First, a correction. Friday, I wrote this:
This week, I noted special programming ( WBAI's special broadcast of Beckett's Waiting for Godot which aired Monday night -- if you missed it, you can use the archives to hear it).
Tammy was kind enough to e-mail and tell me that what you get from the archive is only the introduction to the play and one of the first scenes. I apologize for my error and thank Tammy for catching it.
Mike and I were on the phone and we were laughing and being quite silly. Which caused him to wonder what sort of posts we'd end up with? I have no idea. I know that we finished the edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review early (for Third) Sunday morning. (Four a.m.) (Third proper, which includes C.I., did do a polish on the editorial we'd all worked and Ava and C.I. never stopped polishing their TV commentary, but the rest of us were done by four a.m. That is late, but since there are times when it is 9:00 am or later, this was early and probably the earliest of any edition I've participated on.)
So, I was able to get some sleep and not wake up around three in the afternoon having lost half the day. I woke up at nine which gave me six additional hours in my Sunday so I was able to relax. I think that's why we were both in a silly mood. Usually, we're still recovering from Sunday. (If you wake up at three p.m., it can be very difficult to go to sleep at a reasonable time on Sunday night.)
So please visit Mikey Likes It! for Mike's commentary.
"Cindy Sheehan Returns to Camp Casey" (Democracy Now!):
And Cindy Sheehan and others returned to Crawford Texas to protest outside President Bush's estate. At a sunrise service on Easter Sunday the Rev. Joseph Lowery urged the protesters to keep working for peace.
I heard Cindy Sheehan saying that she would be at Camp Casey every time the Bully Boy goes on holiday. (It was on one of the Pacifica news shows but I was listening to several programs yesterday and don't remember which station I heard it on.) She said that it didn't matter that Bully Boy wasn't there (he was vacationing up north). I agree with that and agree with her about the rumors she's heard that he may be avoiding his ranchette (my term, not Sheehan's) because he doesn't want to face her.
That actually reminds me of a joke we did on April 9th in The Third Estate Sunday Review's
"'What I Didn't Find In Iraq' by Bully Boy:"
I found out this country needs something like unlisted addresses. You know, like unlisted phone numbers? Everytime I went down to my ranch to get a little rest that Cindy Sheehan would be out there. I asked Dick if I could have his undisclosed location and he got all hard ass and goes, "It's not a time-share."
"120,000 Mark 90th Anniversary of Easter Rising in Ireland" (Democracy Now!):
In Ireland, 120,000 people gathered in Dublin Sunday to mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising -- a short-lived 1916 rebellion against British rule. During the uprising, Irish rebels seized parts of Dublin from the British and declared an Irish Republic. The rebellion failed and the British executed 15 leaders. But the uprising inspired the Irish independence movement. Five years later 26 of Ireland's 32 counties became free of British rule.
If you know much about Mike, you know he is Irish-American. If you know The Common Ills community, you know that a number are as well and that there are also Irish members. They've gotten very tired of the attacks from the mainstream press on Ireland. Five years later 26 of the 32 counties did become free, but some are still occupied territories and the anger, from both sides, spills over into violence. There is a tendency in the mainstream to pin the blame on Sinn Fein (a political party currently) and that's very interesting considering that we're still talking about occupied land.
With modern day Israel, I often hear people say, of Palestinians, "They just need to get over it."
That would be the occupation they live under. (That's a simplification of what they live under but I'm rushing.) When I've followed that up with "What makes you feel that way?" -- the reply has usually been, "Well, I'm just tired of the fighting." (Sometimes, it's "I'm just tired of hearing about the fighting.")
But what would we do if we were a nation occupied by another government? If someone's tired of the violence in the occupied territories, they might want to think about how it is to live there. I'm sure the people are tired of it as well. (In fact, many press accounts note that.)
I'm not a violent person (although verbally these days I do assualt my TV if I make the mistake of attempting to watch coporate news). But I haven't lived under an occupation. The American Revolution (which led to the creation of this nation-state) was a revolt for self-rule.
That gets forgotten and here's another thing that gets forgotten. People will say that Native Americans need to "get over" the loss of their land (which is what our current nation-state sits on). I must be missing something because I've yet to see an effort to reclaim the land. I have seen legal efforts to get the monies owed from the IMB. I have read of a judge stating that the government has mismanged the funds. But the other thing I think of is the civil war in this country and how some from certain states haven't "gotten over" it. They're not attempting to fight a war, except for some fringe groups, against the country. But they put their flags up in their cars and trucks, in their windows and elsewhere and there's not a cry of, "Get over it!" Instead, there are movies, miniseries, documentaries and more maade on that time period over and over.
I find that interesting due to the fact that often times, when I've heard that statement from a person who is from the "Deep South" (not every person I know from that area has made remarks similar to that), I will ask what they think of the Civil War and, often times, they will speak of that period with great passion. So it would appear that those who have to "get over it" are always the people who are not like ourselves. I think we need to make an effort to be open when we hear of pain or hear someone speaking in pain because we won't understand where the pain is coming from otherwise.
In the eighties, TNT or TBS aired Funny Girl and I taped it for Rebecca because it wasn't just the movie, it was Sandra Bernhard hosting it and providing commentary throughout. Rebecca loves Barbra Streisand and loves Bernhard. The broadcast was starting in ten minutes and I attempted to call Rebecca but just got her machine.
I was living with a boyfriend at the time and he let his cousin borrow the tape. I came in on the end of that and saw her put it in her purse. I said, "Sure, watch it, but I need it back by the weekend because I taped it for a friend and I'm sending it to her." No problem replied the cousin.
That weekend, it wasn't returned so I called her. She denied having it. She said she'd never borrowed a tape. I told my boyfriend we were going over to his cousin's house. We went, he was reluctant to go, and I asked for the tape. She again denied borrowing it. I told her, "I saw you put it in your purse. I told you then that I had to send it this weekend." She lied to my face.
At which point, I turned to my boyfriend and said, "You better back me up."
She never would give me the tape. I told her I didn't know if she'd lost it or if she wanted it for herself but I knew she had taken it.
Rebecca was disappointed but handled it well. Now if someone wants to tell me to "get over it," I have no problem with that. It's a minor thing. But there are issues and events that people cannot just stuff inside because someone tells them to get over it. That needs to be recognized.
Just because you may not want to hear about it, does not mean that the issue which is very important to someone is something to "get over."
"Neo-Naxi Supremacist Convicted In WMD Case" (Democracy Now!):
In Tennessee, a white supremacist with Neo-Nazi ties has been convicted of attempting to acquire Sarin nerve and C-4 explosives in order to blow up government buildings. The man, Demetrius Van Crocker, once told an FBI informant that he dreamed of riding a motorcycle to Washington D.C. and setting off a dirty nuclear bomb while the House and Senate were in session. Crocker also said he wanted to get a helicopter license so he could bomb or spray poison gas on the African-American neighborhoods in Jackson Tennessee. Crocker was arrested after he bought nerve gas from an undercover agent. His attorney argued Crocker was prone to exaggeration and was a victim of entrapment. Despite the serious charges, the national press has ignored the story. The New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times have yet to report on Crocker’s arrest or conviction. A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that the radical right has attempted to carry out at least 60 terrorist plots since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
I have nothing to add to that one. But we both wanted to include it since it hasn't gotten attention.
Today, thanks to Sunny who taped it since I was in a session (I need to get an iPod), I listened to KPFA's Women's Magazine:
Women correspondents who covered the war in Iraq will join us by phone. May Ying Welch, freelancing with Al-Jezeera, Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times London, Hannah Allam with Knight Ridder and others will talk about the perspective that women bring to the coverage of the war. Marking the 57th anniversary of KPFA we host former programmers from KPFA Women's Department in the 1970's through the 1990's.
This was a very interesting broadcast. The second half contained women discussing how the Women's Department was built up and the accomplishments. One woman spoke of learning at the station that you had to fight to get your story on air and that if, after a long discussion/debate, you couldn't persuade people to see it your way, it probably wasn't a story worth telling. From that experience, when she switched to commercial broadcasting, she felt she was prepared to fight for her stories while some others weren't. She described them as "namby pamby." So she saw that as one of the benefits of her time at the station.
The first half was the foreign correspondents and it was very interesting to hear their stories. Marie Colvin spoke of how a boyfriend told her she had to leave an area or else. (Other reporters had left as had some UN forces.) She spoke of how it mattered for her to be there due to the thousands of children and women who needed someone reporting to the world what was happening. I believe it was Hannah Allen who spoke of being engaged when she went to Iraq and how the engagment ended when he couldn't live with her assignment.
It was a strong program and I believe (believe) you can hear it via the KPFA archives. It reminded me of Ava and C.I.'s commentary this Sunday in some ways.
"TV: Katie Was a Cheerleader" (Third Estate Sunday Review):
If women learned anything from the trashing of Katie Couric last week, it was that today, we're all cheerleaders. In their eyes, we're all cheerleaders. Our own work isn't addressed and there's no desire to familiarize themselves with it before weighing in. Call us when it's our turn to stand trial at the war crimes tribunal.
