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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for May 2004

TRUE DEDICATION

May 10, 2004 by cmackie

Excellent reading on the Whitehouse dimwit: “As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he’s something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool.” EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

SCRAPING BOTTOM

May 10, 2004 by cmackie

Thanks to anti-liberal columnist and blogger Steve Sailer for clarifying the chart that correlated state-by-state average IQs and income with the votes for Bush or Gore in the 2000 presidential election. When we posted the item “The Spectrum from Blue to Red,” we wrote: “The chart that explains it all for you” (an homage to Christopher Durang’s […]

THE NITWIT BOASTS

May 10, 2004 by cmackie

Thanks to a good friend who keeps us up to date on useful information, here’s how our nitwit Maximum Leader (aka “the little fucker”) blows his horn (and our mind). This is from a stump speech he gave just the other day — May 3, to be exact — in Sterling Heights, Mich.: We confronted the dangers […]

MORE IDIOCY

May 10, 2004 by cmackie

How about “Military Personnel: Don’t Read This!” As reported in Time: It’s not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that’s exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba […]

MODESTY ASIDE

May 9, 2004 by cmackie

It is gratifying to see that the foreign editor of The New York Times, whose international reporting we long admired, agrees with us. May 3: “The mission [in Iraq] is not only not accomplished. It has, with the latest revelations turned into a moral defeat so shattering that the political and military nightmare (still brewing, […]

WHAT WAS KNOWN, AND WHEN

May 8, 2004 by cmackie

Here’s a very helpful TIMELINE, courtesy of the liberal advocacy group moveon.org and John Kerry’s campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, tracing events of the Iraqi prisoner scandal: Fall 2003 Bremer repeatedly raises issue of prison conditions with Rumsfeld and the President’s inner circle according to LA Times: “Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions […]

SHIT HAPPENS

May 8, 2004 by cmackie

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned many high officials in the U.S. government last January and earlier that it had observed widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners “tantamount to torture.” The ICRC characterized this treatment not as the aberrant behavior of a few but “a pattern and a system,” which, like the Army’s own […]

ACCUSED OF TREASON, BUT KEEP IT UP

May 8, 2004 by cmackie

We get e-mails. Here is one: Dear Jan: I’ve felt like more than a fan with you and your writings in the past. And I have been critical and judgmental of the tone and absolute leftness of your views. Now, in the past week, you’ve resorted to profanity and vilifying our President. Someone sent me […]

SORRY, NO APOLOGY INTENDED

May 7, 2004 by cmackie

The dummy in the White House told the world he feels really, really sorry about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. How sorry? So sorry that he vowed to keep his boy Rummy on the job. And we all know that Rummy, who runs the U.S. military, feels really, really sorry, too. That’s what < FONT […]

ELECTRONIC EDITIONS VS. WEB SITE VERSIONS

May 7, 2004 by cmackie

Jack Shafer’s piece, “Honey, They Shrunk the Newspaper,” is generally right about a lot of things wrong with the electronic editions (vs. the standard Web site versions) of The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times — and what’s right about them. (Here in miniature is what an electronic edition looks […]

THE DUCK IN THE ROOM

May 7, 2004 by cmackie

The T-word — “torture” — was studiously avoided by all in more than three hours of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Treatment of Prisoners in Iraq. Except, that is, for Sen. Edward Kennedy, who forthrightly spoke of “torture and abuse.” The closest Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came to using the T-word was when he said […]

DONKEY TALE

May 6, 2004 by cmackie

The tale read ’round the world: Woman harnessed like a donkey (London Evening Standard), Elderly Woman ‘Ridden Like A Donkey’ by US Troops (The Scotsman), Troops put harness on 70-year-old woman (The Australian). As reported by the Associated Press in London, it begins: “U.S. soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman last year placed a harness […]

TEMPERATURE RISING

May 5, 2004 by cmackie

I presume you’ve seen this by now, but in case you haven’t: “Disney may block anti-Bush film.” The film at issue is Michael Moore’s latest, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which is to have its premiere later this month at the Cannes International Film Festival. The New York Times quotes Moore’s agent as saying that Disney CEO Michael Eisner […]

THE SPECTRUM FROM BLUE TO RED

May 5, 2004 by cmackie

The chart that explains it all for you: A state by state tabulation of the average IQ, income and winning presidential candidate in the 2000 election, according to the Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices. The matrices are a product of The Test Agency, a well-known British publisher and distributor of psychometric tests, testing software and management training. ——————AVG IQ—AVG Income——-’00(1) Connecticut………113………$26,979……….Gore(2) Massachusetts…..111………$24,059……….Gore(3) New […]

OH, THAT HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

May 5, 2004 by cmackie

It’s embarrassing: The U.S. State Department plans to delay the release of a human rights report (which was due out today) because, as one official put it, the report describes actions taken by the U.S. government to encourage respect for human rights by other nations, and releasing it now (in light of the American abuse […]

ALL’S FAIR IN NEWS AND CELEBRITY PICKS

May 4, 2004 by cmackie

Since we were just speaking of freedom of expression, here (thanks to a link from Romenesko) is Ted Rall’s cartoon about the late Pat Tillman, which was killed by MSNBC.com. The news site’s editor in chief says he killed it because it’s unfair and tasteless. The “It” list, which ranks “hottest” celebrities each week according to readers’ picks, […]

CASTRO ON THE WAR IN IRAQ

May 4, 2004 by cmackie

None of the accounts we’ve read of Fidel Castro’s two-hour May Day speech in Havana’s Revolution Square — variously reported in The Kansas City Star, which had the most interesting account, the Financial Times, and Channel News Asia — mentioned the Cuban president’s personal remarks about the war in Iraq. Courtesy of the public relations office […]

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

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Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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