{"id":733,"date":"2004-06-03T09:03:27","date_gmt":"2004-06-03T16:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/06\/the_awful_truth\/"},"modified":"2004-06-03T09:03:27","modified_gmt":"2004-06-03T16:03:27","slug":"the_awful_truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/06\/the_awful_truth.html","title":{"rendered":"THE AWFUL TRUTH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>A report this morning from the Associated Press: <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/news\/articles\/0603enron03.html\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>Enron traders gleeful at ripping off<br \/>\ngrandmas<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. &#8220;Enron traders openly discussed manipulating California&#8217;s<br \/>\npower market during profanity-laced telephone conversations in which they gloated about ripping<br \/>\noff &#8216;those poor grandmothers&#8217; during the state&#8217;s energy crunch in 2000-01, according to transcripts<br \/>\nof the calls.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>An editorial this morning from The New York Times: <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/06\/03\/opinion\/03THU1.html\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>Fiscal<br \/>\nShenanigans<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. &#8220;President Bush appears to be planning to run for<br \/>\nre-election as a tax cutter without discussing what federal programs will be sacrificed to make up<br \/>\nfor the lost revenue. That can&#8217;t be allowed to happen. Voters have the right to see the whole<br \/>\npicture, including the downside. Chances are they won&#8217;t like the view.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>Can you stand more? Check this report in The Washington Post: <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A10961-2004Jun2.html\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>Soldiers Facing Extended Tours \/ Critics of<br \/>\nArmy Policy Liken It to a Draft<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. &#8220;Army officials announced yesterday<br \/>\nthat thousands of active-duty and reserve soldiers who are nearing the end of their volunteer<br \/>\nservice commitments could be forced to serve an entire tour overseas if their units are chosen for<br \/>\ndeployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.&#8221;<\/P><br \/>\n<P>And this: <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A11086-2004Jun2.html\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>Energy&nbsp;[Dept.] Finds No Misconduct at<br \/>\nHanford<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. &#8220;An investigation of contractors accused of altering medical<br \/>\nrecords and covering up worker exposure to toxic vapors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has<br \/>\nfound no evidence of criminal misconduct, the Energy Department&#8217;s inspector general said<br \/>\nWednesday.&#8221; And by the way, &#8220;It will take three more decades to finish the cleanup there, at a<br \/>\ncost of about $2 billion a year.&#8221; <\/P><br \/>\n<P>And this: <A\nhref=\"http:\/\/story.news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story&#038;cid=519&#038;ncid=716&#038;e=4&#038;u=\/ap\/20040603\n\/ap_on_re_us\/terror_suspect_deported\"><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>Administration<br \/>\nFreed Terror Suspect<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. &#8220;Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No.<br \/>\n27 man on the FBI&#8217;s list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again. He&#8217;s free despite telling a<br \/>\nJordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City<br \/>\ntunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare<br \/>\nto ignite a massive explosion.&#8221; How come? &#8220;[I]n the name of protecting intelligence.&#8221; <\/P><br \/>\n<P><B>FROM A READER:<\/B> &#8220;I was saddened by the prices you quoted for <A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/archives20040601.shtml#79897\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><EM><FONT color=#003399>John Kerry&#8217;s benefit<br \/>\nconcert<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>&nbsp;at Radio City. It reminded me of the 2000 election. I<br \/>\ncan&#8217;t remember if it was just a speech or during the debates, but at one point Al Gore was talking<br \/>\nabout trying to help out the &#8220;regular&#8221; people who only make $60,000 a year. <\/P><br \/>\n<P>My parents, together, never made $60,000 a year in their entire lives. Me and my wife,<br \/>\ntogether, are getting there. We&#8217;ll probably be up to $60,000 between the two of us in about 5<br \/>\nyears. I can&#8217;t wait to become &#8220;regular,&#8221; instead of sub-regular. \ud83d\ude1b<\/P><br \/>\n<P>It is no wonder that Al Gore didn&#8217;t even win his own freakin&#8217; state. I hope John Kerry doesn&#8217;t<br \/>\nhave the same thing happen. He tries to be a good Democrat, but deep inside he&#8217;s just a moderate<br \/>\nRepublican. He definitely wasn&#8217;t in my top 3 choices of the candidates for Democrat this year.<br \/>\nToo bad. He&#8217;s still SIGNIFICANTLY the lesser of two evils!&#8221;<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report this morning from the Associated Press: Enron traders gleeful at ripping off grandmas. &#8220;Enron traders openly discussed manipulating California&#8217;s power market during profanity-laced telephone conversations in which they gloated about ripping off &#8216;those poor grandmothers&#8217; during the state&#8217;s energy crunch in 2000-01, according to transcripts of the calls.&#8221; An editorial this morning from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-bP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}