By Thomas Frank, Tomdispatch.com. Posted August 6, 2008.
Washington is the city where the scandals happen. Every American knows this, but we also believe, if only vaguely, that the really monumental scandals are a thing of the past, that the golden age of misgovernment-for-profit ended with the cavalry charge and the robber barons, at about the same time presidents stopped wearing beards.
IT almost seems like a gag worthy of “Borat”: A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama’s magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.
He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even “Access Hollywood” mustered a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely.
The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”
Never mind. This election remains about the present and the future, where Iraq’s $10 billion a month drain on American pocketbooks and military readiness is just one moving part in a matrix of national crises stretching from the gas pump to Pakistan. That’s the high-rolling political casino where Mr. Obama amassed the chips he cashed in last week. The “change” that he can at times wield like a glib marketing gimmick is increasingly becoming a substantive reality — sometimes through Mr. Obama’s instigation, sometimes by luck. Obama-branded change is snowballing, whether it’s change you happen to believe in or not.
BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.
Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.
It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.
Salon.com has published new details about a top secret government database that might be at the heart of the Bush administration’s domestic spying operations. The database is known as “Main Core.” It reportedly collects and stores vast amounts of personal and financial data about millions of Americans. Some former US officials believe that “Main Core” may have been used by the National Security Agency to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We speak with author and investigative journalist, Tim Shorrock.
From the Hillsboro, Kan. Free Press
Grant & Claire Overstake
Claire and Grant Overstake pose for a photo during the National Masters Multi-Event Championships in Joplin. Claire competed in the heptathlon; Grant sat out with an injury.
Claire Overstake, Hillsboro, competed June 21-22 in the U.S. A. Track & Field National Masters Multi-Event Championships at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Mo.
The 51-year-old Overstake, an elementary school teacher the past two years in Hillsboro, will teach middle school math and science at Goessel this fall.
She competed in the 50-54 age group of the seven-event heptathlon in this challenge meet between the United States, Great Britain and Canada.
In a heptathlon, athletes compete against each other and against age-graded tables. Points are awarded based on times and distances, with the person’s age factored in.
The person who has the most points at the end of the competition is declared the winner.
Overstake, the U.S. national champion, was the sole athlete in her age group. She compiled 3,484 points and met the Master’s All-American standard in three individual events: the 200 meters, shot put and high jump.
On the first day of competition, she ran the 80-meter hurdles in 16.61 seconds, high jumped 1.24 meters (about 4 feet, 1 inch), threw the 2-kilo (about 4 pounds) shot put 8.02 meters (about 26 feet, 4 inches) and ran the 200 meters in 32.58.
On the second day, she long jumped 3.06 meters (just over 10 feet), threw the javelin 16.26 meters (about 53 feet, 4 inches) and ran the 800 meters in 3:19.5.
She and husband Grant, who directs public relations at Tabor College, train together year-round—something they’ve done since they became high school sweethearts at Wichita Heights High, Class of 1975. They also ran track while at the University of Kansas, she as a sprinter and hurdler, and he as a decathlete.
Grant did not compete at this meet because of an injury a week prior to the event.
This just in: “After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that’s right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places….”
Read the story, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
(For further reading, see The Wilding of America: Money, Mayhem, and the New American Dream, by Charles Derber)
(Corrections Appended)
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Even as he came on stage to give the keynote address at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas, it was obvious that Tim Robbins’ remarks had caused controversy backstage.
The Academy Award-winning actor and critically acclaimed screenwriter, director and producer first indicated to the audience that he would not be giving his speech. Then, floor agents of the NAB organizers ordered journalists’ video cameras turned off. Mr. Robbins changed his mind and started talking.
Listen to the six best minutes of the speech the NAB didn’t want you to hear.
Sadly, judging from the crowd reaction to his comments, it seems as if Mr. Robbins was speaking a language the corporate broadcasters were unable to comprehend.
Rock Chalk Jayhawks!
The old KU letter jacket is tight but it fits! I pulled it out of the closet and I’m wearing it this morning as I type this post, unabashedly proud to be a Kansas Jayhawk (Class of 1980). I’m also wearing my K Club ring and it feels awesome as well. Claire is wearing her KU letter jacket this morning, too. Her jacket still fits her like it did when we were student athletes, running track for KU. (Lucky me!)
Wow, what a game!
Here’s a story written by Rick Plumlee of the Wichita Eagle, who has been covering KU basketball for at least 30 years. (As a senior journalism student and sports correspondent covering KU sports for the Eagle, I was assigned to write sidebar features to go along with his game stories. It was a great experience.)
By RICK PLUMLEE
The Wichita Eagle
SAN ANTONIO - Years from now many will look back on Monday night’s national championship game and recall how many athletic players showed up from both teams in the Alamodome.
And it will all be true.
But there should be a notation in those history books that Kansas had just a little bit more. Making one remarkable play after another in overtime, the Jayhawks pulled away from Memphis to claim a 75-68 the championship.
Quite a way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of KU’s last national championship.
Confetti streamers poured down on the Jayhawks and coach Bill Self as they took center stage on the court to accept their championship trophy.
Nobody covers KU sports like the Lawrence Journal World, voted the best online newspaper of its size in the nation. Here is the link to its coverage of the championship.
KU Traditions
KU’s world famous Rock Chalk Chant evolved from a cheer that a chemistry professor, E.H.S. Bailey, created for the KU science club in 1886. Bailey’s version was “Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU” repeated three times. The rahs were later replaced by “Rock Chalk,” a transposition of chalk rock, the name for the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus.
The cheer became known worldwide. Teddy Roosevelt pronounced it the greatest college chant he’d ever heard. Legend has it that troops used the chant when fighting in the Philippines in 1899, in the Boxer Rebellion in China, and in World War II. At the Olympic games in 1920, the King of Belgium asked for a typical American college yell. The assembled athletes agreed on KU’s Rock Chalk and rendered it for His Majesty.
(The alma mater and the Jayhwak fight song were among the first songs we taught our children.)
Far above the golden valley
Glorious to view,
Stands our noble Alma Mater,
Towering toward the blue.
CHORUS:
Lift the chorus ever onward,
Crimson and the blue
Hail to thee, our Alma Mater
Hail to old KU.
Far above the distant humming
Of the busy town,
Reared against the dome of heaven.
Looks she proudly down.
(REPEAT CHORUS)
Greet we then our foster mother,
Noble friend so true,
We will ever sing her praises,
Hail to old KU.
(REPEAT CHORUS)
(Follow with Rock Chalk Chant)
Download the Rock Chalk chant (532K mp3)
By George “Dumpy” Bowles
(Revised, October 1958, to conform with Big Eight Conference Team names.)
Talk about the Sooners
The Cowboys and the Buffs,
Talk about the Tiger and his tail,
Talk about the Wildcats,
and those Cornhuskin’ boys,
But I’m the bird to make ‘em weep and wail.
CHORUS:
‘Cause I’m a Jay, Jay,
Jay, Jay, Jayhawk,
Up at Lawrence on the Kaw
‘Cause I’m a Jay, Jay,
Jay, Jay, Jayhawk,
With a sis-boom, hip hoorah.
Got a bill that’s big enough
To twist the Tiger’s tail
Husk some corn and listen
To the Cornhusker’s wail-
‘Cause I’m a Jay, Jay,
Jay, Jay, Jayhawk,
Riding on a Kansas gale.
“I’m a Jayhawk” (976Kb mp3)
