New book says Hitler was gay and killed to hide it. “Eyewitness accounts from Hitler’s former lovers, and historical documents that for the first time illuminate rumours that have circulated for over half a century, are disclosed in Hitler’s Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator .
The respected German historian Lothar Machtan even claims in his book that Hitler ordered the deaths of several high-ranking Nazis to prevent the secret of his homosexuality from surfacing.” Guardian UK
Feds Enlist Hollywood for Theories — “In a reversal of roles, government intelligence specialists have been secretly soliciting terrorist scenarios from top Hollywood filmmakers and writers.
An ad hoc working group convened at the University of Southern California just last week at the behest of the U.S. Army. The goal was to brainstorm about possible terrorist targets and schemes in America and to offer solutions to those threats, in light of the aerial assaults on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.” Washington Post Do you want the US ‘war on terrorism’ to be scripted by the people responsible for Die Hard, Delta Force One, or Missing in Action??
FCC may OK selling ads on some public TV stations: ‘Under the plan, the Federal Communications Commission would let PBS affiliates and other public TV stations show ads on data or subscription services they offer as they roll out digital TV, say people familiar with the matter.
…the FCC also apparently believes that the law’s ban on public TV stations “broadcasting” ads need not apply to subscription or certain other services.’ As if the corporate sponsorship spots on PBS now haven’t already travelled a great distance down the slippery slope toward being ads… USA Today
Loincloth Maestro: ‘A strolling violinist in a gold loincloth and very little else would cause the denizens of most cities to call the police, or at least cross the street. But in New York, such a man can become a minor celebrity, especially when he gains a reputation as the most talented street musician in the city. “In his soloperas, Thoth, a classically trained musician, is the composer, orchestra, singers and dancers. His music has elements of classical, overlayed with primal rhythms, but it defies categorization.” ‘ NY Post Reminds me on first reading of Moondog [more],
a statuesque blind bearded streetcorner presence on the Midtown Manhattan street corners when I was growing up in New York who turned out to be a maverick but classically trained composer, Louis Hardin. A musician friend I made years later (when I was in medical school with his wife), it turned out, was responsible for getting Hardin’s compositions and performances recorded before his death in 1999.
When Writers Attack. The controversy swirls around “previously unknown critic” B.R. Myers’ skewering of much contemporary fiction in the summer Atlantic. Here, Dennis Loy Johnson at Moby Lives takes on highly visible New York Times Book Review columnist Judith Shulevitz for her response to Myers.
The 2001 National Book Award Finalists in children’s literature, poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections makes the list, as expected, and Andrew Solomon’s Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression.
Collateral Damage (cont’d.):
Robert Fisk comments that Slaughter of the innocent bolsters view that this is war against Islam.
It’s always the same story. We start shooting with “smart” weapons after our journalists and generals have told us of their sophistication. Their press conferences produce monochrome snapshots of bloodless airbase runways with little holes sprinkled across the apron. “A successful night,” they used to say, after bombing Serbia.
They said that again last week and no one ? until of course we splatter civilians ? suggests going to war involves killing innocent people. It does. That is why the military invented that repulsive and morally shameful phrase “collateral damage”. And they are always ready to smear the reporters on the ground. Independent UK
And not only a war against Islam, but Andrew Rawnsley says it is a war they’re winning. Guardian UK
Systray.org : Post Your Systray Here. “All your systray are belong to us.”
Some of the attackers did not know they were to die, an FBI investigation concludes. Unlike the eight ‘lead’ attackers who were the trained pilots who undoubtedly knew they were on a suicide mission, the other eleven hijackers “expected to take part in ‘conventional’ hijackings – with the planes flown to distant airports, and the passengers and crew taken hostage while the hijackers presented demands. Items found among the 11 men’s possessions suggest they had been preparing themselves for incarceration. One source said: ‘It looks as if they expected they might be going to prison, not paradise.’
The FBI analysis concludes the 11 may have believed the purpose of the hijackings was to free the perpetrators of previous extremist terrorist attacks on the United States, such as the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993.” On the other hand, could this be FBI disinformation to counter any glorification of the purity of purpose and sacrifice of their actions and, by suggesting that most of the team was kept in the dark about the true plan, rationalize the American intelligence failure to detect the plot? Guardian UK
Patrick Cockburn: The Phoney War Will Get Real Very Soon; options for the Northern Alliance in the coming ground war. CounterPunch
Ethel considers the Office of Homeland Security: “What they’re saying is that since this is a super-agency, which is immune from congressional oversight or judicial review, there has to be some regulatory body above it. That will make this Council extra-legal, extra-constitutional, extra-judicial, and extra-legislative. And it’s even extra-executive. Bush then is essentially assuming supreme power as Chairman of the Supreme National Security Council.” [Now, as everyone else is saying in weblogland, go read the rest of Ethel the Blog as well.]
More on the coming police state. Here in my own backyard, the Worcester Telegram reports on peace demonstrators being photographed by the local police; turns out it was at the FBI’s instructions. Want your five minutes of media fame? It’s off to a peace vigil; time’s a’wastin’! I’ve already had my moments in the limelight, several times in fact. While a high school student in 1969, I refused to shake Gen. William Westmoreland’s hand on nationwide television while in Washington receiving a young scientist award. I was on the front page of the New York Post, I think it was that year too, as an unidentified rain-drenched hitchhiker holding up a sign in New York seeking a ride to the March on Washington against the war. A human die-in in Central Park designed to simulate some body count showed my body in the foreground, in one of the New York papers. And several years later I made the Boston Globe as the “unidentified protester” being attacked on the front page by police dogs let loose against us during a Cambridge civil disobedience action. I wrote a letter to the editor identifying myself on that occasion as well. A string of arrests for civil disobedience got my name in the papers several more times, related to both antiwar activities and the Clamshell Alliance’s efforts to stop the Seabrook nuclear plant on our seacoast. I’ve still got the yellowing clips of all of these somewhere. Funny, Freedom of Information Act inquiries I made years later failed to come up with a dossier about me from those days. Disappointing, actually. Hey, I wonder if the FOIA is still going to be enforceable in the new regime… [Now that I’ve come out of the closet about my sordid and criminal past, you’re forgiven if you get squeamish about continuing to read FmH.]
After complaints from gay organizations, the AP withdrew a photo taken on the USS Enterprise that shows a Navy officer scrawling a misspelled message — “high jack this fags” — on a bomb bound for Afghanistan. [via Cursor]
Security Keeps Dylan From Own Concert. “The security was so good at Bob Dylan’s concert in Medford, Oregon, even Bob Dylan couldn’t get in.
Dylan showed up for the concert last Tuesday and was refused admittance backstage. The guards had strict orders from Dylan’s own security director not to let anyone backstage without an official credential.” The three guards, in their 30’s, were promptly “relocated”. Speculation is that they did not recognize Mr. Zimmerman.
Viewing the brain in whole new light: describes a laser-based brain imaging technique which compares favorably with MRI scanning, the ‘gold standard of noninvasive imaging”, is cheaper, easier to use, more portable, and reportedly “non-damaging.” As you know, I’m a big fan of functional MRI’s ability to elucidate structure/function correlations in the brain in realtime, but certain mental activities just cannot easily be performed inside its stationary massive enclosure.
Hawks try to implicate Iraq by hunting for evidence in UK
“A row has broken out in the Bush administration after it was revealed that hawks in the Pentagon had sent an ex-CIA director, James Woolsey, to Britain, behind the backs of the state department and the current CIA leadership.
News of Mr Woolsey’s travels, have exposed a deep fissure inside the administration over whether to extend the war against terrorism to Iraq.
Last month, the state department, led by Colin Powell, convinced President Bush that there was no clear involvement in the attacks and that Iraq should not be included on the target list as such action might destroy the fragile coalition.
However, hawks in the administration grouped around the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, are determined to ensure military action to topple Saddam Hussein.
According to several sources in the U.S., Mr Wolfowitz paid for Mr Woolsey to travel to Britain last month to look for evidence of prior Iraqi involvement in terrorism.”
From Dawn, which describes itself as Pakistan’s largest-circulation English-language daily newspaper. Look at its light, breezy, thoroughly modern weekly review feature; you’d never know it originates from a deeply divided military dictatorship at the margin of the world’s newest, hottest conflagration. On the other hand, its front page is nothing but war news.
On the topic of efforts to implicate Iraq, some are suggesting that the capability to obtain and disseminate anthrax, if a part of terrorist actions, would not be within al Qaeda’s capabilities, and fits neatly with the assumed Iraqi bioweapons capability.
America, oil and Afghanistan: “Once the initial shock and hysteria gave way to reason, it became clear that the U.S. was using, in a diabolic way, this human tragedy to further its imperialist hegemony worldwide and to invoke a more draconian domestic rule by curtailing democratic rights and freedom in the name of combating terrorism. The crucial element in this strategy of zeroing in on Osama bin Laden, however, goes largely unnoticed.
Afghanistan occupies the central position in the U.S. strategy for the economic control of the oil and gas resources in the entire Middle East.” opinion piece in The Hindu
Spy agency halts flow of information: “The United States is becoming increasingly frustrated with the paucity of intelligence provided by Pakistan on Osama bin Laden?s whereabouts and his al-Qaeda terrorist camps.
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan?s premier spy agency, which was involved in training and arming the Taleban militia, has reportedly told Washington that it has little information about bin Laden and the Arab fighters under his command in Afghanistan.” The Times of London
Melanie Phillips comments in this Sunday Times of London commentary about the relationship between the Middle East conflict and the ‘war on terrorism’:
…(T)he belief that a (in principle, desirable) two-state solution to the Israel crisis would secure Arab support for the coalition is extraordinarily facile. The essence of the Muslim grievance here is the existence of Israel itself. That is why Yasser Arafat rejected Israel’s offer of a fledgling state and launched the intifada in response.
But Blair, along with some advisers to President George W Bush, doesn’t seem to see it that way. He thinks solving the Middle East crisis will end terror. But this is an upside-down argument. It is only by ending terror that the Middle East crisis will be solved. Yet how can this be done if America and Britain actually ally themselves with states sponsoring terror in the Middle East, such as Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia?
There is now a real danger, as Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has warned, that Israel will be seen as expendable and a terrorist state will be imposed on its border – as the price for keeping together the coalition against terror. But even if the Middle East crisis were solved tomorrow, the threat would remain. For the issue is the hegemony of the West.
Her solution, unfortunately, is that ‘the West should end its “liberal” imperialism and stop telling other cultures how to behave. Instead, it must vigorously defend and reassert liberal values on its home ground,’ by which she means giving up the illusion of multicultural and remaking ourselves as a ‘Christian’ civilization, albeit one with respect for and support of the Jews and Israel. Moderate Muslims in the West must choose to live as a minority in such a liberal society, and may be the seeds of an Islamic reformation.
Meanwhile, Blair backs creation of Palestinian state: “The prime minister, Tony Blair, today gave his public backing to the creation of a Palestinian state following a meeting at 10 Downing Street with Yasser Arafat.
The Palestinian leader called on the Israeli government to come “immediately” to the negotiating table to thrash out a negotiated settlement for the Middle East.
Mr Blair said that the creation of a Palestinian state was central to his vision for peace. “A viable Palestinian state, as part of a negotiated and agreed settlement, which guarantees peace and security for Israel is the objective,” Mr Blair said after an hour of talks with Mr Arafat.” Guardian UK As Phillips (above) asks, however, does Blair put the cart before the horse?
Exposed Florida Man Falls Ill With Anthrax An American Media Inc. mailroom employee who was exposed to anthrax has fallen ill, state officials confirm. Ernesto Blanco, 73, has been diagnosed with the inhaled form of anthrax, state health officials said Monday.Florida health officials say Blanco is improving, and that they’re encouraged by his progress. And: the anthrax-bearing NBC letter and the letter that arrived today at Tom Daschle’s office were both postmarked Sept. 18th in Trenton, NJ. Two postal workers who have fallen ill (although one of them has “poison-ivy-like” symptoms) are being tested for anthrax exposure.
The Peacemakers Speak: seventeen of the world’s living Nobel Peace Prize laureates react to 9-11 and the U.S.’s response. Some, particularly the politicians, speak in somewhat predictable terms of living together and condemning terrorism, of extending sympathy to those who lost a loved one. Other messages, particularly those of the non-governmental figures among them — Rigoberta Menchu, Mairead Maguire, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Jody Williams — are more fervent, anguished and resonant.
Now that war is upon us, I feel it is imperative that the present conflict not be inflamed and extended into a “clash of civilizations,” nor that it be painted as a jihad or a crusade–two concepts that have been sorely abused over the course of history. There is truly nothing more disturbing than killing in the name of God and religion. Today I send my plea to those in the Muslim world, in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, in Bangladesh and Iran, and in all places where the name of Allah is worshipped, to reject the false call to holy war against the West that is being put out by extremist leaders. At the same time, I call upon the leaders and the people of the West, in societies based upon the Judeo-Christian tradition, to recall that Christianity provides no basis for an assumption of superiority and dominance, quite the contrary. The holy writings of the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran have been twisted so often that it has become difficult for ordinary, good, and compassionate people of all faiths to discern the principles that are primary in all the holy books: peace and justice, fair treatment of our neighbors, and the primacy of love as the supreme value.
–Oscar Arias
Powers of 10. We’ve apparently missed International Powers of Ten Day (10/10), but it’s not too late to take this journey that has long been one of the best ways to contemplate the grandeur and scale of existence — the film at the Smithsonian, the book, the walk-through exhibit at the remodeled Hayden Planetarium in New York, and now this site.
From Windows guru Brian Livingston: There’ll be no XP for me; reasons why Windows XP is a downgrade instead of an upgrade include the Passport authentication system; your vulnerability to unlimited amounts of Microsoft spam and arbitrary changes in the Passport agreement at Microsoft’s whim after you sign on; weak Java support and no support for browser plug-ins; and the brain-dead product activation scheme. InfoWorld
Can you believe the people with whom Mick Jagger is going to take to the stage, even for a cause like this?
These are agencies to which you can contribute for children’s aid and relief efforts in Afghanistan:
[courtesy of Progressive Review]
