Anderson Cooper on The Huffington Post

Sam Sedaei: CNN's Shamelessly Biased Report On 3 American Soldiers' Murders In Iraq

2009-11-23T18:10:15Z

In March of 2007, three American soldiers detained four suspects in Iraq. They were supposed to take them to a detainee housing area. But instead, the first sergeant in the group approached another soldier in the group, Pfc Josh Hartson, and asked him whether he would have a problem "if we take care of them" instead. Following this exchange, the soldiers took the detainees to a canal and executed detainees.

The three sergeants who killed the detainees were rightly convicted of premeditated murder in a military courtroom in Germany and are serving long prison term sentences in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In a CNN report by the company's "Special Investigation Unit," a new reporter delves deep into the story. The report could have been an eye opening account of the details of this gruesome murder or its impact on how such incidents impact Iraqis' opinion of American soldiers, the vast majority of whom are trying to do the right thing and serve as best as they know how.

But instead, most of the report focused on tough rules and regulations regarding the gathering of evidence that soldiers must follow in order to keep the detainees imprisoned. This was the reason that the soldiers gave to justify their ugly act. But instead of challenging those claims, the CNN reporter seemed to take these excuses at their face value, delving into the army policy manual, which instructed the soldiers to gather a few pieces of evidence that could help keep the detainee.

She then grilled Brig. Gen. David Quantock, who now oversees detainee operations about the policy that required soldiers to offer some evidence for guilt every time they bring in a detainee. The last half an hour of the slanted report included lengthy and overly sympathetic interviews with the wives of the three convicted soldiers as they praised their husbands, calling them "heroes," and explaining how wonderful they were. The report showed the footage of three of one of the soldier's children and their ages. The reporter then read one of the soldier's letters from prison to his family out loud with the camera zooming in on the signature at the end of the letter, "Daddy."

The obvious problem with this report -- and most reports about the war, army, military and soldiers' conduct abroad -- is that it is heavily slanted toward the military. The report did not even mention the names of the captured detainees, and the reporter most certainly had no interest in the families of those detainees who were executed at the hand of these American soldiers without being charged with a crime and getting the chance to defend themselves before the rule of law. It was the most dehumanizing report I have seen in a long time that may as well have been made by the convicted murderers' defense teams.

Now compare this report with that of the recent murders of Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood a few weeks ago. Here was a soldier who -- while committed reprehensible and unjustifiable murders -- had long felt alienated in the military, expressed frustrations about being forced to go to Afghanistan and was mortified about the idea of having to kill fellow Muslims. He was also constantly discriminated against, isolated and treated not at a comrade and brother that he deserved to be treated. Once he found the following words written on his car: "Camel jockey! Get out of here!"

Based on the Sunday night report, one would think CNN may also be interested in learning about the deep causes of these murders committed by an American soldier. But of course, the cable news station has shown no such interest. Instead, they have brought up various experts to discuss semantics; should we call this an act of "terrorism" or just bloody murders committed by an extremist Muslim who wore white arab clothes, prayed five times a day, talked to an extremist mullah a lot, and oh by the way, his name was Hasan?

Of course the soldiers who killed the Iraqi detainees would come up with justifications for their premeditated murders. That's what murderers do! There is absolutely no reason for "the most trusted name in news" to give legitimacy to those excuses by spending a whole report to try to manufacture sympathy for convicted murderers without adequately explaining the consequences of such murders in the larger context of America's effort to get Iraqis on our side. The reality is the rules and regulations were put in place in 2005 after the pictures of pyramids made of naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Gharib were leaked out. Our society must be clear in sending our soldiers the message that they are absolutely in no position to walk around in a country that we invaded in direct violation of international law and capture and execute people without turning them in with evidence on why they captured those individuals.

Perhaps the problem is deeper and hard to solve. After all, should the so called independent media call the soldiers on one side of the conflict "heroes" as CNN reporters often do any chance they get, especially on Veterans' and Memorial Days? How independent can we really expect any mainstream media reports to be on any story that relates to the military if it has already decided who is good and who is evil and often voluntarily acts as the privately funded public relations arm of the military?

Robert David Jaffee: The Insanity of the Insanity Defense

2009-11-20T16:05:18Z

At the end of the Charles Bronson film, 10 to Midnight, a serial killer, who has just been apprehended, reverts to a variation of the same plea uttered by Andy Robinson's psychopath in Dirty Harry and Leo Gorcey's punk in Dead End: "society made me do it."

Like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Bronson, in his post-Death Wish vigilante mode, then shoots the killer dead.

No one expects such rough justice to be administered to mass murderers or serial criminals in real life. Yet they still plead insanity as their defense, even though most of us are unlikely to believe them. Surprisingly, some of these criminals have even begun apologizing, though their apologies tend to reek of opportunism and hopes of reduced sentences.

Phillip Garrido, who allegedly abducted Jaycee Dugard in 1991, when she was 11 years old, and fathered two children with her, wrote in a handwritten letter to CNN affiliate KCRA, "First off I want to apologize to every human being for what has taken place." He added, "People all over the world are hearing testimony that through the spirit of Christ a mental process took place ending a sexual problem believed to be impossible."

In invoking a "mental process," Garrido, who held Dugard captive for 18 years, was setting the stage for an insanity defense.

Similarly, attorneys for Brian David Mitchell, who in 2002 allegedly kidnapped and repeatedly raped Elizabeth Smart, then a 14 year old, argued before a state court that their client was mentally incompetent to stand trial. They won their case.

A federal court in Salt Lake City may not be so likely to accept such a defense.

Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, who reportedly spent years in mental hospitals and on psychotropic drugs, has admitted to her part in the abduction and has agreed to cooperate with the federal authorities, who have reduced her sentence from life to 15 years.

Like Garrido, Barzee has apologized to the victim.

Whether or not Barzee is truly remorseful for what she and her husband did to Elizabeth Smart, one can only hope that in her testimony she will dispel her husband's claims of mental incompetence and insanity. According to the L.A. Times, a forensic psychiatrist will cast doubt on Mitchell's claims of insanity.

Not only will such testimony help to salve the wounds of Smart, who was rescued in the Salt Lake City area in 2003, nine months after her kidnapping, it will also spare the mentally ill of the bad publicity to which we have all grown accustomed.

I have written on numerous occasions that the severely mentally ill, with no substance abuse problems, commit only 3 to 4% of violent crime. Furthermore, I have pointed to studies showing that when the mentally ill take their medication they are no more of a threat to anyone than those who are not mentally ill.

For all of the debate about political correctness regarding Islam, there was not much of an effort to shield the mentally ill in the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre, which took the lives of 12 soldiers and one civilian. Many wantonly referred to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged killer, as "deranged" or "psychotic," something which could not have been more untrue.

Hasan knew exactly what he was doing, giving away his belongings and telling neighbors that he would not see them again. Such premeditation is not a feature of psychosis.

Despite Hasan's obvious premeditation, there has been considerable speculation that Hasan's attorneys will argue that he was insane in perpetrating the rampage. What other defense can Hasan possibly have? After all, a room full of witnesses saw him during his shooting spree.

Fortunately, no one is going to buy the insanity defense.

A lesson for all came on CNN's AC360 the week following the tragedy when Anderson Cooper, interviewing Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson, commented that Manson, the mastermind behind the Tate/LaBianca murders, was "deranged."

Bugliosi immediately corrected Cooper, stating that Manson wasn't deranged, crazy or mentally ill at all. Bugliosi called Manson "evil" and "a con man." Con artistry is characteristic of many serial criminals like Brian Nichols, who claimed to be leading a slave rebellion during a shooting spree in an Atlanta courtroom, and Leeland Eisenberg, who claimed to be holding Hillary Clinton's campaign workers hostage in order to raise awareness about mental illness.

Both men, as I have written before, are charlatans, just like Manson and, in all likelihood, Brian David Mitchell and Phillip Garrido.

I am not arguing in favor of political correctness per se; I am arguing in favor of accuracy. If we keep referring to mass murderers and rapists as mentally ill, psychotic or any proxy for those words, we are not only harming a group of people who rarely commit violent crime; we are also making an egregious error since most violent criminals are not mentally ill or psychotic at all. They are evil and should be held responsible for their actions.

Oprah's Replacement: Who Should Be The Next King/Queen Of Daytime TV? (POLL)

2009-11-20T15:15:44Z

Oprah's announcement that she will give up her syndicated talk show in 2011 after 25 years on the air leaves an enormous hole: who will be the next king or queen of daytime TV?

Below are some of the names that immediately come to mind as potential heirs to Oprah's throne:

Michael Henry Adams: Great Houses of New York: River House, the Best Address, Part IV

2009-11-11T22:06:54Z

A great deal has changed at 435 East 52nd Street since the River Club lost its yacht basin in the late 1930's. Or, for that matter, since the Times sensationally reported on May 6, 1939,

"Customs Raid on Ayer Penthouse Brings Seizure of $25,000 in Attire; Clothing and Gems, Allegedly Smuggled by Widow of Surgeon, Taken by Federal Agents on Tip From 'Mary Doe'. "

Sounding surprisingly like their tabloid rivals, the ordinarily staid Times and Henry Luce's Time Magazine, among other journals, (Henry Luce leased from Mrs. Bondero Macy, for $7,300 yearly, a River House duplex with 15 rooms, 5 baths and a lavatory.), outlined to scores of readers suffering through the persistent Great Depression how still another 'poor' widow was making unaccustomed economies as well. Only, hers were unorthodox and quite illegal.

"A squad of customs agents, trained to spot a gown by Molyneaux without seeing the label, rummaged...through the penthouse of Mrs. James C. Ayer of New York and Nassau, widow of the surgeon and painter, it was disclosed yesterday. They seized jewelry, gowns and lingerie suspected of having been smuggled...agents waited one evening last week outside of River House, swank apartment building on Manhattan's east side, until a limousine drove up and deposited a stately, well-dressed dowager... Colonial Dame and D. A. R.[officer], widow of a distinguished doctor who inherited millions of the American Woolen Co. fortune. The customs men followed her up to the... penthouse...Mrs. Ayer lay prostrate on a couch. An informer whom they would call only "Mary Doe" had told the Federal men where they would find Paris finery worth some $26,000... If Mrs. Ayer is proved guilty, "Mary Doe" stands to make some $15,000--one-quarter the duties & penalties assessed by the U. S. The U. S. Attorney's office refused to identify Mary, but said she was not the accused's maid..."

As the economy rebounded in the aftermath of the Second World War, the paper of record could announce more happily, on Wednesday, August 11, 1948,

"The tenants of River House, one of Manhattan's outstanding apartment buildings, have purchased the building on a cooperative ownership basis to save themselves from eviction and to prevent the structure from being remodeled into small suites, it became known last night..."

One unambiguous indication that things were not idyllic for everyone at River House, however, was a suicide on January 31, 1954. Pictured on the beach with his bride on their honeymoon in 1923,

Edwin Howard Armstrong seems to personify contentment and happy days. A court decision in favor of RCA, challenging his authorship of FM radio, had a devastating impact. Stress and unrelenting work helped undermine his once happy marriage. Diving from his 13th floor window, striking the street below, Armstrong died. His widow appealed the court decision and eventually, by 1967, won a substantial award, establishing once and for all her husband as the true inventor of FM radio and other vital innovations.

Adele Astaire with a necklace she aquired that once belonged to Linda Lee Porter

Adele Astaire, the dancer who became Lady Charles Cavendish,

Huntington Hartford, the grocery store fortune heir, turned eccentric collector, the violinist Fritz Kritzler, producer Joshua Logan,

Dina Merril, the actress, who, in the movie Butterfield Eight, exemplified all that the indictment "New York socialite" once inferred: all the 'best people' continued to move to River House and yet it continued to have finical difficulties.

At least one factor that helped put posh River House on sounder financial footing decades after it opened, is the wildly inflated value of cooperative shares. Now the average price of a Manhattan apartment unit is $1,500,000 and this average figure is for a rather pedestrian apartment at that. Yet, as late as 1970 no apartment sale in New York had ever exceeded $1,000,000. At today's River House, indeed, there is none for less. More importantly, there is a growing insistence on economic exclusivity, roughly proportionate to relaxed barriers favorable to non-Protestant residents, who perhaps have a modest pedigree, but who boast the most opulent resources imaginable.

With a long history of welcoming the socially eminent, River House's co-op board is now extremely selective, using quite different criteria. Once, a few millions and a place in the Social Register were adequate credentials for most who aspired to live here and join 'the club'. But today, maintains Corcoran Group broker Ellen Kourtides, "one needs strong financials for this sort of building," explaining, in upper-class code, that its residents place a high premium on 'privacy'. "We're talking about liquid assets. It can be as much as four to six times the price of the apartment. If financing is allowed, it's not because you need to finance your apartment to move in, it's for tax purposes."

Nibbling smoked almonds with my refreshing goblet of Clamato juice, during my second visit with Marta Raymond at River House, I explained how my anticipated drink with Philip Johnson's younger sister, Theodate, and her husband, Dr. Scott Severns at the Dakota, had been abruptly called off. My special friend, Jeanette Johnson Dempsey, the architect's elder sister, had explained how her sibling was sorry but she had had to move since we talked of my coming! "When the maintenance exceeded $1,000, Theo thought that outrageous," said Mrs. Dempsey. We were sitting in the white carpeted living room of Mrs. Dempsey's lake-front condo in Cleveland, where such a figure seemed even madder.

"I must say I found it outrageous also when our maintenance here reached that amount and now it's much more!" Mrs. Raymond answered. What chic she had, wearing deep gray flannel trousers, a tailored shirt, like a man's boiled-shirt for evening wear and her husband's lusciously large pearl shirt studs and cufflinks.

A host of current real estate web sites illuminate how dramatically values have advanced at River House, even accounting for 'cost correction' following the 'down-turn'. According to the New York Observer, one River House apartment has fluctuated in price over the last 10 years, between an initial $17,500,000, to 11,500,000, to $29,000,000, following a renovation. Then it dropped to $22,700,000, was lowered further to $18,900,000 and is now, since October, available for $13,900,000.

Alternately, one can purchase an apartment with 3 bedrooms for from $4,900,000 to $10,900,000 (updated 08/01/2009), and 5 Bedrooms for $12,300,000 (updated 09/25/2009).

In yet another spacious domain, there are 14 rooms including 5 bedrooms, 4 full bathrooms, a formal dining room, and a library. The listing states glowingly, "The apartment's upper level has an entry from a private elevator landing for convenient access. There is a large bay window looking onto the river and two bedrooms with private balconies that face the river. Additionally, there are staff rooms that can accommodate six individuals. The building features a private driveway, a circular drop-off for cars to come and go, and a garage. This space can be had for $13,500,000."

Three years ago a 16 room apartment, owned by Francesco Galesi, the former WorldCom director, was confidently offered for $50,000,000, It has since come down, now listed for $35,000,000. Replete with a 1,242-square-foot drawing room with 11-foot ceilings, it is described as "A home with sweeping river views, this residence with 4,806 square feet of interior space offers an oversized set-back terrace (735 square feet) off of three [rooms]." Measuring 11 by 11feet, the master dressing room is larger than either of the duplex's maids' rooms. There are 8 additional bedrooms, 7 baths, and a powder room. What's the maintenance here? It's only $12,600 each month.

How quaint such figures make Gloria Vanderbilt's May 1980 law suit, alleging that River House had refused to sell her an apartment for $1,100,000. She suspected that her rejection was due to racial bias, because of her close friendship with debonair singer Bobby Short, who was African American. The building's board said it wanted to avoid "unwanted publicity."And it's still debated as to whether or not the board genuinely disapproved Ms. Vanderbilt's seemingly serial alliances, mercantile success or her black boyfriend. It's not gay Bobby Short to whom people are referring, of course, but to photographer Gordon Parks, who had a history of romantic intrigue at least equal to Vanderbilt's own.

At any rate, a month later, Mrs. Cooper, now best known as the news-anchor's mother, dropped her suit, as Bobby Short reported to the Times, "I'm old enough to be sophisticated about these things."

Why had Gloria Vanderbilt-DeCicco-Stokowski-Lumet-Cooper further risked the opprobrium of her peers in pursuit of a flat? Ultimately the answer seems to be sentiment. Inasmuch as several of her near relations lived here and many more belonged to the River Club, she had been in and out of its revolving door from the time the building opened. Indeed, for several extended periods before her first marriage, and even afterward, she lived here in the tower suite of her cousin, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney.

Writer William Saroyan got to know this particular apartment well through dating the highly precocious Miss Vanderbilt. A 'naive', 29-year-old Saroyan reminisced about his first date with 16-year-old Gloria Vanderbilt, ensconced in these River House digs, with considerable fondness.

"Gloria...poor little rich girl. Fabulous God-damned apartment. River House is a pretty hintcy place. High ceilings, not like a New York place...She had a two-storey apartment, and in part of it they'd gone right through the ceiling to make what they call a cathedral ceiling. In New York, that's unheard-of." Anyway, so we're making out a little bit on the couch, like kids do [sic, she's 16, he's 29!], and at a certain point, I heard some noise. I said, "What's that? Is somebody here?" She said, "That's Nanny." I said, "What?" Her childhood nurse was living with her. God..."

Later instead of Vanderbilt, he married Carol Marcus, the debutante turned actress with whom Gloria in those days haunted the Stork Club. Saroyan professed to 'abhor the limited artificiality of their class.' This didn't, however, prevent him from accepting generous gifts from Marcus' family, nor from leaving his wife, upon discovering that looks notwithstanding, she was Jewish! With memories of such men and of her unusual family imbued in every room, is it surprising that Gloria Vanderbilt so desired a place of her own in the River House tower?

Henry and Nancy Kissinger live here, so do Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and his wife, the blonde American financier, in an apartment designed by the decorator chosen by the Obamas, Michael Smith.

Best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford and her producer husband Robert Bradford,

have their rooms with a salubrious view, as do a select group of carefully vetted bankers, brokers, lawyers and European aristocrats. Once Salomon Brothers' chair, John Gutfreund moved here, into the same apartment that Gloria Vanderbilt so coveted, the River House board might well have wished that they had accepted the outré socialite instead.

The notoriety and disharmony the Gutfreunds brought with them to River House, where they acquired the lower two floors of Marshall Field's old triplex, were often blamed on the aspirations of the glamorous second Mrs. Gutfreund, Susan, a former beauty queen and airline stewardess. Some contend that what they term as Mrs. Gutfreund's 'unbecoming flamboyance' was derived from a desire to compensate for humble origins, driving her to 'try too hard'. "Despite their having $35,000,000 or $40,000,000, that was only a tenth of what some of the people they socialized with were worth," stressed an acquaintance. "That's not so," said a prominent architect, who is a friend of both women. "Her appreciation of lavishness is merely an expression of her passion for beauty; moreover, the Gutfreunds, they're far, far richer than only having $40,000,000, I can tell you!"

courtesy DPC New York Social Diary

Despite her friend's gallant defense, this acquaintance, and others, relished telling of Mrs. Gutfreund's supposed 'pettinesses'. Their criticism was meant to buttress arguments that she and her disgraced husband were somehow déclassé arriviste on the Manhattan social scene.

The lawsuit over the Gutfreunds' insistence on installing a winch on their upstairs neighbors' roof, to hoist a 22-foot Christmas tree up the side of the building and into their apartment, is the stuff of legend concerning 'bad manners' in 'good buildings'. A more mundane financer, Robert Postel and his wife, were the increasingly antagonized couple who dwelled above them. In her diverting book, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FAMOUS: Behind the Scenes of the Celebrity-Industrial Complex, Maureen Orth explains a hostility that arose from slights and poor form, mostly on the part of Susan Gutfreund, including,

" her practice of turning out the light above a door that led to the neighbors' penthouse, apparently because she wanted visitors to think she lived on the top floor -- combined with her habit of telling guests to ''come to the penthouse'' -- led her alienated neighbors, more than once, to encounter strangers, including the designer Hubert de Givenchy, stepping off the elevator into their living room.

"We had a procession of masseurs, masseuses, piano tuners, someone delivering two thousand orchids for her ceiling," Robert Postel complained. But nothing quite compared with the 2 a.m. visitation by a group of formally dressed guests, one of them carrying a harp. Postel, clad only in his Jockey shorts, told them, ''Sorry, it's not my time to go."

As originally conceived 80 years ago, a collaboration among architects William Lawrence Bottomley and Sidney Wagner, decorator Ernesta Beaux, South African muralist Jan Juta, (who also worked on the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth and whose wife was a sister of the first Mrs. Marshall Field and of Brooke Astor's second husband), plasterer Dan Hopkins, blacksmith George H. Bergmann, and innumerable others, River House was a vision of supreme elegance. That not everyone is an admirer of this elegance, or of the elitism it represents, is indisputable. Even some residents, feeling wealth and ownership trump every other consideration; seem sometimes not to value what they have. Despite ample means, enough to make sensitive alterations, instead, sometimes occupants have marred this landmark's gracious loveliness with inappropriate single-light 'picture windows' or unsightly openings for air conditioners.

As for Ms. Laura Pels, profiled in the New Yorker, complimented on her apartment's East River view, all she can think to mention is,"... a shock she had a few years ago when she looked out a window and saw a corpse floating by."

Not I. If, like most people, I will never live there. I will at least retain a cherished memory coming unexpectedly upon a world that I had read about but never experienced previously. Saying she would like to buy one of my drawings,

Mrs. Raymond asked me to come for dinner the night following our second meeting. "It will be informal", she said to my relief, meaning that I needn't wear evening clothes. Mr. Raymond, wheeled in from his room, did wear a dinner jacket and black tie, as I imagined he must have most nights for a lifetime. His stately mate, however, wore a variation on her daytime attire, only her shirt and trousers were silk, instead of wool and organdy. She also wore enormous earrings with marquise diamonds and rubies.

The only other guest was a Swedish lady, somehow connected to the Museum of Modern Art Library. Mrs. Raymond's French cook made some wonderful chicken dish accompanied by a white sauce and an apple Charlotte with stiffly whipped cream. My kind hostess insisted that I have a second helping of everything! There were also several wines and I tried them all.

The windows were opened to the summer night, and as the Raymonds lived on a lower floor, above the highway's hum, one could hear the garden fountain. My moment of utter triumph was just prior to desert. Not before or since have I encountered a finger bowl dining out, but taking the vessel and its doily off the desert plate, I'd known exactly what to do. Unfortunately, this was just about when I began to feel that I might slip beneath the table.

Disdaining coffee heretofore, on this enchanted evening, of gin and tonic, vintage wines and green Chartreuse, how welcomed was the tiny cup of steaming black liquid, stirred with a golden spoon.

I have seen grander apartments. There have been more festive nights since, and even meals with more elaborate menus. But, much as with a first kiss, however awkward, with some early object of one's desire, I will always recall my dinner with the Raymonds, as magic, and think of River House, as Ali Baba's cave!

Qanta Ahmed, MD: Cairo to Fort Hood: Broader Engagement at Home and Abroad

2009-11-11T06:01:13Z

Armistice Day, Atlanta, Georgia

The atrocious mass murder committed last week at Fort Hood has shaken the nation. Unusually, I didn’t learn of the news until many hours later, spared from the continuous news cycle in transit from the West Coast to New York. When I finally reconnected to CNN late that evening, like many others, I found it hard to absorb in its entirety. I am still having difficulty digesting the multidimensional implications.

Mass murders have become a depressingly familiar punctuation in the rhythm of modern day American despair. The death and destruction of our soldiers overseas has assumed a jarring place in the unending carnage of our foreign involvements. Remote deaths of unknown soldiers in lands far removed from the experience of most Americans are honored with private and largely invisible funerals. A public inured to eight years of warfare now seeping into a third administration is dangerously disconnected from the national costs exacted by bloody wars.

The loss of life at the hands of a psychiatrically disturbed individual is also one familiar to society here. We have survived Waco and the Unibomber, we are enmeshed in a protracted, anguished recovery from 9-11 and most weeks, even now, I see at least one stoic man, sometimes two, who served as first responder at Ground Zero and is finally able to articulate the edges of their psychological pain.

But the cumulative impact of Fort Hood is staggering. A Muslim American military officer who was a practicing military psychiatrist experiencing his own psychotic break from reality in America’s largest domestic military base has resulted in the slaying of 13 souls and the decimation of many more lives the departed have left behind in mourning. Even the most experienced physicians and military leaders are appropriately reeling. As a Muslim physician myself, I am experiencing these events in several dimensions.

As a physician I feel frustration at the lack of recognition of Major Hasan’s mental deterioration presumably within the ranks of his professional physician colleagues. Physicians are notoriously poor at recognizing psychological distress among their own ranks and even more recalcitrant towards seeking therapy or asking for help. As a sleep specialist who treats individuals with affective disorders and post traumatic stress disorder I feel a sense of futility at the inability for timely intervention. I wonder whether Major Hasan was experiencing insomnia before the events, a common companion of severe PTSD. As a civilian, I find it hard to understand the opaque and regimented world of the military and wonder what their procedures for identifying impaired colleagues may be. Yet it is as a British Muslim who makes her chosen home in America that I find my response is most troubled.

Until 9-11, being Muslim for me was an intensely private and little examined experience, one to which I rarely devoted serious introspection. For many reasons, the heinous event on that fateful Tuesday morning (events which I watched from a thunderstruck Saudi Arabia where I was working at the time) compelled me to confront my relationship and my own place within Islam. In the years since, people everywhere have begun identifying themselves strongly with religious or non-religious beliefs often above nationality or ethnicity. We have, whether we like it or not, become a much more divided and polarized global community. In the post 9-11 era, my search deep into my Islam has been rewarding and yet challenged, tested and stretched and you can read about that turbulent internal journey in my book, In the Land of Invisible Women.

Part of the struggle of being a thoughtful Muslim today comes with dispelling the persistently accumulating myths pertaining to Islam which pile up as quickly as one tries to dispel them. Actions like those of the deranged, deeply disturbed Major Hasan are ripe fodder for fueling dangerous and combustible Islamaphobia. How can I keep explaining Islam calls for peace, non violence and preservation of life at all costs, even above the rights of the Divine on mankind, when Muslims among us are driven to do the exact opposite and wreck devastating destruction in the name of Islam? This is my jihad: the jihad of the pen seeking to overcome the jihad of the sword.

Jihad has been one of the casualties of the schizophrenic, dichotomous rift which has magnified to separate moderate, intellectual sincere Islam from ritualistic, fanatical radicalism exercised in the name of Islam by nihilists who seek to extinguish all which is true about this great religion. Jihad captures a number of meanings. Foremost is the internal jihad each insightful Muslim must engage with his or her core: our struggle as creatures of free will who chose to rise against our baser desires. Belief in Islam is founded on the essential basis of free will. There can be no compulsion in Islamic belief. Belief must come as a choice and not mandate and like many aspects of being Muslim, we must not only choose once in life but constantly choose to follow our scriptured ideals. Islam is an orthopraxy much more than an orthodoxy. This effort, this conscious choice, this self discipline and awareness it demands is the result of introspection, sincerity and quiet resolve. This is the private jihad every living Muslim who truly understands the nature of Islam’s basis on free will must engage in daily. There is no external focus for this jihad.

Jihad can also mean the struggle to nurture improvement around ourselves in our external world, whether advancing our local communities through service, or collaborating with one another and indeed people of other faiths in the pursuit of development. Collaboration towards improving society at large, for example in the construction of libraries, universities, facilities for the ill or weak or disadvantaged are all forms of collective jihad, Again, such jihad is completely disarticulated from combat.

And finally there is the form of jihad which has been so removed from its original essence yet appears on an almost daily basis in a deviant, distorted form: jihad sanctioned by Islam when a Muslim’s right to observe Islamic practice has been emphatically prohibited. Note that this is extremely specific and in fact restrictive to a defensive response following an offensive threat which has been executed rather than merely articulated as a threat. Note also that such jihad is not what is considered a Holy War, for Islam sanctions no war as holy. Wars are seen as inherently undesirable and are widely discouraged in Islam. Instead, Muslims are enjoined to seek the path of peace and diplomacy whenever possible and whether jihad or a non holy war are ultimately undertaken having exhausted all options possible, the conduct of the Muslim at War comes under precise and highly specified codes of conduct which include carefully defined codes of non combatants: women, children, the sick, the disabled.

Unfortunately we are now almost at the end of ten years of ‘ jihad’ conducted in the name of Islam for the most appalling and offensive citations which do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Whether we examine the sectarian violence between sects of Muslims, the villainous actions of the Taliban and their attempts to extinguish thinking powerful womanhood, the nihilistic destruction of Muslims and non Muslims to sate the bloodthirsty Al Qaeda movement and its various nefarious derivatives or the extraordinarily distorted and psychotic practice of suicide bombings which my mentor Dr. Joan Kirschenbaum Cohn appropriately refers to as homicide bombings (since so many other people die in these acts along with the bomber)-none, NOT ONE of these conflicts is based on a defense of observing Islamic practices. None of this is jihad, yet we sadly see it as such when Anderson Cooper explains to us the latest heinous events. Such nuances are hard to enunciate in a 90 second network sound-byte and most often lost on an increasingly depleted, anxious and fearful America and the jaded newsmen and women who must report these events.

Fortunately, this and other such challenges have not been lost on the Obama administration who have been accumulating sound and incisive advice on exactly these issues. In his Cairo Speech on June 4th 2009, President Obama spoke about the need for ‘broader engagement’ with the Muslim world at large. His advisors had been preparing for this ‘broader engagement’ for sometime and the President made these recommendations with an informed perspective. We are already beginning to see some exciting changes which speak to new vehicles with which to have complex, sophisticated and peaceful dialogue.

A salient publication emerged quietly and without fanfare, first mentioned in the New York Times late last September. Published by a non governmental foundation without elected authority, the Changing Course: A New Direction for US Relations with the Muslim World document has been a valuable roadmap for the path this administration is taking towards what has become a truly Gordonian knot of cumulative losses, alienations and failures in America’s relationship with Muslims. Much of the report suggests specific areas where Americans can seek engagement with counterparts in the Muslim world and how such engagement might advance our relationships.

In Cairo the President reiterated some of the key points seemingly inspired from this valuable treatise on what has gone wrong and where we can improve. Only today, at the Forum for the Future in Marrakech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new plans focusing on augmenting US collaboration in the realm of science and technology with international Muslim communities. Excited scientific Muslim friends from the Middle East were among the first to share this news with me in the middle of the East Coast night. Perhaps they care more about US engagement than many Muslim Americans?

The first three U.S. Science and Technology Envoys who are a pivotal part of the US Science Envoy Program, all heavy weight academics have already been appointed, reflecting the administration’s sentiment of nurturing international endeavors with actions and not only words. For the first time ever, around a week after the Cairo speech the President underlined his intent at engaging America in new ways internationally in the imaginative appointment of the first Special Representative at the State Department for Global Partnership, Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley.

The U.S. Science Envoy program is one of the components of the historic presidential speech in Cairo and one of the first physical manifestations of that powerful moment in the Middle East. Shepherded in by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Richard Lugar those of us who are Muslim and in the field of medicine and science understand the brilliance of this move. For centuries Islam has revered both the quest for knowledge and the application of its bounty. Sharing knowledge is considered a responsibility for Muslims. Science and medicine in particular, relate to solving universal problems such as health and environmental threats. Serving these needs, nurturing these fields benefits all of humanity, particularly the most challenged sectors of society and can be interpreted as an act of zakat or charity one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslim countries everywhere revere physicians in their society, much more so than we experience customarily in the West, and the basis for this likely rests partly in the spiritual place given to the pursuit of knowledge and its dissemination to ease suffering.

The US Science Envoy program therefore appeals at a number of levels while speaking deeply to the core of ancient Muslim sentiment. This program contains the potential for broader engagement at its best. But we need the same broader engagement here at home too and that has also been part of the administration's approach to Muslims at home. Fort Hood is perhaps the first and most immediate test of our President’s resolve to bridge the chasms and begin the probing and evaluation of a deep wound which has failed to heal since 9-11. Unlike his predecessor, Obama recognizes healing and dialogue are not one-way affairs but bilateral processes requiring willing participants on both sides.

Fort Hood requires all of us to respond, and respond with the same grace, wisdom and courage that the family of slain Physician Assistant Michael Cahill displayed. His articulate grieving daughter Ms. Kerry Cahill encapsulated precisely the courage and nobility required of all of us in these demanding times in her caution against reflexive, indiscriminate hate. Her grace and humanity soothed and ennobled a grieving nation. We must follow her thoughtful lead as we assess our own responses to this tragedy.

Whatever his diagnosis and motive, Major Hasan committed the irrevocable and the immoral act of destroying innocent lives. His distorted thinking and his relationships with shadowy forces and darkness will become clearer under military and judicial scrutiny. But what is clear is his actions represent no version of Islam that I can recognize or that which countless other Muslims do either. However as Muslims we must all engage in public, peaceful, proactive dialogue. While our President is creating opportunities for the US to engage with the Muslim world, Muslims must engage here at home with America.

As we remember those veterans on Armistice Day who gave their lives to safeguard the very nations were we as Muslims are free to explore our faith in its many variations, freely and at will, it seems enormously appropriate that we remember our responsibilities to society and our abilities to soothe those who are deeply wounded in our name. Muslims everywhere recognize the triumvirate of our responsibilities: our duty to ourselves, to our Maker and to society.

Right now, duty to society calls. We must rise to it. We must engage.

Michael Russnow: Windows 7 Not so Great as Advertised and Has Compatibility Issues: Is Microsoft in Collusion With Manufacturers Like HP?

2009-11-06T07:18:20Z

A few weeks ago, I had a horrifying PC moment. For the first time in twelve years of Internet surfing, a terrible virus oddly named Total Security disabled my computer. No programs would open. Total Security left me in a total mess.

The price for excising the virus was $200. Since my XP computer was almost six years old, I thought that seemed excessive because I could get a new unit for about $700.

During my initial panic, Geek Squad Guru Julio Sagastume of West Hollywood's Best Buy kindly devoted lots of telephone time for free as I described my woes. Later he and colleague David McClay painstakingly advised me, and after shopping around I bought a Dell 3055 Inspiron computer. Julio and David also assured me all the files on my virus-laden XP computer would be transferred -- disease free -- for $99.99

Then I brought the new PC home, and suddenly there were problems. Understand, I've had computers for over twenty years, so I know how to set them up. However, Windows 7 didn't accept my HP LaserJet 1012 printer or Creative Cam Live! Pro! webcam drivers, nor my Transparent Language WordAce! German dictionary and True Fonts program, all on CD.

Oddly, it did embrace my Altec headset and Magic Spin DVD burner, both bought at the same time as my webcam in 2006. And the DVD burner CD driver said it was for Windows 98! Windows 7 also admitted my Movie Magic Screenwriter program, my Translation Language German tutorial and -- hold onto your hats -- my Microsoft '97 Office CD. Before I'm disparaged for not upgrading, I found no discernible difference in basic word processing over the so-called improved years, so my program suits me just fine.

More about the need to "upgrade" equipment in a moment.

Re the Windows 7 look itself, I was dismayed all my programs downloaded, including Mozilla, IE 8, AOL 9.5 and Skype suddenly appeared in miniscule font size. As a comparison I turned on my newly cleansed XP computer and everything seemed fine.

However, on Windows 7 if I changed display settings, some pages appeared better, while others' data drifted off the screen. Plus websites had overlapping type or showed words meant to be on one line suddenly hanging orphaned onto another all by themselves. This occurred on my personal website (which looks fine on XP) and also on professionally produced sites such as HuffPost.

So, I called Dell and was pleasantly surprised their offshore employees were mostly helpful. I'm not xenophobic, but I've suffered over several years dealing with folks who don't quite understand our language. Very polite but maddening to deal with. With Dell I got good support even with the 12 hour time difference.

A wonderful supervisor took over my computer by remote control. He saw what I was dealing with and I asked: "Why should I keep this computer? It's one thing to have to switch between the new one and XP for the occasional webcam use or printing, but Internet surfing is constant, and my other programs look horrible."

At first he seemed baffled, but then switched to the troubleshoot area of Windows 7 and found problems in "Add-ons" on Skype, AOL and Internet Explorer. Suddenly the fonts were better on my programs, but the Internet problems persisted. Explorer was far better than Mozilla, but neither pleased me.

He determined in our 3-hour session it might be due to my machine's 64-bit configuration. Haven't a clue what he did, but he did something with Explorer and then affixed the Explorer rendering engine onto Mozilla. In short, I now have a small icon in the lower right of my screen, and if I don't like the way a Mozilla page looks -- 2/3 of the time -- I click on the icon and it changes to the Explorer engine while staying on Mozilla, with its bookmarks and other tabs. Everything now looks great.

Strangely, when I go onto Internet Explorer 8 directly there are still problems, and I have no idea what version of Explorer or what engine he used to fix Mozilla's look. But it's better than it was, and, while not perfect, I'm able to function with more power and speed, while still able to use the XP as a sturdy back-up.

But why does this problem exist? Is there something wrong with Mozilla and Internet Explorer re Windows 7? Why does downloading major programs cause add-on issues that never presented themselves on XP? And if you're not having the same problem, why am I when all I did was turn on the machine only to confront this havoc?

Added to this is my primary beef. I have an HP printer less than six years old, and though I know we live in an age of get the latest thing almost every year -- read that to mean cell phones, cars and other gadgets -- how many of us do that? How many of us -- especially in these economic times -- don't hold onto products that still function well? Okay, if we want an improvement, such as an HDTV with mega-screen, that's one thing. That's something new.

But my printer works fine, prints at 15 pages/minute and is still on its original toner cartridge. I even bought a standby cartridge and have yet to open the box. Yet, despite the Dell technician's masterful attempts, he was not able to install the printer. The Hewlett-Packard website says it doesn't support my printer on Windows 7 and directs me to buy a new one for over a hundred dollars that prints 17 pages/minute -- hardly an upgrade when mine works perfectly.

My webcam is only 3 years old. What's Creative Cam's excuse? Why should I have to buy another one, simply because Microsoft doesn't want to include within its software earlier recognition applications as it used to? On the one hand, it still recognizes old MS Word programs, but not many other programs that did a technological handshake with earlier versions of Windows. Yet in the old days, the first Windows program recognized DOS, and, at least through XP, would not render most hardware and software shamefully obsolete.

My first laser printer (Panasonic 4410), bought in 1993 and used with my DOS computer, transitioned beautifully to Windows 95 and continued to work with my XP computer through today (though I bought the HP in 2004 to gain greater speed and operating RAM). On the one hand, a printer can work for 16 years, but the other functions for less than 6 due to incompatibility, not work performance.

What's the cause? Is it Bill Gates' fault for not incorporating into Windows 7 the driver information his company used to do in successive editions or is he in collusion with software and hardware manufacturers like HP, who also refuse to update drivers so that obsolescence becomes the order of the day and we are forced to buy things we really don't need?

If we get a new state of the art TV, we can still connect our old VCR. If we get a new CD or DVD player we can play our old disks. We can still use a dial telephone on a telephone system that has been transformed with fiber optics and satellite transmission. But a new computer forces you to discard perfectly good machinery.

There ought to be a law preventing the computer hardware and software industry from shortchanging consumers so that we get the full use of our equipment as we do for non-computer related appliances and products. Anderson Cooper should do a "Keeping Them Honest" report on CNN, as should other commentators on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and Fox News. There should also be an uproar on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

All in all this new computer experience has been disappointing, extremely stressful and a whole lot of needless hassle.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com.

Woman Denied Health Care Insurance After Rape Tells Her Story (Video)

2009-10-27T04:56:33Z

Christina Turner was drugged and raped by two men in 2002. After taking anti-HIV drugs prescribed by her doctor as a preventative measure, Turner was denied health insurance. The HIV drugs, Turner was told, raised too many health questions for her insurer.

Christina Turner's story was part of a citizen journalism project by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. Readers were asked to provide information and anecdotes about the inner workings of the insurance industry. Stories showing how victims of sexual assault can get tangled in the health insurance system were just one result of the project.

CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed Turner on Monday night. She recounted her story and underscored the need for reform. She touted the web site awomanisnotapreexistingcondition.com and encouraged viewers to find out more about the issue.

WATCH

Charles Butler: Dr. King was a Ph.D not a PHD

2009-10-19T14:38:15Z

October 18, 2009

Today is a special day in my life and always will be, so there are a few things that take precedence over everything else I had previously planned for the day.

As I got dressed for brunch, I watched a special on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., televised on ABC/New York. They captured him on several videotapes speaking to various audiences about the condition of the American Negro in America in 1967. The thing that struck me most about his speeches to the audience, was his intense usage of historical, political, and economic facts in his lectures. His word selection, was careful, and on point about the subject matter, a true orator. He spoke more like a college professor, than a minister, on the topic of the history of Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. His discourse on America's role in the support of France, and then President Diem, instead of Ho Chi Minh was accurate. These were facts I learnt in the 70's in college, where my professors drew the same parallels and conclusions about the socioeconomic, and political conditions of Vietnam and Black America. The question was, and is more poignant today, where is the Marshall Plan for Black America and now America. We can find money to fight wars for other people on any continent, but we cannot protect students going to school in Chicago in October of 2009.

I was reminded watching the TV special that Dr. King possessed a Doctorate of Philosophy, he was not a Pontificator Hypocrite or Dumbfounded. I have said numerous times that Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., is the only person to come close to delivering the blatant facts about the Black American condition in America, in terms the power elite understands and can respond to effectively. It is very simple, a person with a formal education has the foundation to build his or her arguments based on logic and facts. I my opinion, the Black American community has had too many PHD's instead of Ph.D's out front as spokespeople.

In the wild political 60's it became the norm for the "establishment" to listen to hippie-type, drug crazed, young people with different ideas and visions of the world they wanted to live in. The interesting thing is their opinions often left facts and proven methods to the wind. Well, those hippies grew up, and more entrenched in the "establishment" than their parents. Today, there is less involvement in government, civic, and social causes by that generation than previous generations. As a nation some experts think we are more racially and economically polarized than ever in the history of the country. The country's standing in the world has eroded on their watch!

I believe that Black America needs intelligent, and educated people developing strategies and tactics for economic parity. In the past, and today, uneducated community activist, who grew up in the "hood", cannot frame the issues and solutions to the problems of the Black community. The majority of community activist in the Black community have failed over the last 43 years by any standard of measurement. They have failed despite the fact our government has spent billions of dollars in programs to assist the poor, poverty-stricken, under educated, non-assimilating masses of Black enclaves.

The prototype Black community activist is Philip Jackson of Black Star Project, in Chicago, IL. His organization can be found at www.blackstarproject.org. He was not invited to the meeting in Chicago with Attorney General Eric Holder and Sec. Education Arnie Duncan to discuss the death of Derrione Albert and solutions. Mr. Jackson, is an educated, articulate, dedicated community activist that delivers quality results and can provide solutions to the issues facing Black communities across the country. However, he is left out of the discussion about solutions because he can speak the language of the power-elite, he is not your typical uneducated community activist. His biography speaks for itself, and so does his deeds. Let me say this about most community activist they are well-meaning and heartfelt, but we have children being slaughtered daily in the streets without any hope to make it to senior prom.

A.G. Holder and Sec. Duncan came to Chicago, and both want to provide more money to focus on at-risk youth, about $30.5M. Even, IL Gov. Quinn, and Mayor Daley, asked for more money to fight youth violence. Historically, that only encourages more problematic behavior from troubled youth. The money ends up in the hands of people that live in the community, but they are not problem-solvers. Mr. Jackson, of Black Star Project, focuses on all youth and particularly upward bound youth. The only way the Black community is going to surface from the current abyss it finds itself in, is to focus on the youth with hope and aspirations to enter the American mainstream, and not the criminal element. We need to put the money in the hands of the people that can perform.

We have a crisis in the Black community that needs to be corrected immediately. That crisis is how we have approached problem(s) since the death of Dr. King, in April of 1968. A good friend of mine, Mr. Cox, made a clear analogy, he said, "Fire trucks and authorities come to the "hood" and a house is on fire, they stand around trying to figure out how the fire started, instead of putting water on the house and extinguishing the fire, then doing the analysis." Hey, put some water on the house fire, HELLO!

Dr. King, held a Ph.D, and was not a PHD, he had the facts to support his opinions and solutions. His visions were close to another great civil rights leader, Whitney Young, often forgotten because of his constant demand for jobs and economic opportunity for Black America.

When we visit the writings our truly great Black Americans they called for fairness, and to be left alone to pursue the American dream, without government interference. I will name a few Fredrick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, D.A. Nixon, Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., A. Philip Randolph. All of these men knew that the condition of America was access to capital, education, and opportunity.

Let's get more Ph.D's involved in the solutions to the problems facing our nation, especially in the Black community and leave the community activists to sing Kumbaya of a bygone era.

We (Americans) need to tell these young people that they need to conform to our societal norms, it is not going to be the other way around. We (Americans) need to protect our young people that are trying to live their lives in a normal and civilized manner. We (Black Americans) need to demand that people in all of our communities adopt values, standards, and morals consistent with success in America. Historically, Black Americans are conservative on social, political, and fiscal issues, so why do they vote overwhelmingly with Democrats? If you listen to Dr. King lectures on civil rights and human rights, he sure sounds more like a conservative than a radical! Amazing!

Peace, C.B.

Linda Milazzo: Step Up to Mike's Challenge

2009-10-17T16:47:03Z

Our great buddy Mike is angry. For the past twenty years, Michael Moore, our everyday hero, has worked hard for us. He's documented sadistic acts against us by industry and government. He's exposed case after case of devious schemes that robbed us of our homes and our jobs, sent our children to war, and sacrificed our health. He's given us irrefutable proof that our leaders lied us to war, our insurers denied us care, and our lenders deceived us into hopelessness and destitution.

Mike's been our teacher, our ally and our devoted friend. Few people in recent memory have worked harder to inform us - ALL OF US - of the inhumanity and greed that are decaying our nation, which we perpetuate through apathy and inertia.

It is our apathy and inertia that frustrate our pal Mike. No matter how much he tries to revive us, we still don't seem to revive. We continue the same behavior that leads to our demise. We elect socio-sadist politicians who finance themselves off our sorrow. We enrich socio-sadist bankers who leave us homeless and in debt. We toil for socio-sadist employers who terminate our jobs. Despite all we've learned from Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Roger and Me, we continue to take this abuse.

The punches keep landing. The socio-sadists score blow after blow. POW! Another foreclosure. POW! Another job gone. Again and again we're down for the count. Politicians retain office, corporations turn profits, and we sell our blood to get by. We're perpetual victims. No wonder Mike's so angry that at the end of his new movie he challenges us to act.

Our pal Mike, who's never asked a thing from us, is now asking us to act - and act fast. At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, which I saw on September 25th, Mike issues this challenge to his audience:

You know, I can't really do this anymore - unless those of you who are watching this in the theater want to join me. I hope you will. And please, speed it up.

Mike's right. He can't solve our problems on his own. He can't create a movement all alone. He's given us the truth for twenty years. He's exposed the thieves, liars and sadists we elected to office. He's shown us the thieves, liars and sadists who run the corporations that foreclose on our homes and refuse us medical treatment. Mike's shown us the enemy. If there's to be a movement to rescue our economy, to restore our humanity, and close the gap between rich and poor, WE-THE-PEOPLE have to do it. Mike's done his part. It's time that we do ours.

But what is Mike's challenge?

Here's his response to that question when asked by Chris Matthews on MSNBC:

I want them [the American people] to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress. We need publicly financed elections and we need the people deciding how this democracy is run.

Pushing our Congress to pass legislation for campaign finance reform is a move toward freeing legislators from entanglements with big money interests who finance their campaigns - and to whom they presume allegiance.

We can do this. We can step up to Mike's challenge. Right now in the House and Senate there is key campaign finance legislation called the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA - S. 752 in the Senate and H.R. 1826 in the House).

FENA was introduced in the Senate by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), and in the House by Representatives John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.). If passed, this bill allows federal candidates to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, and donations from lobbyists. Candidates will be free from constant fundraising to focus on constituent needs.

I've called my Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and my Congressman Henry Waxman, to ask their support for FENA. If you visit Change Congress, you can do the same.

We live in a participatory democracy that requires participation beyond voting. As Mike tells CNN's Anderson Cooper (in the video below), Americans can't vote every two and four years, then walk away and expect our democracy will just fall in line:

The Democrats may control the House, Senate and the Presidency, but the corporate sadists, like health insurers and Wall Street financiers, control the Democrats and Republicans. As long as there are backroom deals with big money special interests, the American people will suffer.

We see from the substantial contributions made to Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives by the health care industry, that electeds' opposition to legislation that eliminates corporations is expected. Also expected is universal single-payer not being on the table since it cuts corporations all together. The ongoing histrionics behind the battle for a public option speaks volumes to the need for public financing of campaigns. Only when lobbyist bribery is forced entirely out of campaigns can we have any probability of honest representation.

Gratefully, my resident state of California is moving forward on campaign finance reform. The Fair Elections Bill, AB 583, authored by California Assemblymember Loni Hancock, will appear on the June 8, 2010 ballot. Californians who are interested in working to bring campaign finance to California are welcome to volunteer to help pass this landmark legislation.

According to California Fair Elections, campaign financing is currently quite successful in seven states where the system has been in place. Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont have all adopted Fair Elections systems. In the seven states and two cities where the system is being used, nearly 400 candidates were elected using only Fair Elections funding in their 2008 campaigns. Since public financing was first instituted in Arizona and Maine, elected officials have passed bi-partisan, critically important legislation that would not have been possible if they continued to fear retribution from powerful special interests. In addition, more women and candidates of diverse backgrounds have won election in these states.

At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, before he issues his audience challenge, our pal Mike tells us:

We live in the richest country in the world. We all deserve a decent job, health care, a good education, a home to call our own... and it's a crime that we don't have it. And we never will as long as we have a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many. Capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people. And that something is called DEMOCRACY.

My overly expensive iPhone dictionary app (Wordbook, $7.99) defines DEMOCRACY as:

1. the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives.
2. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.
3. the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

I deduce from this definition that if our elected officials represent those who bribe them over those who elect them, democracy doesn't exist. Thus, in our current system, we do not have a democracy. It is crystal clear to me why our pal Mike is challenging us "to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress." I understand why Mike believes "we need publicly financed elections and we need THE PEOPLE deciding how this democracy is run."

I'm wholly on board with our buddy's challenge. I will participate fully and energetically to get the bribery, thuggery and robbery out of government. Only when that task is accomplished can a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, exist.

Thanks, Mike, for issuing this challenge!

'Daily Show' Destroys CNN For Fact-Checking 'SNL' Instead Of Their Guests (VIDEO)

2009-10-13T07:57:57Z

Jon Stewart began his show last night by skewering CNN for fact-checking a "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Fred Armisen (playing Barack Obama) claimed to have done "nothing" since taking office. In this hard-hitting report, CNN found that while many of the president's initiatives have not moved forward, he has in fact done "something" since taking office. Take that, comedy show.

"While you were doing your research did you also find that sharks live in water and don't deliver candy grams... and that the majority of boxes do not have d*cks in them?" Stewart asked. He went on to show several instances of CNN guests saying spurious things and introducing made-up statistics without being asked where their numbers came from or countered with facts.

At the end of the 11-minute segment, Stewart brought in Aasif Mandvi and John Oliver to put the final nails in CNN's coffin. "They're the most professional network in the business, three times more professional. Most people agree they have 20 to 35 to 70% more facts," Mandvi claimed. Oliver countered with this: "They are goat f**kers."

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Homeless Under Las Vegas: Ways You Can Help

2009-10-12T14:54:26Z

In the flood channels under the streets of Las Vegas exists a troubling world: homeless and unemployed people live in elaborate shelters, struggling to survive, and only yards away from the excess and extravagance of The Strip.

Anderson Cooper 360 reported their story and interviewed Matthew O'Brien, author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas. One of the most intriguing stories is of 43-year-old Steve Dommer, who's been living in the channels for two years.

Dommer, a self-described Las Vegas native, says he ended up underground due to drugs--speed and heroin to be exact. He says drug use not only caused him to lose his construction job but also created what he describes as a "legal situation." Dommer says he's been sober since January.

Two years ago, Dommer created a home about a half-mile from the entrance of a flood channel where some daylight enters through a sealed grate overhead near the Strip. He has a living room, bedroom, kitchen and workshop encompassing about 400-square feet. Everything is elevated inches off of the floor with wooden pallets or milk crates because water from construction hoses above covers the ground. He even painted some of his living area to hide the black soot that covers the walls and ceilings as a result of a fire caused by a one-time tunnel neighbor.

Luckily, the CNN report is more than just a sad story. O'Brien has created the charitable organization Shine A Light, aimed at providing food, blankets and other resources to the people living underneath Las Vegas, along with aid from HELP of Southern Nevada.

A few other ways that ordinary Americans can help:

Learn how one can most effectively advocate for the homeless. Connecting with other advocates, lobbying elected officials and inspiring media attention can help turn a story into a public call to action.

The National Coalition For The Homeless is planning a nationwide coat drive campaign called The Big Warm Up. As the winter months approach, it becomes ever more important that the homeless have adequate clothing.

Las Vegas residents are also being encouraged to volunteer their time or become a mentor to young people who face homelessness.

Adam Luna: CNN's Lou Dobbs to Black People: "I don't want your excuses ... quit whining."

2009-10-09T11:52:00Z

I was at the Washington screening of the new CNN series, “Latino in America” last night and was, well, not too happy when I left the building. I’ll get into the details about that in a minute, but what really set me over the edge was when Laura Esquivel, from Media Matters, came up to me and asked if I had heard the latest from Dobbs. I hadn’t, so she read me a transcript from his radio show earlier that day. He was talking about a black Chicago community activist who was upset about the President’s trip to Chicago the other day. And Dobbs had some advice for the black community about issues in their community:

It’s a black community problem. And part of the problem is the black community is not being responsible and I mean turning Heaven and Earth to protect our children.

He went on to castigate black parents and churches:

I don’t want to hear your excuses, I don’t want to hear your lame nonsense about how much money you need to save the next life. you have it in your power, the black churches, the black school leaders, the black community leaders, the black community organizers, the black parents of that community. Fix the problem. Quit whining, quit looking to someone else for the solution, and by God, let’s move ahead.

Thanks, Lou.

What else does this guy have to do to get fired from CNN? The network broadcasts 260 hours a year – primetime coverage every day to a man antagonistic to people of color.

He calls himself a journalist and asserts that CNN is accountable every day, yet he spent 45 hours railing against comprehensive immigration reform and leprosy carrying, criminal, revolutionary aliens during the Senate debate in 2006 and then celebrated its defeat. The most trusted name in news? CNN executives should be ashamed.

So, back to the 4 hour CNN series, "Latino in America." At the premier, I asked CNN suit, Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer of CNN Productions, whether the series included any description of the role of the media and CNN specifically in propagating negative stereotypes about Latinos. His answer was that the world needed more Eva Longorias and Edward James Olmos’.

We’ve got a campaign to air an ad calling out CNN for dedicating their primetime coverage to a race-baiter and dangerous propagandist: www.AmericasVoiceOnline/DropTheHate. Check it out and give a dollar or two if you can.

Pushing CNN executives on Dobbs has gotten us a four hour special. So, we’re changing targets. Asking Wolf Blitzer, Soledad O’Brien, Anderson Cooper, and John King what they think about their journalistic integrity being tarnished by a man who gets more primetime air time than most of them.

Thanks for the four hour special, CNN. The beautiful family stories are touching. But CNN already airs a show called "Latino in America;" 260 hours, every year. It’s called Lou Dobbs, and the picture he paints of Latinos ain’t pretty.

Cross-Posted at America's Voice, Jack and Jill Politics, Daily Kos, and the Sanctuary.

Dan Choi, Gay Soldier, Debates Conservative Military Analyst Over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (VIDEO)

2009-10-07T11:26:46Z

CNN's Anderson Cooper hosted a debate between First Lieutenant Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic linguist who is facing a discharge for announcing that he is homosexual, and Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a group which opposes gay soldiers serving openly.

Donnelly claimed that homosexuals serving openly in the military "would be harmful to good-order discipline and morale" because it is "tantamount to saying that military men would be living with military women constantly with little or no privacy in conditions as what the law describes as forced intimacy."

Choi immediately pushed back against this: ""Gender is not the same thing as sexual orientation, and I think that somebody as smart as you Elaine, you should know that"

Choi steered the debate back to the central practical dilemma of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which is can a nation conducting two wars along with a wider war on terror really afford to be kicking thousands of soldiers out of the military for being gay, especially when, like First Lt. Choi, they have specialized skills that our armed forces increasingly need and rely upon?

Choi answered no, while Donnelly dodged the question.

WATCH: (H/t Jon)

Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.
Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.

CNN's Top Ten Heroes Of 2009. Who's Your Favorite? (VIDEOS, POLL)

2009-10-01T17:03:48Z

CNN's Anderson Cooper revealed the network's top ten CNN Heroes of 2009 on October 1. You can now vote for the CNN Hero of the Year, to be announced by Cooper on Thanksgiving Day.

Each of the individuals in the top ten will receive $25,000, and the ultimate winner will receive an additional $100,000.

Here are CNN's original stories on these remarkable people who are using their individual power to make huge differences in the world. Watch the videos here, then go to CNN and cast your vote on who should be CNN's Hero of the Year.

Peter Christian Hall: Is that Cough Swine Flu? Don't Ask the CDC

2009-09-30T15:12:35Z

Reading about the microbial adventures of Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper in Afghanistan has made me wonder about something rather personal. I'd just had an extremely sore throat with no fever that kept me up all night, day after day. I visited the CDC page for "Interim Guidance on Case Definitions to be Used For Investigations of Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Cases" and found it blank.

The celebrity journalists both fell ill in Afghanistan--CNN's chief medical correspondent came down with a classic array of fever, sinus congestion, nausea, and body aches while the 360 host got a very nasty sore throat. Gupta was treated for swine flu. Cooper wasn't.

Cooper's circumstances raise an important social question, at least for me and for thousands of other Americans: Do we have swine flu?

Incidentally I've done a lot of research on influenza for an online blog enovel I wrote about an H5N1 pandemic that hits New York City. I know the symptoms pretty well: fever, chills, ache, fatigue, vomiting, headache, diarrhea, and upper respiratory tract problems.

Using a neti pot helped, but I couldn't flush my sinuses while sleeping--or working in a busy office. I embraced antibiotics on the theory that I'd developed a secondary bacterial infection.

Then Gupta and Cooper shed light on my plight. Gupta had been sufficiently alarmed by "profound chills and shakes" that he got tested for swine flu and was given IV sustenance by the U.S. military.

Cooper caught what he described to Gupta on 360 as "the worst cough I'd ever had."

In the field, Gupta told Cooper he "probably" didn't have swine flu because he lacked the "very high fever" that typically heralds it. (Cooper was never tested.) On the air weeks later, Gupta told Cooper that he thought there was "a good chance" the host caught swine flu. What about that missing fever?

An important question. Since the novel H1N1 virus known as swine flu broke out of Mexico and into the media late in April, a lot of people have suffered respiratory symptoms without fever. Strep throat has been a common complaint. But few such cases have been dubbed swine flu. Does this leave countless flu victims spewing virions all over the subway, bus, train, home, or office--oblivious to the fact that they may be spreading the dreaded flu?

If so, someone should inform the school administrators who count only cases in which students present fever symptoms when deciding whether or not to close a given school.

Cooper further highlights the problem of presenteeism, a social condition whereby germs are circulated by sick workaholics and employees who can't afford to take a day off because they lack insurance or paid leave. Workers who don't know their cough is contagious can disable a workplace. "I also didn't take any days off," confesses Cooper.

I didn't miss a day either.

On learning from Gupta that he may well have contracted swine flu, Cooper turned rueful. "I love that I just learned that I may have had swine flu--from you, via satellite," he said. Cooper took two rounds of antibiotics for two weeks and still has ear trouble. Gupta assured him the antibiotics "probably" didn't help.

In my case, they seemed to help a lot, so long as the 10-day cycle lasted. Now my throat hurts and I've resumed coughing. The hacks of my co-workers drown mine out. They are sicker than I am.

Off to work!

So what does the CDC say? I called the agency to find out what it says about this coughing business--and why its swine flu symptoms guidelines page is down.

Ahem. Did Cooper and I have the flu, I ask?

"We have heard of cases that did not involve fever, but that is certainly not the norm," A CDC spokesperson replied. He promised to look into why the symptoms guidelines are missing.

Back to you, CNN Survivors.

Michael Moore Mocks "Whiny" Democrats: At Least GOP Has Courage Of Its Convictions (VIDEO)

2009-09-30T08:11:50Z

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore mocked "whiny" Democrats for not having the spine or courage to fight Republicans for a public option on health care. Mimicking a whiny voice for Democrats, Moore said he "admired" Republicans because at least they had "the courage of their convictions":

I can't stand listening to whiny Democrats say, 'we shouldn't even do it because it won't pass anyways.' That's not how the Republicans think. You know, you've got to admire Republicans. They have the courage of their convictions. They put it right out there. When they want to do something, they do it. They don't go, 'oh, I don't know. I don't know if we should invade Iraq. People might not like that.' They don't care. They just do it. What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine, where is the courage? 'They might filibuster.' Really? Let them filibuster. I'd like to see that.

Calling support for the public option "absolutely make or break," Moore warned Democrats that he would help efforts to oust from office any who backed away from supporting real reform:

We're going to start in the primaries. Any Democrat that gets in the way of true reform, reform that has to include the public option, we are going to campaign against them in the primary. We're going to try to find people to run against them. They are not going to get away with this.

WATCH:

Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.

Michael Russnow: Obama's Big Question: To Go or Not to Go, Copenhagen That is

2009-09-29T19:59:50Z

To paraphrase William Shakespeare's renowned query, made more appropriate since it took place in Denmark, the big question is why there is so much furor posed in the Main Stream Media citing Obama's mostly Republican critics over the president's decision to help Chicago win its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics?

Obama's choice to attend the International Olympic Committee meeting in Copenhagen, in tandem with wife Michelle and prominent Chicago residents such as Oprah, is in line with other world leaders, such as Britain's prime minister Tony Blair who went much further to Singapore to secure London as the venue in 2012 and Russia's Vladimir Putin who flew an even greater distance to Guatemala when he successfully scored the 2014 Winter Olympics for the city of Sochi in his nation.

It may well be that these government leaders upped the ante regarding the expectations of the IOC delegates and it seems a small price to pay considering the relatively scant time Obama will attend to Chicago's big pitch.

Yet his Republican antagonists insist Obama's action will take time away from what they deem more significant undertakings, such as -- are you ready for a big laugh -- health care reform, which they have been sabotaging from the outset. They assert in their continuing and mostly lockstep reasoning that Obama is wasting time on such a "frivolous" enterprise rather than addressing the nuclear build-up in Iran, our economic quagmire and the continuing mess in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Senator Christopher Bond (R-Missouri) found it "baffling that he (Obama) has time to go to be on (sic) Copenhagen, to be on the Letterman show and almost every other channel except the Food Channel and Fox, but he doesn't have time to talk to General McChrystal."

In fact, as the White House points out, Obama regularly consults with McChrystal, the Afghanistan commander, but what do facts matter when the key agenda on the part of most Republican leaders is to run Obama down at every opportunity? Yet the newspapers (consider today's main story in the Los Angeles Times) and broadcast/cable programs, such as those hosted by Anderson Cooper and Lou Dobbs on CNN, Brian Williams on NBC, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer on ABC, Katie Couric on CBS and Bill O'Reilly on Fox News have allowed what should have been a relatively apolitical and harmless action to be debated as possible irresponsibility on the part of the president.

And why? Obama is expected to be in Copenhagen for only several hours, and during the eight plus hours in the air to and from Washington he will be able to study reports and be in telephonic contact with everyone he needs, which is how he conducts much of his business in the first place.

It's not as if he's suddenly taking a weekend holiday and will be spending the day cavorting at Tivoli Gardens, and another traveling to Funen Island, the home of Hans Christian Andersen. His critics make it appear that, even during his relatively brief trip abroad, he will be totally incommunicado from pleading requests for his time by heads of state, cabinet secretaries and congressional leaders.

This brouhaha is nonsense and the only downside is if Chicago doesn't get the bid. Frankly, I'm not sure it will, considering the superior glamour of chief opponent Rio de Janeiro and the fact that South America has never hosted the games. And if that happens Obama will lose a bit of sparkle, but, as an advance warning to the Limbaugh fanatics and GOP doomsayers, I'd say so what? Obama is not a miracle maker and, hell, he will have tried. However, there's a stronger possibility that Chicago has little chance at all if he doesn't make the attempt.

And during it all he and the government will continue to perform any necessary actions. But this is a point the Republicans continuously deflect, because truth for them is lately in short supply.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com

Beth Armogida: Does This Misspelled Tea Party Sign Make My Butt Look Big?

2009-09-26T14:50:40Z

When I watch news reports on television or online, the information mostly goes in one ear and out the other, like a light aimed at Sarah Palin's head. I hear the headlines and think, "Sure, this could be bad for the stability of the Earth, but does it really affect me?" It sounds selfish, but it's actually how I distance myself to cope with the continuous stories and images of wars, bailouts, health care debates and Jon and Kate and the nanny.

Lately, I've had to work extra hard distancing myself from what's in the news. Every time I see footage of those handmade signs at the Tea Party rallies displaying anti-Obama phrases filled with hate, fear and misspelled words held by flocks of pallid agitators -- you know, the people who look like they just stepped on a rake -- my stress level reaches a new high. And when this happens, my hormones go out of whack, which means I eat more, which means my butt gets bigger. That's right. Butt size can be a barometer for anxiety. Ask any bride-to-be. Seriously, when CNN's Anderson Cooper threw to video of goober in a Jesus tee shirt holding a banner that said, "Obama kills fluffy little bunnies," my derriere grew three inches.

My one consolation, my only saving grace, has been that at least I don't know any of those sign-wielding fanatics.

And then I got an e-mail.

In this e-mail from a longtime friend, I learned that a woman we attended high school with had announced recently on Facebook that she planned to keep her children out of school to avoid watching President Obama's speech to students. She also compared Obama's school speech to the Hitler Youth movement. Yep, she's one of those fanatics. For this anecdote, we'll call her "Rita." "Rita" and I grew up in the same community, had the same teachers and wore the same band uniform, yet we turned out different.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that some of my classmates became ultra-conservative. We lived in the South and our school parking lot was full of trucks with gun racks and camouflage-colored beer coolers (to hide the beer from the animal prey). It was and is an easy place to become culturally segregated from the rest of the world. But there's a big gap between being ultra-conservative and wacko ultra-conservative. That's why I was surprised about "Rita," because back then she was considered a bright, kind, beautiful young woman. How then did she turn into a close-minded, distrustful, middle-aged stereotype?

I had to figure out what happened to "Rita," because at this point, according to the Butt Barometer, I was now an honorary Kardashian. Could she have just taken a very different course in life? Doubt it. Could she have checked out from reality when the Virgin Mary appeared in her soup? Maybe. But considering her comparison of Obama's message about education to the Hitler Youth, there could only be one possible explanation: lead poisoning.

Whatever the case, this is why we only have high school reunions every 10 years -- to cushion the shock of what some of our friends have become. In the meantime, I'll just continue to turn on the news, get upset and watch my butt expand because of hormones and people like "Rita."

Bill Clinton Explains Why He Now Supports Same-Sex Marriage (VIDEO)

2009-09-25T21:01:36Z

Former President Bill Clinton is speaking out about his decision to change his personal stance on same-sex marriage.

Richard Zombeck: I Just Hate Black People

2009-09-18T16:18:59Z

There's a scene in Escape from Alcatraz in which Frank Morris, played by Clint Eastwood, and English, played by Paul Benjamin have a brief conversation about race.

English: Now you didn't sit down for two reasons, either you're scared or you just hate [black people].

Frank Morris: I'm not scared,
[sits down next to black inmates]
Frank Morris: I just hate [black people].

I paraphrased the entire conversation to avoid a wing-nut storm of outrage from both sides. One side aghast that I could use such a word and the other enraged that they can't.

There's something to be said for being in touch and honest with your emotions. Even if those emotions are unfounded hate. At least it's not overly dramatic feigned denial, which is all we've been seeing from the wing-nuts since NBC released a clip of Jimmy Carter's assessment of Joe Wilson's outburst and the antics of the Tea Baggers and anti-Obama protesters.

Many of the reactions we're seeing to Carter's assessment of what motivates the protests is like watching a cheating spouse being questioned.

"I am aghast and in shock that you would suggest such a thing. How could you even think something like that? I'm offended that a thought like that would even cross your mind. You really have serious issues and should seek help."

That anyone could categorically deny that what is being touted as genuine social and political concerns isn't racially motivated is a bit outlandish. Maybe the initial motives of a few are social and political but plenty of racist whack-jobs are jumping on the crazy train for their own message. It's a little difficult to overlook Glenn Beck's use of a watermelon to illustrate a point about two black guys - one of which is the President, or this "Tea Party" leader trying to convince Anderson Cooper, James Carville, and David Gergen that Obama dressed as a witch doctor or calling him an Indonesian Muslim and "Racist in Chief" has nothing to do with the color of his skin.

There's no doubt that Carter's sound bite was released early in the spirit of sensationalism and because it was more interesting than how he answered Brian Williams' questions about Israel or what it was like to be a peanut farmer, but the timing certainly could have been better. Like maybe bringing it up after the health care debate, the Wall Street clean up, and world peace had been addressed.

The problem is, there is no good time to bring up the issue of race in this country because it simply can't be talked about until people admit it exists. We dance and tip toe around the issue because everyone is too afraid to discuss it and to bring it up. In addition, it's nothing anyone wants to accuse someone of or to be accused of. It's become such a taboo that winning an argument or having a discussion about race has become impossible.

To illustrate my point I picked a fight with my wife last night.

I walked into the room and declared, "Toots, you're a racist!"

That's right, I call her Toots. I'm a sexist, but at least I'm not a racist.

Here's the rest of the conversation:

Toots: I am not a racist.

Me: It's just like a racist to deny being a racist.

Toots: I voted for Obama.

Me: You only voted for Obama to relieve your guilt of being a racist. It's like saying I have black friends or the Chairman of the RNC is black, so I can't be racist.

Toots: What's wrong with you? I'm not talking about this anymore. Maybe you're the racist, you seem to know a lot about racism.

Me: Hah, just like a liberal to throw the race card when they're losing.

See? It's a losing battle no matter what side you're on. The "discussion" went on like that until I almost slept on the couch.

It's difficult to say whether Wilson or the rest of the screamers are racists or motivated by racism since the issue is so difficult to address. In Wilson's case it could be that the previous administration did so much to disrespect the office of the President that this is just collateral damage.

As for the tea baggers and protesters holding witch doctor signs, pulling their kids out of school, questioning Obama's citizenship, warning us about socialism, communism, fascism, Hitler and Marx all at once, it'd be easier to process and more comforting to know that those sentiments were in fact racially motivated.

As it stands right now it just seems like they're a bunch of whack jobs making stuff up and repeating what they're told by other whack jobs who hate the fact that their side lost an election and that's more concerning than, "I just hate [black people]".

Read more. Write more at www.shitheadery.com

"Tea Party" Leader Melts Down On CNN: Obama Is An "Indonesian Muslim Turned Welfare Thug" (VIDEO)

2009-09-15T09:02:49Z

"Tea Party" leader Mark Williams appeared on a CNN panel on "Anderson Cooper 360" last night and promptly set to work discrediting himself and his movement. Williams denounced those carrying blatantly racist signs against President Obama during the tea parties as "no more part of the mainstream of America than the hippies who wear nipple clips and feather boas in San Francisco streets during so-called peace demonstrations."

Cooper had done his homework, however, and caught Williams blatantly misrepresenting himself: "What you're saying makes sense to me here when I'm hearing what you say but then I read on your blog, you say, you call the President an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief."

Williams shrugs and responds, "Yeah, that's the way he's behaving." An incredulous Cooper asks Williams if he really believes Obama is an Indonesian Muslim and a welfare thug. The tea party leader digs the hole a little deeper: "He's certainly acting like it. Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude."

WATCH: (H/t Jon)

Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.

Michael Russnow: My GE Dishwasher Tragedy, Manufacturer Parts, Car Repairs and Doctor Visits: Let's Be Mad as Hell and Not Take it Anymore!

2009-08-23T03:54:52Z

I had some experiences recently I thought I'd share that may have happened to you. Experiences that cost time and money and seem designed to screw us, while perpetuating a steady flow of income for other parties. In the first case, before you remind me, I will readily admit I caused the problem. My objection is with the available solution that now confronts me.

I bought a General Electric portable dishwasher a number of years ago. It has worked fine, and I have no complaint with its operation. The problem is its design. In order to connect it to my sink, I have to fasten a unicouple -- a device that delivers water to and from the dishwasher -- to the faucet and over time it has become worn, making it a bit more difficult to disengage. After the last usage when I tried to take it off, the entire faucet adapter (which connects it with the faucet) came along with it. Try as I might to detach the unicouple, I couldn't get it to budge. I finally tapped it against the sink and, in the process, the unicouple broke.

Okay, it was my fault. However, instead of being able to replace a cheap plastic part that might have set me back a few bucks, I am stymied by the fact that the unicouple, designed by mega-corp GE, is attached to two hoses that extend well inside the machine.

Now it's a humongous job. The part alone costs over a hundred dollars, not to mention a repairman who would charge anywhere from $75-$100 an hour. A new machine costs about $450, so it'd be dumb to pay so much just to get my dishwasher repaired. However, the simple question is why wasn't the machine designed so that the unicouple might click in and out of the hoses or attach with common screws, enabling a simple and inexpensive replacement instead of combining all elements of the operation into one device? Not to mention the fact that the hoses go all the way inside the machine, requiring me to open the dishwasher up and figure out how to disconnect and reassemble the part.

It's absurd that a simple appendage made of cheap plastic and thus easily breakable under many circumstances cannot be replaced without undergoing the options I've described. And yet without the unicouple, the machine, even with its primary operating functions working perfectly, is now kaput!

And consumer headaches don't stop there. Have you looked under your car hood lately? In order to repair something otherwise very cheap, a mechanic often has to disassemble many of the parts to get to where your $5.95 hose or fuse might be. The other day a dashboard light came on in my Toyota Corolla -- one I'd never seen. I looked in my manual and discovered it was the "Check Engine Light." I went to my local PepBoys, and they said the "Check Engine Light could be a myriad of causes and they'd have to hook my car to an analysis machine, costing $90, which was in addition to any work they might have to do. Fortunately, I'd secured a coupon from their website for, among other things, checking the engine light. They happily agreed to do so and later informed me it was smog device related, referring me to a Toyota dealer.

As I was headed for an important appointment, I got their assurance that my engine was not in jeopardy and the car wouldn't break down. However, out of curiosity I called the Toyota dealership and gave them the engine analysis code number PO 404, and was told the repair could cost over $400.

I consulted the Internet about this PO 404 code -- thank God for Internet "Ask" sites -- and was advised the light might simply be due to a loose gas cap (which I tightened) or possibly some water in the gas. Such circumstances might correct themselves after a few days of driving. Sure enough in a couple of days the engine light went off.

But why is this "Check Engine Light" such a catchall of scary possibilities? There are separate light indicators for oil and battery and overheating problems. Since newer cars have computer systems, couldn't they have a number system that would identify the problem, e.g. a "32" appears on the dash, and your manual lists the problem or at least localizes the area of the dilemma?

Manufacturing CEOs do very little to reduce the need for maintenance work and perhaps there should be legislative enforcement requiring them to do so. We have laws about emission controls and gas mileage. Why not for manufacturing devices mandating modular parts that are easier to get to and for systems that would more easily identify the problem and not subject us to "analysis" costs?

And while I'm at it, there should be a recoupment procedure available when doctors make us wait an unreasonable amount of time. It's quite common to be made to wait more than an hour -- sometimes two and three -- and when you complain to the receptionist you are treated in a "how dare you" manner, as if it's unconscionable to gripe about a doctor. Not to mention the fact that many people are intimidated from doing so, perhaps after years of being told that that profession was the gold standard when nailing a husband.

A friend of mine, who has severe glaucoma, waited two and a half hours, having already inquired about the tardiness of the doctor after the first hour. Only after almost three hours of waiting was she told there were emergencies that had come through the door. My question, of course, is why weren't the waiting patients notified so that they could determine whether they wanted to reschedule? Indeed, my friend decided not to wait further and she told me the receptionist looked at her like she was crazy for not hanging out longer.

Why can't we bill a doctor for our time when we are kept waiting -- let's say -- more than half an hour? What's our time worth? After all, they have the cheek to bill us if we cancel our appointment within a short time frame or don't show up at all.

It's time to rise up and not take crap, like Peter Finch's character Howard Beale advised us in Paddy Chayefsky's classic film Network. Isn't it time for Anderson Cooper to do a Keeping Them Honest report on CNN? How about 60 Minutes on CBS, Dateline on NBC or 20/20 on ABC? Maybe Oprah could do a show.

Meanwhile, as I live alone and mostly cook for myself when I'm home, I'll just deal with washing my dishes the old fashioned way. As I said at the outset, this particular problem was my own fault. Pity the solution isn't less costly and complicated.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com

Huff TV: Roy Sekoff on AC360: On Health Care, The White House Has been Consistent Only In Its Inconsistency (VIDEO)

2009-08-19T00:00:40Z

HuffPost Editor Roy Sekoff appeared on AC360 tonight to discuss the latest developments in the health care fight, including reports that the White House might be ready to abandon negotiating with Republicans and push through a health care reform bill with only Democratic support. "It's actually very good news," Sekoff told Anderson Cooper, "because the only thing that they've been consistent with is their inconsistency."

Sekoff continued, "There is no real reform without the public option... This could be a losing issue in 2010 if they let it get whittled down to the point where it's reform in name only... And then the Republicans will turn around and use it as a cudgel in 2010 and 2012 and say 'See, government can't do anything right.'"

Gray Pride: Who Wears Gray Hair Best? (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-08-17T15:25:58Z

Hollywood tends not to embrace most signs of aging, but these celebs are wearing their gray with pride. Who is pulling off the salt-and-pepper look and who's not graying so gracefully?

PHOTOS:

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Michael Russnow: Citigroup Proposed Reverse Stock Split: Didn't They Learn Any Lessons from AIG?

2009-08-08T17:37:57Z

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my dismay concerning the proposed reverse stock split of AIG to a ratio of twenty to one. What was on the table was a drastic diminishing of stockholder shares to one twentieth of what they owned in order to prop up the price of the stock by a multiple of twenty.

What happened, as I predicted, was a run to sell the stock. Almost instantly the price, which had briefly been augmented twentyfold to $23 from $1.16, fell to $18 and within a week was down to around $9. I was lambasted by some "in the know" who said that the stock was trading too high even in the mid-one dollar range and would have fallen eventually to a berth more suitable to its actual worth.

But it all seemed a bit coincidental and many pundits on CNBC and in the Wall Street Journal echoed the point I was making that short sellers came on board and drove the stock way, way down to a level that at the old reverse stock split rate would have been 45 cents. Would such a dive happened naturally, without news of something disastrous happening in the company? I think not.

And interestingly, AIG's second quarter results have lately been quite good and have contributed to a drastic rise in AIG's price, closing at $27 on Friday -- which translates to about $1.35 under the old system. Their new management team, led by retired Metropolitan Life chief Bob Benmosche, on top of better business decisions made in recent months, makes the future look quite a bit brighter. Would that those of us who once had twenty times more stock might have slowly moved upward at greater multiples of advancement.

Now, Citigroup has sent stockholders a proxy that, among other things, proposes a reverse stock split in seven possible different ratios: 1:2, 1:5, 1:10, 1:15, 1:20, 1:25 and 1:30 to be later determined by the Board of Directors. The difference between the AIG decision and this one is that Citigroup is telling us that it might or might not do the deed and is merely asking for our consent.

It specifically indicates the downside to such a split and "assures" us that the Board of Directors will take into account the market at the time, while cajoling us to vote for this catch-all reverse split possibility because it will somehow increase the attractiveness of the stock, in particular to institutional investors who don't like to buy stock priced at a low rate.

The problem is that Citigroup has recently been doing fine and, after stumbling a bit in the last couple of weeks, has regained its footing and, after closing Friday at $3.85, looks well on its way to getting above the five dollar base required for institutional investing. Not to mention the initial horror story of AIG in the recent background. Does anyone think that the minute Citigroup does a reverse split that there isn't going to be a pounding down of the stock? Not to mention financial reports on CNN's Anderson Cooper, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC and tweets on Twitter expressing the almost universal consideration that it is a faux move designed to trick everyone into thinking the stock is more viable. A naked attempt that will be joked about over morning coffee and Facebook accounts in the vein of "Who are they kidding? They're clearly in trouble" sort of thing.

While it's encouraging that the financial experts have told us that the reverse stock split is on the Citigroup backburner, such a vote request at this time doesn't inspire confidence and is totally unnecessary. For God's sake, let the company continue to mend and slowly work its way back to financial health without methods that are historically unhelpful to the stock value and ultimately to the shareholders who bought the stock in good faith.

If you have not done so, I would urge Citigroup shareholders to read the proxy statement carefully and vote the reverse stock split down.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com