesday obtained files and served subpoenas at the offices of AIPAC.

Juan Cole-Spy Case Update

WRMEA- New Spy Investigation Suppressed at Crucial Juncture

Laura Rozen/Jason Vest- Cloak and Swagger

Howard Dean Could Represent New Era of Triumph for Dems

Howard Dean Could Represent New Era of Triumph for Dems

Dan Thies of the Seattle Times has written an excellent editorial.

"..In the shadow of President Bush's re-election, and strengthened GOP control of virtually every element of government, many are convinced that the Democratic Party, if not on the brink of collapse, has been relegated to a generation or more of minority party status. It's now clear that nothing short of a radical overhaul will be necessary to revitalize the Democratic opposition. Enter our old friend, Howard Dean....If the DNC places the faith in Dean they so willfully denied him earlier this year, he'll offer a unique chance at revitalizing the party, and could set the course toward a new era of triumph for the Democrats...".

BLOG is the word

Blog noun [short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

BLOG is the Word

..it's the word that you heard, it's got groove, it's got meaning......

Thanks to Matthew Gross, I've learned that BLOG is Merriam Webster's 'word of the year' (based on online lookups).

Joe Trippi: Only Grassroots can save the Dems

Joe Trippi: Only Grassroots can save the Dems

Joe Trippi's article appeared in today's Wall Street Journal and, since many of us are not subscribers, he's provided a copy at JoeTrippi.com.
An excerpt:

Since the Democratic Leadership Council, with its mantra of "moderate, moderate, moderate," took hold in Washington, the Democratic Party has been in decline at just about every level of government. Forget the Kerry loss. Today the number of Democrats in the House is the lowest it's been since 1928. Democrats are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority party. Can the oldest democratic institution on earth wake from its stupor?

Here are some steps to pull out of the nose-dive...

LINK HERE

Note: Joe would appreciate your comments at his website.