Corporate disinformation
Ha ha ha ha ha
Public media pretends to balance
Ha ha ha ha ha
Laughing at the newspeople laughing at us
Ha ha ha ha ha
NPR’s WAIT WAIT DON’T TELL ME trivializes being uniformed
Ha ha ha ha ha
Genocide, lost freedoms, the rich stealing all,
Illegal wars, torture, environmental disaster,
All too much solemnity for NPR,
Ha ha ha ha ha
The joke’s on us — Oh lighten up
Ha ha ha ha ha
After endless impediment, not the least of which was a sudden Israeli naval exercise to block its path, the Viva Palestina aid convoy appears finally about to reach Gaza. Permission to enter has been granted, although last week Egypt reneged on the okay it had given to the 1,400 strong Gaza Freedom March. NPR had a reporter at the Rafah border crossing, but didn’t mention the aid convoy until 1/3 into the report, and then not by name, and never mentioned the New Year’s Eve march at all. As well, NPR referred to the besieged prison state as an “enclave” whose borders were forcibly closed, “understandably,” when Hamas “took over.”
Here’s the opening of this morning’s report. My favorite part? Two. First the interminable sportscast-lke intro, a beautiful day in Fenway Park, etc. Then, hesitation as the reporter explains that the border is opened to let Palestinians out, and um, sometimes back in.
Steve Inskeep: “This is a rare day in a Palestinian enclave known as the Gaza Strip. A border crossing opened today, which is rare because Gaza is surrounded by Israel and Egypt and both have kept the crossings closed for weeks at a time over the last couple years. Today people and supplies have been allowed to move and NPR’s Peter Kenyon is at the border crossing of Rafah on the Egyptian side, Hi Peter.”
Peter Kenyon: “Hi Steve, how are you?”
SI: “Okay thanks. What have you seen?”
PK: “Well it’s a beautiful sunny day here, a little bit windy but a bright blue sky, and I’m at the actual crossing point. The black iron gates are slowly swinging open and closed from time to time, letting Palestinians out into Egypt or uh, sometimes back in, people who need to get home. Now this is a very limited opening, not any kind of a max exodus.”
SI: “Is this an opportunity to move supplies in addition to people?”
PK: “It is. In fact there is an aid convoy that has endured quite a few setbacks that has now finally arrived in the port of El-Arish. That’s about twenty-five miles away and that is expected to come as early as today, possibly tonight, there’s some last minute logistical difficulties. It’s a British convoy led by the outspoken member of parliament George Galloway. And they have finally arrived and they do hope to get in.”
And that’s the extent of the coverage of the aid convoy that has been winding its way toward Gaza for the last month. No mention of “Viva Palestina” or organizations behind the effort, or even what their difficulties have been. The final “logistical difficulties” to which the reporter alludes concern Egypt’s sudden stipulation that aid consist only of medical supplies. Check with York to Gaza, the Reading Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, the Sitch, among others, for the final updates.
Meanwhile the BBC has pictures of conditions in Gaza.
While the Gaza Freedom March was kept contained in Cairo, Egypt was simultaneously stopping the Viva Palestina aid convoy from entering through Aqaba. Ultimately the convoy was forced to circle Israel and return to Syria, where it had to ferry its vehicles on the Ulusoy-6 from Lattakia to the Egyptian Port of El-Arish to reach the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.
Despite the grass roots sentiment against all the bloodshed that Bush and now Barack Obama are engaged in, activists in the US have ever failed to construct a real Antiwar Movement. Do you consider that to be a harsh judgment on my part? Then please consider the fact that the US is moving towards the end of what will a decade long occupation of Afghanistan, and yet there has not been one antiwar demonstration, on even a local yet alone a national level, that has focused on opposing this!
As Barack Obama escalates US war making further and into one more new country, Pakistan, the misleaders of the so-called US ‘Peace’ Movement remain totally silent and inactive about it.
Further, there never was any public antiwar reaction to the occupation and demolishing of Somalia, the Israeli destruction of Lebanon in 2006, and also the US moves against Russia with its Georgian adventure at big time war starting, that boom-a-ranged back into the faces of the Republican Klan, absolutely not because the ‘Peace’ movement ever did or said anything in opposition to that war in Southern Ossetia. And even with the issue of blatant US use of torture, the opposition to government terrorism remains scant and ephemeral.
The US public is utterly demoralized and unaware of its own power, thanks to ‘Peace’ misleadership itself, which seems to believe that only tiny groups of religiously motivated New Agers can come together and only for the most milquetoast reasons. Let me illustrate with the local PPJPC (Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission) and their PPJPC May calendar of inactivity. Look at it and weep! They simply plan to not mobilize themselves against THEIR President. Sad to say, the national groups they affiliate with are about on the same wave length, too.
Instead of being leaders, the misleaders who call themselves ‘Peace’ activists are leaders in public apathy and not challengers of it. Instead of smashing the War State, they seem to want to be junior partners to it. They are about as alternative as National Public Radio, KRCC, and The not so Independent are here in the local area. In short, they are not opponents to war making at all.
Without an end to the permanent War State of our American ruling class, there will be no economic or political stability to build a future for us in America. In fact, without an end to this constant construction for the War machine, the Earth is headed for a Dead End. We are currently just sleep walking toward oblivion and there simply is no way to sugar coat that basic fact. Wake up, American Antiwar Movement. You have to organize yourselves, because,People… nobody else is going to do it for you. Join and work with Coloradans for Peace here in Colorado Springs.
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO- I can laugh at speech impediments with the best of them. But I’m less comfortable if there’s no laugh track. Specifically, when it’s a speech-challenged news reporter, I utterly object to being made to decipher from mispronunciation. On the radio, poor diction is as unacceptable as inaudible recording, and disabled- enunciation is as appropriate as a paraplegic delivering your piano. Take NPR’s Louisa Lim.
Give someone a job they can handle, but don’t celebrate equal opportunity without consideration for the task required.
Louisa Lim can’t pronounce her Rs. Might not someone have thought to counsel Lim fwom puhsuing a caweeuh on the wadio? Dropped Rs represent an alphabet 1/26th deficient. More, if you adjust inversely by Scrabble point value.
Monte Python’s Pontius Pilate of Life of Brian was mocked by the chorus for not being able to say his R’s. And yes, his Roman audience found the hilarity unending. It’s why he was urged to release Bawabas and not Jesus. Gilda Radner similarly mocked Barbara Walters. Mispwonouncing her Rs didn’t keep Bahbwa Wahwah from a lengthy career, but that’s the point I’m coming to.
If speech impediments were congenital, it would still be no reason to exhibit them center-stage like cultural accents.
Aren’t most speaking disorders remedied in the primary grades, given extra attention from speech therapists? Why do the exceptions seem to become Communications Majors? It’s as if students who have reason to work on their locution, end up becoming the professionals.
But choirs don’t tolerate tone-deafness, why would broadcasters burden themselves with mis-speakers?
Louisa Lim can’t say R, but she’s only one of a majority of female voices on NPR hobbled by flawed presentation. Don’t you find that strange? Considering that Amy Goodman’s delivery is criticized for being shrill. It’s as if NPR thinks strong feminine voices would come across as too authoritative, unless a physical weakness is empirically discernible. Would this explain why most the female voices on NPR are nasal, or supported by the weakest lung capacity? Their tiny voices sound like they could extinguish themselves without the next breath. Audiences like it too obviously.
Accents too, foreign and domestic, work to temper the projection of authority. Male presenters traditionally have sported commanding voices. Today, those who don’t moderate for sporting events most often have voices in the higher registers, or modulate their voices with rises in pitch which communicates timidity.
Pastor Lopez is my favorite religious leader. He was born in Venezuela, but has lived for years in Colombia, too. His religious teachings have inspired millions around the world! Here he is at his best in ‘La Tracionera‘.
We need a more spicier religion than we currently have dominating in the US. If interested more in his teachings, check out Discos Fuentes. I wish that KRCC carry his sermons on air, too. He’s hot! And sad to say, KRCC is so not. Too much National Public Radio and BBC, I believe.
Colombian music is the best in the world, and the price is right at Discos Fuentes. KRCC, if you got some music from this label then play it? If not, then in=vest$$$ a little and liven your music scene up some. Discos Fuentes.
Also, El Indio Pastor Lopez does rap. Pastor Lopez with Dancers in Black. The Absent Son is good, too. Pastor Lopez is defintely the grandfather of Colombian cumbia, and it’s too bad he almost can’t ever be heard on radio in the US.
Some other Colombian hits played by other musicians are Tus Besos son como caramelo, La Burrita, and an older version of La Pendeja with great dancing, Sonora Dinamita with Que Bello.
Also, No me toques mi cucu, La Zenaida, and Amor Carnal.
Que Viva Colombia! Let’s hope that the US doesn’t totally mess the country up as it has done with Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq.
I caught a little of National Public Radio today. Here’s what I heard: A news story about a new program of repatriating illegal immigrants: by flying them back their ancestral homes, away from the Mexico-American border. It’s working rather well administrators say. The program interviewed a freshly apprehended Mexican who has been returned to his $12 a day parking lot attendent job in Mexico City. He said through a translator that he is likely inclined to give up his dream of reaching El Norte.
So let’s see, that’s a story about subsidizing airlines, budgeting Homeland Security funds for the tickets, to be clear. And the one-way-trips seem to be along the logic of driving a live-trapped vermint a minimum of five miles away from your home to keep him from coming back. Works sometimes.
So is it working with the persistent Mexicans? Hard to say as yet. And yet, here’s a report about it on NPR.
Switch over online to Democracy Now and what are they talking about?
Holy Shit, the Senate has passed a torture/anti-human rights bill which repeals the right of Habeas Corpus! The Right of Habeas Corpus has been nearly universal in the western world since the Magna Carta, since 1215 AD. Thirteen Democrats joined with the Republicans to pass the bill, including our man Ken Salazar, and everybody’s slippery rodent Joe Lieberman. Commentators have likened this bill to the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII and similar national disgraces. We’ll be struggling to apologize and pay reparations. Many are sensibly embarrassed already.
Next up, a description of the Green Zone in Baghdad. Halliburton is serving pork there, and alcohol, insensitive to the Iraqis who must work and eat there, unclean. And on and on.
Can you imagine an informed American populace without the media telling them what’s happening? Why are your friends and neighbors not able to hear Democracy Now on their radios? Who’s standing in their way from hearing the truth over the public airwaves?
In Colorado Springs the gatekeeper is KRCC, the public radio station with a dedicated community of listeners, most of whom are kept in the dark about Democracy Now. On a day like today, it would seem the difference of opinion about station programming is less about taste and more unthinkably out of touch.