Ammiano touts Rush Limbaugh
Today's Ammianoliner:
Rush Limbaugh can't come to the phone right now. He's on a baby seal hunt. MMMMMMMMMMm. Good eating.
(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on May 8, 2008). B3
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Barbara Walters, chains, and whips
Today's Ammianoliner:
Barbara Walters reveals affair and a predliection for chain stores. Chains and whips. mmmmmmmmmmmshe says.
(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on May 8, 2008). B3
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Ammiano: Yearning for Zion
Today's Ammianoliner:
Yearning for Zion, PG@E's attempt to greenwash.
(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Monday, May 5, 2008.) B3
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Ammiano sizes up Joe Nation
Today's Ammianoliner:
Joe Nation on Castro Street says he'd bend over backwards for the gay vote.
(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on May 2, 2008.) B3
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Flash: Is Stockton ousting PG@E?
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Joe Neilands flashed the news late Friday afternoon. The City of Stockton may be moving to kick PG@E out of town.
Neilands broke the PG@E/Raker Act scandal wide open with an expose in the Guardian in l969 and started the long battle to kick PG@E out of City Hall and out of San Francisco.
Sure enough, Joe was on target again. The Stockton Record carried the story on Wednesday (April 30) with a strong headline: "PG@E Sued by Stockton, City Pursues Ruling to Aid Possible Power Takeover." The story, by David Siders,
reported that the city sued "its century-old power provider Tuesday and requested "that a court rule Stockton has the right to oust Pacific Gas & Electric Company and to take over the local electricity market--even before the city decides if it ought to.
"A ruling in the city's favor would reinforce its position that PG@E is contractually obligated to sell--agreeing to do so in its franchise agreement in l954--and would undermine PG@E's claim that a takeover would be hostile and that its assets are not for sale."
Mayor Ed Chavez had called for a takeover bid in his State of the City address in February. The story quoted him as saying that a takeover would cut rates and generate millions of dollars in revenue. A preliminary estimate found that it could cost Stockton $368 million to buy PG@E's assets but that the market is so profitable the city could recover that cost and save $8 million more annually, according to the Record.
Hey, Mayor Newsom and all the PUC and other City Hall officials are scared to death of PG@E. Listen up. If Stockton can take on PG@E, why can't San Francisco take on PG@E? After all, San Francisco is the only city in the U.S. that is required by federal law to have a public power system (because the Raker Act of l913 allowed the city to build the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park for its water supply, on condition the city residents get cheap Hetch Hetchy public power.) The city got the water but it never got the electricity because of PG@E muscle and City Hall cowardice and so PG@E stands to this day as an illegal private utility in San Francisco. (See Guardian stories and editorials since l969 and the Neilands story.)
Well, it's good to see Joe still on the story after all these years. But, as I always tell him jokingly, "Joe, with a little more seasoning, you may be ready to cover City Hall in San Francisco."
Click here to read the Recordnet.com story PG&E sued by Stockton: City pursues ruling to aid possible power takeover and check out the story links for the background.
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Ammiano: May Day! May Day!
Today's Ammianoliner:
May Day! May Day! Arnold Schwarzenegger stops the light brown sprayijng of his hair.
(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on May l, 2008) B3
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Ammiano lectures Barry Zito
Today's Ammianoliner:
Mr. Zito, can I (errrrrr) have a rebate, please?
(From the home telephone answering service of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Wednesday, April 30, 2008.) B3
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Why did Rev. Wright do this?
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Bob Herbert, the Afro-American op ed columnist for the New York Times, had the most sensible answer I've seen in his Monday (April 29) column.
He waded right in with his lead:
"The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.
"Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big time news media,--this reverend is never going away. He's found himself a national platform, and he's loving it."
Then: "So there he was lecturing an audience at the National Press Club about everything from the black slave experience to the differences in sentencing for possession of crack and powdered cocaine.
"All but swooning over the wonderfulness of himself, the reverend acts like he is the first person to come with the idea that blacks too often get the short end of the stick in America, that the malignant influences of slavery and the long dark night of racial discrimination are still being felt today, that in many ways this is a profoundly inequitable society."
Herbert then gets to the question. "This is hardly new ground. The question that cries out for an answer from Mr. Wright is why--if he is passionately committed to liberating and empowering blacks--does he seem so insistent
on wrecking the campaign of the only Afican-American ever to have had a legitimate shot at the presidency."
Herbert says that "my guess is that Mr. Wright felt he'd been thrown under a bus by an ungrateful congregant
who had benefited mightily from his association with the church and who should have rallied to the former pastor's defense. What we're witnessing now is Rev. Wright's "I'll show you!" tour."
Obama rightly and firmly rejected Wright and his attacks. Now he should change the subject, get back to the real campaign and the real issues, and let his Afro-American and white surrogates carry on the dialog if necessary. Wright will be a killer swift boat issue only if Obama and his campaign allow it to become one.
I think he should take Clinton on in a Lincoln and Douglas style debate. I think he would win, given his oratorical skills, and it would help change the subject. But most important, Obama needs to reenergize his campaign
by injecting a strong populist appeal to his campaign theme of unifying and transformation. He needs to present the case that he has the grit and the intellect to beat the Republicans on foreclosures, the economy, the war, Iran, universal health care, the rising inequality in American life, and everything else that our despised president and his sucking up successor represents. He must offer leadership and offer real solutions and programs with passion and stick to the issues that really matter to the growing tide of Americans who are desperately angry and frustrated with Bush. That is the best way for Obama to deal with Wright and the Wright attacks to come. B3
Click here to read today's Bob Herbert column, The Pastor Casts a Shadow.
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Pentagon pundits: media facilitate Iraq propaganda
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Every year, the Guardian runs a major front page story from Project Censored at Sonoma State University, listing the 20 major stories that have been "censored" or underreported during the previous year by the mainstream media.
Since 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq with "Shock and Awe," the project's stories have criticized the runup to the war, the lies of the Bush administration, the mendacity of the neocons promoting the war, the lousy media coverage, on and on. Neither the project nor most of the stories were published by the mainstream media. And the New York Times, and its sister paper the Santa Rosa Press Democrat near Sonoma State, refused to run the Censored story nor to explain why. (Last year, to its credit, the Press Democrat did a story on Censored.)
Now, the media reform organization Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has raised anew an important point involving a major New York Times story on April 20 that exposed the Pentagon's program of feeding talking points to military pundits featured on TV newscasts. (Fair pointed out rightly that the military analysts' ties with military contractors and advocacy groups had been documented as far back as 2003 with a report in the Nation (4/21).
FAIR's point: "While the Times article focused on the role of the Pentagon, the parties that arguable have most to answer for are the media organizations that relied on these Pentagon analysts and failed to disclose blatant conflicts of interest posed by their ties with defense contractors...Of course, the Pentagon's propaganda plan would have little effect if not for the enthusiastic participation of the corporate media."
My question: when will the mainstream media start interviewing such prominent war critics as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and others of this caliber? Meanwhile, keep an eye out for our Project Censored package later this year.
Here's the FAIR article and its call to action to hassle the five major networks:
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Charlton Heston: shameful omissions in his obits
George Powell, longtime Examiner and Chronicle employee, sent me the following critique of the obituaries of Charlton Heston. Personally, my favorite Heston portrayal was of the honest Mexican detective, as directed by Orson Welles in "Touch of Evil." I also liked the idea of the two working together and Heston's touching explanation of what he and Welles were trying to do dramatically in this most interesting Welles film.
By George Powell
Continue reading "Charlton Heston: shameful omissions in his obits" »
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