Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Memorial Day Special

This week in New World Notes, #65, May 26 & 29:

Memorial Day is Monday, May 25, and this week's show commemorates it.

Just as the wrong sorts of people wave the flag, for all the wrong reasons--so the same people do their best to turn Memorial Day into a celebration of military service, unnecessary wars, belligerent foreign policies, and obscenely high and ever-increasing expenditures for quote-national defense-unquote.


Top: 2 flags.
Bottom: 20 flags

Personally, I prefer Christmas--the only national holiday in which the word "peace" is ever uttered, however insincerely.

And don't even get me started on Armistice Day! Originally a multinational holiday celebrating the end of the most gawdawful war in history, to that date. Now transformed into "Veterans Day" by our patriotic, peace-loving Congress. Quite a metamorphosis, eh?

This week, New World Notes offers an Alternative Memorial Day Celebration. The full title is, The Slippery Slope of Memorial Day.

First I elaborate on the main theme. To remember those whom the State caused to die is worthy. To celebrate a foreign policy consisting mainly of armed belligerance is unworthy. To call for ever more deaths and ever more killing so that "these honored dead shall not have died in vain" is obscene--the bottom of the slippery slope.

Guess where most conventional Memorial Day celebrations end up.

Top: Graphic by Eric Drooker
Bottom: "Spain, 1936" by Robert Capa


Then we hear veteran Middle-East correspondent Robert Fisk sharing his own thoughts on war.

Finally I'll read Howard Zinn's fine 1976 column on war and Memorial Day. At the time, he was a columnist for the Boston Globe. The day afterwards, he was no longer a columnist for the Boston Globe.

Well--to invert T.S. Eliot--at least he went out with a bang, not a whimper!

Happy motoring!
Ken


From The Phantom English Major:

Zinn's essay both begins and ends with a few words about drunken smashups. At the end, though, he's talking about more than just highway accidents. Clever.

This week's music:

  • Steppenwolf, Monster

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Naomi Klein on CIA Project MK-ULTRA



This week in New World Notes, #64, May 19 & 22:

Without their knowledge, American and Canadian citizens were used as guinea pigs in a bizarre series of top-secret experiments funded by the CIA. The series was known as Project MK-ULTRA. (The MK designates the particular CIA department in charge.)

Sensational revelations in the 1970s focused on the project's use of LSD on unwitting subjects. This caught viewers' attention, but LSD was just the tip of the iceberg. The MK-ULTRA experiments used a wide variety of powerful and sometimes antagonistic drugs in attempts to erase the contents of the subject's mind so that new content could be implanted. They used large and repeated doses of electroshock to complement the drug cocktails. To this they often added long periods of sensory deprivation.

None of the subjects of the experiments had consented--or were even aware that they were being used as guinea pigs.


Top: Author Naomi Klein.
Bottom: World's worst psychiatrist: Dr. Donald Ewen
Cameron (1901-1967).

An early public justification of MK-ULTRA--when the project finally was exposed--was that it sought to understand "brainwashing" or "mind-control" techniques supposedly employed by the enemy in the Korean War. More recent statements by intelligence officials suggest that the main focus was on developing new and more effective methods of torture to extract information from "enemies."

In recent years, the Bush-Cheney stooges who tortured detainees in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and elsewhere followed the MK-ULTRA playbook to the letter.

In a chapter of The Shock Doctrine (2007), Canadian journalist Naomi Klein tells the story of Gail Kastner. In the 1950s Gail had been an unwitting guinea pig in MK-ULTRA experiments performed on her in Montreal by Dr. (Donald) Ewen Cameron--an American, one of the continent's most distinguished psychiatrists. The experiments--involving bizarre drug cocktails, sensory deprivation, and massive doses of electroshock--failed to erase her mind. However, they did induce schizophrenia ("with hysterical tendencies") and also permanent amnesia of her life from birth through the time of her "treatment" (early 1950s). They permanently damaged her mind, to this day.

Gail, then a nursing student, had gone to Cameron seeking treatment for anxiety.



Top: Cameron at Work (1940s?) His mind-control experiments
predated MK-ULTRA.
Bottom: Child victim of MK-ULTRA, ca. 1961


In this episode of New World Notes, Klein reads aloud--and very well--most of her chapter on Kastner, Cameron, and MK-ULTRA.

It's a scary story that leaves you wondering: If they'd do this, what else are they capable of?

And they did such things starting in the administration of one of the 20th century's sanest and least warlike U.S. presidents, Dwight Eisenhower.

What did they do under maniacs like Bush-Cheney??

Allan Memorial Psychiatric Institute, McGill University--lair of
Ewen Cameron and other CIA-funded medical researchers.

This week's music:

Midnight Oil, Short Memory

I chose the song because of its theme--the American government's habit of making the same mistakes over and over again. Later it dawned to me that my choice of song might be seen as mocking the memory loss that Kastner and other victims of MK-ULTRA had experienced. No such mockery is intended.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):





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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Energy Disaster Anniversaries


Three Mile Island, March 1979. The twin cooling stacks of
reactor #2 are on the left. All graphics: Click to enlarge.


This week in New World Notes, #63, Tuesday, May 12:

Years ending in "9" tend to invite disasters involving big energy suppliers.

In 1979, Pennsylvania almost became the first Chernobyl, when Reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island [TMI] nuclear power plant suffered a not-far-from-total meltdown. The plant--on the placid Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg--was within 100 miles of Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

Exxon Valdez, 1989; containment vessel (which arrived
far too late) alongside, to the left; and southbound oil slick.
(This photo looks great when enlarged.)

In 1989, Exxon Corp. hosted the world's most damaging oil spill when the tanker Exxon Valdez smashed into a reef off the coast of Alaska. The drunken captain was blamed, but at the time, the Third Mate had command of the ship. The real culprits were (surprise!) Exxon and partner BP, which were illegally operating the ship without millions of dollars of required safety equipment.

In 1999, Exxon and Mobil were allowed to merge, thus creating the largest corporation in the world and thus essentially reconstituting John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt had broken Standard Oil into a couple dozen pieces, on the grounds that a corporation that huge--that close to a monopoly--was a threat to democracy and capitalism both!

The GOP has taken to calling itself "The Party of Ideas." Hard as it may be to believe, a century ago, not all of its ideas were bad ones!

Also in 1999, a (Phillips) refinery in Texas blew up.

Alaskan duck (top) & citizen, Bill Scheer (bottom)

I can't wait to see what 2009 will bring! My fearless prediction: A reborn, non-union General Motors will introduce its greatest sales sucess ever, the Hummer H-6. So named because it's the size of the H-1, -2, and -3 combined. Its award-winning advertising slogan will be, "When some f***ing Mexican immigrant gets drunk, steals a car, and smashes into you head-on, . . . what do you want to be driving?"

This week, New World Notes examines the first two disasters. We discover (surprise again!) a tissue of corporate irresponsibility, human and environmental destruction, lack of punishment for the guilty, and lying governments more interested in protecting corporate profits than the lives of their citizens.

Greg Palast explains the scandals that underlie the Exxon Valdez disaster. I read an article by Harvey Wasserman that explains the scandals attending--and the unreported casualties of--the TMI meltdown. And Roy Zimmerman restores our pride in American capitalism with a song, "Multinational Anthem." Well, he tries to. Sort of.

Note the organization that produced this map
(along right edge of graphic). What the heck??


Sins of omission:

In the radio show I neglected to give credit where due. America's exciting Three Mile Island adventure was brought to us by designers Babcock & Wilcox ... the owner-operators, the Metropolitan Edison unit of General Public Utilities ... and government and state agencies too numerous to mention.

There's little chance of hiding the identity of the main culprit when smashed tankers carry names like Exxon Valdez. Rumor has it that Exxon-Mobil Corporation has adopted a new naming policy. Company tankers that ply dangerous waters are being renamed the Government Interference Valdez, the Excessive Corporate Taxation, and the Barack Obama Socialism. Future smashups should generate less unfavorable publicity for the company!


(Top:) Pennsylvania and federal officials maintain that
radiation releases from the TMI accident were insignificant.
This fine specimen of the famous Pennsylvania Two-Headed
Mini-Dairy-Cattle breed, born nearby, shows that the officials
were correct.
(Bottom:) Above-average radiation levels brought,
proportionally, above-average rates of lung cancer in the
region. Note that a 150% increase = 2.5 times as many. Don't
need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows!
(Here, predominantly from the southeast.)


Did somebody mention 9-11 and Clean Nuclear Energy?:

An odd and interesting Web site, Pennsylvania Highways, has some excellent material on the Three Mile Island near-disaster, including interesting play-by-play reporting of the meltdown and the local response. http://www.pahighways.com/features/threemileisland.html

Especially interesting is its argument that on 9-11, hijacked UAL Flight 93 was heading to TMI, where highly contaminated Unit 2 was sealed and Unit 1 was still in operation. Flight 93 crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania, heading towards TMI and, beyond that, Washington, DC. If DC was its destination, it was flying at unusually low altitude as it approached Shanksville. Was it aiming for something closer than the White House? Had the Boeing 747 smashed into TMI, a Chernobyl-sized disaster could very well have ensued.

This was a new idea to me, though I've found it had occurred to others--including the Sunday Times of London--a bit earlier. Say, by September 12, 2001, in some cases. (Cautious by nature, the Sunday Times held off until October. Their feature story is a good one: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1021-05.htm )

Incidentally, I can assure you that the "containment vessels" of every nuclear power plant in the United States today are more than strong enough to withstand a 65-mph direct hit by any fuel-laden Piper Cub in the sky. So you can sleep peacefully!

The three outer rings represent radii from TMI of 100 miles (Washington DC,
Philadelphia, Baltimore), 200 miles (New York City, Pittsburgh, Syracuse,
Richmond), and 300 Miles (Boston, Providence, Columbus, Cleveland,
Charleston, and Raleigh). That's nothing. Wait 'til the aging reactor at
Indian Point blows. That's 25 miles north of NYC. Can you say Helter Skelter?

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Kent State Remembered: May 4, 1970

South Vietnamese national police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan kills
Vietcong suspect Nguyen Van Lem; Saigon, February 1, 1968.
(Photo by Eddie Adams.) All photos: click to enlarge.

Napalm victims, village of Trang Bang, June 8, 1972. Children,
l. to r.: siblings Phan Thanh Tam (12), Phan Thanh Phuoc (5),
and Kim Phuc (9); their cousins Ho Van Bo and Ho Thi Ting.
(Photo by Nick Ut)

Historical background

In the spring of 1970, President Nixon announced a major escalation of the War in Vietnam--he had ordered the bombing of neutral Cambodia. In response, college students across the country chucked academics and engaged in massive protests.

Like many others, the protests at Kent State University were predominantly peaceful and nonviolent. Predominantly but not entirely. An ROTC building did manage to burn down--how, no one knows, to this day. Units of the Ohio National Guard were dispatched to Kent.

Around noon on May 4, about 1,500 protesters--mostly students--and scores of Guardsmen were standing on a large lawn known as the Commons. A Guard commander ordered the protesters to leave the Commons and disperse. They complied. Most walked up a hill and continued down the other side, heading towards parking lots and a practice field at the bottom. In formation, the troops followed the retreating students, occasionally lobbing tear gas.

The Guard went up the hill and halfway down the other side. Satisfied that the protesters had dispersed as ordered, the Guard commander ordered the troops to turn around and return to the Commons. Up the hill again they marched, moving in the opposite direction from the students.

As they reached the top of the hill, members of one Guard unit--Troop G--in unison stopped, whirled around, aimed, and unleashed a volley of fire at one of the parking lots. They shot rapidly for 13 seconds, firing a total of 67 rounds of .30-06 ammunition, then ceased.

The volley killed four students, one of whom was a no less than 300 yards away. Nine people were injured, some seriously, including one who was permanently paralyzed. No Guardsman was punished for what appears to be a clear case of premeditated murder.

Ohio National Guardsmen with military M-1 rifles, fixed bayonnets


The Commons (foreground) and the hill. Most students and troops
crested the hill to the right of building, Taylor Hall. Here the
students are herded by the troops, marching some distance behind.

A personal note

In the 1970s, as a graduate student, I taught writing courses at the University of Pittsburgh--not far from Kent State University.

I've since forgiven my students for many things; as, I hope, they have forgiven me.

I do remember one of my students saying, or perhaps writing, in I think 1974, "I knew Allison Krause a little. We went to the same school. She always was a troublemaker. She got what she deserved."

Fortunately, uncharacteristically, at that moment I was at a loss for words.

Him--whoever he was--I can forgive. I'll even bet that now he too, if he remembers those words of his, regrets them. But Nixon and Kissinger . . . . If I were a better Christian, perhaps I could forgive them too. . . .

But I'm not.

The Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970, was a defining moment of my life. It made me somewhat wiser, long before I had any wish to be wise; and it made the road I was travelling somewhat harder, as it remains.

First responders.
"Tin soldiers and Nixon comin' / We're finally on our own."

Mary Ann Vecchio, age 14, kneels by the body of Jeffrey Miller

R.I.P. (l. to r.:) Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Jeffrey Miller,
Sandra Scheuer. Nine others were wounded.

New World Notes # 62 features commentary by me, a talk by Jello Biafra--given at Kent State University, May 2005--and 2 songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I begin by talking about the first photograph of the National Guardsmen, above.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Things They Don't Tell You!



New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 16 -- April 28, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #61 -- April 28 & May 1:

As a school subject, American History is unique in one respect. The more you've studied it, the dumber you are--that is, the less about the subject you know correctly. So states James W. Loewen, a professor of sociology at UVM, citing a pile of published research studies. Even odder, UVM stands for University of VerMont (some say). The state university here in Connecticut tried something similar once, UCNIC--University of ConNectICut--but it didn't catch on. The NIC sounded too Soviet (cf. Sputnik, peacenik).

Some claim that the M in UVM stands for at Montpelier. As Daffy Duck used to say, this is a canard. Some (see first Comment to this blog entry) go so far as to claim UVM stands for
Universitas Viridis Montis. If my Latin serves, this means either "The most virile Mountie in the Universe"--obviously a Canadian TV contest-show for beefcake fans--or else "University of the Green Mountains." Take your pick. IMHO, one makes as much sense as the other.

But I digress.

Top: James W. Loewen. (All photos: click to enlarge.)
Bottom: Note contents of bucket.

A new edition of James Loewen's study of school American History courses and textbooks is out--Lies My Teacher Told Me--and in a radio interview Loewen tells funny, interesting, and occasionally depressing stories of what he discovered in researching the book.

American History courses present every character as a spotless hero (save possibly Lee Harvey Oswald); show Progress as always in action; say nothing negative about any public figure; take care not to offend any potential purchaser; won't touch sex, religion, or social class with a 10-foot pole; and seem more interested in turning students into flag-waving patriots than into well-informed, critical-thinking adults.

Think of the textbooks you once used. Which subject had textbooks with a grandiose title? Let's see. . . . There was Principles of Chemistry. Algebra I. Introduction to English Literature. Basic Spanish. And--with the red, white, & blue cover depicting the waving flag--Triumph of the American People. That would be the History textbook, right?

Loewen notes that no Chemistry textbook is named Triumph of the Molecule.


Michael Parenti (top), George Carlin (bottom)


Loewen's indictment of how we teach history is terrific. But he stops short of considering seriously why the books and courses are the way they are. In Michael Parenti’s useful terms, Loewen constructs a liberal complaint, not a radical analysis. So the installment supplements Loewen’s talk with a few recorded words by Parenti and by George Carlin. Each of this pair argues that mediocre, flag-waving public education serves the economic and political interests of certain powerful elites.

History Counts

The Loewen interview is snipped from a recent installment of a very interesting radio program, History Counts. It’s produced in Connecticut by Ken MacDermotRoe and broadcast twice a month by community alternative radio station WPKN, in Bridgeport. You can catch WPKN’s broadcasts on the Internet (http://www.wpkn.org/). Even more conveniently, you can listen to History Counts at any time online or download a free copy in .mp3 format. The blog you're now reading has a link to History Counts's Web page near the top of the gray sidebar.

Too sexually explicit for textbooks? Sex, religion, and
social class are the three taboo topics in American History
texts. (Photo: "V-J Day" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945)


Song played: Chumbawamba, Her Majesty

Coming soon:

  • May 5 (Tuesday): Kent State Remembered
  • May 12: Energy Disaster Anniversaries: Three-Mile Island (1979), Exxon Valdez (1989)


NB: Lego photos by Balakov. More of them--plus the original photographs--here: http://www.yatzer.com/1083_classic_photographs_re-created_with_lego_bricks

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Men and War



New World Notes News

Volume 2, Number 15 -- April 21, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #60 -- April 21 &24:

Men run the world. The world is seriously messed up. Could there be a connection?

Particularly when it comes to war--which seems to be everywhere and never-ending. Do we have so much war because we have so many men running around and--worse--making most of the decisions?

Graphic by Eric Drooker

A number of thoughtful people say yes--and the only real question is how much the problem ultimately is caused by biology (testosterone) and how much by socialization.

I hesitate to latch on to any single "root of all evil." And in this world of Hillary Clintons and Nancy Pelosis and Condoleeza Rices and Tzipi Livnis--to say nothing of Margaret Thatchers, Indira Gandhis, and Benazir Bhuttos--I think we can at least rule out testosterone as the ultimate cause of war. But that doesn't let men off the hook.

Utah Phillips
(All photos: click to enlarge.)

This week New World Notes features three voices, all male, each discussing how the American style of manhood leads to war. The voices belong to Utah Phillips (the U.S. war in Korea), Bruce Springsteen (Vietnam), and George Carlin (Gulf War I). Phillips and Springsteen each tell a story from their personal experience; Carlin discussses broader economic and social forces. In this performance, from the early 1990s, Carlin is as angry, as bitter, and as profane as I've ever heard him.

Song played: Bruce Springsteen, The River (live)

Soon to Come -- Date of first scheduled broadcast [on WWUH] listed:

  • April 28 -- The Things They Don't Tell You! (Lies, distortions, and propaganda in your American History textbooks and courses. No wonder you hated History class!)
  • May 5 -- Kent State Remembered


Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .


Bruce Springsteen


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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Independent Journalism (I): Jeremy Scahill




New World Notes News

Volume 2, Number 14 -- April 14, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #58 -- April 14 &17:

At every opportunity, we have given the corporate-controlled media all the brickbats and spitballs we had available. But in keeping with the show's new Corporate Motto--Always Look On the Bright Side of Life (see last issue)--this week we let a smile be our umbrella. As my auto mechanic keeps advising, Positive to positive, and negative to ground! Cheerful chap, wot?

Some fine print-journalism and fine photojournalism are being done today, especially by "independent journalists." The term is hard to define. As a very rough definition, consider the category to include all journalists who don't receive a regular paycheck from a mainstream, corporate-owned "news-gathering organization."


Jeremy Scahill at work: abroad and at home.


New York Times reporters are Out. Veteran correspondents Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn are In (Britain's Independent being owned by a nonprofit foundation). Seymour Hersh is In (works for Conde' Nast). Anyone on network TV is decidedly OUT.

Needless to say, In are many talented young journalists who are freelancers or practically so. Notable among these many talented people are three award-winners who have done some fine reporting on (and in) the Middle East: Dahr Jamail, Mohammed Omer, and--our focus this week--Jeremy Scahill.

Scahill--author of the recent book, Blackwater--is a very good reporter and a perceptive and often funny storyteller. I'll read aloud his fine story about a police riot in Miami that the mainstream media pretended not to notice.

L to R: Print journalist Dahr Jamail (U.S.), documentary
filmmaker John Pilger (Australia), print journalist and
photojournalist Mohammed Omer (Palestine)--in London,
June 2008, where Jamail and Omer shared the year's
prestigious Martha Gellhorn Award. On his way home to
Rafah (Gaza Strip), Omer was detained, beaten and seriously
injured by Israeli security forces in the Occupied West Bank.


Then Scahill will talk about how he stumbled into the "Alternative" press, about what happened when he appeared on cable news shows and began condemning the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and--less amusingly--about the U.S.'s decade-long unreported war against the people if Iraq (throughout the 1990s).

Yes, Clinton killed nearly as many Iraqi civilians as both Bushes combined. Scahill and Kathy Kelly (NWN #39, December 2, 2008) were both reporting from the scene, trying to get Americans to see what was happening.

Alas, a black former football player was charged with killing a pretty white woman.

Amateurs like Scahill and Kelly can waste their time however they like. Serious, professional corporate journalists know the real Story of the Decade when it comes down the pike in a white SUV!


Top: Seymour Hersh (U.S.). Bottom: Robert Fisk (Lebanon & U.K.)


So you might have missed the story about the million Iraqi civilian deaths. our "leaders" caused. Deaths from malnutrition. Deaths from diseases that should have been prevented and could have been treated, but for the US-UN "embargo." Deaths from the bombing that never stopped between the two official Gulf wars. Deaths ordered by Clinton--whom we eventually impeached for ejaculating without a license.

Song played: David Rovics, Miami

Soon to Come -- Date of first scheduled broadcast [on WWUH] listed:

  • April 21 -- Men and War
  • April 28 -- The Things They Don't Tell You! (Lies, distortions, and propaganda in your American History courses and textbooks. No wonder you hated History class!)

The late, great I. F. Stone (right).


Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .


Top illustration: The antithesis (and possibly Antichrist): corporate hack Roland Hedley.

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Saturday, April 4, 2009

Can Technology Save Us?




New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 14 -- April 7, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #58 -- April 7 &10:

Did you hate Day of the Jackal because you knew that the plot to kill DeGaul would fail? How about The Greatest Story Ever Told? Did you ever think there was even a chance that Jesus would plea-bargain the charge down to Practicing Medicine Without a License and get off with "time served"?

This week's installment of NWN is about the near-future Critical Petroleum Shortage. Its title is, Can Technology Save Us? And you already know the answer--better than the U.S. Department of Energy does (or pretends to).

On one of its Web pages the DOE has a breathless account of how hydrogen will keep our SUVs running throughout the forseeable future. No lifestyle changes required! 50 years from now, the grapes sold in New York State will still be grown in Chile and shipped northwards economically. And if the U.S. has any jobs available other than currency arbitrage, you can still drive 50 miles to work!

Right. And thanks to nuclear energy, electricity will be so cheap to produce, they'll just give it away. Industry flacks were actually saying this in the early 1960s. I remember. So it must be true.

Two nuclear-industry P.R. flacks explain the benefits of Clean
Energy For Tomorrow ... Today! Oops, wrong picture. This is
actually Jello Biafra (left), playing a Zombie mayor, in a scene
from the major motion picture, RetarDEAD. The lady on the
right looks a bit un-dead, too.

Don't worry about the fact that it requires so much fossil fuel to produce enough hydrogen to drive 100 miles that you'd save energy by burning gasoline instead. Scientists will surely solve this problem Real Soon Now. Look how well they solved nuclear waste disposal!

This week's show presents two funny and intelligent views on why high-tech won't forestall the disruption that Peak Oil will cause.

Jello Biafra addresses the matter indirectly by discussing--with a good deal of wit--the down-side of two "new technologies" that many expected to enhance personal freedom and transform the world: cell phones and especially the Internet. Thanks in part to these technologies, we now have less freedom and more social alienation.


Then urban-design theorist James Howard Kunstler tells of his unhappy but funny failure to get Silicon Valley "genius dudes" (at Google) to comprehend that technology cannot replace energy. You can turn petroleum into jet fuel or into Ipods. But you can't turn Ipods into jet fuel. Like, sorry, Dude!

Which brings us back to Jesus. Or rather, to Monty Python's Brian . . . on a hilltop in Palestine, crucified along with several other culprits, all singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life!" as the camera slowly pulls back and the closing credits begin to roll.

So this installment takes these folks' advice by viewing the impending breakdown of what now passes for civilization with a certain amount of humor and good cheer.

  • When you're chewing' on life's gristle,
    don't grumble . . . give a whistle!
    And this'll
    help things turn out for the best!


By the way, WHUS broadcast this installment on April 3. As they say, consult station listings for the installment they'll broadcast on April 10. (You won't find the answer, but you might find some additional shows you want to check out!)

Song played: Chumbawamba, The Wizard of Menlo Park


Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .

Soon to Come -- Date of first scheduled broadcast [on WWUH] listed:

  • April 14 -- Independent Journalism & Alternative Media: Jeremy Scahill
  • April 21 -- Men and War

Personal Note:

On April 3, I delivered a paper at a conference--Teaching Peace Across Disciplines: Strategies of Peace, Global Sustainability, & Conflict Transformation--held at Central Connecticut State University. It was sponsored by 4 NGOs and 3 local colleges/universities including WWUH's gracious host and licensee, the University of Hartford. I met some really interesting people there and expect some of them will speak on future installments of NWN.

My talk was titled, "Composing Language, Promoting War, Creating Peace." Complete with photo ("slide") illustrations & 10 pages of handouts. OK, I overdid it a little. The whole shebang was based largely on what I learned while putting together NWN's four recent shows--and four blog entries/newsletters--on media distortions of the Israel-Palestine conflicts.

It's rare that I find cause for optimism . . . but encountering a handful of young, educated, enthusiastic graduate students and young professors committed to making positive change in the world . . . . As we used to say, 'way back when, What a blast from the past! A little good news! . . . The first since November 4. . . .


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