Stand or Fall

Okay, my media cohorts. This is it. Many have admitted going soft on the Bush Administration after 9/11 (I was there). You've shown indignation, although not at great risk, over the handling of Katrina. There is some blood in the water. Will you finally become sharks?

How the media swims over the next month or two will determine a great deal--the outcome of the next election, the course of the debacle in Iraq, the ability of our democracy to recover from years of abuse. So much is at stake. This is so far beyond the fellatio-ridden politics of the late 1990s. We have real, racketeering-based corruption, war profiteering, government indifference and, yes I'm saying it, gaming of the system and other people's sorrow. Will the Fourth Estate finally make a move?

The indictment of Tom Delay is ripe with possibilities. The extortion of Indian tribes by his former henchman Jack Abramoff can no longer be ignored. Yes, Bill Moyers reported this a year ago. Yes, he reported the Delay stuff a year ago. But let's be forgiving. The media was busy, or distracted...with what...I don't know...but let's cut 'em some slack.

Bill Frist's family company--HCA--was under investigation for millions of dollars of Medicare fraud almost two years ago. So, they ignored it. It's okay...perhaps they'll pick up on the obvious and feed on the good doctor's blood. They are voracious, right?

And then there is Halliburton...and the profiteering in the two Gulfs. And Rove leaking Plame's name...in violation of a federal statue initiated by then VP Poppy Bush...who said anyone who opposed the statue was guilty of treason.

The post-9/11 soft shoe act...I guess it's understandable. A Cold War redux...we're all in this together. Okay...you get a pass, my despised colleagues. No more. There is more blood in the water than the semen from a million stained dresses.

The Iraqi Constitution...the daily carnage and the thoroughgoing corruption and cronyism...the kind that puts a horsebreeding ass in charge of FEMA and wildly overcharging Halliburton in charge of supplying out troops...is too juicy to give the Administration a pass. Hire some people, get some talking heads...bring back the quad screen of blabbering pundit. Give us anything. Anything.

Excuses are over. Now it's time to put the 24/7 coverage of the flawed Clinton Presidency's oral fixation into action once more. It's time for the low reputation of the media to be fulfilled in all it's muckraking, narrow-minded and obsessive glory.Pretend this is Michael Jackson, or his sister's tit. Operate under the assumption that we like to see the mighty fall. Just do it, for Christ's sake.

And if it doesn't happen. Well, then you'll know how far we've fallen. You'll know how little power we have and how much power those moneyed powers exert over the media conglomerates they've created. Because this bleeding...washing over Iraq and that Texas courthouse, over HCA and Halliburton...can only be stopped by a tourniquet of compliant editors, cowered journalists and corporate cronies...all seeing that the blood they might be spilling is, in the final analysis, their own. But let's give 'em one more chance. Our democracy depends on it.

Opportunity Knox

Fort Knox...a world-famous repository of America's gold reserves. A bounty of bullion. One stop shopping for the Goldfingers of the world...should they dare to breach it's defenses.

And then there is the White House. A fortress of opportunities for no-bid contracts, taxpayer-funded projects and for the defense industry. Whether they start wars, or simply respond to natural disasters, or they coordinate with an Enron-engineered energy crisis or cavort with corrupt Hill-dwellers like DeLay or Frist...this White House sees a world of profit in others' losses.

The two Gulfs...here and in the Middle East...are each in a sea of no-bid contracts. Halliburton. Hello, people...Goddamn Halliburton! They parlayed Iraqi Oil for Food contracts, and contracts with Libya and Iran, into a post-9/11 flood of taxpayer dollars. They built Gitmo. The rebuild things we'd blown up over the last decade. The longer troops are in Iraq, the more money they make. And we ain't talking chump change. In fact, Halliburton was on the verge of bankruptcy before Cheney left it to be VP. Now, it's stock is through the roof...profits are high. Hello...is anybody getting this?

So, Joe Allbaugh...formerly of the Bush 2000 campaign, formerly of FEMA, lobbyist for companies flooding into Iraq after the invasion...was down in our Gulf snatching up no-bids for his crony clients...like Halliburton.

Not that the oil companies...who keep posting record profits since we went into Iraq...would exploit this situation. Well, they are. And Bush, shamelessly or wisely--depending on just how stupid we are--has called for the Congress to help build more refineries. What?! Now, we have to pay to help the oil industry build more refineries? What happened to capitalism? To free markets? President Gas sees the opportunity. People are scared about fuel. The oil companies can get us to pay for their infrastructure. And guess who builds oil infrastructure? Halliburton!!

Helloo...hellooo...helloooo...is there anybody out there?

California got caught in this kinda opportunism. Enron, El Paso and others created the bogus California Energy Crisis. It's true. You think not? Get over it. Do some reading.

Cheney's Commission met with Enron, Lay was a huge contributor to the Bush campaign...they are like two Bangkok whores putting on a show for a millionaire. Enron profited...and the execs off-shored the money before the collapse. The Administration used the crisis to sell it's energy policy. And California built a bunch of new energy plants and infrastructure...at great cost to taxpayers. Guess what. California has a huge amount of OVER CAPACITY! Idle plants, unused power lines. Because there wouldn't have been a crisis without the intentional screwing of the market. There was no real shortage. Just an opportunity to make one.

Oh yeah, that Energy Commission was poring over oil maps of Iraq...the summer before 9/11. It's true, look it up. All that oil, all that infrastructure to build, all those troops to supply and bases to construct. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But what an opportunity!

All that glitters isn't gold. Sometimes, you just have to follow the gleam of blinding White light that comes from the heart of the WoB. In that fortress of liquidity, that central bank of possibilities...you'll find the opportunities come...by hook, by crook or by natural disaster.

Oh, am I talking to myself again?

Passing the Protest

Festive, determined and unabashed. That's the way it was backstage at Operation Ceasefire. It was a progressive starf'cker's dream...Laura Flanders and Amy Goodman, Steve Earle and Joan Baez...but Laura has the best eyes. And that voice. Perchance to dream....

The backstage view showed the strength and commitment of those who oppose the continuing war in Iraq and the teflon-coated presidency that organized it. There was an undercurrent of outrage, but mostly it was celebratory. The crowd...the 150,000-plus who marched and those who moseyed over to the concert...was filled with righteous indignation, but there was also a palpable sense of arrival in the air, in the chants and on their signs. The best of which read: "Bush pull out, just like your father should have."

The jubilation was not ironic, nor was it inappropriate. Like it or not, Katrina has made it okay to think that things are going wrong. It's okay to gather in public and chant. It's okay to actually know a few facts and express them. Joan Baez dancing backstage, some two hours after she performed, was a moment of joy expressed quite fetchingly by someone who realized that the time had arrived. Anti-war didn't not, ipso facto, have to be anti-American. About 300 showed up for the "counter-protest." Wow!

Of course, I didn't see any mainstream reporters in the media tent...except one local DC guy for WJLA. Bully for them.

Still, the mainstream didn't take the time to ask the many recognizable faces who came through the tent for an interview. None were there for post-game interview after Cindy Sheehan's triumphant participation on stage and her completely accessible stop in the media tent. Although the media has surfed on the wake of Katrina, they still avoid the whole "Iraq is a mess, in a civil war and people are dying" thing. And let's not mention the female-unfriendly Iraqi constitution.

But Cindy did.

You see, there are people in the anti-war movement who kinda resent Cindy's celebrity. They hate that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other families with similar stories who are ignored. Many have fought the good fight to break through the media barrier to tell the truth about what's going on...without much attention or success. Understandable.

They hate that the media has a short attention span and focuses on celebrity-types. True enough.

But this is how it works, my friends. I know. I've seen it from the inside out. Take what Cindy is offering and run with it. It's why the numbers where so high on Saturday. It's why she got such a huge welcome on stage, and was mobbed in the march. A plain, American mom...standing up to a propaganda machine that, speaking as an expert on fascism, is as effective as those of the 1930s. All she needs to do is throw some apple pie at the White House...what could be more American than that?

So, it's great that the music brought out the best in people, that Steve Earle and Joan Baez stirred the soul and the others rocked the crowd on. But it was Cindy who mentioned the flaws in the Iraq constitution. In that way, she surpassed our media, our journalists and our leadership. She passed the test like a pro. Don't look this all-American gift horse in the mouth. She's the real deal.

Wea Culpa

We went soft. That’s the current media sensation. Thomas Friedman, globalization hack and all-around do-nothing new, wrote this week that 9-11 “distorted the political environment.” It led to reticence to question the Admin’s policies.

A couple days ago I heard a major news weekly editor admit that he went soft on Team W after 9-11. Revelatory, isn’t it?

What’s happening?

According to Friedman, David Brooks and others, Katrina has changed the political calculus and it’s suddenly okay to go after Bush…particularly on spending. See, now that we are into it all to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, with half of all our borrowing coming from banks in China, South Korea and Japan, Katrina opened the door to criticism of the policies that got us here. Thanks, Katrina!

No thanks, media whores.

It’s a classic, yet weak, mea culpa. We should. We coulda. But you didn’t. You didn’t question anything after those towers dropped. But now, hey, with all that mess down there in our Gulf, we can finally head into the breach and show that we are still journalists. Forget the flag waving, and the forgotten Anthrax investigation. Ignore the parroting of the Admin’s WMD claims, and those “ignorant” sources who said that the intelligence was faulty…in the intelligence community. Porter Goss pushed ‘em out anyway. They aren’t sources anymore. No need to grovel for access there.

It goes on and on. And they were soft before the 9-11. CBS buried Greg Palast’s Florida 2000 story…which ran on the BBC. The media did little on the Energy Commission. They had the National Guard story back in 2000…I know…I put it into a major anchor’s briefing book. He never asked Bush the question.

So, maybe Friedman is partially right…a particular talent of his…that 9-11 further distorted the already mutilated approach to the Bushes. Read Secrecy and Privilege by Robert Parry, or Kitty Kelly’s The Family. And wonder why Kitty Kelly…who could expose the iconic Reagans for consulting an astrologer, but couldn’t get one appearance on Larry King. She was cancelled by the Today Show the night before her scheduled appearance. It’s a long-standing pattern.

Anderson Cooper’s Katrina-driven outrage over the outrageous, Friedman’s dispensation to finally expose the fiscal and foreign policy failures of the Admin…they make up for nothing. AWOL is AWOL. They’ve blown it. Just look at the way the alternative media has dealt with this Admin. It’s all been out there for anyone who cared to look. All the information, all the investigations…on the internet, and radio and voluminous books…some of us have seen this coming for the last four-plus years.

So, caught with it’s pants down, ironically while they failed to report that the emperor had no clothes, the media is trying to pre-empt the revelation that they were scooped.

They missed the story.

No, it was an act of God…Katrina…that made it okay to take the gloves off. Leave it to the media to turn Katrina into a rationalization for there collective failure. Theya culpa alright…too little, too late. Just like the Admin’s response to Katrina.

Fabled Danger

Mohammed Atta. The face of evil. The face of terror. The poster boy for 9-11...so ominous and foreign and dark and Arab. Somehow, his picture was splashed all over the 24-7 coverage within hours of those deadly attacks.

In fact, we had pictures of all of the hijackers. "How did we get them so soon," I thought? Weren't they using false names, false passports and IDs? What a bit of detective work! Or not.

Now we know. Some crazy, conspiracy-wacko Republican--Rep. Curt Weldon--is shouting out to the few who will listen that something strange happened. The Defense Intelligence Agency was tracking Atta under project Able Danger. They knew about his terror cell and activities before 9-11, before 2001. Some DIA guys tried to tell the FBI. The FBI responded by putting in earplugs and a donning sleep mask--like they were getting ready for a transcontinental flight and wanted some shut-eye.

And the 9-11 Commission didn't really think it was important enough to look into. But, then again, Laurence Silberman and Lee Hamilton are practiced at the art of the semi-cover up...they did such a good job with Iran-Contra. A conviction tossed by Silberman--who was involved in the yearly arms deals with Iran, and Good Ol' Lee pressed the Congressional brakes on anything that approached Reagan, Bush or the drug dealing antics of our Freedom Fighting friends. The CIA's post-Gary Webb report confirmed the Contras were in the cocaine business, by the way.

But back to Able Danger...and the oddity that Atta was a known quantity, and that the chart the DIA has assembled...perhaps much like the chart compiled by FBI counter-terrorism expert John O'Neill prior to 9-11...has gone missing. That chart could be the Rosetta Stone of the whole operation, with names and places and events. It could unlock a host of mysteries. It's been destroyed, apparently.

It's not the only oddity. Two FBI agents investigating a couple bin Ladens in Falls Church, their Muslim charity (called WAMY) and terrorism funding links, were called off before 9-11 by a Presidential National Security directive...a W-199. That was reported on the BBC a couple years ago. Or how about those performance bonuses given to the two FBI agents who blocked further investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui's computer or activities. Or the bonus given to the State Department official who okay'd many of the entrance visas for our fly-boy Saudi "friends."

Oh, it pays to play ball.

Funny, though, is that this Atta story doesn't seem to be getting any "traction," as we say here in the WoB. Although, those other stories never got any traction. Oh well. It must not be important if the media doesn't cover it. Like they didn't cover the story behind the California Energy crisis, or the Energy Commission and the oh-so blatant link to what Enron did. Yeah, I know...connecting dots...it's a mug's game. Plus, you start to sound like some tripped out conspiracy theorist! You can't have that.

You see... facts, when put into context and chronologies and linked to other facts, are really just little conspiracies themselves. They conspire to show patterns. Patterns are bad. Patterns lead one to questions and, gasp, conclusions.

I'm proposing nothing. It could all be incompetence. Government equals incompetence, right? Iraq=incompetence. Katrina=incompetence. 9-11=incompetence. Fair enough. But Able Danger proves that there was a lot of competence, too. As do many of the other lower-level, FBI investigations that got far and uncovered much. The surprise attack wasn't so surprising after all. People knew something was coming. O'Neill even knew who, where and began zeroing in on when. He got kicked out of he FBI before he could do that...offered a job at the WTC and died in the attack. No, really. I can't make that kinda stuff up.

So far, the media has continued to avoid the conspiracy of facts. Katrina is drowning out the story...another victim she can claim. Don't bother with the CPR...it'd be wasted breath.

We can to ask ourselves, though, why wasn't the Danger Disabled, why does the official story keep turning more and more into a Fabled Danger...and why hasn't anyone lost their job if there was so much incompetence? I'll get back to you when I get a chart.

Access-ories

The term is "Media Whore." It's used in my business to describe those who will do anything to get on camera, say whatever needs to be said and insinuate themselves into the story of the day. They crave attention, for fame or money or both. You've seen them...pundits being the obvious sub-species of this city's most indigenous of creatures. I think I left here back in 2002 when I realized I had to evolve into one of them, like some two-bit extra from the Island of Doctor Moreau. Otherwise, I couldn't be in the zoo.

Some of us "insiders" also refer to the reporters, talking heads and "journalists" who populate our proliferate channels as media whores. They shamelessly use "cut-aways" of themselves reacting to the interviewee in front of them, making their well-glossed, gently nodding faces part of the story. They cultivate access--at dinner parties and press conferences and other well-heeled events. Access translates into official sources...the big names and bloated tag lines in the story that highlight the journalists' bylines or the screen credits that roll their careers and bankroll their comfy lives.

The success of the Daily Show is built upon that never-ending joke, that the media is itself the story and the way they "report" the news is so arrogant, so totally off the story that it makes us laugh to see comedians doing it so smoothly and without an ounce of remorse. The sad part is that the Daily Show is the straight man, and the real news is the punchline.

Since the first term of this Presidency, the media whores have become high-priced call girls. They get calls from the official sources and spread open for story of the day. Hard questions...particularly about wars, terrorism, energy policy and the environment, or about obvious corruption and lies...do not get asked. Or, if they do, it's only to "put it out there" to be knocked down. White House sources deny, Pentagon sources deny...how many times have you heard or read those words after what might be a startling revelation? Once denied, the investigation stops. Because journalism is now just access. No need to investigate.

Those who question and gumshoe their way to the truth go to Britain, or the alternative press, or start their own websites. Mainstreamers, though, love access. Access shows their importance. They get to hang out in the White House, or the Pentagon, or the glittering studios around town. They get calls from important people. They get their pictures taken with the people they cover, collecting banal souvenirs that mark their own sense of importance over time. I've seen it...in real time and displayed historically around the offices of many a "journalist."

Of course, many will deny this. They have to. Because the ghost of Edward R. Murrow does haunt us, because Woodward and Bernstein became big stars, because Iran-Contra did get past the perception management of the Reagan-Bush team. The media whores, though, got Monica and the big, career-making investigation chased the ghost of journalism past. Whether or not Monica was about anything, what it did was elevate the media whore...the babbling head put in front of a camera to play ping-pong with an opponent, to bloviate about he saids and she saids, to fill the air with fireless smoke blown right up our collective asses. Many became stars because of Monica. Fox News was built on it. It turned journalism into a cash cow.

There were ignored stories during that period. Scandals that could've been. Now, we see that come to full bloom, as one scandal after another just tip-toes by us. Plamegate, and the persistence of Karl Rove is a case in point. Judith Miller, a shill who has been exposed for the book "Germs," who wrote agitprop about Saddam back in the lead up to the first Gulf War...she's a First Amendment hero and prime example of the dark side of access. Bob Novak, still skulking around in his column, lost his head a bit, but not his access. His access was Rove's tool...to try to blow by the falseness of the Admin's Iraq War case. And where has the media been? Reporters? They've been cowards. They been enjoying the kinda of access that Jeff Gannon got. And they're doing the same sort of journalism.

The Daily Show is quite popular among the media whores in this city. It's a relief to laugh at the absurdity of it all, to point fingers at the other guy with a knowing chuckle or an accusatory guffaw. If you love the Daily Show and work in the media, you are "in" on the big joke and somehow above it all. But the media whores here are so lacking in self-awareness, so lacking in self-reflection...that they don't even realize that they are laughing at themselves. Now they go on the show and seek some sort of comic dispensation from Jon Stewart. I hope Murrow's ghost is laughing.

What's worse, is that access has made them accessories...to a laundry list of things gone wrong, of plans unfurled and bank accounts padded. That's the real crime.

Star Grazing

To see or to be seen...that is the question. This city is, ostensibly, about running the most powerful nation in the world, doling out tax dollars and greasing the wheels of justice. The subtext, though, is celebrity. Fame and immortality, being known beyond your small circle and short life...these things compel us to do many things.

During my first stint making unrequited passes at the WoB, I got a chance to go to the famed Radio & Television Correspondents' Dinner. Well, not to the event itself, but to the "after parties" thrown by the media scrum that clings to the political celebrity culture like a lamprey to a shark. My "in" was a job at the "most respected hour of news" and I went with some younger news desk denizens. We got drunk.

Now, I've always been good with names and faces. Really good. With baseball players as a kid, punk and new wave bands as a teen and politicians and journalists ever since. Suitably sloshed and dressed up, a young Eastern Elite and I gamboled around from party to party. Fox News had a killer bar, BTW. They had Jack. I was seeing one named face after another. I was seeing them all. I wanted to be one of 'em.

I began starf'cking.

As a tall, now completely unwatchable babbling head walked by I said, "Hello, Mr. O'Shut-up...you've inspired me to get into this business!"

"What did you just say?," blurted out of the Elite's gaping mouth. "C'mon, don't starf'ck."

Chastened and reprimanded, my soul poked a finger in my conscience's eye. The Elite had taught me a lesson, perhaps the most important lesson on survival in the WoB. Funny, but I really didn't even like the guy I'd just complimented. We were so far apart on so many levels. But when we were close, in the same physical area, I morphed into a socio-political sycophant. That's the dynamic of celebrity and our mass-cultural delusion that they inherently mean something as people because they are known. Seeking meaning in our lives we become pretenders or admirers. I was a pretender. I wanted to be a pundit, a babbling head. I got caught up in the dynamic.

So I drank so more. It was fun.

So last night, faced with a bevy luminaries--from entertainment and politics--I was prepared. It was part of a story I'm doing, so I wasn't on the A-List or B-List...just the see-list. Therefore, my participation was buffered by a semi-permeable layer of work. But I did see one beautiful, famous Irish lass, spoke quickly with a famous, funny musician and generally observed, from my chastened perspective, all the others who needed to be seen with those who are seen, and those who try to see them all. Countless people posed for paparazzi as if Andy Warhol was standing behind them with a stopwatch, timing them while they frantically tried to look hot and hip. Then came the schmoozing, lots of head nodding, lots of martinis and overdone make-up. Mostly, people waited for the big star of the night, a beautiful actress accompanied by her female family cohort, to arrive. They stood around like cattle waiting for the hay bail to drop off the back of the flatbed. They just wanted a chance, a small nibble at her ear. She blew right by them.

After all my experiences, all my sightings and conversations with the WoB's various sorts of luminaries, I think my star-f'cking days are long gone. It's more interesting now to watch other people make their passes and be turned down. Or to get there passes accepted...at a great price.

Luckily, I'm broke.

News Pornographer

So, you're in TV? What's a producer do?

We make sausage.

At least, that's my usual answer when I vaguely tell people what I do. Unless they themselves are image peddlers, curiosity takes over and they start asking questions. I, of course, come off as aloof, intentionally obtuse or conceited...mostly because I'm hiding my underlying shame. This business is corrupted. Yes, it can be corrupt, but most people in the news game are not themselves corrupt. They are simply poisoned by the dynamic of this city...fear of questioned patriotism, fear of losing "access" or a job...or they just cannot envision the possibility of asking tough questions and digging into stories.

The WoB is calling the shots, and the news business sets up the camera. Political news is now about celebrity, about who's f'ing who--either literally or figuratively, about who's up and who's down, who's in or who's out. It's pornography. We simply shoot the tape, cut it together with very little artistry or imagination and just let the action between the people fill the screen. No need for a story arc, insightful writing or a point...the action itself is the point.

It makes sense, though, as the WoB has exerted itself. Hollywood Babylon or DC Babylon...the Whore will always find a home somewhere. Now that we've entered the post-news stage of our democracy...a time when appearances, propaganda and the hard sell take precedence over what I grew up knowing as journalism...there is very little left for the news business to do.

Let's face it, the last time we saw great journalism was Iran-Contra. Lids were blown off, people were exposed and the nation shocked. But even that didn't get very far. I guarantee that you still haven't been told the full story. Since then? What about Iraqgate? Or the bogus, Enron-manufactured California energy crisis? Or Cheney's Energy Commission--looking at maps of Iraqi oil fields before 9-11? And so on.

No, my friends, the TV news producer...the person who actually does the research and writing and gets the interviews...is hamstrung by the "get"--the insider term for the "big interview" that your competitors didn't "get." But, if you "get" Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush...anyone, from either side...you are agreeing to NOT ask hard questions. It's implicit in the deal. Believe me, I've seen it firsthand. Even at the "most respected hour of news on TV." If you want to see this illustrated, turn on the BBC and watch them interview a politician. It's vicious and interactive. It's journalism.

No, now the news producer merely directs the videographer, fills in the blanks with the back and forth between the two sides and let's us watch. It's pure formula. Like so many adult videos, you know what's coming. The story line is predetermined by those we are supposed to cover, the script written and re-written over again...nothing new. We produce an endless series of sexed-up remakes. Again, we're just there to get you the images. It's "reality television," writ large. We are all voyeurs now.

Voyeurism, the basic theme of all pornography, is cheap, easy and safe. It's what TV news is now--cheap, easy and safe. And that sounds like we've become...well, you know.

Gimme Some Truth

The truth hurts. Sometimes, intolerably so. The counterpose to truth is denial. Denial, the Yin to the Yang of truth, is pain deferred. Even those of us who love the truth, or simply profess that love, often find ourselves wandering dangerously in a state of denial. Even me--the self-appointed champion of truth.

My denial is personal, about my Ex and the way it ended. About my stupidity and foolhardiness in the face of obvious facts, painful truths and hideous revelations. Our collective denial is the same, but the consequences much greater. Our now academic 12-year anniversary is coming up, within hours. Our monumental, still quite relevant collective anniversary...9/11...is only hours old. My personal denial and our collective denial tap into the same well...of issue avoidance, pain-deferral and a desire to abstain from think the unthinkable.

Like the details of my personal situation, the details srrounding 9/11 are voluminous, complex, complicated and, for the purpose of this blog, besides the point. The facts are out there for those who wish to read and look and dig. If you think that it's strange that the military was tracking Mohammed Atta through operation Able Danger well before 9/11, or stranger still that it's not a constant front-page scandal...well, look into it. All of it. You'll find so many anomalies. The official story looks like an oft-turned Rubik's Cube, the colors lined up on one side, but the other five are a jumbled mess. That's what I eventually found after the glow of righteous anger wore off. Those Towers had some personal meaning to me, some life experiences connected to them. Later, though, I acually let the historian in me come out and track down leads, look into facts and sources. I began to think the unthinkable.

And so it was with my personal life. I was so captivated by my interpretation of our story, of her story, that I refused to think the unthinkable. I clung to her official story like shipwreck survivor desperately squeezing a life preserver. I wanted her story to be true...neat and clean and painless. But that couldn't be sustained. The historian in me wouldn't allow it. I did the research, I connected the dots and checked out sources. I was crushed. Still, I tried to defer the pain, avoid the truth and the issues. My issues. Which led to questions. Why was I so willing to believe? Was I complicit in my own demise? Was I to blame?

So here we are as a people. The story we've been fed is clean and, for the most part, painless. No one but the perpetrators are to blame. It's cut and dried, neat and tidy. But we are avoiding some issues and deferring some pain. The truth, at least the shards of it that I and others have collected, is very painful. The denial of it is logical, perhaps even a survival strategy. But it has consequences...just ask the Iraqi people. Our denial avoids the issues, which also leads to questions. Is this a democracy? Who truly benefited? Did we ask all the questions, investigate all the claims? Where's Osama? And, while we're at it, what the hell happened to the Anthrax Attack?

My personal pain is no longer deferred. I faced it--the truth and issues and the questions. It's not totally over for me. It will be, sooner rather than later. I crawled out of the dark spider hole of denial I'd hidden in, and the antiseptic of light exposed me to the truth. I had to deal. Had to. No choice. As this anniversary passes--a much smaller kidney stone than it would've been later on--I see clearly how we can, so willingly, remain in denial. I understand the deferral of that pain. It will hurt, if and when we do face it. Believe me, I know.

Spinning Outta Control

It was the perfect photo op. W, fresh off a month in Crawford ignoring Cindy and declining poll numbers, flew over the ravages of nature and suffering of his fellow Americans.

But he was one simple descent from the clouds, a purposeful walk down the stairs from Air Force One and a helmeted helicopter ride away from a brass ring.

There it was, just waiting to be seized...an instant five-ten point bump in his poll ratings.

It could've been a "take charge" photo op reminiscent to the one we lapped up after 9-11. I can almost see Rove gently caressing himself at the good fortune nature blew his way. The only thing missing was Jerry Bruckheimer, producing the whole affair from a remote location in Qatar. Oh well, Jessica Lynch...been there, done that.

It didn't happen.

In fact, it went woefully wrong. W, suddenly demure, waited. Rove was M.I.A. They had to play defense, trying to wrest control of the story from the ghastly pictures plastered 24/7 on our TVs. It was too late. Katrina, herself quite a spin doctor, had given the White House a story they couldn't spin back.

Really, though, the White House is just falling victim to it's own devices. And so are we. We've all been spun, not with the brute force of the Gulf Coast, but by our own willingness to believe the unbelievable, to accept the unacceptable and to buy into rhetoric that merely soothes us as we blithely ignore all the warning signs. W and FEMA ignored them. Look what happened.

We've ignored impending disaster since the 2000 election. We listened to the spin and, for the most part, have swallowed all the stories they feed us. Like an obese man wanting to sue McDonald's for filling his gullet with Big Macs, our outrage lacks a certain credibility. We are Americans, so we will complain and we will want to sue someone, but it'll be easy for us refuseniks to say "I told you so."

The rest of the world is probably licking it's chops at the prospect.

Like the White House, we've spun ourselves outta control. We've bought into the housing bubble, with no-down and ARM mortgages and equity-driven Home Depot dreams of renovating ourselves into wealth. We've bought into SUVs and big cars, while oil companies' profits grow to record highs year after year. We've bought into a "War on Terror" which siphons off billions of dollars and tens of thousands of our own people to attack a country with no connection to 9-11, but is right next door to the country that essentially did--Bush client Saudi Arabia. Iraq...we bought into that spin, bigtime! Health care spirals out of control, education is still an afterthought--but doesn't No Child Left Behind have a soothing ring to it?

Advertisers want you to buy their products, they can't make you. You have to buy into their message first, and then you go make your choice. But we've gotten to the point that we simply ignore the consumer advocates who warn us about dangerous toys at Christmas. We are too invested in the pitch, in the spin.

Enter Katrina. All that spin is gone, and what's left is the human tragedy. And it's only going to get worse. We've now seen what people will do in desperation. Rapes, mutilated bodies, violence, rescuers forcing women to expose themselves if they wanted to be rescued, government indifference, looting. Imagine if the Great Depression happened today?

So, over the long-term gas ain't going to get any cheaper. The economy ain't going to get any better. Home prices are headed for a big fall. And the civil war in Iraq ain't ending anytime soon. Sorry Karl. Sorry America. All the spin in the world cannot stop what's happening. It's outta control.

Race to the Top

Segregation ended in the 1960s...NOT!

Katrina washed away years and years well-constructed illusions that, since those heady days of the Civil Rights Movement, racism has become a quaint, provincial part of our collective past.

Despite the significant progress we've made...let's face it...if those people stranded in New Orleans were in a wealthy, white Republican city they wouldn't spend day after day without food, water or evacuation. We did more, and did it quicker, for the tsunami victims. But, then again, that was a huge PR effort to buff our tarnished world image. Particularly since many of those victims were Muslim. Condi Rice said so...really...she blatantly said it. But I digress....

The WoB put this issue before my eyes years ago. I moved here from the Bay Area back in 1999 and lived in a Beltway Burb. I saw it then, the subtle segregation of race and class. But my forays into the WoB were startling. The difference between NW and SE was the difference between Paris and Beirut. The million-dollar homes, private schools and overflowing supermarkets and specialty shops of NW juxtaposed by the dilapidated homes, row houses, disintegrating schools and proliferate fast-food joints of SE...with nary a supermarket to be found.

Then I faced the roads...looking like they'd been bombed continuously over the last decade, ridden with holes and punctuated by bumps...the infamously bad educational system...the lack of a vote in congress. I became hardened to the ways of the Whore, and the glittering contradiction of this modern Babylon. I fled...back to the racial acceptance, lifestyle acceptance and general good feelings and camaraderie of the Bay Area. I don't like racism. I've felt it a couple times, much less overtly and intensely, but it's still a bitter pill.

And now I'm back, and I don't have the subtleties of suburbia to lessen the blow. I live near Rock Creek Park, in a nice, "English Basement" apartment in a maintained, high-value home. I only need to walk a few blocks, though...over to Georgia Ave...and there is the WoB's unkept secret. It's not SE, but it's not good either. Sure, it's gentrifying...and I guess that's good. But will those interlopers send their kids to the local public school? And who gets pushed out so that they can barge in? And once pushed out, where do they go? SE?

This, the capital of Freedom, Equality and Justice offers only platitudes to DC's Black population. This city is built on platitudes. And the poor stay poor, disenfranchised and...Black.

So, when I reflect on the last week in New Orleans I see that the veneer is gone, stripped away by a monumental tide of unholy water. Underneath that veneer of progress and equality and justice, under the shiny finish we've put on a long, storied history of wealth and egalitarianism--we see that poverty is still there, racism is still there. This is the reality. Katrina sent us many messages. I doubt we're ready to receive this one.

Antibodies of Water

It's natural. It's natural for us to mourn the loss of a once-great city like New Orleans. To sympathize with the tens of thousands of people who've lost everything, some even their lives. It's natural for Evangelicals to interpret this as God's retribution for the Crescent City's "Sodom and Gommorah" ways.

And hurricanes are natural. They're getting stronger, too. In fact, think we've all noticed, quite anecdotally, that the weather has gotten more and more intense over the last decade. Hotter heat, dryer drys, wetter wets...and bigger, more intense storms. Although there are a few, well-paid scientists who take exception to the overwhelming consensus that climate change is happening and that we, collective humanity, are making is so...it doesn't take a Ph.D. to note that things are changing.

Glaciers recede, the Larson Ice Shelf shrinks, huge chucks of ice collapse in Antarctica. That's a lot of water to put into the climate. It's a lot of water vapor going into the atmosphere. Is there any doubt that it would contribute to storms...to hurricanes?

Sure, a good scientist wants proof, over time and conclusive, before making that connection. But you need only an elementary knowledge to see a corollation. Still, while Europe experiences flood after flood and us more powerful storms, our leaders genuflect to oil lobbyists and laugh off the Kyoto Protocol. They say the science is still out. Perhaps that's why W doesn't really want to see the devestation firsthand. Why pass up that photo op a couple days ago? It would've spiked his faltering ratings. How strange. Perhaps he wants the science to still be open, perhaps seeing is believing.

On the issue of climate change, W and his oil-energy presidency put fingers in there collective ears and sing "La, La, La, La, La." Even now, an Oily Congressman is on a witch-hunt to intimidate climate change scientists!

So, do we think this to be God's payback? It could be...but not for gays cavorting in New Orleans. How about our murderous reign over His creation, the death and radiation we've spread over Iraq, the despoiling of his environmental masterpiece and economic policies that liken us to money changers outside the temple? Somehow, Evangelicals read a different Bible than I do, so they'll miss those connections.

Or is this nature's payback? It's interesting that the soft underbelly of our oil culture was taken out. That oil culture is hurting the planet. We swarm over it, like an infection, draining the life blood out of it and then spewing our toxic emissions. The host cannot sustain us, not like this. As a good friend said, we show supreme arrogance in building cities below sea level, and we consume and consume. What have we given back to the planet? Strip mining, acid rain, desertification.

The Earth is a self-correcting system--just ask the dinosaurs. They died, probably cataclysmically, and the Earth adjusted and gave us life...we mammals owe our lives to the Earth's powerful ability to clean out the past, the detritus. But now we've gone too far...our chemicals, our overfed bodies, our toying with the very code of life. We're even trying to control the ionosphere.

Arrogance. The great classical word was "hubris." Many a classical hero met his storied fall because of hubris. The planet must fight back against our hubris. Not anthropomorphically like some ancient, petulant child-God, but self-correctively. If we are something of an infection, a parasite...we may be feeling the antibodies bearing down on us. The Earth may be self-correcting us into submission, or completely out of commission. I think we still have a choice. I choose to submit.