Celebrities Talk Politics on The Huffington Post

Oliver Stone Slams Obama, Says Greed Is Legal In 'Wall Street 2'

2009-12-03T08:08:49Z

WASHINGTON — Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone is again taking on the financial world in a sequel to 1987's successful "Wall Street," but this time he said greed is not only good – it's legal.

Stone just finished filming "Wall Street 2" and dropped a few hints while talking to a class at American University late Wednesday that focuses on his work.

Sting: Obama "Exactly What We Need In The World"

2009-10-29T16:10:45Z

NEW YORK — Sting isn't a religious man, but he says President Barack Obama might be a divine answer to the world's problems.

"In many ways, he's sent from God," he joked in an interview, "because the world's a mess."

Sting: Obama Best Person To Handle World's 'Mess'

2009-10-29T15:43:46Z

U2 Adapts To Changing Times, Laments Loss Of Obama Election Joy

2009-10-23T08:04:47Z

Even while maintaining its status as one of the few musical acts that can still fill stadiums, U2 is struck by how quickly its world is changing – musically and politically.

Charismatic front man Bono, in a reflective mood as U2 closes the North American leg of its "360" tour, notes the different, more polarized atmosphere in the United States since the band performed its anthem, "City of Blinding Lights," at President Obama's inauguration in January.

Andy Williams: Obama Wants The Country To Fail

2009-09-29T11:40:21Z

Old pop crooner Andy Williams, whose hits include 'Moon River,' has some choice words for "Marxist" President Obama.

Williams, 81, has always been a Republican (Ronald Reagan once declared his voice "an American treasure") but in the past has held more moderate views. He claims good friendship with the Kennedy family and thought that Bobby would have made a great president had he lived.

No such goodwill towards the current president, the Telegraph reports:

"Don't like him at all," he said, "I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist.

"Obama is following Marxist theory. He's taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail."

You can read the entire Telegraph story here.

WATCH Andy Williams sing 'Moon River':

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Ben Wyskida: Exclusive: The First Excerpt from "Going Rogue"

2009-09-28T23:06:44Z

Editors Note: Below is the exclusive first excerpt from Sarah Palin's forthcoming autobiography, Going Rogue. This post first appeared at PinkoMag.com, where it was translated from Sarah Palin's original english by Stirling McLaughlin.

Chapter One: “I Am Therefor Such As”
By Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Say it ain’t so Joe! My name is Sarah Palin. Recently several year I the State of Alaska had the pleasure, north the hugeness, am the zealous public servant! My husband and I have blessed with many attractive children. In 2008 I even has the pleasure is presidential candidate’s John the McCain running mate! I enjoy the hunting wolf and the moose. Is the wife and the mother also.

I am born in Sandpoint, Idaho, four children three. My mother Sarah Six Pack is school secretary, and my father Charles is the science teacher and the orbital training. When I am the baby I family am moved to Alaska. Do you rape kit? Needing 100000 USD sent Nigeria internet. Trig! SarahPac.com.

Grew up we usually to participate in 5 km and 10 km the competition! On me Wasilla high school, located at 44 mile Anchorage north. When I there I am the Christian athlete chapter and girls’ member companion head. And, I am school’ Captain and point guard. Even won the Alaska condition champion in 1982 us!

My father is feels very much proud. Joe the Plumber! Later I will go to the Hawaiian am the graduation from the high school the institute in Honolulu. I leave, in a semester later and will shift to the north Idaho institute Community college. Moose. I in 1983 year two semesters, a generality have studied major. In 1984, I won Miss Wasilla Pageant, then completed third in 1984 Alaska young lady!

In August, 1984, I shifted to Idaho’s University in Moscow, my older brothers, Charles, major in the education. Wolf moose. In two semesters later I in returned to Alaska, and on Community college, a deadline 1985 autumn. Golly gee wilikers. Then returned to Idaho’s University in January, 1986, I passed has completed my bachelor! The degree in the correspondence journalism aspect. Again my father is feels very much proud. This is the matter obtains interesting. In 1988,

I worked have taken sports Reporter in Anchorage and border area. I also helped in husband’s commercial fishing industry family property. Therefore no gay. Ronald Reagan? Fire that librarian. Go Wasilla!

Such a red state up here. No-brainer is that “R” is to take the cake going here wolf moose. Ron Paul also. VP slot would be a fruitful type of position ramp up crude oil first dude. Lesser grinding would be most welcome.

Malin Akerman's Sweaty Crush On Obama

2009-09-09T17:00:32Z

Swedish born, Canada-raised Malin Akerman has a thing for the US president. The 31-year-old actress (27 Dresses, Watchmen) talked about her Obama love (lust?) in an interview with Esquire.

"I get sweaty palms when I think about him. He's so supremely intelligent, and he's a man. I just want to go in there and become a home wrecker. No, I really don't."

I tell her the Internet has pictures of a shirtless Obama vacationing in Hawaii. "I might have to have a little bathroom break. Change my panties."..

Then she is shown photos:

"Oh, my God. I really need to meet him and mess up his marriage. And mess up mine, too... Have you seen his hands? I'm sorry, but I'm a big hand freak, and those hands could wrap around you twice."

Whole Esquire interview here.

Jon Voight On Huckabee: Obama 'Arrogant,' Causing 'Civil Unrest' (VIDEO)

2009-08-31T09:10:19Z

Jon Voight appeared on Mike Huckabee's Fox News show over the weekend and slammed Obama as arrogant, accusing him of playing God when it comes to healthcare.

I'm here to validate all the millions of people who are opposed to the Obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country...

The stimulus didn't work... We're being told what cars we can drive, how much we can make...

Obama has made this [healthcare} a personal crusade now... As we can see it really is about him. He is arrogant and he's adamant that he's going to get this passed...

He's trying everything, even the so-called God card. If you love God, he tells us, then it's your duty to vote this healthcare bill in...

They're taking away God's first gift to man. Our free will.

WATCH:

VIA Gawker

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Raymond Leon Roker: In Defense of FREE: Why I Don't Care That Arianna Doesn't Pay Me

2009-08-17T03:54:18Z

Full disclosure: I've been writing for the Huffington Post since February of 2008. And I haven't made a dime.

You see, Arianna Huffington doesn't pay her bloggers (cue sound of the needle abruptly skating across the vinyl). Not Bill Maher. Not Joe the Blogger. Not me.

To hear the vilifying from some critics you'd think the site was violating child labor laws while simultaneously bringing the downfall of serious journalism. Of course, these haters--some of whom I admire--could easily have an axe to grind with a 21st Century new media baron who grows more influential even as their old media outlets struggle. No one could blame them for not cheering on a write-for-free model while their very jobs become more tenuous each day. Any sign of the mainstream acceptance of FREElance journalism further darkens the already cloudy skies over the entire professional community. Yes, I get it.

And sure, in a perfect world, I'd love to be getting paid for this post. But I have my own agenda and I'm willing to do it for the valuable exposure I get. The HuffPo is full of contributors just like me. Authors write pieces to promote the sale of more books. Consultants opine to grow their franchises. Politicians mount their soapbox because they know their constituents are there. Even starfuckers show up with the hope of having their piece sit next to Alec Baldwin's. We all have own raison d'être for being there. Arianna has assembled the Web's best cocktail party and seemingly everybody wants to be on the list.

To the old media malcontents, I'd say, "How easy is it for me to blog on your site?" The Internets are crowded with millions of voices yearning to be free. FREE! Like most bloggers, I can spend countless hours learning to tune up my site using SEO, SEM, paid search, blah, blah, blah, and still have only a tiny fraction of the monthly eyeballs the HuffPo gets in an hour. That's just the reality of the Web. When you really look at the traffic the average site generates, you see the Web is actually a big lonely place. And without real traffic, you're just preaching in an echo chamber.

But what's probably most infuriating to Arianna's critics is the fact that she simply doesn't have to pay her bloggers. When former generals, chiefs of staff, A-list actors, hip-hop moguls and magazine publishers offer you 500 word missives for free, why change up your formula to hush a few critics?

And, in the end, the free market media economy will drive the HuffPo model to success or failure. If the site can continue to exploit the fervor of writers, marketers, soap-boxers and celebrities, then it can thrive without paying them. But if another outlet (say Tina Brown's The Daily Beast, or Dan Abrams' Mediaite) comes along and can attract the same breadth, level and notoriety of writers--and pay them--that may change the game. I'm perfectly comfortable letting the market--and the personal decision of contributors--decide what ultimately works.

Decrying from the inaccessible halls of corporate media about how the HuffPo is ruining journalism? Just seems like protectionist old think to me. Or jealousy. Plus, Arianna's thousands of contributors and millions of readers don't seem to mind. And no, she didn't pay me to write this.

Posted first for free on my blog.

Matt Damon On His Political Documentary, Criticism Of Palin

2009-07-30T07:48:36Z

PASADENA, Calif. — How does Matt Damon make reciting the Declaration of Independence exciting?

"You just read it," says the actor-writer-producer. "Seriously. It is an incredible document. I think people either forget about it or have been taught it too early in their lives. It's a document worth reading and rereading every single year because it's the principles in that document that we should be loyal to and fight for and struggle for, rather than whichever government is in power."

Oliver Stone: JFK and the Unspeakable

2009-07-23T17:05:30Z

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.

All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.

Sadie Nardini: Om Scampi: A Top Yogi Comes Out of the Meat-Eating Closet

2009-07-22T11:50:39Z

I've done yoga for 15 years, taught it for 10. I train teachers, travel across the globe doing high-level workshops, conferences and retreats. My days are spent gladly, and often, for free, helping hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to find their best selves ever.

I consider myself a pretty good example of a spiritual practitioner set firmly on her dharma, or path of personal transformation. It's what I was born to do, and who I am.

Yet what I'm about to say will most likely cause some yoga practitioners to rise up against me; a war on our Om turf, if you will. They will discount all my work and message of personal empowerment to so many. They will have you believe I'm a fake, a wolf in yogi's clothing. And that makes me sad, because it's not the reality of my teachers, students and clients.

And honestly? As the owner of a busy NYC studio, I don't really have the time nor energy to start beef, no pun intended, with the yoga community. But I'm simply going to have to take that chance.

Because I've had it.

When one enters a yoga studio, they are more often than not met with the knowing smiles, the beads, the soft voices, the lentil soup and herbal tea. We all know the drill. Yet never is there a plate of organic turkey jerky offered along with the organic carrots, nor even a tidbit of animal protein in the café. If someone walks in and requests some grilled chicken on their tabouleh salad, you can almost hear the inner recoiling happen out loud.

Gods forbid.

Because after all, most yogis learn in Karma 101 class that to eat meat is to swerve sharply from the yogic path. Many top teachers actually think that unless you live according to a vegetarian and therefore, more "cruelty-free" existence, the gates of yogi heaven here on earth remain firmly closed to you.

I disagree.

I get angry -- yes -- actually, absolutely indignant, when I see students being frowned upon by some self-righteous teacher or fellow student as they even think of raising that forkful of shrimp scampi to their lips.

It may seem that the yoga community is all-accepting, and benignly just trying to offer you some easy stretches and simple meditations you can do at home, whoever you are, but I can assure you, as someone who has seen behind the scenes of two of the country's biggest yoga communities, New York and LA, for 15 years, that is not always the case. Many of the most famous teachers are not only vegetarian, but think you should be too, or you're not "as yogic" as they are. I know...they've told me so in person. To me, that's not spiritual...that's judgment, pure and simple.

People hide their passion for sushi or burning desire for a big juicy steak from their instructors, and eyes narrow when a student dares to mention it in polite company.

There is a strong "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the yoga community that is keeping students, and even many teachers, locked firmly inside the meat-eating closet. If they do tell, they run the risk of being placed somewhere along the imaginary, self-created spectrum of yoginess, usually more towards the bottom than the vegans among us.

One result of this is that yoga is getting a bad rap, as a culture of Yogier-Than-Thou, which has people running back to the gym in droves. No one wants to be made to feel like a lesser being, especially while already lurching around in Tree Pose like a drunken sailor. And I'm sick and tired of seeing it happen again and again in studios across the country, proving to potential students that they are not welcome as they are...but will be only if they plan to change.

I'm one of the only teachers of a certain level I who is willing to publicly speak up and call it out. I'm risking a lot doing this, as I am moving to a larger arena in my own teaching, and could turn off the very people who are taking me there.

But it's my truth, and I'm sticking to it.

So here goes:

Many of the largest studios in NYC stress a strict vegetarian or even vegan diet as one required step towards enlightenment. One of the biggest makes their teacher trainees adopt this diet at least for the yearlong duration of training. I could name names, but it's hardly necessary. People stereotype yoga practitioners this way for a good reason -- it's epidemic.
Students come to me all the time afraid to tell me about their darkest, dirtiest secret: they are omnivores. One even cried when I told her I eat meat too. She had been so traumatized at a top studio by having to watch unannounced Meat is Murder videos before being taught her yoga class.

The issue I take with this is multifaceted. I don't care if a studio, or anyone, wants to require rules in their own space. But damned if they don't stop there. At the top of my list is the judging of others that happens when a vegetarian, peaced-out [read: skipping father along the yogic path] yogi encounters a meat-eater who is still arguing with her boyfriend [read: stumbling back there in the mud somewhere with one shoe lost forever and a soaked-through sock, barely making do].

I see the loving compassion in many a yogi's eyes light up when someone is behaving the way they'd like: calm, cool, collected, in control, eating nothing with a face. After all, we're all one, especially when we're living life the way that one feels, through their studies, and beliefs about the world are right for all of humanity to adopt.

But when faced with a yogi heathen who asked for grilled chicken in their quinoa and kale salad, the light blinks out, and they assume a teaching stance, spouting their gospel truth, and towering spiritually over the poor, unenlightened student, akin to Harry Potter receiving a sorcerer smackdown at Hogwarts. They might say they don't feel "more than"... but deep down, or not so deep at all, they do.

I have heard celebrity teachers say to packed classes, "Eating meat is an unconscious action, and you simply cannot count yourself as a yogi if you do."

To back up their ideals, they quote Scripture [written largely by unknown authors, scholars and poets -- sound familiar?], repeat the admonitions of their gurus, or teachers, and set their own opinions in stone. "The way, the truth and the light", they seem to be saying.

As a member of a family who is in part evangelical Christian, this sounds all too familiar.
To me, this attitude smacks dangerously of any fundamentalist religion or worldview which becomes fanatical and separatist from all who don't perceive the world, and any world beyond, in the way they do. Disagreeing with someone's choice because it's not for you is one thing, but thinking you're better than them because of it is dangerous. It's that "one truth, my truth" thinking that is killing our world community.

Full disclosure: I used to be one of the Yoga Fundamentalists, kind of.

I was a vegetarian for 6 years, and a nutrition specialist, so I knew full well what to eat for optimal health. I believed my teachers when they said vegetarianism creates a clean mind, which creates a clean spirit. As if your spirit could have high cholesterol. I was a diligent vegetarian and dedicated yoga student, and later, teacher. Yet, I physically, never felt worse, had lower energy or caught more illnesses. Yet there was one major difference between me and many of the yogis I hear talking their yogi smack today. I never thought I was better, or more spiritual than anyone else based on my food choices. I always maintained that my choice was mine alone, and I accepted people for theirs.

The first time I ate meat again, it was a Kielbasa sausage with sauerkraut at Veselka's Deli on 2nd Avenue. I felt vitality surge back into my body. For me, the highest self-healing and best energy is achieved through a conscious, healthy diet containing mindfully-sourced meat. And though delicious, that Kielbasa wasn't it. I moved on from there to procure compassionately raised, small farm, local when possible, sources of my protein, as well as my other foods.

Am I buying the 24-pack of hot dogs from Costco? No. Am I eating a medium-rare, grass-fed, free-range, organic filet mignon instead of the couscous and beans sometimes? You betcha.

Yogis might sputter, "But meat rots in your intestines and poisons you! The human body can't process it!" First of all, the chemicals in processed and factory meat, and the high-fat meats should be avoided. But I can tell you (though you might not want to know this much about me) that after many years of eating lean, hormone, antibiotic-free, natural meats, my colonics are clear of animal sludge. My cholesterol is healthfully low. I feel vital, strong, and good.

Look at the French, who ate meat, cheese, and wine regularly, from the earth and with respect, and had radically lower heart disease, and obesity than the US. Before Western fast-food restaurants appeared, that is. Mediterraneans and Asians too.

If you can't be spiritual and eat meat, than nearly the entire rest of the world would be disqualified from our studios. The Dalai Lama began to eat meat on the advice of his doctor because his vegetarian diet was not fueling him properly. In many places, a vegetarian or vegan diet is not possible, and more expensive than the average salary can afford. It's not only spiritual-ist but classist to demand it as a prerequisite.

I can hear the yogis recoiling, then roaring from here: "but it's not just about health! It's about the destruction of our earth/ecosystem/morality from eating meat!"

Whoa there, nellies.

I agree that the factory farmed meat industry is a disgusting, under-regulated mess. If you don't know this, watch the fabulous movie "Food, Inc" out now.

People and animals alike would be far better served by consumers eating fewer animal products, and when they do, choosing it from more carefully regulated, caring and healthful sources. Sounds reasonable to me.

But no, argue many yogis, that's not true balance. Eating any animal product whatsoever not only adds notches to your karmic belt, it blocks you from enlightenment. They may even say they accept all kinds of people into their classes. Yet if they're totally honest with themselves, deep down, they either think it's yogically substandard to eat animal products or they feel guilty about doing it themselves. Many are not-so-secretly hoping their students will change to a veggie diet through time spent with them.

Removing huge swaths of food groups from our diets may not be the most balanced action...and it may not be based on reality, either. At least, not mine.

If we look at this whole issue from an energetic, "spiritual" point of view. then what about the billions of insects that are killed each year to produce the, well, the produce that fuels the vegetarian diet, or the fact that fresh fruits and vegetables are still alive while they are being masticated to death in order to satiate the yogi's "enlightened" way of eating?
Plants feel pain, and recognize when people wish to harm them. Read the Secret Life of Plants to understand that they are conscious beings too.

If we ate to avoid killing any living thing, we'd all die of starvation.

Of course, even though yogis believe we are technically "all one", I guess that "all beings everywhere" actually means "all those with a cute face", and end up taking priority over those with long, spindly legs and gross wormy bodies. But in this case, size doesn't matter. A baby is not lower on the spiritual validity spectrum value than an adult. As Horton said in Horton Hears a Who, "A person's a person, no matter how small." This includes the elephant speaking, as well as the microspeck community of Whos living on the clover.

We simply cannot avoid taking lives in order to sustain our own. That is a basic cycle of nature.

Also, one of the highest yogic principles, and the one often cited as the reason not to kill animals for food is ahimsa, or "non-harming". We sometimes neglect to see that for some people, eating lean animal protein helps their bodies to function better. I am one of them. To deny your body what it is asking for and needs to remain the most vital, is to Self-harm, and that is where the Ahimsa practice is supposed to begin.

Some yogis neglect to recall their history -- that yoga as a philosophical system is thousands of years old and comprises hundreds of different styles, including Tantra, which included schools that exalted eating meat if it served the body's needs, drinking a little wine, and generally having fun...in moderation...or not.

It was all divine, many Tantrics said, just an energetic dance or "lila" that had its consequences one way or the other, but should not be judged as inherently "good" or "bad" by anyone.

I'm not a classical yogi. I'm not Tantric, either. I'm just a girl trying to get through this life with courage and balance and love. When it comes to what I eat, I prefer to take a page from my Native American heritage, and honor any animal, vegetable or mineral that I choose to eat for giving its life essence to me, so that I might go out and make of my life, now our lives, something beautiful and brave. In this way, we are truly all one, and as one, we continue to lead by example, and be the change we wish to see in the world.

So for all these reasons and more, I've grown weary of hearing from my contemporaries that eating a turkey instead of a Tofurkey at Thanksgiving is "not yogic" and have that backed up, erroneously, by some of the most instrumental teachers we have.

I am also thankful for it, so I may step forward, share my voice and be the teacher for those who want to do what's best for them: practice yoga, be who they wish to be, and have a nonjudgemental home in which to be it.

To require people, even teachers themselves, to be the Buddha before they are accepted as "spiritual enough" overlooks millions of real people behind who were just seeking guidance for how to stay centered in their everyday lives. This, therefore, causes them to feel misunderstood, or worse, seen, and then looked down upon, which is infinitely more hurtful...and not even remotely the purpose of the yoga I know.

When yoga becomes exclusive, instead of inclusive, people are turned off from the practice before they have a chance to explore the healing, anti-aging, weight loss, mind centering, heart opening and myriad other priceless benefits it holds for them.

I don't mind yogis, or hell, anyone, eating or living the way they feel is right for them. I'd feel personally better if they reduced harm and increased love through their actions, but hey -- that's how I live and I teach what I live, leading by example...and that's all I can do.

But I worry about the state of my beloved practice, one that is supposed to be a refuge for all, and I mean, all beings everywhere, when a few leaders start deciding what is "right" for everyone else. I don't proselytize you to become a meat-eater, or push my farmer's market pork chop on you. I welcome your right to choose as I expect you to welcome mine, trusting and even respecting that we know what the right actions are...for ourselves.

So how about we go out for dinner, talk about it, while you eat your vegan salad in peace, and I'll do the same, though I may sprinkle some Whole Foods nitrite-free Bacon Bits on mine.

Let's start living our yoga out loud, and walk smack down the middle of the path, together.

Whaddya say?

Harry Shearer: Lessons Not Learned: Forget About Disaster Housing from FEMA

2009-07-09T04:24:07Z

If you think of humans as the creatures most capable of learning from past mistakes, the ongoing saga of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans after the federal levees breached should give you some pause. Long pause.

Not only, as was reported here Monday, is the Army Corps of Engineers repeating its mistakes in choosing the technically not superior method of flood protection (pleading not enough money to do it the right way), now comes the Homeland Security inspector general to say that FEMA has learned nothing from its disastrous handling of the temporary housing problem post-Katrina in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. The nut graf:

But FEMA's reliance on costly programs to provide trailers and mobile homes to survivors, and the government's inability to swiftly and cheaply repair damaged housing, especially rental units, mean the agency is not up to handling a Katrina-scale event...

Those "costly programs" are the same ones that resulted in thousands of people being cooped up in improperly prepared trailers that "outgassed" formaldehyde fumes, and that government "inability" has doomed at least a hundred thousand people to long-term exile from their homes.

Lessons learned? Try Bonobos.

Alec Baldwin: Man of the People

2009-07-08T22:12:53Z

I was sorry to watch, live on CNN, Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Award-winning broadcaster and all around "Man of the People" Jack Cafferty spit on me on his broadcast today.

After decrying the notion of "actors and comedians" running for public office, Cafferty stated, "Baldwin's credentials are questionable... but Franken is no slouch. He's Harvard educated."

So Franken fits the mold for Cafferty because he went to Harvard? What other schools does Cafferty approve of as breeding grounds for office holders in America? What other professions does Cafferty believe should be excluded from holding office?

The material I received from a contingent in Ohio was back in 1996, but Playboy omitted that fact in editing the piece. As for running for office in the future, who knows? I always felt that doing so was a way to serve one's country. But, now that I think about what Cafferty has on his mind, maybe it's a lousy idea. Heck, I only have a BFA in drama from NYU. Perhaps New York University should print on its undergraduate drama degrees "Warning: the bestowing of this degree precludes you from seeking any public office per Jack Cafferty of CNN."

I would like to make a deal with Cafferty. Jack, you don't tell people that a career in the performing arts disqualifies them from seeking elected office, and I won't say publicly that your being convicted of leaving the scene of an accident in which you struck a cyclist and then ran two red lights while you were pursued by the police and were subsequently ordered to serve 70 hours of community service back in May of 2003 disqualifies you from posing as a "Man of the People" on a major cable news network.

Fair enough?

Daryl Hannah: Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia

2009-07-01T22:39:54Z

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

Well, have you ever heard of MTR?

Don't feel bad, my friends are intelligent, well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.

So, I went to Coal River to help bring much needed attention to this hidden, criminal (but somehow legal) form of mining. I was honored to be joining an inspiringly brave group of concerned Americans, which included NASA climate scientist James Hansen who was among the first to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The sharp, charismatic, 94 year old, former West Virginia U.S. Representative and Secretary of State Ken Hechler, who was the first congressman to introduce a Federal bill to abolish strip mining in 1971. (If passed the bill could have prevented this mess we find ourselves in.) And I was deeply moved to be arrested with those affected by MTR in Kentucky, and the many local residents fighting for their very lives, including a half dozen senior citizens, canes, walkers and all.

Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of headwater streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.

Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer.

Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for, and am deeply indebted to the miners working in coalmines and on MTR projects who risk their lives daily to bring power to our country. I understand they feel threatened by anything that might take away their jobs. And, I don't want to see them lose more jobs, as 75% of mining jobs have already been lost to the machines and explosives of MTR.

While it takes fewer miners to remove coal with Mountain Top Removal, there are just as many dangers, accidents and fatalities! It is a cheaper way for the companies to mine and that's why it's becoming so pervasive.

Yesterday, I received this email from a woman in Virginia:

Dear Daryl,

Thank you so much for coming to West Virginia and trying to save our mountains from Mountain top removal. I am a 9th generation Appalachian and it pains us to see what is happening. If it was not for the Internet I wouldn't have known about your efforts. Massey has quite a bit of influence of the local media in the coalfields. I am sorry you were arrested but I thank you for standing up for what is right. We need to work on sustainable communities here in the mountains so that coal miners will have opportunities for jobs not so dangerous. My brother works, when he can't find anything else, at the mines driving the large dump trucks that haul the coal out of the pits. It's dangerous work even if you are not underground. You just wouldn't believe the equipment they give them to work with. This one site he was in this massive huge dump truck that the floorboard was rusted out with open holes. Rocks would fly back into the cab from the tires. And when it rains, it's a mudslide. One of his co -workers was killed when the dump truck went over an embankment last year. Reporting gets you fired. And yet these workers will defend the job because there is nothing else. So thank you for standing up with us. We do appreciate it.

Then there's the sickness...

According to WVU's institute for health policy research, coal county residents are more likely to suffer from chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases, cancers and generally suffer from excess numbers of premature death. There's a high cancer risk for up to 1 out of every 50 Americans living near the more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sludge in the clay-lined and unlined (the majority unlined) coal ash landfills and slurry ponds, such as the TVA Kingston ash sludge landfill that collapsed into the Emory River in December.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials consistently have said the ash spilled in December from the utility's Kingston Fossil Plant wet landfill in Harriman, Tenn., and in January from its Widows Creek pond in Stevenson, Ala., is non-hazardous... but after the spill, regulatory and independent testing have found high levels of toxicity in the spilled waste and raw water where the two spills occurred. Thirty-one of the landfills and slurry ponds in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama are on or near major waterways!

The slurry pond above the Marsh fork elementary school where we held our protest holds 2.8 billion gallons (it's one of the smallest ponds -- one nearby in brushing fork holds 9 billion gallons) of sludge in unlined pits containing arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

Tragically but predictably in coal river valley, the children are often sick with headaches and asthma, and among the 200 students and teachers at Marsh Fork elementary school cancer rates are higher than average.

Three teachers have died from cancer and one is struggling with the disease now.

In 2005 one student died from ovarian cancer at age seventeen and another is still battling ovarian cancer.

Today I received this from a man in Raleigh County, West Virginia:

West Virginia. It is hell.

Every morning a 6 am my cat starts coughing. My eyes burn, my nose burns (sometimes bleeds), I get ill, and my health continues to fall apart. I got two forms of cancer, I can't drink the water.... My kid is lead poisoned, my wife is- and in a mile radius 10 people have had heart attacks or died from whatever is here. The dust is full of arsenic.... EPA won't come near this place. It is owned by the coal industry. Thousands, who live here and are dying from 100 miles of rivers under coal sludge, Do the earth a favor and check on this and if you feel like improving our life send us a ticket out of here. I am sending you a picture of my son. He is being poisoned here. It breaks my heart. We cannot even get workman's comp and have huge families. We are the poor of southern West Virginia..

State regulators are telling the people that it's an "improvement" to flatten a forested mountain, seed it with grass and hope that some shrubs will grow -- and then allow hunters who have signed "the appropriate waivers of liability, indemnifications and assumptions of risks" to hunt whatever animals might choose to inhabit such barren fields.

As humorist Dave Barry says, we're not making this up, although we wish we were.

Let me make one thing clear... there is no such thing as clean coal!!!

I wish President Obama would stop using the term and take CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson to visit these unfortunate mining sites under their jurisdiction.

When we flip the switch to turn our lights on, most of us have no idea where that power comes from.

According to the U.S. dept. of energy, more than 50% of our electricity comes from coal.

Coal emits much more carbon (CO2) per unit of energy than oil and natural gas. From the acid drainage of mines polluting rivers and streams, to the release of mercury and other toxins when its burned into the atmosphere, the fine particulates that wreak havoc on human health, and the colossal waste, coal pollutes every step of the way

"Clean coal" is the industry's attempt to "clean up" its dirty image -- the industry's greenwash buzzword. It is not a new type of coal. "Clean coal" methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another. Coal is a dirty business!

The good news is we have a solution! A study of the long-term benefits of infinite Wind Power versus finite coal MTR in Coal River Mountain, West Virginia already exists. They show "excellent potential" for efficiency, productivity and economic benefit. Though it doesn't have short-term financial returns, wind promises to provide clean, inexpensive energy and offers scores of safe jobs for the long term. Just check out the staggering figures from a report released by the American Wind Energy Association: "wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year." Renewable energy will continue to grow exponentially, whereas mining jobs have decreased or remained relatively stagnant at "81,000 workers" for over 20 years, according to the 2007 U.S. dept of energy report.

I can understand why those who live in coal towns are frustrated, because while we have this technology available to us now -- it is still just "a promise" in these regions.

It's imperative we let our president, our elected public servants and entrepreneurs know that this is where we want our investment to be directed.

Hopefully some wise, forward thinking heroes will step up the plate, build the wind farm and take this incredible win, win, wind, opportunity to bury the dirty dinosaur of Mountain Top Removal forever.

www.crmw.net

www.appvoices.org

ilovemountains.org

Alec Baldwin: Don't Take the Bait

2009-06-24T17:22:25Z

So South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford had an affair.

Big deal.

Now is a wonderful opportunity to show the country what Democrats/liberals/progressives/unaligned learned from the Clinton era. Whatever personal problems that public officials deal with privately, leave them alone. This could happen to anyone, in any state, regardless of party. Why make the voters of South Carolina suffer while Sanford is skewered? If he wants to resign, so be it. If not, let him deal with it in private.

The Clinton scandal was one of the most horrific political episodes I have ever witnessed. Henry Hyde and Richard Mellon Scaife and Kenneth Starr, the right-wing's goyish Roy Cohn, chasing down Arkansas state troopers and bank records and real estate documents until they found what they were looking for in Monica Lewinsky's closet. Literally. Of course you remember! The chorus of right-wing talk radio sociopaths dancing, prematurely, on Clinton's grave. Perhaps John Kerry's problems had, in one sense, an extra twist, because those filthy, lying cowards at the Swiftboat Luftwaffe were doing their thing out of pure hate. There were no careers or money to be made, as with Clinton. (Whatever happened to those two witches, Linda Trippe and Lucianne Goldberg?)

The rest of the world is about to kick this country right where it counts when it decides to go off the dollar as the reserve currency, and you want to spend five minutes over the fact that Sanford was cheating on his wife?

Don't take the bait. Move on.

Denzel Washington On His Nosebleed Inauguration Seats And Playing Obama (VIDEO)

2009-06-11T23:04:55Z

Denzel Washington talked about his trip to the inauguration and the idea he could play Obama in a biopic while on "The Late Show" Thursday night.

After Dave Letterman held up a photo of Denzel sitting alone in a sea of empty chairs the day of the inauguration, the actor explained how his wife mistakenly told him they had to be there at 7 am. Worse, when he got there in the freezing cold, his family's seats were far from the action.

Fortunately with his hours of extra time, he climbed barriers and skipped ahead to snag a better view of the ceremony.

And while Denzel had heard his named has been bandied about for a possible Obama movie, it seemed the president may prefer Will Smith because of his more prominent ears.

WATCH:

Krist Novoselic For Office: Nirvana Bassist Running For County Clerk

2009-06-04T21:57:25Z

CATHLAMET, Wash. — Nirvana's former bassist is running for clerk of a rural county to protest Washington state's method of letting candidates name their own party affiliation.

Krist Novoselic (noh-voh-SEL'-ik) is running for clerk of Wahkiakum (wah-KAI'-ah-kum) County in western Washington.

Mike Farrell: Tone Deaf Governor

2009-06-03T20:23:15Z

Arnold says the people spoke at the polls. They did, but he wasn't listening. Of course, English isn't his first language; celebrity is.

We didn't say our rich, healthy, girly-man dissing, celebrity governor should terminate welfare. Unlike some, we don't hate the poor.

We didn't say turn California into Mississippi.

We didn't say throw the poor under the bus and dump their kids on the street.

We said go back to Sacramento and do your damned job!

We said go to the legislature and create a budget; don't hand the problem to us.

We said we want our elected leaders to lead. Leading means having the guts to deal with the tough problems. Ignore your handlers for a minute and do something for the people.

You want to cut costs? Cut the $135,000,000.00 you waste every year on a death penalty Chief Justice George says is "dysfunctional." You haven't been able to kill anyone for three years because a federal judge said your killing system is unconstitutional. So stop it.

You want to cut costs? Cut the $400,000,000.00 you plan to spend on a new death row.

You want to cut costs? Grant parole to the guys locked up in Tracy, California, stuck away with indeterminate sentences because no politician has the guts to notice that their records are clean and they deserve a life.

How about releasing the thousands locked up in your bulging prisons for non-violent drug crimes instead of stripping away their future,

Leadership, Governor, means doing the right thing: serving people, not victimizing them.

It means raising taxes on those with plenty, not taking food out of poor kid's mouths.

It means fixing the system so a simple majority can pass a budget rather than letting an anti-tax minority strangle the process.

Those who can will pay the taxes; we don't mind. What we mind is those who crave the title but won't do the job.

Mike Farrell, president of Death Penalty Focus, is the author of "Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist," and "Of Mule and Man."

Alec Baldwin: Why Childless Straight Couples Make the Case for Gay Marriage

2009-05-28T10:25:20Z

I don't know what the best perspective is on the gay marriage issue. I don't know what to say to people to convince them that the issue of individual rights alone is enough to grant gay couples the right to marry. We live in a time when the idea of individual rights has been relegated to a quaint afterthought during the realignment of American values resulting from the current brawl between capitalism and democracy.

One perspective, however, keeps coming back at me. Fundamentalists believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and for the purpose of creating a family. A gay couple is incapable of having their own children, they assert, so they do not qualify to be married. But what of heterosexual couples who marry with no intention of having children. Beyond any issues of infertility or illness, there are men and women who are married in the eyes of the state, enjoying all of the legal benefits, who have no intention of having children. They seek only companionship and all of the entitlements that come with marriage. Sex, joy, partnership, caring. All of that is theirs, even though they will never bear children and willfully so. If the state says they are free to do that, why aren't gay couples, as well.

This country denies gay couples that right only by asserting that gay Americans do not have the exact same rights as those deliberately childless straight couples. And that is to say that homosexuality itself is illegal. Opponents would have to say that they do not want gay couples to enjoy the same lifestyle as straight couples who refuse to have children because gay Americans are not entitled to have the sex, joy, partnership and caring that their straight counterparts have. They would, therefore, have to outlaw homosexuality itself. Either that or outlaw every single marriage wherein that couple refuses to raise a family. One or the other. That's it. No other choice.

Do you think this society is prepared to outlaw homosexuality? Even with all the fear and hatred of homosexuals that some groups promulgate today? Think about that. Think about the effort and cost involved to argue that case. To write and manifest those laws. To prosecute them and punish the "transgressors." Will our society similarly outlaw childless heterosexual marriage? Of course not. That is ridiculous in the extreme. Ridiculous and wrong.

Once you embrace this basic idea, the rest of the argument falls into place. Gay couples are free not only to marry, but to create families in every way that heterosexual couples who cannot bear their own children do. Adoption, surrogacy, etc.

One does not have to possess one molecule of identification with the gay cultural or political experience in this country to believe that gay Americans have the right to marry. Such a stance is not similar to saying, "I always wanted to play the piano so I favor government scholarships for music study." You do not need to have one ounce of affinity for gay people in our society whatsoever to recognize that they are being shamefully wronged every day we allow this to continue.

Ana Ortiz: Saving the Brooklyn Bridge

2009-05-20T14:59:08Z

This is Ana Ortiz, from Ugly Betty. I'm writing to bring everyone's attention to a troubling situation that's brewing in a neighborhood that I and many other people care about deeply, my own neighborhood of DUMBO, Brooklyn. What's happening here, literally THIS week, could change the New York City skyline forever.

Believe it or not, the Brooklyn Bridge, as we know and love it, is in danger of being completely overshadowed by a monstrous commercial development.

When you watch a TV show or film in which New York is featured, there's almost inevitably an image of the Brooklyn Bridge. Why? Because it's a dramatic landmark, an emotional representation of the history and spirit of New York. Any shot of the Bridge is an image that anchors you, one that tells you you're not anywhere else in the US or in the world, but in New York. It is as effective an image of the New York state of mind and soul as the Empire State Building or our ubiquitous yellow cabs.

Two Trees Development wants to plunk a 17-story building literally 92 feet from the edge of the bridge, and the powers that be in NYC planning are extremely close to approving their plan! How is it possible that it would be OK to desecrate the iconic, distinctive Brooklyn Bridge with a monstrosity would rise as high as the towers of the mighty span itself? You know how you see photos of NYC with the Twin Towers and you know the landscape has changed? That's what this will be like, purely from an aesthetic standpoint of course, that sweeping vista of the Brooklyn Bridge will no longer exist. That visual representation of New York could end up as an image from the past, sacrificed just for profit.

I am a native New Yorker. I was born and raised in this magical city. Little by little, we watch as what is wonderful and unique about the city is paved over and homogenized. This is my neighborhood. Does that developer own the bridge? No. He owns a tiny plot of land next to it. He says the present zoning doesn't make it worthwhile for him to develop, so he wants a 'variance' so that he can make the development 'profitable'. He knew the zoning rules when he bought the land! I'm sorry, so we here in Brooklyn, we here in New York City, we here in New York State, we here in the United Sates of America, and those thousands of visitors around the world who come and walk that bridge literally everyday should lose that experience so that this guy can make a profit? I don't think so!

This is a family that has made hundreds of millions off of development in the neighborhood, and has mostly done good work. But this is not their bridge, this is a global symbol of New York, and it belongs to people, people from all over the world.

Dozens of important historians, preservations and New York notables, including Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Municipal Art Society and fellow thespian Gabriel Byrne, have also vigorously voiced opposition to this proposed venture and will continue to do so.

The members of the NYC City Council need to be reminded that their job is to serve in the greater interest of the public...not just New Yorkers but all the many millions of travelers from around the world who visit to witness our iconic city in the flesh.

But, it's still not too late to stop this. We have an opportunity to preserve something beautiful, and to honor a national treasure. Believe me, if the fight fails and this building goes up, everyone will wonder how was this allowed to happen? By then, it will be too late, and it will set a precedent, and it will be a blemish on all citizens of New York and the US as we lacked the foresight to protect something we treasured.

This project is going before the New York City Council this week for a vote. Here's what you can do to help save a national Landmark, whether you live in New York or not:

Please email New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn cquinn@council.nyc.gov or call Mayor Bloomberg at 311. Tell them to do the right thing.

To stay informed on this situation, go to dumbo-dna.org. And thanks for taking the time to fight to protect a National treasure. Let's not be apathetic when we can make a difference and preserve a glorious landmark for the future of New York.

Alec Baldwin: An Apology Regarding My Letterman Appearance and a Clarification on U.S. Autoworkers

2009-05-20T11:34:02Z

I'd like to offer an apology and a clarification to remarks I made recently.

While on the David Letterman program, I joked that I might need a "mail-order bride" to achieve the goal of having more children in my life. I believe that most people understood that this was a joke and took it as such. (A dated reference, no doubt, and another sign of my advancing age.) However, I do apologize to anyone who took offense. The comments of some Philippine government officials come as no surprise to me, either. Even the one by a former action film star-turned-Senator who beckoned me to come to the Philippines so he could "beat" me over my comment.

Such anger and frustration about the issue of sex trafficking is understandable. The Philippines has suffered significant problems with the issue of sex trafficking and I would like to turn your attention to the work of an organization called Love146 that my brother Stephen educated me about. Visit their website at www.love146.org and learn of the important work that is being done, in various regions of the world, by Rob Morris and his co-founders and staff.

I had met with Rob in New York, some months before the Letterman appearance, in the hopes of helping him raise money for this group. Again, I apologize for the perceived insensitivity of that remark and ask you to visit the Love146 site.

The clarification I offer involves my post related to the American auto industry. Nowhere in that post do I state I want U.S. autoworkers to lose jobs. Nowhere in that post do I state I want U.S. autoworkers to cut wages or benefits. Nowhere in that post do I state that I want U.S. autoworkers to lose their pensions. I state, by using the phrase "pull the plug," that taxpayer funds should no longer be made available to bail out U.S. automotive corporations. They should file for bankruptcy, reorganize and emerge as wholly reconfigured entities, perhaps with labor owning significant positions in those companies.

The U.S. government should develop and implement a plan to help refit the U.S. auto industry with the capability of mass producing the new generations of fuel efficient vehicles (using the California standard) that Americans will require in the coming decades.

But giving more money to Detroit means giving more money to GM, Chrysler and Ford, and that is a horrible idea.

U.S. autoworkers are, at least today, casualties of very bad policy by the government and godforsaken management by the Big Three. Sacrifices will need to be made by these workers in order to emerge from this catastrophe. But the demand for well-made trucks of all kinds, military vehicles, emergency vehicles including ambulances and fire trucks, buses and any other product with wheels and an engine will carry on. Americans are good at making those things. Better than anyone. It is the car that you and I drive every day to work or for pleasure that must change. It is changing. Other companies, based in other cultures, faced that before we did. Now it is time to face that here, too.

Two comments that stuck out to me. One is that I should look into a Ford Fusion, which I will do ASAP. If the best hybrid is American-made, I am elated. The other is that I am anti-labor. I find that ridiculous in the extreme. The rank and file of the UAW have three people to blame for this: Big Three brass, Washington chickenshits who let Detroit roll over them, and the UAW leadership itself, which let its members play in traffic, if you will, for decades, until a fleet of better made Japanese cars came down that road and you know the rest.

I would like nothing more than to see every UAW worker find a good paying job in a new, reconfigured auto industry.

Alec Baldwin: The Rise and Fall of Detroit

2009-05-17T22:33:41Z

When I was growing up, some kids dreamed of owning cars like a Trans Am, Camaro, Firebird, Corvette, Chevelle or GTO. Stock or tricked out, owning one of the fastest street cars that American automakers turned out was a dream come true. Mustangs were for the West Coast. Chevy ruled the road on Long Island in the1960's and 70's.

Back then, in the middle class neighborhood where I grew up, foreign cars were for foreigners. As fuel economy began to become an issue, NOBODY in my neighborhood gave a thought to buying a Japanese car. Nobody. OPEC appeared and gas shortages came and went. You went Ford, Chevy, Chrysler. That was it. I have a feeling that it was like that in most American middle class neighborhoods back then.

The fact that we have arrived where were are now is painful. Americans, who are being asked to invest billions upon billions of dollars in US automakers and their employees' futures, have already been investing in those companies, against their better interests, for decades. Now Chrysler is dead, GM is on critical life support and Ford has cancer but may beat it.

What do you care?

The heads of these corporations did not spend the last thirty years lying in bed each night, sleepless. They did not turn their spouses in the wee hours and say, "How do I serve the automotive needs of the American public and better protect their health and safety AND help them conserve energy?" They never said that.

Instead, they spent billions of dollars attempting to bribe the Congress to avoid putting in seat belts and air bags, installing catalytic converters and reaching more ambitious fuel efficiency standards. For the most part, they succeeded. Congress approached those issues with the same combination of sentiment, fealty and fear that Detroit's customers accepted. It was said to be "bad for Detroit." Little did we know that falling for that bull for so long was what was bad for Detroit. Now, the American automotive industry, once the industrial pride of this country and a source of so many great paying jobs that changed the economic fortunes of millions of Americans in assembly, parts, dealerships and service, is about to go away.

What do you care?

I feel horribly for every single man and woman who will suffer as the result of this heartbreaking turn of events. I was the voice of Chevy Tahoe TV spots for five years in the early 90's. I drove a Tahoe then and loved it. Now, I drive a Prius.

I've owned Mercs, Chevys, Fords and Jeeps. I'm in the market for a new car now. I'll probably get a hybrid from a Japanese company, manufactured at a transplant factory in the American South. (Read the excellent recent article in the New Yorker by Peter Boyer about the path the Big Three and the UAW took to get here.) I'd like to buy an American car, but I'd feel like a fool doing that now. The leadership of the biggest automakers made sure of that.

There can be only one legitimate response to this crisis. Let energy conservation and fuel efficiency rule the day. Let the carmakers go under. In the same way we have subsidized Big Oil by destabilizing the governments of petroleum rich countries, or outright invading them, we have subsidized Detroit long enough. Just as every barrel of oil is undervalued because we do not factor in that portion of the defense budget that helped bring that oil to market, so we have undervalued our government's, and therefore our, complicity in producing cars that not only were inferior, but drove Detroit itself right off a cliff.

From the ashes of such great innovation, hard work, beautiful design and extraordinary branding-as-myth-making, let's have better cars.

From the ashes of arrogance, greed and corporate cowardice, let's have better cars.

Until then, pull the plug.

John Cusack: A Hollow and Horrible Equivocation

2009-05-15T18:03:32Z

If I had the President's Blackberry, I would send this.

President Obama,

On Wednesday you reversed your administration's promise to finally release pictures of detainee abuse.

The release of the photos was won by ACLU lawyers who have fought to bring to light the full extent of the brutality and torture that U.S. Army and intelligence services have perpetrated against human beings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and at CIA "black sites" around the world. Torture that was sanctioned and effectively legalized under the former administration, and that, if we are to be honest, most Americans knew -- or should have known -- was being carried out in our names.

Only now is the knowledge starting to give rise to the widespread outrage and calls for accountability that such crimes against humanity deserve. Growing numbers of citizens are demanding the independent investigation and prosecution of the members of the Bush administration responsible for the vitiation of fundamental legal principles like habeas corpus and the flagrant violation of both international and domestic laws against torture. The pundits, hacks and shills who dismiss these calls for investigation and prosecution -- integral to any serious definition of accountability -- disgrace themselves and their country.

The situation in which we now find ourselves is so bizarre, it's hard to fathom. New revelations continue to surface -- we learn that Vice President Cheney's office ordered and specified how a man was to be tortured, and mounting evidence suggests the United States tortured to extract false confessions that would justify preemptive war on Iraq. Yet a Democratic president leads a Democratic congress to whitewash institutionalized torture and in effect trash any conceivable notion of the rule of law, all in the name of "looking forward."

And now we hear that the administration will block the release of new evidence in this hideous criminal conspiracy. Now you, the president who came to power with promises of transparency and change, say you don't want to release the photos because they "will further inflame anti-American sentiment" and endanger U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ACLU lucidly replies:

"It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known -- whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration's complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them."

Maybe, Mr. President, you've succumbed to all the fear-mongering that the Bush administration and Republican Party sold for so long. Most Democrats have been silent enablers so consistently -- maybe we've all bought into it. We know the truth but we still can't admit it; just as for years signs and traces of torture performed in our name were there, we saw without seeing, and knew without knowing. When those first photos from Abu Ghraib were broadcast around the world five years ago, we told ourselves the sadism was the work of just a few maniacs. When we heard the privatization frenzy that spread like a cancer through the Bush years extended even to interrogation -- effectively making torture its own nightmarish "cottage industry" -- we looked away. And now our first official response is to let it all slide... and just move on.

If we do, we are truly lost. This kind of willful collective blindness must not endure, and it must never happen again. It's not enough to be against torture, in this new political moment when speaking out against it is suddenly in vogue. All the information now so readily available contradicts all the official narratives: that we didn't know, a few bad apples, that those responsible have already been investigated and punished. And then there's the outrageous substitute for a narrative, the debate about whether or not torture works. It's a question so insane, it probably makes bin Laden grin like a Cheshire cat.

So, if torture works, we should... perfect it and use it? Complete insanity.

We must finally be able to look at the photos and see and understand that the broken and humiliated bodies of men half-way around the world depicted therein represent not only the systematically applied U.S. policies, but also the horrible and likely inevitable ramifications of military occupations of other countries.

We hope, Mr. President, you will lead, but the Constitution doesn't allow you to obstruct justice... The Department of Justice must act with conviction and follow the law.

We understand the enormous pressures and complexities you confront everyday. But the old defenses for these crimes sound hollow and horrible coming from your lips. You are defending the indefensible.

Releasing all the photos depicting detainee abuse and initiating an independent inquiry and prosecution of those responsible at the highest level is the only way forward.

This is not an issue of partisan politics. It's a police matter... the investigation of a crime scene in which many more of us are complicit than is comfortable to recognize.

Sincerely,

Your name here.

Joe Wright: Why I Hired the Homeless to Work on The Soloist

2009-05-13T21:03:08Z

I am writing this in response to Linda Milazzo's post "Joe Wright's The Soloist Exploits the Skid Row Community," about the actions I took while making my film The Soloist.

I'm all for a debate about the ethics of employing the homeless to work on The Soloist -- a debate that caused much fierce correspondence between myself and the studio lawyers. And if Milazzo did not like my film then that's fine. But I do feel that to state, among other things, that my intention was a "perverse...and orgiastic assault on the poor and mentally ill" is an unwarranted personal attack. To have the love that I hold dear for the community of the Skid Row residents called into question is very hurtful.

Central to the film was an attempt to understand and reach out to those that are so often ignored. This was my reason for wanting to make a film not only about, but with the participation of, members of the Skid Row community.

The 10 days I spent on Skid Row that Milazzo refers to before agreeing to make the film were not intended to help me "absorb Skip Row's nuanced layers" or "understand mental illness and poverty," (mental illness is something I've had the privilege of understanding on my own). They were intended to help me come to a decision as to whether I wanted to go on that journey. I decided I did, but on the condition that the studio would allow me to employ members of the community to work with me as extras, actors, and consultants. The scenes set on Skid Row are as much their portrayal of their lives as mine. My job, as I saw it, was simply to give them an opportunity to be heard.

As such Linda Milazzo is attacking the very people she is claiming to protect.

Ideologically, I believe that the writer and I are on the same page and fighting for the same cause. I concur 100 percent with her summary of the issues facing the local community and the abuses of power enacted by the local government under the euphemistic banner of a "Safer Cities Initiative," (safer for who?). So why wage war on your own side if not to simply get attention?

It seems a lot of middle class people like to appropriate the homeless as their own.