Deans are the firsts

I know that with the exception of Seashell and Audrey, I'm alone in my frustation with the prolonged and maudlin Russert Hagiography.

I'm hoping they're over it at MSNBC. Keith was restrained last night (devoted only the last 6 minutes of the program), but Tweety-Bird was blubbering every time I checked in on Hardball.

My best friend thinks the sun shone out his nether parts, but I could never stomach more than a few minutes of MTP, which featured fawning toward the powerful, and gotcha interviews of the less powerful.

http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/06/op-ed-column-so.html

After days of eulogies on MSNBC and NBC and the subsequent response by some who feel the near 24/7 memorializing for Russert was overblown, I'm neither going to defend nor criticize the coverage. I'll only say that I'm not sure how one dictates how others should mourn a loved one. On the other hand, it also seems natural that an overwhelming public display of mourning, such as what Russert received, might be viewed as excessive by those who were not close to him and/or who thought his overall contribution to society and the world at large was less than spectacular.

At this point, yeah, it is overdone. We have soldiers dying in Iraq who aren't getting that coverage.

I guess that is our culture though. Build heroes out of celebrity and the unsung heroes go unsung.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06192008.html

Reuters may be “satisfied” with the Pentagon’s investigation concluding that US troops were “justified” in their slaying of the news organization’s working journalist Waleed Khaled back in 2005, but the rest of us shouldn’t be.

Khaled and his driver were killed by US troops when they came on a firefight involving US troops and Iraqi police who were allegedly under attack. The Pentagon report into the incident concluded that the two men came onto the scene, and American forces, seeing Khaled’s videocam and tripod, thought it was a rocket launcher. They reportedly fired warning shots. When Khaled’s driver did the logical thing, backing slowly from the scene, US troops “assumed it was an insurgent tactic” and fired to “disable” the vehicle, killing the two men.

First of all, let’s note that Khaled is not the only journalist to have been killed by US forces in Iraq. There has been a pattern that makes it clear that journalists who step outside the controlled bubble of the embedded propagandist traveling with the troops are fair game, which explains why we in America know so little about the reality of the US assault on the people of Iraq.

But beyond this journalistic issue, what this story tells us, besides the fact that an innocent reporter and his innocent driver, just doing their jobs, were murdered by overly aggressive US soldiers (whose initial response, and that of Pentagon “investigators,” appears to have been to cover up their actions) is that any innocent parties who stumble into a battle zone are liable to be slaughtered by US forces in Iraq.

The only thing that distinguishes this tragic incident from hundreds of others like it that occur routinely in Iraq is that Khaled was a journalist employed by a major Western news organization with the clout and prominence to demand a real, and public, investigation into the case.

For Iraqis killed under similar circumstances, not only is there no investigation; there is simply no report of their deaths. As US commanders have famously and disgustingly said, “We don’t do bodycounts.”

There is a reason why ordinary Iraqis are almost unanimously opposed to the neo-colonial “deal” the Bush is trying to force their puppet regime to approve, granting US forces legal immunity and a free rein in Iraq to attack and arrest anyone they choose, and to be protected from arrest by Iraqi authorities for any of their actions in that country. Iraqis daily see the US behaving like Nazi stormtroopers, killing their countrymen with impunity, and they want it to stop.

administrators, teachers, parents, and most of all the KIDS. Statewide failures? And GA's education budget has been cut $1.5 billion in recent years? Not only do you need a new State Superintendent, but perhaps the GA legislature should consider opting out of federal funding ~ it may be tough initially but dumping NCLB mandates may be more fiscally prudent.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/06/19/bush-bashing-bus-to-hit-the-road/

Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
Moises Saman for The New York Times

Oil fields in the Iraqi province of Basra. Iraq produces about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.


Article Tools Sponsored By
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: June 19, 2008

BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.


Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?hp

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immediate investigation into Department of Education

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Geez, I am a good two generations too late!  My dumb luck.

I still like mine:

Loss of Lives

Loss of Treasure

Loss of America's accrued Goodwill

New thread and guess who's first!!! HOWARD!!!