Monday, January 12, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Porn industry seeks federal bailout
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.
“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”
Francis said in a statement that “the US government should actively support the adult industry's survival and growth, just as it feels the need to support any other industry cherished by the American people."
“We should be delivering [the request] by the end of today to our congressmen and [Secretary of the Treasury Henry] Paulson asking for this $5 billion dollar bailout,” he told CNN Wednesday.
Flynt and Francis concede the industry itself is in no financial danger — DVD sales have slipped over the past year, but Web traffic has continued to grow.
But the industry leaders said the issue is a nation in need. "People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the statement. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."
"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly."
So far, there has been no congressional reaction to the request.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Israelis for peace
By Amy Goodman
Israel’s assault on Gaza, by air, sea and now land, has killed (at the time of this writing) more than 600 Palestinians, with more than 2,700 injured. Ten Israelis have been killed, three of them Israeli soldiers killed by friendly fire. Beyond the deaths and injuries, the people of Gaza are suffering a dire humanitarian crisis that is dismissed by the Israeli government. There is, however, Israeli opposition to the military assault.
Israeli professor Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel, the region most impacted by the Hamas rockets.
Speaking over the phone from Beersheba, Gordon said: “We just had a rocket about an hour ago not far from our house. My two children have been sleeping in a bomb shelter for the past week. And yet, I think what Israel is doing is outrageous. ... The problem is that most Israelis say Israel left the Gaza Strip three years ago and Hamas is still shooting rockets at us. They forget the details. The detail is that Israel maintains sovereignty. The detail is that the Palestinians live in a cage. The detail is that they don’t get basic foodstuff, that they don’t get electricity, that they don’t get water. And when you forget those kinds of details, all you say is, ‘Why are they still shooting at us?’ That’s what the media here has been pumping them with, then you think this war is rational. If you look at what’s been going on in the Gaza Strip in the past three years and you see what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians, you would think that the Palestinian resistance is rational. And that’s what’s missing in the mainstream media here.”
Gordon attended a large peace march last weekend in Tel Aviv with more than 10,000 other Israelis. Longtime Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery was there. He called the invasion “a criminal war, because, on top of everything else it is openly and shamelessly part of Ehud Barak’s and Tzipi Livni’s election campaign. I accuse Ehud Barak of exploiting the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers in order to get more Knesset seats. I accuse Tzipi Livni of advocating mutual slaughter in order to become prime minister.” Israel’s elections will be in February.
The assault strengthens right-wing Likud Party leader and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a foremost hawk and leading candidate for prime minister. While Netanyahu fully supports the attack on Gaza, his nephew, Jonathan Ben-Artzi, is an Israeli conscientious objector who was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year and a half. He spoke to me from Providence, R.I., where he is a student at Brown University.
“I’m speaking ... not as anyone’s nephew but ... as an Israeli, trying to speak out to Americans to tell them you don’t have to support Israel blindly. Not everything that Israel does is holy ... sometimes you have to speak firmly to Israel and tell us, tell our government, stop doing this.”
Gideon Levy is a Jewish journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He told me: “I think that Israel had this legitimacy to protect its citizens in the southern part of Israel ... but this doing something does not mean this brutal and violent operation. ... I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed. Immediately to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs—just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this.”
But it is. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in Gaza opened up schools to provide shelter, since Gazans, trapped in this narrow strip of land, have no place to flee. Christopher Gunness of UNRWA told me that the agency provided the coordinates of the schools to the Israeli military. Nevertheless, at least two schools have been hit by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours. Three people were killed at the Asma elementary school. More than 30 are reported dead and more than 55 injured at the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.
While Israeli planes drop pamphlets urging Palestinians to leave, the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, perhaps the most densely populated place on Earth, have no place to run, no place to hide. Calls for an immediate cease-fire are ignored by Israel and blocked by the U.S. government. It is not clear what the Obama administration will do—but the people of Gaza can’t wait until the inauguration. There must be a cease-fire now. And that’s just the beginning.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.
© 2009 Amy Goodman
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
'Shoe Bush' - big kick in Ashland
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| Marjorie Mather, 91, reacts after splattering paint on a picture of President George Bush using a slingshot aparatus to shoot a shoe with wet paint on the sole. |
Marjorie Mather leaned her 91-year-old frame back, clutched the shoe with all her strength and then let it fly, hitting "President Bush" smack in the cheek and splattering paint across his visage.
"Wow, I didn't know that was going to be so much fun!" she said, throwing up her hands in victory.
"Before, I said, 'I can't do it. I'm not happy with Bush, but I can't throw a shoe at him.' But then you get into the spirit of the thing and you say, 'Why not?'" Mather said Friday night, at MAda Shell Gallery's opening exhibit downtown.
The Shoe Bush installation invited locals to slingshot shoes at an eight foot square painting of the president's face. City Councilor Eric Navickas — who opened the gallery with his partner Amy Godard — used a paint roller to slather a thick layer of red on the soles of the sneakers, boots and Birkenstocks before people fired them at the image of Bush. Each shot cost $1 and the funds collected will go toward future gallery exhibits.
Ashland, Oregon
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Another Message to OBAMA-Happy New Year!
- enough to continue to blindly support Israel's every move?
Israeli officer: I was right to shoot a 13-year-old child. "Anything that's mobile,
that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
Um Feliz ano novo
明けましておめでとうございます。
Un anno Nuovo e Felice
新年快樂
Ein Frohes Neues Jahr
새해 복많이 받으세요
Un Próspero Año Nuevo !
pax
paz
pau
paix
pace
peace
http://www.worldcantwait.net/
Q: Is Barack Obama the “anti-war candidate?”
A: Depends on which war you’re talking about.
*Barack Obama has repeatedly threatened military action against Iran, and refused to rule out using nuclear weapons. Think about that for a second: refused to rule out dropping nuclear weapons on civilians. In a June 2008 speech before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he said: “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.” read more
