Leslie Griffith

Plucked Peacock

(This piece also published in the Huffington Post 2/8/2010  and at SFGate.com)

We, Comcast and AT& T, take you, NBC, to be our wedded peacock—to have and to pluck as we see fit.

Let the nuptials begin with a quote from one of Comcast’s current bedfellows. Drum roll please! He’s the king of the threesomes. Hell, he’s the king of the quadruple-somes.  A man who famously brandishes his First Amendment right to say and show anything. A man who will now have indirect access to one of broadcasting’s once honorable “family” networks. Let’s hear it for Larry Flynt!

Felled by a would-be assassin’s bullet, a subsequent stroke and a sub-subsequent addiction to drugs, he’s a surprisingly affable guy, a plucky fellow who keeps rising despite adversity.

Is the drum still on a roll? It should be. Larry Flynt is something of a best man to put these strange bedfellows in context.  He is a man reflective of his country’s inherent contradictions. Many years ago, he boldly showed what no man dared to show before—the “pink shots.” Flynt once took Jesus as his savior, promising to “hustle for God.” Then, presto! He’s an atheist again. He is nothing if not pliable and resilient. Stronger than Mount Rushmore and Rush Limbaugh combined! Unflinchingly pornographic, unapologetic and prolific, Flynt’s corporation produces “about a thousand films a year” for Comcast/AT&T and others.

Larry laments:  “The world is not what it used to be and will never be that way again.”

By that, he means “innocent.” Flynt’s an expert on lost innocence. He has an infamously high tolerance for helping others lose theirs. But, even he sounded confused by the upcoming 30 billion dollar wedding. He was not, however, objecting at the altar since he stands to profit from the union.              

     ###

So, let us bow our heads in honor of the NBC/Comcast/AT&T threesome.

I, Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company and, therefore, one of the largest purveyors of double X pornography in the country…

AND

I, AT&T, the world’s largest warrantless wire-tappers outside of China and wealthy financial beneficiary of National Security Council and F.B.I. contracts…

TAKE YOU

NBC, as our corporately wedded partner, to have and to molt, until stock price death do we part.

It is now NBC’s turn.

I, NBC, promise to cross promote, product place, placate and propagate Comcast/AT&T’s propaganda. And, that’s not all.  We promise to do it with a shiny smile while skipping to Bri-tunes, waving red, white and blue pom-poms and singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

We at NBC have shown that we are a compliant partner, proven to have and hold tightly all unsightly corporate secrets. You see we have been married before.  During that marriage, we learned loose lips sink ships—the military kind—with engines made by our first corporate betrothed, GE. Neither were NBC’s lips loose when the New York Times won a Pulitzer for reporting on the cabal of retired flag officers who worked for defense contractors and pimped the progress of the Iraq war for NBC and other networks while posing as “independent” military analysts. The Bush administration was happy; the Pentagon was happy; and GE and other defense contractors were happy. Brian Williams, a very cool dude, was so happy he was speechless. To this day, Williams has never informed his viewers of the Pulitzer won by the Times or the fact that his “independent “military experts were pimping for God, Country, Bush, and the military-industrial complex. Sometimes words can just fail a guy, even a cool one.

General Electric claims to “Bring Good Things to Life,” and we were a peacock that never tired of parroting that slogan. At NBC we rarely brought bad things to light. Like the fact that General Electric is one of the world’s leading beneficiaries of war. GE makes military aircraft, fighters and tankers, helicopters and surveillance aircraft and bombers. GE builds and tests nuclear bombs, is known for making billions on questionable international arms deals and has a history of large-scale air and water pollution. But never mind all that! Corporate marriage vows, like those exchanged between all brides and grooms, say “for better or for worse.”

Forever faithful, NBC will kiss GE goodbye and be a loyal mouthpiece in its new corporate marriage to Comcast/AT&T. GE is divorcing itself from the old, tired bird. It no longer needs a marketing network. Perhaps that’s because this bird has been well trained and can be released safely from its gilded cage. And, during wartime, GE’s war record speaks for itself. I guess when corporations buy the line…they get to decide where to draw it. With the bird in hand, NBC was an ally with a far reaching, mouthpiece.  A thirty billion dollar mouthpiece that now will look the other way for Comcast/AT&T.

So, don’t expect the FCC or any other regulatory agency to stand up and protest. They are bound to smileJ, look away, and permit by demurring. We know this because of the other wedding bouquets already  thrown. ABC caught one and married Disney. CBS snared another and wed a dashing bachelor named Viacom. With the Big Three owned by entertainment companies or communications companies in cahoots with government surveillance, journalists don’t know whether to break out in song during auditions, or begin using pay phones to avoid surveillance.  Most up and coming “journalists” are so confused about their roles in the Fourth Estate, they’re hedging bets by getting degrees in marketing and advertising as well. 

Larry Flynt might call that a head job.

 Final Marriage pledge:

NBC, the Nothing But Complicit network, promises to never rat on anyone with the potential to deflate its stock prices or the stock of those who peddle in greed, war, spying or sex. Unto Comcast/AT &T, NBC now pledges its troth.

 ‘Till death, or a better offer, do they part.

Reckoning at Ringling Bros.

This piece also published in the Huffington Post, February 5th, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

 Kenneth Feld, the sole owner of Feld Entertainment and Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus did not appear in U.S Federal Court today. Buying his way out of trouble is a way of life for Ken Feld, but this time, he just may be trapped. These animal rights people are not clowning around! Many in the courtroom craned their curious necks to get a glimpse of him, but he ditched us and the court proceedings.

Feld stayed true to his reclusive reputation and played the role he always does: the illusive circus master who calls the moves behind the scenes.

Still, in true P.T Barnum fashion, the sleight of hand and manipulation of words got precision delivery on his behalf. In the first few hours of the trial, some of the most famous and expensive mouthpieces money can buy sang the praises of Ringling Bros. Circus and its treatment of endangered Asian elephants. An entourage of Fulbright and Jaworski attorneys turned a weapon of torture, "The Bull Hook," used by Ringling handlers with reckless disregard against the endangered Asian elephants into a harmless sounding "guide." "Advocate" (one who speaks for those who often cannot speak for themselves) became a dirty word. A world renowned elephant expert who testified today was accused of advocating for the elephants! Imagine speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves! How dare her!

As seeds of affirmation were sown by the high powered defendant's attorneys, the plaintiff's attorney scorched the earth with a DVD disc and a finger -- pressing play. The video appearing on the plasma court televisions were in some cases heart-breaking and in others horrifying.

For world renowned elephant expert Dr. Joyce Poole, who was the first expert witness of the trial and has studied elephants her entire life, watching Ringling's handlers was a little like watching Nazi's conduct the Holocaust. "This is America," she pleaded with the federal judge. "These animals should not be chained 20 hours a day, beaten with bull hooks and forced to perform these un-natural acts. They are extremely intelligent creatures, they mourn their dead, they use tools, they help their friends up when they are ill, they are extremely social." At one point, while watching Feld Entertainment video of an Asian elephant "Shirley" giving birth, (Shirley's named after Kenneth Feld's aunt who raise him after his mother committed suicide) Dr. Poole choked up.

"In the wild it's a matriarchal system. The women teach the mother how to deliver a baby; they stroke it and talk to it for months. What you saw there is very un-natural." Dr. Poole shook her small frame and head at the same time while watching the repugnance on the screen. "Ringling immediately takes the baby away from the mother according to attorney Katherine Meyer and the bonding process never takes place."

This has been an almost surreal process for me. After 10 years of waiting, Kenneth Feld just a week before this trial, settled an obstruction of justice lawsuit filed by a journalist. It was a strong case and put on display the lengths to which Kenneth Feld resorts in order to protect what he considers his "all American" reputation. That journalist wrote things Feld found offensive. His former chief financial officer turned on him, revealing a plot of deceit and a slew of private investigators who set out to ruin her career. The story reads like a John Le Carre spy novel. Feld employed former CIA deputy director of covert operations for the CIA -- Clair George for a little hanky-panky -- and the circus act began, Tah-dah!

Kenneth Feld is no fellow we journalists want to piss off. As a fledgling journalist, Finley Peter Dunne once taught us that our job was to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." But, that's not the way the job is allowed to work much anymore. Not if one wants to keep it. The journalist, whose career lay in ruins, asked for dozens of millions in damages and that ( I'm told behind the scenes) is pretty much what she got..

Beyond all that, I still cannot get over feeling as if those involved in this case are yelling "A tree's on fire, a tree's on fire!" as the forest if burning.

Tuberculosis was mentioned just one time during opening arguments in the trial. Most, if not all of Kenneth Feld's performing endangered elephants have had Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. At least as many as 26 have died over the last 15 years with necropsies indicating most had tuberculosis and in some cases never knew it.

I cannot stop thinking about little kids and old or sick circus patrons with compromised immune systems sitting "Under the Big Top" eating cotton candy and getting exposed to TB. The stories of TB cases rising inundate newspapers, and it's a fact, elephants and humans have the same type of TB and it can be transmitted to humans.

Now the story includes all seven of the deadly sins. Lust (for power) gluttony (over indulgence) greed, sloth, envy and pride.

That's the big picture I see. Tah Dah! And on with the show.

The Greatest Lie on Earth

published in The Huffington Post on 7/28/08 Truthout.org

Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus paraded endangered Asian elephants through Los Angeles streets while fools born every minute watched.

People were foolish -- or perhaps naïve -- because all the Asian elephants have been exposed to -- or have had full blown mycobacterium-tuberculosis.

Several of them have fought hard to live and several have taken one or all three of the same drugs humans take to try and cure this deadly communicable disease.

The circus is a tuberculosis Petri-dish because it's impossible to tell when a 10,000 pound animal is cured.

According to health records -- a Federal judge ordered Ringling to release -- few of owner Kenneth Feld's elephants have managed to avoid exposure to tuberculosis, and most have taken a hard and sometimes deadly regiment of drugs to try and cure it.

But, there is no X-ray machine in the world big enough to produce evidence the animals is cured.

According to L.A's head of the health department, Patrick Ryan,

"Once these animals have been exposed to M-tuberculosis -- the same disease humans catch -- they (the elephants) should never be allowed to be around the public again."

Instead of lining the road to see the animals, people,

"Should be given a disclaimer when they come into the arena explaining they could be exposed to a deadly contagious disease."

World renowned epidemiologist, Don Francis who fought hard to get the world to take HIV seriously, and was the first head of the Centers for Disease Control AIDS Division goes on to say, "Potential drug resistance is a distressing problem,"

"When humans give tuberculosis to the Asian elephants and the elephants become drug resistant and go back out into the public, the elephants could then not only infect others with TB, but with a drug resistant form of TB."

Consider this:

Every animal on the blue unit now performing in Los Angeles, then heading to San Diego and on to the San Francisco Bay area has either tested positive for tuberculosis, or has had a full blown case of M-TB.

With no way of looking at an elephants lungs until after death, there is no way to tell if they are cured. The test veterinarians give -- a trunk washing -- is notoriously unreliable.

At least two Ringling elephants have died after giving negative trunk washings for M-TB and during necropsies, tuberculosis- lesions were found on their lungs -- they were contagious the entire time they traveled the country and the world.

Every few days I get a Google alert on elephants and tuberculosis. When I first began writing about elephants and M-TB, many, including high ranking USDA officials refused to admit publicly that the disease is transferred from the elephants to humans and back again. The USDA now admits this.

As for the spread of tuberculosis, organizations that follow the disease know its trending up. A study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, reported that 55 percent of elephant handlers from one herd -- caught tuberculosis. In some areas tuberculosis rates are soaring such as Santa Clara County where the circus will be headed in a few weeks.

According to one former elephant handler on the blue unit -- six of the elephant handlers working with the blue unit -- the one performing in Los Angeles County right now-- tested positive for tuberculosis.

Their bodies are ticking bombs as they wait to see whether they will come down with the disease itself.

Humans passed the M-tuberculosis to the elephants and the elephants pass it back to the handlers and presumably circus goers -- in an endless merry- go- round of heartache and death that not one government official is concerned enough to stop.

Why would the owner of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus carry tuberculosis infected elephants across the country and around the world? It's simple -- you already know the answer -- money.

Kenneth Feld, owner of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus -- was at one time -- the fourth richest man in America according to Forbes magazine, and he wants to keep it that way.

Since 1993, he has known his elephants were infected with tuberculosis...at least 30 died during the last 10 to 15 years.

His herds have been devastated. While he promises to conserve the species -- he systematically kills them -- while hiding the proof that they carried M-TB from one American city to another. His circus is not alone.

A circus that gives elephant rides to children just left Oakland. One of the elephants is so sick she can barely stand -- she tested positive for tuberculosis, and still the families come to let their children ride these animals.

http://www.lesliegriffithproductions.com/my_weblog/2008/04/circus-elephant.html

With heightened concern by the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control that a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis is emerging -- why not consider elephants with tuberculosis blowing moisture from their trunks inside a closed area -- a possible TB Petri dish?

Unimaginable greed and desire for money at the expense of human life keeps this cycle going.
Kenneth Feld has said the circus is not the circus without elephants. Cirque de Soleil has dispelled that myth.

The diseased animals would still be a secret except for health records Ringling was forced to release in Discovery after a Federal judge threatened to throw Kenneth Feld in jail if he did not turn the records over.

Feld is not facing criminal charges for knowingly taking the animals across the country, but many believe he should.

One former Ringling Bros., -- employee said -- under oath, "As the elephants enter and exit the arena, they blow moisture from their trunks hitting people in the face, exposing them to tuberculosis."

In depositions from a former chief financial officer and a former private investigator, both say as far back as 1993 Feld knew and hid the fact that his animals had tuberculosis.

Joel Kaplan, one of Kenneth Feld's Private investigators, says a Ringling veterinarian told him:

"About half the elephants in each of the shows had tuberculosis and the tuberculosis was an easily transmitted disease to human beings..." "I think it is immoral to have elephants traveling in every arena in the country with tuberculosis. "

Kenneth Feld will finally face charges in court for allegedly abusing the endangered Asian elephants. After 8 years and millions of dollar in a Herculean effort to put the court date off -- a gutsy Federal judge finally set a trial date for October 7th.

Feld is also entangled in another law- suit -- one that has been on- going for 10 years. He is charged with trying to ruin the career of a reporter who exposed his family's history.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/08/30/circus/print.html

The forest is burning and your government officials are either whistling through the grave yard or too busy to notice.

                        

Cindy McCain: Pretty in Pink

The Huffington Post/7-10 The San Francisco Chronicle

Do we want our daughters pretty in pink?

This story took a week to ferment and bubble to the surface of my psyche. It is directed at women, and it's about a stupid news magazine cover that should not mean anything -- but for deeply complicated reasons it does.

The magazine is Newsweek and Cindy McCain is on the cover.

It's the message the cover of the magazine sends -- a message of conformity that First Ladies of old were mostly forced to project. Look closely -- conformity is illustrated in every pixel. Pick it up and take a look with an open-heart and an unjaundiced eye. Are we backsliding?
Or are we getting pushed.

The fingerprints of political consultants and image therapists are smeared over the cover like flies on -- well you know. Cindy McCain is no dummy. She's married to John McCain for goodness sakes, and she is the chairwoman of her own company. She's the age of most grandmothers, so why make her look as if she is just another Paris Hilton-ized size two?

Forced to project a pretty in pink image is not so easy, and once a woman gives the okay, it is hard to get the power to say no in return.

Most female anchors go through the same drill. Corporate owners of newsrooms -- often deeply entrenched in the entertainment business -- require subservience and deference. The pastels begin multiplying in the closet.

Consider the older man -- younger -- woman anchor teams with the same demographics as Cindy and John McCain. Many of the ultra-conformists running newsrooms across the country make sure the female is perky, smiling, deferential and pretty in pink. Is there a parallel? Are we selling out to be loved?

One anchor-woman in San Francisco wears a pink leather suit! Now really who is she trying to please? The answer to that question is the men who consider her an appendage -- a sweet little pussy cat -- purring perfection while giving up her own soul in the process. Hillary in blue slacks is their nightmare!

Why is it that the more conservative corporate leaders get, the more pretty in pink women show up to wave their pom-poms for the men in power -- men who often have few boundaries and wouldn't be caught dead in a pink suit.

We are back to the same old question: Why do women work so hard to be loved and why does that continue to involve being thin, having no wrinkles, smiling on cue and SHUTTING THEIR MOUTHS?

I know a woman who jogs six miles a day and cries as she pushes past all the other wives out doing the same thing. She says frankly that her husband will look elsewhere if she is not fit. He hasn't listened to a thing she's had to say in years

Imagine Princess Diana after attending a state dinner holding back her hair in the bathroom praying to the porcelain God. How many times did that dear woman wipe vomit from her designer gown or pick it out of her hair before leaving the restroom -- all in an effort to make a man love her who never did and never would?

What young women need now are heroes. They need to see women saying no to image consultants and unreal expectations. They need to understand images on most magazines are PhotoShopped and the lies of perfection are created by the publishers.

We've had President's wives who love birds and flowers and designer clothes and wanted nothing more than a title and a closed mouth. But there were a few who sat as equals: Abigail, Roselyn, Eleanor come to mind.

Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain -- who are you really? The consultants tell you not to speak of issues when those issues have defined your lives just as they have ours. Remember, for every person who hates you for opening your mouth -- two will admire your courage and feel protected by you.

This time around, America needs a woman in the White House tempering the testosterone with reason and helping an often isolated president understand the condition of the people living in the nation he governs for them. We need an Eleanor Roosevelt.

Between the years 1933 and 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt dictated 2,500 newspaper columns, wrote 300 magazine articles, published six books and gave roughly 70 speeches a year. She served as chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and was routinely called "The First Lady of the World." That's the kind of First Lady America needs. We are tired of lies whether they be verbal, ocular, or PhotoShopped.

Ignore the consultants, be brave -- the times call for it and the people are demanding it. When Michelle and Cindy speak, we will spot the wife who is the friend to her husband and the woman who can be a friend to the nation. Yes, you must choose your words carefully, but after all -- that is what separates the girl from the woman isn't it?

Worn out images of perfection always self destruct. Nature makes sure of that. But honesty during hard times can make us stronger. Damn the consultants, damn the people who tell you to close your mouth.

Speak.

Genetically modified Mouthpieces

Published June12, 2008

The San Francisco Bay Guardian.

In 2003 when I was working as an anchor for a San Francisco television station, anchors and reporters across the country were asked by the White House to refer to the Iraqi invasion as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). We were asked to call the war in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Operation Infinite Justice (OIJ) had a rocky start because most of America’s Arab allies were offended. Muslims believed only Allah could provide “Infinite Justice.”
Even so, with press releases in hand journalist’s repeated genetically modified words as if their DNA depended upon it.   Genetically modified language is when propaganda wins, journalist sell out and the public loses. It is when words are twisted and massaged and spun until an entire suit of lies is woven to cover the guilty and cloak the truth. The Genetically Modified language, in the case of Iraq, was full of false bravado and moral superiority, in attempts to turn lies into honorable causes our dear children were willing to go to war for. 

But nothing caught on like “The War on Terror.”  It was a White House propaganda bonanza! Whole networks built their news around swirling “War on Terror” graphics and anchors began stories with “Today in the war on Terror,” while most of the world considered Americans the terrorists. That’s when I pulled up lame and refused to dance the destructive dance. Most of us who complained are gone now after some pretty nasty break ups.

Journalists as conduits of mass manipulation. I was too naïve then to understand it was nothing new. The lies were as poisonous as the tons of saran, mustard and VX nerve agents President Bush told us Saddam wanted to use on us. But, as the lies began scrubbing the girl away and the woman’s eyes opened, I started seeing the media’s complicity in the pain and death that followed. I read every book on propaganda I could find. I quickly learned Genetically Modified language was one of Joseph Goebbels favorite propaganda tools. But the dopes got duped.

Even so, many corporate “journalists” eagerly grabbed an American flag pining it to their lapels. Rooting for the war is much easier than asking hard questions revealing a conflict based on lies and a country led by liars.  Hard questions lead to other hard questions. Linear logic in this case is frightening.

We all wanted desperately to believe the White House Mantras.  Many are still repeating subtle propaganda in the name of patriotism on our nightly newscasts today. That’s why I am writing this now.

As you most likely are standing in judgment, I offer up this sliver of attempted redemption.  Journalist like most Americans are patriots too, we don’t want to believe the government is lying, but as odious as it may sound to the “My Country Right or Wrong people,” finding and revealing those lies used to be our job.

“The fourth Branch” was created to watch the government and anyone else using lies to gain power and profit at the expense of the safety and security of the American people.

Also, I ask the American public to consider their own role in the Iraqi quagmire.

Five years ago, when President Bush likened Saddam to Hitler in order to justify going to war, questioning the President’s motives was considered by corporate America unpatriotic.  Corporations exist for one reason: to make money.

Patriotism and genetically modified language delivered to newsrooms directly from the White House was easy. The words were powerful because “War on Terror” not only sounds authoritative, it makes a great graphic! All the polls agreed!

The President’s approval rating was high when America invaded Iraq and the media corporations blow toward the money. More viewers= more money.  So Patriotism was served up instead of unbiased news.
The media corporations began buying anchors and reporters who did not understand their part in the body bags.  Anchors, producers and assignment editors who would go along to get alone were hired, and they got to keep their pay checks and health coverage. This is why Disney, Viacom, Westinghouse  G.E., Murdoch and Cox should not own newsrooms. They are often the very ones the press should investigate.

Cognitive journalists can now see that using the White House Genetically Modified language with unquestioning devotion is one of the many reasons we lost the public trust five years ago.

The fourth branch our fore-fathers envisioned is broken. We became stenographers. Does the red-tally light on that newsroom camera lobotomize us?  Part of the problem is putting corporate anchors in anchor chairs where reporters should be. Certainly experienced reporters would notice the genetically modified words and their own complicity when it seems completely lost on those covered in layers of lip-gloss.

Now that former Press Secretary and once staunch Bush ally, Scott McClellan is walking toward redemption and has found the courage to speak the truth, the “Deer in the headlights” look on his face as he turned in his resignation makes perfect sense. I knew something was up.
Practicing Prevarication for a living wears most people down.

Now that the president’s approval rating has plummeted, it no longer takes courage to toss the White House pompoms in the trash heap and the genetically modified language with it.

With Bush’s approval rating lower than a snakes belly, no commercials will be lost if journalists are brave now, but we have lost more than we ever imagined, “ the penultimate loss” nearly five thousand dead American soldiers.

I propose journalists stop repeating Genetically Modified White House language, but they also go a step further.  I am about to fall on my sword here, so please open your mind.

On the very day it was leaked that Scott McClellan’s book reveals the country went to war based on known lies, the sweetest shiniest, dimple faced, airbrushed Bay Area Murdoch girl began a broadcast by announcing:
“Another American has given his life for his country today.”

Here is the falling on the sword part.

I was once that girl, but girls someday grow into women. Today I know that soldier was one of thousands who bravely believed in what the president said and died believing a lie the press helped promote.
I propose to this anchor women, who I imagine to be a nice person, read this instead:

“Another American has died in Iraq today, he was a beloved brother and child and he was number 4,084.
Then perhaps follow that with the number of wounded Iraqi veterans 30,329.
  In an attempt at truly unbiased  journalism end with the number  1,217.892 Iraqis who have lost their lives.

If this war, as McClellan says, and dozens of other experts have pointed out, was based on a great lie, let’s honor those who were brave and honorable and willing to believe the lie by bringing them home alive and stop repeating Genetically Modified words that glorify a conflict American journalists could have helped prevent by putting their pompoms down.

A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall

My next door neighbors are watching Chinese television. I self-consciously look up from time to time for a peek at them as they stare at Chinese news learning of the country they once fled. I watch with admiration and a thimble full of envy. Three generations under the same roof anxious to learn if anything had changed. The head of the family is known as the most competent builder in the Oakland Hills of California.

I am packing to return to Texas for a few weeks. My learning curve will be intense, but I don't know it yet. The lesson begins when the cab driver pulls up in my driveway.

The cabbie is from Africa. He says he is one of the few thousand allowed to come to America from Ethiopia because of U.S. State Department lotteries. He drew a lucky number. In the short ride to the airport it's clear he's funny, smart, and grateful for my business. He loves America, but during the ride he complains about Iraqi cab drivers at Oakland Airport. He says they take prayer breaks and consider that part of their job. "We all wait in line for the next fare, why cannot they?" he wonders. The practice of praying on the job and then cutting in line is not fair, he says. I tell him they are new immigrants, and they'll get the hang of things soon. He laughs and says he sure hopes so. He says he wants them all to be friends.

Arriving in Austin, the first kind face to great me is the African American hotel desk clerk who welcomes me with a warm smile and self confidence I rarely witnessed in African American men his age when I was growing up. He is the level head at the reception desk. We begin talking about the local headline in the newspaper.

Dell computers was laying off eight thousand eight hundred employees world-wide and the Austin area was about to get a high voltage jolt of present day reality. I ask the elderly gentleman about Dell and the fallout.

"Nine hundred jobs gone from here," he says. "Gone, just like that." He raises both shoulders and both arms in a gesture of empathy for those injured by this evolving global market affecting all our lives. It will be a hard hit for the local economy. Realtors quoted in the paper said residents fear they will have to sell their homes for the price of the remaining mortgage.

"Yep," I say. "Dell has a history of making hay while the sun shines and skippin' town when the going gets tough and the taxes get too -- well, taxing." I had read that Dell has moved plants to China, Ireland, Africa and India, just to mention a few countries with low paid workers and few labor unions. Apparently Poland is desperate for jobs now, so Dell is expanding there.

With fewer jobs, anger was running rampant through the psyches of those in the Austin area. It is anger born of fear and the inevitable by-products followed. Fear leads to arrogance. Fear leads to bullying. Fear leads to military buildups. Fear inflates egos and Texan egos are already legendary. Besides the size of the state itself, the oil industry made a lot of self- indulgent billionaires. Tennessee Williams would have had a wealth of good material here. Remember the television series Dallas in the eighties? Remember J.R?  But that was then: this is now.

My next stop is the 7-11 store owned by an Iraqi man who is itchy and anxious and his fingers never leave the cash register. He nearly jumps out of his skin when a group of Mexican day workers come in to purchase some sub-par nourishment for dinner. Some have worked as illegal labor all day mowing lawns and working construction. Their eyes are dark and tired and their clothes are worn. I stare at the calluses on their hands. They are hard workers. No one disputes that.

I begin the drive to my sister's home in Marble Falls, Texas, about an hour-and-a-half away. When I pull over for lunch I see a nail salon. Inside are about twenty mostly underage female workers from Thailand waiting to scrape the dirt from underneath the toenails of women with thick southern accents and big hair. The young women watch like abused animals for glances of displeasure from the clients. If the boss sees a dissatisfied customer, I get the impression the consequences could be grave.

Back on the road, I remember I have forgotten my e-mail ticket home and call United Airlines for help. I cannot understand the ticket agent on the other end of the line. He is in India.

I pull over thinking the connection must be bad, and if I can get out of traffic, and turn off the engine, I will be able to hear. There is a delay on the phone line that is so frustrating we spend the first few minutes in bizarre overlapping conversations that sound much like talking on a two-way radio. Is it the distance or the phone companies recording the conversations at the U.S. government's request? Reluctant admissions of such events had recently been made.

Either way, after five minutes of trying to understand one another, I eventually feel as if my brains are about to explode and exit via my eye-balls. I begin screaming at the ticket agent who is trying to help me as he sits in what I imagine to be a cheap fabricated cubicle near a busy road in New Delhi. I hear loud diesel fuel vehicles passing by. I am crazy with impotence. No matter how frustrated he is, it does not show. He has a script he has been taught to follow, and he is unflappable as long as the answers are in the script.

"I need my reference number," I speak much too loudly and condescendingly into the phone. I wait for the pregnant pause to pass so I can hear his answer.

"Yes, ma'am, your number is R-ruh, P-uh, R-ruh." At this point I am torn between the liberal guilt I feel for being angry and the impulse to break the phone into little pieces by assaulting the dashboard with it.

I finally ask for his supervisor. His voice raises several octaves. "Am I not pleasing you ma'am? If you will hold on, I will get another agent." I remember my manners and say, "No, let's try one more time." He begins again. This time the combination of numbers and letters contains what I think he is calling a "B." I'm not sure, so I stop him for the umpteenth time.

"Is that a 'B' as in bunny or a 'P' as in pony?" He is off script now and therefore completely lost. I finally ask him to hang on a moment. I let the phone go limp from my hand into my lap and wait a few moments while fighting back tears of frustration. I pick up the phone and spend another ten minutes pulled over on the loud busy roadway trying to understand this very kind, patient man who most likely considers his job a blessing from God.

I cannot wait to get back to Northern California. When I finally do, I stop by my favorite coffee shop in Oakland run by a Cambodian woman whose life story is too horrible to share. She will only say the Khmer Rouge "hurt her family."

I want to get to my house and spend as much time there as possible. I am considering selling it, but the "downturn in the economy," is in full swing in my neighborhood, and it is not a good time to sell. I manage a smile as I think of my southern brother saying, "All Californians ever do is brag about the cost of their real estate!"

I begin asking a friend at the coffee shop how homes are selling. A realtor within ear shot of our grievances about our nest eggs getting fried chimes in. "Advertise in Dubai, the new financial capitol of the world...there are plenty of millionaires there who will buy a home here!"

When I finally walk through my front door, I go directly to my Dell computer. It's dead, and showing no signs of life. I call the help line and reach India. As usual, a very well-mannered man answers, ready to walk on hot coals to help me.

There is a sea change occurring in America and we are now a world connected, whether we like it or not. So we must ask ourselves, how can we survive? Is there a way to build bridges? How can we take this potentially explosive mix of chaos and find the promising essence of it?

Will we react by alienating some? Will America become isolated? Will America create more wars in order to remain a "Super Power" while the country is run by third world workers? Or will America re-invent itself and raise diplomats and economists and entrepreneurs and react with wisdom? Will pragmatism win over nationalism?

A hard rain is falling, as Bob Dylan sang. Will America's great thinkers gather the droplets and be part of a bountiful bouquet, or will the nation become dehydrated, and stuck in archaic thinking that could lead to continual drought?

Lions for Lambs -- America in Need of Reporters

Lions for Lambs and a velvet censorship exposed

The movie Lions for Lambs damn near brought on the Post-Traumatic- stress that is someday inevitable for most reporters. Our eyes have to comprehend images that can never be erased and any sane person would never commit to a job that includes witnessing targets of tragedy and hate on a daily basis

We learn to cultivate ice in our veins until the PTS rolls in like fog.  But Lions for Lambs doesn't drift, it jolts. As jolting as sticking a tongue into a light socket.  My hair felt as if it was on fire, and the heartburn in my stomach moved into my throat. My daughter sitting next to me kept asking,  "Mom is this the way it was, is this the way it is?" I bowed my head, felt the ice in my veins melt and began weeping.

Finally someone understood and put on record "America's velvet censorship."

Tear ducts aren't anatomy parts used much by reporters.  Crying is debilitating, inconvenient and unprofessional. If one is unlucky enough to be an anchor as well as a reporter, it makes the eyes and nose red, and viewers are ruthless with rumors. "Could she be stoned, perhaps she's an alcoholic?" Cruelty is an epidemic in America today. You've read the tabloids, its ugly out in the open. Everyone's taking a shot.

Now that Lions for Lambs is on HBO, enough time has passed, and I believe I can write about it while avoiding too much sappy sentiment.

I don't always wait for credits after a movie, but when Lions for Lambs ended, sitting in a deserted theater in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I could not leave the chair. I was dumbfounded. Considering all that I had witnessed in the last seven years since 9/11, I sat with my mouth open in a catatonic cantaloupe stupor. I could not move from the chair if I had wanted to. I needed to honor Robert Redford, and I needed to see who wrote it. I had to commit the name to memory. "Fire!" my daughter said playfully trying to get me to move. I would not budge.

Lions for Lambs was written by Matthew Cornahan and produced and directed by Robert Redford who reaches into the depths of human nature and knows how to pan the fool's gold from the nuggets that are real. He is a keen observer of human nature, and he was brave to do this film. The Bush administration is vindictive. The older Redford gets, the deeper he is drawn into the heart of any matter. And this film matters.

When I got home, after a menopausal outburst in the shower(as not to frighten the kids,) I pulled it together and Googled Matthew Cornahan.  I could not find out much about his personal background.  Was he a politician? Was he a reporter? Was he a college Professor? Could he have been a soldier?  How did Cornahan and Redford understand every nuance of what a velvet censorship is like? Had Carnahan lived under a dictatorship?

Meryl Streep played the part of the seasoned reporter who wakes up to find she has to chose between stenography and propaganda, and writing what she knows from her experience to be true.  I will not  give the ending away, but the reporter Streep plays has a choice to make. Does she do what she is trained to do, or does she regurgitate a press release and let the manipulators put more lives at risk?

Matthew Cornahan and Robert Redford 's knowledge of the events following the invasion of Iraq is nothing less than brilliant. "The Velvet Censorship" was a complicated erosion of values and the turning points are right there on screen to witness.

Now that the film is out on HBO, I took a deep breath and decided to watch it again.

As I did, I thought of the journalists who recognized the censorship and refused to play a role in it. I thought about the corporations running newsrooms today and how they censor by encouraging infotainment. I thought about today's reporters who don't know their history and are incapable of helping viewers put things in perspective. I thought about the corporations who now own once great newsrooms -- corporations who curry favor with the White House to keep gobbling up more Television and Radio stations. I thought about the courage it took to speak up knowing it could cost careers.

Fear is a powerful sedative, but there are many town criers (reporters) who refused to report only what the White House told them to. This is for them. They are American heroes.

Helen Thomas: Who would have thought after all those soft ball questions all those years lobbed at every President since John f. Kennedy, she would turn out to be a pit-bull? I am ashamed I did not see it before. I want to thank her for insisting the President tell the American people what he was up to. She never did get many answers, and she certainly fell from grace at the White House, but she showed more gumption than anyone else in the White House Briefing" room. "Mr. President what is the mission?" "Mr. President how did Afghanistan turn into Iraq?" " Mr. President the military still hasn't captured Bin Laden." On she went with countless questions which turned the President's face crimson.

I will forever call her Mt. St. Helen.

Dan Rather:  The last of the big boys. He is one tough Texas SOB. CBS and Viacom needed to win favor with the White House and Rather, who breathed life into CBS for years, and earned -- EARNED -- America's trust was thrown out like yesterday's garbage. He is now suing CBS. Rather refused to join the George W. Bush PomPom Brigade, he lost his job and now says he cannot get another one. We are talking about Dan Rather here folks. Then came the accusations against him. I cannot wait to hear his version of how CBS sabotaged his career after he criticized George Bush. I hope he has the fortitude to keep plugging. The world needs to understand what CBS did to him and how the "Tiffany" network is forever tarnished. Dan Rather is an American hero.

Paul Steiger was managing editor of The Wall Street Journal until Rupert Murdoch bought the paper. Steiger has formed an independent- non-profit- news organization called Propublica with some of the best reporters in the country on board. Steiger plans to deliver news to Americans without fear of retribution from commercial interests. He is a journalist in the true sense of the word. He is a stellar example of a man who still believes in the "Fourth Estate." Without it, citizens are uninformed and there is no democracy. Steiger is a patriot.

I thought of mark Ash, the director of Truthout.Org.  His on- line news service has been subjected to every shenanigan imaginable. His paper has been re-directed to subscriber's spam boxes with alarming consistency and his fortitude fighting to deliver alternative views to the American people makes him a present day revolutionary. When this velvet censorship is over Mark Ash should be honored.

I also thought about the dozens of journalists from all over the country who have written me with stories such as this one: "There's a military base right across the street from our television station where soldier's bodies are brought home. We were told never to point our cameras in that direction or ask questions about what's going on there."

Lions for Lambs is for those journalists -- not who tried to stop the war -- but who tried and continue to try to get truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the public. There are many, many others. Perhaps you can make your own list. The names of those -- many black listed today -- who refused to become stenographers or spread propaganda -- no matter how much we all want the lies to be true.

Seven years after 9/11, and a little more than two weeks before Memorial Day not much has changed. The mission in Iraq is still unclear. With few embedded journalists there, there is no way to know for sure who is telling the truth. PBS' Frontline recently did a story featuring one platoon who video-taped themselves doing their duty just in case the American people had forgotten them.

See: here

If only journalist would be allowed to do their jobs again, Hollywood, soldiers and others would not have to.

There are many journalists who have refused to cheer for the administration and read its press releases without checking for facts. But perhaps this film will help American citizens recognize  manipulation and think twice before keeping quiet.

Ode to Katie Couric and Dan Rather

May 9th, published on The Huffington Post and The Bay Area Guardian.

 

When Katie Couric was given the title of "America's Sweetheart" it was a death knell. America relishes devouring its sweethearts.

If the news magazines and newspapers are correct, Katie Couric's career at CBS, much like Dan Rather's, is toast. But the last chapters of this complex and revealing human drama are not written yet. Even so, the plot, the sub-plots, the lawsuit, the public's perverse interest, and the motivations are nothing if not Shakespearean.

Two years ago, Couric was the first woman to anchor one of the "Big three" networks' evening news broadcasts. On that day, I was called by local reporters for a quote. My own career in television began 26 years ago, about the same time as Couric's. "It's about time," I told the newspaper reporters, clearly focused on Couric breaking a glass ceiling and becoming a "first."

Couric and I have a few things in common. Bay Area viewers watched as I grew up before their eyes just as Katie Couric grew up in full view of the nation. Wives use to say in various ways, "You are the only other woman I will let my husband bring into the bedroom!" The intimacy of television is still very real, but the truth tellers of old are becoming history .

Couric's story certainly includes sexism, ageism, feminism and perhaps other isms. But to focus on those age old problems is to miss the big picture. And the big picture reveals what happens when broadcasting becomes just another business run by people with little or no concern for anything but profit. In this case, Westinghouse, Viacom, and CBS.

The new sales people in charge of many of today's commercial conduits of broadcast news want happy faces on the young women who "read" the news. When the chirpy attitudes evaporate and the young woman grows up -- the order is placed for fresh meat. It's pliable and can be controlled. That's both sexism and ageism. It's certainly nothing new.

In editorial meetings across the country probably at this very moment some male manager is delivering a good ole condescending nose- snort directed at the smartest woman in the room. The woman whose experiences with the new corporate media's lack of public concern and relentless pursuit of profit--has made her void of anchor charm.

It's a peculiar problem for a woman such as Couric in television news because women as objects of desire or objects in general is certainly becoming more popular again. Couric let the network photograph her legs, and use photo- shopped pictures for her publicity shots. Not a good move on her part.

But, that's nothing compared to some of today's female anchors who appear to enjoy being objectified. Farah Fawcett hairdos, layers of lip gloss, and air brushed make-up can make the most determined journalist give up. One recently posed in a bikini.

But perhaps the real focus should not be the "first" female aspect of this drama at all. It should be the relentlessly predatory and unfaithful way in which the new corporate media treats its talent--much like it treats the public. It does not care for either. If CBS believes someone else can bring in more revenue and less controversy, it's out with the old and in with the new. The once revered "Tiffany" network is irreversibly tarnishing itself by eating its own.

Westinghouse, Viacom and CBS were giddy with desire for Katie Couric when she was perky, effervescent and full of mischief. But that fades fast when it becomes clear the stockholders and corporations who buy commercials are the real objects of desire, and those sitting in that chair are not pleasing them. Often times those are the very entities committing crimes against citizens. Hopefully you understand the inherent contradictions in that.

The look on Couric's face these days resembles what I imagine a Christian must have looked like standing naked in the coliseum when the lions were turned loose. It's gut wrenching to watch.

It reminds me of the look on Dan Rather's face while bearing witness to his final days. It was brutal. He was a deer in the headlights appearing to be genuinely stun-gunned into a stupor.

As the most recent CBS-Viacom-Westinghouse drama unfolds and the curtain opens -- Americans are getting a view of the "Tiffany" network now controlled by a false wizard who has taken up residence in what was once the Emerald City.

Circus Elephants and Tuberculosis

Dear friends,

The story below is one of many I have published  on the subject of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (otherwise known as M-tuberculosis) in elephants and its transference to humans. I have studied this topic for 5 years.

I have always approached the M-tuberculosis stories with a desire to protect both the elephants and the unsuspecting people sitting in closed arenas who are exposed to the M-tb.

There are a few elephants sanctuaries in the United States, and if the USDA finally did it's job by taking performing elephants exposed and sick with M-tuberculosis out of circuses, the obvious question is where would these elephants go? I would like to get people thinking about elephant sanctuaries funded by the circuses who have risked spreading a communicable disease by using these sick animals. But, as you know, billionaires do not like to part with the golden goose. Kenneth Feld, the sole owner of Ringling Bros.Barnum & Baily circus has been quoted as saying, " The circus would not be the circus without the elephants." But there is a federal law-suit in session in Washington D.C. right now in part because Kenneth Feld was forced to release the elephants health records. it took the plaintiff's council years of fighting to them...of of them are written to private investigators...not veterinarians to try and save the elephants. ringling bros. cared only about hiding their illnesses not protecting circus patron they profess to care for.

Before the ruling that would finally rerlease the elephants health record, Kenneth Feld's famous attorneys told the judge they shouldn't be made public because reckless journalists would use them to send the wrong message. Like that journalist (me) in San Francisco. 

The judge threatened to throw the whole bunch of lawyers and the owner of ringling Bros in jail if the records were not turned over and finally they were. the M-tubercuslosis was even more wide spread than i imagined and the lengths to which Kenneth Feld tried to hide their illnesses I hope will someday be judged by a jury. what was in them was proof that most of the herd was infected with M-tuberculosis and had been for years as they travelled across the country.But, also revealed where lies and deceipt used to cover up that fact. kenneth feld how dangerous his elephants were to the public he just did not seem to care.

I reported the story to anyone who would listen. ringling came at me hard with rumors that i was no longer a journalist but a peta member posing as a journalist. to this day, i have had respected reporters repeat that prapaganda. p.t. barnum knew how to spread a rumor and make it stick.

but there is no denying the documentation of infected elephants ...many of whom took several drugs in an effort to cure them. but, the problem is, there is no way to know if they are ever cured. their lungs cannot be x-rayed. so even still they travel. even still they are offered as stud service elephants. one sick and dying elephant i found on Ringlings stud service website. she can barely stand and is nursing a baby named mable who will undoubtably get TB from her mother ...its likely she already had it.

But, mabel like the rest of them will be used to perform with a communicable and transmitable disease until she too dies. i have counted 30 of the elephants that have died in the last 15 years...many were very young. ironically, the only reason the animals are allowed to be used as entertainment for humans is because ringling bros. promises to propogate the species. one year, there were so few young baby elephants the cirucis brochures handed to patrons featured two dead babies on the front cover surrounded by other babies ....and more then 70 percent of those elephants were infected too.

  Perhaps someday the spreading of this disease from humans to elephants and back again will cease. Perhaps a judge will rule testing is needed to prove what scientists have written: that fifty percent of all elephant handlers exposed to M-tuberculosis come down with it themselves. They then, of course, carry it home to families,homeless shelters...etc.There is a circus in Oakland now, performing with two elephants who have tested positive for M-tb. The elephant in the picture to the left is one of them.Does this elephant look healthy to you? would you let your child ride this elephant? Is our government so distracted that no one is looking...and no one cares?

Life is sacred. Money is not.  Corporations are big and powerful and sometimes nefarious, but they should not be allowed to put our lives at risk.

please read my first report. i had to quit televisin news to get the story out. Ringling has a very big carrot...commercials. and when i left teleivison news...did the commercial money from circus ads begin pouring in.

http://www.truthout.org/article/leslie-griffith-the-elephant-room               

Circus Elephants with Tuberculosis are a Real Threat.

Published  in The Huffington Post April 24h.

A little girl wiggles uncontrollably as she waits for the elephants to come out while sitting in the stands under the big tent. A bow in her hair, and her new glittery shoes on her feet. She's in her Sunday finest because the self proclaimed, "Greatest Show on Earth" is about to begin. She jumps from her seat as the endangered Asian elephants enter the closed arena. Her hands are now lifted high above her head in some Pentecostal fashion she believes will bring her closer to the mammoth ten thousand pound performers.

She holds cotton candy in one hand and reaches out with the other as the Asian elephants pass by hoping to get some of the moisture blown from their trunks on her body and in her hair. She loves the smell of them, the way they thud-thud- as they walk, and she's studying dinosaurs in school, and she believes they look prehistoric.

But this is where the scene screeches to an end. This is where the film rips, and the colors merge into Rorschach- black- burns on the screen. The circus boasts of "death defying acts," but she is possibly sitting closer to heartbreak and disease than she has the capacity to imagine.

"That little girl could be in very real danger of catching a communicable disease that could make her very ill or even kill her." World-renowned epidemiologist and head of the first HIV division for the Centers for Disease Control, Don Francis says. Never one to back away from a fight, Francis is the subject of a movie about his fight to make the world understand another communicable disease---AIDS. And the Band Played On is the movie, and he became one of my heroes when I viewed it almost twenty years ago. Francis is a man who has taken on giants with deep pockets at great risk to himself for the public good. He knows denial kills.

He fought to prove AIDS was ravenous. He wanted funding to try to stop it. We in the Bay Area were attending so many funerals a day the crematoriums could not get to all the bodies in time to display the Urns, and many funeral homes would not touch the bodies at all. Francis knows that in the face of a communicable disease, denial, politics and lack of research money can perpetuate a modern day plague.

After two years of researching the transference of M-tuberculosis from Asian elephants to humans, I took my documents to Don Francis--now in San Francisco running a bio lab called Global Solutions for infectious diseases. I knew if my evidence was solid, Francis would not lie, and he would not be afraid of repercussions if it meant protecting the public. The documents included e-mails affidavits, and depositions. All had to do with Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus and the fact that the majority of their elephants from 1993- 2007 had m-tuberculosis, the same kind humans contract. Many of the documents revealed that the elephants had been given one or more of the three treatment drugs and either could not tolerate them or had become drug resistant. These are the same drugs humans take for m-tuberculosis. I well remember the week of our meeting because that same week one man, on one passenger plane, was found to have M-tuberculosis. A few days later, congress held acrimonious hearings trying to figure out how one passenger could have boarded the plane exposing everyone inside.

When elephants enter an arena they often spew mucus from their spouts. If circus patrons are within shot of the effluence and the animal is sick, it could spread M-tuberculosis to the patron or worse. It could spread a drug resistant form of tuberculosis.

Last Sunday I opened up the San Jose Mercury News and found this article on the front page.

The article used CDC figures which indicate that tuberculosis increased in four of the Bay Area's five largest counties and San Jose had the highest tuberculosis rate of any large American metro city." For the scientists among you, read "The Elephant in the Room."

After 15 years of denying it, the USDA finally admits Asian elephants can pass m-tuberculosis to humans and vice- versa. For more on that

See this article on the Global Action Network website:   http://www.gan.ca/campaigns/circuses/factsheets/tuberculosis+in+elephants.en.html

Now ask yourself if you know anyone with M-tuberculosis. Then ask them whether they have been to the circus lately.

If you are tempted to believe the circus' family-friendly all-American image is real, consider this: every e-mail explaining the herds had m-tuberculosis is sent from Ringling's veterinarian to a private investigator or former CIA director. I have the documents.

Money or public health? Ringling chose money every time while our little boys and girls were sitting in their Sunday best excited as hell as they were sitting ducks for a disease that could killl them.

Experienced Reporters Unwanted

Published  in The Huffington Post April 7th.

Several experienced Bay Area reporters were "let go" this week.

This is a national trend in local television news that can only hurt a democracy.

Wake up, dear friends.

Your local news has the money to buy a helicopter and install expensive high definition, but not the money to hire experienced investigative reporters to help protect your community? Shame on those handful of money-grubbing corporations who own the air waves these days. They have sold out the citizens who once depended on them.

News is now considered just another sales "product." That is a direct quote I heard from one local television executive.

If you think the corporations don't have the money to hire experienced reporters to protect you -- what ARE they buying? I can name two things: Helicopters and High Definition: One supplies empty calories, the other distracts with pretty pictures intended to look like news.

I recently published an op-ed called. "Switch Channels When the Helicopter Arrives!" The helicopter provides nothing but filler. It's truly mind-molesting to consider the logic of these mega-media-corporations. They begin losing money on newscasts, so they add more! What kind of stinkin-thinkin is that? Instead of making one newscast great, they have 10 mediocre ones! Then they have to fill the endless hours with cheap enfotainment a la helicopter shots of traffic jams, car chases, and grass fires.

Consider how many times anchors sound like third graders and look even sillier by tossing to endless helicopter shots that do nothing but distract viewers by taking up time. I suppose they think that if it is a grass fire on high definition it will look like news!

The money they spend on toys could be spent on experienced investigative reporters instead.

High definition also cost a fortune, and it too insures some destructive results. Inexpensive, and inexperienced anchors and reporters are guaranteed after high definition is installed. Why you ask? It's simple really -- only 20- and 30-years-olds look good on high definition. Wrinkles, thinning hair and age spots don't. Even though the seasoned reporter might deliver invaluable information, some idiot from some focus group tells the corporations " I just hate her hair!" The corporations next move? An ad -- fresh meat wanted.

This new "fresh meat' rarely has the experience once required to sit in that chair or report on a community they hardly know. They look and sound good, but what about protecting the citizens in their communities? Do they understand that's their job? More importantly, the corporations don't want them too smart or asking too many questions. That's why the investigative reporters are out...the naive and beautiful are in. I call this a form of censorship, the viewers are the victims.

If the public does not understand that experienced reporters are fired because they complain about what journalism has become, and they don't look good on high def., the corporations will continue adding cheap broadcasts with inexpensive and inexperienced anchors and reporters, many of whom have never walked outside the studio to learn about the communities they are supposed to protect. They can, however, ad-lib beautifully when it comes to car chases, grass fires and traffic jams. "Man oh man, look at chopper threes pictures of that grass fire-- the wind is certainly blowing!"

How can journalists protect you, and help you put events in perspective with a sense of context without understanding events themselves? They simply cannot. I have become convinced the leaders of many media corporations get confused if they try. They too have been dumbed down and fear questions might lose corporate sponsors.

At least now, viewers are speaking with their remotes. Local television news has gone from Chez Panisse to McDonalds. It is self-destructing by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Once great broadcasts have become tabloid provocateurs. Did any local broadcast lead with the Scooter Libby trial over Anna Nicole Smith? If they did, I did not see it. One involved treason that reached the highest levels of government, the other involved a sad little girl whose lack of self-reflection and self-esteem led to her death. Her story was perverse, Libby's story revealed a government out-of-control.

Rupert Murdoch and Fox News seem to be the media corporate icon and network all other corporations appear determined to imitate -- dumb down the audience, and they won't notice their own well being is compromised.

I understand a news anchor "reporting" from The San Francisco Bay Area does not live in the community he claims to inform. How can that be? It's much like a police officer refusing to patrol his or her beat. Without understanding the community, how can journalists keep its citizens safe? Reporters and anchors have to understand what's happening outside the studio door in order to ask the right questions and provide perspective and context. Side note: that same anchor, I am told, flies "home" every weekend and does commercials in his spare time. Holy smokes! How sad for the viewers who need a news organization to trust.

Remember when Tom Brokaw refused to do commercials years ago? He said his network might need to expose wrongdoing by those corporations someday, and the conflict of interest would stand in his way. Now the bar is so low, a snail with limbo skills would have trouble sliding under it.

I have written many articles on the media. There are some fine people still working within the corporate system hoping they can change it. I am very proud to know them. But, lets face it, the real free exchange of ideas is happening online and outside the mainstream media.

Soldiers do what reporters should---lift the cam-cords, press the button and record reality.

Published  in The Huffington Post and The Bay Guardian April 1st.

Tomorrow night you can watch the mother lode of reality shows. It’s called “Bad Voodoo War,” and it airs on PBS’ Frontline. “Bad voodoo War” is the story of a platoon of thirty soldiers in Iraq armed with both military might and cam-corders.  Cameras are attached to their humvees and carried in their hands as they take us on a mind-molesting mine-field of monotony that turns into an eruption of violence and leaves viewers sitting as anxious as nervous fingers on a loaded gun.

Director Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes) uses her brilliant “subject as reporter” theme to tell “Bad Voodoo’s War.”  With very few “embeds,” (journalists reporting from Iraq ) Scranton jars us into the reality of war by forcing us to see through the eyes of the soldiers.

She chose a California based National Guard unit with seasoned soldiers.  Almost all of them have seen prior active duty. They are not wide-eyed “want to be” warriors. They know the ropes, and they know a meaningful mission when they see one. Viewers get the impression there are many reasons to doubt this mission is worth the lives of the extraordinary men Scranton ’s cameras introduce us to.

At 18 years old, when most of our sons are working to get into someone’s pants, Jason Shaw learned how to tie tourniquets around his pant legs to keep himself and his fellow soldiers from “bleeding out” during battle. While fighting for control of the Baghdad airport in 1993, the18 year old Shaw was awarded the military’s third highest award for valor, The Silver Star.

He lost six of his best friends during that tour, returned to the states and moved to California to help care for the child of one of those buddies killed in action. Shaw, suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, lost his girlfriend and his religion and insisted on returning to die with his “brothers” if he had to. He did not want them in a fight he might be able to help them win. His fear of them dying on the battlefield without him was stronger than his fear of returning to Iraq . He is now 22 years old in “Bad Voodoo War.” I wonder if he understands the bravest people are always afraid.

By now you know, the group calls itself “Bad Voodoo,” taking the nickname of their trusted Sergeant First Class Toby Nunn. It shows incredible insight on Nunn’s part, the group’s father figure. Nunn adopted the name while in the Balkans where Muslims and Christians were arguing over religion and wanted to know his. He said he was “Bad Voodoo.” The name stuck. The message clear—religion is nothing to kill over.

In the PBS Frontline segment, to air Tuesday night, Nunn and his platoon’s mission on this tour is to “Secure military and non-military elements going into Iraq .” The 30 man platoon protects the convoys as they drive from Kuwait into Iraq in an area known as IED ally. (Improvised explosive devices) It is clearly one of the “worst stretches of theater,” Nunn explains. Toby Nunn is not one for hyperbole, so when he says the road is dangerous, his men believe him, and it did not take long for them to see for themselves.

“The (new) surge, he says, has brought so many forces and so much equipment.” What Sergeant Nunn does not say is his 30 men are road Kamikazes. They keep their eyes peeled day and night for road side bombs, many bombs on IED alley are not on the side of the road at all, but in the middle, and those are often the hardest to see in the dark even with night goggles because the bombs are buried and waiting for a tire to trigger an explosion. Nunn uses his tripod and camera to show shrapnel following an explosion and explains how it flies—Helter Skelter-- jagged and burning hot—cutting off legs and body parts and destroying what appear to be very vulnerable military vehicles. If an IED awaits the convoy, Nunn and his men will find it one way or another.

When they make it through a particularly stressful 48 hour convoy escort alive, Nunn resembles a doting father, walking past the men’s beds making sure they sleep before he considers closing his eyes himself. He wants to hug them for their bravery, he knows he cannot. He would gladly give his life for them, and after watching the documentary, is it clear they know this. As Sergeant First Class Nunn takes one last look at his men, before trying to sleep himself, he knows tomorrow will only bring another kamikaze trip down the most dangerous road in Iraq.  Lying awake alone—ever vigilant—he sometimes talks to the camera as it were his closest confidant.

The road “Bad Voodoo” is guarding is the only access road the Bush administration and private companies (supporting and benefiting from the war) have to bring supplies in. This was certainly not the battlefield Nunn and his men were trained to navigate.

It’s a strange coincidence that I know Toby Nunn. I met him after his tours in the Balkans, Afghanistan and then his first tour in Iraq .  We met through a friend of mine who was on Nunn’s striker team during one of Nunn’s first Iraqi tours. I was told by my friend that Toby Nunn was “one of the finest soldiers” he had ever met. My friend is brilliant in his own right, so I agreed to meet Toby Nunn. I am proud to know him. Just as the men he watches over in “Bad Voodoo war.”

Toby has a loving wife and a new baby girl as well as two sons. In Iraq , he now has thirty sons. They listen to his every word. They know he can help save their lives. When Toby got the call to return to Iraq , I remember thinking, “So much is given by so few in this country." They fight, so many of us can pretend there is no war.  Many Americans can’t wait to get home from work to watch reality shows, but this time Toby’s reality is scheduled to air. This is reality that teaches. Thank goodness for director Deborah Scranton.

There are many things disturbing about his film. Why are U.S. soldiers protecting private contractors on “death ally” when the contractors “Bad Voodoo” protects, clearly have the money to hire private security of their own?  It’s time for Toby Nunn and his men to come home. They have given enough.

Another question that haunts me that Toby Nunn and his men are not allowed to answer in this film is-- what are they risking their lives for? What is in those convoys of trucks and tankers going into and out of Iraq ? What they carry in them would give the country great insight into the bush administration’s agenda. I hope whatever they are risking their lives to transport is helping to protect America and not lining the pockets of multi- billion-dollar-corporations who care little for anything but profit. Toby Nunn---and his men should not be sacrificed for money. They are priceless.

In one segment of the film, Nunn tries to communicate to Iraqi police. It is an impossible situation, and clearly Iraqi police have no idea how to lead. At one point, an Iraqi police officer asks, “Who do we complain to when they (Iraqi police) disobey orders?” No infrastructure is in place. How can American soldiers teach Iraqi soldiers who lived under a dictatorship how to lead? They are trained to be followers.

One final note to Toby and his men if I may? Toby is seen talking late at night to the cameras. He wonders if anyone cares they are traveling the highway of death everyday. He wonders how long they can live with the uncertainty and monotony and sleep deprivation and IEDs. He wonders out loud and without judgment if anyone understands what this war has become.

This is for you “Bad Voodoo.”  It is a poem I recently put under the pillows of my children when they arrived for our latest family reunion. The poem is written by the poet e.e. cummings.

“…here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide—and this is the wonder keeping the stars apart.

I carry your heart—I carry it in my heart…”   

“Bad Voodoo,” take the personal pronouns and turn them into the collective.  WE carry you in our hearts. Come home safe to us.

Hooked on Hookers

Published on The Huffington Post and The San Francisco chronicle

Why are we so concerned about hookers?

To start with, our puritanical nation loves a good sex scandal. Sure beats talking about the war, or doing any real reporting. Americans can talk about sex 'til the Viagra runs out -- or longer.

But there's some stinkin'-thinkin' in the sad and masochistic drama of New York's governor, and it's not necessarily Eliot Spitzer's penchant for purchased flesh I am referring to.

As a television reporter, I traveled the world with men. I had to depend on them, and they had to depend on me. We became friends. The most libidinous of the group sometimes hired hookers in foreign lands, and when I protested with puritanical indignation, I got an education.

One night "the boys," as I called them, sat me down and explained their point of view. According to those who indulged themselves, men who hire prostitutes believe it is better than cheating on wives and girlfriends. If you don't think men and women are different on this issue consider this: When's the last time you heard of a woman hiring a man for an evening of hunk-uh, hunk-uh burning love?

But, before we get scrappy and mount that judgmental high horse, let's consider this: Men with power and money are insecure. Riding that pinnacle of power is one heck of a slippery slope, and it always has been. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but after claiming power and money and privilege, boundaries get blurred. Even presidents misbehave. And when they haven't had the good manners to hire a professional; when, instead, there is a name attached, it really hurts. Just ask Hillary Clinton.

The rise and fall of anatomical parts is, and has always been, a vitamin booster for the male ego. In the case of some men, a woman on her knees is the only kind they want. Some people like anonymous sex because it provides exactly that -- anonymity and fewer people get hurt.

From the hooker's point of view, face-to-face sex is much too personal. A kiss on the lips might be expected -- gag, choke, puke! So everyone gets what they want.

Remember Sen. Larry Craig and the airport bathroom stall? My only question after finding out Craig may be having anonymous gay sex was this: Did Craig give blood after 9/11 with the rest of the Senate? If he did, he should have abstained. Those who practice high-risk sexual behavior -- and then put others who don't at risk -- are criminals.

Remember when Hugh Grant picked up a Hollywood hooker? He was resoundingly criticized and the victim of many a disgruntled female-fan's snort of indignation. I thought back on when my co-workers had the "hooker" talk with me and said, "At least Grant did not pick up a woman from a bar, take her to his hotel room, have sex with her and never see her again." That would have been devastating for that young woman. Instead, he did the polite thing. He hired a professional.

There is a reason hookers are on every street corner -- men want them there.

In the governor's case, if there is anything truly hard to stomach, it is the hypocrisy of rounding up hookers and putting them in jail, then taking advantage of the process to target fresh meat.

(first published on Huffington Post)

Dear Anchor Woman in the Bikini

Also published in Huffington Post on 2/28/08

---

Dear anchor woman in the bikini,

I am sorry, but I am determined NOT to commit your name to memory, or should I say mammary.

I am the reporter who wrote the story about the United States quietly ignoring a United Nations treaty on discrimination. The treaty was supposed to insure U.S. reports on discrimination, racism and torture by Americans -- that included abuses by the U.S. military anywhere in the world. Abu Ghrab and Guantanamo would likely have caused concern about spin control, so the U.S. just quietly ignored its promises. My story was on the left; your bikini-waxed thighs were on the right.

Guess which story people are still talking about today? Guess which story got the most attention? Guess why I am writing this now? It's simple really. You need a history lesson. Objectification is not the same as admiration. It is just a sad attempt for anatomical standing ovations. You are an anchor woman for goodness sake.

I'll bet you could have heard a pin drop in the editorial meeting the next day. I'll bet the other women in that room wanted to strangle you while the worst of the men looked lasciviously at your behind. Hoping the pictures weren't bluffing.

I often lecture journalism students attending universities and one thing I tell the broadcast journalists is to go to Hollywood if they just want to be on a star. Do us all a favor, because if the mirror is your magnet, you should never, ever call yourself a journalist, even if Rupert Murdoch says you can.

When I first started in television journalism I had a co-anchor who refused to let the female anchor co-lead. In other words he had to begin every newscast. This, of course, was sexism. We all knew having the man begin each broadcast just reinforced the woman as his pretty but un-equal appendage. In fact, this was such a big deal to those of us fighting to be taken seriously, the woman before me quit partly because she was the last female anchor in the country not allowed to alternate leads with the male anchor and subconsciously conveying to the audience she was second rate. Now this may sound silly, but remember, equality was the issue. The male already made an ungodly amount of money compared to the woman.

When I came on board, I signed a contract agreeing that in six months we would begin alternating anchors. On the night of the switch over, I noticed the producer's rundown did not reflect the agreement management had made with me. I called the general manager at home and reminded him of the date. I then heard the anchorman's phone ring at his desk as I walked into the "green room" which, by the way, is never green and never glamorous. I looked up to see the anchor man standing there.

Look up my resume after reading this if you want to understand how truly absurd this was.

He said, "Leslie, I believe you have earned your stripes around here." I had been reporting from all over the world for the last 14 years. He continued, "I have decided to let you lead the broadcast tonight. As of tonight we alternate." He had decided. I smiled and could barely bring myself to say thank you. I know to this day he considers me ungrateful. I've even read about his belief he "gave me the job." What he gave me was a glimpse of the road ahead.

Please bikini girl, keep your clothes on. There are enough obstacles to overcome.

U.S. quietly breaks U.N. treaty.

U.S. quietly breaks U.N. treaty.

Also published in Huffington Post and Truthout.org

On Friday,AT A UNITED NATIONS meeting in Geneva, the United States broke a series of legal promises. Keeping those promises would have proved extremely embarrassing to the United States government by pointing out that human rights abuses are being committed here at home, and at U.S. military installations abroad. 

In 1994 the United States senate ratified the U.N. CONVENTION ON ELIMINATION OF all forms OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION promising to provide reports every two years on racial discrimination in the United States. The reports were to include anywhere in the world where the U.S. military is in charge. In other words, the United States military no matter where it was on the globe, agreed to report discrimination. That now includes Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

The treaty is the “Supreme law of the land” under the U.S. Constitution, article 6, clause 2. Every nation that signed the treaty was charged with giving a national report on such basic areas of discrimination as health care, education, and prison terms. According to the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and the National Lawyers Guild, the United States on Friday presented a report to the United Nations Committee, never mentioning Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or the behavior of U.S. corporations working under U.S. Military contracts.

Instead, U.S. officials presented facts on the federal level explaining (for instance) how much money was given to education, how much money was supplied to prisons etc. Only four states: Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico and South Carolina were mentioned, and officials in those states who were contacted by local activists, say they never received any phone calls of inquiry by Government officials. 

At least one hundred human rights groups were represented in Geneva on Friday anxious to hear what the government had to say about racism here at home and abroad.

According to the founder of the Meiklejohn Institute, Ann Fagan Ginger, her organization's independent report also delivered in Geneva on Friday, provides statistics on racism toward Katrina victims, as well as discrepancies in life expectancy and other health care problems among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans. In regard to U.S. military interrogation centers, Wayne county circuit court judge Claudia Morcom, (ret.) representing the Meiklejohn Institute, told U.N. officials in Geneva what the world now knows.

The basic racism practiced by the U.S. military in both Abu Ghraib and in the detention centers of Guantanamo includes torture, degradation, and illegal detention of hundreds of prisoners in these two facilities based on race, nationality, ethnicity and religions of those arrested.

Meiklejohn founder, attorney Ann Fagan Ginger wrote,“There is no way any U.S. citizen will be safe, even if Caucasian and native born, if the United States government can treat human beings as the U.S. military has treated the men it sent to those two facilities.”

To view the reports, click here.

The article above was published on many web sites. Here are just some:
Tribe.net
Society without State
Nashir Khan blog

You can digg the story here Digg

Will the spies come out of the closet?

Published in The Huffington Post, 2/14/08

The president must be happier than a pig in slop tonight. Since he and I are both originally from Texas, I assume I can use that colloquialism. Yesterday the Senate voted to broaden the governments spy powers and legally protect the communications companies that help the Bush administration's warrantless spying. There is no doubt the American public is walking zombie-like deeper into post 9/11 disaster. Giving up rights is always easy, getting them back never is. With all the lies this administration has told the American people, how in the world can we give up our basic right to privacy?

There is no warrant needed, no judge involved, just hundreds of warehouses manned by people hired by the United States government to monitor every e-mail and every phone call they want to. AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon and South Bell are apparently all involved. Sprint was fighting MCI over the government contract to run the hundreds of surveillance warehouses across the country. No doubt the bills are piling up, and it 'aint chump change American taxpayers will have to pay.

The bill allows the government to eavesdrop on large bundles of "foreign-based" communications. With just about every service call I make outsourced to other countries, I like every other American, have foreign communications at least once a week. Will that make us all targets? If Americans had not been victims of political prevarications before, perhaps I could believe the administration. In the words of our president, "Fool me once shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Imagine the political ammo the Bush administration must also be collecting? Which Democrats are calling "phone sex from fat girls" or setting up a meeting in the boy's room to make hay while the sun shines. The voices of outspoken critics of the administration keep disappearing. Do we really believe the Bush administration will have access to information that could possibly destroy its homeland enemies and not use it? (Without congressional approval, of course.) If character is reflected in how one behaves behind closed doors, then the mind reels considering this administration's propensity for playing dirty. Have we forgotten Valerie Plame already?

If the House goes along with the Senate and agrees to augment the government's already out of control surveillance powers, AT&T, Verizon and other communication companies won't have to be worried about lawsuits resulting from eavesdropping without warrants. These new broadened spy powers will give legal protection to those communication companies acting illegally in the name of "patriotism" -- a word every tyrant throughout history has used to explain away culpability.

As far as anyone knows, Qwest is the only company with the good sense to say no. Let's hear it for them! A corporation in Qwest of good judgment. I'll bet the Bush administration makes sure Qwest suffers for its constitutional cognition.

Meantime, as a reporter there's another issue that particularly worries me. I know of at least one mega-media-corporation that is a mass-communication giant as well. So, let me see if this equation is as problematic as it seems -- a mass communication company putting out news while spying for the government at the same time. Holy Toledo -- we are certainly not in Kansas anymore, but the government certainly is. Osama must be smiling at his dialysis machine about now.

I was reporting in Moscow during the cold war and remember looking up over the bathtub to see a camera lens pointing down at me. The KGB followed our crew where ever we went. It was un-nerving being watched and followed in a country where no one trusted anybody. When I arrived back in America I kissed the ground, and called my family. A phone call that most likely would be monitored today.

Silence

First published on The Huffington Post

The dumbest question on earth turned out to be the only pertinent one.

I was sitting at the anchor desk in San Francisco when President Bush delivered the State of the Union of 2003. We all expected an update on Afghanistan and instead the president pulled the now famous bait and switch. Magically, with no Democratic consensus, Osama became Saddam, and Afghanistan became Iraq. As the president was speaking, I called out to the camera people and the floor director in the studio. "I don't believe this, are you guys listening to this? Bush is preparing to go to war on another front without congressional approval." The president likened Saddam to Hitler and said Iraq had nuclear (Nuke-you-lure) weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons. He used his 66 percent approval rating at the time to buy silence from the press and here's how that occurred in my life.

A camera person laughed and said, "Les, Bubba is about to rally the nation to another war. Wasn't Saddam Bubba Sr.'s nemesis?" The lights are bright, but I looked out into the dark studio and said, "Jesus, we have to say something. We can't just blithely sit here and pretend this is not worth discussing. The president is using 9/11 fear to start another war." The member of the Texas-Oil- Silver- Sperm- society is about to connect 9/11 to getting the oil fields and the enemy his father couldn't."

I waited, fearful that reporters from Washington would not speak up. I was fearful I would have to be the one to bring it up. Fearful that the new administration in our Fox affiliate would expect us to shut up and pretend we did not hear. I would later find out that's exactly what was expected of me. It was a new role for a loud-mouth girl from Texas, and one I did not know how to play.

Just a few years earlier, questioning power and asking fearless questions had earned our newscast the award of "Best Broadcast in the Nation," by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. PBS announced how rare we were and showed my picture. But, the good ole' boys in charge now did not really understand any of that. Now, in this fearful post 9/11 world, the new managers talked about Christianity, stared down those who cursed in the newsroom, and fired people so heartlessly they made them attend their own "goodbye parties" to save face. The other reporters had to watch this deceitful dance and were stricken with fear and loathed to speak up. I suppose that was the point. The world felt as if it was upside down, and I was now working for the "flat earth society."

When the president finally ended his speech, there was a recap by the reporters. It was stenographic in nature. There was no analysis, and no indication that another illegal war had been declared. I then opened my mouth. What I said next began the unraveling of a spotless 25 years of reporting.

"I did not hear any mention of the current war in Afghanistan or Osama Bin Laden." I said, hoping to prompt the seasoned reporter to point out the obvious and open discussion. Instead, he simply said, "That's right Leslie, the president did not mention Osama or Afghanistan." I sat there stunned.

As I left the studio, I was relieved to see that CNN was discussing the bait and switch that had just occurred. I left feeling a sense of dread. I found out the next day when I got to work, the feeling was justified.

As soon as I sat down at my desk the phone rang. The boss wanted to see me. This was the same boss who told me earlier not to make comments about global warming because he and the other bosses did not believe in it. I replied "As soon as the corporation figures a way to make money from global warming, they'll lead the charge against it." I am nothing if not a smart ass. I have since learned to suffer fools and pick my battles more carefully. But until then, I had never been censored in any way. Not on the air, and certainly not in the newsroom.

I walked toward the boss' office knowing the new ultra-conservative regime did not know my history as a reporter, and they did not care. I doubt any of them had read my resume. Controversy is the essence of news and they wanted no controversy. It cost them commercials.

"Hello, boss," I said. He got right to the point. "Never ask a question like that again. I've been fielding phone calls all day about it. Viewers felt it was unpatriotic."

So now, after 25 years of reporting from around the world, I was expected to be a stenographer. Again, I was a smart ass. "So, I said, perhaps we should change our promos from in-depth-coverage to See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil." He was pissed. He rose from his chair to dismiss me. I walked back to my desk as the newsroom watched. My crime was to ask a reporter's question following the State of the Union. I did not know the rules had changed and all questions following 9/11 were seen as unpatriotic. This same corporation had just banned The Dixie Chicks country band from their radio stations for making an anti-Bush statement.

Four years later, the nation wants to know where reporters were when it needed them most. I have heard a hundred times that the press has failed them. I, for one, was getting my ass kicked for merely pointing out the obvious.

Racism and Sexism

Those who hate America-- and it is a very large contingent-- must be jubilant as they simply prolong the wars while letting Americans and their diatribes against one another -- destroy themselves.

Case in Point: Rosanne Barr. In her on stage tirade this week she used the phrase, "Obama, Osama." When I was in the South recently, I heard this same obscenity used by people I once considered to have pretty good heads on their shoulders. I'm a journalist and I believe in free speech. But when does language go so far it is tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded theatre? I cannot believe anyone who compares a strong, intelligent, articulate presidential candidate to the most renowned terrorist in the world is doing anything but looking for attention at the expense of a country already torn apart.

In the south, in a small Texas town, there stands an oak tree that covers the lawn in front of a plantation style courthouse. On that enormous tree is a plague that reads, "Old hanging tree." Instead of being ashamed of a painful history, it is celebrated. So here is my point.

As some people in this country desperately want to have a "first" in the White House, we cannot throw around incendiary comments that will lead to more racism and more sexism. I covered the Rodney King riots -- I also watched the Anita Hill testimony and covered the O.J. Simpson trial. Remember how black was turned against white and men against women?

As we reach for a historical first in the White House, let's not feed the prejudices of the past. In journalism many put the desire to be first before the responsibility to be accurate. If this is what being first will bring us -- inaccurate, pejorative statements -- then we need to remember this country is broken apart already, and the time for concern about who makes history should perhaps be continued for another episode at another time. Better still, what if the two "firsts" could be unselfish enough to join forces and show the world what kind of selflessness was needed when this once great country was founded.

With two wars in the Middle East, domestic programs in chaos, and our children's futures sold for military might -- igniting racism and sexism could surely push us right over the top into self destruction. There will be no need for terrorists to work to destroy us, we will destroy ourselves.

Final note: Roseanne Barr apologized -- not for the Obama rhyme, but for accusing Oprah Winfrey of not having Hillary on her show. Apparently Hillary was already scheduled.

My, my, my.

Britney Spears and Frances Farmer

I never imagined I would write about Britney Spears, but while waiting in the checkout at the grocery yesterday, I noticed a group of women circling their leader who was holding a magazine. What is all the commotion about, I asked. They recognized me and immediately began a diatribe of assaults on the little girl in the picture. I looked over their shoulders. It was Britney Spears. She was in a hospital bed-- arms shackled so she could not hurt herself after a suicide attempt. I immediately lost my appetite.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me -- that brat -- she's addicted to attention," the queen bee in the tennis outfit said. "She's got brown hair now -- that looks nice," another one said. "Only she would wear black lace in a hospital room," another lady spewed and shook her head. They all looked like mothers themselves as they hovered around the magazine. I looked at the wild, bewildered and drugged face of the girl in the bed. "Why would she continue to act like this? She's just an idiot," they said. Their lack of compassion for a girl most likely their daughter's age was sobering.

My first thought was shame on the paparazzi who took the picture. Perhaps someone from her own family took it. After all, when admitted to the hospital, Britney's mother says she called Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil? That's a family that is either clueless or wants more attention. Whoever took the picture, and those who published it, should be thrown in jail.

Actress Frances Farmer came to my mind as I was driving home. She was a famous actress in the '30s and '40s and she was haunted by how cruel the tabloid press could be. She was an easy target. Like Britney, Francis Farmer was drawn to alcohol and drugs and therefore prone to mental illness and self destruction. Farmer had a mother who used her and betrayed her according to her sister's biography. Farmer was in and out of mental institutions her whole life. The tabloid-Hollywood-press loved her tirades and pictures of her often alcohol induced inappropriate behavior garnered top dollar.

What kind of people use the personal carnage of another for entertainment without a thimble full of sympathy? We have devolved into a strange fruit indeed. During one famous episode when Frances Farmer was taken away in hand cuffs, she yelled at the police, "Haven't you ever had a broken heart?" Clearly some part of Britney's heart is broken.

Julia Roberts was recently quoted as saying she knows what it's like to be hounded by paparazzi. Regarding Britney she said, "I just want to hug her." Apparently Britney threw Dr. Phil out of the hospital room 10 minutes after his arrival. So Julia and anyone else with a heart that Britney might listen to, now is the time for the hugs.

A Lover's Quarrel with the World

I have also had a lover's quarrel, but it is hard to keep it so. Sometimes my quarrel with the world is so sharp, so intense, that all the love seems lost.

Love is a safety net, allowing quarreling trapeze artists to swing high overhead, joining and parting, with no fear of falling. I envy Mr. Frost his ability to quarrel with the world and love it still. In my quarrels with the things of this world, I am sometimes afraid to look down, afraid that the heat of my anger has burned up the safety net.

I have a quarrel with bold, confident leaders who rally the nation to war based on slivers of truth. The whole truth serves in court; it should serve for the American people. My craft, journalism, is full of pros, cons, doubts, and ambiguities, but I must choose not to spin some facet of the truth, in the manner of teenagers desperate to go to a party.

I don't want leaders who instinctively trust the bold assertions of the likes of the Karl Roves of this world and who instinctively distrust the sober cautions of the Joe Wilsons.

I do not want to have to struggle with my own government in sorting out fact from fiction. I have accepted infomercials, but I cannot make peace with either journatainment or journamercials. I want people to remember the difference between sound journalism that enlightens and Jerry Springer's cult of perversity. I want to know the Edward R. Murrows and the Walter Cronkites of today. I want to turn on the radio and the television news and hear the truth, not advertisements for drugs that keep Americans in a constant state of lightness and emotional detachment. I want to be like Mr. Frost and have only lover's quarrels with the world, but it is hard.

The drip of small lies carves a deep channel. Democrats, Republicans, it does not matter. Imagine President Bush and Vice President Cheney telling us the truth about Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran and Pakistan. The truth would forever elevate them to the status of humans in touch with reality during difficult times. My lover's quarrel intensifies.

Imagine Clinton, Obama, Edwards -- all politicians saying, "If the good people, in their wisdom should see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined." Abraham Lincoln said those words. He would probably have trouble getting elected county coroner today. I want to be like Mr. Frost and have only lover's quarrels with the world, but it is hard.

Americans are now what appears to be a permanent fixture of the fighting in the Middle East where Sunnis kill Shiites in tribal warfare thousands of years old, and Jews and Muslims kill each other for God. They cannot share the land because God has told each side that it is theirs alone. Each side has sites that are holy, that God has ordered them to die for and kill others for. These sites are dirt piles, as are all the other sites on this earth, but these are special dirt piles, special enough for God to grant an exemption to the rule against killing. Thou shall not kill except in the interests of holy dirt. There are Christian cults who are thrilled with all this killing because it signifies to them that the Rapture is coming, a Rapture in which God will lift them to heaven while leaving billions of wrong believers to rot. And they call this, with a straight face, rapture.

It is hard to keep it all sorted out. The Christians have only stopped killing the Jews in recent times. The Christians and the Muslims are killing each other, as are the Hindus and the Muslims, but only when they have the chance. I would like to be like Mr. Frost and have only a lover's quarrel with the world, but it is hard.

I think Mr. Frost is right, but his task requires a fearsome discipline. It requires the remembrance of woods on a snowy evening. It requires remembrance that many politicians are doing their best. It requires that the people also do their best and refrain from voting for politicians who feed them only their favorite morsels of truth. It requires remembrance that many reporters are still trying to get it all sorted out and serve it up as Mr. Cronkite would say "The way it is."

I try, not always successfully, to maintain Mr. Frost's discipline, so that I can bring to my quarrels with the world some safety net of love. But, it is hard.

Free Press?

American voices of dissent have been systematically silenced -- tonight's debate gives us a glimpse into how Fox network controls American politics during such crucial times in history.

One of the first things Russian president Vladimir Putin did in his ruthless exercise of power was to drive media moguls in charge of the fairly new "free press" into exile and put his loyalists in charge of Russia's fledgling media outlets. His goal, as has been reported by many print journalists is to "Restore Russia to greatness and consolidate his power." He sees the two as "inextricably connected" according to the magazine This Week. (December 21st) Controlling the free exchange of ideas is Stalin-esque right? Can we all agree on that?

So, what makes Fox network and ultimately Rupert Murdoch's exclusion of Ron Paul from tonight's debate any different from what Putin is doing in Russia? Voices that do not kow-tow to the powerful mainstream media are finding themselves outcasts from it. Have Americans completely forgotten the Constitution? Is the government so deeply entangled in the bed sheets of these mega-media corporations that voices of dissent are squelched without public outcry? Apparently the answer to that is da.

Fox news network depends upon the war. It made its name by being cheerleaders for it. The network itself depends on the industrial military complex and so do many of the other six mega-media corporations who own the airwaves. At least one, NBC, owned by General Electric, is making huge profits from the war.

In regard to Ron Paul and tonight's debate, Rupert Murdoch and Fox should never be allowed such Putin-like tactics. But much like Russian President Vladimir Putin maintaining power, controlling the people and protecting profit is more important than being public servants to the people our airwaves were meant to serve. In the beginning the airwaves were charged with the responsibility of being conduits of information from all points of view. How things have changed.

Ron Paul talks about the fourth amendment: privacy rights. He says, "Americans never have to give up liberties to be safe." Benjamin Franklin said it first, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Paul even defends Republican Mitt Romney's right to any religious belief he prefers. A strict Constitutionalist, Ron Paul does not believe religion should ever play any role in electing our officials. However, Paul defends any candidate's right to believe whatever he wants as long as that candidate does not make it part of his political platform. Paul knows that a country that votes for the person with the "right" religion is a country destined to fall apart. Paul calls it "a soft form of fascism." Wars fought in the name of religion in the world today are too numerous to count.

Separation of church and state, and personal religious freedom are just two reasons the revolutionary war was fought and America was founded. Ron Paul reminds anyone who will listen of that as well.

Paul also talks about "raising a new generation that understands virtue cannot be legislated," and he is the darling of online voters. That alone must threaten the networks as network ratings dwindle when Paul's followers turn off the tube and get online. That could be the real reason Paul was excluded tonight.

I am not a Ron Paul voter. I am an American who wants to learn as much as I can about every candidate.

Kucinich was stopped from speaking in Iowa and now Ron Paul.

Shame, shame, shame Fox network -- Murdoch and Putin should be pen-pals.