REACTIONS: Helen Caldicott vs. Vermont Yankee

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New World Notes News
Coming up October 6 (Hartford-area broadcast on WWUH 91.3):

REACTIONS: Helen Caldicott
takes on Vermont Yankee (and the nuclear
noodleheads that run it for fun and profit)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Vermont is the home of covered bridges ... maple syrup ... and an ancient nuclear power plant now seeking an operating-license renewal of 20 years. Famed antinuclear activist Helen Caldecott, M.D., speaking near the Vermont Yankee plant, explains why such facilities are killers when operating properly . . . and not nice at all when they (frequently) malfunction. A witty, scary, & funny talk.

Helen Caldicott, M.D.

Notes and Credits

Note: Broadcast schedule change: WHUS, 91.7 in Storrs--which used to air NWN at 7:30 AM on Friday--now airs it at 6:30 PM on Saturday. Listeners in Providence Plantation and eastern Connecticut can stop bemoaning their fate. Your favorite radio show hasn't been cancelled, after all. Nor has New World Notes!

About half of Helen Caldicott's hour-long speech in Brattleboro, VT (given April 10, 2009) is replayed in this week's installment. The audio is borrowed from Caldicott's radio series, "If You Love This Planet," #51 (August 2009). Link, below.

New World Notes is produced for WWUH-FM, a community service of the University of Hartford.

Song -- Tom Lehrer, "We Will All Go Together When We Go"

Series Overview -- Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Next Week -- On WWUH 91.3: Pledge Drive hour-long live special, Tuesday October 13, 12:00-1:00 PM (Eastern). Make a pledge during that hour and I'll thank you on-air. If you've already pledged (or whatever), you can still call and leave a message for me, and I'll receive it (and maybe read it aloud) a minute later.

Elsewhere & on the Internet: an Encore Performance . . . sorry . . . a re-run of NWN #16, "Women, War, & Violence," with a new introduction.

Great links. Really!

New World Notes Web page/blog: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/.

Hour-long Caldicott speech in Brattleboro, April 10, 2009:
http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/34913/40046/56726/?url=http://www.radio4all.net/files/jazzwilliams@gmail.com/3400-1-iyltp51.mp3

Isabel Vinson, her clothes back on, now displaying not her body but an admirable lack of contrition in this funny 4-minute radio interview. (First read the "hard-hitting political analysis," below.) http://www.ewiseradiotools.com/station_files/file_1177666610__.mp3

Historian, law professor, and legal scholar Joyce Malcolm in a free public lecture, Wednesday evening, October 7, at the University of Hartford. "To Heller and Back: Is There a Right of Self-Defense?" (Free) tickets/reservation required. For details, listen to this brilliantly witty announcement (1 min 16 sec): http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/36145/41329/58148/?url=http://www.radio4all.net/files/kdowst@hotmail.com/3415-1-joyce-malcolm_psa_192k.mp3.

For more info. on Malcolm, read this remarkably good info. sheet concocted by the university's P.R. office: http://hartford.edu/daily/Articles.asp?Mainid=6835&category=1

I feel a little proprietary here, as I was the one who recommended Malcolm to the public-lecture committee. . . .

And now for . . .

THE SORT OF HARD-HITTING POLITICAL ANALYSIS YOU WON'T GET FROM NEOFASCIST CORPORATE STOOGES LIKE GLENN BECK, SEAN HANNITY, & THE FOX TV-61 WEATHERMAN:

"Nudes, Not Nukes!"

Caldicott half- (maybe four-fifths-) seriously encouraged Brattleboro residents to hold a nude march demanding that Vermont Yankee be shut down. In fact, nude political protests are common enough in Brattleboro. Public lewd behavior is a ticket to the slammer in Vermont, as elsewhere, but public nudity itself is lawful.

Apparently nobody in Brattleboro has yet organized that march. (Better hurry, guys: the autumnal equinox went thataway!) But Benington citizen-model Isabel Vinson and photographer Remy Chevalier came up with a similar idea. The two photos, below, show (front to rear) Vinson, the Connecticut River (Yes, Hartfordites, that Connecticut River; we're downstream from the discharge pipes), and the Vermont Yankee "bomb factory," as Helen calls it.

Vermont Yankee and Isabel Vinson face off.

The lower photo was published on the front page of the Brattleboro Reformer, and the predictable howls of outrage from Offended Parents duly ensued. Why the fuss? Doesn't People put racier photos than that on its covers about 37 times a year? Ah, yes, but--if you look real closely at the Vinson photo, tilt your neck just so, and squint . . . you can see a nipple! They say.

I tried to see it ... honestly, I did. And I'm not saying it's definitely not a nipple. I'm just saying I think it's the top of a cooling tower in the background. One of the towers of Vermont Yankee that did not collapse from rust and rot and dry-rot in August 2007. Vinson herself says it's her nipple. Whatever. I'm tired of arguing. You be the judge.

Always the entrepreneur, I'm now in the process of moving to Brattleboro, where I'm setting up a storefront office. I guarantee that I'll cure any child-victim in New England of all the damage (s)he has suffered from exposure to women's nipples -- in 3 weeks--no more, no less--for only $1,500. For $1,750 I'll cover not just the nipple but the areola as well. Why take chances with the child you love?

For children who have been breast-fed, add an additional $1,500 to the price and an additional 3 weeks to the course of treatment. Damage this severe is very hard to cure, compared with the still-tragic but lesser injury done to children by leaving them in a room alone with the Brattleboro Reformer and a good magnifying glass. Why not toss in a loaded pistol and a pack of matches while you're at it, scum?!

Finally, be sure to ask about available discounts for treating TNO (traumatic nipple observation) suffered in areas where public nudity is perfectly legal (locker rooms, nudist camps, Vermont, etc.).

Note to VDMV: How about adding Live Modestly or Die! to the license plates? Apparently they tried it in Kabul, and it was a big hit. Or is that motto too close to New Hampshire's?

Note to Brattleboro Water District: I think it's time to stop adding maple syrup to the drinking water and to go back to fluoride. At least the psychotic side-effects of fluoride are well-understood and predictable!

A Brattleboro tradition

With the profits from my business treating traumatic nipple observation, I had planned to start another business: curing children of the effects of exposure to nuclear power plants. Nuke plants are just as bad as nipples, if not worse. But now I find that two people have gotten the jump on me. Apparently two pediatric oncologists are already doing outstanding work, one of them at the Royal Hospital of Sweden, in Stockholm; the other at the M.D. Anderson Clinic, in Houston. It is said that either can prolong the life of a childhood leukemia victim . . . often by 12, sometimes even by 18 months!

To judge by the expressed Parental Outrage, the effects of exposure to "routine releases" of radioactive tritium apparently aren't as bad as traumatic nipple observation. But they are harder to treat. What to do? Eureka! (he said, his eyes having moved downwards from Isabel Vinson's cooling tower). Traumatic Buttock Observation! Buttocks have got to be at least as common as nipples. Sure, per square inch, nipples are the second-deadliest visible organ of a woman's body, and buttocks far less detructive to the innocence of our children and teenagers. Per square inch. You can see where I'm going here. . . .

Coda

Christine Keeler, by Lewis Morley
(Click to remove chair)

As I type this, a verse from the 1960s comes to mind. An affair, recently ended, was revealed between the (married) Secretary of War for the U.K., John Profumo, and a young woman described as a "party girl," Christine Keeler. Keeler was said also to have been involved with a Russian senior naval attache' (in vulgar terms: spy) in London.

So far, so good, but then Profumo made an error of judgment. In March 1963--questioned about the affair in the House of Commons--the Secretary denied any improper behavior involving Ms Keeler. Public uproar over the scandal--particularly lying in Parliament(!)--weakened the Conservative government of PM Harold Macmillan.

A limerick was duly penned:

• Look what you've done! said Christine,
  You've wrecked the whole Party machine!
  To lie in the nude
  Is not at all rude,
  But to lie in the House is obscene!

Can This Honeymoon Be Saved? (Part 2)

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 38 -- September 22, 2009

Wall Street Bailout (Black Agenda Report)

This week in New World Notes, radio program #83, September 29:

Can This Honeymoon
Be Saved?

Part 2: Wealth Care, Si! -- Health Care, Non!

In many ways, Barack H. Obama embodies more of the hopes and fantasies of Progressives and Liberals than any of us imagined was possible.

For a start, President Obama is proof that American racism--like the old gray mare--just ain't what she used to be.

Furthermore, Obama is intelligent; he's articulate; he gives every appearance of being sane--at least by the admittedly low standards of the powerful. He's charming; he's good-looking; he projects a style that is both admirable and attractive.

Bottom: Jello Biafra (left, as zombie mayor), in RetarDEAD

In mid-2008, Jello Biafra said, of Obama, "He's a wonderful speaker, comes across as a cool guy you could actually hang out and talk to. . . ."

Jello ended that sentence with, ". . .if only that was reflected in his voting record!"

Jello went on to make a pretty good case that--when it comes to warmongering, destroying civil liberties, promoting government spying, kowtowing to Israel, and aiding and abetting corporate plunder, Senator Obama's voting record is right up there alongside Hillary's and Son-of-Cain's. In fact, on a few corporate-power issues, McCain's voting record was more progressive than Obama's!

Top: Mumia Abu-Jamal
Bottom: Dr. Kenneth Dowst

Well, listen to Jello for yourself! He's on this week's New World Notes. So are three other Left-leaning, articulate critics of current policies of the federal Executive Branch. They are

• Glen Ford--Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report
• Mumia Abu-Jamal--former newspaper reporter, convicted (in a highly questionable trial) cop-killer, long-time political essayist and radio commentator, and long-term resident of Death Row somewhere in Pennsylvania
• moi--the best we could get on such short notice

Two songs complement the prose this week:

• Obama Girl and The Man Himself, "Duet"
• "Call it Democracy"--Bruce Cockburn's rocking critique of the gap between a government's professed democratic principles and the government's actions at home and abroad. Pronounced Co-burn.

Next Week:

NWN #84 -- REACTIONS: Dr. Helen Caldecott takes on Vermont Yankee

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Can This Honeymoon Be Saved? (Part 1)

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 38 -- September 22, 2009

This week in New World Notes, radio program #82, September 22 & 25:

Can This Honeymoon
Be Saved?

Part 1: War and More War

You don't have to be Jewish . . . to love Levy's Rye Bread, the famous ad slogan went. And you don't have to be a screaming, sanity-challenged, hyena-like Republican TV pundit reading from a script written by Karl Rove . . . to be getting flabbergasted by many things President Obama is doing in our name . . . and with our money, what's left of it.

I claim no special insight here. Many Progressives have been saying the same, some of them before I joined the chorus.

In the spring of 2008--before either party had selected a candidate for President--Jello Biafra warned that Obama's personal style was far more admirable and attractive than his voting record in the Senate. (We'll hear these remarks next week, in NWN #83.) Among other correct predictions, Jello said that an Obama plan for health care reform will show more concern for the financial health of the insurance industry than for whether the citizens live or die.

In a recent article, journalist and essayist Chris Hedges apologized for, in November, abandoning true Progressive candidates in favor of Obama:

• We owe Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party an apology. They were right. If a few million of us had had the temerity to stand behind our ideals rather than our illusions and the empty slogans peddled by the Obama campaign, we would have a platform. We forgot that social reform never comes from accommodating the power structure but from frightening it [Emphasis added]. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090810_nader_was_right_liberals_are_going_nowhere_with_obama/

Speaking in Hartford Sunday afternoon--on the U.S. government's ongoing and new military adventures--independent journalist Dahr Jamail declined to lambaste the president. But Jamail did stress repeatedly that Obama's wars and military occupations clearly violate international law, U.S. law, the oath each soldier was required to pledge, and the international conventions on war crimes that our country signed.

He urged his listeners to do more to support the GIs who are actively resisting the war . . . as Americans had done in the Vietnam era.

If only!

I myself concluded that Obama was just another money-grubbing politician when I read and heard his shameless pandering to AIPAC last year. He outdid even Hillary in demonstrating his complete fealty to whatever warmongers and ethnic-cleansers were running a certain small Middle-Eastern state.

But the AIPAC speech was just an especally clear example of the sort of behavior that's giving prostitution a bad name. Nor did receiving more money from the financial industry than any other candidate bode well.

Still, I wished and (audaciously?) hoped that my "take" on Obama was wrong, that my assessment was too harsh, that many of my dire predictions would be proved false.

Is it too soon to judge Obama?

Wall Street Bailout

The Official Synopsis:

Like the hysterical right-wing pundits--though for different reasons--Progressives are increasingly alarmed at Obama's actions & inactions. Using a wide variety of audio soures, we explore The Audacity of Betrayal & the government's astounding lack of "change we can believe in." This installment focuses (though not exclusively) on war, the military, and "defense" spending. First of two parts.

Next Week: Part 2 -- Wealth Care, Si! . . . Health Care, Non!

PS: Because the subject is such a bummer, I tried to make the show itself fun. You'll get to hear, among other sound sources, Amy Goodman; The Dixie Chicks; Obama Girl; an Al-Jazeera documentary; the trailer for the film, War of the Roses; and me.

Leaving Obamaland
(This and previous photograph courtesy Black Agenda Report)

David Rovics: Capitalism and Community

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David Rovics in Nablus

This week in New World Notes, radio program #81, September 15 & 18:

David Rovics:
Capitalism & Community
A Conversation, Part 1

As you've heard, journalist Dahr Jamail will speak on several occasions in Hartford and Windham counties (Connecticut), September 19-21. Beginning 7:30 PM of the 21st, in Wesleyan's Memorial Chapel, he'll be joined on stage by acclaimed singer-songrwiter David Rovics. All events are free.

Rovics' business motto is a good if uncommon one: Songs of social significance. His business model is even more uncommon. For the most part, he gives his musical recordings away via the Internet. (See "Resources," below.)

Rovics calculates that, if a musician of his echelon makes any money at all, the money comes from concert performance fees, not royalties on album sales and radio airplay. Every summer a pop star like Paul McCartney can buy a cottage on the Isle of Wight with his quarterly royalty check. With their quarterly royalty checks, normal musicians can buy a couple sets of guitar strings and a falafel sandwich.

Dahr Jamail

The political/social/economic/ecological concerns and stands in Rovics' music fit very nicely with New World Notes' own value set. In the 19 months this show has been on the air, we've probably played 85 recorded songs, and fully a third of them must have been by Rovics.

This week's installment of the show features Rovics. Here's the official synopsis:

In a phone interview, politically-engaged singer-songwriter David Rovics discusses two of the concerns that are central to his music: (1) Community and (2) the great enemy of community, Capitalism, American-style. Plus two songs by Rovics and commentary by KD.

Music this week:

• David Rovics, Used To Be a City In This Town and New Orleans

Danbury Fair (1970s?)

Resources:

• http://willtoresistwar.blogspot.com/ -- Details of, additions to, & last-minute changes in Jamails' & Rovics' appearances in this tour of Connecticut
• http://www.soundclick.com/davidrovics -- Free audition & mp3 download of David Rovics' most recent 200 (and counting) recorded songs
• http://www.davidrovics.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYW6S3hHvrI -- A good introduction to Rovics' music: a music video on You Tube of the song, What if you knew? (Note: some graphic images of civilian war casualties and starvation.)

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes
  
  

Labor Day Musical Special

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 36 -- September 8, 2009

This week in New World Notes, radio program #80, September 8 & 11:

Labor Day Musical Special

featuring (in order of appearance)

David Rovics, The Day the Minimum Wage Workers Went on Strike. A classic celebration of the working class and of strength in solidarity . . . with some very nice banjo picking.

Mad Agnes, Katie. A witty and sharp critique of bourgeois life from the perspective of the long-suffering--and admirable--cleaning lady.

The Foremen, Workin' on an MBA. Comic satire of the cushy life, & boundless self-pity, of the men in the gray flannel suits--set to a tune that recalls a Mississippi chain gang.

Utah Phillips, Moose Turd Pie. Spoken, w/ guitar. Utah recalls (with only the slightest hint of exaggeration) the worst job he ever held.

Anne Feeney, Business News / Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! A beautiful rendition of an 1890's song about unemployment (yep: that "18" is correct!); a fine homage to Simon & Garfunkel's 1965 classic, "Silent Night / 6 o'Clock News"; and a good song on its own terms.

John McCutcheon, Doing Our Job. McCutcheon applies Cal Ripken's modest remarks upon breaking a major-league record to America's working people generally.

Base (Workers & Farmers): We Work for all. . . . We feed all.
Level 2 (Corporate fatcats): We eat for you.
Level 3 (Soldiers): We shoot at you.
Level 4 (Clergy): We fool you.
Level 5 (Kings, Presidents, etc.): We Rule you.
Top (Moneybag): Capitalism. Click to enlarge.

Coming soon (dates of WWUH Tuesday broadcast shown):

• September 15--Can We Save the Environment? Maybe. But probably not by eating vegan, taking shorter showers, and swapping the car for a bicycle.
• September 22--Can This Honeymoon Be Saved? (Part 1: War & More War.) Was eloping with Obama a terrible, terrible mistake?

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Lunch: Rockefeller Center (Photo by Charles C. Ebbetts, 1932)

What Does Woman Want?

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 35 -- September 1, 2009

This week in New World Notes, radio program #79, September 1 & 3:

Some more color in her life?

What Does
Woman Want?

from the blog, Traumdeutung*, by (apparently) Amy H. Konig:

Thursday, June 05, 2008

What I would like to know is: what do people mean when they ask, What does Hillary want? . . . Obviously, they want her to go away, and they want her to name her price. Whether you agree or disagree with this sentiment, though, it is clear that there are a vast number of ways to express it that do not involve quoting one of the most famous misogynist phrases in history.

Late in life, Sigmund Freud reportedly uttered the question “What does woman want?” (“Was will das Weib?”) to Marie Bonaparte. This phrase, which does not appear in the Standard Edition, has nevertheless become one of the founder of modern psychology's most famous quotations. When Freud asked this question, he meant to convey that the question itself is unanswerable: that women are simply one of the great unsolved mysteries (and problems) in life.

Along with his characterization of the female psyche as a “dark continent,” and his description of female desire as “veiled in obscurity,” this quotation is regularly invoked as evidence of Freud’s misogyny. It is perhaps one the most contentious phrases in all of psychoanalysis, and it has had a profound effect on Freud’s legacy.

http://amyhkonig.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-does-hillary-want.html (Emphasis added.)

To marry a nice Jewish doctor?

On New World Notes I have courageously risen to defend people nearly universally regarded as scum. I have said that Iran PM Mosadeq may not have been the Communist slavemaster the Shah and the U.S. and Iranian media (with a little help from the CIA) painted him to be 1953.

I have said that Lynndie England and Charles Grainer indeed may have done nothing to restore the honor of the Hillbilly community . . . but should not have been jailed for single-handedly introducing sexually perverted torture to Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, the CIA's "black sites" in Eastern Europe, and the Maryland State Training School for Boys.

Viagra for Her? The title of the photo is "Female Viagra."
I say it's Pepto-Bismol, and I say the hell with it.

And I say yet again--I believe for the fourth time, in print--that in the waning years of the (William) Clinton administration, the only public figure to display any class was the unjustly maligned intern, Monica Lewinski. And let her who has never granted a favor to a man who proved undeserving of her kindness cast the first stone.

Yes, Underdogs 'R' Us here at New World Notes.

A boyfriend who's not afraid to take charge?

Yet even I hesitate to defend a scoundrel, fool, and blackguard as notorious as Sigmund Freud. The man who invented--and ruthlessly enforced--patriarchal oppression of women, female genital mutilation, menstrual cramps, pain in childbirth, hysteria, cellulite, and the fin-de-siecle bourgeois Weltanschauung of Mitteleuropa.

Yes, that last crime is so great that it takes at least three languages (counting the "of") even to name it!

Thus, with trepidation do I question whether speaking "Was will das Weib?" indicates misogyny or rather . . . deep wisdom.

"Zipless f*cks," anyone?

With trepidation do I ask whether discourse that Amy Konig alleges to be "one of the most famous misogynist phrases in history" . . . in fact be "misogynist" or instead a stunning personal and philosophical epiphany--the moment a man, celebrated for his insight into the psyche, has a revelation akin to Saul's on the road to Tarsus and at last is struck by the profundity of Socrates' wisest statement (IMHO), "All I know is that I know nothing."

That the Times do a better job of news reporting? Here, in 2009,
they discover & report the female orgasm--36 years after Our
Bodies, Ourselves discovered it first. What next--"Ho Chi Minh
seen as likely winner of Viet Nam national election in '54"?

I assume that the blur by the model's mouth is her soul escaping
her body--only temporarily, one hopes. Yep: the literal meaning
of "ecstasy"! Bad Taste is Timeless. Note to Photo Editor: I don't
claim to understand Woman any better than Freud did; however,
to me, that cover photo does not capture "Desire." Two seconds
ealier, you woulda nailed it. Next time, pick a photographer with
quicker reflexes. On the difference between "desire" and "glorious,
wide-screen, Technicolor orgasm," please see Fear of Flying.

"When Freud asked this question [viz., What does Woman want?], he meant to convey that the question itself is unanswerable: that women are simply one of the great unsolved mysteries (and problems) in life. . . ."

Since "and problems" is in parentheses, I assume that Konig is reluctant to publicly attribute the notion to Freud. Strip away her parenthetical addition, and does anyone have any problems with the words that remain? Is it "misogynist" to have some sense of the universe's impenetrable (you should pardon the adjective) mysteries?

A little something from Tiffany's?**

"Along with [Freud's] characterization of the female psyche as a 'dark continent,' and his description of female desire as 'veiled in obscurity,' this quotation is regularly invoked as evidence of Freud’s misogyny."

Fantasizing about George Clooney and/or the young Sean Connery while making love to me, I can understand. But Jeremy Wallace?? If that fantasy isn't "veiled in obscurity," then will some kind person please explain the obvious to me?

An electric Dobro . . . and a man who really knows how
to use it?? (Chacun a son gout--pardon my French!)

Okay, I'll knock it off. I named the installment "What Does Woman Want?" just to be cheeky. I don't know the answer. I don't know if the question even makes sense. I don't know if such a thing as "Woman" even exists. And I've been married to one woman or another--actually, only a couple of them--for 33 years. I don't even know what Man wants. Well, apart from that.

For this installment, I had planned to broadcast audio of two different groups of young American women: (1) women of color engaged with issues of reproductive health care and (2) Moslems engaged with issues of social and personal freedom. My ambitions were larger than my timeslot, so we must postpone hearing from the latter group.

We shall hear (if God permits) former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders--no longer young but still feisty, funny, and intelligent--addressing the women's healthcare-advocacy group SisterSong in Atlanta.

Top: Dr. Jocelyn Elders

Music of the week

You'd never forgive me if I didn't follow (my condensed version of) Elders' talk with The Foremen's song, "Firing the Surgeon General." And postponing the Moslem segment freed up a few additional minutes, into which I transplanted*** one of the better male imaginings of a woman's inner life since Hemingway wrote "Hills Like White Elephants" and Joyce created Molly Bloom.

Incidentally, it's worth giving $3 to the @#^%&{!s that own Blockbuster in order to rent Back To School, in order again to see and hear Sally Kellerman, looking ravishing in red, breathlessly read the end of Molly's soliloquy in Ulysses to her Freshman English class. How anybody could pick Jeremy Wallace over Professor Kellerman is beyond me! Even Dangerfield is on my side on this issue. Pretty funny when he emerges from his classroom daydream shouting, "Yes! . . . Yes! . . . Yes!"

OK, now that I've finished showing off my degrees in English, let me say that the song in which a man does a half-decent job of imagining a woman's inner life is James McMurtry's "Fireline Road"--not "Firing the Surgeon General"--and we play this (the former) too. James, of course, is the son of talented novelist Larry McMurtry, whose best-known novels depict in gritty realism the . . . oh, never mind!

Coming soon (dates of WWUH Tuesday broadcast shown):

• September 8--Labor Day Musical Special -- featuring songs by Anne Feeney, The Foremen, Mad Agnes, John McCutcheon, Utah Phillips, and David Rovics
  
• September 15--Can We Save the Environment?

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Men who listen? Top billing?

Footnotes

* I assume Traumdeutung means "interpretation of dreams." For a lady who doesn't much care for that Dead White Male-chauvinist-Schwein from Vienna, Konig seems to be quite the Freudienne.

** One is reminded of the beauty and insight of those elegiac verses in Second Corinthians:

• Men grow cold as girls grow old,
  And we all lose our charms in the end;
  But square-cut or pear-shape,
  These rocks won't lose their shape:
  Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend!

*** Qui transtulit sustinet (Connecticut state motto).

Public Education: Failure or All-Too-Successful?

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This week in New World Notes, radio program #78, August 25:

Schoolchildren salute the flag: early 20th century. Be afraid.

One of my favorite mental images comes from Eric Klinenberg's talk on Media Oligopoly, from the 9th installment of New World Notes (April 2008). Klinenberg told how a Christian anti-smut organization and Move On (I think it was) and the National Rifle Association and Code Pink for Peace all joined together to fight some horrific rule-change or other that the Bush-era Federal Communications Commission was proposing.

Can’t you just picture the table? . . . with (the late) Charleton Heston, for the NRA, in leather boots, jeans, and cowboy-plaid shirt, sitting next to Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin, in a pink Tee and (just to unsettle her right-wing opponents) pearl necklace?

I can picture Medea and Charlton--between rounds of plotting tactics to stop the government from “privatizing” all the airwaves--chatting and discovering they’re both fans of, say, singer Iris Dement and the Green Bay Packers. And, more importantly, discovering that they share more political beliefs than they had imagined. And discovering that they and the organizations they represent can work together effectively on matters of common concern.

Medea Benjamin, being ejected from a joint session of Congress
after giving advice to Iraq PM Nouri al-Malaki, July 30, 2006.

Every bit as much as those we refer to as “right-wing crazies” do, we left-of-center types demonize those we see as our opponents and then turn them into cartoon stereotypes. Not even real demons but cartoon demons!

We disdain Limbaugh "dittoheads" who--cartoonishly--imagine Palestinians as only evil bomb-throwers, . . . who imagine homosexuals as warped pedophiles, . . . who imagine Obama and H. Clinton as “dangerous socialists.” (If only!)

Yet how about our own imaginations of people it’s PC for liberals to despise? What do we picture when we think of “hard-hat construction worker“? What do we picture when we think of “NRA member”?

So I like the image of Medea and Charlton getting to know and respect each other--and the grassroots organization that the other heads or headed. Some day I’m going to do a show on gun-control and the NRA that--in the unlikely event that all goes according to plan--will get listeners to question which side has the sane, sensible people and which has the wild-eyed crazies.

Jonathan Kozol in 2006

For now, though, let’s look at an even stranger set of bedfellows than Chuck and Medea. Teachers / scholars of education / educational theorists John Taylor Gatto and Jonathan Kozol are (apart from their life’s work!) two peas from very different pods.

Kozol is a child of privilege with a resume’ to prove it: prep school; Harvard BA summa cum laude (English major, let it be noted); Rhodes Scholarship to one of the most prestigious colleges at Oxford, Magdalen; quit to move to Paris and write a novel; numerous fellowships including two Guggenheims; and so on and so forth.

Gatto was brought up in a steel-and-mining town near Pittsburgh, educated (or “schooled,” as he would say) in small-town public schools in the region and one Catholic boarding school, served in the army, attended graduate schools, and eventually became a schoolteacher in New York City.

Class conflict, anyone?

Interboro High School Brain Trust, ca. 1968. Note handsome young
man in the polka-dot tie. "Scott's Hi-Q" was an interscholastic quiz-team
tournament similar to GE College Bowl on national TV. ("Scott" was the
Scott Paper Company.) Standing: Bruce Shaw (team alternate), Kenneth
Mobley (faculty advisor). This photo surfaced just a few days ago on
Facebook.

That Gatto and Kozol disagree on several points is hardly surprising. More surprising is how much they agree on. Here’s a quick comparison-and-contrast:

Born in . . .
Gatto: 1935
Kozol: 1936

Grew up in . . .
Gatto: blue-collar small town near Pittsburgh (Monongahela, PA)
Kozol: "previleged" environment in affluent Boston suburb (Newton, MA)

Apparent political leanings:
Gatto: ("paleo-") conservative / Libertarian
Kozol: Left-Liberal

Most teaching experience:
Gatto: public secondary schools
Kozol: public elementary schools

Honors from educational Establishment?
Gatto: Yes
Kozol: Yes

Public persona (after Gatto):
Gatto: adult
Kozol: child-like (= praise, of a sort) but not child-ish

Purpose of standardized testing = ?
Gatto: to sort & destroy children
Kozol: to sort & destroy children

Overall nature of his critique (after Parenti):
Gatto: a "radical analysis"
Kozol: a "liberal complaint"

Summary judgment of public schooling:
Gatto: all-too-successful at doing the evil things it was designed to do
Kozol: a failure at educating children & empowering citizens

Proposed solution to the problems of public education =
Gatto: destroy the system
Kozol: radically reform the system

John Taylor Gatto (seated) in 2009

Fascinating stuff. This week we present Part 3 (the conclusion) of the long talk John Taylor Gatto gave in late 2003, and we present an introduction to Jonathan Kozol through excerpts from a talk that he gave in, I believe, 2006. I hope you’ll find the similarities between the two as interesting as I did.

It wouldn’t hurt if you had heard the previous installments of Gatto’s speech (NWN #72 & 74). If you want to, and have an hour to spare, by all means help yourself! Just scroll down to the blog entries for July 10 (#72) and July 26 (#74). Each entry has a link or 2 to the sound files. But I think you can also begin with this week’s episode, which starts with a review of Gatto’s main ideas.

We’ll hear more from Kozol at a later date.

In solidarity,
Ken

The Thinking (Wo)Man's Guide to 9-11, Part 2

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This week in New World Notes, radio program #77, August 18:

Smoke (at top) and finely-pulverized concrete (center). Click to enlarge.

We conclude our two-part series, which is an introduction to the unanswered questions of the 9-11 attacks, designed for listeners who dislike "conspiracy theories" and "conspiracy buffs."

This week, we'll hear Paul Zarembka, a professor of business and economics and editor of a book by scholars on various aspects of the 9-11 attacks. Zarembka's own chapter of the book concerns the money-flow. On the show, though, he speaks compellingly of the government's surprisingly rapid and highly dubious identification of the 19 alleged hijackers.

Paul Zarembka

Why "dubious"? For one, after 9-11, ten of these people (not just people with the same name) presented themselves to news media offices or American embassies, asserting that they were neither scorched nor bruised, let alone dead. And there are many other problems with the identifications.

At last it can be told!

Then I present the results of an informal written survey I conducted a few months ago, a survey of attitudes towards the official government/media version of who/what/when/where/why/how. OK, not why: Nobody believes the Official (or at least W.'s) Version of that: Because "they hate our freedom."

Finely-pulverized concrete blanketed Manhattan. Caustic,
highly alkaline, highly toxic. On White House orders, the EPA lied,
falsely announcing that the air was safe to breathe. Many rescue
workers and others are now dead, dying, or seriously impaired
from lung disease. Some estimate that more will die from breathing
the poisoned air than died in the destruction of the Twin Towers.

The survey found some Believers and many Doubters. The Doubters confirmed Zarembka's remarks that people who reject the Official Version do so for different reasons. The survey was not multiple-choice: it asked respondents to reply in their own words. Sorting the results later, I found that six reasons for disbelief were cited more often than others. In no particular order, they are the

• physics of the building collapses
• lack of effective air defense
• suspicious stock-option purchases that suggest prior knowledge
• questionable identification of the hijackers
• odd pattern of physical evidence at the Pentagon
• principle of cui bono? (who benefits?)

I briefly discuss each of these six and read selected responses from the show's listeners.

Song played: David Rovics, Reichstag Fire

"Salomon Brothers building" is WTC7, where Salomon was a tenant. Both
BBC and CNN announced the collapse roughly an hour ahead of time. CNN's
anchor interrupted his phone interview with Israel PM Peres to announce
the collapse. In both live newscasts, through the window behind the News
personality, viewers could see WTC7 standing proudly. CNN's man
stumbled verbally when he saw it too.

Coming soon (dates of WWUH Tuesday broadcast shown):

• August 25--Public Education: Failure or All-Too-Successful? -- J.T. Gatto (Part 3) vs. Jonathan Kozol
• September 1--What Does Woman Want?

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes
  

WTC 7, across the street from the other buildings of the
World Trade Center complex. In this photo, the darker
side of WTC7 faces away from the rest of the complex.

Note: The blog's previous entry (scroll down) has some nice news footage of the collapse of Building 7, with voice-over commentary by Dan Rather.

More 9-11 Info.: A Short Bibliography

9-11 Info. -- Some recommended sources

All these are good, sound, sane, and cautious in their conclusions--hence all the more devastating to the Official Version of events.

9-11 Research
Comprehensive, concise, readable, and level-headed presentation of known facts pertaining to the 9-11 attacks. As they state, "9-11 Research stresses verifiable information and rational analysis."
http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html

WTC7.net
Focuses on the little-known third WTC building suddenly to collapse, at near-freefall speed, onto its own footprint (in the late afternoon of September 11). This one wasn't even hit by an airplane. A BBC-TV reporter (live) and a CNN anchor (live) each announced the collapse of Building 7 many minutes before it occurred. In both cases the viewer can see the very building--standing tall and in no obvious distress--through the picture window in the background, Did I mention that The 9-11 Commission Report doesn't even mention Building 7?

Oh, yes, I've become a Building 7 buff! Of all the property that got smashed that day, WTC7 offers--per square foot--more fun, more improbable official explanations, more lies, more Sergeant Schultz ("I see Not'ink!") imitations by the media--than any other site. It's more fun than a barrel of Thermite!

WTC7.net is brought to you by the same people who do 9-11 Research. Don't miss the video clips!
http://wtc7.net/

Scholars for 911 Truth & Justice
Substantial articles by researchers in several academic fields--not only physics & engineering but also political science, philosophy, history, religion, & other Liberal Arts disciplines. If you think that "good academic writing" is not necessarily an oxymoron, you're likely to find much of interest here.
http://stj911.org/

Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth
Firefighters for 9-11 Truth
What do these middle-class professionals and gritty "hard-hats" have in common? Among other things, the considered opinion that (1) plane crashes and/or office fires do not make steel-frame highrise buldings collapse looking just like well-managed controlled demolitions. And that (2) well-managed controlled demolitions make steel-frame highrise buldings collapse in exactly the way the 3 WTC buildings did--including the "squibbs," chains of preliminary explosions, debris sent flying laterally with great force, huge clouds of thousands of tons of finely pulverized concrete initially forming a cauliflower shape, molten iron (not steel) heating the basement for weeks afterwards, and near-freefall speed of collapse. Prior announcement of the collapse on BBC and CNN optional. . . There are many more items, but these should get us started.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/

Connecticut 9-11 Truth
In the early stages of construction, but shows promise. Currently has some good links to audio recordings & to other organizations.
http://www.ct911truth.org/

Dan Rather describes the fall of WTC7.
Note how the penthouse collapses first. (If video
will not start, nudge the slider at the bottom--
next to the Play button--a little to the right.)